ON BOARD S.S. OLYMPIC, DECEMBER 20TH, 1920

ON BOARD S.S. OLYMPIC, DECEMBER 20TH, 1920

Mr. J. L. Lory.

My Dear Brother, — Mr. Morford sent me your letter of August 15th, so that I might send you a line in reply.

The subject you mention is so infinitely precious and delicate that I hesitate to say much. I remember corresponding with Mr. W——— some years ago on it. What I fear is the danger of undertaking to define the Lord’s relationships before He became Man. He is said to have been in the “form of God”. His personal distinctness is, however, recognised, for the Word is said to have been with God. He speaks, too, Himself of the glory He had with the Father before the world was. But what can we say about these things, save to bow and worship, taking off our shoes, as it were? But He took Man’s form and so came within the range of our apprehension, and yet He says that no one knows the Son, but the Father. This passage, I judge, refers to the inscrutableness of His Person; whereas the “Son of God” is to be known, His manhood being contemplated in this.

As I understand the truth, the Lord having become Man, the names or titles by which He is designated as in the past, present or future are such as applied to Him primarily as in this condition — in manhood. The “Word” is said to have been ^[p. 187] God, but it will not do to say that this designation applied to Him then, i.e. when in the form of God. It refers to Him as expressing the mind of God, or revealing Him, and so must strictly apply to Him as Man. The same remarks apply to the title “Only begotten Son”. “Begotten” implies His manhood, I apprehend. Note — it is “is in the bosom of the Father”, not “was”. The “Word” was God, etc. I understand the preposition “in”, too, has the force somewhat of having ‘come into’. This would bear out that the designation refers to the Lord as Man as indeed the context does. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” would correspond. What He was as loved of the Father as in the Godhead we can say nothing of (save as intimated, that He was God), but we can understand that as Man He became beloved — no other man had His place. This is quite compatible with the love that always existed between divine Persons — “have found” would hardly do as to this latter. The Lord speaks of the Son of man ascending to where He was before — it would not do to draw from this that He was Son of man before He became Man; and yet the Son of man come from heaven, and He said of Himself when here that He was in heaven. His divine Personality is in view in these two well-known passages, but it would be wrong to say that because the Lord speaks of Himself as Son of man ascending to where He was before that this designation applied to Him before He took man’s form.

If we hold the truth of His blessed Person in our souls we will be jealous lest we should go beyond Scripture in speaking of Him; at the same time, we will be free to employ titles which were expressed in Him as Man, as Scripture does, in referring to the Lord either as in the form of God or the form of man.

With love in Christ, I am Affectionately in Him,

James Taylor.