QUESTION I. 399 God when Ile is raised from the dead ; Acts xiii. 32, 33. " And we declare unto you glad tidings,how that the promisewhich was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto their children, in that he bath raised up Jesus again ; as it is alsowrit- ten in the second Psalm, thou art my Son, this day have I be- gotten thee." And it is upon this account that he is called the first-begotten of the dead ; Rev. i. 5. and the first-born from the dead ; Col. i. 18. though the Greek word is in both places the same, viz. Tçc1oToxi3, et TON MOM, because he was raised imme- diately by God himself from the earth into eternal life. His exaltation to the kingdom as heir of all thing's, is suppo- sed to be a farther ground of this title. Heb. i. 2. " His Sou, whom he hath appointed heir of all things." Ps. lxxxix. 27. "'I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth." And some divines are ready to think, it is in this sense he is called the first-born of everycreature ; Col. i. 15. because he is Heir and Lord of all the creation. And some join his ex- altation together with his resurrection in that prophecy ; Psalm ii. 7. " Thou art my Son, this day haveI begotten thee ;" be- cause it is the chief sense in which the words of the second or of the eighty-ninth Psalm, now cited, could literally be applied to David in the day of his being raised from the earth and obscuri- ty unto a throne : Now David in this his exaltation to the king- dom of Israel was a type of Christ, and was said to be the Son of God begotten that day, as a proper type and figure of our blessed Saviour. But whatever may be the prophetical sense of those words of the Psalmist, it iscertain that the name Son of God cannot directly and chiefly signify his resurrection and future exaltation in all those places of the gospel, where the belief of it is made the term of salvation. 1. Because he is very often called the Son of God, long before his death, resurrection, and exaltation, to describethe per- son who was to be thus raised and exalted. He is called by the apostle John, the only begotten of the Father, who lay in the bosom of the Father; John i. 14, 18. and Paul calls him God's own Son, who was delivered up to death for us ; Rom. viii. 32. as a name that belonged to him long before his death, or indeed before his birth into this world : For when he was first sent into the world he was then the Son of God ; John iii. 10, 17. and xi. 27. and as such he was appointed the heir of all things ; Heb. i. 2. 2. This title the Son of God in those texts of the gospel does not depend upon his resurrection and exaltation, because the Jews were required to believe him to be the Son of God long before his death and resurrection. Nor did Christ himself in plain language openly and publicly preach his own death and resar.
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