TRIUMPHS OF TRUTH: CHRIST - MEDIATOR 10...

[ed. This is the seventeenth of the 27-part-series from a pamphlet by Elder Wilson Thompson titled, The Triumphs of Truth. Or The Scripture A Sure Guide To Zion's Pilgrims.]

CHAPTER 17 THE MEDIATOR CONTINUED. 
With satisfaction we can read those early appearances of God to his saints, and see that he appeared in the man, which shows that God was then graciously disposed to his people, and that a mediator then existed, by whom the old saints could have access to God, and God in the mediator was making his purposes known to them, and appearing to them in the visible man. 

Here we have a clue to the truth, or a key to many passages of scripture, which would appear dark and paradoxical without it, but with this they are easy, and the apparent paradox vanishes at once, and all is in complete unison, and we can read with John 1:18, and 1 John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time;” and again we can read where many have seen God, and all is easy and completely reconciled in the mediator, and we can say, “The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Although God in his essence is invisible, and no man hath seen him, or can see him, according to I Tim. 4:15-16, yet according to the same text, Christ in his times shall show who is the only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, etc. Thus Christ was in the bosom of the Father, and did show or declare him to many of the old saints; this invisible God was manifested to them in the man. "God was manifested in the flesh.” “The Word was made flesh.” This was the man Christ Jesus, who was a “mediator between God and men;” and this mediator or man says, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” 

Then the old saints who saw this man or mediator, were fully justifiable in saying they saw God; for if those who saw him in the days of his humiliation, saw the Father; those who saw him before his state of poverty, saw God. Now no man can see the face of God and live, yet they may see his glory in the face of Jesus, as Moses saw his glory; Exod. 33:20-23, inclusive. The old and new Testaments are full of such expressions as these: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “I am not alone, but the Father is with me.” “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” Now of what I have said this is the sum: God is, in the divine nature invisible, and in this sense “No man hath seen God at any time;” but the mediator is both God and man, and the divine majesty and glory of God was frequently seen in the visible man, and his servants were then convinced, and could say in truth with Manoah, “We have seen God;” and with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” If Thomas [when he saw the mangled manhood of the mediator] could say, “my Lord and my God,” surely the old saints, who saw the man in whom God appeared to them, could say, “We have seen God.” 

All the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in the man, and both natures were proper to him as mediator, and his favored servants could, and did see the glory of that fullness shining with divine luster, in and through the man, which seems to be the sense in which the poet sings, 

“O sacred beauties of the man, 

The God resides within; 

His flesh all pure without a spot, 

His soul without a sin.” 

We have seen that God is invisible, and no man can see him and live; and that only in the mediator or man Christ Jesus, God is visible or tangible, and that in the human nature, or man, he was seen by Jacob about 1739 years before the gospel era; by Moses and the elders of Israel about 1491; and by Manoah about 1161. Now if God appeared in the visible man in anyone instance before the gospel era, then the man or human nature existed before the gospel era, and this we have proven by positive scripture language, which calls him man 1739 years before the gospel day. 

Therefore this point ought not to be controverted any longer, for it shines as in sun beams through the whole volume of inspiration. Is the divine glory seen by Moses in the mountain of God, even Horeb? The glory of God is “like a flame of fire” bursting from the midst of a bush, which bush I think is to teach us the human nature; [Exod. 3:2]. When God here speaks to Moses, he speaks “out of the midst of the bush” [see vs. 4], as he speaks to us in these last days by his Son. We might go from text to text, from book to book, from Genesis to Revelation, and we should still find this same truth evinced. “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God [can only be seen] in the face of Jesus.” No man could see this man with mortal eyes before he was in existence, nor could any man see God for he was invisible; then this man, this Son that was in the bosom of the Father, this mediator, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,” he who was “brought forth before all worlds,” did surely exist before he was born of Mary, for he was seen by many under the former dispensation, and he could not have been seen, if he was not then in existence, for that which is not cannot be seen. 

Objection: God in the man did appear to many saints of old, but he only assumed the manhood occasionally, for the purpose of revealing himself to them; and this was only for the time present. 

Answer: If God assumed the manhood of the mediator even once, before the gospel era, then it existed when he did assume it, and the point I contend for is established at once. 

Objection: God could call into existence the human nature, at any time, and appear in the man for the accomplishment of his own purposes. 

Answer: If God to answer his own purposes did, antecedent to the gospel era, call into existence the human nature, or manhood of Christ, he did then exist as man, and unless he was sometimes in existence and then again annihilated, he must have remained in existence from the first time he was ever brought forth, and so my point would yet be supported. 

Objection: Although the mediator, as man, or in human nature, did pre-exist the gospel era, and was seen as God man, or both natures, divine and human in one mediator, yet how can we be sure that in both natures he pre-existed the creation of this world? 

Answer: If God did create the worlds by him, and if “he was set up from everlasting or ever the earth was;” and was the “first born of every creature,” then he certainly did pre-exist creation. 

Objection: It must be allowed that all things were created by him, and that he was “before all things,” but was not this said of his divine, instead of his human nature? 

Answer: It is said of him in both natures; his divine nature was the creator, for of him it is said, “And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth,” etc. But God created the worlds by him, as he was with him, and he that was set up before the worlds says, “then was I with him;” he that was set up of God was with God, and God appointed him “heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” 

So from positive Scripture we are taught that he existed before the world, both as God the Creator, and as the instrument by which the worlds were created; and both being in one person, one nature was with the other; therefore it is written, “The Word was with God and the Word was God” -his divine nature was God and his human nature was with God. “The same was in the beginning with God.” These things will not apply to the divine nor human nature of Christ distinctly, but to view him in both natures, all is easy, as God he was not “with God,” for Jehovah says; “there is no God with him;” -it was not as God that he was appointed heir of all things, for the earth is the Lord’s, and all the hosts thereof, without the appointment of another to make him heir, and as man he did not make the worlds, was not God to appoint an heir, &c. But as God and man, two natures complete, one with the other, in one God-man all is easy.