Hilary of Poitiers — Commentary on Scripture

And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

Just as a faculty of the human body will be idle when the causes that stir it into activity are not present, so with the soul. The eyes will not perform their functions except through the light or the brightness of day. The ears will not comprehend their task when no voice or sound is heard. The nostrils will not be aware of their office if no odor is detected. It is not that the faculty is lost because the cause is absent. Rather the employment of the faculty comes from the cause. It is the same with the soul of man. If the soul has not breathed in the gift of the Spirit through faith, even though it will continue to possess the faculty for understanding, it will not have the light of knowledge. The one gift, which is in Christ, is available to everyone in its entirety, and what is present in every place is given insofar as we desire to receive it and will remain with us insofar as we desire to become worthy of it. This gift is with us even to the consummation of the world. This is the consolation of our expectation. This, through the efficacy of the gifts, is the pledge of our futu…

Just as a faculty of the human body will be idle when the causes that stir it into activity are not present, so with the soul. The eyes will not perform their functions except through the light or the brightness of day. The ears will not comprehend their task when no voice or sound is heard. The nostrils will not be aware of their office if no odor is detected. It is not that the faculty is lost because the cause is absent. Rather the employment of the faculty comes from the cause. It is the same with the soul of man. If the soul has not breathed in the gift of the Spirit through faith, even though it will continue to possess the faculty for understanding, it will not have the light of knowledge. The one gift, which is in Christ, is available to everyone in its entirety, and what is present in every place is given insofar as we desire to receive it and will remain with us insofar as we desire to become worthy of it. This gift is with us even to the consummation of the world. This is the consolation of our expectation. This, through the efficacy of the gifts, is the pledge of our future hope. This is the light of the mind, the splendor of the soul. For this reason we must pray for this Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:6

And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

There is a fourfold meaning in the words that lie before us: There is the same Spirit in the varieties of the gifts. There is the same Lord in the varieties of ministries. There is the same God in these varieties. And there is a manifestation of the Spirit in the bestowal of what is profitable.

1 Corinthians 15:4

And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

Paul reminded us that we are to confess the manner of the death and resurrection not so much by literally naming these things but strictly according to the testimony of the Scriptures, so that our understanding of his death might be in accord with the apostles.… He did this in order that we might not become helpless or to be tossed about by the winds of useless disputes or hampered by the absurd subtleties of unsound opinions.

1 Corinthians 15:27

For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.

Hence the first step in the mystery is that all things have been made subject to him, and then he himself becomes subject to the One who subjects all things to himself. Just as we subject ourselves to the glory of his reigning body, the Lord himself in the same mystery subjects himself in the glory of his body to the One who subjects all things to himself. We are made subject to the glory of his body in order that we may possess the glory with which he reigns in the body, because we shall be conformable to his body.

1 Corinthians 15:48

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

The first man was made from the slime of the earth. The second man came from heaven. By using the word man, he taught the birth of this man from the virgin, who in fulfilling her function as a mother acted in accordance with the nature of her sex in the conception and birth of the man. And when he asserted that the second man was from heaven, he testified that his origin was from the appearance of the Holy Spirit who came upon the virgin. Thus precisely while he was a man, he was also from heaven. The birth of this man was from the virgin. The conception was from the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:18

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

Since all things are reconciled in him, recognize … that he reconciles all things to the Father in himself, which he will reconcile through himself. The same apostle says: “But all things are from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. For God was truly in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” Compare the entire mystery of the evangelical faith with these words! He who is seen in him who is seen, he who works in him who works, he who speaks in him who speaks is the same one who will reconcile in him who reconciles. Accordingly, there is the reconciliation in him and through him, because the Father himself, who remains in him through the identical nature, restored the world to himself through him and in him by this reconciliation.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

Since God reveals himself to be blessed in spiritual and heavenly things, it is not amid these earthly and corporeal things that one should look for that perfect blessedness of the saints.

Ephesians 1:17

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

Where Jesus Christ is, there is God, and where there is glory, there is the Father.

Ephesians 1:20

Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

The language of the apostle, acknowledging the power of God, refers to future things as though they have already happened. For the things which are to be performed already subsist in their fullness in Christ, in whom is all fullness. Whatever is future is so by God’s provident ordering, not as if it might exist on its own.

Philippians 2:7 · 3 passages

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Note well the breathtaking economy by which the Son assumed flesh: Through the obedience of the one who was in the form of God [and] was emptying himself of the form of God, [he] was born as a man. In doing so, he took a new nature upon himself! This occurred not by a loss of his power and nature but by an assumption of a new condition.… Though he retained the power of his nature as God, he was in much of his earthly ministry temporarily relinquishing his exercise of the power of his nature as God as he walked as a man. The effect of this economy of order was this: The Son in his entirety, namely, as both man and God, was now, through the indulgence of the Father’s will, in union with the nature of the Father. This is what occurred to God the Son: that he became a man.

To assume “the form of a slave,” he “emptied himself” through obedience. He emptied himself, that is, from the “form of God,” which means “equality with God.”

Remaining “in the form of God,” he “took the form of a slave,” not being changed but “emptying himself” and hiding within himself and being made empty within his own power. He tempered himself to the form of the human state as far as was necessary to ensure that the weakness of the assumed humility would not fail to bear his immeasurable power. He went even so far as to tolerate conjunction with a human body. Just this far did his goodness moderate itself with an appropriate degree of obedience. But in making himself empty and restraining himself within himself, he did nothing detrimental to his own power, since even within this lowliness of his self-emptying he nonetheless used the resources of the evacuated power within him.

Philippians 2:8

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Humility is hard, since the one who humbles himself has something magnificent in his nature that works against his lowering. The one who becomes obedient, however, undertakes the act of obedience voluntarily. It is precisely through the act of humbling that he becomes obedient.

Philippians 3:15

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

If we, because of the tendency to err that lies within the human condition, take the meaning of anything for granted, we are not to refuse increase of understanding through grace.… For the apostle has already explained the thought of those whose thought is perfect. As to those who think otherwise concerning God’s revelation, he hopes that their thoughts will be brought to perfection.

Philippians 3:20

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

If it should be the case that both the blessed and the impious have an end and that end is understood as annihilation, the end makes religion and impiety equal. The common end of both would consist simply in not being. And where is our “hope in heaven” if our end simply makes us nonexistent? If hope is said to be owed to the saints and an end to the impious, even then the end cannot be simply annihilation. For how could it be a punishment of impiety to have no awareness whatever of the punishments that avenge it? Would not one who is annihilated not know the cause of his suffering? Better to distinguish a continuing place reserved for the blessed and another prepared for the wicked.

Philippians 3:21

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

“The power that enables him to subject all things to himself” consists in the transition from one nature to another nature. Insofar as it ceases to be its previous nature, it becomes subject to its new nature. It does not stop existing but advances in existing. It ceases to be the old nature and becomes the new nature. It is subdued by transformation as it passes into the fashion of the new kind that it has assumed.

Colossians 1:15

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

The Lord has declared: “If I do not perform the works of my Father do not believe me.” Hence, he teaches that the Father is seen in him because he performs his works so that the power of the nature that was perceived would reveal the nature of the power that was perceived, wherefore the apostle, indicating that this is the image of God, says: “Who is the image of the invisible God … that through him he should reconcile all things to himself.” Accordingly, he is the image of God by the power of these works.

Colossians 1:16

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

There is no doubt that all things are through the Son, since, according to the apostle, “All things are through him and in him.” If all things are through him, and all things are from nothing, and nothing is except through him, I ask in what way does he lack the true nature of God, since he is not lacking either in the nature or the power of God? For he used the power of his nature that these things should exist which had no existence, and that these things should exist which pleased him.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

The apostle was cognizant of these sinful tendencies of the will, and besides his numerous admonitions to defend the faith and to preach the word, he said in his epistle to Timothy: “There will come a time when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but having itching ears, will heap up to themselves teachers according to their lusts, and they will turn away from hearing the truth and turn aside rather to fables.” When they will no longer endure sound doctrine in their eagerness for godlessness, they will gather teachers together for these things which they desire. They will compile a doctrine that fits in with their desires, since they are no longer eager to be taught. They want to bring together teachers for that which they already desire in order that this large number of teachers whom they have sought and assembled may satisfy the doctrines of their own passionate desires.

Titus 1:2

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Since the periods of time, therefore, come within the scope of our knowledge or speculations, we pass judgment upon them according to the understanding of human reasoning. In this way we believe ourselves justified in saying about anything: “It has not been before it is born.” The times that have already past always come before the origin of everything. Since in the things of God, that is, in the birth of God, everything is before the eternal time, then we cannot say of him: “Before he was born.” Nor can we say that he to whom the eternal promise was made before the eternal time has the “hope of life everlasting,” according to the statement of the apostle, which the God who does not lie has promised to him before the eternal time, nor can we say that at one time he had not been. We cannot assume that he whom we must confess as being before the eternal time has had his beginning after something.