TRIUMPHS OF TRUTH: CHRIST - MEDIATOR 6...

[ed. This is the thirteenth 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 12 THE MEDIATOR CONTINUED.
“If any man hath an ear to hear, let him hear,” and answer the following questions. Was Christ looked at and regarded as a lamb slain before he was engaged in his priestly office? Was he not in his priestly office from the foundation of the world? Was not his human nature necessary to him as priest? Could he have been regarded as slain from the foundation of the world if the nature that must suffer and be slain at that time, had no existence? Is he not worthy of being a priest without beginning of days or end of life? Was it not as man that he was as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world? And was it not as man, or in his human nature, that he assumed a body in his priestly office? If this were denied, it would be in the face of positive scripture, as will appear by comparing Psalm 40:5-8, with Heb. 10:5-13. In the former text it is said, “Then said I, Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” etc. 

This text shows that he that speaks in it speaks of another as his God, whose will he delights to do; and of his coming to do it, as it is written, of him, in the volume of the book. The book where had been written of him I cannot find, but am inclined to believe that it is the book of God’s purposes or counsel that was confirmed by the oath of God, making Christ a priest, for this has respect to Christ as a priest, for it is connected with sacrifice, offering, burnt offering, and sin-offering, all of which belong to the priestly office; and all is spoken of Christ as man, for it was as man that he calls God his God, and it was as man he had delight in, and had come to do the will of his God. 

If this should be disputed, turn to the text in Hebrews above referred to, and you shall see that the apostle was of this same opinion; for after quoting this text in Psalms, he treats of this priest and of his offering, and distinguishes between him and his body which he offered, and emphatically calls him a man, meaning the very same that speaks in the above Psalm; he came to assume the body which God had prepared for him, and if the reader will compare the texts carefully, he will see that it is the person who speaks in the Psalm that the body spoken of by the apostle was prepared for, and that it is this same person that is called a man in the latter text. Verse 12,“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God.”  

This man is the speaker in the above Psalm, for whom a body was prepared; he is distinguished from him whom he calls his God, and whose will he had come to do; and from the body which God had prepared for him; but thus distinguished, the apostle calls him “this man,” and I believe he was correct.Thus we see this man was in his priestly office from the foundation of the world, or may I not say, even for ever, as the apostle by way of parenthesis says, Heb. 7:21, “For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath; by him that said unto him, the Lord swore and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” He was a priest then “without beginning of days or end of life.” If so he was a priest before his birth of Mary, for in this he had a beginning of days in the manger at Bethlehem; but this man was a priest without beginning of days, therefore he existed before days began, according to that expression found in Prov. 8:25, “Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth.” Then he was brought forth before the birth of days, and was a priest without beginning of days. Therefore his pre-existence is positively proven, and should not be denied. Will any presume to say, that he was brought forth before all world and yet without an existence? That he was a priest without beginning of days, and yet had no being until about 1824 years ago? I think this cannot be. 

The truth is, he was brought forth before all worlds, and stood in his priestly office; as man he was in the bosom of the Father before time began; but in the fullness of time he came down to this world, assumed the body prepared for him, offered his body, and the deathful [or painful] agonies of his soul, as an offering for sins, according to John 3:13, “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” This man is here distinguished from all other men, and if he came down from heaven, as he says he did, then he was in heaven before he came down from heaven, and this cannot be denied; but if the phrase “he that came down from heaven,” only means his coming into a state of actual existence, by birth, according to an appointment of heaven, at a time which God had appointed [there is a time to be born and a time to die] I see no truth in the text, for in this sense we have all proceeded from God as his offspring, and have been born at the time and place which he had appointed; and in this sense we all came down from heaven as well as this man; but if he really did exist as man, or in the nature of man before all worlds,“with God” in heaven; but had proceeded forth and came into this world from heaven; then the text is rue and plain. “No man hath ascended up to heaven but he [the man] that came down from heaven.” 

If any man will deny this plain truth, and be offended at it, I would ask them to answer the question whichJesus proposed to his disciples, John 6:62, “What and if ye shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before?” The son of man is the same man that came down from heaven, and ascended up to heaven, and when he went up to heaven, he went to no strange place, but to where he had been before; for he that went up to heaven is not another, but the same that had come down from heaven, according to Eph. 4:8-10, “Wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, [or led a multitude of captive] and gave gifts unto men;” the apostle then, by way of parenthesis, explains his meaning, and argues thus; “now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up, far above all heavens, that he might fill all things,” [or fulfill all things, as the margin reads]. Unless it be denied that his human nature ascended up to heaven, it must be admitted that his human nature also descended and his going up to heaven was only going where he had been before; for he that ascended is the same that had first descended. If the terms man, son of man, etc., are intended to give us any idea of the human nature of Christ, or of Christ as man, we are compelled, from positive scripture language, to confess that he existed as man, or in the nature of man in heaven, before he came down from heaven, for he could not have come down from heaven had he not previously been there, but he had been there; and so when he ascended, it was to where he had been before. 

As the descension and the ascension of the man Christ Jesus, was at least as much connected in his priestly office as in any office he sustains as mediator; we are compelled [if we admit the truth of scripture] to believe, that the man Christ Jesus as our high priest, did absolutely exist in heaven before he came down from thence; and that when he ascended up to heaven it was only returning to where he had been before. It cannot be said in truth that he who is here said to descend from heaven and ascend up to heaven, was the divinity of Christ, or Christ as God; for as God he was every where at the same time, and it would argue a defect in God, to say that he [as to his essence] either ascended or descended; in the one case he must go higher than he was when he began to ascend, and in the other would argue a becoming lower than he was when he began to descend; and either, if applied to Christ as God, would argue an imperfection, but as God he fills immensity, and every being that is in the full enjoyment of him, is in heaven, which was the case with the human nature of Christ; but he had laid aside the glory which he possessed with the Father before all worlds, and had come into this world to suffer shame, pain, reproach, contempt, and death itself, yetGod was with him, had not left him alone, was supporting him under all his reproaches, and the angelic inhabitants of heaven still afforded him society, and ministered unto him; therefore he says in the above text, even the son of man which is in heaven. I think no unbiased Christian, after a dispassionate examination of those and similar scriptures, will oppose the pre-existence of that man who cannot lie, and has declared that he came down from heaven, and when he ascended up to heaven was only going where he had been before. The humble Christian can rejoice in this truth, for he rejoices in all truth, in which the primordial glory of the mediator is revealed; but such as would wish to destroy all his primordial glory, nay, even his primitive existence as mediator, and place him on a level with themselves, and bring him into being four thousand years after creation, such men will always show their enmity against the doctrine of the pre-existence of the mediator.