122 THE KEY OF MYSTERIES

then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying,

The LORD said unto my Lord,
Sit thou on my right hand,
Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet?

If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?' The meaning of Christ's question was, 'If the promised Messiah is David's son only—that is to say, if He is merely a man,—then how is it that David, himself a prophet as well as a king, was inspired to call him "Lord"?' The Jews could give Him no answer. The passage shows by this title alone how much higher was the dignity of the promised Messiah than that of David. But, besides this, it is clear that the person whom God Most High seats at his own right hand cannot be any mere creature. The answer to the question which the Lord Jesus asked cannot be given unless by pondering well the passages which we have already quoted from the Old Testament. But when we learn that the promised Messiah is entitled by the prophet Isaiah 'Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of eternity, the Prince of peace, Immanuel', and that His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting', then we understand that it is but fitting that, after suffering death on the cross for our sins and rising from the dead for our justification, He should return to share the glory which He had with His Father before the world was.

PROOF OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST 123

Only when His Deity is admitted can this passage in Psalm cx be understood.

Besides these and other passages, there are many verses in the Old Testament which speak of God Himself as appearing in a visible form to the ancestors of the Israelites and to their prophets, as, for instance, to Abraham the Friend of God (خليل الله), and to Moses who conversed with God (كليم الله). But we have already learnt from the Gospel that God the Father is invisible; for it is written: 'No 1 man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him' Some explanation of this apparent contradiction there must be. If we turn to the Jewish Targums we find that, in many places where the Hebrew text, says, 'God appeared', these translations (or rather paraphrases) have 'The Word (מֵימְוָא‬) 2 of God (كلمة الله) appeared' This enables us to see that the Divine Person (اقنوم), who appeared to some of His servants in the Old Testament and who sent the prophets, was the same Word of God, who later was incarnated and was known as the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence from the very beginning of the world it has been only through the Word of God


1 John i.18; vi. 46; 1 John iv. 18; 1 Tim. vi. 16; cf. Matt. xi. 27. 
2 It should be noted, however, that the Jews did not know, as both Christians and Muslims do, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Nor did they understand that the Word of God and the Promised Messiah were the same person.