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THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE In the increasing light with which God is filling the hearts of the elect, this scripture, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is ONE Lord, bears a depth of meaning greater far and deeper than the surface truth we have presented thus far. That this passage may become clearer to our minds, scintillating in heaven's light like the ray which is broken into many prismatic hues, consider now the glorious things concealed in this mighty word of the Lord. The Lord our God is ONE. One, in the numerology of the scripture, means UNITY, UNITED, UNDIVIDED, UNFRAGMENTED. One is the primary number, denoting beginning or source. Unity being indivisible, and not made up of other members, is therefore independent of all others, and is the source of all others. "One," excludes all difference, for there is no second with which it can either harmonize or conflict. One means unity and unity comes from the word "unit".
In reference to His substance, God is SPIRIT. In reference to His state of being, God is ONE. That which is ONE is that which is UNITED, UNDIVIDED, UNFRAGMENTED. Oneness speaks of unity, harmony, singleness, concord, solidarity. God is ONE! The fact that there is ONE GOD must not be confused with the truth that GOD IS ONE. Perhaps, as someone has said, this is only another aspect of viewing the same truth, for God is truly one, undivided in Himself, or in His will and purpose. And surely HE alone is God! But this One God IS ONE. It is a great and blessed fact that God is ONE. He who is united, undivided and unfragmented in every aspect of His nature and state of being cannot be influenced, affected, moved, upset, frustrated, changed, altered, damaged, destroyed, made discordant or set at variance in any way. The character of God is eternal, changeless, unaffected. The love, joy, peace, righteousness, wisdom, justice, power and will of God do not rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. Matters not what happens nor what men or devils say or do, the love of God, the purpose of God, the power of God are steadfast, unmoved, unquenched, unaffected, without fluctuation. He is Jehovah, the SELF-EXISTENT ONE. He is ONE. No power in the universe can cause any deviation whatsoever in God's nature, will or action.
There can be no doubt that each aspect of God's being moves in perfect harmony and accord with every other part of His being. Here in the physical world there are contradictions in our value system because there are contradictions in moral philosophy, limited by finite and faltering human nature and reason. What is the ultimate contradiction in moral philosophy? In moral philosophy, the ultimate contradiction is between justice and mercy. The judge, if he is a good judge, will be just. He will not let somebody get off, without paying their dues. Moral justice demands that evil be punished. Because if evil goes unpunished, then the judge is a participant in the crime, by letting it go unchecked. Justice is one side of the coin. The other side, the other value is mercy. Mercy says, "I want to forgive you, when you don't deserve it. And the more undeserving you are, the deeper my mercy runs." This is a contradiction. How can you possibly combine these two creatively?
We speak of law and love, of truth and grace, of justice and mercy, and so long as sin does not exist there is no controversy between any of these. If there be no sin, law and love are never out of harmony with grace or each other; truth and grace go ever hand in hand; justice and mercy sing a common anthem. If the law be broken, what is love to do? If truth be violated, how can grace operate? In the presence of crime, how can justice and mercy meet? This is the problem of problems. It is not a problem as between God and man. It is not a problem as between God and the angels. It is a problem between GOD AND HIMSELF.
Justice and mercy can only be harmonized by making them ONE. And this can be done only in the realm of the God who IS ONE. Every facet of God's nature is unified, so that His justice is not warring against His mercy, neither is His judgment set against His grace. Herein lies the mystery and the wonder of it all - there is no conflict in God, no contradiction! In God, and in God alone, we see the contradictions combined, and justice and mercy kiss each other. Christendom has spoken of God's justice being satisfied, as if He were an incorrigible tyrant that must somehow be appeased. They speak of eternal punishment as a self-evident result of God's eternal, unchanging nature of infinite justice. Apparently, according to this crude theory, one is to think of two parallel lines, divine mercy and divine justice, two divine properties, running close beside each other but diametrically opposed to one another, each in its own right, continuing on into infinity. Not only love, but also justice must run its full course, and thus justice and mercy are isolated from each other endlessly. In this view God is both INFINITELY JUST and INFINITELY MERCIFUL at the same time but never the twain shall meet! This crude theory is responsible for the ridiculous doctrine of eternal life for some and eternal torture for others.
I am constrained by the Holy Spirit of God to cry out against such a blasphemous absurdity! Our God is not schizophrenic, He does not have a split personality. He is not both INFINITELY MERCIFUL and INFINITELY VINDICTIVE! The Lord our God is ONE, all the attributes and powers of His Being are working together in perfect accord, each harmoniously synchronized in the same purpose and toward the same end, without any contradiction. In the scriptural view, HIS JUSTICE is linked inherently to HIS SALVATION. "There is no God else beside Me; a JUST God and a SAVIOUR; there is none beside Me (Isa 45:21). He is a SAVIOUR because He is also JUST. His righteous nature requires that He be our Saviour. He "knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust," and He knows right well that "the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope" (Rom. 8:20).
Yes, HE WILL CORRECT US, and by this very correction make the necessary changes in us, and then He will bring us into the fullness of salvation. IN HIM "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness (justice) and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 85: 10). These are never to be viewed as OPPONENTS to each other, they are gloriously WORKING TOGETHER to fulfill God's redemption in us. Where mercy alone cannot produce the needed change, God applies His judgment. And when judgment has accomplished its full work, "in wrath He remembers mercy" (Hab. 3:2). His wrath and His mercy COOPERATE one with the other, both designed to play their role in bringing man to the one expected end: reconciliation to God and deliverance from sin and death. There is no conflict between the two - the objective of each is redemptive, not vindictive. If we have a concept where the judgment of God is pitted against His mercy, or where the justice of God becomes greater than His love, or where wrath triumphs over grace, then we have a distorted concept of God. We have not yet learned this one simple but sublime truth: The Lord our God is O-N-E!
I have never believed that by teaching the ultimate salvation of all men we were pitting one group of scriptures against another, or one aspect of God's nature against another, for it is my conviction that the solution can only be found in the correct HARMONIZATION of all the scriptures and all the characteristics within God Himself, not ignoring one while advancing the other. God's justice and His mercy, God's judgment and His salvation must MEET TOGETHER AS CO-AGENTS IN GOD'S REDEMPTIVE PURPOSES, else there is eternal warfare and irreconcilable conflict between the two. I find all the judgments of God to be disciplinary and correctional rather than vindictive and final. Therein lies the harmonization of which I speak. According to the Word of God, God is at the same time the JUDGE OF ALL and the SAVIOUR OF ALL. He is not the Judge of some and the Saviour of some, but both Judge and Saviour of ALL! "Judge of all" must mean that He judges all; none escape. "Saviour of all" must mean that He saves all; none are left out. Within that one wonderful fact can be seen the beautiful HARMONIZATION of the justice and the love of God - His judgment leading to repentance and a knowledge of His mercy. Praise His wonderful name!
The judgments of God can never be rightly understood apart from His nature of love. If God's judgments spring not from His love then they come not from God at all, for He IS LOVE. What ought this to teach us about His judgments! The pen of inspiration wrote, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord LOVES He chastens. and scourges every son whom He receives...for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:5-10). God doesn't go around purposelessly punishing or vindictively torturing any of His creatures. But He does go about precise paths of bringing forth correction UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS, as the prophet says, "When Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS" (Isa. 26:9). God's judgments, whether upon saints, nations, or the wicked in general are all corrective in nature, accomplished by the motivation of His nature which is LOVE. Truly, the Lord our God is ONE!
Do you recall the story about the wind and the sun arguing over who was the stronger? They decided that whoever could take the coat off a man walking down the street was stronger. The wind tried first. It blew and howled furiously. Twice it knocked the man off his feet, but the coat did not come off. In fact, the harder the wind blew, the more the man buttoned up. Finally the wind gave up. Next was the sun's turn. It started to shine, and the man, glad with the change in weather, unbuttoned his coat. But the sun grew warmer still till finally the man took off his coat. The sun won. One of the hidden morals of this story is that both the wind and the sun had the same objective - to take the coat off the man! While, in this case, warmth won out over violence, there was no conflict between the two. And so it is with God's judgments and His mercy. He will send what is needful to work the necessary changes in our lives - but ALL THINGS are of God, and all things WORK TOGETHER for our good. The Lord our God is ONE!
ALL THINGS CREATED BY GOD
Come, my friends, and go with me,In thought, dear reader of these lines, we have gone back "before the ages", where, in the language of the poet, we find "not a trace of anything but God - and space: God all around - below, above, unlimited in power and love." Oh, how I wish I might be able to impress clearly and indelibly upon the heart of everyone who reads this, the fact that there was a dimension when there were no "ages", no mighty blazing suns, no spiraling nebulae, no galaxies of stars and planets and moons, to mark the dial of eternity! Away back there, God's "grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the ages" began their course.
Away back to eternity!
Go back beyond the days of youth
Where everything that was, was truth.Go back until within the past
You fail to find the place, at last,
Where "the beginning" you can see
Of the immense eternity.Go back until there's not a trace
Of anything but God and space:
God all around - below, above,
Unlimited in pow'r and love.Away back there, removed from sight,
Where everything that was, was right.
Away back there, removed from sin,
Is where our story will begin.This truth is confirmed by the apostle Paul, to whom, alone, the full scope of divine revelation was made known. He tells us of the "times" outside the "ages'' saying, "Who did save us, and did call with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, that was given to us in Christ Jesus, before the times of the ages... (II Tim. 1:9, Young's Literal). In Titus he speaks of being an apostle "according to the faith of the choice ones of God, and an acknowledging of truth that is according to piety, upon hope of life age-during, which God, who does not lie, did promise before times of ages" (Tit. 1:1-2, Young's Literal). And again, when speaking of those saints who were mature and able to bear it, he says, "But we speak of the hidden wisdom of God in a secret, that God foreordained before the ages to our glory, which no one of the rulers of this age did know, for if they had known, the Lord of glory they would not have crucified" (I Cor. 2:7-8, Young's Literal).
It will be a wonderful day for you, dear one, when first your soul becomes enthralled with the revelation that God, before ever the world began or ever the ages were formed, looked forth from His temple of wisdom and omnipotence to chart with resolute care the course and purpose of every age. Your heart will throb as you read the opening proclamation of scripture, "In the beginning - GOD! In the beginning of what? Not in the beginning of God, certainly, but in the beginning of His creation of all things, in the beginning of time, in the beginning of the orderly procession of the divinely destined ages. In the beginning stands God, omnipotent and omniscient, creating, sustaining and guiding all things and all people and all the ages of time according to the purpose of His own will. No purpose ordained by God from the beginning can possibly go astray or be hindered by the efforts of devil or man. Oh, for the hour when all creation will grasp the beautiful message, "From Him everything comes, by Him everything exists, and in Him everything ends!" (Rom. 11:36).
If God be the Creator of ALL THINGS, then it must of necessity follow that GOD IS THE SOURCE OF ALL THINGS. We read the passage quoted above from the Diaglott. "Because OUT of HIM, and THROUGH HIM, and FOR HIM are ALL THINGS, to Him be the glory for the ages. Amen." All things are out of God, all things are through Him, all things are for Him, and all things are unto Him, ending in Him. The clearest possible rendering is given by Goodspeed, "For from Him everything comes; through Him everything exists; and in Him everything ends! Glory to Him forever! Amen." The Amplified Bible also expresses it beautifully, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. For all things originate with Him and come from Him, all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate and end in Him. To Him he glory forever! Amen - so be it."
The Bible opens with the simplest and yet most profound statement ever recorded by human hand, "In the beginning - GOD! The sweet singer of Israel declared of Him, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You have formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, YOU ART GOD" (Ps. 90:2). Our God was the great active force, the cause of all that began to happen "in the beginning." How awesome the thought that there was a "time" when there was nothing - absolutely nothing - but GOD! There was no blue-green orb called earth, no silver-shimmering moon, no diamond studded heaven of stars and planets, no angels, no devils, no man nothing but GOD HIMSELF. There were not even the 100 elements out of which everything in the universe is constructed - there was only God. Paul caught something of the sublimity of this eternal and Self-existent One and wrote, "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him: and HE IS BEFORE ALL THINGS, and by Him all things consist" (Col. 1:16-17).
Let me emphasize this wonderful and important truth: "He is before all things." This can mean nothing else but that God is not one of the "things". He is BEFORE all things. He is before all THINGS and He is before A-L-L things. And just as majestic is the truth that "by Him ALL THINGS CONSIST." Young's Literal Translation renders this literally from the Greek: "Because IN HIM were the all things CREATED... and HIMSELF IS BEFORE ALL, and the all things IN HIM HAVE CONSISTED."
This raises an important and interesting question. If God was "before all things," then OUT OF WHAT did He CREATE all things? When I was a boy we had a "Sunday School" definition of the word create. "To create," I was told, means to make something out of nothing. To my young and unlearned mind that sounded altogether logical. After all I thought, if God is God, and God can do anything, then surely it is no problem to God to make something out of nothing! But as I grew older and learned something of the laws of physics, I discovered a simple but demonstrable fact, namely, that out of nothing - nothing comes! Also, out of something you get no more than that thing is able to contain. You cannot take a gallon of milk out of a pint bottle unless you refill the bottle again and again. You cannot put a hundred dollars in the bank and take out a thousand. The man who seeks to take out of the bank far more than he put in will find himself a recipient of free board and room for many months to come! This, then, is a fundamental point of natural law. We recognize that out of nothing, nothing comes. And even God, in all His omnipotence, does not violate His own creative principle, and MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING!
If there was only God, and absolutely no thing other than God, what kind of material did God have at His disposal out of which to construct all things? If you were standing completely alone, with nothing outside your own being existent, what material would be available for making something other than yourself The answer is, of course, NOTHING! YOU WOULD HAVE TO MAKE THE "THINGS" OUT OF YOURSELF! And friend, this is precisely what God did. Now we can understand the full import of those words inspired by the blessed Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul: "Because IN HIM were the all things created ... and Himself is before all, and the all things I-N H-I-M HAVE CONSISTED (Col. 1:16-17, Young's Literal).
God couldn't make the world out of magma, because the molten lava is itself one of the "things" created. He couldn't form the stars and planets of any combination of atoms, for atoms are the "building blocks" or raw material of which "things" are composed, and atoms themselves, with their electrons, protons and neutrons, are "things". Can we not see by this that God pre-dated and pre-existed the whole universe of atoms, compounds and elements! It should be abundantly clear to any thinking mind that since God is before all "things", it was IN HIM that all "things" were created, and IN HIM all "things" were set together and arranged in order - the very source and substance of all "things" is GOD HIMSELF! OUT OF THE ENERGY AND SUBSTANCE OF HIS OWN BEING GOD BROUGHT FORTH AND CONSTITUTED ALL THINGS.
The Restitution of All Things (2nd - 3rd) - BACK
Spirit of the Word - Covenant Eschatology - Introductory Note - New Stuff
