BT 101 .T65 Torrey, R. A. 1856-1928. The God of the Bible Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library ) . - / ■ https://archive.org/details/godofbiblegodofbOOtorr THE GOD OF THE BIBLE R. A. TORREY '< n THE GOD OF THE BIBLE THE GOD OF THE BIBLE AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE GOD OF “CHRISTIAN SCIENCE,” THE GOD OF “NEW THOUGHT,” THE GOD \ OF SPIRITUALISM, THE GOD OF “THEOSO¬ PHY,” THE GOD OF UNITARIANISM, THE GOD OF “THE NEW THEOLOGY,” THE GOD/ OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, AND THE GOD , OF MODERNISM IN GENERAL. R. A. TORREY DEAN, BIBLE INSTITUTE, LOS ANGELES Author of the- Bible the Inerrant Word of GodV^ ^^The Imfortance and Value of Profer Bible Studyf^ ^^The Real Christf* hat the Bible Teaches^^Hozv to Work for Christf^ etc. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. II PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To my greatly honored parishioner and be¬ loved friend, MILTON STEWART, who has done more by his upright, consistent and humble character and by his munificent and widely and wisely distributed gifts to promote in many lands the knowledge of The God of the Bible than any other man of whom I know, this book is affec¬ tionately inscribed by the author without Mr. Stewart’s consent or knowledge. R. A. Torrey. i 5| •3 *5 •7 > i .i .•i INTRODUCTION For many years our Lord’s suggestive and deeply significant words, '‘This is the Eternal Life, that they should know Thee, the Only True God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ” (Jno. 17:3), have occupied much of the thought and the meditation of the author of this book. How transcendently important it is to Know God. But how shall we truly and accurately and fully know Him? There is but one way in which one may truly and accurately and fully know God, and that is by studying Him as He has been pleased to reveal Him¬ self to us in His one Book, the Bible, and in His One Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The greatest philoso¬ phers’ speculations about God unillumined and un¬ guided by the Word of God and the living Spirit of God are futile and utterly worthless. Man by merely intellectual searching cannot find out God. To the mere natural intellect God is as Herbert Spencer long ago declared that he was “The Unknowable” (I Cor. 2: 14). But God can be fully and joyously, yes, rap¬ turously known even in the life that now is, by study¬ ing and pondering the complete revelation He has made of Himself in the written Word and the In¬ carnate Word, the Bible and Jesus Christ; studying them and pondering them under the illumination and INTRODUCTION guidance of the Holy Spirit Whom God gives “to them that obey Him” (Acts 5:32; I Cor. 2: 13-16), This book is the result of such a study and ponder¬ ing of the Bible and the living Son of God therein portrayed. This study has been carried on through a long period of years, and the study has not been con¬ tent with a careful perusal and comparison of the best translations of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, but has gone somewhat deeply into an ex¬ amination of the originals themselves, even giving no little time to a consideration of questions of textual criticism, for which the writer for forty-seven years has had a great fondness. The writer’s careful and minute study of the teachings of the Old and New Testament regarding God has brought him great joy, and many who have heard the results of that study, as they have listened to these sermons in the audiences before his eyes or have “listened in” from five hundred miles to three thousand miles over the radio have testi¬ fied to the joy and spiritual blessing which they also have received. It will interest some to know that every one of these sermons was delivered in the writer’s own Church in Los Angeles to an audience of from three thousand to four thousand men, women and children whom he could see right before his eyes as he spoke and also to an unseen audience of uncounted thousands who “lis¬ tened in” as each one of these sermons was broad¬ casted over the radio from our own auditorium. On one occasion it was reported in the New York Tribune of Dec. nth, 1922, that the sermon was heard three [viii] INTRODUCTION thousand miles away in Pleasanton, New Jersey, and led to a man’s immediate conversion. The fact that so many thousands gathered each Sunday morning to listen to these sermons and that they were listened to, over the radio not only in homes but also in cafes, theaters and parks and on trains, is another proof, if any were needed, that there are thou¬ sands who are hungry for something more than light, ^‘popular” sermonettes adorned with choice diction and skillful rhetoric or “made interesting” by a superabun¬ dance of humorous or pathetic anecdotes. The reli¬ gious world seems to be recovering from its senility and anecdotage. There are but comparatively few books upon “God” of even merely a speculative character. There are many books on the Son of God and on the Spirit of God but few upon God Himself. That people desire such a book is proven by the fact that when quite recently such a book did appear it had a very large sale and abundant commendation, though it was crude in many respects and the God of this book was not at all the God of the Bible. The author cherishes the hope that this book may not only be read once but reread often and deeply pondered with ever increasing joy and profit. Per^- haps it may be adopted as a textbook for class work in this and other lands. It might also be profitably used in family worship. R. A. Torrey. [ix] CONTENTS CHAPTER I A Personal God • • * • • PAGE 15 H God Is Spirit . • • • • • 35 HI There Is Only One God. Are There Three Persons in tpie One God? . 54 IV God Is Everywhere. IN Particular? . Is He • • Anywhere • • • 77 V God Is the Eternal I Am, He Always Was, Always Is and Always Shall Be, and He Is Always the Same . . 94 VI God Is Omnipotent. God Can Do All Things. There Is Nothing Too Hard FOR Him .iio VH God Is Omniscient. He Knows Every¬ thing .128 VHI God Is Holy.144 IX God Is Love.163 X God Is Righteous. 187 XI God Is Abundant in Lovingkindness or Mercy.208 . 228 XII God Is Faithful . THE GOD OF THE BIBLE f V- .f- THE GOD OF THE BIBLE CHAPTER I A PERSONAL GOD Our subject this morning is The God of the Bible: A Personal God. I have three texts. You will find the first in Jno. 17:3: “This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.” You will find the second in I Jno. 5:20, 21: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little chil¬ dren, guard yourselves from idols.” You will find the third in Jno. 20:28: “Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my GodT It is of immeasurable importance that men know God, that they know “the true God.” To know “the true God” is, as the first of our texts declares, “eternal life.” Not to know “the true God” is eternal death and darkness. No other knowledge is of such im¬ portance as the knowledge of God. We are having IS i6 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE our children taught to-day in our schools, and col¬ leges, and universities a little of pretty much every form of knowledge except the one all-important knowledge, the knowledge of God. It is not permit¬ ted in our public schools in California that we teach the Bible, which is the only book in which God has fully revealed Himself, or that we teach them the divine origin and infallibility and matchless value of the Bible. But the teachers in our public schools are permitted to teach our children, and do teach them, a crass and ill-digested evolutionism, that as a mat¬ ter of demonstrated fact undermines their faith in the Bible, and they are also permitted to teach them in Biblical Criticism what are called “the assured results of modern Scholarship” but what in actual fact are nothing of the kind, but are rather the wild and ex¬ ploded theories of Wellhausen and Grafe and Kuenen, the very views of the Bible that robbed the civil rulers and army officers of Germany, of their faith in the God of the Bible and resulted in the late war with all its “frightfulness” and the awful havoc that it wrought throughout the whole world. And already the exclusion of the Bible from our schools, and these views of the Bible taught in our schools and the views of God to which the ill-digested evolutionism taught in our schools has led the child, are undermining the morals of our boys and girls in our schools and work¬ ing such a carnival of youthful lust, and impurity, and recklessness, and falsehood, and dishonesty, and Bol¬ shevism among the rising generation as is appalling, and the more appalling the more one knows the facts regarding some of our schools. A PERSONAL GOD 17 Very little of a definite and thorough character is taught about God even in many of our churches. In¬ deed in certain silly circles there is a great outcry against all doctrinal preaching. By many our churches are simply regarded as convenient places in which to exploit the various issues of the day and to raise funds for schools, hospitals, the destitute, and all manner of other objects, good, bad, and indifferent. No! This is the important thing for us all to know and for our preachers to preach, the full truth about God, as He has revealed Himself in the Bible and in His Son Jesus Christ. This address is the first of a series of addresses on “The God of the Bible.’^ The God of the Bible is not the God of much of our so-called “Modern Thinking,*^ which is not modern at all but a revamping of the old and discarded pantheism of centuries gone by. The “God of the Bible” is not the god of “Christian Science” or of “New Thought” or of “Theosophy” or of “Spiritualism” or of “Unitarianism” or of “The New Theology” or of “Modern Philosophy” or of “Modernism” in general, or of any of the many and ever-multiplying unbiblical cults of the day in which we live. So the full title of the series of sermons is. The God of the Bible as distinguished from the God of “Theosophy,” the God of “Christian Science,” the God of “New Thought,” the God of “Spiritualism,” the God of “Unitarianism,” the God of “The New Theology,” the God of “Modern Philosophy,” and the God of “Modernism” in general, and of the many ever-multiplying unbiblical cults of the day. The particular subject of our first sermon, the i8 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE sermon of this morning, is The God of the Bible: A Personal God. We shall see as we proceed that the god of Christian Science and some of these other cults and the god that is taught in some of our supposedly orthodox theological seminaries, is not a personal God. /. What Does the Word “Personal” Mean When Ap¬ plied to God? In the first place then let us find what the word “Personal” means when applied to God, or when ac¬ curately used in other connections. What is a per¬ son? The marks of personality are knowledge, feel¬ ing and will. Any being who knows and feels and wills is a person, whether he is visible or invisible, whether he has a body or has not a body. Many people think when you say “God is a Person” that you mean God has hands and feet and eyes and ears and so on. But having hands and feet and eyes and ears and so on, or in general having a body, is not the mark of Personality but of Corporeity, which is an entirely different matter. Whether or not God has a body or a visible form we will consider at some later day, but that has nothing to do with God’s being or not being a Person. If the Lord tarries and you and I pass through the experience of what men call death before He comes, we will pass out of this present dwelling place, i. e., this present body, and “depart to be with Christ,” and we shall not get our resurrection bodies until He comes again; but we shall not cease to be persons, we shall A PERSONAL GOD 19 ‘^depart to be with Christ,” and we shall think and feel, and we shall know great joy, for ‘‘it is very far bet¬ ter” (Phil. 1:23) to leave the body and be with Him. We shall, as Paul puts it in another place, be "'absent from the body, and at home with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:8). It is clear then that personality is one thing, and that having a body is an entirely different thing. It is one of the most common errors of our day to confuse Personality with Corporeity. I am in¬ clined to think that when Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy denied so emphatically as she did the Personality of God, she was thinking of Corporeity. In fact in the immediately preceding paragraph of “Science and Health,” she says: “Christian Science strongly desig¬ nates the thought that God is not corporeal but in- corporeal, —^that is bodiless. Mortals are corporeal but God is incorporeal” (italics Mrs. Eddy’s). It would not be a thing to be wondered at or surprised at if Mrs. Eddy had been thus confused in her thought; for in her writings, especially her earlier writings, before some person or persons who had a more accurate knowledge of the meaning of English words than she possessed corrected them, she displayed an amazing ignorance, not only of the facts of science and religion but also of the meaning of words, except as she had caught some glimpses of things from her study of Dr. Quimby’s writings, which she so un- blushingly borrowed and failed to return, and of which she ultimately refused to acknowledge the ownership. It is true that she writes in this connection, “As the words Person and Personal are commonly and ig¬ norantly employed, they often lead, when applied to 20 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of di¬ vinity, and its distinction from humanity,’’ but she goes on with words that seem to indicate confusion in her own mind as to the distinction between cor¬ poreity and personality. But however that may be, she certainly did obscure the great truth of ‘‘the Per¬ sonality of God” all through her writings. She con¬ stantly taught that God was a mere abstraction. She taught not only that God is love (which is true, if we properly understand the meaning of the words, which she did not), but she also taught that “Love is God,” which is not true. Her teachings, carried out to their logical conclusion, lead to the radically false and ut¬ terly damnable and hopelessly damning thought that “God is us (all of us)” and “we are God” (not gods but God). Mrs. Eddy says in this very connection, speaking of the Personality of God, “If the term per¬ sonality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is personal Being—in this sense but not in the lower sense) “Science and Health,” 69th Edition, p. 10). You will notice that she says, “God is per¬ sonal Being/' that is, of course, only an abstract Being in general. She does not say, “God is a Per¬ sonal Being,” that is, a definite Person, separate and distinct from other persons, all of whom He has created. In the next sentence she says “An Infinite mind and a finite form do not, cannot coalesce.” Here is another illustration of her dense ignorance of the meaning of words. No one, even though he be¬ lieves most strongly that God has a form, thinks that He and His form ''coalesce,” he thinks they co-exist. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Eddy did not have a good A PERSONAL GOD 21 dictionary and study it more assiduously. The correct definition of “coalesce,’’ given in one of the most re¬ cently published dictionaries, and one of the most re¬ liable, The Desk Standard Dictionary, is, “to grow or come together into one; fuse, blend.” Now, no one who believes that God has an outward form in which He manifests Himself, thinks that He Himself, an in¬ telligent, thinking, willing, determining Personality, “grows together into one” with the form He inhabits, or “fuses” with it, or “blends” with it. But Mrs. Eddy is not the only prominent teacher who denies the Personality of God. Professors of theology in our universities and seminaries do it also. The late Professor Walter Rauschenbush of the Bap¬ tist Theological Seminary at Rochester, N. Y., the chief apostle of what is now so much exploited as “The Social Gospel,” says in his book, “A Theology for the Social Gospel,” page 178, “The old conception that God . . . u distinct from our human life'' must give way to “the religious belief that He is immanent in humanity.” Professor Gerald Birney Smith, Pro¬ fessor of Christian Theology at Chicago University writes, “The worship of God in a democracy will con¬ sist in reverence for those human values which democ¬ racy makes supreme" (“Man and the New Democ¬ racy,” page 94). The natural, indeed the inevitable inference is, if Professor G. Birney Smith has any accurate knowledge of the meaning of words, that God is “those human values which democracy makes supreme.” In another place he speaks of God as, “the spiritual forces of the world in which we live” (“A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion,” 22 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE page 537). In the light of this definition he might bet¬ ter have called his book a guide to the study of Bud¬ dhism or Theosophy. Again in the same book on page 511 he speaks of God as “the unseen forces of the universe.” R. G. Campbell, who was at one time the most outstanding exponent of “The New Theology” in England but afterwards in a measure at least recanted, said, ''God is my deeper self and yours too; he is the self of the universe” President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University sets forth the opinion that “God is the truth, virtue, beauty of man.” President Hall goes on to say that the only real atheist is he “who denies these attributes to man” (“Jesus the Christ, in the Light of Psychology,” Vol. I, p. 285). Professor Hall also says that prayer is “communion with the deeper racial self within us.” The late Professor Royce of Harvard University spoke of God as the immanent “spirit of the community” {The Amercian Journal of Theology, 1913, p. 638). It would be easy to multiply quotations from Professors of Theology in Theological Seminaries and Universities that present similar pantheistic definitions of an impersonal God, but let us turn from all this skillfully phrased foolish¬ ness to the lofty revelation of God as He really is set forth in God’s own Word, the Bible. IL The Personality of God as Set Forth in the Bible From the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation we see God as a Person, an infinite and perfect Person, not a mere force, or abstract intelli¬ gence, or “the absolute,” but an infinitely wise, infin- A PERSONAL GOD 23 itely holy, and infinitely loving Person, ‘‘Our Father in Heaven,” as our Lord Jesus spoke of Him and to Him (Matt. 6: 9). I will not stop here to show that knowledge, feeling and will are all ascribed to God in the Bible over and over again. All of us who know our Bible at all well know that the knowledge and love and supreme will of God appear on nearly every page, and we will take all these things up in detail in some future studies when we consider the Omniscience of God, the Holiness of God, the Love of God and the Sovereignty of God. I. In the first place, The Bible reveals God as a liv¬ ing God. Read Jer. 10: 10-16 (R. V.). “But Jehovah is the true God; He is the living God, and an everlasting King: at His wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide His indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. He hath made the earth by His power. He hath established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding hath he stretched out the heavens. When He uttereth His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh light¬ nings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of His treasuries. Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every gold¬ smith is put to shame by his graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no 24 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE breath in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is His name.” In this sublimely eloquent passage, so strikingly in contrast to the vapid word spinning of the supposedly scholarly and brilliant seminary and university pro¬ fessors whom we have been quoting, God is distin¬ guished from the idols, the gods men make for them¬ selves which are things, not persons, things which ‘‘speak not,” “cannot go,” “cannot do evil,” “neither is it in them to do good” (see Jer. 10: 5, 8, 9). In contrast with them Jehovah is wiser than “all the wise men,” He is “the living God,” “an everlasting King,” a Being who has “wrath and indignation,” and who is separate and apart from all the persons and things which He Himself has created. “At His wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide His indignation.” The idols men form to-day and call “God” are not made with their hands, as in Jere¬ miah’s day, from “the stock” of “the palm tree” and “decked with silver and gold”: they are made with their bewildered and addled brains out of the tenuous filaments of their own auto-intoxicated musings (as we have seen in the fatuous quotations given above), but they are idols just the same, and they are not “the only true God,” the God of the Bible. In this quotation from the prophet Jeremiah, who lived and wrote six hundred years before Christ, we are in the realm of the sublime. In these quotations A PERSONAL GOD 25 from these great and brilliant “Modern Scholars,” who lived nineteen hundred years after Christ, we are in the realm of the ridiculous. How came this man who lived twenty-five hundred years ago to utter such marvelous wisdom in such striking contrast to the inane nonsense of these bright and learned and “scholarly” thinkers of to-day? There can be but one rational answer to that question; and that answer is, The infinitely wise God spoke through him; while these modern theologians, discounting the Word of God and chasing the butterflies of “modern scholarship” and “modern [pantheistic] philosophy” and self-con¬ fident metaphysics, “professing themselves to be wise, became fools” (Rom. 1:22). We all do well when we imitate the early converts in Thessalonica and “turn to God from (all these disgusting) idols to serve the living and true God,” and also to wait for His Son from Heaven” (I Thess. i: 19). 2. In the second place, God is revealed in the Bible as having a present interest in and an active hand in the affairs of men. We read in Josh. 3:10: “And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite.” We read in Dan. 6: 20-22, 26, 27: “And when he came near unto the den to Daniel, he cried with a lamentable voice; the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, ser¬ vant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou 26 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? Then said Daniel unto the King, O King, live forever. My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me; and also be¬ fore thee, O King, have I done no hurt. . . . I make a decree, that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for He is the living God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed; and His dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescu- ethj and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth. Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” And we read in Heb. lo: 28-31: ‘‘For we know Him that said. Vengeance be- longeth unto me, I will recompense. And again. The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And we read in Rom. 8:28-31, R.V.: “And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew. He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them He also called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What then A PERSONAL GOD 27 shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” And in Phil. 4: 19 we read: “And my God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” We see then that “the God of the Bible” is not only to be distinguished from the god of Pantheism who has no existence whatever separate from his creation, but also from the God of the Deist, Who has created a world and put into it all the necessary powers of self- action and development and, having set it going, leaves it to go of itself. The God of the Bible is a God who has a personal, active, and present interest in the af¬ fairs of the universe to-day. One of the most distinctive and outstanding features of the so-called “New Theology” and of “the Higher Criticism” is that it scoffs at the miraculous, the super¬ natural, at the idea of God taking at the present time, or in Bible times, any active and immediate hand in the affairs of man. Many of us know by glad and glorious experience that the Bible conception is the true concep¬ tion and that the conception of “Modern Scholarship” runs up against the stone wall of the established facts of history and the facts of our own personal experi¬ ence. 3. In the third place, God is revealed in the Bible as the Creator of all existing things, animate and in¬ animate, earthly and celestial. The very first words we read in the Bible, opening the sublime epic of crea¬ tion found in the first chapter of Genesis, are, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and 28 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE in the N. T. counterpart to this passage we read in Jno. 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and with¬ out him was not anything made that hath been made.’' In Col. 1: 16 we read: “For in him [that is in Jesus Christ] were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him.” This all is in marked contrast to the god who is left to us by the crass and scientifically and historically disproven evolutionism that so strangely dominates our universities, theological seminaries, high schools, and private schools. When you ask them for some sub¬ stantial proof of their theory, they reply, “All scholars are agreed upon it,” but when you ask them what about this scholar or that they reply, “Oh, he doesn’t believe in Evolution, therefore he is not a scholar.” It reminds me of a talk I had some years ago with a student in Edinburgh University. He had remarked to me that all the great Semitic scholars belonged to the destructive school of Biblical Criticism. I asked him what about Professor Margoliouth (at that time perhaps the greatest Semitic scholar in England). “Is he a scholar?” this young man asked me. I replied, “He was so considered until he left the radical side A PERSONAL GOD 29 and came over to the conservative side.’^ The student smiled and admitted that it was so. 4. In the fourth place, The Bible reveals God as sustaining, governing, and caring for the world He has created, and as shaping the whole present history of the world. We read in Ps. 104: 27-30: “These wait all for thee, That thou mayest give them their food in due season. Thou givest unto them, they gather; Thou openest thy hand, they are satisfied with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they die. And return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; And thou renewest the face of the ground.’’ We read again in Isa. 45 : 5-7 : “I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside me there is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me: I am Jehovah, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.’* Where in all the literature of the “modernists,” or any other literature except the Bible, can we find any¬ thing that approaches the sublimity of both of these passages? (Let me say in passing in regard to the passage in Isaiah where Jehovah says, “I create evil,” THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 30 the word here translated “evil” does not mean moral evil but natural evil, and by the context we see in this 'T particular case it means “unrest and trouble” as con- y trasted with “peace”). We read again in Ps. 76: 6, 7: “At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. Thou, even thou, art to be feared; And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?” 5. In the fifth place, God is revealed in the Bible as One Whose care and government extend to all His creatures, even the smallest and the most insignificant. We read in Matt. 6:26, 28-30: “Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they ? . . . And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to¬ day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” And we read in Matt. 10:29, 30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall to the ground A PERSONAL GOD 31 without your Father: but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” 6. In the sixth place, God is revealed in the Bible as One Whose care and ministry and government ex¬ tend to the individual. Way back in Genesis, the book in which are the seeds from which the whole vast tree of Bible truth would grow, we read: ‘‘But Jehovah was with Joseph, and showed kindness unto him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison” (Gen. 39: 21 R. V.). And in Dan. i: 9 we read: “Now God made Daniel to find kindness and compassion in the sight of the prince of the eunuchs.” And in I Kings 19: 5-7, we read of God’s own ten¬ der and personal ministries to His discouraged prophet: “And he lay down and slept under a juniper- tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said unto him. Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of Jehovah came again the second time, and touched him, and said. Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee.” 7. In the seventh place, God is revealed in the Bible as One Whose control and government extend to the wicked designs and devices and doings of evil men and even of Satan himself and as One who makes the seeming evil work out to His own glory and His peo- THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 32 pie's good. Listen to these words written more than twenty-five hundred years ago, Ps. 76:10: ‘‘Surely the zvrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” And read these words written in the first book in the Bible, which our “mod¬ ern scholars” affect so much to despise, but to whose lofty heights they have not yet climbed even the foot¬ hills, Gen. 50:20: “And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Read also these words in the second book in the Bible, Ex. 9: 16: “But in very deed for this cause have t made thee (the wicked Pharaoh) to stand, to show thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.” Turn now to the N. T. and read Peter’s marvelously significant words on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2 :22, 23 : “Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus' of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know; him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay.” Now turn back to what many scholars regard as the earliest written book in the Bible, Job, Chapter 1:12 and 2:6: “And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah.” “And Jehovah A PERSONAL GOD 33 said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand; only spare his life.” Here the Bible represents even Satan himself with all his malevolence carrying out the merciful purposes of God. In Luke 22:3 we see the same thing, “And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve,” and the result was that God’s eternal purpose of redeeming love was accom¬ plished by the atoning death of Jesus Christ, which was brought to pass by the great enemy of God and man, the Devil. Such is the God of the Bible, as far as the question of His Personality and His being a living God is con¬ cerned, a God who lives and loves and acts and works to-day. Oh, I am glad I have such a real, concrete, personal, living God, One in Whom I can trust and have no fears, whatever may arise, and not the im¬ personal, abstract, vague, vapory, elusive, unreal God of the rhetorical twaddle of Walter Rauschenbush, Professor G. Birney Smith, President G. Stanley Hall, Professor Royce, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, and a host of other drowsy dreamers. With such a God I can face whatever calamity seems to threaten to overtake me and say, “I know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8: 28), and again, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). If any of you wish the god of “Christian Science” or the god of “New Thought” or the god of “Mod¬ ern Scholarship” (falsely so-called), you can have it. 34 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE I would not give two cents for it. But give me the God of the Bible, the Real God, “the living and true God,” “the only true God,” Whom to know is not only “life eternal,” but boundless peace and overflowing joy every day. CHAPTER II GOD IS SPIRIT The general subject of this chapter is the same as that of Chapter I, “The God of the Bible,” the God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of Theosophy, and the god of Christian Science, and the god of “New Thought,” and the god of Spiritualism, and the God of “Unitarianism,” and the God of “The New Theol¬ ogy,” and the god of “Modern Philosophy,” and the god of “Modernism” in general. In Chapter I our particular subject was, “The God of the Bible: A Per¬ sonal God.” Our particular subject here is, “The God of the Bible: God is Spirit.” I have seven texts and three of them are the same as in the former chapter. My first text is Jno. 17:3: “And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.” My second text is I Jno. 5: 20, 21: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little chil¬ dren, guard yourselves from idols.” My third text is Jno. 20:28: 35 36 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ‘‘Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God” My fourth text is Jno. 4:24: “God is Spirit.” My fifth text is Phil. 2:5, 6: “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God . . .” My sixth text is Acts 7: 55, 56: “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said. Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” My seventh text is I Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, in¬ visible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” We saw that personality and corporeity were not the same thing. We saw that saying God was a Per¬ son did not necessarily involve God’s having a body. We saw that any being who knows, and feels, and wills is a person whether he is visible or invisible, whether he has a body or has not a body. The question whether or not God has a body, a visible form, we shall take up in this chapter. /. God Is Spirit The first thing that our texts in this chapter teach us about God, the God of the Bible, “the only true God,” GOD IS SPIRIT 37 the God Whom to know is life eternal, and Whom not to know is eternal death and darkness, is, that ''God is Spirit” This is clearly stated in our fourth text which tells us in words which our Lord Jesus Himself spoke to the woman of Samaria, “God is Spirit.” 1. You will notice that both the A'. V. and the R. V. translate this verse “God is a Spirit” and that I omitted the indefinite article “a” and translated “God is Spirit.” There is no indefinite article in the Greek text, but that does not necessarily imply that my trans¬ lation is correct; for there is no indefinite article in the Greek language, and whenever it is needed in an English translation it must be supplied. But I think the translation “God is Spirit” is to be preferred in this instance to “God is a Spirit,” because further on in the same verse we are told that “they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth,” where we have precisely the same word, only in the dative case, with no indefinite article, and no indefinite article is sup¬ plied. Furthermore, the construction is exactly the same as in I Jno. i: 5, where we read “God is Light” (not, “God is a Light”) and in I Jno. 4: 8 and I Jno. 4:16 where we read “God is Love” (not, “God is a Love”). But, perhaps, it does not matter so very much whether we read “God is Spirit” or “God is a Spirit;” the thought is essentially the same. 2. By the order of the words in the Greek text a very strong emphasis is put on the word "Spirit,” Literally translated in the order of the Greek text our text would read, “Spirit is God.” But according to Greek usage that would not imply what the words put THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 38 in that order might imply in our English idiom. By a common Greek usage, “Spirit” is put first in the sen¬ tence for the purpose of heavily emphasizing it. The one thought that our Lord Jesus wished to impress upon the mind of the woman of Samaria at this time was that “God is Spirit” and, therefore, not confined to places, whether it be Mt. Gerizim (as the Samari¬ tans held) or to Jerusalem (as most of the Jews of that time held) (see verses 20-24). 3. But just what does the striking, yes, startling, sentence, “God is Spirit” mean? What is “Spirit”? We must go to the Bible itself for an answer to this question and fortunately we can again go to the words of the Lord Jesus Himself; for in another place He has Himself defined carefully and exactly what He means by “Spirit.” You will find this definition in Luke 24:39, ''See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and hones, as ye behold me having.” (There is no article before “spirit” here either). It is evident from these words of our Lord Jesus that by “Spirit” He means a reality that cannot be seen or handled or physically felt: therefore, "spirit” is incorporeal (or, bodiless), invisible reality. The same definition of “spirit” is implied in John 3:8, “The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hear- est the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it com- eth, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Now the word translated “wind” in the first part of this passage is exactly the same Greek word as that translated “Spirit” in the last part of the verse and in our text; and the thought is that “Spirit” GOD IS SPIRIT 39 or ‘*wind” is something of which you can hear the voice, but which you cannot see, and the mystery of whose actions you cannot fully solve. Therefore, to say ''God is Spirit'' is to say that God, though He is real, is essentially incorporeal (bodiless) and invisible, 4. This conception of God as in His essence invisi¬ ble and incorporeal is found in the Old Testa¬ ment as well as in the New Testament. We find it way back in Deuteronomy, a book of which ‘hhe Higher Critics” so love to make light, but which they have never studied sufficiently to understand the profundity and sublimity of its Divinely inspired teachings. Turn to Deut. 4: 15-18: “Take ye therefore good heed unto your¬ selves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt your¬ selves and make you a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or fe¬ male, the likeness of any beast that is in the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that fli- eth in the heavens, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.” The fundamental reason for the strict command in the Ten Commandments not to make “a graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” and not to “bow down to them nor worship them” (Deut. 5:8, 9), is that God is essen¬ tially “Spirit,” invisible and incorporeal. 40 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE //. What the Bible Means When It Says, *^God Cre-^ ated Man in His Own Image” As God is essentially invisible and incorporeal the question necessarily arises, What then does the Bible mean when it says in Gen. i: 26, 27: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the likeness of God created he him, male and female created He them” ? If God is incorporeal and invisible, to what does the “image” and “likeness” of God in which we are said to have been created, refer? Here again we can go to the Bible for an answer, and the Bible gives a very definite, very clear and unmistakable answer to that question. You will find the answer in Col. 3:9, 10, “Ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.” You will find it also in Eph. 4: 24, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holi¬ ness of truth” And you will find a remarkable com¬ mentary upon it in Col. 1:15, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” It is clear from all these passages that the words “image” GOD IS SPIRIT 41 and “likeness” do not refer primarily to visible, physi¬ cal (or bodily) likeness but to intellectual and moral likeness, likeness “in knowledge,” and “in righteous¬ ness and holiness of truth.” Here we have another illustration of what we are constantly meeting in our close study of the Bible, the Divine unity of the Bible. How perfectly what John records Jesus as saying fits into what is said in Deu¬ teronomy, and what is said in Genesis fits into what is said in Colossians and Ephesians. Whence comes this profound and minute unity of teaching of the various books of the Bible, the earliest and the latest? The answer is both simple and clear, God Himself is the real Author of all the books; He was always guid¬ ing what every one wrote, whether it was Moses or John or Paul. IIL Has God a Body or Form? We see then that God is essentially, i. e., in His real Being and Personality, incorporeal and invisible. He is as our seventh text declares ''invisible.” Let me read it to you again, I Tim. 1:17, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” The Greek word which is here translated “invisible” means here not only that which is unseen, but that which is un¬ seeable. God in His inmost essence, in His real Per¬ sonality, is "unseeable.” Does it follow then that God has no body or form at all? Not by any means. You and I in our real selves are unseeable. This body which we THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 42 inhabit and which men see is not our real self. You never saw me, except as I reveal myself by a smile or a frown or by a peculiar look in my eyes or by the cast of my countenance, all of which I form by my temperament and conduct. This body which you see is only the house I live in, it is not I. If the Lord tarries and I pass through the experience of what men call “death” before He comes, it will not be I who die and crumble into dust, it will be only this house I live in, “the earthly house of our tabernacle” (as Paul puts it in II Cor. 5:1);!, my real self, will depart to be with Christ in conscious blessedness (Phil, i: 23), and when the Lord Jesus comes again this body will be raised from the dust (Dan. 12:2; I Thess. 4:16) and transformed into the likeness of “the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:20, 21). And even that body will not be my real self but my “habitation,” my “habita¬ tion which is from heaven” (II Cor. 5:2). When Jesus was crucified and died His body was laid in Joseph’s tomb and kept from corruption, but He Himself bodiless went into Hades. That is what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. Listen to his words, “He foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was He left unto Hades, nor did His desk see corruption” (Acts 2:31). Here a clear cut distinction is drawn between “He,” Jesus Himself, who went into Hades, and “His flesh” (or body) which went into Joseph’s tomb and no further. So we come back to the question. Has God a body, a visible form, in which He manifests Himself? I. In reply to that question let me say, first of all, that: the Bible clearly teaches, that that which is Spirit GOD IS SPIRIT 43 manifests itself in visible form. This we see in Jno. 1:32, where we read, “I have beheld the Spirit de¬ scending as a dove out of heaven.’^ Here not only a spirit but ''The Spirit’^ was seen in visible form. The Greek word translated “beheld” is a very strong word for seeing with the physical eye. 2. In the second place, in Ex. 24: 9, 10, we are told that Jehovah, the God of Israel, manifested Himself in visible form and was seen. Let me read it to you: “Then went up Moses, and A'aron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sap¬ phire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness.” What was seen in these visible manifestations of God? The answer is plain, that which was seen in these visible manifestations of God was not God Him¬ self, that is God in His invisible essence, but merely a visible manifestation of God. This is clear from Jno. 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” It is also clear from the book of Exodus itself. We read in Exodus 33 : 18-23: “And he (i. e., Moses) said. Show me, I pray thee, thy glory. And He (i. e., Jehovah) said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I 44 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE will show mercy. And He said, Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live. And Jehovah said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by: and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back; but my face shall not he seen,” Many people are greatly staggered by the apparent contradiction between Jno. i: i8, “No man hath seen God at any time” and Ex. 24:9, 10, “Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel/^ But when one stops to think it through he sees that there is really no contradiction at all. It is perfectly true that “no man hath seen God” (i. e., God Himself, God as He is in his invisible essence) “at any time.” God in His essence, in His inmost Personality, is “un¬ seeable.” (As for that matter, no one has even seen R. A. Torrey at any time. You have seen this body that I live in, but have you seen me ? I think not. Do you think that you know me? I think not. One of my misfortunes is that my face and eyes reveal so lit¬ tle of what I feel in my heart. Sometimes perhaps it is my good fortune.) Yet men have seen God; that is, they have seen that form in which He has manifested Himself, e. g., to the seventy elders on Mt. Sinai. Two statements which appear to flatly contradict one another may both be perfectly true. To illustrate: A man may see the reflection of the back of his head GOD IS SPIRIT 45 in a glass. It would be perfectly true for that man to say, “I saw the back of my head in the mirror.” But it would also be true to say, “I never saw the back of my head.” What he really saw was not the back of his head, it was but a reflection of the back of his head in a mirror. To be still more exact, no one ever saw the back of any one’s head. What we really see when we say with perfect truth, ‘T saw the back of a man’s head,” is the reflection of the back of that man’s head on the retina of our eye. In the same way, a few men have seen a manifestation of God, and it is perfectly true to say these men ^'saw God/' But no man ever saw God as He is in His invisible essence, the very God Himself; so it is perfectly true to say ''no man hath seen God at any time/' 3. In the third place, "The Angel of the LORD" in the Old Testament, Who frequently appeared and was seen by Abraham, Manoah, and others, was a Divine Person, God in human form. A' clear distinction is drawn in the Bible between "an angel of the LORD,” and "The Angel of the LORD, (or, Jehovah).” The Authorized Version does not always preserve the dis¬ tinction; the Revised Version, following the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek text of the New Testament, always does: and “The Angel of the LORD (or, Jehovah)” is a Divine Person. This is perfectly clear from many passages. Read, e. g., Gen. 16: 7-10: “And the angel of Jehovah found her (Hagar) by a fountain in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, whence earnest thou 46 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE and whither goest thou? And she said I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, Re¬ turn to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, I zvill greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not he numbered for multitudeJ' Here the “Angel of Jehovah in verse ten is clearly identified with Jehovah Himself in verse thirteen, where we are told that Hagar “called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her. Thou art a God that seeth.” Now the One who “spake unto her” we are told in the preceding verses was ''The Angel of Je¬ hovah,” therefore, Jehovah and "The Angel of Je¬ hovah” are clearly identified with one another. Now read Gen. 21: 17, 18: “And God heard the voice of the lad: and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand; for I will make him a great nation.” Here it is definitely said that “the angel of God” declares that he will do what only God can do; and, therefore, He, “the angel of God,” is distinctly de¬ scribed as a Divine Person. Also read Judges 2: i, 2: “And the angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said (that is, the angel of Jehovah said), I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the GOD IS SPIRIT 47 land which I sware unto your fathers; and / said, I will never break my covenant with you: and ye shall make no covenant with the inhabi¬ tants of this land; ye shall break down their altars. But ye have not hearkened unto my voice: why have ye done this?’^ Here ''the angel of Jehovah” distinctly says that it was he that brought them up out of Egypt, and that it was he that promised the land unto their fathers, and that it was he that made a covenant with Israel. Now it was certainly Jehovah Who did all these things, and therefore it is as clear as day that The "angel of Je¬ hovah” is identified with Jehovah Himself. A very noteworthy passage in this connection is Gen. 18. Suppose you read verses i, 2, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16: ‘‘And Jehovah appeared unto him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day: and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him (evidently one of those three who appeared as "three men” was Jehovah, for it says in verse i, that "Jehovah appeared unto him”) : and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth. ... (9, 10) And they said unto him. Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said. Behold, in the tent. And he (i. e.. One of the three) said, / will certainly return unto thee when the season cometh round; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door which was behind him. . . . 48 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE (v. 13) And Jehovah said (here is it distinctly said that it was Jehovah who said what one of the three men said) unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying. Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old? Is anything too hard for Jehovah? At the set time / will re~ turn unto thee, when the season cometh round, and Sarah shall have a son.” Here again one of these three persons who appeared in human form is identified again and again with Je¬ hovah. Now turn to the 19th chapter. We read in the first verse that only ''two'' of the three who talked to Abraham entered Sodom at even. Here are the words, “And the two angels came to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.” One of the “three” then has remained behind, two have gone on. Who was the one who remained behind? It is per¬ fectly clear as we read on in the i8th chapter of Genesis, verses 17-21: “And Jehovah said (it is evident then that Jehovah was the one of the three who remained behind). Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great nation and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For / have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham that which HE hath spoken unto him. And Jehovah said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is GOD IS SPIRIT 49 great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.” Then we read in verse 22 (ch. 18) that “the men turned from thence and went toward Sodom; (that is, the “two” men, for only “two” entered Sodom, as we see in Chap. 19:1) “but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah.'^ Clearly, then, the one of the three who re¬ mained behind was Jehovah manifested in the form of a man. In verse 33 the story continues, ^‘And Jeho¬ vah went His way, as soon as He had left off com¬ muning with Abraham; and Abraham returned unto his place.” And in the 27th verse of the 19th chapter we read, “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Jehovah.'' So there is no room left to question that the One who remained behind while the other two went on to Sodom, the One before whom “Abraham stood,” was Jehovah appearing in human form. In Zech. 12:8 we find a very clear setting forth of the fact that “the angel of Jehovah” is a Divine Per¬ son. This is how it reads, “In that day shall Jehovah defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of Jehovah before them.” Here the “angel of Jehovah” is distinctly stated to be “God.” In all these passages ‘Jhe angel of Jehovah" is clearly identified with Jehovah Hwiself; that is, He is the visi¬ ble manifestation of Jehovah. THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 50 Just who then was “The Angel of Jehovah’’ ? This becomes perfectly clear by a comparison of a passage in the Book of Judges with the prophecy concerning the coming Messiah in Isa. 9:6, 7. In Judges 13:18 (R. V.) we read: “And the Angel of Jehovah said unto him (that is, unto Manoah), Wherefore askest thou after my name, seeing it is Wonderful.” The Authorized Version here reads “seeing it is secret/' but this is beyond question an incorrect trans¬ lation. Now turn to Isa. 9:6, 7, where we are told the name of the coming Messiah, who should be a Di¬ vine Person, is “Wonderful.” “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonder¬ ful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.” Here we see that it is the Messiah whose name is to be called “Wonderful,” but the passage in Judges says that the name of “the Angel of Jehovah” is '‘Wonderful/' The Hebrew for the word “wonder¬ ful” in Judges 13: 18 is almost identical with the word used in Isaiah, except that in the one case it is an ad¬ jective and in the other the noun from which that ad¬ jective is derived. From all this it is clear that “the Angel of Jehovah” of the Old Testament was the Son GOD IS SPIRIT SI of God before His permanent incarnation in the per¬ son of Jesus of Nazareth. This throws much light upon what we read in Jno. i: 1-3, 14: *Tn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. . . . And the Word became desk, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth.” It should be added that “the Angel of the Lord” never appears after the birth of Jesus, the Christ. The expression does occur in the Authorized Version in five instances (Matt. 1:20; Matt. 28:2; Luke 2:9; Acts 8:26; Acts 12: 7, 23), but in every instance it is a mistranslation, as is clear from the Revised Version, which in every case gives ''an angel of the Lord,” just as the Greek text reads. Our Lord Jesus Himself refers to these previous manifestations of Himself in human form in Jno. 8: 56, where He says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.” It was in seeing our Lord Jesus at Mamre in “the Angel of Jehovah” that “Abraham saw (Jesus’) day.” 4. But this is not all that can be said about God having a body or form. In the fourth place, The Bible clearly teaches that God existed, even before His in¬ carnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, in a visi¬ ble form, in the eternal world. This we see from a comparison of Jno. i: 1-3, 14, with Phil. 2: 5, 6, where 52 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE we read, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God/' The word translated “existing’^ in the Revised Version of this verse is a rather unusual and very remarkable word. It means “existing substantially’’ or “existing originally.” The word translated ''form” means in Greek usage from the time of Homer down, “the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; the ex¬ ternal appearance” (Thayer’s Greek-English Diction¬ ary of the New Testament). But the form in which the Divine Person Who became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth existed originally was, we are told, "the form of God” (Phil. 2:6, 9, 10). Therefore, God must have a "form.” It is clear, then, that though “God is (essentially) Spirit,” neverthe¬ less He has a form in which He is seen. 5. In the fifth place. The fact that Jehovah mani¬ fests Himself in a "form” clearly appears from Acts r-'55,5^-' “But he (i. e., Stephen) being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said. Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” As Stephen saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” he must have seen God at whose right hand he saw Him standing. To sum up the substance of all that has been said on this point: God, in His essential Personality, is Spirit, invisible, incorporeal, "unseeable,” but He has GOD IS SPIRIT 53 a form in which He manifests Himself in the heavenly world and is seen. Therefore Matt. 5 : 8, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God/^ is true of not only a spiritual vision of God but of an actual, visible, bodily seeing of God, God in a visible “form.” Such a vision of God is so glorious that we could not see Him in that way in our present mortal bodies and live. And Jehovah said to Moses in Ex. 33:20, “Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” What deep signi¬ ficance this gives to Ps. 17:15 (as correctly rendered in the R. V.), “As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when 1 awake, with beholding thy form.'’ (Cf. on the usage and meaning of the Hebrew word here trans¬ lated “form” Numbers 12:8; Job 4:16; Deut. 4: 12, 15 in the Hebrew.) It also gives new meaning to those wonderful words of our Lord in Jno. 14: 9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” In the per¬ son of Jesus in His humiliation, when He had put off for the time being the Divine “form” (Phil. 2:6, 7), men saw God as in a mirror, darkly (in an enigma), but in that coming day when having resumed the Di¬ vine form He comes back again, in Him we shall see God fully revealed (“face to face”) (I Cor. 13: 12), see God in His full and undimmed glory. That is the highest joy which man is capable of knowing. CHAPTER III THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD. ARE THERE THREE PERSONS IN THE ONE GOD? The general subject of this chapter is the same as that of the two preceding chapters, The God of the Bible: The God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of ‘Theosophy,” the god of “Christian Sci¬ ence,” the god of “New Thought,” the god of “Spir¬ itualism,” the God of “Unitarianism,” the God of the “New Theology,” the god of “Modern Philosophy” and the god of “Modernism” in general. The particular subject of the first chapter was, The God of the Bible: A Personal God. The particular subject of the last chapter was The God of the Bible: God is Spirit. The particular subject of this chapter is, “The God of the Bible: There is only one God. Are there three persons in this one God?” I have nine texts. Listen to them very carefully, for my whole thought is con¬ tained in these nine texts, and they prove beyond a question that the first part of my subject is true, namely, that, according to the Bible there is only one God; and they also contain a definite and clear answer to the question contained in the last part of my sub¬ ject, '^Are there three persons in this one God?” My first text is Jno. 17:3: “And this is life eternal, that they should 54 THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 55 know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ My second text is I Jno. 5:20, 21: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is, the true God, and eternal life. My little chil¬ dren, guard yourselves from idols.” My third text is Deut. 6:4, 5 : “Hear, O Israel; Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: And thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy sonl, and with all thy might.” My fourth text is Mark 12:29, 30: “Jesus answered. The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” My fifth text is Gen. 1:26: “And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” My sixth text is Jno. 20:28: “Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.” My seventh text is Jno. i: 1-3, 14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been 5^ THE GOD OF THE BIBLE made. . . , And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.^’ My eighth text is Rom. 9:5: “Of whom is the Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” My ninth text is H Cor. 13: 14: “And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” 1 . There Is Only One God. The first fact about God that our texts teach is that, There is only one God. This is the great founda¬ tion truth of the Bible from the very first verse in it, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” to the close of the last book in it. Intelligent Israelites have always considered Deut. 6:4, 5, “Hear, O Israel; Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: And thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” as the very heart of the revelation made by God to them through Moses and the Prophets of the Old Dispensation, and our Lord Jesus Himself endorsed this view by saying in answer to a question asked him by one of the scribes, “What commandment is first of all?” “The first is. Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 57 mind, and with all thy strength’’ (Mark 12:29, 30). The Religion of the Bible has no toleration for Polytheism in any form. It is Monotheistic from start to finish. In this respect the God of the Bible differs from the god of “Theosophy.” Theosophy is simply Bud- < dhism in a new dress, and not a very new dress at that. Buddhism is Polytheism gone mad. It has lit¬ erally millions of gods. And when you get to the heart of Theosophy you find it has a multitude of what are really gods. Indeed when you get to the very heart of Theosophy we are all gods (except when Theosophy assumes a pantheistic form, in which case we are all God, and there is no God except us and everything else). The same thing is true of “Christian Science.” “Christian Science” is always essentially pantheistic or polytheistic or a combination of both Pantheism and Polytheism. At the heart of “Christian Science” is < the thought that we are all gods. According to “Chris¬ tian Science” not only “God is Spirit,” but “Spirit is God” (“Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip¬ tures,” 69th edition, p. 65), and we are all essentially and only spirit, and to think that we have bodies is “illusion” or “mortal thought,” therefore, we are all gods. According to “Christian Science,” think that you are God and you are God. Mrs. Eddy says in “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” edi¬ tion 1903, page 467, in a section entitled, “Questions and Answers”: ‘^Question .—What is God? Answer. —God is Divine principle, Supreme, Incorporeal Be¬ ing, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Life, Truth, Love. Question. 58 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE —Are these terms synonymous ? Answer ,—They are; they refer to one absolute God and nothing else. They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and holiness of Deity.” On page 466 she says, ^'Question. —What are spirits and souls?” Answer.—To human belief they are personalities constituted of Mind and matter. Life and death, Truth and error. Good and evil; but these contrasting pairs of terms represent opposites, as Christian Science reveals,—neither dwell¬ ing together nor assimilating.” A little further on on the same page she says, ^‘The term souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul, or Spirit, signifies Deity and nothing else. There is no finite soul or spirit. These terms mean only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish theology have perpetuated the fallacy that in¬ telligence, soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism are the outcome of these man-made be¬ liefs. The Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand, to separate the chaff from the wheat.” On page 467 she says, ''Question .—What is the science of soul ? Answer .—The first demand of this science is, Thou shall have no other gods before me.’ This me is spirit.” A few lines further on in the same page she says, “It should be well understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love.” Two lines further on she says, “Having no other gods, turning to no other mind but the one perfect Intelligence to guide him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that mind which was also in Christ Jesus.” On page 469 she says, “We lose the high significance of omnipotence, when admitting that THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 59 God, or good, is omnipresent, and has all-power, yet ( that there is another power named evil. This belief, that there is more than one mind, is as pernicious to divine theology as our ancient mythology and pagan idolatry/’ Further on in the same paragraph she says, *^The existence of more than one mind was the basic error of idolatry.” To quote once more from Mrs. Eddy; she says in “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” 69th edition, page 65, “Spirit cannot believe in God. Spirit is God.” The necessary corol¬ lary of this is, that in so far as you and I are spirit, you and I are God. And it is the constant teaching of Mrs. Eddy that in pure Science you and I are only spirit, and it is only to “mortal thought” or “error” that we have bodies at all. Therefore, every one of us, in the highest thought of “Christian Science,” is God. The same thing that we have said of “Theosophy” and of “Christian Science,” namely, that they are es¬ sentially polytheistic or pantheistic, is also true of much of the so-called “New Theology,” and of a very large share of “Modern Philosophy.” Prof. Geo. Al¬ bert Coe, Professor in Union Theological Seminary, New York, writes, “I worship the God, who breathing himself everywhere into the human clod, makes it a spirit, a social craving, even the spirit of humanity, yes, the spirit of a possible world society.” Now listen carefully. Professor Coe says, “/ how my spirit before the spirit of the world democracy that is to be.” (“Re¬ ligious Education,” October, 1916, page 379),—Rev. R. J. Campbell, the erstwhile leader and high priest of “the New Theology,” said in a sermon, ”Sin is a quest 6o THE GOD OF THE BIBLE for God —a blundering quest, but a quest for all that. Th-e man who got dead drunk last night did so because of the impulse within him to break through the bar¬ riers of his limitations, to express himself, and to realize the more abundant life. His self-indulgence just came to that; he wanted, if only for a brief hour, to live the larger life, to expand the soul, to enter untrodden regions, and gather to himself new experi¬ ences. That drunken debauch was a quest for light, a quest for God. Men who in their sinful follies to¬ day, their trampling upon things that are beautiful and good, are engaged in this dim, blundering quest for God, whom to know is life eternal.” The un- escapable inference from these shocking words is that everything in us, even our sinful propensities, is divine. It would not be fair to attribute such a conception of the essential divinity of man at his worst to all New Theology men. R. J. Campbell’s statement represents New Theology on a drunk, or The New Theology gone stark crazy; but, after all, this is really the logical outcome of the fundamental principles of Modernistic thinking, and of the thinking of much that passes for "‘‘Modern Scholarship” and “Modern Philosophy.” We need Paul’s warning to-day as much as the saints in Colosse needed it, “Beware lest any man spoil you (or make spoil of you) through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudi¬ ments (elements) of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8). But in the Bible, the thought that there is a Per¬ sonal God, separate and distinct from all the things THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 6 i and persons which He has created, and that there is but one God, dominates the whole Book, both the Old Testament and the New. In Deut. 4:35 we read: “Unto thee it was showed, that thou might- est know that Jehovah he is God; there is none else beside him.^' In Isa. 43: 10, II, we read: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there he after me. I, even am Jehovah; and beside me there is no saviour.” In Isa. 44:6 we read: “Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” And in Isa. 45 : 5 we read: “I am Jehovah, there is none else; beside me there is no God.” In I Tim. 2: 5 we read: “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.’’ And our Lord Jesus Himself said to the rich young man who came to him kneeling and calling Him “good,” but not understanding the deeper meaning that there was in his own words, which were profoundly true but the truth of which he did not grasp, and 62 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE which our Lord desired that he should grasp, ^Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, even God” (Mark lo: i8). That there is one God and only one God is the great foundation rock of all truly Bible thought, New Tes¬ tament thought as well as Old Testament thought. 11 . 'Are There Three Persons in the One God? We come now to the second division of our subject and a tremendously important division it is, Are there three persons in the one Godf Many conclude, because it is so plainly and so constantly taught in the Bible that there is only one God, that therefore God the Father is the whole that there is of that one God; and that, therefore, Jesus Christ cannot be God, and the Holy Spirit cannot be God. That is the funda¬ mental contention of Unitarianism, and of both Or¬ thodox and Liberal Jewish Theology. It was this thought that gave rise to Modern Unitarianism. Does it follow, because there is only one God, that Jesus Christ cannot be God and that the Holy Spirit cannot be God? No. We shall see directly by the teachings of the whole Bible, by the teachings of the Old Testament as clearly as by the teachings of the New Testament, that there are three Divine Persons in the One Godhead. I. In the first place, The Hebrew zuord translated ''one” in these various passages from the Old Testa¬ ment which I have quoted as conclusively proving that there is only one God, denotes a compound unity and not a simple unity. Let me illustrate. In Gen. 2: 24 THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 63 we read, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Now the Hebrew word translated “one” in this passage is the same word that is trans¬ lated “one” in all these various passages that declare that there is only ^‘one God,” and it can be plainly seen in this passage that not a simple unity but a compound unity is intended; two, man and wife, being ''one/' Turn now to Gen. 11:6 and you will read, “Jehovah said. Behold, they are one people.” The same Hebrew word for “one” is used here. Here we are told that a large number of people are one people; they are at the same time many and one. We find a similar usage for the Greek word for “one” in the New Tes¬ tament. Read e. g., I Cor. 3:6-8, “I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that plant¬ eth and he that watereth are one.” Here we are dis¬ tinctly told that two different persons are "one.” Turn to I Cor. 12: 13, “For in one Spirit we were all bap¬ tized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Here we are distinctly told that all who have become members of the living church by the baptism in the Holy Spirit are all together "one.” In the same way we read in Gal. 3: 28, “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female: for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.” Here we find a large number of persons constituting one man. 2. In the second place, The Old Testament Hebrew THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 64 words most frequently used as the name {or title) of God, the word translated ''God’' many hundreds of times in the Old T estament, is plural in its form. Liter¬ ally translated the word would read “Gods/^ For ex¬ ample, in the very passage which I have chosen for one of my texts, and which is the passage the Unitarians and non-Christian Jews so emphasize and insist upon, namely Deut. 6:4, literally translated would read, “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Gods is one Jehovah.” Why is it that the Jews with their intense monotheism had a plural name for God? That was the difficult problem that puzzled the Old Hebrew lexicographers and grammarians. The best answer that they could give was that the plural form used for the name (or title) of God was the “pluralis majestatis,” that is the plural of majesty. That is to say, that a plural name was used for God because of the majesty of His Person. Now, to say nothing of the fact that it is not at all certain that the “pluralis majestatis” is ever found in the Old Testament, there is an ex¬ planation much nearer at hand and much simpler, and that is, that a plural name was used for the one God, in spite of the intense monotheism of the Jews, be¬ cause there is a plurality of persons in the one God¬ head. This is a rational explanation of this indubitable fact, and no other explanation is as rational. 3. In the third place. In the Old Testament God uses plural pronouns in speaking of Himself. He does this in the very first chapter of the Bible in Gen. i: 26 where it is written, “And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” It is often said that the doctrine of there being three persons in the God- THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 65 head is found in the New Testament, but not in the Old Testament, but here it is in the first chapter of the Old Testament. Indeed the three persons of the Trinity are found in the first three verses of the Old Testament, “In the beginning God (here we have God the Father) created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God (here you have the Holy Spirit) moved upon the face of the waters. And God said (here you have the Word of God, the Word Who became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jno. i: 1-3), Let there be light: and there was light.” It is an interesting and sugges¬ tive fact, though I do not know that there is really anything in it, that the first three letters in the Hebrew Bible are the initials of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first letter in the Hebrew Bible is the Hebrew equivalent of “B” which is the initial of the Hebrew word “Ben,” which signifies Son. The second letter of the Hebrew Bible is the Hebrew equivalent of “R,” which is the initial of “Ruach,” which means Spirit. And the third letter of the Hebrew Bible is the Hebrew equivalent of our “A,” which is the initial of Ab, which means Father. Whether there is any significance in that fact or not, it is certainly true that the three persons of the Trinity are in the first three verses of the Old Testament, and that in the 26th verse of the first chapter of the Old Testament the plurality of persons in the Godhead is distinctly taught. We see this same thing again in the vision of God that Jehovah gave to Isaiah in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, where we read in verse 8, “I heard the voice of the 66 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” These are not the only instances in which Jehovah is represented in the Old Testament as using plural pronouns in speaking of Himself, but these are sufficient to prove the point. There is another suggestion of the Tri-personality of God in the same sixth chapter of Isaiah in verses one to three: ‘Tn the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said. Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” Is there not in this threefold ''Holy,” and especially when taken in connection with verse eight, a sugges¬ tion of the Tri-personality of “Jehovah of Hosts”? Furthermore, in the New Testament this vision is re¬ ferred to, and it is said in one place where it is referred to, Jno. 12:37-41, that Isaiah spoke the words that he is recorded as speaking in Isa. 6, when he saw the glory of the Lord Jesus and spoke of Him, whereas in the passage in Isaiah we are distinctly told that it was Jehovah's glory that Isaiah saw. In another place in the New Testament where this same vision of Isaiah is referred to we are distinctly told that it was the Holy Spirit who said on this occasion what Je¬ hovah is recorded to have said (Acts 28:25-27). 4. In the fourth place, in Zech. 2:10, ii, Jehovah \ THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 67 speaks of Himself as sent by Jehovah^ thus clearly im- plying at least two distinct persons in the one God Jehovah. Let me read the passage: ^^Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah. And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that Je¬ hovah of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” Here we have Jehovah as both the one sending and the one sent (cf. Jno. 8:29; 14: 24). 5. In the fifth place. We saw in the preceding chapter that '"The Angel of Jehovah'' was at the same time identified with Jehovah and distinguished from Him, and we saw by a comparison of Judges 13:8 (R. V.) with Isaiah 9:6, 7, that beyond a question ‘The Angel of Jehovah” was that Person of the God¬ head who afterwards became incarnate in the Mes¬ siah. 6. In the sixth place, We are distinctly told in Jno. 1:1-3, ^4 eternal Word of God who after¬ ward became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth ''zvas zvith God" and ''Was (Himself) God." You are per¬ fectly familiar with the words, but let me quote them to you: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. . . . And the Word became flesh, and 68 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” 7. In the seventh place, Both Jesus Christy the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit, are clearly set forth in the New Testanient as Divine Persons. I could show you that, if it were necessary, in many ways and by a multiplicity of passages that it would take hours to read and adequately expound. Let three of my texts and one other passage suffice. Rom. 9:5: “Of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever.” Jno. 20: 28, 29: “Thomas answered and said unto him (that is, unto Jesus), My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him. Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” H Cor. 13: 14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” And Acts 5:3,4: “But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 69 In the third verse Peter distinctly says that Ananias lied “to the Holy Spirit,” and in the fourth verse he as distinctly says that he lied ''unto God/' thus clearly teaching that the Holy Spirit was God, 8. In the eighth place, The Old Testament clearly declares the predicted Messiah to he a Divine Person, just as clearly as the New Testament declares the his¬ toric Christ, Christ Jesus, to he a Divine Person. Let me give you a few passages. First of all Micah 5:2: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to he rider in Israel; whose coming forth was from of old, from everlasting/' Here the coming Messiah is distinctly predicted as a Person who has existed eternally. Turn now to Isa. 9:6, 7: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonder¬ ful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it with justice and with righteousness from hence forth even forever.” There are at least three unmistakably Divine Names attributed to the coming Messiah in this wonderful prediction, one of those Divine Names being, "Mighty God." Isaac Leeser, the crafty Jew, in his translation THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 70 into English of the Hebrew Bible, has inserted four words in this verse for which there are no equivalent words whatever in the Hebrew text, and he inserts them for the specific purpose of obscuring the signifi¬ cance of the passage’s clear declaration that the Mes¬ siah was to be a Divine Person. He puts the preposi¬ tion “of” and the definite article “the” before “Mighty God,” so as to make it read, “Counsellor of the Mighty God,” and he inserts the same two words before, “it everlasting Father.” As I say, there are no equivalent words whatever for these four words in the Hebrew text. Leeser knows this; for he himself has not in¬ serted “of” before the “Prince of Peace,” and there is just as much reason for inserting it there as before “Mighty God” or “Everlasting Father.” In the re¬ cent ecclesiastically authorized translation of the He¬ brew Bible into English, authorized by the Jewish authorities, it is sought to conceal the meaning that is so plainly in this verse, by not translating the names at all but transliterating the Hebrew. But there can be no doubt about it to any honest student of the Hebrew Bible, that at least three distinctly Divine Names are ascribed to the Messiah in this passage. Turn now to Jer. 23:5, 6: “Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as King, and deal wisely, and execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, Jehovah our righteousness.'' THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 71 In one of the unquestionably Messianic Psalms, Ps. 45: 6, we read these words addressed to the coming Messiah: '‘Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated wick¬ edness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fel¬ lows.” Here we have the coming Messiah distinctly named as a Divine Person. He is called “God,” yet at the same time He is distinguished from “God,” who anointed Him with the Holy Spirit to qualify Him for His work. It is clear then that the Messiah of the Old Testament was to be a Divine Person, “God’' manifested in a human person, God incarnate, just as clearly as it is asserted that when the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth was born and lived and died and rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He was a Divine Person, God in human form, God incarnate. Six of these eight reasons just given would prove that in the teaching of the Old Testament as well as in the teaching of the New Testament there are three Divine Persons in the one Godhead, but taking the eight reasons together there is no possibility of doubt on the part of any one who is really trying to find out what the Bible, both Old and New Testament, teaches, that in the only One God of the Bible there are three persons. A heretical sect arose in the early history of the Church, called Sabellians after Sabellius, their leader, THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 72 that tried to explain the ascription of Deity to the Lord Jesus and to the Holy Spirit and to reconcile this fact with the Bible doctrine that there was but one God, by saying that, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not three distinct persons but three different ways in zvhich the one Person, God, manifested Himself at different times, sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son and sometimes as Holy Spirit. At a later day, Sweden¬ borg adopted this explanation, and it is the doctrine of the Swedenborgian church and of some other heretical churches to-day. But it will not bear careful examina¬ tion. For the Bible, while clearly ascribing Deity to the Lord Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, just as clearly distinguishes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from one another, e. g., in Matt. 3:16, 17: “And Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and com¬ ing upon him; and lo, a voice out of the hea¬ vens, saying. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Here it is distinctly set before us that Jesus, one Person, was standing in the Jordan, that the Father, another Person, spoke to Him out of heaven, and that the Spirit of God, a third Person, was descending from the Father through the air to the Son. Again, read Matt. 28:19: “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit^ THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 73 Here the clearest possible distinction is drawn be¬ tween the three Persons who are named separately. Our Lord Jesus did not say “baptising them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as it would be necessary to say if they were simply three manifes¬ tations of the one God, but He said, “baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Let me read you one other passage that makes this same distinction perfectly clear, H Cor. 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” III. How Can God Be Three and One at the Same time? We come then face to face with the great question that has rent the Church from the earliest centuries, and that also caused the great Unitarian controversy that shook all New England in the days of William Ellery Channing, a great thinker, but who went astray in his thinking and led a large section of the New England churches astray, just as “Modernists” are leading large sections of the church astray to-day. But Channing and his associates towered far above all “Modernists” in the clearness and depth of their think¬ ing and in the earnestness and honesty of their pur¬ pose. What is the answer to the question, How can God he Three and One at the same time? The answer is this, God cannot be and is not three and one in the 74 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE same sense. The Unitarians constantly charge that those who believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, make three equal one, but in so asserting they either do not understand the Evangelical doctrine of the Trinity or else they deliberately misrepresent it. We do not think that God is three and one in the same sense. In what sense then can He be three and one at the same time? A perfectly satisfactory answer to this question is from the very nature of the case manifestly impos¬ sible. First, because, as we saw in our last chapter, “God is Spirit,” and numbers apply primarily to the physical or material world, and difficulty must always arise when we attempt to conceive Spiritual Being in the forms of material thought. Second, because God is Infinite and we are finite. He dwelleth in the light that no man can approach unto (I Tim. 6: i6), and therefore our attempt at a philosophical explanation of the triunity of God is an attempt to put the facts of Infinite Being into the forms of finite thought, an attempt to put the ocean of truth into the pint cup of the human understanding, an attempt which of neces¬ sity could at the very best be only partially successful. Furthermore, number has significance only in the realm of the finite. It is a well known mathematical fact that when you get into the realm of the Infinite finite numbers lose their significance and value. Any one who has any considerable knowledge of mathema¬ tics knows that one divided by Infinity equals nothing, and also that three divided by Infinity equals nothing. Well then, as things equal to the same thing are equal to one another, one as the numerator with Infinity as the denominator equals three as the numerator with THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD 75 Infinity as the denominator, cancel the common de¬ nominator, Infinity, and you have, one equals three. Now one does not equal three, but it shows that, when you get into the realm of the Infinite, finite num¬ bers lose their significance and value. It does not bother me at all that there is something in the Bible conception of God, the Infinite One, which it is not possible for us to completely grasp with our finite minds. Indeed if I could completely and thor¬ oughly grasp the thought of God given me in the Bible, I should be bound to doubt that the Bible was a full revelation from the Infinite Mind. The very simplicity of the Unitarian conception of God con¬ demns it. God’s Being as well as God’s “judgments” and God’s “ways,” must be beyond complete “finding out” by the finite mind (Rom. ii: 13). All the illus¬ trations that men attempt of the Triune Personality of God as, e. g., the illustrations from the three-leaved shamrock or from the tripartite nature of man, spirit, soul and body, are of no value because they are illus¬ trations taken from the finite with which to illustrate the Infinite. This much we know, that God is essentially One and at the same time He is also Three. There is but One God: but this one God makes Himself known to men as Father, and Son and Holy Spirit, and these Three are separate Personalities. How clearly that appears in Jno. 14: 16 where Jesus says: “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.” Here we distinctly see one Person, the Son, praying THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 76 to another Person, the Father, and the Father in an¬ swer to the prayer of the Son sending a third Person, ''another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth” To sum up the Bible conception of the Unity of God: There is only one God, Eternally existing and manifesting Himself in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we can say to the Father, “Thou art God,’’ and worship Him; and we can say to the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and my God’^ and worship Him, and we can also address the Holy Spirit as God and worship Him. And they are altogether not three Gods but one God, “Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.’’ And we can sing “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.” CHAPTER IV GOD IS EVERYWHERE. IS HE ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR ? The general subject of this chapter is, The God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of '‘Theoso¬ phy” and the god of “Christian Science” and the god of “Spiritualism” and the god of “New Thought” and the God of “Unitarianism” and the God of the “New Theology” and the god of “Modern Philosophy” and the god of “Modernism” in general. We have al¬ ready seen in the three preceding chapters that the God of the Bible is a Personal God; and that the God of the Bible is essentially Spirit, invisible and incor¬ poreal, but that He has manifested Himself to men in a visible form, and that He has a form now in which He manifests Himself in the celestial world; and that, according to the teaching of the Bible, there is but one God, but that in this one God there are three persons, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. Our particular subject is. The God of the Bible: God is Everywhere. Is He Anywhere in Par¬ ticular? I have three texts, one taken from the Psalms, one from the Prophets, and one from a New Testament Apostle. You will find the first text in Ps. 139:7-12: 77 78 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in Sheol (the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Hades), behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say. Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me; and the light about me shall be night; even the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.’^ You will find the second text in Jer. 23:23, 24: “Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? saith Je¬ hovah. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah.’^ You will find the third text in Acts 17: 24-28: “The God that made the world and all things therein. He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things: and He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for GOD IS EVERYWHERE 79 in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” It would be difficult to find outside of the Bible in all the literature of all nations, ancient or modern, anything comparable in profundity, beauty and sublim¬ ity of thought and expression with these utterances of Paul, Jeremiah, and David, all written so many cen¬ turies ago, the latest of them written over eighteen hundred years ago, and one of them written twenty- five hundred and twenty or so years ago, and one over twenty-nine hundred years ago. How did the Apostle and the Prophet and the Psalmist attain to such lofty conceptions of God so many, many centuries before modern philosophy was even dreamed of? There is but one rational answer to that question, and that is the answer of the Bible itself, that is, these “men spake from God, being moved (more literally, “being borne along”) by the Holy Spirit.” They were “inspired of God” and this inspiration extended not only to their “concept” (or, thought) but to the very words in which they voiced their “concept” (or, thought) (II Tim. 3:16; I Cor. 2: 13). /. God Is Everywhere The first thing that we see plainly and unmistakably taught by all these “God-breathed” (II Tim. 3:16 Greek) passages is that, God is everywhere. There is no place that we can go in Heaven or in Hades where God is not: “If we ascend up into heaven” God is there; “if we descend into Sheol (or Hades),” “the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40), the abode of the 8 o THE GOD OF THE BIBLE spirits of the departed up to the time of the resurrec¬ tion and ascension of our Lord, God is there. Go East or West, North or South, to the uttermost part of land or sea, God is there with us, His own hand leads us, and His right hand holds and protects us. When I was born sixty-six years ago on the Atlantic coast God was there by my cradle; and now that I live more than three thousand miles away on the Pacific coast, He is with me in the lecture room or in my study every day, and watches by my bed during the hours of the night. He stands beside me unseen, but really personally present on this platform as I speak to you now. It is wonderful that as I speak to you here this morning my voice is carried by the Radio hun¬ dreds of miles away and people are listening to me there, but that is not so wonderful as that God is here and God is there beside them just as He is here be¬ side me. When I was on the other side of the earth, in the heart of Hunan in China last summer, and there seemed to be peril of robbery and violence from the bandits and disorganized soldiers, with whom the country was swarming, God was personally right be¬ side me there, and He was as personally beside you here as you listened to the voice of Dr. Courtland Myers or Dr. Frank Norris or Dr. A. C. Dixon. I have been from oE the shores of Labrador on the North to Invercargill and Bluffs, the nearest to the South pole of inhabited towns, on the South, and God was not only with me while I was there, but He is there and everywhere all the time. Jeremiah tells us that God is always right hand'' wherever we may be, but that He is at the same time GOD IS EVERYWHERE 8 i '^afar ojf” in the remotest spot not only in all the earth but in all the universe, even in those stars so far away that the light, travelling from them to us with the incredible and inconceivable rapidity with which light travels, takes six thousand years to get tO' us, so that the light you will see in those stars to-night will be not the light with which they shine to-day but the light that started away from them six thousand years ago. There is not one smallest spot in all the universe where God is not. There is no spot in all the universe where a man can hide himself from God. He fills the heaven and He fills the earth; so “Jehovah saith’’ (Jer. 23:24), and Jehovah always speaks the truth (Tit. 1:2). Do you ask me how that can be? I confess I do not know. But neither do I know how the air for five hundred miles around Los Angeles in every direc¬ tion is filled at this moment with my voice and my words, and at the same time is full of the jazz music from Mr. Anthony’s broadcasting station and full of other voices as well, all unheard until we put up our radio receiver and then tune it to one broadcasting station instrument or another and then hear one or the other just as plainly as the man sitting down there in the front row of chairs hears me at this moment. If my finite and feeble voice is everywhere for five hundred miles around at this moment, unheard it may be, but perfectly hearable at any moment, and it is, is it hard to believe that an Infinite God can be present at any moment and every moment everywhere in the universe He Himself created? It is not hard at all for me to believe it, but the Radio and its wonders have 82 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE helped me to believe it. But remember the Psalmist wrote about it twenty-nine hundred years before the Radio was dreamed of. Thus does the most modern real '^science” confirm the truth and inspira¬ tion of very ancient Scripture. And yet men who call themselves “scientists” and “philosophers,” deny the Inspiration of those “holy men of old,” and fancy themselves to be the only real “scientists” and “philosophers” that there are in the whole world, be¬ cause their minds have been bedeviled by an extreme doctrine of Devilution that they term “Evolution.” It would be most fitting to change the first o in the word into an i and call it Evilniion. II. Some Inferences from the Great Truth That God Is Everywhere. Before we go any further let us consider some help¬ ful, practical inferences from the great truth revealed in the Bible (and never dreamed of by man until the Bible did reveal it), the truth that God is everywhere. I. The first inference from the great truth that God is everywhere is that God is not confined to temples or church buildings or buildings of any kind, but can be found and worshiped anywhere and everywhere beneath the shining sun by day or the glittering stars by night. The whole universe is a holy temple of God; and we can enjoy His fellowship on some moun¬ tain peak, as I have done, or down in a mine one thou¬ sand feet beneath the earth and beneath the level of the sea, as I have also done. I believe in setting GOD IS EVERYWHERE 83 buildings apart for the service and worship of God, and I believe that it is the solemn duty of men and women to attend services there and take their chil¬ dren there, if they can; and I believe the man or woman who does not go to the house set apart for the worship of God every Lord’s Day, when they are able, and take all their children with them, if they can, is not a good citizen. Nevertheless, I meet God out on the bosom of the vasty deep, and upon the moun¬ tain peak alone, on Sunday and on other days, just as truly as I meet him here in this beautiful building set apart by loving hands and grateful hearts for His worship and His glory. God is everywhere and the whole universe is His Temple. That thought is not original with me, nor is it original with the modern poets; Paul declared it nearly two thousand years ago. Listen again to what he said to that gathering of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens in that olden time. We find it in Acts 17: 24-28: ‘‘The God that made the world and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find 84 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being/^ Where did poor old Paul, whom some of our “very learned” and “very brilliant” and still more self-suf¬ ficient modern theological professors and preachers are trying so hard to criticize and discredit, learn it? I will tell you where he learned it. He learned it direct “from God” (H Pet. i :2i). The man who, in face of the clear facts in The case, doubts it is not in any proper usage of the word “rational,” as he dreams he is and boasts that he is; he is utterly irrational, a de¬ termined, stubborn, willful blockhead. That is plain language, but it is also plain sense and undeniable fact. But let us go back further still than Paul, more than seven hundred years before Paul, to Isaiah. Isaiah 57: 15-22. Listen carefully as I read: “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to re¬ vive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit would fail before me, and the souls that I have made. For the iniquity of his covet¬ ousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid my face and was wroth, and he went on back¬ sliding in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips; GOD IS EVERYWHERE 85 Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith Jehovah; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Where did old Isaiah learn it, living so long, long ago, twenty-five hundred years or more before Chicago University or Union Theological Seminary, New York, were ever dreamed of? There is but one answer that even approaches reasonableness, that answer is. He was really inspired, undoubtedly inspired, he was ''inspired of God,” his words were "God-breathed” (II Tim. 3: 16, Greek). And yet these learned gentle¬ men, these exponents of '‘the consensus of modern scholarship,” blandly tell us that there is no such thing as supernatural inspiration and that Isaiah 57 was not written by Isaiah anyhow! Well, then by whom was it written? “Why . . . why . . . why ... by Mr. Deutero-Isaiah, ‘the Great Unknown.’ ” Ah! it was not written by “the Great Unknown” but by one who was well known —to God, so well known to God that God chose to speak through him, written by one who will be well known also when these shallow and self- sufficient, “Higher Critics,” “Modernists” and “New Theology” men are forgotten forever, written by “Isaiah, the son of Amoz” (Isa. 1:1), to whom God visibly appeared and whom He chose to be His mouth¬ piece not only to the Jews of his own day, but to all nations for all coming centuries and to us to-day among the rest (Isa. 6: 1-8). 2. The second inference from the great truth that 86 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE God is everywhere is that God can always help and deliver those who trust Him. As there is no place where God is not, so there is no place where God can¬ not come to the help and deliverance of his people. I may live here in this sober and orderly city of Los Angeles where law is so perfectly enforced, or I may be in continually war-ridden China, or in the heart of Africa, what difference does it make? God is there as well as here. I watched a boat last summer with armed men in it who looked like bandits, of whom the surrounding country was thought to be full, as it drew near our unarmed boat, way up on the Siang River in Hunan, just after sunset. It looked bad. Only two or three days before, I had seen just such looking men fire upon and capture a Chinese junk. It certainly did look scary, and one who knew China far better than I whispered to me, “It looks like a holdup.” But my heart was quiet. God was there, and I was silently talking to Him while I watched the boat approach. Oh! I rejoice that I know the God of the Bible and not the god of “Modern Religious Liberalism,” and that my God too is everywhere, and that He is not only everywhere but that He is at the same time a real God, a Personal God, an Almighty and infinitely loving Father, and not the mere cold, unreal, philosophical, impersonal, dead, “Absolute.” 3. The third inference from the great Bible truth that God is everywhere is, you cannot hide anything you do or think or feel from God. The policy of con¬ cealment governs the actions of all evil doers. We witness it to-day in politics, in international affairs, in the mal-administration of justice, in business, in the GOD IS EVERYWHERE 87 home, everywhere. The deputy sheriff .takes a bribe that he thinks no one sees and the prisoner does not go to San Quentin but escapes to the woods; the po¬ liceman takes a bribe on the sly and the offender is not arrested; murders are committed and clews that lead nowhere are paraded in the papers as being followed up, but clews that would lead to the guilty party are ignored. Nobody knows. Don’t they? God is every¬ where. He saw the murder and knows the guilty party, even if the officers of the law do not or do not want to. The adulterer goes on his damnable way under cover of the night and his wife and children do not know, they fancy that he is the best of fathers and the prince of husbands. Nobody knows. Don’t they? God knows. Yes, and remembers too, until just the right time comes and then He will strike. Yes, God is everywhere, you cannot hide anything from Him. As the Psalmist puts it: “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou are there: If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, A'nd dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there thy hand shall lead me. And thy right hand shall hold me. If I say. Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me; And the light about me shall be night. Even the darkness hideth not from thee; But the night shineth as the day: 88 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.’’ Not one of you has ever committed a single sin that the Holy God of the Bible, Who is everywhere, does not know. So you must pay the penalty of every sin of act or word or thought that you commit. You cannot escape. We may escape human avengers and human courts; we cannot escape God. Wearing the long white robes and hoods of the Ku Klux Klan when we go out to do our deviltry and using all sorts of foolish names of hobgoblins and what not, will not hide us from God. I am mighty glad of it. God is every¬ where, unseen by all but seeing all. So no sin no matter how secret will ever go unpunished; if not here, then over yonder. With an everywhere present God every sin that man commits is a huge mistake. 4. The fourth inference, and a glorious one it is, from the great Bible truth that God is everywhere is that. It does not matter one particle if every earthly friend deserts us and every man on earth is against us, if we are true to God and conscience, God is not only near us but He will also protect us, and “if God be for us who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). Some thirty years ago, I incurred the deep enmity of some powerful and unscrupulous men. A man came to me with a warning. He named the men and spoke of their power and their unscrupulousness and how they had it in for me. I was not in the least disturbed. I knew God was everywhere and what availed the plots and conspiracies of men? And here I am still. GOD IS EVERYWHERE 89 III, Is God Anywhere in Particular? We have seen that God is everywhere, and now arises another question, Is God Anywhere in Particu¬ lar? Is God in certain places in a sense and in a full¬ ness that He is not in other places? The Bible an¬ swers that question also with unmistakable clearness. 1. Turn in your Bibles to Jno. 14:28. Jesus is speaking, listen to His words: ‘‘Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I.” Here our Lord distinctly says that on leaving His disciples and going up into heaven He was going unto the Father; so it is clear that God the Father is in heaven in a sense and in a fullness in which He is not on earth. 2. Turn now to the twentieth chapter of the same book, Jno. 20: 17: “Jesus saith to her. Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, / ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.’’ Here Jesus distinctly teaches us that the Father is in heaven in a sense in which He is not here on earth, that, in leaving the earth and ascending into Heaven, He was ascending to God the Father, to a place where God the Father was in a sense that He was not here. , 3. Turn now to Eph. i: 20. Paul is here speak- THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 90 ing about God and ''the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward.” He says: "Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places.” The meaning of these words is plain. They teach us that God has a local habitation and that the Lord Jesus was exalted to a place at His right hand. 4. Turn now to Rev. 21:2, 3, 10, 22, 23: "And I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. (This clearly tells us that God is in heaven and that the new Jerusalem was coming down out of heaven from him.) And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. ... (10) And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . (22, 23.) And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.” 5. Turn once more, this time to Rev. 22:1, 3, 4: "And he shewed me a river of water of life, GOD IS EVERYWHERE 91 bright as crystal, coming out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. ... (3, 4.) And there shall be no night any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall he therein: and His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads.” All these passages make it as clear as day that, while God is everywhere as we have already seen, that at the same time it is true that God is in one par¬ ticular place, in Heaven, in a way in which He is not in any other place. We find this same truth way back in the Old Testament in Isaiah 66:1: “Thus saith Jehovah, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what manner of house will ye build unto me ? What place shall be my rest?” Here heaven is said to be the throne of God, the place where He is peculiarly and fully present, and it is also said that “the earth is (His) footstool.” Clearly then, there is a fullness and manifestation of God’s presence in some place that there is not in other places. ^Heaven is the place where at the present time the presence and glory of God are especially and visibly manifested. This great truth about God comes out in a very striking and impressive way at the Baptism of our Lord Jesus. Let me read you Mark’s account, Mark I; 9-11: “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John in the Jordan. And straight- 92 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE way coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon him: and a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased/^ Here we are distinctly told that the voice of God speaking to His beloved Son came ‘‘out of the heavens/' In the marvelous prayer which our Lord taught us He tells us to address God as “Our Father who art in heaven" (more literally “in the heavens’’) (Matt. 6:9). It is clear then that though God is everywhere He must be “in the heavens” in a sense that He is not here. God the Father is especially manifested in heaven at the present time; God the Son, during the days of our Lord’s life and ministry here on earth, was es¬ pecially manifested on earth (though He Himself tells us in Jno. 3:13 that even while on earth He was in heaven. His words are: “And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven .”); God the Son is now in heaven, having ascended there from Mt. Olivet forty days after His resurrection from the dead (see Acts 1:3-11; Cf. Acts 7:56; Eph. i: 20, and many other passages); God the Holy Spirit is manifested everywhere: (i) In nature (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30); (2) In all believers (Jno. 14:16, 17; Rom. 8:9); (3) With unbelievers (Jno. 16:7-11). Through the Spirit, the Father and the Son dwell to-day in the believer in Jesus Christ (Jno. 14: 17, 19, 20, 23), dwell personally in him, and our Lord Jesus is with us (if we go out to do His work) until the GOD IS EVERYWHERE 93 end of this present dispensation. He says in Matt. 28: 18-20, “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make dis¬ ciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I com¬ manded you: and lo, / am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age” But God the Father is peculiarly and personally present “in Heaven” to¬ day in a sense that He is not with us here. God the Son in a glorified human form is at present in heaven, waiting until that glad day when He shall come back to this earth to receive us and take us up with Him into glory. I meet God face to face now. Though I do not see Him, yet I have real, intimate, personal communion with Him now ; but when my earthly pilgrimage and warfare are over, I shall meet Him and see Him in heaven in a sense and in a fullness that I do not meet Him and see Him now. And then, in that wonderful day, as David put it so many centuries ago, “I shall be satisfied when I awake, with beholding Thy form (Ps. 17: 15). CHAPTER V GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM, HE ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS IS, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE, AND HE IS ALWAYS THE SAME Our general subject is. The God of the Bible; the God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of “Theosophy” and the god of “Christian Sci¬ ence” and the god of “Spiritualism” and the god of “New Thought” and the God of “Unitarianism” and the God of “the New Theology” and the god of “Modern Philosophy,” and the god of “Modernism” in general. In our earlier studies of this general subject. The God of the Bible, we have already seen: first, that The God of the Bible is a Personal God; second, that The God of the Bible is essentially Spirit, invisible, and incorporeal, but that He has manifested Himself to men in a visible form, and that He has a form now in which He manifests Himself in the celestial world; third, that according to the teaching of the Bible there is but one God, but that in this one God there are Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit; and fourth, we have seen that God is everywhere, but that He manifests Himself in the fullness of His Presence and glory in Heaven in a way that He does not mani¬ fest Himself here on earth. The special subject of this chapter is. The God 94 GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 95 of the Bible: God is the Eternal I Am. He Always was, Always is and Always Shall be. And he is Always the Same. I have five texts. You will find the first text in Ex. 3 : 13-15 : “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them. The God of your fathers has sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name ? what shall I say unto them ? And God said unto Moses, I am That I Am: and He said. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this (i. e., Jehovah) is my name forever, and this (i. e., the name Jehovah) is my memorial unto all generations.’’ You will find the second text in Gen. 21:33: “And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and called there on the name of Jehovah, the Everlasting God.” You will find the third text in Isa. 40:28: “Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard ? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understand¬ ing.” You will find the fourth text in Ps. 90: 1-4: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were 96 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are hut as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.’’ And the fifth text you will find in Ps. 102:24-27: 'T said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are through¬ out all generations. Of old didst thou lay „ the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years have no end.” All these passages of Scripture are from the Old Testament and two of the five are from the first two books of the Bible. These passages were written about thirty-three hundred and seventy years ago, and one of the utterances here recorded was made by Abraham something like three thousand and eight hundred years ago. Yet these passages present to us a conception of God of the profoundest philosophical wisdom and of the loftiest conceivable sublimity, unequaled by any¬ thing even in this day of advanced thinking, except in so far as men have derived their thoughts of God from the Bible. How did Isaiah, and David, and Moses, and Abraham, living in such a far away past, many centuries before even the earliest ethnic philoso¬ phers had worked out their vague and indefinite and GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 97 now entirely antiquated conceptions of God, attain to such a lofty view of God? There is but one rational answer to such a question: namely, God Himself su- pernaturally revealed Himself to them and declared to them these great truths about Himself; and the Bible is, even in its most ancient parts, beyond an hon¬ est question a supernatural Book, a Supernatural Rev¬ elation, and the Unique and Inerrant Inspiration of the Bible is a scientifically proven fact. Modern religious liberalists and “Biblical critics” have made long, la¬ borious, scholarly, subtle, and determined efforts to prove the contrary, and to make us believe that a Supernatural Revelation and Inerrant Inspiration were impossibilities, but the actual facts in the case, which we all have here right before our eyes to-day, demon¬ strate the utter silliness of their so-called “science,” they are sciolists and not scientists. I. God Is the Eternal I Am The first thing that these sublime utterances of Isaiah, David, Moses, and Abraham make clear is that, God is the Eternal I Am. With Him there is neither past nor future, it is all one Eternal Present. He never began to be and He will never cease to be. GOD AL¬ WAYS IS. Our present day scientists are telling us of the vast antiquity of the globe on which we live, which we call the Earth. They once talked of the many thousands of years that it had been in existence; but now they talk of the many millions and hundreds of millions of years of its existence. That is very largely guesswork, and guesswork of the most baseless 98 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE character; but they have so constantly iterated and re¬ iterated their guesses that they have now with them all the force of scientifically proven certainty. With the average so-called '‘scientist” of the present day, the constant repetition of a hypothesis or of a wild guess, or even of a lie has all the force of scientific demon¬ stration. Ask him how he knows the Evolutionary Hypothesis, even in its most sweeping and daring and utterly unsubstantiated forms, to be true, and he re¬ plies, “Why, all scientists are agreed about it.” Yes, but why are they agreed about it? Upon what scien¬ tifically ascertained facts and unescapable logical in¬ ferences from those facts do they base their opinion? And again all you get is the reply that “they are all agreed about it.” This form of argument has no weight whatever with any man who is familiar with the history of scientific and philosophical opinions and who therefore knows that over and over again through the many centuries of human thinking all the philoso¬ phers and “all the scientists” have been perfectly agreed upon what we all now know to be error. If any one is well informed and is also candid, he will not accept any theory simply on the ground of a statement that “all scientists are agreed about it.” When you ask this class of “scientists” how they know that there was not only a cave man or cave men, as of course we all know there have been and still are, but how they know that the whole present human race are descendants of primitive cave men again they reply, “All scientists are agreed about it.” But why are they agreed about it? Is there any scientific or his¬ torical proof that the races living upon earth to-day GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 99 are descended from a primitive cave man, a man part beast and part man ? They reply again, “All scientists are agreed about it.” Yes, but why are they agreed about it? Every particle of real evidence about the men of thousands of years ago is that they were men of a high type intellectually and that they had wrought out a fine and well developed civilization. But sup¬ posing the scientists are right in this matter of the vast antiquity of the earth, suppose that this earth is millions of years old, and there is nothing in the first chapter of Genesis, properly understood, and liter¬ ally interpreted, to prove that it is not; for the careful and thorough student of the first chapter of Genesis knows that there is a great gap of no one knows how many centuries or chiliads between Gen. i: i and Gen. 1: 3, I say, even if these suppositions that this earth . is hundreds of millions or billions of years old, are true, even in that case, when this earth began to exist these hundreds of millions or billions of years ago, when the stars and sun and moon began to be, God Already WAS. In the very first verse in the Bible He is seen, ‘'in the beginning,” as already existing, and as “creating the heavens and the earth.” Go back, back, back, back, endlessly and eternally back, and God always is, and speaking to Moses out in the desert over thirty-four hundred years ago, when Moses asked who He was, Jehovah replied, “/ Am that I Am, and my name is I AM, I Am the Eternal I Am.” There is an eternity back of us as well as an eternity ahead of us and the God of the Bible is as Isaiah says in one place, Isa. 57: 15, “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.” Eternity has no end at either lOO THE GOD OF THE BIBLE end, ahead of us or hack of us, and God is through it all, God has no beginning and no ending. Of course it is impossible for the finite mind to conceive of eternity, especially of an eternity back of us. When we try to think of an eternity back of us the question inevitably arises with every really thought¬ ful person, if there is an endless eternity back of us how then did we ever get to the present moment? And, of course, we cannot answer it. But the thought that there is not an eternity back of us is equally in¬ conceivable by the finite mind; for if you say that there is not an eternity back of us, the question inev¬ itably arises, If there is not an eternity back of us, go back to the starting point, however many millions or billions of years back of us that may be, what was before that? And again no answer is possible, and you are landed in an equally unfathomable and im¬ penetrable fog of impossibility and inconceivability. There is an eternity back of us, there must be; and the utterly inconceivable is at the same time the cer¬ tainly true. And God throughout all the eternity back of us is the Eternal I Am, and He is the Eternal I Am to-day, and in the Eternity still ahead of us He will always be the Eternal I Am. As the Psalmist puts it (and, by the way, in this instance Moses himself is the Psalmist), ‘‘Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.’’ We saw a while ago how the New Testament critics and Modernists and New Theology men are trying to discredit Paul, and thereby are in reality discrediting themselves. The Old Testament critics have turned their heaviest artillery upon Moses, to discredit him GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM lOI even if they cannot discredit any one else. We see from these passages which I have read you, how by so doing they also are discrediting themselves. The God of Moses, who wrote about 1450 B.C., was a far greater and far more wonderful Being than the God of Professor Gerald Birney Smith, ^'Professor of Christian Theology” of the University of Chicago in 1922 A.D., or than the god of any of the “Modernist” “Professors of Theology.” The very name “Jehovah,” the distinctive name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Old Testament and the God of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as well, also sets forth this great truth of the eternity of God. This name is derived from the frequently used Hebrew verb meaning “to be” (in the first person, present, indicative, I am), and sets forth the thought that God is Eternal and Immutable, The Eternally Existing One, One “who will never he other than He is” This significance of the Name Jehovah comes out clearly in two of the texts that I announced in opening, Gen. 21:33; Isa. 40:28; as you will see if you will study these texts carefully, which we will not now take time to do. No words of human comment can add anything to the sublimity of this Divinely given Bible conception of God. The wonderful truth of the Eternity of God, that God is the Eternal / Am, is not one so much to be commented upon as to be meditated upon by each one of us in “the secret place” alone, until our souls are filled with wonder and awe and adoration and worship and unhesitating and absolute faith. In view of this great truth about God we see new significance 102 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE in the words of our Lord Jesus uttered in His prayer the night before His crucifixion, “And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and Him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ’' (Jno. 17:3). And in John’s words in his First Epistle, written undoubtedly not only by inspiration but also with the words of our Lord in his mind, “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little children, guard yourselves from idols” (I Jno. 5:20, 21). In the Bible revelation of God we find this attribute of Eternity ascribed not only to the Father but also to the Son, Jesus Christ, as well. In Phil. 2:6 and the following verses we are told that the Divine Per¬ son Who emptied Himself of His Divine form and Divine glory and took upon Him “the form of a servant” and “was made in the likeness of men” and thus became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Naza¬ reth, and then became “obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross,” before thus becoming incarnate, ''existed in the form of God.” The Greek participle translated “being” in the Authorized Version and “ex¬ isting” in the Revised Version is a peculiar and deeply significant word, and seems to indicate “to exist origi¬ nally” (see margin R. V.), and in any case the verse points to the eternal pre-existence of our Lord Jesus Christ. The same thought is found in John 1:1, 14, where we are told that the Eternal Word Who became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth already GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 103 ^‘in the beginning.’^ The exact words are: “In the beginning was the Word,” i. e., in the very begin¬ ning of all created things He already was. We find the same thought again in Heb. i : 6-12, where in speaking of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the writer says: “And when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith. Who maketh his angels winds, And his ministers a flame of fire: but of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteous¬ ness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of glad¬ ness above thy fellows. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands: They shall perish; but thou continuest: and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a mantle shalt thou roll them up, as a garment, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.” The Eternity of the third person of the Divine Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is also taught in the Bible, e. g., in Heb. 9: 14 He is spoken of as “The Eternal Spirit.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are die One Jehovah, the Eternal I Am. They existed from all eternity and will exist to all eternity. In this wondrous truth of the Eternity of the Triune God of the Bible, we get the answer to the question 104 the god of the BIBLE that a very shallow and very silly class of agnostics and atheists ask you when you urge that the marks of intelligent design everywhere in the whole universe from the largest star to the minutest animalculse prove the existence of an intelligent designer and creator of the material universe. Then they ask “Who made God ?” The great truth we are now studying answers the question, He was never made, He never began to be. He always Was, He always Is and He always Shall be. II, God Always the Same, But the Bible teaches us not only that God is the Eternal I Am, that He always Is, is from all Eternity and to all Eternity; but the Bible also teaches that, He is always the same. In James i: 17 we read: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can he no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” The figure used in this verse is taken from the variations, the changing phases of the moon and some of the other heavenly bodies, and the thought is that there are no variations with God as there are with the moon, but that He is ever and always the same. In the Old Testament also we find the same great truth. In Mai. 3 : 6 Jehovah declares: “I, Jehovah, change not.” God never changes in His character or His purposes. He is always ever just the same from all Eternity and to all Eternity. The extreme Evolutionists tell us that GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 105 there is a constant evolution or change going on in all forms of Being. It is not true. In the one and only Being who has existed from all Eternity there has not been one particle of change from all Eternity back of us and will be none to all Eternity ahead of us. “If this is true, how is it then,” some one may ask, “that we are told in Jonah 3:10: “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and did it not?” The answer to this seemingly puzzling question is very simple. It is just because God did not change, just because He remained absolutely the same in His character, infi¬ nitely hating sin and in His purpose to visit sin with judgment, that when Nineveh changed in its attitude toward sin, God necessarily, just because He did not change in His character changed in His attitude toward Nineveh and in His dealing with Nineveh. If God always remains the same, if His attitude toward sin and righteousness is unchanging, then must His deal¬ ings with men change as they turn from sin to re¬ pentance. His character remains forever the same and His purpose as to how to deal with sin remains ever the same, but for that very reason His dealings with men change as they change from a position that is hateful to His unchangeable hatred of sin to one that is pleasing to His unchangeable love of righteousness. But the objector will still ask, “If it is true that God is always the same, how then is it that we are told in Gen. 6:6, 7: “And it repented Jehovah that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And Jehovah said, I will destroy man io6 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE whom I have created?” This question may seem a little more puzzling than the former one, but the an¬ swer to this is also simple. It is this: Man’s wicked¬ ness had become so great on this earth and so abhorrent to God that his very creation (which God Himself had brought to pass) was the object of great grief to God. This was not because God had changed but because He remained the same that He always had been in His infinite hatred of sin. This does not necessarily imply that God wished, all things considered, that He had not created man. It only means just exactly what it says, ^‘that because of man’s great and ever-increasing sin it ‘grieved God’ that He had made man on the earth.” Many things that you and I do are a grief to us, and yet, everything considered, we do not wish that we had not done them. By God’s repenting that He had made man is meant as the context (v. 7) clearly shows, that He turned from his creative deal¬ ings with man to His destroying dealings, just as the Bible puts it, “And Jehovah said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground.” This destruction of man whom He had created was necessitated by man’s sin, the unchangeably Holy God must destroy man who has become so sunken in sin. In this ever-changing world, a world that has changed more rapidly in its business, its politics, its international relations, and in its civilization and domi¬ nant ideas, in its science and philosophy, in its ethics and in its religion during the last eight years than in any other period of its history, and amid the startling and sometimes appalling changes that are taking place in men and women, sometimes in the men and women GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 107 we most intimately know and most dearly love, what a comfort and what a joy it is to know that there is one Being who never changes one particle, that He is always the same, ‘hhe same yesterday and to¬ day, yea, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). When your head is bewildered and your heart is sick amid the rapid changes that are taking place to-day in institu¬ tions, and in things, and in men, and even in preachers and other religious leaders, just look up to God and behold Him and rejoice in Him as the One who is always absolutely the same, the same in His infinite wisdom, the same in His infinite righteousness, the same in His infinite Holiness, the same in His infinite power, and the same in His infinite love. There is scarcely another thought in the whole range of glorious Bible truth more comforting than that. Oh, I not only worship and adore but rejoice in and rest in this God of the Bible, the Unchangeable God, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. III. God Is Self-existent. There is one more thought that we must consider in connection with the Eternity and Immutability of God, the God of the Bible, “the only true God”; that is, that God has not only always existed and is always the same, but also, God is self-existent. God not only exists from all eternity but He exists from Himself. This tremendous thought is found in our Lord’s own words in Jno. 5: 26 where He says: “The Father has life in Himself.'' Not life derived from any one else or from anything io8 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE else but ''life in Himself” He is self-existent. Then our Lord added regarding Himself, the second person of the Divine Trinity, that the Father had given to Him, "the Son also to have life in Himself,” The same great thought is found also in that most pro¬ foundly philosophical discourse that was ever delivered on this earth, Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus in Athens, to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, re¬ corded in Acts 17: 24-28: “The God that made the world and all things therein. He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our be- • >> mg. In this thought also, the thought that God is eter¬ nally self-existent, we have the answer to the very silly atheistic question mentioned a few minutes ago, “Who made God?” The self-evident answer is, “He was not made; He is eternally self-existent.” Such is the God of the Bible, the only God whom the true Christian worships, the God whom to know is Eternal Life (Jno. 17:3), “the only true God.” Well might John, who himself records so many of GOD IS THE ETERNAL I AM 109 these utterances of Jesus Christ, and who also wrote so many of these profound statements about God, well might he say in I Jno. 5 :20, 21: “We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an under¬ standing, that we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little chil¬ dren, guard yourselves from idols’" (that is, from any god but this God). Just one thought in closing: Since God always was and always will be, and since He is always the same. Who is so worthy of our unwavering confidence and of our absolute surrender to Himself as He? And what is so worthy of our unhesitating confidence as 'His Word? The history of human science and human philosophy since the dawn of man’s thinking and rea¬ soning has been a history of constant change. What all philosophers and scientists regard to-day as forever settled is entirely unsettled to-morrow. What all sci¬ entists accept in one century as, e. g., the Ptolemaic System (or, theory of the universe) is rejected by all scientists of another century. The well established science of to-day is the butt of ridicule of all thinking men of to-morrow. But God’s thought never changes, it is always the same, and it is always true. What fools we are then to give up the unchanging and eter¬ nally true Word of the Self-existent, Eternal and eter¬ nally Unchanging God for the ever-changing scientific and philosophical theories of constantly changing man. CHAPTER VI GOD IS OMNIPOTENT. GOD CAN DO ALL THINGS, THERE IS NOTHING TOO HARD FOR HIM Our general subject is The God of the Bible: The God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of “Theosophy” and the god of “Christian Science” and the god of “Spiritualism” and the god of “New Thought” and the God of “Unitarianism” and the God of “The New Theology” and the god of “Modern Philosophy” and the god of “Modernism” in general. In our previous studies of this general subject, The God of the Bible, we have already seen: First, that the God of the Bible is a Personal God; Second, that the God of the Bible is Essentially Spirit, Invisible and In¬ corporeal, but that He has Manifested Himself to Men in a Physical Form, and that He Has a Form Now in which He Manifests Himself in the Celestial World; Third: that according to the teaching of the Bible there is but One God, but that in This One God there are Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit; Fourth, we have seen that God is Everywhere, but that He Manifests Himself in the Fullness of His Presence and Glory in Heaven, in a way that He does not manifest Himself here on earth; and Fifth, we have seen that God is the Eternal I Am, that He always Was, that He always is, '' no GOD IS OMNIPOTENT III and that He always Shall Be, and that He is always the same, and that He is Self-existent. The special subject of this chapter is. The God of the Bible: God is Omnipotent, God Can Do All Things, there is Nothing Too Hard For Him. I have six texts. You will find the first text in Job 42:2: ‘1 know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be restrained.” You will find the second text in Gen. 18: 14: ‘Ts anything too hard for Jehovah?” You will find the third text in Gen. 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” You will find the fourth text in Jer. 32: 17, 26, 27: “Ah Lord Jehovah! behold thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm, there is noth¬ ing too hard for thee. . . . (26, 27.) Then came the word of Jehovah unto Jeremiah, say¬ ing, Behold, I am Jehovah, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?” You will find the fifth text in Gen. 1:3: “And God said. Let there be light: and there was light.” And you will find the sixth text in Matt. 19:26: “And Jesus looking upon them said to them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. You will note that five of these six texts are from the Old Testament, and that three of them are from the first book in the Bible, and that one is from the book of Job which is regarded by many scholars as one of II2 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE the oldest books of the Bible and by some as the very oldest book. One of these texts is the very first verse in the Bible, and one of the most remarkable and significant of the texts is the third verse in the Bible. Some of these passages, so lofty both in their thought and in their expression of the thought, were written about thirty-three hundred and seventy years ago, and there is every reason for supposing that Moses derived his account of Creation from much earlier sources. So I ask again the question which I asked in our last study of The God of the Bible, How did Jeremiah and Job and Moses living in such a far away past, many centuries before even the earliest heathen philosophers had worked out their vague and indefi¬ nite and inadequate and now entirely antiquated con¬ ceptions of God, attain to such a lofty view of God? And in reply I declare again that there is but one an¬ swer to such a question that has in it even the remot¬ est approach to reasonableness and that is, that God supernaturally revealed Himself to those men and declared to them these lofty truths about Himself, and that this Bible is, even in its earliest and most ancient parts, beyond a question, a supernatural book, a super¬ natural revelation, and the unique and inerrant inspira¬ tion of the Bible in all its parts is a scientifically proven fact. The doctrine that the Bible presents to us a Revela¬ tion given directly by God to men whom He had Him¬ self chosen for that purpose, and who spoke and wrote as they were ‘‘inspired,” and “borne along” in their utterances “by the Holy Spirit” (II Tim. 3: 16; H Pet. 1:21) is scientifically demonstrated, it is an unescapa- GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 113 ble conclusion from facts that lie right before our own eyes to-day. The doctrine of the Divine Inspira¬ tion of the Bible is demanded and necessitated by the inexorable logic of facts, and not merely from facts of a long, long ago but present-day facts that we can see for ourselves with our own eyes. Among the many fantastic theories of the Higher Criticism is the much cherished one that the account of Creation in the Bible was derived from the early Accadian traditions. But the Accadian accounts con¬ tain no lofty teachings about God such as we find in the Bible. On the contrary they are replete with the most childish and now utterly discarded fancies about the birth of the gods of their puerile mythology. The Bible representations of God stand not only apart from all the literature or fragments of literature of that day, but from the literature of all days, even from the liter¬ ature of our own day, this day supposedly of such un¬ exampled enlightenment, except in so far as the litera¬ ture of to-day has borrowed its views of God from this old, old Book. /. God Is Omnipotent: He Can Do Anything The first thing that these lofty and matchless and evidently Divinely Inspired utterances of Jeremiah and Moses and Job and our Lord Jesus Himself make clear is, that, there is no limit whatever to the power of the God of the Bible, there is nothing He cannot do. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, too hard for Him. What a heartening and gladdening and overwhelm- THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 114 ingly thrilling, as well as awe-inspiring, thought it is that there is One Being in this universe whose power has no limits, who can do absolutely anything He wills to do, and do it by His mere will and word, and do it in the instant He wills it, and not by a slow, age-re¬ quiring process of evolution. All the comfort and all the joy and all the soul-stirring inspiration there is in that thought can only be felt when we put it in con¬ junction with the thought of the moral character of the Being who possesses this power, His Righteous¬ ness, and His Holiness, and His Love, and His Loving¬ kindness (all of which we are to study later as they are set forth in this wonderful Book of God), and also in conjunction with the thought of the relation of thi3 Omnipotent God to us, namely, that He is our Father, the Father of every one who truly believes in His Son Jesus Christ. But let us go somewhat into particulars, as the Bible itself does, in the setting forth of this truth, both so wonderful and so glorious, of the Omnipotence of God. I. In the first place, All nature, not the whole earth only, but all those innumerable stars, perhaps five hun¬ dred million of them according to the latest opinion of the best astronomers, and each one of them of such vast magnitude that our minds cannot take it in, and in comparison with which our whole earth is but a mere speck, all these inconceivably vast worlds are sub¬ ject to the voill and Word of God. Listen to what David says in Ps. 33 : 6-9: “By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made; GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 115 And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear Jehovah: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spake, and it was done; He commonded, and it stood fast/^ Listen to what Jehovah (The Everlasting God, the Eternal I Am) said through Nahum, one of the older Prophets, antedating Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Nah. 1:3-6: “Jehovah is slow to anger, and great in power. And will by no means clear the wicked: Jehovah hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm. And the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry. And drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, And the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt; And the earth is upheaved at His presence, Yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His indignation? Who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire. And the rocks are broken asunder by Him.” I ii6 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Merely as literature, what can match in vividness and force and splendor and sublimity of expression these utterances of this man of long, long ago, whom “God’^ “inspired,^’ and whose ^'writings’' Paul de¬ clares were “God-breathed”; and we can see for our¬ selves to-day that this statement of Paul’s must be true. But I have reserved one brief statement that arises to loftier heights than these all, and it is found in the first book in the Bible, and in the first chapter of that book, and in the first three verses of that chapter: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: And the Spirit of God moved upon (was brooding over) the face of the waters. And God said. Let there be light: and there was light.” Notice especially the closing words, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” That is one of the most remarkable sentences that was ever writ¬ ten, remarkable in its sublimity, and remarkable also in its beauty, brevity and simplicity. The Hebrew literally translated is even more remarkable. Let me give you an exactly literal translation, “And God said, Light he; and Light was.” Yet our sons and daugh¬ ters are being taught in our colleges and even our lit¬ tle boys and girls in our public schools, and sometimes even in some of our Sunday schools, that the first chapter of Genesis is only “Folk Lore.” Let me say in the light of the facts, that to say that the first chapter of Genesis is “Folk Lore” is “Fool Talk,” no matter how learned and scientific the gentlemen may claim to GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 117 be who indulge in this kind of thoroughly puerile non¬ sense. Gen. 1: 1-3, written so many centuries before modern science and philosophy were dreamed of, bears on its face the unmistakable marks of Divine Inspira¬ tion. The very first verses of the Bible bear the un¬ mistakable stamp and seal of their Divine Origin. 2. In the second place, Not only is all nature sub¬ ject to God’s will and Word but all men are also sub¬ ject to the will and Word of God. Listen to James 4: 13-15 •• '‘Come now, ye that say. To-day or to-mor¬ row we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will we shall both live, and do this or that.” What God wills man must do. There is no thwart¬ ing the purpose of God, and there is no subverting of His Word. What God promises and what God threatens are both as absolutely sure to be done as if it were already accomplished. We form our plans and marshal our resources, and sometimes they seem very great; indeed they seem invincible and irresistible, but, if God plans otherwise, all our wisest schemes and all our most determined and most potent efforts come to nothing. We say ‘7 will do this or that,” and it seems as if nothing could prevent us, but how often man’s impotent ‘7 wilF' is met by God’s Omnipotent ‘7 won't.” This is what we would more wisely say, ‘ 7 / the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that,” (Jas. ii8 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 4: 15). But, if the Lord won’t, we shall not do this or that, no matter how irresistible the forces that are at our command may seem. We have it constantly dinned into our ears in this day of man’s magnificent self-confidence, “the will is omnipotent.” Yes, “the will is omnipotent”; but zvhose will? God’s will, Je¬ hovah’s will—and His alone. All nature and all men must do His will. Happy is the man who voluntarily and gladly sub¬ jects himself to God’s will and Word. We would far better do it from choice; for in the ultimate outcome we will have to do it anyhow. And there is all the difference betwe^ heaven and hell in doing the will of God voluntarily or doing it by compulsion. Do it we must, Napoleon was the ablest general of his day, and probably of all time, at the same time he was the most adroit politician the world has ever seen, and he was also a man of the most unconquerable will. He willed to have the whole world at his feet; and it seemed as if it would be, and as if nothing could prevent. But God willed otherwise. God spoke, and the soft and gentle snow flakes fell, and they fell, and they fell, and they kept on falling: and Napoleon Bonaparte' fell also. Kaiser Wilhelm also determined to rule the world with “Deutschland fiber alles.” And years went into preparation, marvelously ingenious preparation of the best trained army the world ever knew, the best guns, the mightiest navy, unconquerable and almost innu¬ merable submarines, wonderful fortresses, mighty Zep- GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 119 pelins that filled London with terror and came within one of laying it in ruins, destructive gases the world had never dreamed of, and much besides. Germany must conquer. But Kaiser Wilhelm’s "7 will” was met by the Lord God Almighty’s W won^t” And the army is scattered, and the navy and submarines scrapped, the Zeppelins in ashes, the gases evaporated and Heligoland dynamited, dismantled, a pile of ex¬ pensive rubbish. The whole human race and every member of it, from emperor to blind beggar or outcast leper, is sub¬ ject to the will and Word of God. The time is fast coming when all who have sought to withstand His will, “the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chiliarchs, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman” shall hide “themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains; and they (shall) say to the mountains and to the rocks. Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of their wrath is come; and who is able to stand?” (Rev. 6:15-17). Yes, the time is fast coming when not only shall the will of God be resist¬ less (as it is to-day), but when all the world shall know it and when all shall hear “as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying. Hallelu¬ jah: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth” (Rev. 19: 6). I am not greatly troubled about the Bolshevik machinations in Russia and throughout the world, or 120 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE by the plots of Germany and her conspiracy with Rus¬ sia, even if “together they do form two-thirds of the population of Europe,” nor about the miscarriage of well meant plans at Versailles or Genoa, or Lausanne. In spite of all this and all else, I know that God is Omnipotent, and that He reigns, and that His king¬ dom will come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that in due time, “the kingdoms of this world (shall) become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. ii: 15). Any one who really and intelligently believes in the God of the Bible is bound to be an optimist. I am sometimes asked, “How can you be such a constant optimist under present conditions?” I will tell you, it is because I believe in God, in the God of the Bible, an Omnipotent God who can do anything, and for whom nothing is too hard. Oh, it is a great thing to really believe in the God of the Bible, an Omnipotent God, a God for Whom absolutely nothing is too hard, Who can do anything. I would rather believe in such a God and not have a penny in my pocket at the pres¬ ent moment, than not to believe in Him and have a bil¬ lion dollars in the bank awaiting my call. Oh, you men who have your thousands and your millions of money, keep them! Give me God. 3. In the third place. All the angels are subject to the will and Word of God, In Heb. i: 13, 14, we read: “But of which of the angels saith He at any time. Sit thou on my right hand, GOD IS OMNIPOTENT I2I Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall in¬ herit salvation?” We constantly think of men, the intelligent beings who in a bodily and visible form inhabit this globe, as being the only intelligences in the universe. How ab¬ surd! absurd not only from the standpoint of Bible teaching but also from the standpoint of an open-eyed science and of common sense. This vast world tO' whose stupendous magnitude science is beginning to open our eyes, and to think that we are the only in¬ telligences in it! Ridiculous! No! there are countless angelic hosts with ranks and super-ranks among them, “angels” and “principalities” and “powers” and “world rulers” and “spiritual hosts” and “authorities” and “dominions” (Eph. 6:12; R. V. 1:21), with wisdom and power far transcending that of men. Why, the Angel of Jehovah passed through a camp of the ene¬ mies of God’s children, and when men awoke in the morning there were one hundred and eighty-five thou¬ sand who did not awake; they were corpses (II Kings 19:35). And all these vast, innumerable, potent an¬ gelic hosts are at God’s command; they are one and all subject to His will and His Word. Therefore, I can¬ not see why I should not sing in the midst of any seeming perils, when confronted and surrounded by countless foes, as David sang of old: “Jehovah is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the strength of my life; THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Of whom shall I he afraid? When evil doers came upon me to eat up my flesh, Even mine adversaries and my foes, They stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me. My heart shall not fear; Though war should rise against me, Even then will I be confident” (Ps. 27: 1-3). In the fourth place. The Devil is absolutely sub¬ ject to the will and Word of our Omnipotent God. This comes out very plainly in the first and second chapters of the book of Job. Read these two chapters through entirely. We are told how Satan maligned Job before God and asked the privilege of touching his property, saying if God would permit him to take Job’s property away, Job would renounce Jehovah to His face. But Jehovah did not permit Satan to touch Job’s body. So we see that Satan could do only what Jehovah permitted him to do. He could not go one step further than God said “You may.” In the second chapter Satan appears again and maligns Job and tells Jehovah that if He will permit him to touch his “bone and his flesh” that Job will renounce Jehovah to His face. This time Satan is permitted to touch Job’s body, but is compelled to “spare his life.” Again we see that Satan even with all his power could go no further, not one inch further, than Jehovah permitted him to go. So we see that Satan himself is subject to the will and Word of God, and can only do what God for His own wise purposes permits. As great as the Devil is in cunning and in power, one who is in fel- 122 \ 4 - GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 123 lowship with the Omnipotent God has no need to fear him. To sum it all up: All nature is absolutely subject to God’s will and Word; all men are absolutely sub¬ ject to God’s will and Word; all the angels, fallen and unfallen, are subject to God’s will and Word; and Satan himself is absolutely subject to the will and Word of God. God is Omnipotent. He can do any¬ thing, and do all things. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, too hard for him. There are countless blessed and glorious applications of and inferences from this great truth, but we have not time now to con¬ sider them. You must each of you make these applica¬ tions and inferences for yourselves; but it will take you your whole lifetime to discover them all, and you will rejoice in them throughout all eternity. The Bible ascribes the same Omnipotence that it predicates of the Father to the Son of God also. In many passages in the Gospels we see how the Son of God had power over disease, how disease in all its forms was subject to His mere Word (e. g., Luke 4:39). In still other passages we see Death subject to His Word (e. g., Luke 7: 14, 15; 8:54, 55; Jno. 5:25). Again we see how He had power over the elements, over the wind and sea, how they were subject to His Word (Matt. 8: 26, 27). He had power over the demons also, they trembled at His presence and were subject to His Word. We read in Matt. 8:16: “And when even was come, they brought unto Him many possessed with demons: and He cast out the spirits zvith a word, and healed all that were sick.” 124 the god of the BIBLE We read in Luke 4:35, 36: ^^And Jesus rebuked him (that is rebuked the unclean demon in the man), saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no hurt.’^ And in the forty-first verse we read: ‘‘And the demons also came out from many, crying out, and saying. Thou art the Son of God. And rebuking them. He suffered them not to speak.’^ In Eph. 1:20-23, we are told that all the heavenly hierarchies of angels are under Him and subject to His Word. Here is the Bible statement: “He raised him (that is, Jesus Christ) from the dead, and made him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come: and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church.’’ And our Lord Jesus Himself said in Matt. 28: 18: “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.” And in Heb. i: 3 we are told that the Son of God ^^upholds all things by the word of His power.” The Bible also tells us that Omnipotence belongs to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. In announcing to the Virgin the coming Birth of her Son, the God-sent messenger said in Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 1^5 the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is be¬ gotten of thee shall be called the Son of God.” In this verse, “the power of the Most High/' that is, Omnipotence, is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. And in the opening verses of the Bible we read regarding the Holy Spirit: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said. Light me: And light was (Gen. i: 1-3). Oh, Wondrous Triune God of the Bible, Omnipo¬ tent Father, Omnipotent Son our Saviour, Omnipotent Holy Spirit our Sanctifier and Empowerer! What a marvelous God the God of the Bible is compared with the little godlettes of “Theosophy” and “Christian Science” and “New Thought” and “Spiritualism” and “The New Theology” and “Modern Philosophy” and all of the learned Modern Stupidity that passes muster with so many as philosophical profundity. Much that is called philosophy is merely “striving after wind” (Ecc. 2: 17) and a “feeding on wind.” //. The Exercise of God's Omnipotence Is Limited by His Own Wise and Holy and Loving Will. Before we leave this exhaustless subject of the Omnipotence of God, one more thing should be said and that is: The exercise of God's Omnipotence is limited by His own Wise and Holy and Loving Will. 126 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE God can do anything but will do only that which In¬ finite wisdom and holiness and love dictate. This comes out in many places in the Bible, e. g., in Isa. 59- L 2 : “Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that he cannot hear: But your iniquities have sepa¬ rated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, so that He will not hear.” The question is often asked, and it is a very natural question, “If God is Omnipotent why does he not de¬ stroy the Devil and bring his awful work to an end.” If we could not answer the question, we could rest perfectly at peace in the thought that an Infinitely Wise God could easily have a thousand perfectly good reasons for doing or not doing a thing, when we in our finite foolishness could not see even one. But in this case the answer to the question is simple and easy. God does not destroy the Devil as yet or put him out of business as yet, because by his very malevolence he is working out part of God’s benevolent purposes. God has purposes of love yet to be wrought out in a measure by the Devil’s unintentional cooperation. For example, the Devil put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray his Lord; but the Devil by so doing simply fulfilled God’s prophecies of centuries before and confirmed the Divine origin and Inerrancy of the Book of God; and further than that, the Devil by so doing led on to the Atoning Death of the Son of God, that meant salvation and pardon, justification and GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 127 eternal life, Sonship and co-heirship with Jesus Christ for you and me. God is Omnipotent. He rules the universe. He rules heaven and earth. Yes, Hades and Hell also. Not one thing can be done by all the frightful forces of misdirected nature, nor by the most potent men, nor by angels nor by the demons nor by the Devil him¬ self, except by God’s permission. Not one single demon can enter a pig but by the consent of the Son of God (Mk. 5: 1-13). God rules the world and so the ultimate outcome is sure. “The Lord God Omnip¬ otent reigneth” and “the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ: and He shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. ii: 15). CHAPTER VII GOD IS omniscient; he knows everything I will not attempt to summarize in this chapter what we have learned about God in six preceding chapters, but will call attention again to this very important and deeply significant fact that we have discovered, that the Bible even in its earliest books, books written nearly thirty-four hundred years ago, presents a con¬ ception of God that is more profound, more lofty, more awe-inspiring and more heartening and gladden¬ ing than is to be found in all the profoundest philoso¬ phies of the past or even of the present day, except in so far as the philosophies of the present day have formed their conception of God from this old, old Book, the Bible. And we have also discovered that there is not to be found in all of the literature outside of the Bible of all the nations and of all the ages any¬ thing that even approaches the Bible statements in beauty, simplicity, grandeur, splendor and sublimity of expression. And I call your attention again to the only explanation of these unquestionable facts that has even the slightest semblance of reasonableness; and that is, that the Bible even in its earliest portions is a revela¬ tion from God, and that these earliest Bible writers wrote these very words as the Holy Spirit moved them and impelled them and empowered them to write, and 128 GOD IS OMNISCIENT 129 that beyond any honest question these earliest portions of the Holy Scriptures are really, as Paul declared they were, “God-breathed” (II Tim. 3: 16). In our last chapter our particular subject was, “The God of the Bible: God is Omnipotent, He can do all things. There is absolutely nothing too hard for Him.” The special subject of this chapter is, “The God of the Bible: God is Omniscient. Pie knows all things.” I have seven texts. You will find the first text in Job 37: 14-16: “Hearken unto this, O Job: Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. Dost thou know how God layeth His charge upon them. And causeth the lightning of His cloud to shine ? Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds. The wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?'' You will find the second text in Ps. 147:4: “He counteth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names” You will find the third text in Ps. 147: 5: “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite” You will find the fourth text in I Jno. 3:20: “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” You will find the fifth text in Matt. 10: 29, 30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? 130 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father: but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” You will find the sixth text in Acts 15^ 18: *'The Lord maketh these things known from of old.” And you will find the last text in Rom. 11:33: “O the depth of the riches both of the wis¬ dom and the knowledge of God! how unsearch¬ able are his judgments, and his ways past trac¬ ing out.” /. God is Omniscient. Let me ask you to reflect upon, to ponder and to meditate long upon these passages. No mere cursory reading of any verbal statement, no matter how simple, lucid, exact and complete it may be, will enable you to take in all the marvelous wealth of meaning that there is in these brief but wondrous statements of God^s Word. They must be pondered long under the per¬ sonal illumination of the Holy Spirit if we are to see and to feel the glorious truth that there is in them. They, however, clearly teach us that, God ''is perfect IN knowledge” ; that, "His understanding is infinite”; that, God "knows all things.” The Hebrew word translated “perfect” in the first text, Job 37: 16, means, absolutely whole, entire, complete, finished, that to which nothing can be added. The thought is that from all eternity God's knowledge of all things is entire, complete, so that nothing whatever can be ever added to it. He knows everything about everything. He GOD IS OMNISCIENT 131 knows everything in all its height and depth and length and breadth, and in its every detail. There is nothing on earth or in heaven, nothing in those five hundred million inconceivably vast stars, nothing in the mi¬ nutest of the most infinitesimal atoms or electrons of the animalculas and bacteria, that even the most power¬ ful microscope cannot reveal, that God does not al¬ ready fully know in its every detail. How the astronomers have labored in the last twenty- five years and made discoveries that make the astron¬ omy of earlier generations look like child’s play! How the bacteriologists of the last ten years have perfected their apparatus, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dis¬ covered, and discovered, and discovered, until the most advanced bacteriology of only a few years ago looks like kindergarten work! But God knew it all an eternity ago and knows infinitely more than either astronomers or bacteriologists have discovered even up to the present day. Our great God, Jehovah, is ^'perfect in knowledge.” The Hebrew word translated ^‘knowledge” in this passage is in the plural and should be translated ^‘knowledges” and the verse declares not only that God “is perfect in knowledge” but that “He is perfect in knowledges,” that is, in all forms of knowledge. The same plural form is used in the Hebrew Bible in speaking of God in I Sam. 2:3: “Talk no more so exceeding proudly; Let not arrogancy come out of thy mouth; For Jehovah is a God of knozdcdgesJ’ The Hebrew words translated “His understanding is infinite” in Ps. 147: 5 literally translated would read, 132 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ‘To His insight (or “discernment,” or “understand¬ ing”) there is no number,” i. e., God's insight is beyond all the measure and comprehension of finite beings. II. Some of the Details of What God Knows. Now these statements that we have considered thus far regarding the Infinite Knowledge and Omniscience of God are of a more or less general character, and to appreciate and to feel all the inspiration and glory of this great truth we must go somewhat into the de¬ tails (which the Bible itself does). What are some of the details regarding His own Omniscience which God reveals in the Bible? I. First of all then, let us turn in our Bibles to Prov. 15:3: “The eyes of Jehovah are in every place; Keeping watch upon the evil and the good.” Here we are told that God sees everything that occurs in every place and “keeps watch upon the evil and the good.” There is nothing that any one does in any part of the universe, there is not one slightest act, good or evil, that God does not see it and know it and “keep watch upon” it. We all do well to keep that solemn fact in mind day and night, and to re¬ member that we cannot hide one thing we do from God, no matter how tightly we lock our doors against every intruder and how dark we make the room. As the Psalmist puts it in another place, Ps. 139:11, 12: “If I say. Surely the darkness shall cover [or, ‘enshroud’] me, GOD IS OMNISCIENT 133 And the light about me shall be night; Even the darkness hideth Hot from Thee, But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.” 2. Turn now to two passages, one in the Psalms and one in Matthew, an utterance of our Lord Jesus Himself, and put them together. The passage in the Psalms is Ps. 147:4: ‘'He counteth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.” The second passage is Matt. 10:29: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? and not one of them shall fall on the ground with¬ out your Father.” Here we are told that God knows everything in Nature from the remotest stars in their inconceivably stupendous magnitude, down to the most insignificant bird in our gardens, the sparrow, “not one (even) of them shall fall on the ground without your Father.” 3. Now turn to another Psalm and put alongside of it a passage from the Book of Proverbs. The pas¬ sage from the Psalms is Ps. 33: 13-15 : “Jehovah looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men; From the place of His habitation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He that fashioneth the hearts of them all. That considereth all their works.” The passage from Proverbs to compare with this is Prov. 5:21: 134 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE “For the ways of men are before the eyes of Jehovah; And he maketh level all his paths.” Here we are told that God “beholdeth all the sons of men” and “considereth all their works,” and we are further told that “the ways of men are before” His eyes, and that “He pondereth [or maketh level] all his paths [or goings].” 4. Now turn to still another Psalm. Ps. 139:2, 3: “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine up¬ rising; Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down. And art acquainted with all my ways.” Here we are told that God knows all man^s deeds and experiences. Even the minutest and most insig¬ nificant details of our daily life (even our “downsit¬ ting” and our “uprising”) are known to God and are of interest to Him. 5. Read the next verse of the same Psalm, 5:4: “For there is not a word in my tongue. But, lo, O Jehovah, Thou knowest it altor gether.” Here we are told that, God knoweth all man^s words. Not one single word do we ever utter that God does not know it and understand it in all its bearings. You can deceive your fellowmen in your words, but you cannot deceive God. We shall come back again later to this Psalm, but let me call your attention now to what a wonderful revelation of the Omniscience and Infinite Wisdom GOD IS OMNISCIENT 135 of God we have in this old Book of inspired songs, written some of them twenty-nine hundred years ago, and all of them nearly that long ago. Where did these Psalmists learn these wonderful truths so far beyond their time, so far beyond any time (including our own time) except in as far as men have learned from this old Book? There is but one rational answer to that question, namely, God supernaHirally revealed them to them; these Psalms are ^'God-hreathedP 6. Now turn way back to the second book in the Bible to Ex. 3:7: “And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people that are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task¬ masters ; for I know their sorrows/' Here we are told that God knows the sorrows of His people. It oftentimes seems as if God did not know and did not care. It must have seemed so some¬ times to Israel in Egypt. But God did know and God did care; and in due time He proved that He knew and that He cared. And just so to-day, there is not a sorrow that any one of us experiences (no matter how hidden it may be from the eyes of men) but God knows all about it and God cares. I wish we had the time to dwell upon all the comfort and the encourage¬ ment that there is in this thought; but we must pass on. 7. Now turn back again to Ps. 139: i, 2: “O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine up¬ rising ; 136 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Thou understandest my thought afar off/^ Couple with this I Chron. 28:9: “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for Jehovah searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts/^ From these two passages we learn that, God un¬ derstandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts'' and that He '‘understandeth our thoughts afar off." There is not one single thought or imagination in the minds of any one of us that God does not thoroughly un¬ derstand, and He understands our thoughts even be¬ fore we form them ourselves. 8 . Now put together a verse from this same Psalm and an utterance of our Lord in Matt. 10. Read Ps. 139:3: “Thou sear chest out my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways." Now read Matt. 10: 29, 30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? and not one of them shall fall on the ground with¬ out your Father: but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” In these two passages we are brought face to face with the great truth that, God's knowledge of us as individuals extends to the minutest particulars. He is “acquainted with all our ways” and the very “hairs of our head are all numbered.” There is in these declarations of God’s Word much food for reflection, GOD IS OMNISCIENT 137 there is in them both warning and comfort; but we cannot stop to dwell upon it now. 9. There is a remarkable passage regarding God’s knowledge in Isa. 46:9, 10: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done” Here we are told that, God knows from all eternity what shall he to all eternity. The same marvelous truth is indicated in the New Testament in I Pet. i: 20, where we are told regarding Jesus Christ that He “was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake.” 10. But the Bible goes even beyond that in its de¬ tailed statements regarding the Omniscience of God. It tells us over and over again that, God knows from the beginning what each individual man will do. This we see, e. g., in Matt. 20: 17-19: “And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples apart, and in the way He said unto them. Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be de¬ livered unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify: and the third day He shall be raised up.” Here our Lord Jesus declares with minute detail THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 138 exactly what various individuals are going to do in connection with His own sufferings and death. We find the same remarkable thought way back in the Old Testament in Ex. 3: 19, 20: “And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will put forth my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go/^ We see the same thing again in H Kg. 7:1, 2, in a still more remarkable passage as revealing the detailed knowledge of God as to what each individual will do and what each individual will experience in the future. “And Elisha said. Hear ye the word of Je¬ hovah: Thus saith Jehovah, To-morrow about this time shall a measure of fine Hour he sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a cap¬ tain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said. Behold, if Jehovah should make windows in heaven might this thing be? And he said. Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.” Way back in Ps. 41:9 we see the action of Judas Iscariot in the betrayal of his Lord, foreknown by God and definitely predicted a thousand years before it was actually done. Here are the words: “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted. Which did eat of my bread, Hath lifted up his heel against me.” 1 GOD IS OMNISCIENT 139 Paul declares the same fact regarding God’s knowl¬ edge of himself in Gal. 1:15, 16: “But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood.” And the same thing is declared regarding God’s knowledge of each one of the elect in I Pet. 1:2: “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.” One of the theories most fixed and immovable in the minds of the so-called “modern Biblical scholars,” the “modern critical scholars,” the self-styled “histor¬ ical school of Biblical Interpretation” (though its methods are in reality utterly unhistorical and unsci¬ entific), is that there is not a possibility of any such thing as detailed prediction in the Bible. But this theory loses sight utterly of two firmly established facts, each of them not only taught in the Bible but each of them also demonstrated by the indubitable facts in the case: first, that God is Omniscient; and, second, that the Bible in all its parts is a revelation from this Omniscient God. If it were not for the deep-seated prejudice of the natural heart against all things that are truly supernatural, these self-confident “modern Biblical scholars” would be the laughing stock of all fair-minded, really intelligent and clear-seeing men. They are rendered ridiculous by the clearly demon- 140 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE strated facts in the case. But facts have no weight with these dreamers, theories are the only things that interest them; and, if the facts do not tally with the theories, so much the worse for the facts. II. Just once more. The Bible teaches us that. The God of the Bible knows from all eternity the whole plan of the ages and each man's part in that plan. This we are told time and time again. For example, in Eph. 1:9-12 we read: “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been fore¬ ordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.’’ In the third chapter of the same book, Eph. 3:4-11, we read: “Whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow- partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, whereof I was made a min- GOD IS OMNISCIENT 141 ister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the work¬ ing of his power. Unto me whe am less than the least of all saints was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God Who created all things; to the intent that now unto the prin¬ cipalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eter^ nal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord/' We find the same truth again more briefly expressed in Col. 1: 25, 26: “Whereof I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations; but now hath been manifested to his saints/' We see clearly in these passages that. The whole plan of the ages and each man's part in it has been known to God from all eternity. There are no after thoughts with God. He knows and plans everything from the beginning. Well may we exclaim: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!” (Rom. II: 33). 142 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE III, The Same Omniscience Thjat Is Ascribed to the Father Ascribed to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Before we leave this inexhaustible subject of the Omniscience of God as set forth in the Bible, let me call your attention to the fact that, The same Omnis¬ cience that is ascribed to God the Father, is also ascribed to Jesus Christ the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 1. We see this in regard to our Lord Jesus over and over again. We read, e. g., in Jno. 4:16, 19 that, Jesus knew men's lives, even their secret history. We see from Mk. 2 : 8 and Luke 5 : 22 and Jno. 2: 24, 25 that, Jesus knew the secret thoughts of men; that He knew all men; that He knew what was in man. We see from Jno. 6:64 that, Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas would betray Him. Here is what John says, ''Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.” Not only man’s present thoughts but his future choices were all known to Him. Simon Peter specifi¬ cally declared in Jno. 21:17 that Jesus knew ‘‘all things” and the whole company of the disciples de¬ clared in Jno. 16:30: “Now are we sure that thou knowest all things." And Paul declares in Col. 2:2, 3, that “in Christ” “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowl¬ edge.” 2. That the Holy Spirit also is Omniscient, that He knows all things, is plainly declared in I Cor. 2: 10, II ; Jno. 14: 26; Jno. 16:12, 13. GOD IS OMNISCIENT 143 O wondrous and glorious Triune God of the Bible; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! Thou knowest all things, Thou art “perfect in knowledge” and “infinite in understanding.” We worship Thee, and we also rejoice in Thee, and rest in Thee, knowing that Thou wilt never be taken by surprise, or meet any emergency which Thou hast not foreknown from all eternity and for which Thou art not fully prepared. We do not know the future, but Thou dost. Things look very dark to us and full of foreboding and overwhelming disaster in business, and politics, and in international affairs, but Thou hast known all these present perils from all eternity and hast fully provided for them all, and so we know that the ultimate outcome (however dark the present out¬ look may seem) will be full of blessing and of glory. Hallelujah! Surely it “is eternal life” “to know thee the only true God, and Him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ” (Jno. 17:3). Glorious God of the Bible! CHAPTER VIII GOD IS HOLY In the seven preceding chapters we have seen that in the Bible, even in its earliest books, books written nearly thirty-four hundred years ago, we have set before us a conception of God that is more pro¬ found, more exalted, more awe-inspiring, more glad¬ dening and heart thrilling and ennobling than is to be found in any or in all of the profoundest philosophies of the past or even of the present day, except in so far as the philosophies of the present day have bor¬ rowed their conception of God from this old, old Book, the Bible. And we have also seen that there is not to be found outside of the Bible in all the literature of all nations and of all ages, anything that even ap¬ proaches the Bible statements in beauty, simplicity, grandeur, splendor and sublimity of expression. And we have seen that the only explanation that has even the slightest semblance of reasonableness of these two unquestionable facts is that the Bible, even in its earli¬ est portions, is a direct and supernatural revelation from God, and that these earliest Bible writers wrote the very words found in the Holy Scriptures as the Holy Spirit moved them and impelled them and em¬ powered them to write, and that these earliest portions of the Holy Scriptures beyond the possibility of any intelligent and honest question were as Paul more than 144 GOD IS HOLY 145 eighteen hundred and fifty years ago declared them to be, “God-breathed” (I Tim. 3: 16). But it is only when we come to the consideration of the moral character of “the God of the Bible” that we see to the full extent the immeasurable superiority of that conception of God that the Bible presents to all representations of God found elsewhere. And to¬ day we begin the study of the moral character of the God of the Bible. Our particular subject in this chapter is, The God of'the Bible; God is Holy. I have ten texts. You will find the first text in one of the earlier books of the Bible, the book of Joshua, nearly as old as the oldest books in the Bible, for Joshua was for a large part of his life a contemporary of Moses. The text is Josh. 24: 19: “And Joshua said unto the people. Ye cannot serve Jehovah; for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your trans¬ gression nor your sins.” You will find the second text in the book of Psalms, Ps. 22: 3 : ''But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” The third text is again from the Book of Psalms, Ps. 99:5, 9: “Exalt ye Jehovah our God, And worship at His footstool: Holy is He. Exalt ye Jehovah our God, And worship at His holy hill; For Jehovah our God is HolyJ* 146 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE The fourth text is from the book of Isaiah, Isa. S:i6: ‘‘But Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, And God the Holy One is sanctified in right¬ eousness.” The fifth text is also from the book of Isaiah, Isa. 6: 1-3: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face; and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said. Holy, holy^ holy, is Jehovah of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” The sixth text is from the same book, Isa. 57: 15: “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to re¬ vive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” The seventh text is taken from our Lord’s own prayer the night before His crucifixion, Jno. 17:11: “And I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” The eighth text is I Pet. i: 15, 16: “But like as He which called you is holy, be GOD IS HOLY 147 ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holyf' The ninth text is Heb. 12:28, 29: ^‘Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that can¬ not be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consum¬ ing fire.” Our tenth and last text is I Jno. 1:5: “And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” /. God Is Holy. In eight of these ten passages from the Bible the plain and direct declaration is made that God is Holy, and the ninth and tenth texts set forth this same great truth in remarkably significant and suggestive figures. The tenth text contains one of the most illuminating and awe-inspiring sentences ever written, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” These words set forth the truth that God is not only holy but that He is absolutely holy, “in Him is no darkness at all.” Isa. 57:15 also deserves especial notice: “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whpse name is Holy” Here we are told that God’s “name is Holy.” Now in Bible usage the name stands for the character as revealed. So the words ''His name is Holy” mean that Holiness is the essential moral nature of God. THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 148 Holy is what Jehovah, the God of the Bible is in His inmost, essential moral being. Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is called ''the Holy One'' about thirty times in this one book of the Bible from which the verse is taken, Isaiah. He is also so called in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and elsewhere as well. In the New Testament God the Son is spoken of as "the Holy One" and the Third Person of the Trin¬ ity is constantly spoken of as “The Holy Spirit.’’ The whole Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is dominated by one thought, the thought of the Infinite Holiness of God. IL What Does "Holy" Mean? This brings us to the important question, What does the Word "Holy" Mean in Bible Usage? This ques¬ tion is plainly answered in many places in the Bible. Let me give you two illustrative examples that any one can easily understand. The first is found in Lev. 11: 43 - 45 : “Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby. For I am Jehovah, your God: sanctify yourselves there¬ fore, and be ye holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that moveth upon the earth. For I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy for I am holy.” GOD IS HOLY 149 It is evident from these words that ‘"Holy” means free from all defilement, absolutely pure. The words ^^God is Holy” mean, God is absolutely pure. The same thought is set forth in a little different way in Deut. 23: 14: “For Jehovah thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that He may not see an unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.” This same thought as to what Holiness means, and the truth that God is absolutely and infinitely Holy, is set forth in what is perhaps the highest expression of this great truth of the Infinite Holiness of God that is to be found in the Bible, a passage to which I have already referred, I Jno. 1:5: “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” The entire Mosaic system of washings; divisions of the tabernacle; division of the people into ordinary Israelites, Levites, ordinary Priests, and High-Priests who were permitted different degrees of approach to God under strictly defined conditions; the insistence upon sacrifice with the shedding of the blood and giv¬ ing up of the life of the substitute sacrifice as the one always necessary medium of approach to God; God’s directions to Moses in Ex. 3: 3, 5 to “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” and to Joshua in Josh. 5:15: “Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy”; the punishment of Uzziah in II Chr. 26: 12-26; the THE GOD OF THE BIBLE strict orders to Israel in regard to approaching Sinai when Jehovah came down upon it; the doom of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram because of their presumption in approaching God in their own way, as recorded in Num. i6: 1-33; and the destruction of Nadab and Abihu because they dared to draw nigh to God in an¬ other way than He had prescribed (Lev. 10: 1*2); all these were intended to teach and emphasize and burn into the minds and hearts of God’s people, Israel, the fundamental truth, the great foundation truth, that God is Holy, unapproachably Holy. The truth that God is Holy is the one great foundation truth of the Bible, of the Old Testament and of the New Testa¬ ment, of the Jewish religion and of the Christian re¬ ligion, which two religions are essentially one. 111 . How the Holiness of God is Manifested. Now let us look at what the Bible teaches us, as to How the Holiness of God is Manifested. I. First of all. The Holiness of God manifests itself in an intense hatred of sin. This is set forth in Hab. 1: 12, 13: “Art not thou from everlasting O Jehovah my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O Jehovah, Thou hast ordained him for judgment; and Thou, O Rock, hast established him for correction. Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on per¬ verseness.^^ We see the same great truth set forth way back in the first book in the Bible, in Gen. 6:5, 6, 7: GOD IS HOLY ^51 *‘And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And Jehovah said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground.” It was the Infinite Holiness of God, His intense hatred of sin, that necessitated the flood when the human race had become incurably bad. And so the Adamic race as a whole was destroyed and a new be¬ ginning made. The same truth is also set forth in Deut. 25: 16: “For all that do such things, even all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto Je¬ hovah thy God.” And in Prov. 15:9, 26, where Solomon declares that both “the way of the wicked” and the “thoughts of the wicked” are an abomination to Jehovah. 2. In the second place, The Holiness of God mani¬ fests itself in intense delight in righteousness and in holiness. We will take time for but one passage illus¬ trative of this thought. It is the last half of the verse just referred to, Prov. 15:9: “The way of the wicked is an abomination unto Jehovah: but He loveth him that followeth after righteousness.^^ While sin in all its forms moves the holy heart of Jehovah with intense loathing, righteousness on the other hand moves the holy heart of Jehovah with in¬ tense joy and delight. 152 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE In Lev. 20:26, Jehovah tells Israel that He had severed them from all other people for the express pur¬ pose that they should be “holy unto Him (me),” and thus (i. e., by being holy) to “be” His very own (“be mine”). 3. In the third place, The Holiness of God mani¬ fests itself in His never doing wickedness or iniquity. This thought is set forth in the inspired message of Elihu as recorded in Job 34:10: “Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of un¬ derstanding : Far be it from God, that He should do wickedness; And from the Almighty that He should com¬ mit iniquity.” 4. In the fourth place. The Holiness of God is man¬ ifested in the separation of the sinner from Himself. This thought is set forth in a passage in Isaiah that is very familiar to us all, Isa. 59: i, 2: “Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have sepa¬ rated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, so that He will not hear.^^ It is because of this necessary manifestation of the Holiness of the true God (the God of the Bible), the separating the sinner from Himself because His Holi¬ ness requires it, that an atonement by the shedding of the blood of a sufficient substitute becomes necessary if there is to be any approach to God on the part of GOD IS HOLY 153 the sinner. This great fundamental truth is set forth in Eph. 2:13: “But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the hlood of Christ/^ And in Heb. 10: 10: “By which will (that is the will of God) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.” Our Lord’s own words set forth the same funda¬ mental truth, in Matt. 20:28: “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many/' And in Jno. 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, hut through me/' All approach to a holy God (such as the God of the Bible is) on the part of sinful men (such as we all are), must be on the ground of shed blood. The atonement which our Lord Jesus Christ made by His death on the cross has its first and deepest demand in the holiness of God. Any doctrine of the atonement that sees its need only in the necessity that men may be influenced by a mighty motive (the so-called “Moral Influence Theory of the Atonement”), or in the neces¬ sities of governmental expediency (the so-called “Gov¬ ernmental Theory of the Atonement”) does not go to the root of things. The first and fundamental reason why “apart from shedding of blood there is no remis¬ sion,” is because God is Holy and sin must be covered before there can be fellowship between God and the sinner. Nothing can cover sin from the holy gaze and THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 154 the intense disapprobation of God except the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, 5. In the fifth place, The Holiness of God manifests itself in the punishment of the sinner. The Bible de¬ clares this over and over again in direct and explicit statements and by illustrative examples. Look at three passages. First Ex. 34:6, 7: '‘And Jehovah passed by before him and pro¬ claimed, Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lov¬ ingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and trans¬ gression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the chil¬ dren’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.” Now look at Gen. 6: 5-7: "And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every im¬ agination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And Jehovah said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and birds of the heavens; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” Now just one more passage as setting forth this manifestation of the Holiness of God, Ps. 5:4-6: "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: GOD IS HOLY 155 Evil shall not sojourn with thee. The arrogant shall not stand in thy sight: Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou wilt destroy them that speak lies: Jehovah abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitftd man.” According to the Bible (and according to reason and common sense also) God does not punish the sinner merely for the sinner’s own good. God pun¬ ishes the sinner because God is a holy being and there¬ fore hates sin. God’s Holiness and hatred of sin, like every attribute of His, is real, it is a living thing, it is active, and not dormant, and it must manifest itself. God’s holy wrath at sin must strike. This truth is set forth in a remarkable way in Isa. 53:6. Let me give you a literal translation of the Hebrew: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath made to strike on him the iniquity of us all.” Any view of the punishment of sin that leaves out the thought of its being an expression of God’s holy hatred of sin, is not only unbiblical but shallow and dishonoring to God. God is Holy, infinitely Holy, therefore He infinitely hates sin. We ourselves in our own feelings get a glimpse at times of what God’s holy hatred of sin must be in our own burning indig¬ nation at some enormous iniquity. But we must re¬ member that God is infinitely Holy, and therefore God’s wrath at the smallest sin is infinitely greater than ours at the greatest moral enormity. It is true, as we shall see later, that God is love; but God’s love THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 156 is not of the sickly, sentimental sort, the morally putrid sort, that sends costly bouquets and tender missives to moral monsters, as some of our Universalist theo¬ logians and New Theology exponents would have us think. No, thank God! “Our God is a consuming fire.’^ God’s love toward sinners will never be under¬ stood and appreciated until it is seen in the white light of His blazing wrath at sin. 6. We come now to the most amazing and most decisive manifestation of the Holiness of God. The Holiness of God manifested itself in His making an infinite sacrifice to save others from sin which He hates unto holiness which He loves. Let me give you just two passages from the Word of God that set forth this greatest thought of all regarding the way in which God’s Holiness is manifested, a thought which we owe entirely to the Bible, and of which there is not the slightest suggestion in all the philosophers, poets, thinkers and mystics of all nations and all ages, except as they have borrowed it from the Bible. The first passage is one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, Jno. 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- eth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The second passage is I Pet. 3:18: “Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.^^ The death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary was not merely a manifestation of the amazing and GOD IS HOLY 157 infinite love of God; it was also a manifestation of the amazing and infinite Holiness of God. That fact comes out in that little word “so” in Jno. 3:16: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life.” That word “so” sets forth not merely the greatness of God’s love, in that it did not draw back even from the sacrifice of His very best, His only begotten Son, to save us: it sets forth also the quality of His love, the fact that it was a holy love, a love that would not and could not pardon sin, which was infinitely hateful to God, until sin had been atoned for and covered from His holy gaze by atoning blood, even the blood of the Son of His eternal love. I would that we had time to stop here and ponder and wonder and adore, but we must pass on. I leave this amazing truth to each one of you to ponder it alone. IV. Practical Inferences from the Truth that God Is Holy. Before we close let me call your attention to some inferences of immense practical importance from this great fundamental truth about God, that God is Holy, that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” I. The first great practical inference from the fact that God is infinitely Holy is that. We must draw nigh to God zvith awe. This thought is set forth time and time again in the Bible. For example, we read in Heb. 12: 28, 29: “Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that can¬ not be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we 158 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consum¬ ing fire/^ We see it also way back in Ex. 3:4, 5: “And when Jehovah saw that he (that is, Moses) turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am 1 . And He said (that is, God said). Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.^^ Perhaps the most remarkable passage that sets forth this truth that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is of such a character that we must draw nigh to Him with awe is Isa. 6: 1-3: “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face; and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” Here we see that even the holy “seraphim” (“sera¬ phim” is a Hebrew word and means “burning ones,” that is, burning in their own intense holiness) covered their faces and their feet in Jehovah’s presence. They had four wings for worship but only two for service. Of course, we who are in Christ Jesus have a place above the seraphim; for when Jesus Christ died on the Cross He took our place, the place of rejec- GOD IS HOLY 159 tion before God, and the moment we accept Jesus Christ that moment we step into His place of perfect acceptance before God, and so we have a right to come into God’s presence with uncovered faces and to look up into His face with perfect childlike confidence and call Him ‘‘Father.” But nevertheless we should never lose sight of the fact that, while God is our Father, He is our ''Holy Father,” and so along with our fear¬ less childlike trust there should also be a profound sense of awe in the presence of this infinitely Holy Being whom we call “God” and “Father.” The light and frivolous way, the careless and familiar way, with which many, both ministers and people, draw nigh to God to-day in what they call prayer and praise and worship, is shocking to any one who has any real and complete Bible conception of Who and what God is. I dislike jazz music; I abhor jazz worship. God is holy, never forget that when you draw nigh to Him. 2. The second important inference from the fact that God is infinitely Holy is that. The pure light of God's Holiness reveals the blackness of our own sinfid- ness. This we see in the two verses that immediately follow those just quoted from Isaiah, Isa. 6:5, 6: “Then I said. Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts.” Isaiah, who uttered these words, was perhaps the holiest man of his day; but when he came to the place where he actually met God, the undimmed, dazzling i6o THE GOD OF THE BIBLE white light of the infinite Holiness of God revealed to him the depths of his own vileness and led him to cry, as just quoted: *‘Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips/’ We see the same thing in Job 42: 5, 6. Job has been stoutly maintaining his own perfect and unblem¬ ished integrity against all the accusations and insinua¬ tions of his friends but now he comes face to face with God Himself, the Infinitely Holy One, and he cries: ‘T have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: But now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myselfj And repent in dust and ashes.” If any man thinks well of himself he has never met God. Nothing will demolish self-righteousness like one real sight of God. If there could burst upon us one glimpse of God as He really is in His infinite Holiness, as He is as the seraphim behold Him in Heaven right now, every one of us would fall on his face before God and cry, “Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. God be merciful to me, the sinner.” 3. The third great and necessary inference from the fact that God is infinitely Holy is, There is no forgiveness without atonement. This all important truth is declared over and over again in many different ways in the Old Testament and also in the New Testa- GOD IS HOLY i6i ment. One illustration of this fact is enough, Heb. 9:22: ”Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission/' Sin must be covered from the holy gaze of God, and nothing will cover it but the blood of Christ Jesus. Let me put to each one of you the question, Is your sin covered? This great truth that there is no forgiveness with¬ out atonement runs all through the Bible and deter¬ mines very much of both its history and its explicit teaching. Way back in the garden of Eden when sin first entered, Adam and Eve tried to cover their sin and their shame with self-made garments of leaves, but God covered them with the skins taken from the animals whose blood had been shed, types of the atone¬ ment of Jesus Christ. Soon after that Cain and Abel came to God with their sacrifices. Cain came, bearing the fair and fragrant fruits of the ground, but was not suffered to approach God! Abel came with the shed blood of the firstlings of his dock, and “J^^ovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect” (Gen. 4:3-5)- What mean those stern judgments upon sin set forth in the Old Testament; the blotting out of the whole old world by the flood; the blotting out of the Canaan- ites, men, women, and children; God’s stern judgments upon Israel; and all the appalling judgments of the Bible? They mean that God is Holy and hates sin. What means that constant, ever-flowing river of blood that runs through the whole Old Testament, be- i 62 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ginning in the garden of Eden when sin first entered and ever widening, the blood of thousands, yes, mil¬ lions of innocent lambs and other sacrificial animals? It means that God is Holy and that man is a sinner and that “Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.’' What means that supreme tragedy of all history, the tragedy of Calvary, where the only perfectly holy and righteous man who ever walked this earth, hung upon a cross dying, with a robber on a cross at each side, and the mob mocking Him, not the robbers, and not only deserted by man hut deserted by God, and crying with breaking heart, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” What does it mean, this profoundest of all the mysteries of all the ages? It means that God is Holy, and that man is a sinner, and that “without the shedding of blood (and the making thus of a perfect atonement) there is no for¬ giveness.” 4. The fourth inference from the fact of the in¬ finite Holiness of God is. The Wonderfidness of God's Love. It would be no wonder if an unholy God could love unholy men. But that the God ''whose name is Holy,” the God who is absolutely Holy, the God who has Holiness for His essential moral nature, the in¬ finitely Holy God, could love beings so utterly sinful as we are, that is the wonder of the eternities. There are many deep mysteries in the Bible but none other so profound as this. CHAPTER IX GOD IS LOVE We have already seen that in the Bible, even in its earliest books, books written nearly thirty-four hundred years ago, we have set before us a con¬ ception of God that is more profound, more exalted, more awe-inspiring, more gladdening, and heart-thrill¬ ing and ennobling, than is to be found in any or in all of the profoundest philosophies of the past or even of the present day, except in so far as the philosophies of the present day have borrowed their conception of God from this old, old Book, the Bible. And we have also seen that there is not to be found outside of the Bible, in all the literature of all nations and of all ages, anything that even approaches the Bible statements in beauty, simplicity, force, grandeur, splendor, and sublimity of expression. And we have seen that the only explanation that has even the slightest semblance of reasonableness of these two unquestionable facts is that the Bible, even in its earliest portions, is a direct and supernatural revelation from God, and that these earliest Bible writers wrote the very words found in the Holy Scriptures as the Holy Spirit moved them and impelled them and empowered them to write, and that these earliest portions of the Bloly Scriptures, beyond the possibility of any intelligent and honest question, were, as Paul more than eighteen hundred 163 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 164 and fifty years ago declared them to be, ‘^God- breathed” (H Tim. 3: 16). But it is only when we come to the consideration of the moral character of the God of the Bible that we see to the full extent the immeasurable superiority of that conception of God that the Bible presents to all representations of God found elsewhere. In the last chapter we began the study of the moral character of God, beginning with the foundation fact regarding the moral character of God, the fact that God is Holy, infinitely and absolutely holy, that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” But the same book in the Bible which contains that wondrous statement that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,” one of the most illuminating and awe-inspiring sentences that was ever written, contains another sentence which is perhaps the greatest sen¬ tence that was ever written, “God is love,” and this sentence determines the particular subject of this chap¬ ter, which is. The God of the Bible: God is Love. I have tried to reduce my texts to as small a number as possible but, even so, I am compelled to include twelve texts, and some of those included consist of several verses, and even so I shall be compelled, as we go on, to introduce numerous other passages of Scrip¬ ture, if we are to treat this great subject with anything like fullness and fairness. Please note carefully my texts, for the whole message of the chapter is in my texts. It is the God of the Bible that we are studying, not the God of my thoughts, nor of my philosophy nor of my theology any more than the God of Modern Philosophy or the God of the New Theology. All we GOD IS LOVE 165 know about God that is really worth while is what this one Book teaches. It would be amusing, if it were not righteously exasperating, to hear our meager-minded but very self-sufficient modern philosophers and theo¬ logians say, ''I think so and so about God.” Who cares what you think ? Who cares what I think ? The only thing of any real moment is, What does God Himself reveal about Himself in the one Book which is the only “God-breathed” revelation of God. What does this Book say? That is the only thing that really matters. So the entire chapter contains only an ex¬ position of what God Himself clearly and plainly says in His own Book. You will find the first text in I Jno. 4:8: “He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love.'' You will find our second text in I Jno. 4:16: “And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love; he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.” You will find our third text in I Jno. 4:7: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begot¬ ten of God, and knoweth God.” You will find our fourth text in I Jno. 3:16, 17: Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?” i66 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE You will find our fifth text in Matt. 5:44, 45: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may he sons of your Father who is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the un¬ just.” You will find our sixth text in Jno. 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world/^ You will find our seventh text in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- eth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” You will find our eighth text in Rom. 5:6-8: “For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for the good man some one would even dare to die. But God commendeth His ozvn love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us/^ You will find our ninth text in Eph. 2:4, 5: “But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved).” GOD IS LOVE 167 You will find our tenth text in I Jno. 4:9, 10: ''Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propi¬ tiation for our sins.” You will find our eleventh text in Zeph. 3: 17: "Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing.” You will find our twelfth text in Gen. i: 1-3, 26-28, ‘‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creep- eth upon the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them: and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 168 the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. . . . And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” /. God Is Love. In the first two texts we are told in so many words that ''God is love.” The other texts imply the same great truth. While more of the texts are taken from John’s writings, either his Gospel or his First Epistle, than from any other writer, some of the most notable texts are taken from Paul’s writings, and one is from the words of our Lord Jesus Himself, and one is from one of the least studied old Testament prophets, and one consists of several verses from the very first chap¬ ter in the Bible, written about thirty-four hundred years ago. These verses all set forth the tremendous and stupendous truth that, God is love. Not merely that God loves, hut God is love, i. e.. Love is the very essence of His moral nature. He is also the source of all love. The whole Bible is a love story, the story of the infinite love of an infinitely Holy God for a fallen and morally worthless race of sinners, of which you and I are members. If any one should ask me for a sen¬ tence to be printed on the covers of his Bible in letters of gold that would set forth the*entire contents of the Book, it would be that most marvelous sentence ever written, consisting of only three monosyllables, one of four letters and one of three letters and one of only two letters, only nine letters in all, “God is love.” I said in my last chapter, “The whole Bible, both the GOD IS LOVE 169 Old Testament and the New Testament, is dominated by one thought, the thought of the Infinite Holiness of God. Let me say to-day what is equally true: The whole Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is dominated by one thought, the thought that God is Love, that love is the very essence of God’s moral nature. II. What Does ”Love'’ Mean? This brings us to the important question. What does the Word ''Love” Mean; or. What is Love? t We must go to the Bible itself for a satisfying and entirely dependable answer to that all-important ques¬ tion. This is the point at which a multitude of preach¬ ers and theologians and poets and romancers and founders of various cults have gone astray; they have taken from the Bible the great truth that God is love, and then have not been wise enough and fair-minded enough to search the Bible to find out exactlv how God Himself defines or describes love, and they have consequently drawn all sorts of unwarranted conclu¬ sions from the statement that “God is love,” and have fallen into all sorts of entirely unbiblical and utterly untrue and monstrous theological and philosophical aberrations and vagaries. That glorious word “love” is one of the most abused words in our English language. From being one of the most glorious words and divinest words in our language, it has become in the usage of the great mass of men one of the most weakly and sickly sentimental and really immoral words, and not infrequently a fine 170 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE looking cloak for the basest selfishness and vilest lust. Let us turn, then, to the Bible for our definition of what love really means, i. e.^ what God Himself means by love. Read I Jno. 3: 16, 17: "‘Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compas¬ sion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?” Here is God’s definition of love, or description of love, “Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us/' We see, then, that. Love is no mere sentimental tenderness, no mere selfish fondness or affection for another, or a mere attraction to another; but love is a self-sacrificing desire for, and delight in, the welfare of the one loved. You get practically the same definition of love, though phrased in other words, in our Lord’s own description of the Father God’s love in Matt. 5: 44, 45: ^‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the un¬ just.” III. Whom Does God Love? Now another question of fundamental importance confronts us, Whom does God the Father love? Here GOD IS LOVE 171 again we are not left to dream and imagine and specu¬ late for ourselves. God in His own Word tells us in the plainest and most unmistakable language exactly who it is whom He loves. I. In the first place, God loves *'His own” and ”only Son,” Jesus Christ, our Lord. This truth is set forth again and again in the Bible in the plainest and at the same time the most expressive language. Read, for example, Matt. 3: 17: “And lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Let me give you a little more literal translation of the Greek, a translation that puts more emphasis upon the thought that Jesus Christ is the one original and eternal object of God the Father's eternal love, “And behold, a voice out of the heavens saying. This is the Son of me, the beloved one, in whom I am well pleased.” We find God saying again the same thing audibly “out of the (luminous) cloud” in which He came down at the transfiguration of our Lord, described in Matt. 17:5: “While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright [rather, luminous] cloud overshadowed them: and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” Here, again, the Greek literally translated would be the same as in Matt. 3: 17, i. e., “This is the Son of me, the beloved one, in whom I am well pleased.” Again, we read in Luke 20: 13: 17 ? THE GOD OF THE BIBLE “And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do ? I will send my beloved son; it may be they will reverence him.’^ Here, again, “my beloved Son’^ in the Greek reads literally, “the Son of me, the beloved one/^ Read just one more verse on this particular point, Jno. 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst ME before the foun¬ dation of the world” These passages all set forth definitely and clearly the profoundly suggestive and meaningful fact that God's own Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, was the origi¬ nal and eternal object of God the Father's love. If God is eternal, and we have already seen that He cer¬ tainly is, then His love must have an eternal object. There must, therefore, because of a necessity in the Divine Being Himself, be a multiplicity of persons in the Godhead. The eternal object of the Divine love of the Eternal Father is the Eternal Son, 2, In the second place, God loves those who love His Son (Who is the original and eternal object of His love) and who believe that He, Jesus Christ, came forth from the Father, This fundamentally important truth is set forth in our Lord’s own words as recorded in John 14: 21, 23: “He that hath my commandments, and keep- eth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto GOD IS LOVE 173 him. . . . (23.) Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father mill love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” We find our Lord Jesus teaching the same thing again in Jno. 16:27: “For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.” God loves those who love His Son and believe that He came forth from the Father, because of their rela¬ tionship to His Son, because they are united to Him by love and faith. God loves, as we shall in a few moments see, all men; but He has an altogether peculiar love for those who are in Christ. God has precisely the same love to those zvho are in Christ Jesus that He has for Christ Jesus Himself. This our Lord Himself tells us in one of the most astounding statements to be found in the Bible; you will find it in JnO’. 17:23: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them even as thou lovedst me.” Of course, there is a love of God to those who are now in Christ which is antecedent to their love to Christ. This we are distinctly told in I Jno. 4: 19, “We love, because he first loved us.” 3. In the third place, God loves the world, the whole human race, and each individual member of it. We find this truth taught in what is perhaps the most famil¬ iar verse in the Bible, John 3:16: 174 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ^Tor God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- eth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’’ The same truth is found in I Tim. 2:3, 4, ‘This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who would have all men to he saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.” This same truth is put in still another way in II Pet. 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 4. In the fourth place, God loves the sinner, the un¬ godly, those dead in sins. This amazing truth is de¬ clared again and again in a variety of ways in the Bible. For example, we read in Rom. 5 : 6-8: “For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one* die: for peradventure for the good man some one would even dare to die. But God commendeth His own love to¬ ward us, in that, zvhile we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Turn now to Eph. 2:4, 5: “But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved).” We find this truth in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. We find it even in that stern old prophet of the exile, Ezekiel, in Ez. 33:11: GOD IS LOVE 175 “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; hut that the wicked turn from his zvay and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Please note the tender pleading in the “turn ye, turn ye.” Of course, it is involved in God loving “the world” that He loved sinners, the ungodly, the dead in sins, but the Bible lays especial emphasis upon this fact. IV. How the Love of God Manifests Itself. We come now to the very important question, Hozv does the love of God manifest itselff Here we must walk very carefully and be sure we are going exactly by the Book every step of the way; for it is at just this point that many go astray into all kinds of vagaries and theological aberrations. I. In the first place, God^s love manifests itself in God's ministering to the need and joy of those whom He loves; and protecting them from all evil. Read Isa. 48: 14, 20, 21: “Assemble yourselves, all ye, and hear; who among them hath declared these things? He whom Jehovah loveth shall perform His pleas¬ ure on Babylon, and His arm shall be on the Chaldeans. ... (20.) Go ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His servant Jacob. (21.) And they 176 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE thirsted not when He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to How out of the rock for them; He clave the rock also, and the water gushed out.” These are exceedingly beautiful and marvelously comforting words, written before Modern Philosophy or even ancient Greek Philosophy was dreamed of; written more than twenty-five hundred years ago. Who taught Isaiah so to write and enabled him so to write, so many, many centuries ago, in those exceed¬ ingly “dark ages” ? There is but one reasonable an¬ swer, God. Isaiah “spoke as he was borne along by • i ^ the Holy Spirit” (II Pet. 1:21); his very words were “God-breathed.” To deny this is to be unscientific and irrational, mentally befogged and blinded by the narrow-minded and stubborn bigotry of the New The¬ ology. Ponder deeply these divinely-inspired words of Isaiah. But let us go nine centuries further back still, thirty- four hundred years ago. Read Deut. 32:9-12: “For Jehovah’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land. And in the waste howling wilderness; He compassed him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle that stirreth up her nest. That fluttereth over her young. He spread abroad His wings, He took them. He bare them on His pinions. Jehovah alone did lead him. And there was no foreign god with him.” GOD IS LOVE 177 Even as mere literature, where could that be matched for sublime imagery and expressive diction and masterly figure? But it is far more than mere literature, superlatively fine as it is as literature, it is the heart-comforting and soul-enthralling truth of God, truth for those long, long ago ages, and truth for to-day, truth which we have not outgrown even yet, for all our boasted intellectual evolution and prog¬ ress through these long, long centuries, yes, truth to which we have not even yet grown up. And yet these peerless words are entirely omitted in Professor Kent’s “Shorter Bible,” though he unblushingly states in the Preface to that book, that contemptibly inadequate book, that it “singles out and sets in logical order those parts of the Bible which are of vital interest and practical value in the present age.'' I leave you to judge for yourself whether this claim of Professor Kent’s is true, or an unblushing and abominable and ridiculous lie. Turn to the very next chapter of this same wondrous book, in the Book of books, Deut. 33: 3, 12: “Yea, He loveth the people; All His saints are in Thy hand: And they sat down at Thy feet; Every one shall receive of Thy words. • • • • • • • (12) Of Benjamin he said. The beloved of Jehovah shall dwell in safety by Him; He covereth him all the day long, And he dwelleth between His shoulders." All this, also. Professor Kent omits in his book that 178 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE claims to set forth all “those parts of the Bible which are of vital interest and practical value to the present age.” Poor, blind man, posing as a thorough Bible scholar, and yet so densely ignorant of the full con¬ tents of that wondrous book. 2. In the second place, God’s love manifests itself in God’s chastening and scourging His loved ones for their profit, that out of this chastening the peaceable fruit of righteousness may come. This we find taught for example in Heb. 12 : 6-11: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. It is for chastening that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not? But if ye are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them rev¬ erence : shall we not much rather be in subjec¬ tion unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. All chas¬ tening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peace¬ able fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.” The fact that God is love, and that God loves us, is no guarantee that we shall never suffer; rather is it a guarantee that we shall suffer, for suffering is just what we sometimes most need. The parent who GOD IS LOVE 179 shelters his child from all suffering, under all circum¬ stances, is not the parent who most truly or most wisely loves his child. No, he loves himself, and sacrifices his child’s highest good to spare his own feelings. But not so our infinitely wise and infinitely loving Heavenly Father. He so truly loves us that though it wounds His own heart, He “chastens” and even ^'scourges” us. Do not lay the flattering unction to your soul that because “God is love” and because God loves you with infinite love, you will never suffer. No, just because He loves you, you surely will suffer. And do not think because you are now undergoing suffering and almost unsupportable pain or sorrow that God does not love you. No, it is because He does love you that you so suffer. 3. In the third place, God^s love manifests itself in His being Himself afflicted when His loved ones are afflicted, ez>en though their afflictions come from His own hand and are the result of their own sin. This great and comforting fact is set forth in Isa. 63:9: “/n all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” God is here speaking particularly of the awful afflic¬ tions that overtook the Jewish people. These afflic¬ tions were the direct consequence and punishment of their own wrong-doing, and came directly or indirectly from God’s own hand. They were the result of their own unfaithfulness to God, and yet God tells us that in all these appalling sorrows and calamities, that re- i8o THE GOD OF THE BIBLE suited from their own outrageous sin, the Holy God / against whom they had sinned, and who sent the suf¬ fering upon them, suffered with them. And these pro¬ found and matchless words were written over twenty- five centuries ago. Who is their real author ? Surely not Isaiah, but God. No really intelligent and fair- minded man will attempt to deny it. Such a Being is the God of the Bible, not the cold, abstract, impersonal, emotionless “Absolute” of Mod¬ ern Philosophy, but a Being with a mother’s heart, who, though she may see the need that she severely punish her child for its own highest good, nevertheless suffers herself in all that the child suffers, suffers far more than the child, making all the child’s agonies her own, and is pierced to the very heart by them. Listen! there is not an agony nor pain nor sorrow that any of us suffer, even the keenest anguish that comes from our own most unpardonable wrong-doing, but our Father in heaven suffers with us. I would that we had time to linger here and take in all the wonder and all the comfort of this thought of God that He has set forth in this wonderful Book, this peerless Book, this Book that stands absolutely alone among all the books ever written, clearly proven by the indisputable facts in the case to be the one and only book that is “God-breathed.” 4. In the fourth place, God's love is manifested in His never forgetting those whom He loves. This is what we are told in those amazing words found in Isa. 49:15, 16: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of GOD IS LOVE i 8 i her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” It often seems to us, in our blindness, when God, for His own wise reasons, allows sorrows and losses and woes of various kinds to accumulate, that God has forgotten us, but He never has; a mother may for¬ get her nursing child, but God never forgets, no, not for one smallest moment, those persons who are the objects of His ceaseless and never slumbering love. 5. We have not even yet scaled the highest heights or fathomed the deepest depths of the love of the God of the Bible. In the fifth place, God's love has mani¬ fested itself by His making the greatest sacrifice in His power for those whom He loves, even the sacrifice of His own and only Son to die as the propitiation for our sins. Two of the most meaningful statements of this truth are found in I Jno. 4:9, 10, and in John 3:16. Let me read you first I Jno. 4: 9, 10: "'Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propi¬ tiation for our sins." Now turn to John 3:16, which we have all heard so often and know so well, and yet do not know as we ought to know even yet, and all whose depths we shall never fathom till eternity dawn: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 182 eth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” We have seen that love is a self-sacrificing desire for and a delight in the welfare of the one loved; therefore, the true test and measure of love is sacri¬ fice. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the measure of God^s love to us. If we ever desire to see as far as finite eye can see into the unfathomable depths of the infinite love of God, there is one place to look, and that is to the Cross and at the One Who hangs thereon. We should recall the depth and intensity of the in¬ finite and eternal love of the Father to “His only son,” and then see Him hanging there enduring all the im¬ measurable agonies of the Cross to purchase redemp¬ tion and eternal life for us, and with all this vividly in our minds think of the agonized heart of the Father, Who loved His Son with a love immeasurably beyond our comprehension, and yet gave him up, and gave Him up not only to die but to die on the Cross in our stead. This is a matter for us to ponder, to meditate upon, and not for us to try to put into words, for no words can express all the meaning of it, and all pos¬ sible illustrations fall infinitely short of describing the reality. 6. In the sixth place, God’s love manifests itself in His forgiving sins. The Bible, from Genesis Three (where sin first entered human history) to Revelation Twenty-two, is full of this thought. Take one pas¬ sage among the many that might be cited. Turn to Isa. 38:17: “Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness: GOD IS LOVE 183 But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy hack'' God, because of His love for us, will forgive the sins of any sinner, no matter how many and how great his sins may be, if he on his part will turn from his sins and unto God. Listen to the way in which it is put in Isa. 55:7: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him re¬ turn unto Jehovah, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abun¬ dantly pardon." Of course, God will not forgive our sins if we will not forsake them. It would not be love to do that, but God will forgive them one and all, utterly blot them out, no matter how many and how black they may be, if we turn from them. 7. In the seventh place, God's love manifests itself in His imparting life to those dead in trespasses and sins, in His raising them up together with Christ, and making them sit together with Christ in the heavenly places, and in showing to us in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Here I have put together four manifes¬ tations of God's love, because God Himself groups them in Eph. 2: 4-7: '‘God, being rich in mercy, for His great love 7 Juherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive to¬ gether with Christ (by grace have ye .been 184 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE saved), and raised tis up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the Heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kind¬ ness toward us in Christ Jesus/' We cannot stop now to dwell on these four things, though any one of them is worthy of prolonged con¬ templation and meditation, but do stop long enough to consider that even now, notwithstanding all the wonders God’s love has wrought, God has only begun to do for us. The fullness of God’s love is not yet manifested. It has just begun to unfold itself. As John puts it in I Jno. 3:2, “Beloved now are we chil¬ dren of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be," and it is “m the ages to come^' that God “will show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness to¬ ward us in Christ Jesus.” 8. In the eighth place, God's love manifests itself in His granting us that we should he called the children of God. This we find declared in God’s Word in I Jno. 3:1: “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are." This is one of the most amazing manifestations of the love of God when we stop to think of what sort of a being God himself is even as we have so imperfectly seen Him in our eight preceding studies of The God of the Bible, and when we also stop to think of what sort of beings we ourselves are. Would it not be amazing if the wisest and noblest and richest and most potent monarch of earth should ride down to the slums GOD IS LOVE 185 of some city of his realm and seeing a filthy, ragged, dirty, ignorant, miserable and degenerate child stand¬ ing by the side of the road, should stop and say to this disreputable outcast lad, ^‘Come, get in here with me, and I will take you to the royal palace, and I will adopt you into my family, and you shall bear my name and be my heir?’' Yes, that would be marvelous, in¬ credibly marvelous; but it would not be one millionth part so amazing as that the great eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely Holy God should come down to 'the vile slums of this fallen and corrupt earth of ours and pick you and me out in our ignorance and folly and weakness and poverty and moral vileness and turpitude and say, “I will adopt you into my family and give you the right to be called my children.” Lis¬ ten to it again as I read it from God’s own Word, ^‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath be¬ stowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are” Why? Because of God’s love, because God is love. 9. Just once more. In the ninth place, God's love manifests itself in His rejoicing over His saved people with joy and singing, and resting in His love for them. Here, again, we turn to an utterance of the long, long ago, about twenty-five hundred and fifty years ago, six hundred and twenty-five to six hundred and thirty years before our Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. You will find it in Zeph. 3: 17 : ‘‘Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He zvill rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing.” THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 186 What a marvelous and heart-stirring picture we have here! The infinite God, the creator and upholder not only of the whole earth, but of the sun and moon and stars, those vast worlds of light in all their countless numbers and inconceivably vast magnitude, taking such a tender interest in beings so insignificant as we are, and such morally worthless beings as you and I are, that when we are saved he rejoices over us as a mother crooning over the child who nestles to her bosom, singing a sweet lullaby as He draws us to His heart and rests in His love. The Hebrew word here translated ‘Test” is a deeply significant word. Liter¬ ally translated it would read, “He will be silent in His love,” i. e.. His love is perfectly satisfied, and He rests in a rapturous silence that is deeper than all pos¬ sibility of utterance. Oh, such is God, such is the God of the Bible! Not the god of “Christian Science,” nor the god of “New Thought,” nor the god of “Theoso¬ phy,” nor the god of Spiritualism, nor the god of “Modern Philosophy,” nor the God of “The New Theology,” but the God of this one and only really wonderful Book, unmistakably God’s own Book, the Bible. CHAPTER X GOD IS RIGHTEOUS The subject of this chapter is, The God of the Bible: God is Righteous. I call your attention in the begin¬ ning of the consideration of this fundamentally im¬ portant subject to twelve passages of Scripture that will form the basis of our setting forth of the God of the Bible in this chapter. It was difficult to reduce to even this large number the texts that crowd in upon us when one thinks of this aspect of the character of the God of the Bible, for both the Old Testament and the New Testament are full of this great theme. You will find my first text in Ezra 9:15: ‘'O Jehovah, the God of Israel, Thou art righteous; for we are left a remnant that is escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before Thee in our guiltiness; for none can stand be¬ fore Thee because of this.’^ Now turn to the next Book in the Bible, Nehemiah 9:7, 8: ‘‘Thou art Jehovah the God, Who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham, and foundest his heart faith¬ ful before Thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the 187 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE 188 Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it unto his seed, and hast performed Thy words; for Thou art righteous/' You will find the third text in Psalms 145: i, 5, 14- 19: ‘T will extol Thee, my God, O King; . . . (s) Of the glorious majesty of Thine honor. And of thy wondrous works will I medi¬ tate. . . . (14-19). Jehovah upholdeth all that fall, And raiseth up all those that are bowed down. The eyes of all wait for Thee; And Thou givest them their food in due sea¬ son. Thou openest Thy hand, And satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Jehovah is righteous in all His ways, And gracious in all His works. Jehovah is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, To all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry, and will save them.” Turn now to Dan. 9: 12-14: “And He (Jehovah) hath confirmed His words, which He spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; for under the whole heaven GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 189 hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet have we not entreated the favor of Jehovah, our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in Thy truth. Therefore hath Jehovah watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all His works which He doeth, and we have not obeyed His voice.” Our next text is Ps. 98: 1-3: “Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song; For He hath done marvellous things: His right hand, and His Holy arm, hath wrought salvation for Him. Jehovah hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the nations. He hath remembered his lovingkindness and His faithfulness toward the house of Israel: All the ends of the earth have seen the sal¬ vation of our God.” Now turn back two Psalms to Ps. 96: 11-13: ''Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; Let the field exult, and all that is therein; Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy Before Jehovah; for He cometh to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness. 190 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE And the peoples with His truth/’ We will turn now to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as found in Jno. 17:25: ‘‘O righteous Father, the world knew Thee not, but I knew Thee; and these knew that Thou didst send me.” Now turn to one of the most important passages on this subject to be found in the whole Bible, Rom. 3:21-26: “But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the right- eousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no dis¬ tinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : Whom God set forth to he a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His right¬ eousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” The Greek word rendered *'just” in the last verse of this passage is precisely the same word that is else¬ where rendered '^righteous.” It is rendered '‘just” in this passage to show that it is from the same root as the word "-justifier,” three words further on. Now turn to I Jno. 1:9: “If we confess our sins. He is faithful and GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 191 righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The three remaining texts are all from the last book in the Bible, a book the whole theme of which is the righteousness of God. The first of them is Rev. 15: 2-4: *‘And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the sea of glass, having harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying. Great and marvel¬ lous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the ages. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy Name? for Thou Only art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship be¬ fore Thee; for Thy righteous acts have been made manifest^ Now turn to the next chapter. Rev. 16:4-7: “And the third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters; and it became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying. Righteous art Thou, Who art and Who wast. Thou Holy One, because Thou didst thus judge: for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast thou given them to drink: they are worthy. And I heard the altar saying. Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judg¬ ments.'' 192 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Our final text is Rev. 19:1, 2: “After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation^ and glory, and power, belong to our God: for true and righteous are his judgments.” /. God Is Righteous. In our first text and in the second, and in many others that I have just read, and in still others that I have been forced to omit, we have been told in so many words that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, the God of both the Old Testament and of the New Testa¬ ment, is Righteous. In our third text we read “Je¬ hovah is righteous in all his waysf^ and in our fourth text it is said that *Oehovah, our God, is righteous in all His work, that He doeth.” Heaven and earth, men and angels, inspired legislators, prophets^ psalmists, apostles and our Lord Jesus Himself, join in one great and triumphant Hallelujah Chorus that Jehovah our God the Almighty, the God of the Bible, is a Righteous God. 11 . What Does ''Righteous” Mean? We come now to the all-important question. What does the word Righteous mean as used in the Bible? We go, of course, to the Bible itself for an answer to that question. The only definitions of Bible terms that are of any real value are Bible definitions. And GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 193 the Bible defines in a very clear and very definite and very explicit way just what ‘'righteous” means. Turn to Ezek. 18:5: “But if a man he just, and do that which is lawful and right” Here the word “just,” instead of “righteous” is found in both the Authorized Version and Revised Version, but it is the same word in the Hebrew which is elsewhere translated “Righteous.” Let me stop here a moment to say that right through the Old Testa¬ ment, in both versions, the same Hebrew word is some¬ times translated “righteous” and sometimes “just,” and that also right through the New Testament the same Greek word is sometimes translated “righteous” and sometimes “just.” “Righteousness” and “Justice” are not two different attributes of God; but the two differ¬ ent words are used for precisely the same thing. “Righteous” is the preferable word as it conforms more exactly to the exact derivation of the word. But to go back to the definition of “Righteous” in Ezek. 18:5, which we have just read, we see that to he Righteous is to have that character that leads one to always *'do that which is lawful and right” We find practically the same definition of “Righteous,” but partly in a negative form, in Zeph. 3:5: “Jehovah in the midst of her is righteous; He will not do iniquity; every morning doth He bring His justice to light, He faileth not.” The Hebrew word translated in the Old Testament sometimes “righteous,” and sometimes “just,” accord¬ ing to its etymology, means “right,” or “straight.” 194 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE The etymology of our English word Righttons^^ is precisely the same. The Greek word used in the New Testament, and translated sometimes ‘‘Righteous,” and sometimes “Just,” means according to its etymology that which is conformed to custom or usage. But the Greek word as used in the New Testament derives its significance from its being used in the Greek transla¬ tion of the Old Testament that was in common use in our Lord’s day and the days of the apostles (The Septuagint) to render the Hebrew word meaning “Right” or “Straight.” The ^^Righteousness"' or ^'Jus¬ tice"" of the God of the Bible, therefore, is that attri¬ bute of God that leads Him always and under all cir¬ cumstances, to do that which is ^Wighf’ or ''straight."" The Righteousness of God is not to be limited, as is so often done in modern Theological usage, to God’s punitive justice. God’s punitive justice is, as we shall shortly see, only one manifestation of the “Justice” or “Righteousness” of God; and it is not the mani¬ festation of God’s Righteousness that is most promi¬ nent in the Bible usage of the w'ord. God’s Righteousness is closely akin to His Holiness, but they are not exactly the same. Holiness seems to have more reference to God’s character as He is in Himself: Righteousness to His character as mani¬ fested in His dealing with others. III. How the Righteousness of God Manifests Itself. This brings us directly to the question, and it is a tremendously important question, "How does the Righteousness of God manifest itself f"" Here we must GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 195 walk very carefully and go by the Book itself every step of the way. There are many preachers and theo¬ logians and dreamers of many kinds who do not go by the Book, but chase the iridescent but unsubstan¬ tial bubbles blown by their own scintillating fancies and wind up in “No Man’s Land.” But let us turn to the Book of God and then we will get somewhere. Indeed we will find ourselves in a country fine and fair, lying down in “green pastures,” and “walking beside the waters of quiet rest.” I. First of all, the Righteousness of God manifests itself in His loving righteousness and hating iniquity. Read Ps. 11: 4-7 : “Jehovah is in His holy temple; Jehovah, His throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men. Jehovah trieth the righteous. But the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth. Upon the wicked he will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For Jehovah is righteous; He loveth right¬ eousness: The upright shall behold His face.” God is infinitely Righteous, therefore He loves right¬ eousness with an infinite love, and hates iniquity in all its forms with an infinite hatred. It is thought by some that since God is Love, there can be no such thing as hatred of any kind in God. Ah, it is just because God is Love, infinite Love, that 196 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE He hates with infinite hatred all that harms those whom He loves. He hates sin with infinite hatred because He loves the sinner with infinite love. I hate tuber¬ culosis with intense hatred because I love my daugh¬ ter upon whom the foul thing has fastened itself, and the Righteous God not only loves righteousness with infinite love, but hates all iniquity with infinite hatred, both because He is Righteous and because He is love. The hatred of sin of the Righteous God of the Bible is as intense as is His love of Righteousness. This sweet, sentimental, sickish, silly, palliating palaver about sin that is so common to-day among a certain type of would-be social philosophers and ethical teach¬ ers arises from a sad lack in their moral make-up, a lack of real.and Godlike righteousness; they are moral anaemics. A really righteous man, a man of Godlike righteousness, hates sin as really and as intensely as He loves righteousness. 2. In the second place. The Righteousness of God manifests itself in His visiting upon sinners the pun¬ ishment due to their sins. This great fact, which we all do well to always bear in mind, comes out again and again in the Word of God; for example, turn to Ex. 9: 23-27: ^‘And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven; and Jehovah sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down unto the earth; and Jehovah rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 197 hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail. And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: Jehovah is right¬ eous, and I and my people are wicked.’^ The same important truth is also found in II Chron. 12: 5, 6: “Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Reho- boam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith Je¬ hovah, Ye have forsaken me, therefore have I also left you in the land of Shishak. Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled them¬ selves; and they said, Jehovah is righteous.” Daniel proclaims the same truth in Dan. 9: 12-14: “And He hath confirmed His words, which He spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet have we not entreated the favor of Jehovah, our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in Thy truth. Therefore hath Jehovah watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Je- 198 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE hovah our God is righteous in all His works which He doeth, and we have not obeyed His voice.” We find it set forth in a most vivid and impressive way in the last book in the Bible, Rev. 16:5, 6: “And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous art Thou, Who art and Who wast, Thou Holy One, because Thou didst thus judge: for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast Thou given them to drink: they are worthyT Since God is Righteous we may set it down as abso¬ lutely certain that if we sin we must suffer, and suffer for every sin we commit. This universe in which we live is governed at all times and under all circumstances by a God Who is absolutely, unwaveringly and un¬ ceasingly Righteous. So it is certain that by any wrong act on our part, great or small, that we commit, we are bound to be losers. In every instance a right¬ eous God must and will visit upon every sinner, the punishment due his sin. 3. In the third place, the Righteousness of God manifests itself in His bestowing upon the righteous the reward due their faithfulness. This, we are told over and over again in God’s own revelation of Him¬ self. the Bible, in a variety of phraseology, but with one meaning, e. g., we read in H Tim. 4:8: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteo'us Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.” GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 199 Turning back to the Old Testament we read in I Kings 8:32: “Then hear Thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring His way upon His Own head, and jus¬ tifying the righteous, to give Him according to His righteousness ” And the Psalmist sings in Ps. 7:9-11: “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish Thou the righteous: For the righteous God trieth the minds and hearts. My shield is with God, Who saveth the upright in heart. God is a righteous Judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every day.” While we may be sure that if we sin we shall suffer, because God is a Righteous God, we may be equally sure that if we do any righteous act, great or small, we shall not miss our full reward. As our Lord Jesus put it in Matt. 10:42: “And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward.” 4. In the fourth place, Th,e Righteousness of God is manifested in His protecting and delivering His people from all their adversaries. The Book of Psalms is especially rich in the setting forth of this precious truth. Read Ps. 98: 1-3: “Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song; For he hath done marvellous things: 200 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE His right hand, and His Holy arm, hath wrought salvation for Him. Jehovah hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the nations. He hath remembered His lovingkindness an(f His faithfulness toward the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the sal¬ vation of our God.’’ Now read Ps. 103:6: “Jehovah executeth righteousness, and judg¬ ment for all that are oppressed.^^ Turn to Ps. 129: 1-4: “Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up: Yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back; They made long their furrows. Jehovah is righteous: He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.” Turning now to the New Testament we read in II Thess. 1:6, 7: “If so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire.” In modern theological discussions we hear more of the Justice, or the Righteousness, of God in its rela- GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 201 tion to the punishment of sinners; but in the Bible we read more of it in its relation to the protection of His people. In modern usage, the Righteousness of God is more frequently held up as an attribute of God at which sinners should tremble; but in the Bible it is constantly dwelt upon as an attribute of God in which His people should rejoice and be confident. This we see, for example, in Ps. 96: 11-13: ''Let the heavens he glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; Let the field exult, and all that is therein; Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy Before Jehovah; for He cometh to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth.” The prophet Jeremiah, even though he is oftentimes called “the weeping prophet,” sings the same song of optimistic confidence in the Righteous God Who pro¬ tects and delivers His faithful people from all their adversaries and oppressors. We read in Jer. 9:24: “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he hath understanding, and knoweth Me, that / am Jehovah, Who exerciseth lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith Jehovah.” Turn to the Psalms again, Ps. 116:5, “Gracious is Jehovah, and righteous; Yea, our God is merciful. 202 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Jehovah preserveth the simple: I was brought low and he saved me.” Again the sweet singer of Israel chants the same paean of triumphant praise in a righteous God in Ps. 145: 15-19: '‘The eyes of all wait for Thee; And Thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest Thy hand, And satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Jehovah is righteous in all His ways, And gracious in all His works. Jehovah is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, To all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry, and save them.” And the song of both Moses, the stern law-giver, and of the Lamb, the gracious Saviour, as described in the last book in the Bible, has the same jubilant confidence in a Righteous God. We read in Rev. 15:3: "And they sang the song of Moses the serv¬ ant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the ages.” Even the Righteousness of God in the punishment of the sinner is frequently spoken of in its relation to and its connection with the deliverance and the avenging of His people. This we see in II Thess. i: 4-7: GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 203 “We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which ye en¬ dure; which is a manifest token of the right¬ eous judgment of God; to the end that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: if so be that "f/ is a right¬ eous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power.” Read also Rev. 19: i, 2: “After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God: for true and righteous are His judgments; for He hath judged the great harlot, her that corrupted the earth with her fornication, and He hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand” Read still another passage in this last book in the Bible, whose theme is very largely the Righteousness of God. Rev. 16:4-7: “And the third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters; and it became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous art Thou, Who art and Who wast, Thou Holy One, because Thou didst thus judge: for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast Thou given them to drink: they are worthy. And 204 the god of the BIBLE I heard the altar saying, Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judg- mentsT Here it is the vindication and the avenging of His people, rather than the suffering of the wicked, that is the prominent thought. 5. In the fifth place. The Righteousness of God is manifested in God's always keeping His promises to the very letter. The Levites in Nehemiah's day saw that and declared it way back there, twenty-three hun¬ dred years ago. They sang to Jehovah in Neh. 9: 7, 8: ^‘Thou art Jehovah the God, Who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham, and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and modest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it unto his seed, and hast performed Thy words; for Thou art right¬ eous," Every promise of God is absolutely sure; for He is a Righteous God, therefore He will keep His every word and ftdfil His every promise to the last letter. “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!” Why ? Because God is Righteous, and therefore He will not, and He cannot lie. 6. In the sixth place, Righteousness of God is manifested in His proznding a propitiation when sin GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 205 was forgiven and in His justifying him that hath faith in the substitute Saviour Who made the propitiation. We read in Rom. 3:25, 26: ''Whom God set forth to he a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His right¬ eousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath in JesusS God is a Righteous God and therefore must punish sin, for that is the right thing to do. Therefore, if the sinner himself is forgiven, the punishment of his sins must fall somewhere else; it must fall upon a lawful substitute. There is but one Person in all the universe upon whom the punishment could justly fall and Who could at the same time be a sufficient sac¬ rifice; that is, the Only One Who is at the same time both God and Man, Jesus Christ our Lord. We saw in the eighth chapter, the chapter “God is Holy,” that the atonement made in the death of Jesus Christ finds its first demand in the infinite Holiness of the only true God, the God of the Bible; but it also finds its demand in the infinite Righteousness of God. A Right¬ eous God must punish sin, because that is the right thing to do; and therefore, if you and I are spared, Jesus Christ must bear the penalty in our place. This is beautifully brought out way, way back, twenty-six hundred years ago, in those very dark and unenlight¬ ened ages, when “our wonderful modern universities” were not even dreamed of, in Isa. 53:6: 206 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE *‘A11 we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath made to strike on Him the iniquity of us all/’ ^But that is not all. Since Christ Jesus has borne the penalty of the sins of all who put their confidence in Him as their Substitute Saviour, God, because He is Righteous, must justify every one who has faith in Jesus. So, in the atoning death of His Son, Who is God manifest in the flesh, God is seen as Just (or Righteous) and the Justifier (or the One Who de¬ clares righteous) of every one who believes in Jesus. Oh, how glad I am that the God of the Bible, the Only true God, is Righteous. That fact makes me absolutely sure that God has absolutely nothing in His account books against me; for Jesus Christ settled my account, and a righteous God will not ask that the same account be settled twice. Do you take that ii^ 7. Just once more, in the seventh place, The Rigm- eousness of God is manifested in the immediate for¬ giveness of the sins of every believer in Jesus Christ, when he confesses his sins to God. John states this definitely and clearly and beautifully and forcefully in what Avas perhaps the last book to be written of all the sixty-six books that make up the Bible, I John. Read I Jno. 1:9: “If we confess our sins. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The Authorized Version reads that God is “Faith¬ ful and just,” but the word translated “Just” in this verse is precisely the same word that is elsewhere trans- GOD IS RIGHTEOUS 207 lated “Righteous,” and it should be so translated here. Not only the faithfulness of God but the Righteousness of God is pledged to the forgiveness of every sin of the believer the moment he confesses it to God. Many a Christian wanders in darkness and gloom for days, because in a moment of weakness he has permitted some sin to come into his life. That is entirely un¬ necessary. The moment we discover that we have sinned we should hurry away to God {not hurry away from God; no, hurry away to God) and fully, and freely and frankly confess our sin to Him, without any attempt at self-justification or at palliation of our wickedness, and then know that God has put away that sin forever, and then—praise God!—there is not one smallest cloud between us and God, for fellowship is completely restored just as if we had never sinned; for God is Righteous and has pledged Himself, and pledged His Word, and pledged the atoning blood of Jesus Christ to forgive our every sin the moment it is confessed to Him. Thus we can walk in the cloud¬ less sunshine of fellowship with the God of the Bible every day and every hour, no matter how weak we may be, or how sad our fall may have been. “And He walks with me. And He talks with me, And He tells me that I am His friend.” Oh, let me read it once more from the sure Word of God, I Jno. 1:9: “If we confess our sins. He is faithful and Righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.^* CHAPTER XI GOD IS ABUNDANT IN LOVINGKINDNESS, OR MERCY The general subject of this chapter is The God of the Bible: The God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of “Christian Science,” and the god of “Theoso¬ phy,” and the god of “New Thought,” and the god of Spiritualism, and the God of Unitarianism, and the God of “the New Theology,” and the God of Mod¬ ern Philosophy and the god of “Modernism” in gen¬ eral. The particular subject of this chapter is The God of the Bible: God is abundant in Lovingkindness (or, Mercy). Let me read to you in the beginning of our study of this subject nineteen passages from the Word of God, that will be the foundation stones, tried and true, upon which the whole superstructure of the chapter will be erected. Nineteen passages of Scripture, some of them of several verses each and one of seven verses, may seem like an inordinate number of texts; but as I searched the Scriptures on this subject and pondered the verses in the Bible on this subject (in which the Word of God abounds) it was difficult to reduce them even to nineteen; and I know they will not be wearisome, but rather the most attention-fastening and gladdening and thrilling part of the entire chapter, and 208 GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 209 the entire chapter aims only to interpret their teaching on the great theme that we have before us. You will find my first text in Ps. 103:8: ‘‘Jehovah is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkind- nessd' Now turn to another Psalm, Ps. 62:12: “Also unto Thee, 0 Lord, belongeth loving- kindness; For Thou renderest to every man according to his work.’^ Turn now to still another Psalm, Ps. 145:8: “Jehovah is gracious, and merciful; Slow to anger, and of great lozingkindncssT We now turn back to one of the oldest books in the Bible, Deut. 4:31: ^'For Jehovah Thy God is a merciful God; He will not fail thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.” Our next text is from the New Testament from Paul. He quotes the Old Testament and then makes a comment of his own, Rom. 9:15, 18: “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on zvhoni I have mercy, and I will have compas¬ sion on whom 1 have compassion. ... So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom he will he hardeneth.” We will now turn back again to the Old Testament, Deut. 7:9: “Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keepeth covenant 210 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE and lovingkindness with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.” Turn now to the second book in the Bible, Ex. 20: 5 > 6 : “Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing lovingkindness unto thou¬ sands, (i. e., a thousand generations) of them that love Me and keep My commandments.” The next text is Ps. 103: ii, 17: “For as the heavens are high above the earth. So great is His lovingkindness toward them that fear Him. . . . • • • • • • But the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, And His righteousness unto children's chil¬ dren.” We turn now to one of the historical books of The Old Testament, II Chron. 6:14: “And he said, O Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven, or on earth; Who keepest covenant and lovingkind¬ ness with Thy servants that walk before Thee with all their heart.” Our next text is from the book of Proverbs, Prov. 28:13: GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 211 “He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy.” The next text is Ps. 32: 10: “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he that trusteth in Jehovah, lovingkind¬ ness shall compass him about.” Our next text is from still another Psalm, Ps. 86:5: “For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, A'nd abundant in lovingkindness unto all them that call upon Thee.” Now turn to the book of Numbers, Num. 14: 18-20; ‘'Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and trans¬ gression; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. Pardon, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy lovingkindness and according as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And Jehovah said, I have pardoned ac¬ cording to thy Word.” We come now to the prophets, Isa. 55 • 7 * “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” 212 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Turn to still another prophet, Micah 7:18: ''Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardon- eth iniquity, and passeth over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in lovingkindness?' We turn now to one of the last to be written books in the Old Testament, Neh. 9: 16-18, 26, 27, 30, 31: '"But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their neck, and hearkened not to Thy commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of Thy wonders that Thou didst among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and forsookest them not. ... (26, 27.) Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against Thee, and cast Thy law behind their back, and slew Thy prophets that testified against them to turn them again unto Thee, and they wrought great provocations. There¬ fore Thou deliveredst them into the hand of their adversaries, to distress them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto Thee, Thou heardest from heaven; and accord¬ ing to Thy manifold mercies Thou gavest them saviours who sailed them out of the hand of their adversaries, ... (30, 31.) Yet many years didst Thou bear with them, and testifiedst against them by Thy Spirit through Thy GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 213 prophets: yet would they not give ear: there¬ fore gavest Thou them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless in Thy manifold mercies Thou didst not make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for Thou art a gracious and merciful God.” Now turn to one of Paul’s Epistles, Phil. 2:27: ^‘For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sor¬ row upon sorrow.” Turn back now to the Old Testament, Ex. 15: 13: “Thou in Thy lovingkindness hast led the people that Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.” And our last text is again from the Book of Psalms, Ps. 59: 16: “But I will sing of Thy strength; Yea, / will sing aloud of Thy lovingkindness in the morning: For Thou hast been my High Tower, And a Refuge in the day of my distress.” We will group together the teachings found in these verses and others I shall be forced to introduce later, if we are to treat the subject with anything like ade¬ quate fullness, under three general heads: 1st. The Fact that God is Full of Lovingkindness. 2nd. Toward Whom the Lovingkindness of God is Manifested. 3rd. How the Lovingkindness of God is Manifested. Before taking up these three divisions of our sub- 214 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ject, let me ask your very close attention to the fact that the same Hebrew word in the Old Testament is translated, sometimes, “Mercy,” and sometimes, “Lov¬ ingkindness.” These two words, therefore, in the Old Testament usage mean precisely the same thing. This Hebrew word should have been translated uni¬ formly either the one way or the other. The word, “Mercy,” in our English translation of the Old Testa¬ ment is in a few instances a translation of another Hebrew word. This latter Hebrew word corresponds to the Greek word always translated “Compassion” in the New Testament. It covers essentially the same thought as the other word. In fact in the quotation from the Old Testament which Paul makes in Rom. 9: 15, this other Hebrew word is translated by the Greek word not for “Compassion,” but for “Mercy.” The primary meaning of the word most frequently used is ''Kindness,” especially kindness exercised to- zvard the suffering or sinning. It is so translated thirty-nine times in the Authorized Version. In thirty- one of these instances it is used of the kindness of man toward man, in the remaining eight instances of the kindness of God toward man. When this Hebrew word is used the Revised Version, as a rule, varies from the Authorized Version and translates by “Lov¬ ingkindness” and not by “Mercy,” and this is on the whole a better rendering of the Hebrew word, and we shall use it uniformly to translate this Hebrew word, and confine the use of the word “Mercy” to the translation of the other Hebrew word, the word which corresponds to the Greek word which is trans¬ lated “Compassion” in the New Testament. GOD IS ABDINDANT IN MERCY 215 /. God Is Full of Lovingkindness. In our first, second, third and fourth texts we are told that Jehovah, the God of the Bible Is Full of Mercy, That He Is Abundant in Lovingkindness. All these passages are from the Old Testament, which is supposed, by some of our modern so-called “advanced scholars” to present a stern and severe and relentless God, in contrast to the gentle and loving Father of Whom Jesus and John spoke. In our fifteenth text the prophet Micah declares that there is no other God like Jehovah, the God of the Bible, “Because He de- lighteth in lovingkindness,” and that He shows it by pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage (i. e., Israel). The book of Psalms is one continuous Hebrew anthology of songs of praise to a God Who is “abun¬ dant in lovingkindness,” and Moses, the supposedly stern old law-giver, and also inspired prophets, sages, historians and kings, join in the swelling chorus. Such is the God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament as well as the God of the New Testament, a very different God from what many modern, popu¬ lar preachers declare the God of the Old Testament to be. If these men would study the Old Testament more closely and thoroughly and talk less about it until they do, it would be better for their own reputation for intelligent and thorough scholarship and candor, and far better, for their befogged, befuddled, misled and grievously wronged hearers. It is a case of the “blind leading the blind,” and both together falling 2i6 the god of the BIBLE “into the ditch,” the slimy and pestilential ditch, of blasphemous dishonoring of God and His Word. II, Toward Whom the Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested, We come now to the exceedingly important ques¬ tion, '‘Toward Whom Is the Lovingkindness of God Manifested?” This question the Bible answers very plainly and with great fullness. I. First of all, God's Mercy Is Manifested Toward Whom He Will. He is absolutely Sovereign in the Exercise of His Mercy. Jehovah Himself declared to Moses, as recorded in Ex. 33: 19: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gra¬ cious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” And the Apostle Paul, after quoting in Rom. 9:15 this that Jehovah said to Moses declares in Rom. 9: 18: “So thefi He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.” But while we insist on this great truth that God is absolutely sovereign in the exercise of His mercy, and that His mercy is exercised toward whom He will, we should at the same time remember that while God is absolutely sovereign in the exercise of His mercy, while no one can dictate to Him as to upon whom He shall have mercy, in point of fact He wills to have mercy on all upon whom He can have mercy. Peter puts it in this way in II Pet. 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning His prom- GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 217 ise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffer- ing to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, hut that all should come to repentance. 2. In the second place, God's Lovingkindness is Manifested toward those who fear or love Him, to¬ ward His servants who walk before Him with all their hearts. We read way back in one of the earliest books of the Bible, Deut. 7:9: “Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, He is God, the faithful God Who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand gen¬ erations.” And in the second book in the Bible, Ex. 20: 5, 6, we read: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing loving kindness unto thousands (i. e., a thousand generations) of them that love Me and keep My commandments.” In the very familiar 103rd Psalm, verses ii, 17, 18, we read: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward them that fear Him. • • • • • % • But the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him. 2I8 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE And His righteousness unto children’s chil¬ dren; To such as keep His covenant, And to those that remember His precepts to do them.” In II Chron. 6: 14, we read: “And he said, O Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven, or on earth; Who keepest covenant and lovingkind- ness with Thy servants, that walk before Thee with all their heart It should be borne in mind that the phrases, the “fear of Jehovah,” as used in the Old Testament, and the “love of God,” as used in the New Testament, are practically synonymous. This appears by a compari¬ son of Prov. 8: 13 and Prov. 16: 6, with I Jno. 5:3. In Prov. 8: 13, we read: ''The fear of Jehovah is to hate evil:’* and in Prov. 16:6, we read: “By mercy and truth iniquity is atoned for; And by the fear of Jehovah men depart from evil” But in I Jno. 5 : 3, we read: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments,” So we see that the two phrases, the “Fear of Je¬ hovah,” and the “Love of God” describe practically the same thing, but viewed from different standpoints. The two phrases look at practically the same attitude of mind toward God from different points of view. 3. In the third place, The Mercy of God Is Mani- GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 219 jested Toward Every One Who Confesses and For¬ sakes His Sim. This we are told in Prov. 28: 13 : ‘‘He that covereth his transgression shall not prosper; But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy.” God shows mercy toward the vilest sinner if he con¬ fesses and forsakes his sin, but if he seeks to hide or deny his sins, he will find no mercy. If we seek to cover up our sins from God, He will uncover them to the whole world, and severely punish them, but if we uncover them to God and forsake them, God will cover them up so deep that no one can ever find them. He will cover them with the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, which will hide them even from His own all-seeing eye (see Rom. 3 : 23-26). 4. In the fourth place. The Lovingkindness of God is Manifested Toward the One Who trusteth in Je¬ hovah. This, we are told in Ps. 32: 10: “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he that trusteth in Jehovah, lovingkind¬ ness shall compass him about.” If one will only put his whole trust in Jehovah (the God of the Bible), then will he not only find loving¬ kindness from the God of the Bible, but that “Loving¬ kindness (of Jehovah) shall compass him about” on every hand, and the enemy will not be able to get at him at any point. 5. In the fifth place, The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested Toward All Them That Call Upon Him. This we are told in Ps. 86:5* 220 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE “For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. And abundant in lomngkindness unto all them that call upon Thee/' We find the same thought, though couched in other words (the words “Mercy’’ or “Lovingkindness” not being used but the thought still there) in the New Testament, in Rom. 10:12, 13 : “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him: for. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Ill. How Is the Lovingkindness of God Manifested? We come now to the last question, and it is a very practical question. How Is the Lovingkindness of God Manifested? The teaching of the Bible on this point is also very full and very rich. I. In the first place. The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested in His Pardoning Sin When It Is Con¬ fessed and Forsaken. This, we are told over and over again in the Bible. For example we are told in Ex. 34:6,7: “And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkind¬ ness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 221 fathers upon the children, and upon the chil¬ dren’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.” One of the most familiar and at the same time clear¬ est and most forceful expressions of this precious truth is found in Isa. 55:7: *‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the un¬ righteous his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly par» donr To backsliding Israel Jehovah says in Jer. 3:12, 13: “Go, and proclaim these words toward the north and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah; I will not look in anger upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah, I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy GodJ* In Jonah 4:2, we read: “And he prayed unto Jehovah and said . . . I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lov¬ ingkindness and repentest Thee of the eviH Micah proclaims the truth that the lovingkindness of Jehovah manifests itself in pardoning iniquity, in one of the most beautiful passages in his prophecy, a prophecy which abounds in marvelously beautiful pas¬ sages, Micah 7:18: “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardon- eth iniquity, and passeth over the transgression 222 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in lovingkindness. Again, David, who had fallen into his gross and ap¬ palling sins of adultery and murder, still counted on the forgiveness of Jehovah, because he had learned Jehovah’s lovingkindness and mercy; so we read in his Penitential Psalm this prayer as he makes full confession of his sin, Ps. 51:1: ‘‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.^^ And Moses, away back thirty-four hundred years ago, counting on the lovingkindness of Jehovah, pleaded with Him to forgive the oft-repeated sin and unfaithfulness of His people, as we read in Num. 14: 18-20: “Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and trans^ gression; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. Pardon, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy lovingkindness, and according as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And Jehovah said, I have pardoned ac¬ cording to thy word.” Mercy has been defined by a great thinker and theo¬ logian, Charles G. Finney, in these words, “Mercy is exercised only where there is guilt.” Now this is true ' GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 223 in law, and in the usage of the word “mercy” in law, but it is not true of the Bible usage of the word, “Mercy” or “lovingkindness,” as is clear from many of the passages to which I have already referred. Nevertheless, it is true that “Mercy” or “Lovingkind¬ ness” is manifested in the forgiveness of sins, and this manifestation of mercy lies at the basis of many other manifestations of God’s “Mercy” or “Lovingkindness” in His dealings with men; for the human race is a guilty race and when men recognize their guilt and confess their sins, then are they most likely to see God’s Lovingkindness manifested in a multitude of gracious ways. 2. In the second place. The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested in His Bearing Long with Sinners, Even When They Harden Their Necks and Persist in Sin. We have a striking illustration of this in God’s deal¬ ings with constantly backsliding and rebellious Israel. Read for example, Neh. 9: 16-18, 26, 27, 30, 31: “But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to Thy commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of Thy wonders that Thou didst among them, but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said. This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations. . . . (26.) Nevertheless 224 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE they were disobedient, and rebelled against Thee, and cast thy law behind their back, and slew Thy prophets that testified against them to turn them again unto Thee, and they wrought great provocations. Therefore Thou deliveredst them into the hand of their adversaries, to dis¬ tress them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto Thee, Thou heardest from heaven; and according to Thy manifold mercies Thou gavest them saviours who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries. . . . (30.) Yet many years didst Thou bear with them, and testifiedst against them by Thy Spirit through Thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest Thou them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless In Thy manifold mercies Thou didst not make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for Thou art a gracious and merciful God/^ Over and over again Israel departed from God and He chastened them sorely, but He did not forsake them. Israel as a nation is still departing from Je¬ hovah, the God of the Bible, and how frightfully they have been chastened and scourged during the awful centuries since they crucified their “Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36); but God has never forsaken them. Their preservation and prosperity in the midst of the continued persecution and appalling calamities that have befallen them is the miracle of history. And they are untrue to Jehovah and His Christ still, and God is chastening them and scourging them to this GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 225 day, and what appalling things they are suffering to¬ day, and the worst is yet to come, ‘‘the Day of Jacob’s Trouble”; but Jehovah has not forsaken them, and will bring them out at last as the transcendently glori¬ ous nation of all nations. His lovingkindness makes that absolutely sure, and His Word makes it absolutely certain. 3. In the third place. The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested in His Delivering from Sickness, Sor¬ row and Oppression. This blessed truth we find in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, for example, we read in Ps. 6: 1-4: “O Jehovah, rebuke me not in Thine anger. Neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Jehovah, for I am withered away: O Jehovah, heal me; for my hones are trou¬ bled. My soul also is sore troubled: And Thou, O Jehovah, how long? Return, O Jehovah, deliver my soul: Save me for Thy lovingkindness’ sake.” And we read in Phil. 2:27: ‘^ut God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.” And we read in Ex. 15: 13-17: ‘'Thou in Thy loving kindness hast led the people that Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation. 226 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE The peoples have heard, they tremble: Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed; The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them: All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. Terror and dread falleth upon them; By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone; Till Thy people pass over, O Jehovah, Till the people pass over that Thou hast pur¬ chased. Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance. The place, O Jehovah, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in. The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever.^’ 4. In the fourth place. The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested in His Maintaining the Security of Those Who Trust in Him. This David tells us in Ps. 21:7: ‘Tor the king trusteth in Jehovah; And through the lovingkindness of the Most High he shall not he moved.” Not only the king, even the King of Kings, Jesus, will be so established that all the powers of Satan can¬ not move Him because He “trusteth in Jehovah”; but the least of God’s own who trust in Him cannot be GOD IS ABUNDANT IN MERCY 227 moved, because “the lovingkindness of the Most High” is on their side. 5. In the fifth place, The Lovingkindness of God Is Manifested in His Acting as a Defense and Refuge in the Day of Trouble. David, the sweet singer of Israel, sings in Ps. 59: 16: “But I will sing of Thy strength; Yea, I will sing aloud of Thy lovingkindness in the morning: For Thou hast been my High Tower, And a Refuge in the day of my distress/^ If we, in spite of all our infirmities and failures, put our trust in Jehovah and live for him as David did, in spite of all his infirmities and failures and appalling lapses, then can we too be sure that the Lovingkind¬ ness of Jehovah, the God of the Bible, will manifest it¬ self in His being our all-sufficient Defense and our per¬ fectly secure Refuge and Hiding Place in every day of trouble and distress. And here we reluctantly close our study of the Lovingkindness of Jehovah, the God of the Bible. Who would give up such a God for the paltry god- lettes of “Christian Science,” or Theosophy, or “New Thought,” or Spiritualism, or Unitarianism, or “The New Theology,” or “Modern Philosophy” or “Mod¬ ernism” in general ? CHAPTER XII GOD IS FAITHFUL The particular subject of this chapter is The God of the Bible: God is Faithful. I think comparatively few Christians have dwelt much on this particular attribute of God, and therefore very few of us realize the wealth of meaning there is in the teaching of the Bible on this exceedingly precious and joy-inspiring subject. God has given me just twelve texts as the basis of our study and meditation; but we shall in the course of our study consider quite a number of other pas¬ sages of Scripture in which God reveals the truth about Himself in regard to the many ways in which He manifests His faithfulness in dealing with those who know Him and put their trust in Him. The considera¬ tion of these passages as the Holy Spirit Himself in¬ terprets them to us, will help us to still further appre¬ ciate the meaning and force of that wonderful saying of our Lord Jesus, found in John 17:3: “And this is the life eternal, that they should know Thee, the Only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ Our first text is Deut. 7:9: “Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love Him 228 GOD IS FAITHFUL 229 and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.” Now turn to another passage in this same wonder¬ ful book of Deuteronomy, which the Devil so hates (I suppose in part because it was the only book from which our Lord Jesus quoted when He had His con¬ flict with him in the wilderness, and so completely routed him), and which the “higher critics” of the pre¬ vailing school also so persistently attempt to disparage and discredit, but which all regenerate persons who in¬ telligently study it so highly esteem, Deut. 32:4: “The Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is He.” The Authorized Version translates this passage dif¬ ferently. It reads: “He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.” But the Hebrew word which is translated “truth” in the Authorized Version is precisely the same word that is elsewhere translated “faithfulness,” and of course should be so translated here (just as it is in the R. V.). Now turn to the prophet Isaiah, Isa. 49:7: “Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to Him Whom man de- spiseth, to Him Whom the nation abhorreth. to a servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall worship; because of Je~ 230 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE hovah that is faithful^ even the Holy One of Israel, Who hath chosen thee.’^ We now go to the New Testament, I Cor. 1:9: ''God is faithful, through Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” In this Epistle to the Corinthians Paul especially dwells on the Faithfulness of God, perhaps to encour¬ age them as some of their own number had proven so unfaithful. So turn to another passage from this book, I Cor. 10: 13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” We now turn to another Epistle of Paul, the first one written, i Thess. 5:23, 24: “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the com¬ ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you. Who will also do it.” Our next text is from Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians, II Thess. 3:3: “But the Lord is faithful. Who shall estab¬ lish you, and guard you from the evil one.” We turn from Paul to John, I Jno. 1:9: “If we confess our sins. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” GOD IS FAITHFUL 231 Now we go back to the prophets, to Jeremiah, Lam. 3:22,23: ‘Tt is of Jehovah’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness/' In our three remaining texts we resort to the Book of Psalms, the book that is so completely given up to extolling the glorious attributes of Jehovah, the God of the Bible. Read first, Ps. 33:4: ‘‘For the word of Jehovah is right; And all His work is done in faithfulness." Here again the Authorized Version reads “truth’' instead of “faithfulness,” but here again the Hebrew word rendered “truth” is the Hebrew word elsewhere rendered “faithfulness,” and is from the root which means “to be faithful.” Now turn to Ps. 36:5: “Thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies." The Authorized Version here reads: “Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." But the Hebrew word translated “clouds” in this passage is not the one ordinarily used for clouds, and is the word always used for “sky” or “skies” in every instance where these words are found in the Old Tes¬ tament. Now for our last text turn to the longest chapter in the Bible, the Psalm which is given up to 232 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE a description and exaltation of the glories of God and of His Word, Ps. 119:89, 90: ‘'Forever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thou hast established the earth, and it abid- eth.’’ /. God Is Faithful. In seven of these twelve texts the definite statement is made that God is Faithful, and each of the remain¬ ing five texts emphasizes the fact of His infinite and eternal faithfulness. Law-givers, prophets, apostles, kings and poets, all inspired by the same Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, join in one mighty, exultant an¬ them of praise to the Faithfulness of God, that en- dureth “unto all generations.’’ But What Do the Words ^WaithfuV^ and ^Waithful- ness” Mean? By carefully searching the Scriptures we get a clear and unmistakable and incontrovertible answer to this important question. I. In the first place, looking at the derivation of the Hebrew words so translated, we find that they were derived from a Hebrew verb, Aman (from which our word Amen—meaning verily, truly, certainly—is de¬ rived). This verb means to prop, or stay, or support. In its reflexive and intransitive use, the word means “to stay oneself,” or “to be supported.” Therefore the adjective “faithful” means, when applied to a per- GOD IS FAITHFUL 233 son, such a person as one may safely lean upon with all his weight, or stay himself upon. The Greek word translated “faithful” in the New Testament means “worthy of trust,” one that can be relied upon. But this same Greek word is used in the Septuagint (i. e., the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in common use when the New Testament was written), to translate the Hebrew word already re¬ ferred to, and of course gets its New Testament mean¬ ing from that fact. 2. In the second place, looking at the usage of the word “faithful” in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we find that its Biblical usage con¬ forms exactly to its derivation, for example, in Ps. 119: 86 we read: “All Thy commandments are faithful:” That is to say that the commandments of God can be absolutely depended upon. In Proverbs 14: 5, we read. “A faithful witness will not lie; But a false witness uttereth lies.” That is to say that a faithful witness is one who always tells the truth, and who therefore can, under all circumstances, be depended upon. Turning to the New Testament, to Jesus Christ’s own use of the word, in Matt. 24:45, 46, we read: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” 234 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Here we see that a faithful servant is one who can be depended upon to do what he is told to do. In Matt. 25:21, 23, we read: ‘‘His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord. . . . “His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Here the word “Faithful” is used four times, and in every instance of a servant to describe him as a servant who can be absolutely depended upon, not only to do what he is told to do, but what ought to be done, whether he is told or not. Turning to Paul we read in I Tim. i: 15 : ''Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation^ that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Here “faithful” is used to describe the character of this wonderful and apparently incredible statement that is made, and the thought is, that as wonderful as the statement is, it is to be absolutely depended upon, that it is “worthy of all (unhesitating and whole¬ hearted) acceptance.” Now looking to the last book in the Bible, and next to the last chapter, in Rev. 21:5, we read: “And He that sitteth on the throne said. Be¬ hold, I make all things new. And He saith. Write: for these words are faithful and true,” GOD IS FAITHFUL 235 That is to say, the words that God has spoken are to he absolutely depended upon. It is clear then, the word “Faithful” as applied to a person means a person upon whom we can stay ourselves, a person who can be absolutely depended upon in any and every emergency that can arise. Therefore to say “God is faithful” means, God is such a Person that we can absolutely rely upon Him in every emergency of life, such a Person that we can stay our¬ selves upon Him under all circumstances, in time and in eternity. As Isaiah puts it in Isa. 26: 3, 4: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in Jehovah forever; for in Jehovah, even Jehovah, is an everlasting rock.” The Bible has much that is suggestive and instruc¬ tive and heart-thrilling to say about the measureless extent and eternal duration of the Faithfulness of God. We read for example, in Lam. 3 : 22, 23: “It is of Jehovah^s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.^' In Ps. 36: 5, we read: “Thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies." In Ps. 33 : 4, we read: “For the word of Jehovah is right; And all His •^^ork is done in faithfulness." 236 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE And in Ps. 119:89, 90, we read: ''Forever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thou hast established the earth, and it abid- eth.^’ IL How the Faithfulness of God Is Manifested. Now let us for our encouragement, for our deliver¬ ance from all fear and anxiety and worry, and for our exceeding great joy, look at the many ways in which the Faithfulness of God is manifested, as they are set forth in God’s own word about Himself, the Bible. I. In the first place, God's Faithfulness is Mani¬ fested in His keeping His promise and covenant to the very letter, in His fulfilling every word that goes out of His mouth, regardless of what man does. This we find in Heb. 10: 23, 36, 37: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for He is faithful that prom¬ ised. ... For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the prom¬ ise. For yet a very little while. He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.” Here we are told that we need have no fear what¬ ever about the future, however uncertain and threat¬ ening it may seem, because God’s promises cover it GOD IS FAITHFUL 237 all, and “He is faithful that promised,’’ and therefore we may rest absolutely confident that His promises will be fulfilled to the very letter. In a similar way Moses comforted Israel in antici¬ pation of all that their mighty enemies would do to overthrow and destroy them, by saying in Deut. 7:9: “Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand gen¬ erations.” In a similar way Solomon, in his prayer at the dedi¬ cation of the temple at Jerusalem, in speaking to Je¬ hovah, God of Israel, exclaims, as recorded in I Kings 8:23, 24: “O Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; Who keepest covenant and lovingkind¬ ness with Thy servants, that walk before Thee with all their heart; Who hast kept with Thy servant David my father that zvhich Thou didst promise him: yea. Thou spakest with Thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with Thy hand, as it is this day.” And again in closing that prayer, after referring to the calamities that would surely come upon Israel be¬ cause of forsaking Jehovah, and of the way of deliv¬ erance by turning to and appealing to Jehovah, the only true God, Solomon exclaims in verse 56: “Blessed be Jehovah, that hath given rest unto His people Israel, according to all that He promised: there hath not failed one word of 238 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE all His good promise, which He promised by Moses His servant.” Jehovah God Himself, after telling them of the awful calamities that would surely come upon them if they forsook Him, in Ps. 89: 30-32 : (‘Tf his children forsake My law And walk not in My ordinances; If they break My statutes. And keep not My commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod. And their iniquity with stripes.”) declares in verses 33, 34: ^^But My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him. Nor suffer My faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, Nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips/’ 2. In the second place, God’s Faithfulness is Mani¬ fested in the defense and deliverance of His servants in times of fiercest trial, testing and conflict. This we are told by Peter in I Pet. 4:19: “Wherefore let them also that suffer accord¬ ing to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithfid Creator.” Etham, the Ezrahite, sings in Ps. 89: 20-26: “I have found David My servant; With My Holy oil have I anointed him: With whom My hand shall be established; Mine arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not exact from him. GOD IS FAITHFUL 239 Nor the son of wickedness afflict him. And I will beat down his adversaries before him, And smite them that hate him. But My faithfulness and My lovingkindness shall be with him; And in My name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also on the sea, And his right hand on the rivers. He shall cry unto Me, Thou art my Father, My God, and the Rock of my salvation.” This whole 89th Psalm that has fifty-two stanzas in all might well be called the "‘Faithfulness Psalm.” It begins with these words: “I will sing of the lovingkindness of Jehovah forever: With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations.'' (v. i), and it closes with the words: “Amen, and Amen” and “Amen” is the adverb derived from the verb from which the adjective “faithful” and the noun “faithful¬ ness” are derived. The adverb is “Amen” and the verb is “Aman.” 3. In the third place, God's Faithfulness is Mani¬ fested in His standing by His people and saving them, even when they are unfaithful to Him. This also we are told in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. W’e read in Jeremiah’s song of heart¬ breaking sympathy for Israel in the dire calamities that overtook them in his day (which calamities he had foretold but did not glory in the fact that his pre- 240 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE dictions had been fulfilled; indeed he was heart-broken over the fact). I say we read in the midst of this most pathetic dirge that was ever written these words, Lam. 3 : 22, 23 : *Tt is of Jehovah's lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness T Again he cries in his prophecy, Jer. 51:5: ‘‘For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of Jehovah of Hosts; though their land is fidl of guilt against the Holy One of Israel/^ Faithless indeed had Israel been, hut God had con¬ tinued faithful. And Israel as a nation is faithless to this very day, but God still continues faithful, and will even yet make Israel glorious. Samuel proclaimed the same truth away back in his day when the people, and their priests, and their prophets had been grossly wicked and faithless to God. This we see in I Sam. 12: 20-22: “And Samuel said unto the people. Fear not: ye have indeed done all this evil; yet turn not aside from following Jehovah, but serve Je¬ hovah with all your heart, and turn ye not aside: for then would ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain. For Jehovah will not forsake His people for His great name's sake: because it hath pleased Jehovah to make you a people unto Himself." GOD IS FAITHFUL 241 And Paul declares the same truth to us who are believers in Jesus Christ, and still are often a faithless company. He says in H Tim. 2:13: we are faithless, yet He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.” Oh, I do rejoice that my security, here and hereafter, is not dependent upon my faithfulness, but upon His. 4. In the fourth place, God's Faithfulness is Mani¬ fested in His not suffering His children to he tempted above that which they are able to stand, but zvith, the temptation making also a way of escape that they may he able to bear it. This we read in those very familiar words in I Cor. 10: 13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithfid. Who zvill not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” What a stay these words have been to a multitude of Christians who felt deeply their own weakness, but stayed themselves on His Faithfulness. 5. In the fifth place, The Faithfulness of God is Manifested in His confirming and establishing those Whom He has called, guarding them from the evil one, so that not one of them shall ever perish, and sanctifying them wholly, and preserving them entire — spirit, and soul, and body—without blame at the com¬ ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. This precious truth we find set forth very clearly in three different passages from Paul’s epistles, first, H Thess. 3:3: 242 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ‘‘But the Lord is faithful, Who shall estab¬ lish you, and guard you from the evil one/* Second, I Cor. i: 8, 9: “Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Third, and best of all, I Thess. 5: 23, 24: “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the com¬ ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, Who will also do it.** The Faithfulness of God makes it certain that at the return of our Lord Jesus to this earth we shall be sanctified wholly, and that our “spirit and soul and body shall be preserved entire without blame.” Is it any wonder then that on the one hand “we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” in His Faithfulness, and on the other hand, eagerly cry, “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus”? This last prayer in the Bible begins with the word '*Amen** from which He¬ brew root the Hebrew words translated “faithful” and “faithfulness” are derived. Our Lord Jesus Himself said in Jno. 10:28, 29: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, Who hath given them unto Me, is greater than all: and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father*s hand.** All our confidence as believers in Jesus Christ in GOD IS FAITHFUL 243 regard to the future, both for this present age and for the age which is to come, is not in our faithfulness but in His. Dr. A. T. Pierson was once asked if he believed in the Perseverance of the Saints. He re¬ plied, ^‘No, I don’t; but I do believe in the Perseverance of the Saviour.” 6. In the sixth place, God's Faithfulness is Mani¬ fested in His chastening His children when they go astray. This we read in Ps. 119:75: ^T know, O Jehovah, that Thy judgments are righteous, And that in Faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me.” If God only showered blessings upon us and never let suffering, yes, keen suffering and anguish come into our lives. He would not be a faithful God, a God to be absolutely depended upon in every contingency; for we often need sorrow far more than we need joy, and our faithful God sends it, just as we read in Heb. 12:6: *Tor whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. And scourgeth every son whom He receiv- eth.” 7. In the seventh place, God's Faithfidness is Man¬ ifested in His forgiving His children when they con¬ fess their sins. John tells us this in I Jno. 1:9: *Tf we confess our sins. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Our confidence that God will forgive our sins when confessed rests upon two known facts about God, namely, that God is Righteous, and that God is Faith- 244 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE ful. God^s Righteousness pledges Him to forgive us our sins because He, Himself, has provided an atone¬ ment for them that perfectly satisfies the demands of His own Righteousness and Holiness, and God is Righteous and therefore will not require payment twice. God’s Faithfulness makes it absolutely certain that He will forgive the believers’ sins when they are confessed; for He has promised to do it, and His Faithfulness makes it absolutely certain He will keep His Word. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, for you to doubt that your sin is forgiven when you have confessed it is to question both the Righteousness and Faithfulness of God, as well as to question His verac¬ ity. Therefore, to question that your sins are for¬ given is not a becoming humility but daring presump¬ tion. 8. In the eighth place, God^s Faithfulness is Mani- fested in His answering the prayers of His children. This, we are taught in Ps. 143: i, 2: ‘‘Hear my prayer, O Jehovah; Give ear to my supplications: In Thy faithfidness answer me, and in Thy righteousness. And enter not into judgment with Thy serv¬ ant ; For in thy sight no man living is righteous.” Our last three chapters have been on the Righteous¬ ness, the Lovingkindness (or Mercy) and the Faith¬ fulness of God. These three attributes of God run along very nearly parallel lines, and they are all pledged to the deliverance, the defense, and the com¬ plete and eternal salvation of God’s people. GOD IS FAITHFUL 245 Such IS the God of the Bible, what a wonderful God! We can well exclaim with Micah of old, “Who is a God like unto Thee?” (Mic. 7:18). And the answer is. No other God is like unto the God of the Bible^ the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, Who is the same as the God of Paul, and Peter, and John and James, and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One thing must have impressed you as in these twelve chapters we have studied the God of the Bible, and that is, the marvelous unity of the Book with its forty or more human authors, but all God-controlled, presenting through more than fif¬ teen hundred years and under the most diverse and divergent circumstances, the same God in every respect, and thus conclusively proving that it was one Supreme Mind, and no less a mind than the mind of the One Infinite, Eternal, and Omniscient God Who spoke through them all. Yes, “Who is a God like unto Him?” Surely not the God of ancient philosophers, poets and sages, and just as surely not the God of modern philosophers, poets and dreamers, except in so far as they have bor¬ rowed their conception of God from this centuries- old Book, some parts thirty-four centuries old, and yet ever presenting the same God. The god of “Chris¬ tian Science” is not like unto Him. The god of The¬ osophy is not like unto Him. The God of “New Thought” is not like unto Him. The god of Spiritual¬ ism is not like unto Him. The God of Modern Uni- tarianism is not like unto Him. The God of the New Theology is not like unto Plim. The god of Modern 246 THE GOD OF THE BIBLE Philosophy is not like unto Him. The god of *‘Mod- ernism” in all its forms is not like unto Him. Let us then cast to the bats and the owls these man-made gods, and believe in and obey and surrender our lives to, and worship and adore the God of the Bible; and let us continue to study to know Him ever more and more fully, for “This is the life eternal, that we should know Thee, the Only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ THE END ■f ‘HI .'I . ^ 1 i i 'I i I «/ ‘i ) /#||L h /. I r V Prince ton leologica Seminary 012 011 Libraries 98 401 Date Due ^ ft ■* a ”1? i F 1 4 '47 r. ^ - > r. 0 '.'T. i iRiO’50 l«iR3 ’65 MW 1 ^ . f'* r^- - - I ’'/ij i i i \ • i ! i I 1 1