by J. Flanigan (Northern Ireland)
It is perhaps well known that garments in Scripture speak of character. It is therefore interesting to consider the garments of the Saviour with a view to meditations on His life and ministry, and a study of the great fundamentals touching the glory of His Person. All His garments are fragrant with memories of Himself, whether the swaddling bands of His infancy, or the coat that was without seam, the purple robe of mockery, the grave clothes in which they finally wrapped Him, or the other garments which He wore during the days of His flesh.
However, in Ps.104.1-2 it is said of Him, "Thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment". Here we look back before Bethlehem and the incarnation. In the dateless, timeless past, in the uncalendared days of eternity, He who voluntarily became Man to be our Saviour was robed in light. "His train filled the temple," Isa.6.1. His glory filled the holiness of the heavens and every intelligence there acclaimed His inscrutable greatness. Seraphim and cherubim veiled their faces while myriads of angelic beings hastened to do His bidding, and the Scriptures confirm that it was indeed the glory of the Lord Jesus that Isaiah saw in his awful vision, Jn.12.41. He wore the garment of light, covered with honour and majesty.
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.
Well did the hymn writer conclude - "’Tis only the splendour of light hideth Thee."
The truth of our Lord’s Deity is assailed on every hand. It has always been so, since the beginning, and the earliest New Testament writers had to defend and emphasise it. But the Saviour wears titles which are the titles of Godhood, He exercises attributes which are the prerogative of Deity alone, and He accepts honours which can be ascribed only to One who is God. It is somewhat difficult to understand how anyone with an open honest mind can read even the two Scriptures already referred to and still deny that Jesus is God, Isa.6.1; Jn.12.41.
Note that the title "Son of God" infers and implies a relationship within the circle of Divine Persons and has ever been seen by Jew and Moslem alike to be a claim to Deity, Jn.5.18. They told Pilate, "By our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God," Jn.19.7. The relationship of the Son to the Father is unique and eternal. He alone is the Son of the Father in a timeless intimacy which makes Him the Only Begotten. He is the Son ever in the bosom of the Father. Though He came by incarnation into our world yet He never left the Father’s bosom, and though He was, by grace, found in fashion as a Man, yet that word is always true, "Who, being in the form of God," Jn.1.18; Phil.2.6.
He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the Ancient of Days, the Father of eternity whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, Micah 5.2. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. He is the Word, the revelation of God to men, and He is the great "I AM", without beginning of days or end of life. He is both the root and the offspring of David, so that King David might well have said, as John Baptist did, "After me cometh a Man which is preferred before me: for He was before me," Jn.1.30. He is eternal, inscrutable, and incomparable. He is God!
During His lifetime Jesus exercised the attributes of Deity. Omnipotence and Omniscience belong to God alone. Omnipotence is All-Power and Omniscience is All-Knowledge. The Saviour had both. As the omnipotent One He made water wine, He calmed the winds and waves with a word, and He walked on the troubled waters. He once bade a fish bring a coin to Peter, He multiplied bread and fish, the harvest of land and sea, to feed the multitudes, and He withered a barren fig tree with a word. He healed leprosy, palsy, blindness, and deafness. He made the dumb to speak, He delivered from demon possession, He healed all manner of diseases, He cured the incurable, and even death itself had to obey Him. He was omnipotent indeed.
The deep, the demons, and the dead,
Were subject to the word He said,
Unveiling thus His power and might
To exercise His Godhead right.
In His omniscience He knew all things. How often He answered the unspoken reasonings in the hearts of the scribes, saying, "Why reason ye these things in your hearts?" Mk.2.8. On His last evening with His disciples He revealed His knowledge of all things. See Jn.13.1,3,11,18. "Jesus knew that His hour was come." "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God". "He knew who should betray Him." "I know whom I have chosen." He knew too, what His enemies were planning. On His last journey to Jerusalem He knew what lay before Him. He knew about the Garden, the betrayal and the arrest, the House of Caiaphas, Peter’s denial, the Judgment Hall and Golgotha, thorns, nails, thirst and spear. In His omniscience He knew it all, yet set His face determinedly to go to Jerusalem nevertheless, Lk.19.51.
All this was evidence of His Deity. He therefore had a right to accept honours which were due to God alone. "My Lord and my God" said Thomas, and the Saviour accepted that. All men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father, He had taught them. He had expounded to them a five-fold equality of the Father and the Son, Jn.5. Eight times throughout our Bible Jesus is directly called God.
Isa.9.6 "His Name shall be called … the mighty God;"
Mt.1.23 "His Name Emmanuel … God with us;"
Jn.1.1 "The Word was God;"
Jn.20.28 "My Lord and my God;"
Rom.9.5 "Who is God over all, blessed for ever" (JND);
Tit.2.13 "Our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (RV; JND);
Heb.1:8 "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (also Ps.45.6);
1Jn.5.20 "His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God."
Some things are too big for our tiny human intellects. Sometimes we can but bow in wonder, and worship. How can we understand that the Omnipotent should become dependent? That the Son of the Father should become the Son of Mary? That the Ancient of Days should become an Infant in time? Yet this is what we shall find as we continue to consider the garments that He wore. "What manner of Man is this?"
—to be continued (D.V.)