| The Christian Life | July 1945 |
Gradually Revealed
The Character of God
“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”—John 17:3
NINTEEN centuries ago Paul had the privilege of proclaiming to the wise men of Athens One whom he described as “the unknown God.” We might ask how it came about that to some of the wisest men then living, the great Creator should be the unknown God? To understand the answer to this question, we must go back to the beginning of human history.
The Knowledge of God
Among the many blessings enjoyed by father Adam, the perfect man, was that he possessed a knowledge of God. With the fall of man into sin and death, this knowledge was gradually lost. As Paul says, describing some of the experiences of mankind during the early centuries after man’s fall: “When they knew God [when they enjoyed that measure of knowledge passed on from father to son from the beginning], they glorified Him not as God, … but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”—Rom. 1:21
How dark man’s mind became is shown in Romans 1:18-32, and that darkness still exists in the more degraded sections of heathendom today. Although the knowledge of God was lost to the majority of men, a measure of it was still retained by a few—such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham. To such knowledge concerning Himself which these faithful ones possessed, God added from time to time a further understanding, especially a limited knowledge of His gracious and benevolent purpose for human salvation, as it was due to be understood.
Enoch was given some knowledge of the coming of a Deliverer to establish justice in the earth. (Jude 14,15) To Abraham it was revealed that the work of the Deliverer whom God would in due time send, would be to bless all the families of the earth. (Gen. 12:1-3; 22:16-18) And so the knowledge of God, and an appreciation of the character of God, was continued with the few who possessed faith.—Heb. 11:1,2
Elohim
During the earliest centuries of man on earth, the faithful appreciated and worshiped God as the great all-wise Creator. He was referred to by them as Elohim, meaning, especially, that He was the great supreme object of worship, the most high God, the Creator.
El Shadday
When the time came for God to reveal to Abraham something of His purpose for blessing mankind, and in order to help Abraham’s faith, God revealed Himself to Abraham by another name, El Shadday, “God Almighty”—the all-sufficient One, or more literally, “God, the filler of all things,” the one competent to meet every emergency and sufficiently powerful to carry out the great promise made to Abraham.—Gen. 17:1
What a strong foundation for faith was thus given, not only to Abraham, but also to those who have come into covenant relationship with God through Christ! (Heb. 6:17,18) What peace and rest result from knowing that we are on the side of One who is almighty, the all-sufficient One, fully competent to fulfill to us His exceeding great and precious promises!
Further Revelation to Moses
The servant whom God used more abundantly perhaps than any other in Old Testament times was Moses. And to help Moses, in view of the great work he was to do—that of leading approximately two million people out of Egypt and through a forty years’ wilderness journey with no visible means of sustenance for such a great host—God revealed Himself by another name, saying, “I appeared unto Abraham … by the name of God Almighty, but by My name Jehovah was I not known to them.”—Ex. 6:3
According to some scholars, Jehovah (Yehweh or Yahowah, as some believe it should be rendered) means “I will be that I will be”—I will be to My people all that I have ever promised to be.
The Law Covenant, mediated by Moses, contained many promises of blessing to Israel, as well as curses to come upon those who failed to keep the covenant. (Lev. 26; Deut. 27,28) The name, “Jehovah,” assured Moses, was the faithful covenant-keeping God, who would be true to all His engagements.
And how faithfully the Lord carried out the meaning of His name, as manifested in His care over Israel! Every day of the forty years’ wilderness journey manna fell; and water from the smitten rock quenched their thirst and refreshed them throughout their lonely wanderings. These provisions were types of the blessings and refreshment which the church of Christ, spiritual Israel, receives through Him as she makes her pilgrimage to the heavenly city, the antitypical land of promise.
As the name El Shadday revealed to Abraham something of God’s power, so the name Jehovah reveals particularly His attribute of justice—that God will keep His covenant and His promises justly, faithfully.
A Further Revelation
But the character of Jehovah God was not fully revealed either to Moses or to Israel, as is intimated by the Lord’s reply to Moses’ request to see the face of God: “Thou canst not see My face … and live. … Thou shalt see my back parts: but My face shall not be seen.” (Ex. 33:20-23) This suggests the imperfect, incomplete view of the divine character given to Israel. And yet what precious thoughts and memories have ever been associated with the sublime name, Jehovah! What realizations of divine faithfulness have been the portion of God’s servants of the Gospel age, as well, as those of the typical Law dispensation! How the faith of God’s children has, at all times, been honored by their faithful covenant-keeping God! “If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful.” (II Tim. 2:13) “I am Jehovah.”—Exodus 6:2,3
God—The Father
After Israel had experienced sixteen centuries of Jehovah’s faithful leading and blessing, the time came for a still further and more wonderful manifestation of the character of God. God sent His only begotten Son into the world to reveal still more fully His character to men. (John 17:3) Jesus brought not a partial, incomplete revelation of the character of the great Creator, suggested by the Creator’s “back parts” seen by Moses, but came to bring, as Paul beautifully expresses it, “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God [seen] in the face of Jesus Christ.”—II Cor. 4:6
Jesus came to earth and showed us that God had the character of a father. (John 8:19; 10:32; 14:7; 15:15; 16:25; 17:25,26) Elohim has reference to God as the great Creator, in whose wondrous works we see displayed His wisdom: El Shadday speaks to us of His power: the name Jehovah tells of His justice. But God by revealing Himself as the Father, tells more particularly of His love—a God who is kind to the unthankful, who causes His rain to come down upon the evil and the good, and who, at great cost, gave His only begotten Son to die, a ransom for all. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”—I John 4:9
This was the unknown God whom Paul proclaimed to the Athenians—the God who had not revealed Himself fully even to Israel, and who to the vast majority of even professing Christians, is still the unknown God. He is the One whom we now have the privilege of proclaiming to the children of men, and who in due time is to be known and appreciated by all.—Jer. 31:34; Isa. 40:5
When Jesus had been telling His disciples that He was about to go away from them for a time and that in the interval of His absence they would be privileged to carry on His work, Philip said, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” (John 14:8) Show us that our God, Jehovah, the God of Israel, really has the character of a father that He is a God of love as well as of power and justice, and we will be happy and trustful in your absence.
Jesus, in reply, seemed to say: “Philip, I have now been with you a long time, and have I not been a father to you? In this I have but revealed to you the character of God. In seeing Me and realizing what I have been to you, you have seen the character of My Heavenly Father, and what He will be to all who come unto Him by Me.”
All will agree that this is the most wonderful relationship to God that any could possibly enjoy—that of sons of the great Heavenly Father—and yet this is the relationship into which the called ones of the Gospel age have been privileged to come. As one turns from sin, accepts Jesus as his Redeemer, and in response to the Father’s drawing, presents his body a living sacrifice, it brings the free gift of justification and the begetting of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of sonship. This takes us out of the family of Adam, into the family of God—“now are we the sons of God.” (I John 3:2) “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath begotten us.”—I Pet. 1:3
The Knowledge of God Again Lost
The good work begun by the early church of announcing this great invitation and “showing forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness,” continued zealously only for a few decades after Pentecost. Following the death of the apostles, the zeal of many began to lapse. Error entered the church, and confusion came into the minds of the majority. A few centuries later saw that dreadful period of time now looked back upon and called the Dark Ages, in which the knowledge of God’s true character was almost entirely lost.
The God which the Church of Rome presented to the people was not the true God but a most horrible caricature. The same may be said of the presentations of the two great divisions of Protestantism—Calvinism and Arminianism,—the former denying the Bible doctrine of Free Grace and miserably distorting the doctrine of Election; the latter, denying the doctrine of Election and failing to comprehend the blessed fullness of God’s Free Grace. The god of the Evolutionist, the Higher Critic, the Christian Scientist, is not the same as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but miserable perversions and misrepresentations super induced by Satan to blind the minds of all who believe not “the truth [concerning God’s character] as it is [revealed] in Jesus.”—II Cor. 4:4; Eph. 4:22
“Thy Words Were Found”
During the parousia of the Lord Jesus at the end of the age, the true character of God has again been revealed—a God of mercy, compassion, love, as well as one who is infinite in wisdom, justice and power. Again we may know the God whose love gave to men an unspeakable gift in the person of His Son; whose justice is to release Adam from death, as well as all condemned in him; whose power will restore the willing and obedient to perfection and eternal life; and whose wisdom was able to mark out a glorious destiny for His creatures and overrule every opposing influence, so as to make them either the willing or the unwilling agents for the accomplishment of His grand designs. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.”—Psalm 102:16
This true knowledge of God, the Scriptures assure us, is never again to be blotted out; for the morning of the new dispensation has begun to dawn, wherein “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14) “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (II Cor. 4:6) It is therefore the privilege of God’s people to make known to others the true God, who so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son to die as a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. (John 3:16; I Tim. 2:4-6) “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.”
To us God has been especially revealed as the Father. “I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.” (I John 2:13) “Come out from among them [the world and churchianity], … and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you.” (II Cor. 6:17,18) This knowledge of the Father constitutes the greatest sanctifying power which we could possibly be given, enabling us to become “imitators of God as dear children.” (Eph. 5:1 R.V.) And again, as Paul says, “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”—II Cor. 3:13
Let us all allow this good work of grace in our hearts to go forward, by seeking more and more to be like our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus, who, when in the flesh, was a visible likeness of the invisible God.—Colossians 1:15
“If I in Thy likeness, O Lord, may awake,
And shine a pure image of Thee,
Then I shall be satisfied when I can break
The fetters of flesh and be free.”