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The
great French composer, Charles Gounod, once paid a
generous tribute to his Austrian counterpart, Mozart.
Gounod remarked, “When I was twenty, I used to say, ‘I.’
When I was thirty, I said, ‘I and Mozart.’ When I was
forty, I said, ‘Mozart and I.’ But now I am sixty, I
say, simply and sincerely, ‘Mozart’.”
Our
spiritual growth into a realization of God may be
expressed in a similar way. When we are young, we say,
“I.” God scarcely enters into our thoughts. After a
time, we begin to take account of the Deity, and our
contemplations are modified to the conception of “I and
God,” though we probably would not give public
expression to this. Later on, God’s Spirit begins to
take a greater hold on us, and exercises our minds “to
will as well as to work for the sake of His
delight” (Phil.2:13). Then He is placed first, and we
say, “God and I.” But the highest pinnacle of spiritual
perception is not reached until the “I” has completely
faded out of the picture, and we say, simply and
sincerely, “God.”
This
is the pinnacle to which the apostle Paul is directing
our thoughts when he states, as he does on several
occasions, that “All is of God” (1 Cor.11:12; 2
Cor.5:18; Rom.11:36); when he declares that the evangel
is “God’s power for salvation” (Rom.1: 16); and
when he emphasizes that God is “operating all, in accord
with the counsel of His will” (Eph.1:11).
It
is particularly significant that it is in the prison
letters, the most spiritually advanced of Paul’s
writings, that he prays most earnestly that “the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may be
giving you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
realization of Him” (Eph.1:17) and “that you may be
filled full with the realization of His will, in all
wisdom and spiritual understanding, you to walk worthily
of the Lord for all pleasing, bearing fruit in every
good work, and growing in the realization of God”
(Col.1:9,10).
The
Greek word, here translated “realization,” is
epignoosis, (lit. on-knowledge). In the
King James (Authorized) Version, it is generally
translated “knowledge,” thus ignoring the prefix epi,
though three times the word is rendered “acknowledging”
and once “acknowledgment.” But the prefix
indicates that there is more in the word than mere
knowledge, and the Concordant Version renders it either
“recognition” or “realization,” depending upon the
context (cf Keyword Concordance, p. 242).
Humanity
as a whole does not “test God to have Him in
recognition” (Rom.1:28). Humanity is not ignorant of God
(v. 21), but “knowing God, not as God do they
glorify or thank Him.” Because of this, their
unintelligent heart is darkened, and God “gives them
over to a disqualified mind.”
In
contrast to this general trend, the eyes of our hearts
have been enlightened (Eph.1:17), and Paul prays that we
may be growing “into a realization of Him,” that we may
become “competent for a part of the allotment of the
saints, in light” (Col.1:10-12).
And
let us note that it is “the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory” Who gives us “a spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the realization of Him”
(Eph.1:17), and it is the same God and Father Who makes
us “competent for a part of the allotment of the saints,
in light” (Col.1:12). Thus is the deity of God
manifested in the believers, and thus we see the
importance of our subject.
THE DEITY
The
word “deity” only occurs once in the Greek Scriptures,
in Colossians 2:9, where they speak of the entire
complement of the Deity dwelling bodily in Christ. The
word is defined in the Keyword Concordance as “that
which pertains to God,” and when we speak of “the deity
of God,” it is a way of expressing “the godness of God.”
(There is no word “godness” in English, so we have to
use the word “deity.”) As we understand it, it is a
means of ascribing to God all that is rightly His,
whatever field of His operations we may be considering,
and, in particular, in attributing to Him all the glory
to which He alone is entitled.
The
Scriptures are emphatic in placing God first and
foremost. The initial commandment to Israel was, “Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex.20:3). Through
one of His major prophets, Isaiah, God challenged His
people, Israel, with the question, “To whom will you
liken Me, and make Me equal, and compare Me, and we
shall be alike?” And again, “I am Ieue, and there is
none else.” And yet again, “I am Ieue, the Alueim! That
is My name, and I will not give My glory to another, nor
My praises to carvings” (Isa.46: 5; 45:18; 42:8 CV).
Let
us beware lest we detract from God the glory that is His
due! This is easier done than we may think.
GENESIS 1:1
The
very first sentence of Scripture is of supreme
importance in establishing the deity of God. “Created by
the Elohim were the heavens and the earth.” This is the
Concordant rendering of Genesis 1:1, which places the
words in their Hebrew order and gives the correct title
of the Deity in this connection. The corresponding and
more familiar phrase in the King James Version is “God
created the heavens and the earth,” and because this is
the rendering that has been in use over the centuries,
it is the one that has been specifically attacked, as we
will endeavor to show.
“God
created the heavens and the earth.” This is a plain,
simple, straightforward statement; no words could be
more specific, nor less open to misunderstanding. And
yet they have been challenged by no less than seven
human philosophies, and, as all human philosophies are
inspired by the Adversary, this means that Satan
considers this Divine statement of fact so important
that he has attacked it from seven different directions.
Let us consider the statement in detail.
God
This word repudiates
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1. Atheism,
the philosophy of “No God.” Atheism denies
God.
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2.
Polytheism, the philosophy of “Many Gods.”
Polytheism divides God into many
smaller deities. The Egyptians, Greeks and
Romans all had many gods, and the cultures of
these earlier civilizations still find their way
into the thinking of today, and especially into
the fields of literature and the arts.
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3.
Agnosticism, which says that it cannot be
known whether there is a God or not. Agnosticism
doubts God.
These
three philosophies (Atheism, Polytheism and Agnosticism,
or the theories of “No God,” “Many Gods” and “The
Unknown God”) all seek to rob God of His glory as a
unique Being. God answers their challenge in Isaiah
45:5, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is
no God beside Me” (“I am Yahweh Alueim, and there is
none else. There is no Elohim except Me” CV).
God Created
These words repudiate philosophies four and five,
namely,
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4. Fatalism,
which says that everything came into being by
chance. Fatalism disputes creation.
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5. Evolution,
which says that one thing just grew out of
another. Evolution debars creation.
These
two philosophies would rob God of His glory as a
Creator. God answers their challenge in Isaiah 40:26,28.
“Lift up your eyes to the height and see; Who created
all these? Who is bringing forth their host by number? .
. . Do you not know? Should you not hear? The Elohim
eonian is Ieue, Creator of the ends of the earth. He is
not fainting, nor is He wearying. And there is no
investigating of His understanding.”
God Created the Heavens and the Earth
This whole phrase repudiates philosophies six and
seven, namely,
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6. Pantheism,
which makes God and nature one and the same, and
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7. Materialism,
which claims that matter is eternal
These
philosophies, by reducing God to the level of His
creation, deny Him the glory of His supremacy. He
answers their challenge in Isaiah 40:25 and Isaiah 45:5,
“Then to whom will ye liken Me, and whose equal will I
be? Saying is the Holy One . . . I am Yahweh Alueim, and
there is none else.”
The
fact that this opening verse of Scripture is attacked by
so many human philosophies shows how determined are the
efforts that have been made to undermine the validity of
God’s Word. But even more to the point is that it shows
how determined and ruthless have been the attempts of
the Adversary to destroy the absoluteness of the deity
of God. And those who proclaim these philosophies are
only following the lead, consciously or unconsciously,
of their father, the Adversary. And those who believe
them are only too clearly showing themselves to be his
dupes.
THE
FIRST COMMANDMENT
When
God gave His law to the nation that had just entered
into covenant relationship with Him, He made the first
commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me!”
And He followed this up by forbidding them to make,
worship or serve any graven image, or any likeness of
anything that is in heaven or earth or in the water.
That is to say, they were not to give to any creature
the glory and adoration that was due to Him as the
Creator. He must be Supreme, and the glory of His
supremacy He will not give to another, for all others
are creatures, while He alone is the Creator.
Yet,
while Moses was actually receiving this commandment at
the top of the mountain, the people below were
flagrantly flouting its principle by constructing and
worshiping a golden calf, and they even persuaded Aaron
to connive with them. No wonder Moses was wroth, and
broke the tables of stone on which the commandment was
written. The people had already broken it before ever
they had received it in writing (they had already
received verbal instruction from God, and had agreed to
obey it—see Ex.19:7,8—so they were without excuse). And
God was wroth with the people, too, and there was a
great judgment in which about three thousand died
(Ex.32:1-28).
But
this state of affairs is not a symptom peculiar to
Israel; it is to be found in all humanity. Paul tells us
in Romans 1 that God’s great dispute with mankind, which
brings down His indignation upon them, lies in the fact
that “knowing God, not as God do they glorify or thank
Him,” but rather, “they change the glory of the
incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of a
corruptible human being and flying creatures and
quadrupeds and reptiles” (Rom.1:21-23). Two verses later
they are spoken of as those “who alter the truth of God
into the lie, and are venerated, and offer divine
service to the creature rather than the Creator.”
This
is the great lie referred to in Romans 1:25—altering the
truth of God to make it seem proper for worship to be
given to a creature rather than to the Creator. It is
the same great lie which is spoken of in 2 Thessalonians
2:11, where, upon those who are perishing because they
do not receive the love of the truth for their
salvation, God is sending “an operation of deception for
them to believe the lie.” The love of the truth would
direct them to the knowledge that “all is of God”—that
the evangel is His power for salvation, based on the
preaching of the cross; but the lie, backed up by all
kinds of false signs and miracles, inspired by the
Adversary, leads them into all sorts of false
philosophies, which have as their basis the thought that
man is capable of higher things, that he can achieve his
own salvation independently of God, that he can work out
his own destiny. This is worship of the creature rather
than the Creator, and is an affront to the deity of God.
John H Essex
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