Who is our God? Chapter 6

We have been asked to criticize certain writings by those who differ from ourselves in some respects, and to do so should prove very beneficial. One of these is a booklet by Mr. R. H. Judd, entitled "One God: The God of the Ages," published in Oregon, U.S.A., in 1949.

We rejoice to find the author stating that "The Faith that cannot be supported by an intellectual and rational basis is valueless," and "God's Word is 'true from the beginning.'" The "accuracy of Moses" he commends. We rejoice too, in his statement that "human science of yesterday is not the science of today." Most people appear to imagine that "science" cannot retrograde through the human pride it engenders, and fail to perceive that the science of today will assuredly not be the science of tomorrow.

In the former half of the booklet, there is little that one might wish to criticize, and there is much useful information about the ages, and the various names of God. We do not, however, believe that in the Scriptures the first occurrence of any word or phrase possesses any gubernative efficacy.Should not every occurrence indicate its general usage? That is the true doctrine of concordance. Nor are we impressed by the silly argument, that "God is not a man," with which we have dealt in chapter 2. To argue that the Prince of Jehovah's host (Joshua 5:13-15) could not be Jehovah Himself, is like averring that Wellington could not be the generalissimo of Wellington's army. At any rate, Joshua falls on his face earthwards and worships this Prince. Exactly the same word is used of the common worship of God or Jehovah in the Old Testament. And why, we might ask, was the ground holy whereupon Joshua was standing, if he was only bowing down to any Army General or an Angel?

We are told further, that this "man" could not have been Jesus Christ, "because Jesus Christ did not become man until he was born of Mary." It is true that He who was known as Jesus Christ did not appear in flesh until He was born of Mary, but nowhere are we informed that Jesus Christ or Jehovah became Man.

The writer is referring to "the supposed 'theophanies' of the Old Testament," and evidently rejects the statements by the inspired prophets that these were appearances of God or Jehovah.
If God's Word is true from the beginning, why not accept it all in humble faith-obedience? The heretical person is he who "picks and chooses" which parts of Holy Writ he is willing to assent to,—an utterly dishonest procedure. If we really wish the whole truth, let us give chief attention to those parts of God's Word which seem strange, difficult, or incredible.

Isaiah (ch. 2) describes the greatest of all the theophanies. Men will in that day enter into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of clay, "from JEHOVAH'S awful face," when He "rises to terrify the earth." The great day of Jehovah's wrath is come. Rev. 19:11-16 describes the coming of the Prince of Jehovah's Host from heaven. John presents no picture of any puppet human representative of Deity. Whoever views this august and terrifying scene will be forced to the conclusion that it is the very apocalypse of Deity. Enoch also foretold this awful coming (Jude 14-15), He says Kurios (meaning in Greek, without the definite article, Jehovah; usually rendered "the Lord") comes among His holy myriads to effect judging against all. But if this Lord was merely a glorious human being, he made the "mistake" of saying these irreverent people talked hard things "against him." Should he not have said, "against God?"

Here we have another of those many beautiful and subtle proofs that the Lord Jesus was not only Man, but, in some way, God also.

The appearances of God upon earth in ancient times are too integral a part of history and revelation to be lightly passed over, as though they were legends. With regard to The Word or Logos of John 1, Mr. Judd believes that "John's prelude embraces all the 'words,' 'sayings,' 'promises,' God spoke concerning the Christ," from Gen. 3:15 onwards. Yet he soon modifies this, by shewing that in modem Greek the common people use the word logos popularly and unofficially as meaning "delegate" or "representer." The Logos who became or turned into flesh undoubtedly represented God, expressed God, and we should say also, explained God. Logos is a word which explains something, besides representing the thoughts of the speaker. Here the very first occurrence of logos in Matthew (5:32) helps us. The A.V. is forced to read, "saving for the cause of fornication." Other versions have, "on account of," or "for the matter of." The C.V. has, "outside of a case of prostitution," but this is far too vague, and too discordant. We might say that "The Word of God" (Rev. 19:13) is God's explanatory statement. This is entirely in harmony with John 1:18, He who elucidates, unfolds, or, literally, is the Exegesis of God.

It is quite true as Mr. Judd writes, that the Lord "fulfilled all that was spoken of Him by God," but that is not the reason why He is called the Word.

The next argument is that if Jesus pre-existed His birth by Mary as a living organized Personality, such Personality must have ceased (died) before the birth of the second Personality could be consummated. This is supported by the statement that Christ died once, or "once for all," and the proof given is found in Rom. 6:10; 1. Peter 3:18; Heb. 9:26. Now what Rom. 6:10 tells us that Christ died to Sin, or as regards Sin, once for all. Peter says that He "Once for all, concerning sins, for our sakes, died, a Righteous One for the sake of unrighteous ones." Heb. 9:26 is quite irrelevant here.

Why, however, must it be assumed that a change of manner of existence imples death? Why must there be cessation of being? Mr. Judd flings away his entire case when he is obliged to resort to a rendering such as "Who (like yourselves) being in the form of God" (Phil. 2:6). Can it be that is all the statement means? Paul tells us that Christ Jesus was all along in God's form, evidently in certain respects equal with God, nevertheless (alla) He empties Himself. If this means anything at all, it means that it was One existing in God's form who emptied Himself. If we wish to know what God's form was like, the theophanies will tell us.

There is no hint whatever in the Scriptures that the Lord was a wealthy man while on earth, or that He gave away a vast amount of money. Even had He done so, how could that have made the saints in Corinth rich? Paul tells us plainly that "because of you He becomes poor (eptOcheusen), that you, by the poverty of that One, should become rich" (2. Cor. 8:9).

Apparently, if I am in the form of a man, I cannot be a human being. Because we are told, "Who being in the form of God" is equivalent to assertion that Christ was not God; for that which is in the form of another can never be the other itself. Which, of course, is to beg the whole question.
"It was Jesus Christ," we are told, "who emptied Himself, and not one who was to become Christ." The emptying is thus explained, "Any man 'empties' himself when he gives up his own will to the will of another." There follows a reference to "a hypnotist," Would it not be far more in line with truth if any man who have Himself up to the will of God became filled? If we are emptied of anything, it is of self and sinful tendencies. Was the Lord ever thus emptied?

This One who existed all along in God's form, we are told "took upon him the form of a servant." Here the Greek becomes strangely puzzling. "Form of slave GETTING" (labOn). Getting, taking, or obtaining slave form. Is that the ordinary or common language of mankind? "Coming to be (genomenos) in likeness of human beings." Where shall we read such an expression on our birth certificate? Was it possible we might have come to be in any other likeness? And when was it found out regarding us, that we were in fashion as a human being?

But Mr. Judd gives the show away. "Being found in fashion as a man. . . . ." (Phil. 2:8) he would thus paraphrase, "Being, or recognizing Himself in human form, namely in the human scheme of things. . . . and realizing therefore that He was mortal. . . . . He humbled Himself. . . . ."

Surely here he is writing about a Divine Saviour. Every ordinary or extraordinary human being does not need to realize that he or she is mortal.

Mr. Judd devotes nearly fifty pages to "Difficult Passages" in the New Testament and the Old Testament. He is delightfully candid to admit such difficultues, and gives the impression that his own explanations often have not satisfied him. It is no idle boast for us to state that these difficulties do not bother us at all. Everyone of them will disappear the moment we come to see that we must not equate Christ with God. If, however, we say that Christ was God in human form, the truth is clear. He was God subject to the limitations of conditions. The Father, we assume, is the Invisible, not subject to conditions.

If we as saints of God become very receptive of His truth, and thus full of His Spirit, is there not a sense in which we might say that God is incarnated within us? But when we observe One whose will was not only wholly surrendered to God, but whose whole personality was filled by God from the very first, might we not say that God was indeed present in Him as fully as it is possible for God to be present in a human form? With such a complete receptivity of God such a Man must surely possess a link with the Divine as well as with Mankind. This relationship with the Divine, present in our Lord from the very first, must surely also take us right back to the Eternal for its origin and explanation.

As for any difficulties in connection with God in Human Form discarding His glories for the time being and incarnating as a Child, we might reiterate the question, "Is anything too hard for Jehovah?" Is such an event more difficult than raising all the dead? Sometimes I think the most "difficult" task that lies before God is to make His own people to be all of one mind.

In Luke 24:31 we are told that the Lord "vanished out of their sight" (A.V.). The Concordant Version, is more literal, "And HE became unapparent to them." The Greek word, however, is not aphanes (C.V. Heb. 4:13 "not apparent"), but aphantos, which means "unappearable." As the verb is rendered by "disappear," we would be justified in saying that "He Himself became disappearable from them." That is, He had the power to disappear completely. Now that is not less wonderful than disappearing into childhood. Holy Spirit came on to Mary, and the Holy One generates. (Luke 1:35).

Mr. Judd himself admits that the manner of entrance into life of the Lord "was not normal" in that Mark begins with the statement "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." He says the last four words allude to this manner of entrance into life. "Had Mark been writing of the birth of any other person, no such expression would have been made." This is very true, and we rejoice to see Mr. Judd's honesty. Evidently he realizes clearly that no other human being is capable of laying claim to the august title, "THE Son of God." You are a son or daughter of Adam, but you are not THE son or THE daughter of Adam. The laws of the Greek Definite Articles have been clearly stated, as in John N. Darby's booklet on the matter.

Nor would any ordinary man think of calling himself "The Son of Man," as the Lord often did. It is absurd to announce as a truth that which is a truism, never denied by any human being. Both of these titles, THE Son of God, and THE Son of Man, announce that the Lord was more intimately associated with Deity than any man could be, even though sinless. The unlimitedness of the love of God is proven by the fact that He does not spare even His OWN (peculiar; idiou) Son, but gives Him up on behalf of us all (Romans 8:32). The giving up of a merely faithful man, even though sinless, would have been anything but a demonstration of God's love.

As the Son of Mankind, the Lord Jesus was a perfect revelation and representation of what mankind should be and yet shall be. As the Son of God, He is a perfect revelation and representation of God to mankind, in so far as God can be revealed in human form. The life of the Lord on earth was the expression in time of what must have been eternal within God, just as His self-emptying must have been timeless also. As an exact facsimile of all that is basically God (Hebrews 1:3), in human form, how could He be other than God?

Never does He require to tell Israel or the world that He had been appointed the Messiah. Everywhere He carries about a veiled but Godlike dignity and a hidden majesty. He is an authoritative Teacher not like other men who have founded religions, but by virtue of His own unique personality and origin.

Never does He class Himself along with His disciples. He proposes Himself as an object of faith. He spoke as though Divine authority became Him, in the same manner as God speaks in the Old Testament. He shewed Himself as the pattern of the true life. He shuts out any effort to approach the Father except through Himself. How true it was that "Never talks thus a human being" (John 7:46).

Never is there any consciousness of moral inferiority; of the need of forgiveness, of a closer walk with God. Only One who proceeded forth directly out from God could have uttered the celestial speech as found in Matt. 11:27, "No one is recognizing the Son except the Father, nor is anyone recognizing the Father except the Son." Once again, such language carries us into the Eternal.
Truly, the difficulties which cause some to reject Christ as being God (in human form) are far harder than any difficulties in accepting His divinity. It was just as natural and easy for God Almighty to appear as Man as for God to create man, and create him in His own image. Any lower conception of Christ has always been found inadequate to maintain the spiritual life.
If the title "The Son of Humanity" signifies that the Lord is God's Ideal and True Man, why should not the title "The Son of God" signify that He is man's Ideal and True God, though in human form? Was any other human being ever generated of Holy Spirit? (Luke 1:35). If He is not Divine, then He is not Human. And if He is not the True Human Being, then He cannot be Divine, and we know nothing about God.

Mr. Judd avers that because the Lord Jesus is a Man, and often called a Man, any possibility of His pre-existence is precluded. "He described Himself as 'a man that told you the truth' (John 8:40), and many times He took to Himself the title of 'the Son of Man.' Paul called Him 'the man Christ Jesus' (1. Tim. 2:5)." We have already answered this from the scriptural fact of the theophanies in the Old Testament. This, however, is unacceptable to some who say they believe the scriptures. I wonder whether they would listen to a profound scholar, Professor James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, in his startling book, "Man and the Attainment of Immortality." His view, after shewing how God has been carrying on the universe for ages, is that "throughout the untold ages of organic history, God was becoming man." In the sphere of religious thought, "nothing more profound or challenging has ever been uttered by human lips than the statement that 'GOD IS LOVE.' It gives a complete philosophy of religion. For if God is Love, then since Love must needs express itself in action and have that to which it can go out in mutual fellowship, it would follow that the age-long processthat divine self-communication and impartation that constitute creation—began, in order to produce a plurality of human souls. It is therefore not one single act of divine Kenosis, or self-emptying and self-limitation with which we have to deal, for all creation is a process of Kenosis." God has been becoming man in order that man may become as God. Love is the most characteristic feature of personality, and means the desire to share experience. The whole creative movement, therefore, is an expression of God's personality, directed towards the development of a vast family of beings in perfect union with Him and completely free, and so enriching and completing the experience of Him who fills all things.

How we wish Mr. Judd could have entered into the Greek of John 8:40-42. Why does the Lord say to the murderous Jews, "Yet now you are seeking to kill Me, a human being who has talked to you the truth which I hear from-beside (para) God"? He does not call Himself a man (Greek anEr), but a human being (anthrOpos). Was there no point in His stressing the fact that, after all He had said concerning His Father, he was human? Those who claimed to be Abraham's seed sought to kill the Christ. But this Abraham himself certainly did not. How could Abraham, about nineteen hundred years earlier, have killed this same Man who confronted the Jews? Is it not very clear that the same Person who appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18, was now present before Abraham's seed, though in somewhat different conditions? "One Father, we have, the Deity," answered the Jews. "If the Deity were your Father, in that case you loved Me, for I, out from the Deity came forth, and have got here" (egO gar ek tou Theou exElthon, kai hEkO).
All that Nicodemus could say was, "We are aware that from God (apo Theou) Thou hast come, a teacher." He knew not that the Lord came forth OUT FROM the Deity.

If the Lord was not the one "coming out of heaven" (John 3:31), then He is assuredly not in heaven now, in spite of Acts 1:11 and John 3:13. There is no statement that He came down in the same form, human form, as He ascended. The Angel said to Miriam, "Holy Spirit shall come on to thee, and Most High Power shall overshadow thee (Luke 1:35).

If the Greek preposition ek (out of) signifies origin, can we be wrong in saying that the Son originated in the Father? In connection with John 17:5, Mr. Judd remarks that there can be no doubt that any person bearing the name of "Jesus" and the title of "Christ" was not in existence "before the world was." We agree that these names were not known then. Yet God, presumably, has always existed. Has He always been known by His name Jehovah? If not, will this mean that God never existed? The God who appeared openly to Abraham and others did not call Himself the Christ, or Jesus, but he could not have been the invisible Father. He who appeared must have been God's Image and Logos. In John 17:5 the Lord is praying to the Father. "And now glorify Thou Me, Father, beside (para) Thyself, as regards the glory which I had before the world's being, beside (para) Thee." There was a Father then, so obviously, there must have been a Son. There cannot exist Fatherhood without Sonship. Therefore the Son had a glory beside His Father, before human society came into being.

Mr. Judd once again gives himself away when discussing the statement of Thomas, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). He reasons that Thomas failed to distinguish between the Risen One and His Father. Christ was "the representative of God" to Thomas only, because He had been raised from the dead. Of course, the Christ was the Representative of God, but in human form, and suffering limitations, though fully displaying the love of God and His moral glories. But how any good or even sinless man can be the representative of Invisible Spirit, Mr. Judd does not explain. Surely the Visible Representative of Invisible Spirit would need to be Divine. Moreover, Mr. Judd says not one word about the Lord's tacit commendation of the statement by Thomas. Much of Mr. Judd's booklet testifies to the great difficulties he encounters in endeavouring to believe his own teachings and theories. While he commends the verification of translation and contexts, he struggles along under the burden of many very false renderings, due perhaps to a total ignorance of the tongues of inspiration.

As an example, when dealing with John 1:10, he says that "The Sinaitic Version translates—'The world was made because of him.' "This is quite erroneous, as there is no Sinaitic Version. It is the Sinaitic manuscript of the fourth century, which reads in Greek, the equivalent of "The world because of Him came into being." This reading is by prima manu and the earliest corrector of the MS. The important corrector who came later alters di' auton into di' autou, which all other MSS. shew, meaning, "through Him," or "by means of Him," which is exactly the same construction as is found in verse 3, where the venerable Sinaitic MS. shews no various readings or corrections. Having spent four years collating every word and every minutest variation in the Sinaitic MS., I am well aware of the ease with which errors can creep in, often quite absurd errors.

On another page Mr. Judd quotes the Authorized Version of Col. 1:16, and points out correctly that "in Him were all things created." The A.V. reads "by him" at the beginning of the verse and at the end. Mr. Judd leads us to believe that we ought to read "in Him" both times. He omits to state that the close of the verse says "all things through Him (di' autou) and for Him have been created."

What does "through" signify? Just by, or by means of. Let us take one simple case. In Acts 12:9 Peter could hardly realize that "what is coming to pass by means of the messenger (or, through the messenger) is true." Was the messenger quite idle? Did he do nothing? Was he only a machine? God was undoubtedly acting, but so was the Messenger.

In the first chapter of Hebrews there is a contrast. Not between Angels and God the Father, but between Angels and the Son of God. Verses 8 and 9 are addressed by God toward the Son. The same is true of verses 10 to 12. Verse 10 states very clearly, "THOU, originally, Lord, dost found the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands." Surely this should banish any doubt as to who is the Creator.

If the arguments of Mr. Judd are correct, we should have expected Col. 1:17 to say that the universe hangs together, as a definite consistent whole, in the Father, not in the Son.

God has been operating His immense purpose of heading up the universe of beings in heaven and on earth in the Christ in line with the plan of His will (Eph. 1:10, 11). Theology, and bad translations, have destroyed the outline of this great plan.

In a way, God's incarnation in the world has been gradual. It was no sudden intervention in history. In a way, it is part and parcel of God's Creation scheme. There has been a continuous Divine operation with a view to God's entrance right into humanity, as flesh and as visible. This will be seen to be entirely in line with His Name JEHOVAH-God manifesting Himself in the Old Testament times as Human, then in New Testament times appearing as Flesh, while later on He will tabernacle with Humanity (Rev. 21:3). Mankind is and shall be God's chiefest creation, and thus it was only in human form that God could manifest Himself in the world of mankind. When at last that Holy Thing, that Holy One, generated (Luke 1:35), life in its highest and Divine form appeared, "that eonian Life which, indeed, was face to face with the Father, and was manifested to us" (1. John 1:2). Christ is the realization and expression in human form of that which was eternal within God. In and through the Creation God attains His Ideal. In the mode or form of Son He becomes Creator so that sonship might be the ultimate of that Race made in His image. Just as in ancient times God spoke to His people Israel in many modes, so at the final stage of these days He "talks (i.e. with a human tongue) to us in a Son" (or, in Son; son-wise; Heb. 1:1, 2).
It is this manifestation of God in the race in human form that vindicates and justifies Creation, with all its subsequent groaning and travail. That ideal sonship which was real and imperative within the Divine Father had to find expression in mankind. The Creation was rooted in, and brought about by that ideal within the Father. The Fatherhood and the Sonship within God speak: "Let us make Man in Our Image." Man, as the glory and crown and the last word in Creation.

If, then, this Sonship or Son within God was the Ideal in which Creation was conceived and brought forth, this Son cannot be a different Person from the Father, but He is God in the mode of "Son." Christ is the manifestation of God in the ideal of filial relationship towards Himself, an ideal and a relationship conceived and originated entirely by God and not by mankind; something which mankind by itself could never have produced or even thought of.

Among men God could not appear except under limitations. On Sinai His Majesty was forbidding, awesome, terrifying. In His transcendence God makes His home "light inaccessible" (1. Tim. 6:16; literally "light un-toward-able.") But as Son, and Man, the greater the limitations, the closer and nearer can He come to us. That is why God comes to man as Son. That is why the Lord is called Immanuel, that is "With us-the Deity."

Some have objected to the term "limitation," but is this, after all, different in effect from saying that the Lord emptied Himself (Phil. 2:7)? Was not the Man of Sorrows of Isaiah 53 One subjected to very severe limitations? Dumb like a sheep before its shearers, just as before He came, He had been shorn of the glories He had in God's form.

Rather than ask, How could Christ, considering His ignorance of certain things, the humiliations of His earthly life, and His likeness to our miserable and weakly constitutions, actually be God, we ought to ask, How could He be other than God, how could God have come down among men otherwise, in a form that could die. How could God on the New Earth dwell with man if not in Christ and as Son?

Some of Mr. Judd's arguments are manifestly very weak. For example, he writes seven pages upon Matt. 28:19, which verse "is generally regarded as an unanswerable one in favour of the trinitarian doctrine." Yet at the finish we are astonished to discover that he has not accounted for the formula. Obviously there is a trinity of some kind, but he fails to explain why the three are mentioned.

There are many other points in his booklet which we might criticize, but unfortunately he makes this to some extent useless, by relying too much upon scholars and versions and human authority, instead of upon the actual Words of God.

Truly, indeed, there is only one God—the God of the Ages. But it is Himself that this God has manifested in the Christ, not some other separate Person.

End of Chapter 6 (Alexander Thomson)