the eternal sonship of the lord jesus christ - Paradise Primitive ...

By acknowledging the first, he declared his belief that He was the promised Messiah, the anointedOne, whom all the prophets had spoken of, and whose coming at that period the saints of that day,such as Simeon, Anna, and those who were looking for redemption in Jerusalem; were anxiouslyexpecting Lu 2:26,36,38. By the second he acknowledged that Jesus was not only the Christ, theexpected, long-looked-for Messiah, but the true, actual, and real Son of God. It is evident from theconfession of Peter, of Nathanael Joh 1:49, and of Martha Joh 11:27, as well as from the adjuration ofthe high priest Mt 26:63; that the Jews in our Lord’s time identified the Christ, the promised Messiah,with the Son of God. It was most evidently the faith of the Jewish church, that the Messiah was noless than God’s own Son. The question, then, with them was not whether the Christ, the promisedMessiah, was the true and proper Son of God or not, but whether Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ; forif He were the Christ they knew He must be the Son of God, and that in His divine nature. And whatother idea could they attach to the Christ being the Son of God than that He was His real and actualSon? If not wholly impossible, it was most improbable that such ideas could have been entertained bythem as that He was the Son of God by virtue of the covenant, or of His complex Person, or any ofthose evasions of the simplicity of truth whereby His real and proper Sonship is now denied. Tounderstand, then, this testimony from the mouth of Peter a little more clearly, we offer the followingconsiderations. The blessed Lord had sought, so to speak, to bring His disciples to a clear and decidedrecognition of His divine Sonship by asking them two pointed questions:1. "Whom do men, not you, but men generally, say that I the Son of Man am?" He called Himself "theSon of man," that He might draw forth more clearly out of their bosom their confession that He wasthe Son of God, for as such they had seen His glory and received Him Joh 1:12-14. The disciples toldHim the various opinions which men entertained about Him. All saw and acknowledged that the Spiritof the prophets was in Him; and therefore some said He was John the Baptist, and some Elias, andothers Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Then, to put the matter home personally to themselves, theblessed Lord asked them another, and a most searching question, "But whom say ye that I am?" asthough He should mean, "Never mind what others think and say, tell Me for yourselves what you, Myown immediate disciples, think and say." How nobly, then, how boldly, how believingly did Peter atonce answer in the name of all the rest, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Did theblessed Lord repel the confession, or rebuke the confessor? No; on the contrary, He pronounced him"blessed," and declared that "flesh and blood had not revealed it unto him but His Father which is inheaven." Do not these words of the blessed Lord clearly show that it was by divine revelation Peterknew and believed Jesus was the Son of the living God? And are not all "blessed" with faithful Peter,to whom the Father has revealed the same divine mystery, who believe as he believed, and confess ashe confessed? But if the Father has not revealed it to their heart, need we wonder that men neitherknow, believe, nor confess it, but stumble at the stumbling-stone laid in Zion? We shall have occasionto refer to this passage again, and shall, therefore, dwell upon it no longer, but pass on to another,