the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."[1] The meaning of the phrase Son of God has been sufficiently shown in a preceding chapter.[2] The reason why the Lord said He would build His Church upon the acknowledgment of Christ as the Son of God, is because that phrase is intended to express the fullest and most complete idea of God which finite minds can have of the Infinite. "God is in Christ;" they who see Him see the Father also, because He and the Father are one. Christ, that is the anointed, the Humanity of God, has brought Him forth to view, and thus men are enabled to recognise the oneness of His person, the unity of His nature, and consequently can know that "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." And the Church which the Lord promised to build upon the acknowledgment of this grand truth is to be a complete erection, because founded upon the fullest and most complete idea of God which He has ever revealed concerning Himself.
When the Lord spoke of building His Church, He was evidently treating of a future work. The institution was not then erected, but was to be the result of some future efforts of His Providence and Mercy. He was then engaged in making provision for the work; some stones of the foundation had been laid by the teachings of previous dispensations, and specially by the advent of the Lord; but—to carry out the figure of the building—the walls had yet to be erected, the roof to be put on, and all the interior appurtenances to be provided. It is only when these things
- ↑ Matt. xvi. 15-18.
- ↑ See "On the Divine," who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
