CHAPTER 9 

From the same.

That the Same Servant of God shews a Second Being called God and Lord, and relates that He was seen in Human Shape and Form and answered Them of Old Time.

[Passages quoted, Gen. xii. 7; xvii. 1; xviii. 1, 17.]

AND again he adds to this, as if speaking of Another:

"For I knew that he will establish his children, and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the - 253 - Lord will bring on Abraham what things he spake to him."

The Lord Who answers, Who is recorded to have said this to Abraham, is represented as clearly confessing another Lord to be his Father and the Maker of all things. At least Abraham, who as a prophet has a clear conception of the speaker, prophetically continues with the words:

"Wilt thou destroy the righteous man with the wicked, and shall the righteous be as the wicked? If there be fifty righteous in the city, wilt thou destroy them? Wilt thou not spare [all] the place, because of the fifty righteous? Be it far from thee to fulfil this word, and destroy the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked. In no way let him, that judgeth all the earth, not do judgment."

I hardly think that this could have been said suitably to angels or to any of God's ministering spirits. For it could not be regarded as a minor duty to judge all the earth. And he is no angel who is named in the previous passage, but One greater than an angel, the God and Lord who was seen beside the before-mentioned oak with the two angels in human form. Nor can it be thought that Almighty God Himself is meant. For it is impious to suggest that the Divine changes and puts on the shape and form of a man. And so it remains for us to own that it is the Word of God who in the preceding passage is regarded as divine: whence the place is even to-day honoured by those who live in the neighbourhood as a sacred place in honour of those who appeared to Abraham, and the terebinth can still be seen - 254 - there. For they who were entertained by Abraham, as represented in the picture, sit one on each side, and he in the midst surpasses them in honour. This would be our Lord and Saviour, Whom though men knew Him not they worshipped, confirming the Holy Scriptures. He then thus in person from that time sowed the seeds of holiness among men, putting on a human form and shape, and revealed to the godly ancestor Abraham Who He was, and shewed him the mind of His Father.