Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 86:341 (Jan 1929)
Article: The Four Great Titles Of Our Lord Which Cover His Entire Career
Author: Charles Edward Smith

BSac 86:341 (Jan 1929) p. 93

The Four Great Titles Of Our Lord Which Cover His Entire Career

Charles Edward Smith

Christ has many great titles which he derives from his many-sided nature, and the grandeur of his achievements. The Four alluded to are peculiar in that together they cover and suggest all his career, from the first thing revealed of his action in the far past, to the last thing predicted that he will be. No finite mind could have invented these titles; only the mind of God could have taken this comprehensive view and given Isaiah these wonderful titles.

That our great Christmas text, Isaiah 9:6–7, which announced the approach of the Incarnation 600 years before it occurred, should be accompanied by an outline of his whole grand career is a most fitting tribute to his greatness. This it does by saying that “the government shall be upon his shoulder.” The figure shows the ancient as well as modern practice of indicating the authority of a commander by his shoulder straps. Christ then bears the responsibility of the divine government! “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.”

Have we any means of knowing what that wonderful counsel was which caused the first of our Lord’s great titles? And can we imagine when it was given? Is it not an extremely probable conjecture that it was the plan of salvation? But this is not an unfounded conjecture. The Scriptures make the plan Christ’s own voluntary offer. Of course it had to be. Nobody who loves a hero can ask him to encounter suffering and death. Neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit could ask the Word to undertake a salvation which would cost him the agony of Gethsemane and Calvary. But what they could not

BSac 86:341 (Jan 1929) p. 94

even suggest they could gladly accept when proposed by his noble spirit. And thus we are informed the plan was adopted by the supreme council of the Trinity. “Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). Again, in Phil. 2:7, “He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.” The glory of the plan is thus ascribed to the Saviour.

The statement that it was “through the Eternal Spirit” that he offered his self-sacrifice to God, carries back the transaction into the past eternity. It was something that he was eternally ready to do, only waiting for a proper occasion. That occasion, to one on whose shoulder depended the honor and stability of the divine go...