God

VIEW:38 DATA:01-04-2020

Claimed to be the creator god around 325 C.E. still in vouge by the Christian sect Roman/Christian/germanic/Anglo-Saxon
Gods and Goddess Reference


GOD.—The object of this article is to give a brief sketch of the history of belief in God as gathered from the Bible. The existence of God is everywhere assumed in the sacred volume; it will not therefore be necessary here to consider the arguments adduced to show that the belief in God’s existence is reasonable. It is true that in Psa_14:1; Psa_53:1 the ‘fool’ (i.e. the ungodly man) says that there is no God; but the meaning doubtless is, not that the existence of God is denied, but that the ‘fool’ alleges that God does not concern Himself with man (see Psa_10:4).
1. Divine revelation gradual.—God ‘spake,’ i.e. revealed Himself, ‘by divers portions and in divers manners’ (Heb_1:1). The world only gradually acquired the knowledge of God which we now possess; and it is therefore a gross mistake to look for our ideas and standards of responsibility in the early ages of mankind. The world was educated ‘precept upon precept, line upon line’ (Isa_28:10); and it is noteworthy that even when the gospel age arrived, our Lord did not in a moment reveal all truth, but accommodated His teaching to the capacity of the people (Mar_4:33); the chosen disciples themselves did not grasp the fulness of that teaching until Pentecost (Joh_16:12 f.). The fact of the very slow growth of conceptions of God is made much clearer by our increased knowledge with respect to the composition of the OT; now that we have learnt, for example, that the Mosaic code is to be dated, as a whole, centuries later than Moses, and that the patriarchal narratives were written down, as we have them, in the time of the Kings, and are coloured by the ideas of that time, we see that the idea that Israel had much the same conception of God in the age of the Patriarchs as in that of the Prophets is quite untenable, and that the fuller conception was a matter of slow growth. The fact of the composite character of the Pentateuch, however, makes it very difficult for us to find out exactly what were the conceptions about God in patriarchal and in Mosaic times; and it is impossible to be dogmatic in speaking of them. We can deal only with probabilities gathered from various indications in the literature, especially from the survival of old customs.
2. Names of God in OT.—It will be convenient to gather together the principal OT names of God before considering the conceptions of successive ages. The names will to some extent be a guide to us.
(a) Elohim; the ordinary Hebrew name for God, a plural word of doubtful origin and meaning. It is used, as an ordinary plural, of heathen gods, or of supernatural beings (1Sa_28:13), or even of earthly judges (Psa_82:1; Psa_82:5, cf. Joh_10:34); but when used of the One God, it takes a singular verb. As so used, it has been thought to be a relic of pre-historic polytheism, but more probably it is a ‘plural of majesty,’ such as is common in Hebrew, or else it denotes the fulness of God. The singular Eloah is rare except in Job; it is found in poetry and in late prose.
(b) El, common to Semitic tribes, a name of doubtful meaning, but usually interpreted as ‘the Strong One’ or as ‘the Ruler.’ It is probably not connected philologically with Elohim (Driver, Genesis, p. 404). It is used often in poetry and in proper names; in prose rarely, except as part of a compound title like El Shaddai, or with an epithet or descriptive word attached; as ‘God of Bethel,’ El-Bethel (Gen_31:13); ‘a jealous God,’ El qann⒠(Exo_20:5).
(c) El Shaddai.—The meaning of Shaddai is uncertain; the name has been derived from a root meaning ‘to overthrow,’ and would then mean ‘the Destroyer’; or from a root meaning ‘to pour,’ and would then mean ‘the Rain-giver’; or it has been interpreted as ‘my Mountain’ or ‘my Lord.’ Traditionally it is rendered ‘God Almighty,’ and there is perhaps a reference to this sense of the name in the words ‘He that is mighty’ of Luk_1:49. According to the Priestly writer (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ), the name was characteristic of the patriarchal age (Exo_6:3, cf. Gen_17:1; Gen_28:3). ‘Shaddai’ alone is used often in OT as a poetical name of God (Num_24:4 etc.), and is rendered ‘the Almighty.’
(d) El Elyon, ‘God Most High,’ found in Gen_14:18 ff. (a passage derived from a ‘special source’ of the Pentateuch, i.e. not from J [Note: Jahwist.] , E [Note: Elohist.] , or P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ), and thought by Driver (Genesis, p. 165) perhaps to have been originally the name of a Canaanite deity, but applied to the true God. ‘Elyon’ is also found alone, as in Psa_82:5 (so tr. [Note: translate or translation.] into Greek, Luk_1:32; Luk_1:35; Luk_1:76; Luk_6:35), and with ‘Elohim’ in Psa_57:2, in close connexion with ‘El’ and with ‘Shaddai’ in Num_24:15, and with ‘Jahweh’ in Psa_7:17; Psa_18:13 etc. That ‘El Elyon’ was a commonly used name is made probable by the fact that it is found in an Aramaic translation in Dan_3:26; Dan_4:2; Dan_5:18-21 and in a Greek translation in 1Es_6:31 etc., Mar_5:7, Act_16:17, and so in Heb_7:1, where it is taken direct from Gen_14:18 LXX [Note: Septuagint.] .
(e) Adonai (= ‘Lord’), a title, common in the prophets, expressing dependence, as of a servant on his master, or of a wife on her husband (Ottley, BL2 p. 192 f.).
(f) Jehovah, properly Yahweh (usually written Jahweh), perhaps a pre-historic name. Prof. H. Guthe (EBi [Note: Encyclopædia Biblica.] ii. art. ‘Israel,’ § 4) thinks that it is of primitive antiquity and cannot be explained; that it tells us nothing about the nature of the Godhead. This is probably true of the name in pre-Mosaic times; that it was then in existence was certainly the opinion of the Jahwist writer (Gen_4:25, J [Note: Jahwist.] ), and is proved by its occurrence in proper names, e.g. in ‘Jochebed,’ the name of Moses’ mother (Exo_6:20, P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ). What it originally signified is uncertain; the root from which it is derived might mean ‘to blow’ or ‘to breathe,’ or ‘to fall,’ or ‘to be.’ Further, the name might have been derived from the causative ‘to make to be,’ and in that case might signify ‘Creator.’ But, as Driver remarks (Genesis, p. 409), the important thing for us to know is not what the name meant originally, but what it came actually to denote to the Israelites. And there can be no doubt that from Moses’ time onwards it was derived from the ‘imperfect’ tense of the verb ‘to be,’ and was understood to mean ‘He who is wont to be,’ or else ‘He who will be.’ This is the explanation given in Exo_3:10 ff.; when God Himself speaks, He uses the first person, and the name becomes ‘I am’ or ‘I will be.’ It denotes, then, Existence; yet it is understood as expressing active and self-manifesting Existence (Driver, p. 408). It is almost equivalent to ‘He who has life in Himself’ (cf. Joh_5:26). It became the common name of God in post-Mosaic times, and was the specially personal designation.
We have to consider whether the name was used by the patriarchs. The Jahwist writer (J [Note: Jahwist.] ) uses it constantly in his narrative of the early ages; and Gen_4:26 (see above) clearly exhibits more than a mere anachronistic use of a name common in the writer’s age. On the other hand, the Priestly writer (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) was of opinion that the patriarchs had not used the name, but had known God as ‘El Shaddai’ (Exo_6:2 f.); for it is putting force upon language to suppose that P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] meant only that the patriarchs did not understand the full meaning of the name ‘Jahweh,’ although they used it. P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] is consistent in not using the name ‘Jahweh until the Exodus. So the author of Job, who lays his scene in the patriarchal age, makes the characters of the dialogue use Shaddai,’ etc., and only once (12:9) ‘Jahweh’ (Driver, p. 185). We have thus contradictory authorities. Driver (p. xix.) suggests that though the name was not absolutely new in Moses’ time, it was current only in a limited circle, as is seen from its absence in the composition of patriarchal proper names.
‘Jehovah’ is a modern and hybrid form, dating only from a.d. 1518. The name ‘Jahweh’ was so sacred that it was not, in later Jewish times, pronounced at all, perhaps owing to an over-literal interpretation of the Third Commandment. In reading ‘Adonai’ was substituted for it; hence the vowels of that name were in MSS attached to the consonants of ‘Jahweh’ for a guide to the reader, and the result, when the MSS are read as written (as they were never meant by Jewish scribes to be read), is ‘Jehovah.’ Thus this modern form has the consonants of one word and the vowels of another. The Hellenistic Jews, in Greek, cubstituted ‘Kyrios’ (Lord) for the sacred name, and it is thus rendered in LXX [Note: Septuagint.] and NT. This explains why in EV [Note: English Version.] ‘the Lord’ is the usual rendering of ‘Jahweh.’ The expression ‘Tetragrammaton’ is used for the four consonants of the sacred name, YHWH, which appears in Greek capital letters as Pipi, owing to the similarity of the Greek capital p to the Hebrew h, and the Greek capital i to the Hebrew y and w [thus, Heb. יהוה = Gr. ׀ח׀ה].
(g) Jah is an apocopated form of Jahweh, and appears in poetry (e.g. Psa_68:4, Exo_15:2) in the word ‘Hallelujah’ and in proper names. For Jah Jahweh see Isa_11:2; Isa_26:4.
(h) Jahweh Tsĕbâôth (‘Sabaoth’ of Rom_9:29 and Jam_5:4), in Ev ‘Lord of hosts’ (wh. see), appears frequently in the prophetical and post-exilic literature (Isa_1:9; Isa_6:3, Psa_84:1 etc.). This name seems originally to have referred to God’s presence with the armies of Israel in the times of the monarchy; as fuller conceptions of God became prevalent, the name received an ampler meaning. Jahweh was known as God, not only of the armies of Israel, but of all the hosts of heaven and of the forces of nature (Cheyne, Aids to Devout Study of Criticism, p. 284).
We notice, lastly, that ‘Jahweh’ and ‘Elohim’ are joined together in Gen_2:4 to Gen_3:22; Gen_9:26, Exo_9:30, and elsewhere. Jahweh is identified with the Creator of the Universe (Ottley, BL p. 195). We have the same conjunction, with ‘Sabaoth’ added (‘Lord God of hosts’), in Amo_5:27. ‘Adonai’ with ‘Sabaoth’ is not uncommon.
3. Pre-Mosaic conceptions of God.—We are now in a position to consider the growth of the revelation of God in successive ages; and special reference may here be made to Kautzsch’s elaborate monograph on the ‘Religion of Israel’ in Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , Ext. vol. pp. 612–734, for a careful discussion of OT conceptions of God. With regard to those of pre-Mosaic times there is much room for doubt. The descriptions written so many centuries later are necessarily coloured by the ideas of the author’s age, and we have to depend largely on the survival of old customs in historical times—customs which had often acquired a new meaning, or of which the original meaning was forgotten. Certainly pre-Mosaic Israel conceived of God as attached to certain places or pillars or trees or springs, as we see in Gen_12:6; Gen_13:18; Gen_14:7; Gen_35:7, Jos_24:26 etc. It has been conjectured that the stone circle, Gilgal (Jos_4:2-8; Jos_4:20 ff.), was a heathen sanctuary converted to the religion of Jahweh. A. B. Davidson (Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] ii. 201) truly remarks on the difficulty in primitive times of realizing deity apart from a local abode; later on, the Ark relieved the difficulty without representing Jahweh under any form, for His presence was attached to it (but see below, § 4).—Traces of ‘Totemism,’ or belief in the blood relationship of a tribe and a natural object, such as an animal, treated as the protector of the tribe, have been found in the worship of Jahweh under the form of a molten bull (1Ki_12:28; but this was doubtless derived from the Canaanites), and in the avoidance of unclean animals. Traces of ‘Animism,’ or belief in the activity of the spirits of one’s dead relations, and its consequence ‘Ancestor-worship,’ have been found in the mourning customs of Israel, such as cutting the hair, wounding the flesh, wearing sackcloth, funeral feasts, reverence for tombs, and the levirate marriage, and in the name elohim (i.e. supernatural beings) given to Samuel’s spirit and (probably) other spirits seen by the witch of Endor (1Sa_28:13). Kautzsch thinks that these results are not proved, and that the belief in demoniacal powers explains the mourning customs without its being necessary to suppose that Animism had developed into Ancestor-worship.—Polytheism has been traced in the plural ‘Elohim’ (see 2 above), in the teraphim or household gods (Gen_31:30, 1Sa_19:13; 1Sa_19:16 : found in temples, Jdg_17:5; Jdg_18:14; cf. Hos_3:4); and patriarchal names, such as Abraham, Sarah, have been taken for the titles of pre-historic divinities. Undoubtedly Israel was in danger of worshipping foreign gods, but there is no trace of a Hebrew polytheism (Kautzsch). It will be seen that the results are almost entirely negative; and we must remain in doubt as to the patriarchal conception of God. It seems clear, however, that communion of the worshipper with God was considered to be effected by sacrifice.
4. Post-Mosaic conceptions of God.—The age of the Exodus was undoubtedly a great crisis in the theological education of Israel. Moses proclaimed Jahweh as the God of Israel, supreme among gods, alone to be worshipped by the people whom He had made His own, and with whom He had entered into covenant. But the realization of the truth that there is none other God but Jahweh came by slow degrees only; henotheism, which taught that Jahweh alone was to be worshipped by Israel, while the heathen deities were real but inferior gods, gave place only slowly to a true monotheism in the popular religion. The old name Micah (= ‘Who is like Jahweh?’, Jdg_17:1) is one indication of this line of thought. The religion of the Canaanites was a nature-worship; their deities were personified forces of nature, though called ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’ (Baal, Baalah) of the place where they were venerated (Guthe, EBi [Note: Encyclopædia Biblica.] ii. art. ‘Israel,’ § 6); and when left to themselves the Israelites gravitated towards nature-worship. The great need of the early post-Mosaic age, then, was to develop the idea of personality. The defective idea of individuality is seen, for example, in the putting of Achan’s household to death (Jos_7:24 f.), and in the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites. (The defect appears much later, in an Oriental nation, in Dan_6:24, and is constantly observed by travellers in the East to this day.) Jahweh, therefore, is proclaimed as a personal God; and for this reason all the older writers freely use anthropomorphisms. They speak of God’s arm, mouth, lips, eyes; He is said to move (Gen_3:8; Gen_11:6; Gen_18:1 f.), to wrestle (Gen_32:24 ff.). Similarly He is said to ‘repent’ of an action (Gen_6:6, Exo_32:14; but see 1Sa_15:29.), to be grieved, angry, jealous, and gracious, to love and to hate; in these ways the intelligence, activity, and power of God are emphasized. As a personal God He enters into covenant with Israel, protecting, ruling, guiding them, giving them victory. The wars and victories of Israel are those of Jahweh (Num_21:14, Jdg_5:23).
The question of images in the early post-Mosaic period is a difficult one. Did Moses tolerate images of Jahweh? On the one hand, it seems certain that the Decalogue in some form or other comes from Moses; the conquest of Canaan is inexplicable unless Israel had some primary laws of moral conduct (Ottley, BL p. 172 f.). But, on the other hand, the Second Commandment need not have formed part of the original Decalogue; and there is a very general opinion that the making of images of Jahweh was thought unobjectionable up to the 8th cent. b.c., though Kautzsch believes that images of wood and stone were preferred to metal ones because of the Canaanitish associations of the latter (Exo_34:17, but see Jdg_17:3); he thinks also that the fact of the Ark being the shrine of Jahweh and representing His presence points to its having contained an image of Jahweh (but see § 3 above), and that the ephod was originally an image of Jahweh (Jdg_8:26 f.), though the word was afterwards used for a gold or silver casing of an image, and so in later times for a sort of waistcoat. In our uncertainty as to the date of the various sources of the Hexateuch it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion about this matter; and Moses, like the later prophets, may have preached a high doctrine which popular opinion did not endorse. To this view Barnes (Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , art. ‘Israel,’ ii. 509) seems to incline. At least the fact remains that images of Jahweh were actually used for many generations after Moses.
5. The conceptions of the Prophetic age.—This age is marked by a growth, perhaps a very gradual growth, towards a true monotheism. More spiritual conceptions of God are taught; images of Jahweh are denounced; God is unrestricted in space and time (e.g. 1Ki_8:27), and is enthroned in heaven. He is holy (Isa_6:3)—separate from sinners (cf. Heb_7:26), for this seems to be the sense of the Hebrew word; the idea is as old as 1Sa_6:20. He is the ‘Holy One of Israel’ (Isa_1:4 and often). He is Almighty, present everywhere (Jer_23:24), and full of love.—The prophets, though they taught more spiritual ideas about God, still used anthropomorphisms: thus, Isaiah saw Jahweh on His throne (Isa_6:1), though this was only in a vision.—The growth of true monotheistic ideas may be traced in such passages as Deu_4:35; Deu_4:39; Deu_6:4; Deu_10:14, 1Ki_8:60, Isa_37:16, Joe_2:27; it culminates in Deutero-Isaiah (Isa_43:10 ‘Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me’; Isa_44:6 ‘I am the first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God’; so Isa_45:5). The same idea is expressed by the teaching that Jahweh rules not only His people but all nations, as in the numerous passages in Deutero-Isaiah about the Gentiles, in Jer_10:7, often in Ezekiel (e.g. Jer_35:4; Jer_35:9; Jer_35:15 of Edom), Mal_1:5; Mal_1:11; Mal_1:14, and elsewhere. The earlier prophets had recognized Jahweh as Creator (though Kautzsch thinks that several passages like Amo_4:13 are later glosses); but Deutero-Isaiah emphasizes this attribute more than any of his brethren (Isa_40:12; Isa_40:22; Isa_40:28; Isa_41:4; Isa_42:5; Isa_44:24; Isa_45:12; Isa_45:18; Isa_48:13).
We may here make a short digression to discuss whether the heathen deities, though believed by the later Jews, and afterwards by the Christians, to be no gods, were yet thought to have a real existence, or whether they were considered to be simply non-existent, creatures of the imagination only. In Isa_14:12 (the Babylonian king likened to false divinities?) and Isa_24:21 the heathen gods seem to be identified with the fallen angels (see Whitehouse, in Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] i. 592); so perhaps in Deutero-Isaiah (Isa_46:1 f.). In later times they are often identified with demons. In Eth. Enoch (19:1) Uriel speaks of the evil angels leading men astray into sacrificing to demons as to gods (see Charles’s note; and also xcix. 7). And the idea was common in Christian times; it has been attributed to St. Paul (1Co_10:20; though 1Co_8:5 f. points the other way, whether these verses are the Apostle’s own words or are a quotation from the letter of the Corinthians). Justin Martyr (Apol. i. 9, 64, etc.), Tatian (Add. to the Greeks, 8), and Irenæus (Hær. iii. 6:3), while denying that the heathen deities are really gods, make them to have a real existence and to be demons; Athenagoras (Apol. 18, 28), Clement of Alexandria (Exh. to the Greeks, 2f.), and Tertullian (Apol. 10) make them to be mere men or beasts deified by superstition, or combine both ideas.
6. Post-exilic conceptions of God.—In the period from the Exile to Christ, a certain deterioration in the spiritual conception of God is visible. It is true that there was no longer any danger of idolatry, and that this age was marked by an uncompromising monotheism. Yet there was a tendency greatly to exaggerate God’s transcendence, to make Him self-centred and self-absorbed, and to widen the gulf between Him and the world (Sanday, in Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] ii. 206). This tendency began even at the Exile, and accounts for the discontinuance of anthropomorphic language. In the Priest’s Code (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) this language is avoided as much as possible. And later, when the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] was translated, the alterations made to avoid anthropomorphisms are very significant. Thus in Exo_15:3 LXX [Note: Septuagint.] the name ‘Man of war’ (of Jahweh) disappears; in Exo_19:3 LXX [Note: Septuagint.] Moses went up not ‘to Elohim,’ but ‘to the mount of God’; in Exo_24:10 the words ‘they saw Elohim of Israel’ become ‘they saw the place where the God of Israel stood.’ So in the Targums man is described as being created in the image of the angels, and many other anthropomorphisms are removed.—The same tendency is seen in the almost constant use of ‘Elohim’ rather than of ‘Jahweh’ in the later books of OT. The tendency, only faintly marked in the later canonical books, is much more evident as time went on. Side by side with it is to be noticed the exaltation of the Law, and the inconsistent conception of God as subject to His own Law. In the Talmud He is represented as a great Rabbi, studying the Law, and keeping the Sabbath (Gilbert, in Hastings’ DCG [Note: CG Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.] i. 582).
Yet there were preparations for the full teaching of the gospel with regard to distinctions in the Godhead. The old narratives of the Theophanies, of the mysterious ‘Angel of the Lord’ who appeared at one time to be God and at another to be distinct from Him, would prepare men’s minds in some degree for the Incarnation, by suggesting a personal unveiling of God (see Liddon, BL ii. i. β); even the common use of the plural name ‘Elohim,’ whatever its original significance (see § 2 above), would necessarily prepare them for the doctrine of distinctions in the Godhead, as would the quasi-personification of ‘the Word’ and ‘Wisdom’, as in Proverbs, Job, Wisdom, Sirach, and in the later Jewish writers, who not only personified but deified them (Scott, in Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , Ext. vol. p. 308). Above all, the quasi-personification of the ‘Spirit of God’ in the prophetical books (esp. Isa_48:16; Isa_63:10) and in the Psalms (esp. Psa_51:11), and the expectation of a superhuman King Messiah, would tend in the same direction.
7. Christian development of the doctrine of God.—We may first deal with the development in the conception of God’s fatherhood. As contrasted with the OT, the NT emphasizes the universal fatherhood and love of God. The previous ages had scarcely risen above a conception of God as Father of Israel, and in a special sense of Messiah (Psa_2:7); they had thought of God only as ruling the Gentiles and bringing them into subjection. Our Lord taught, on the other hand, that God is Father of all and loving to all; He is kind even ‘toward the unthankful and evil’ (Luk_6:35, cf. Mat_5:45). Jesus therefore used the name ‘Father’ more frequently than any other. Yet He Himself bears to the Father a unique relationship; the Voice at the Baptism and at the Transfiguration would otherwise have no meaning (Mar_1:11; Mar_9:7 and || Mt. Lk.). Jesus never speaks to His disciples of the Father as ‘our Father’; He calls Him absolutely ‘the Father’ (seldom in Synoptics, Mat_11:27; Mat_24:36 [RV [Note: Revised Version.] ] Mat_28:19 [see §8], Mar_13:32, Luk_10:22, passim in Jn.), or ‘my Father’ (very frequently in all the Gospels, also in Rev_2:27; Rev_3:5), or else ‘my Father and your Father’ (Joh_20:17). The use of ‘his Father’ in Mar_8:38 and || Mt. Lk. is similar. This unique relationship is the point of the saying that God sent His only-begotten Son to save the world (Joh_3:16 f., 1Jn_4:9)—a saying which shows also the universal fatherhood of God, for salvation is offered to all men (so Joh_12:32). The passage Mat_11:27 (= Luk_10:22) is important as being ‘among the earliest materials made use of by the Evangelists,’ and as containing ‘the whole of the Christology of the Fourth Gospel’ (Plummer, ICC [Note: CC International Critical Commentary.] , ‘St Luke,’ p. 282; for the latest criticism on it see Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Gosp. p. 223 f.). It marks the unique relation in which Jesus stands to the Father.—We have, then, in the NT three senses in which God is Father. (a) He is the Father of Jesus Christ. (b) He is the Father of all His creatures (cf. Act_17:28, Jam_1:17 f., Heb_12:9), of Gentiles as well as of Jews; Mar_7:27 implies that, though the Jews were to be fed first, the Gentiles were also to be fed. He is the Father of all the Jews, as well as of the disciples of Jesus; the words ‘One is your Father’ were spoken to the multitudes also (Mat_23:1; Mat_23:9). (c) But in a very special sense He is Father of the disciples, who are taught to pray ‘Our Father’ (Mat_6:9; in the shorter version of Luk_11:2 RV [Note: Revised Version.] , ‘Father’), and who call on Him as Father (1Pe_1:17 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). For Pauline passages which teach this triple fatherhood see art, Paul the Apostle, iii. 1. The meaning of the doctrine of the universal fatherhood is that God is love (1Jn_4:6), and that He manifests His love by sending His Son into the world to save it (see above).
8. Distinctions in the Godhead.—We should not expect to find the nomenclature of Christian theology in the NT. The writings contained therein are not a manual of theology; and the object of the technical terms invented or adopted by the Church was to explain the doctrine of the Bible in a form intelligible to the Christian learner. They do not mark a development of doctrine in times subsequent to the Gospel age. The use of the words ‘Persons’ and ‘Trinity’ affords an example of this. They were adopted in order to express the teaching of the NT that there are distinctions in the Godhead; that Jesus is no mere man, but that He came down from heaven to take our nature upon Him; that He and the Father are one thing (Joh_10:30, see below), and yet are distinct (Mar_13:32); that the Spirit is God, and yet distinct from the Father and the Son (Rom_8:9, see below). At the same time Christian theology takes care that we should not conceive of the Three Persons as of three individuals. The meaning of the word ‘Trinity’ is, in the language of the Quicunque vult, that ‘the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one God.’
The present writer must profoundly dissent from the view that Jesus’ teaching about God showed but little advance on that of the prophets, and that the ‘Trinitarian’ idea as found in the Fourth Gospel and in Mat_28:19 was a development of a later age, say of the very end of the 1st century. Confessedly a great and marvellous development took place. To whom are we to assign it, if not to our Lord? Had a great teacher, or a school of teachers, arisen, who could of themselves produce such an absolute revolution in thought, how is it that contemporary writers and posterity alike put them completely in the background, and gave to Jesus the place of the Great Teacher of the world? This can be accounted for only by the revolution of thought being the work of Jesus Himself. An examination of the literature will lead us to the same conclusion.
(a) We begin with St. Paul, as our earliest authority. The ‘Apostolic benediction’ (2Co_13:14) which, as Dr. Sanday remarks (Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] ii. 213), has no dogmatic object and expounds no new doctrine—indeed expounds no doctrine at all—unequivocally groups together Jesus Christ, God [the Father], and the Holy Ghost as the source of blessing, and in that remarkable order. It is inconceivable that St. Paul would have done this had he looked on Jesus Christ as a mere man, or even as a created angel, and on the Holy Ghost only as an influence of the Father. But how did he arrive at this triple grouping, which is strictly consistent with his doctrine elsewhere? We cannot think that he invented it; and it is only natural to suppose that he founded it upon some words of our Lord.
(b) The command to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Mat_28:19), if spoken by our Lord,—whatever the exact meaning of the words, whether as a formula to be used, or as expressing the result of Christian baptism—would amply account for St. Paul’s benediction in 2Co_13:14. But it has been strenuously denied that these words are authentic, or, if they are authentic, that they are our Lord’s own utterance. We must carefully distinguish these two allegations. First, it is denied that they are part of the First Gospel. It has been maintained by Mr. Conybeare that they are an interpolation of the 2nd cent., and that the original text had: ‘Make disciples of all the nations in my name, teaching them,’ etc. All extant manuscripts and versions have our present text (the Old Syriac is wanting here); but in several passages of Eusebius (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 260–340) which refer to the verse, the words about baptism are not mentioned, and in some of them the words ‘in my name’ are added. The allegation is carefully and impartially examined by Bp. Chase in JThSt [Note: ThSt Journal of Theological Studies.] vi. 483 ff., and is judged by him to be baseless. As a matter of fact, nothing is more common in ancient writers than to omit, in referring to a Scripture passage, any words which are not relevant to their argument. Dean Robinson (JThSt [Note: ThSt Journal of Theological Studies.] vii. 186), who controverts Bp. Chase’s interpretation of the baptismal command, is yet entirely satisfied with his defence of its authenticity. Secondly, it is denied that the words in question were spoken by our Lord; it is said that they belong to that later stage of thought to which the Fourth Gospel is ascribed. As a matter of fact, it is urged, the earliest baptisms were not into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but in the name of Jesus Christ, or into the name of the Lord Jesus, or into Christ Jesus, or into Christ (Act_2:38; Act_8:16; Act_10:48; Act_19:5, Rom_6:3, Gal_3:27). Now it is not necessary to maintain that in any of these places a formula of baptism is prescribed or mentioned. The reverse is perhaps more probable (see Chase, l.c.). The phrases in Acts need mean only that converts were united to Jesus or that they became Christians (cf. 1Co_10:2); the phrase in Mat_28:19 may mean that disciples were to be united to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost by baptism, without any formula being enjoined; or if we take what seems to be the less probable interpretation (that of Dean Robinson), that ‘in the name’ means ‘by the authority of,’ a similar result holds good. We need not even hold that Mat_28:19 represents our Lord’s ipsissima verba. But that it faithfully represents our Lord’s teaching seems to follow from the use of the benediction in 2Co_13:14 (above), and from the fact that immediately after the Apostolic age the sole form of baptizing that we read of was that of Mat_28:19, as in Didache 7 (the words quoted exactly, though in § 9 Christians are said to have been baptized into the name of the Lord), in Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 61 (he does not quote the actual words, but paraphrases, and at the end of the same chapter says that ‘he who is illuminated is washed in the name of Jesus Christ’), and in Tertullian, adv. Prax. 26 (paraphrase), de Bapt. 13 (exactly), de Prœscr. Hær. 20 (paraphrase). Thus the second generation of Christians must have understood the words to be our Lord’s. But the same doctrine is found also in numerous other passages of the NT, and we may now proceed briefly to compare some of them with Mat_28:19, prefacing the investigation with the remark that the suspected words in that verse occur in the most Jewish of the Gospels, where such teaching is improbable unless it comes from our Lord (so Scott in Hastings’ DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , Ext. vol. p. 313).
(c) That the Fourth Gospel is full of the doctrine of ‘Father, Son, and Spirit’ is allowed by all (see esp. Joh_14:1-31; Joh_15:1-27; Joh_16:1-33). The Son and the Spirit are both Paracletes, sent by the Father; the Spirit is sent by the Father and also by Jesus; Jesus has all things whatsoever the Father has; the Spirit takes the things of Jesus and declares them unto us. In Joh_10:30 our Lord says: ‘I and the Father are one thing’ (the numeral is neuter), i.e. one essence—the words cannot fall short of this (Westcott, in loc.). But the same doctrine is found in all parts of the NT. Our Lord is the only-begotten Son (see § 7 above), who was pre-existent, and was David’s Lord in heaven before He came to earth (Mat_22:45 : this is the force of the argument). He claims to judge the world and to bestow glory (Mat_25:34, Luk_22:69; cf. 2Co_5:10), to forgive sins and to bestow the power of binding and loosing (Mar_2:5; Mar_2:10, Mat_28:18; Mat_18:18; cf. Joh_20:23); He invites sinners to come to Him (Mat_11:28; cf. Mat_10:37, Luk_14:26); He is the teacher of the world (Mat_11:29); He casts out devils as Son of God, and gives authority to His disciples to cast them out (Mar_3:11 f., Mar_3:15). The claims of Jesus are as tremendous, and (In the great example of humility) at first sight as surprising, in the Synoptics as in Jn. (Liddon, BL v. iv.). Similarly, in the Pauline Epistles the Apostle clearly teaches that Jesus is God (see art. Paul the Apostle, iii. 3, 4). In them God the Father and Jesus Christ are constantly joined together (just as Father, Son, and Spirit are joined in the Apostolic benediction), e.g. in 1Co_1:3; 1Co_8:6. So in 1Pe_1:2 we have the triple conjunction—‘the foreknowledge of God the Father,’ ‘the sanctification of the Spirit,’ ‘the blood of Jesus Christ.’ The same conjunction is found in Jud_1:20 f. ‘Praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life’; cf. also 1Co_12:3-6, Rom_8:14-17 etc.
The Holy Spirit is represented in the NT as a Person, not as a mere Divine influence. The close resemblance between the Lukan and the Johannine accounts of the promise of the Spirit is very noteworthy. St. Luke tells us of ‘the promise of my Father,’ and of the command to tarry in the city until the Apostles were ‘clothed with power from on high’ (Luk_24:49); this is interpreted in Act_1:5 as a baptism with the Holy Ghost, and one of the chief themes of Acts is the bestowal of the Holy Ghost to give life to the Church (Act_2:4; Act_2:33; Act_8:15 ff; Act_19:2 ff. etc.). This is closely parallel to the promise of the Paraclete in Joh_14:1-31; Joh_15:1-27; Joh_16:1-33. Both the First and the Third Evangelists ascribe the conception of Jesus to the action of the Holy Ghost (Mat_1:18; Mat_1:20, Luk_1:35, where ‘the Most High’ is the Father, cf. Luk_6:35 f.). At the baptism of Jesus, the Father and the Spirit are both manifested, the appearance of the dove being an indication that the Spirit is distinct from the Father. The Spirit can be sinned against (Mar_3:29 and || Mt. Lk.); through Him Jesus is filled with Divine grace for the ministry (Luk_4:1; Luk_4:14; Luk_4:18), and casts out devils (Mat_12:28; cf. Luk_11:20 ‘the finger of God’). The Spirit inspired David (Mar_12:36). So in St. Paul’s Epistles He intercedes, is grieved, is given to us, gives life (see art. Paul the Apostle, iii. 6). And the distinctions in the Godhead are emphasized by His being called the ‘Spirit of God’ and the ‘Spirit of Christ’ in the same verse (Rom_8:9). That He is the Spirit of Jesus appears also from Act_16:7 RV [Note: Revised Version.] , 2Co_3:17, Gal_4:6, Php_1:19, 1Pe_1:11.
This very brief epitome must here suffice. It is perhaps enough to show that the revelation which Jesus Christ made caused an immeasurable enlargement of the world’s conception of God. Our Lord teaches that God is One, and at the same time that He is no mere Monad, but Triune. Cf. art. Trinity.
A. J. Maclean.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

(See GENESIS, on Elohim and Yahweh). ELOHIM expresses the might of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. ELYON, His sublimity, (Gen_14:22), "the Most High." SHADDAI, the "Almighty," His all sufficiency (Gen_17:1; Php_4:19; 2Co_3:5; 2Co_12:9). JEHOVAH, His unchangeable faithfulness to His covenanted promises to His people. ADONAI, His lordship, which being delegated to others as also is His might as ELOHIM, ADONAI and ELOHIM are used occasionally of His creatures, angels and men in authority, judges, etc. (Psa_8:5; Psa_97:7 (Hebrew); Psa_82:1; Psa_82:6-7.) "Lord" in small letters stands for Hebrew ADONAI in KJV, but in capitals ("LORD") for JEHOVAH. ELYON, SHADDAI, and JEHOVAH are never used but of GOD; Jehovah the personal God of the Jews, and of the church in particular.
ELOAH, the singular, is used only in poetry. The derivation is 'aalah "to fear," as Gen_31:42; Gen_31:53, "the fear of Isaac," or 'aalah "to be mighty." The plural ELOHIM: is the common form in prose and poetry, expressing that He combines in Himself all the fullness of divine perfections in their manifold powers and operations; these the heathen divided among a variety of gods. ELOHIM concentrates all the divine attributes assigned to the idols severally, and, besides those, others which corrupt man never of himself imagined, infinite love, goodness, justice, wisdom, creative power, inexhaustible riches of excellence; unity, self existence, grace, and providence are especially dwelt on, Exo_3:13-15; Exo_15:11; Exo_34:6-7. The plural form hints at the plurality of Persons, the singular verb implies the unity of Godhead.
The personal acts attributed to the Son (Joh_1:3; Psa_33:6; Pro_8:22-32; Pro_30:4; Mal_3:1, the Lord the Sender being distinct from the Lord the Sent who "suddenly comes") and to the Holy Spirit respectively (Gen_1:2; Psa_104:30) prove the distinctness of the Persons. The thrice repeated "LORD" (Num_6:25-27) and "Holy" (Isa_6:3) imply the same. But reserve was maintained while the tendency to polytheism prevailed, and as yet the redeeming and sanctifying work of the Son and the blessed Spirit was unaccomplished; when once these had been manifested the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity was fully revealed in New Testament.
The sanctions of the law are temporal rather than spiritual, because a specimen was to be given in Israel of God's present moral government. So long as they obeyed, Providence engaged national prosperity; dependent not on political rules or military spirit, as in worldly nations, but on religious faithfulness. Their sabbatical year, in which they neither tilled nor gathered, is a sample of the continued interposition of a special providence. No legislator without a real call from God would have promulgated a code which leans on the sanction of immediate and temporal divine interpositions, besides the spiritual sanctions and future retributions.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

God. (good). Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, two chief names are used for the one true divine Being ? Elohim, commonly translated God in our version, and Jehovah, translated Lord. Elohim is the plural of Eloah, (in Arabic, Allah); it is often used in the short form, El, (a word signifying strength, as in El-Shaddai, God Almighty, the name by which God was specially known to the patriarchs. Gen_17:1; Gen_28:3; Exo_6:3.
The etymology is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that the primary idea is that of strength, power of effect, and that it properly describes God in that character in which he is exhibited to all men in his works, as the creator, sustainer and supreme governor of the world.
The plural form of Elohim has given rise to much discussion. The fanciful idea that it referred to the trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what grammarians call the plural of majesty, or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of the powers displayed by God.
Jehovah denotes specifically the one true God, whose people the Jews were, and who made them the guardians of his truth. The name is never applied to a false god, nor to any other being except one, the Angel-Jehovah who is, thereby, marked as one with God, and who appears again, in the New Covenant, as "God manifested in the flesh."
Thus much is clear; but all else is beset with difficulties. At a time too early to be traced, the Jews abstained from pronouncing the name, for fear of its irreverent use. The custom is said to have been founded on a strained interpretation of Lev_24:16, and the phrase there used, "The Name", (Shema), is substituted by the rabbis for the unutterable word. In reading the Scriptures, they substituted for it the word Adonai, (Lord), from the translation of which by Kurios, in the Septuagint (LXX) followed by the Vulgate, which uses Dominus, we have the Lord of our version. The substitution of the word Lord is most unhappy, for it in no way represents the meaning of the sacred name.
The key to the meaning of the name is unquestionably given in God's revelation of himself to Moses by the phrase "I AM that I AM", Exo_3:14; Exo_6:3. We must connect the name Jehovah with the Hebrew substantive verb to be, with the inference that it expresses the essential, eternal, unchangeable being of Jehovah. But more, it is not the expression only, or chiefly, of an absolute truth: it is a practical revelation of God, in his essential, unchangeable relation to this chosen people, the basis of his covenant.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

an immaterial, intelligent, and free Being; of perfect goodness, wisdom, and power; who made the universe, and continues to support it, as well as to govern and direct it, by his providence. Philologists have hitherto considered the word God as being of the same signification with good; and this is not denied by M. Hallenberg. But he thinks that both words originally denoted unity; and that the root is אתד , unus; whence the Syriac Chad and Gada; the Arabic Ahd and Gahd; the Persic Choda and Chuda; the Greek αγαθος and λαθος; the Teutonic Gud; the German Gott; and our Saxon God. The other names of God, this author thinks, are referable to a similar origin.
2. By his immateriality, intelligence, and freedom, God is distinguished from Fate, Nature, Destiny, Necessity, Chance, Anima Mundi, and from all the other fictitious beings acknowledged by the Stoics, Pantheists, Spinosists, and other sorts of Atheists. The knowledge of God, his nature, attributes, word, and works, with the relations between him and his creatures, makes the subject of the extensive science called theology. In Scripture God is defined by, “I am that I am, Alpha and Omega; the Beginning and End of all things.” Among philosophers, he is defined a Being of infinite perfection; or in whom there is no defect of any thing which we conceive may raise, improve, or exalt his nature. He is the First Cause, the First Being, who has existed from the beginning, has created the world, or who subsists necessarily, or of himself.
3. The plain argument, says Maclaurin, in his “Account of Sir I. Newton's Philosophical Discoveries,” for the existence of the Deity, obvious to all, and carrying irresistible conviction with it, is from the evident contrivance and fitness of things for one another, which we meet with throughout all parts of the universe. There is no need of nice or subtle reasonings in this matter; a manifest contrivance immediately suggests a contriver. It strikes us like a sensation; and artful reasonings against it may puzzle us, but it is without shaking our belief. No person, for example that knows the principles of optics, and the structure of the eye, can believe that it was formed without skill in that science; or that the ear was formed without the knowledge of sounds; or that the male and female in animals were not formed for each other, and for continuing the species. All our accounts of nature are full of instances of this kind. The admirable and beautiful structure of things for final causes, exalts our idea of the Contriver; the unity of design shows him to be one. The great motions in the system performed with the same facility as the least, suggest his almighty power, which gave motion to the earth and the celestial bodies with equal ease as to the minutest particles. The subtilty of the motions and actions in the internal parts of bodies, shows that his influence penetrates the inmost recesses of things, and that he is equally active and present every where. The simplicity of the laws that prevail in the world, the excellent disposition of things, in order to obtain the best ends, and the beauty which adorns the work of nature, far superior to any thing in art, suggest his consummate wisdom. The usefulness of the whole scheme, so well contrived for the intelligent beings that enjoy it, with the internal disposition and moral structure of these beings themselves, shows his unbounded goodness. These are arguments which are sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearned, while at the same time they acquire new strength and lustre from the discoveries of the learned. The Deity's acting and interposing in the universe, show that he governs as well as formed it; and the depth of his counsels, even in conducting the material universe, of which a great part surpasses our knowledge, keeps up an reward veneration and awe of this great Being, and disposes us to receive what may be otherwise revealed to us concerning him. It has been justly observed, that some of the laws of nature now known to us must have escaped us if we had wanted the sense of seeing. It may be in his power to bestow upon us other senses, of which we have at present no idea; without which it may be impossible for us to know all his works, or to have more adequate ideas of himself. In our present state, we know enough to be satisfied of our dependency upon him, and of the duty we owe to him, the Lord and Disposer of all things. He is not the object of sense; his essence, and, indeed, that of all other substances, are beyond the reach of all our discoveries; but his attributes clearly appear in his admirable works. We know that the highest conceptions we are able to form of them, are still beneath his real perfections; but his power and dominion over us, and our duty toward him, are manifest.
4. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself, says Mr. Locke, yet, having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without a witness; since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him as long as we carry ourselves about us, To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing, that is, of being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no farther than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear perception of his own being; he knows certainly that he exists, and that he is something. In the next place, man knows, by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If, therefore, we know there is some real Being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else. Next it is evident, that what has its being from another must also have all that which is in, and belongs to, its being from another too; all the powers it has must be owing to, and derived from, the same source. This eternal source, then, of all being, must be also the source and original of all power; and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful. Again: man finds in himself perception and knowledge: we are certain, then, that there is not only some Being, but some knowing, intelligent Being, in the world. There was a time, then, when there was no knowing Being, or else there has been a knowing Being from eternity. If it be said there was a time when that eternal Being had no knowledge, I reply, that then it is impossible there should have ever been any knowledge; it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing Being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and knowing Being, which, whether any one will call God, it matters not. The thing is evident; and from this idea, duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes we ought to ascribe to this eternal Being. From what has been said, it is plain to me, that we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is any thing else without us. When I say we know, I mean, there is such a knowledge within our reach, which we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds to that as we do to several other inquiries. It being then unavoidable for all rational creatures to conclude that something has existed from eternity, let us next see what kind of thing that must be. There are but two sorts of beings in the world that man knows or conceives; such as are purely material without sense or perception, and sensible, perceiving beings, such as we find ourselves to be. These two sorts we shall call cogitative and incogitative beings; which to our present purpose are better than material and immaterial. If, then, there must be something eternal, it is very obvious to reason that it must be a cogitative being; because it is as impossible to conceive that bare incogitative matter should ever produce a thinking, intelligent being, as that nothing should of itself produce matter. Let us suppose any parcel of matter eternal, we shall find it in itself unable to produce any thing. Let us suppose its parts firmly at rest together, if there were no other being in the world, must it not eternally remain so, a dead inactive lump? Is it possible to conceive that it can add motion to itself, or produce any thing? Matter, then, by its own strength cannot produce in itself so much as motion. The motion at has must also be from eternity, or else added to matter by some other being, more powerful than matter. But let us suppose motion eternal too, yet matter, incogitative matter, and motion could never produce thought: knowledge will still be as far beyond the power of nothing to produce. Divide matter into as minute parts as you will, vary its figure and motion as much as you please, it will operate no otherwise upon other bodies of proportionable bulk, than it did before this division. The minutest particles of matter knock, impel, and resist one another, just as the greater do; so that if we suppose nothing eternal, matter can never begin to be; if we suppose bare matter without motion eternal, motion can never begin to be; if we suppose only matter and motion to be eternal, thought can never begin to be; for it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or without motion, could have originally in and from itself, sense, perception, and knowledge, as is evident from hence, that then sense, perception, and knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from matter, and every particle of it. Since, therefore, whatsoever is the first eternal Being must necessarily be cogitative; and whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least all the perfections that can ever after exist, it necessarily follows, that the first eternal Being cannot be matter. If, therefore, it be evident that something, must necessarily exist from eternity, it is also evident that that something must necessarily be a cogitative Being. For it is as impossible that incogitative matter should produce a cogitative Being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should produce a positive Being or matter.
This discovery of the necessary existence of an eternal mind sufficiently leads us to the knowledge of God. For it will hence follow, that all other knowing beings that have a beginning must depend upon him, and have no other ways of knowledge or extent of power than what he gives them; and therefore if he made those, he made also the less excellent pieces of this universe, all inanimate bodies, whereby his omniscience, power, and providence will be established, and from thence all his other attributes necessarily follow.
5. In the Scriptures no attempt is made to prove the existence of a God; such an attempt would have been entirely useless, because the fact was universally admitted. The error of men consisted, not in denying a God, but in admitting too many; and one great object of the Bible is to demonstrate that there is but one. No metaphysical arguments, however, are employed in it for this purpose. The proof rests on facts recorded in the history of the Jews, from which it appears that they were always victorious and prosperous so long as they served the only living and true God, Jehovah, the name by which the Almighty made himself known to them, and uniformly unsuccessful when they revolted from him to serve other gods. What argument could be so effectual to convince them that there was no god in all the earth but the God of Israel? The sovereignty and universal providence of the Lord Jehovah are proved by predictions delivered by the Jewish prophets, pointing out the fate of nations and of empires, specifying distinctly their rise, the duration of their power, and the causes of their decline; thus demonstrating that one God ruled among the nations, and made them the unconscious instruments of promoting the purposes of his will. In the same manner, none of the attributes of God are demonstrated in Scripture by reasoning: they are simply affirmed and illustrated by facts; and instead of a regular deduction of doctrines and conclusions from a few admitted principles, we are left to gather them from the recorded feelings and devotional expressions of persons whose hearts were influenced by the fear of God. These circumstances point out a marked singularity in the Scriptures, considered as a repository of religious doctrines. The writers, generally speaking, do not reason, but exhort and remonstrate; they do not attempt to fetter the judgment by the subtleties of argument, but to rouse the feelings by an appeal to palpable facts. This is exactly what might have been expected from teachers acting under a divine commission, and armed with undeniable facts to enforce their admonitions.
6. In three distinct ways do the sacred writers furnish us with information on this great and essential subject, the existence and the character of God; from the names by which he is designated; from the actions ascribed to him; and from the attributes with which he is invested in their invocations and praises; and in those lofty descriptions of his nature which, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have recorded for the instruction of the world. These attributes will be considered under their respective heads; but the impression of the general view of the divine character, as thus revealed, is too important to be omitted.
7. The names of God as recorded in Scripture convey at once ideas of overwhelming greatness and glory, mingled with that awful mysteriousness with which, to all finite minds, and especially to the minds of mortals, the divine essence and mode of existence must ever be invested. Though ONE, he is אלהים , ELOHIM, GODS, persons adorable. He is יהוה , JEHOVAH, self-existing; אל , EL, strong, powerful; אהיה , EHIEH, I am, I will be, self- existence, independency, all-sufficiency, immutability, eternity; שדי , SHADDAI, almighty, all-sufficient; אדן , ADON, Supporter, Lord, Judge. These are among the adorable appellatives of God which are scattered throughout the revelation that he has been pleased to make of himself: but on one occasion he was pleased more particularly to declare his name, that is, such of the qualities and attributes of the divine nature as mortals are the most interested in knowing; and to unfold, not only his natural, but also those of his moral attributes by which his conduct towards his creatures is regulated. “And the Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation,” Exodus 34. This is the most ample and particular description of the character of God, as given by himself in the sacred records; and the import of the several titles by which he has thus in his infinite condescension manifested himself, has been thus exhibited. He is not only JEHOVAH, self-existent, and EL, the strong or mighty God; but he is, says Dr. A. Clarke, “רחום , ROCHUM, the merciful Being, who is full of tenderness and compassion; חנון , CHANUN, the gracious One, he whose nature is goodness itself, the loving God. ארכּ פים , EREC APAYIM long- suffering, the Being who, because of his tenderness, is not easily irritated, but suffers long and is kind; רב , RAB, the great or mighty One: חסד , CHESED, the bountiful Being, he who is exuberant in his beneficence; אמת , EMETH, the Truth, or True One, he alone who can neither deceive nor be deceived; נצר חסד , NOTSER CHESED, the Preserver of bountifulness, he whose beneficence never ends, keeping mercy, for thousands of generations, showing compassion and mercy while the world endures; נשא עון ופשע וחטאה , NOSE AVON VAPESHA VECHATAAH, he who bears away iniquity, transgression, and sin; properly the Redeemer, the Pardoner, the Forgiver, the Being whose prerogative it is to forgive sin, and save the soul; נקה לא ינקה NAKEH LO YINNAKEH, the righteous Judge, who distributes justice with an impartial hand; and עין פקד , PAKED AVON, &c, he who visits iniquity, he who punishes transgressors, and from whose justice no sinner can escape; the God of retributive and vindictive justice.”
8. The second means by which the Scriptures convey to us the knowledge of God, is by the actions which they ascribe to him. They contain, indeed, the important record of his dealings with men in every age which is comprehended within the limit of the sacred history; and, by prophetic declaration, they also exhibit the principles on which he will govern the world to the end of time; so that the whole course of the divine administration may be considered as exhibiting a singularly illustrative comment upon those attributes of his nature which, in their abstract form, are contained in such declarations as those which have been just quoted. The first act ascribed to God is that of creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing; and by his fiat alone arranging their parts, and peopling them with living creatures. By this were manifested—his eternity and self- existence, as he who creates must be before all creatures, and he who gives being to others can himself derive it from none:—his almighty power, shown both in the act of creation and in the number and vastness of the objects so produced:—his wisdom, in their arrangement, and in their fitness to their respective ends:—and his goodness, as the whole tended to the happiness of sentient beings. The foundations of his natural and moral government are also made manifest by his creative acts. In what he made out of nothing he had an absolute right and prerogative; it awaited his ordering, and was completely at his disposal: so that to alter or destroy his own work, and to prescribe the laws by which the intelligent and rational part of his creatures should be governed, are rights which none can question. Thus on the one hand his character of Lord or Governor is established, and on the other our duty of lowly homage and absolute obedience.
9. Agreeably to this, as soon as man was created, he was placed under a rule of conduct. Obedience was to be followed with the continuance of the divine favour; transgression, with death. The event called forth new manifestations of the character of God. His tender mercy, in the compassion showed to the fallen pair; his justice, in forgiving them only in the view of a satisfaction to be hereafter offered to his justice by an innocent representative of the sinning race; his love to that race, in giving his own Son to become this Redeemer, and in the fulness of time to die for the sins of the whole world; and his holiness, in connecting with this provision for the pardon of man the means of restoring him to a sinless state, and to the obliterated image of God in which he had been created. Exemplifications of the divine mercy are traced from age to age, in his establishing his own worship among men, and remitting the punishment of individual and national offences in answer to prayer offered from penitent hearts, and in dependence upon the typified or actually offered universal sacrifice:—of his condescension, in stooping to the cases of individuals; in his dispensations both of providence and grace, by showing respect to the poor and humble; and, principally, by the incarnation of God in the form of a servant, admitting men into familiar and friendly intercourse with himself, and then entering into heaven to be their patron and advocate, until they should be received into the same glory, “and so be for ever with the Lord:”—of his strictly righteous government, in the destruction of the old world, the cities of the plain, the nations of Canaan, and all ancient states, upon their “filling up the measure of their iniquities;” and, to show that “he will by no means clear the guilty;” in the numerous and severe punishments inflicted even upon the chosen seed of Abraham, because of their transgressions:—of his long-suffering, in frequent warnings, delays, and corrective judgments inflicted upon individuals and nations, before sentence of utter excision and destruction:—of faithfulness and truth, in the fulfilment of promises, often many ages after they were given, as in the promises to Abraham respecting the possession of the land of Canaan by his seed, and in all the “promises made to the fathers” respecting the advent, vicarious death, and illustrious offices of the “Christ,” the Saviour of the world:—of his immutability, in the constant and unchanging laws and principles of his government, which remain to this day precisely the same, in every thing universal, as when first promulgated, and have been the rule of his conduct in all places as well as through all time:—of his prescience of future events, manifested by the predictions of Scripture:— and of the depth and stability of his counsel, as illustrated in that plan and purpose of bringing back a revolted world to obedience and felicity, which we find steadily kept in view in the Scriptural history of the acts of God in former ages; which is still the end toward which all his dispensations bend, however wide and mysterious their sweep; and which they will finally accomplish, as we learn from the prophetic history of the future, contained in the Old and New Testaments.
Thus the course of divine operation in the world has from age to age been a manifestation of the divine character, continually receiving new and stronger illustrations until the completion of the Christian revelation by the ministry of Christ and his inspired followers, and still placing itself in brighter light and more impressive aspects as the scheme of human redemption runs on to its consummation. From all the acts of God as recorded in the Scriptures, we are taught that he alone is God; that he is present every where to sustain and govern all things; that his wisdom is infinite, his counsel settled, and his power irresistible; that he is holy, just, and good; the Lord and the Judge, but the Father and the Friend, of man.
10. More at large do we learn what God is, from the declarations of the inspired writings. As to his substance, that “God is a Spirit.” As to his duration, that “from everlasting to everlasting he is God;” “the King, eternal, immortal, invisible.” That, after all the manifestations he has made of himself, he is, from the infinite perfection and glory of his nature, incomprehensible: “Lo, these are but parts of his ways, and how little a portion is heard of him!” “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out.” That he is unchangeable: “The Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” That “he is the fountain of life,” and the only independent Being in the universe: “Who only hath immortality.” That every other being, however exalted, has its existence from him: “For by him were all things created, which are in heaven and in earth, whether they are visible or invisible.” That the existence of every thing is upheld by him, no creature being for a moment independent of his support: “By him all things consist;” “upholding all things by the word of his power.” That he is omnipresent: “Do not I fill heaven and earth with my presence, saith the Lord?” That he is omniscient. “All things are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” That he is the absolute Lord and Owner of all things: “The heavens, even the heaven of heavens, are thine, and all the parts of them:” “The earth is thine, and the fulness thereof, the world and them that dwell therein:” “He doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.” That his providence extends to the minutest objects: “The hairs of your head are all numbered:” “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” That he is a Being of unspotted purity and perfect rectitude: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts!” “A God of truth, and in whom is no iniquity:” “Of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” That he is just in the administration of his government: “Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?” “Clouds and darkness are round about him; judgment and justice are the habitation of his throne.” That his wisdom is unsearchable: “O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” And, finally, that he is good and merciful: “Thou art good, and thy mercy endureth for ever:” “His tender mercy is over all his works:” “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ:” “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them:” “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
11. Under these deeply awful but consolatory views, do the Scriptures present to us the supreme object of our worship and trust; and they dwell upon each of the above particulars with inimitable sublimity and beauty of language, and with an inexhaustible variety of illustration. Nor can we compare these views of the divine nature with the conceptions of the most enlightened of Pagans, without feeling how much reason we have for everlasting gratitude, that a revelation so explicit, and so comprehensive, should have been made to us on a subject which only a revelation from God himself could have made known. It is thus that Christian philosophers, even when they do not use the language of the Scriptures, are able to speak on this great and mysterious doctrine, in language so clear, and with conceptions so noble; in a manner too so equable, so different from the sages of antiquity, who, if at any time they approach the truth when speaking of the divine nature, never fail to mingle with it some essentially erroneous or grovelling conception. “By the Word of Gods,” says Dr. Barrow, “we mean a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, the Creator and the Governor of all things, to whom the great attributes of eternity and independency, omniscience and immensity, perfect holiness and purity, perfect justice and veracity, complete happiness, glorious majesty, and supreme right of dominion belong; and to whom the highest veneration, and most profound submission and obedience are due.” “Our notion of Deity,” says Bishop Pearson, “doth expressly signify a Being or Nature of infinite perfection; and the infinite perfection of a being or nature consists in this, that it be absolutely and essentially necessary; an actual Being of itself; and potential, or causative of all beings beside itself, independent from any other, upon which all things else depend, and by which all things else are governed.” “God is a Being,” says Lawson, “and not any kind of being; but a substance, which is the foundation of other beings. And not only a substance, but perfect. Yet many beings are perfect in their kind, yet limited and finite. But God is absolutely, fully, and every way infinitely perfect; and therefore above spirits, above angels, who are perfect comparatively. God's infinite perfection includes all the attributes, even the most excellent. It excludes all dependency, borrowed existence, composition, corruption, mortality, contingency; ignorance, unrighteousness, weakness, misery, and all imperfections whatever. It includes necessity of being, independency, perfect unity, simplicity, immensity, eternity, immortality; the most perfect life, knowledge, wisdom, integrity, power, glory, bliss, and all these in the highest degree. We cannot pierce into the secrets of this eternal Being. Our reason comprehends but little of him, and when it can proceed no farther, faith comes in, and we believe far more than we can understand; and this our belief is not contrary to reason; but reason itself dictates unto us, that we must believe far more of God than it can inform us of.” To these we may add an admirable passage from Sir Isaac Newton: “The word GOD frequently signifies Lord; but every lord is not God: it is the dominion of a spiritual Being or Lord that constitutes God; true dominion, true God; supreme, the Supreme; reigned, the false god. From such true dominion it follows, that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; and from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect; he is eternal and infinite; omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity; and is present from infinity to infinity. He governs all things that exist, and knows all things that are to be known; he is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present; he endures always, and is present every where; he is omnipresent, not only virtually, but also substantially; for power without substance cannot subsist. All things are contained and move in him, but without any mutual passion; he suffers nothing from the motions of bodies; nor do they undergo any resistance from his omnipresence. It is confessed, that God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists always and every where. Hence also he must be perfectly similar, all eye, all ear, all arm, all the power of perceiving, understanding, and acting; but after a manner not at all corporeal, after a manner not like that of men, after a manner wholly to us unknown. He is destitute of all body, and all bodily shape; and therefore cannot be seen, heard, or touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any thing corporeal. We have ideas of the attributes of God, but do not know the substance of even any thing; we see only the figures and colours of bodies, hear only sounds, touch only the outward surfaces, smell only odours, and taste tastes; and do not, cannot, by any sense, or reflex act, know their inward substances; and much less can we have any notion of the substance of God. We know him by his properties and attributes.”
12. Many able works in proof of the existence of God have been written, the arguments of which are too copious for us even to analyze. It must be sufficient to say that they all proceed, as it is logically termed, either a priori, from cause to effect, or, which is the safest and most satisfactory mode, a posteriori, from the effect to the cause. The irresistible argument from the marks of design with which all nature abounds, to one great intelligent, designing Cause, is by no writers brought out in so clear and masterly a manner as by Howe, in his “Living temple,” and Paley, in his “Natural Theology.”
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

The Bible makes no attempt to prove the existence of God, but assumes it from the outset (Gen_1:1). This God is neither an impersonal ‘force’ nor an abstract ‘principle’ but a living person, and people find true meaning to existence by coming into a living relationship with him (Joh_17:3).
The personal God revealed
As people observe the physical world, they may conclude that there is an intelligent and powerful God who is the ultimate cause and controller of all things (Act_17:23-27; Rom_1:19-20; Heb_3:4; see CREATION). As they reflect upon their awareness of right and wrong, they may conclude that there is a moral God to whom all rational creatures are answerable (Act_17:23; Rom_2:15-16). However, God has not left people with only a vague or general knowledge of himself. He has revealed himself more fully through history, and he has recorded that revelation in the Bible (Jer_1:1-3; 2Pe_1:21; see REVELATION). The central truth of that revelation is that there is only one God (Deu_6:4; Isa_44:6; Jer_10:10; Mar_12:29; 1Th_1:9; 1Ti_2:5), though he exists in the form of a trinity (see TRINITY).
In any study of the character of God, we must bear in mind that God is a unified personality. He is not made up of different parts, nor can he be divided into different parts. Also, he is not simply a person who has certain qualities (e.g. goodness, truth, love, holiness, wisdom) but he is the full expression of these qualities. The Bible’s way of putting this truth into words is to say that God is love, he is light, he is truth (Joh_14:6; 1Jn_1:5; 1Jn_4:16; see LOVE; LIGHT; TRUTH). (In the present article many of the qualities, or attributes, of God can be mentioned only briefly. For fuller details see the separate articles as indicated.)
Eternal and independent
Since it is impossible to give a complete definition or description of God, the Bible makes no attempt to do so. In addition, it forbids the use of anything in nature or anything made by human hands as a physical image of God, for such things can lead only to wrong ideas about God (Exo_20:4-5; Deu_4:15-19; see IDOL, IDOLATRY).
When Moses asked for a name of God that would give the Israelites some idea of his character, the name that God revealed to him was ‘I am who I am’ (Exo_3:14). The name was given not to satisfy curiosity, but to tell God’s people that their God was independent, eternal, unchangeable and able always to do what he, in his absolute wisdom, knew to be best. (Concerning this and other names of God see YAHWEH.)
God’s existence cannot be measured according to time, for he is without beginning and without end. He is eternal (Psa_90:2; Isa_48:12; Joh_5:26; Rom_1:23; Rom_16:26; 1Ti_1:17; Rev_1:8; Rev_4:8; see ETERNITY). He is answerable to no one. He does not need to give reasons for his decisions or explanations of his actions (Psa_115:3; Isa_40:13-14; Dan_4:35; Act_4:28; Rom_9:20-24), though in his grace he may sometimes do so (Gen_18:17-19; Eph_1:9). His wisdom is infinite and therefore beyond human understanding (Psa_147:5; Isa_40:28; Dan_2:20; Rom_11:33; Rom_16:27; see WISDOM).
A God who is infinite has no needs. Nothing in the works of creation or in the activities of humans or angels can add anything to him or take anything from him (Psa_50:10-13; Act_17:24-25; Rom_11:36). He is under obligation to no one, he needs no one, and he depends on no one. Whatever he does, he does because he chooses to, not because he is required to (Eph_1:11). But, again in his grace, he may choose people to have the honour of serving him (Psa_105:26-27; Act_9:15).
Majestic and sovereign
As the creator and ruler of all things, God is pictured as enthroned in majesty in the heavens (Psa_47:7; Psa_93:1-2; Psa_95:3-5; Heb_1:3; see GLORY). Nothing can compare with his mighty power (Isa_40:12-15; Isa_40:25-26; Jer_32:17; Rom_1:20; Eph_1:19-20; Eph_3:20; see POWER).
God is the possessor of absolute authority and nothing can exist independently of it (Psa_2:1-6; Isa_2:10-12; Isa_2:20-22; Isa_40:23; see AUTHORITY). He maintains the whole creation (Psa_147:8-9; Mat_5:45; Col_1:17), he controls all life (Deu_7:15; Deu_28:60; Job_1:21; Psa_104:29-30; Mat_10:29) and he directs all events, small and great, towards the goals that he has determined (Gen_45:5-8; Psa_135:6 : Pro_16:33; Isa_10:5-7; Isa_44:24-28; Isa_46:9-11; Amo_3:6; Amo_4:6-11; Joh_11:49-53; Act_2:23; Act_17:26; Rom_8:28; Eph_1:11; see PREDESTINATION; PROVIDENCE). Yet people have the freedom to make their own decisions, and they are responsible for those decisions (Deu_30:15-20; Isa_1:16-20; Mat_27:21-26; Rom_9:30-32).
There are no limits to God’s knowledge or presence. This is a cause for both fear and joy: fear, because it means that no sin can escape him; joy, because it means that no one who trusts in his mercy can ever be separated from him (Psa_139:1-12; Pro_15:3; Isa_40:27-28; Isa_57:15; Jer_23:24; Heb_4:13). God is not only over all things, but is also in all things (Act_17:24; Act_17:27-28; Eph_4:6).
Since God is sovereign, people must submit to him and obey him. Refusing to do this, they rebel against him. They want to be independent, but instead they become slaves of sin (Gen_3:1-7; Joh_8:34; see SIN). They cannot escape God’s judgment through anything they themselves might do. They can do nothing but repent of their rebellion and surrender before the sovereign God, trusting solely in his grace for forgiveness (Act_17:30-31; Eph_2:8; see GRACE).
The rebellion of sinners, though in opposition to God, does not destroy God’s sovereignty. God allows evil to happen, but he never allows it to go beyond the bounds that he has determined (Job_1:12; see EVIL; SATAN). God still works according to his purposes, for his own glory. He still causes to happen whatever does happen, even to the salvation of rebellious sinners (Isa_14:24; Isa_37:26; Mat_25:34; Act_2:23; Eph_1:5; Eph_3:20; see ELECTION).
Invisible yet personal
From the above it is clear that God is not an impersonal ‘force’, but a personal being. He has knowledge, power, will and feelings. Human beings also have knowledge, power, will and feelings, but that does not mean that God is like a human being (Hos_11:9). On the contrary, human beings have these attributes only because God has them; for they have been made in God’s image (Gen_1:26; see IMAGE).
Being spirit, God is invisible (Joh_4:24; Rom_1:20; 1Ti_1:17; Heb_11:27). Since human language cannot properly describe a person who has no physical form, the Bible has to use pictures and comparisons when speaking of God. It may speak of God as if he has human features, functions and emotions, but such expressions should not be understood literally (Gen_2:2; Num_12:8; Deu_29:20; Deu_33:27; Psa_2:4; Joh_10:29; Heb_4:13).
Not only is God a person, but believers are so aware of a personal relationship with him that they can collectively call him ‘our God’ and individually ‘my God’ (Act_2:39; Php_4:19). They have an increased appreciation of God’s character through their understanding of Jesus Christ; because, in the person of Jesus Christ, God took upon himself human form and lived in the world he had created (Joh_1:14; Joh_1:18; Joh_14:9; Col_1:15; see JESUS CHRIST). God is the Father of Jesus Christ (Mar_14:36; Joh_5:18; Joh_8:54) and through Jesus Christ he becomes the Father of all who believe (Rom_8:15-17; see FATHER).
Unchangeable yet responsive
Although God is personal, he is unchangeable. Everything in creation changes, but the Creator never changes (Psa_33:11; Mal_3:6; Heb_1:10-12; 1Pe_1:24). This does not mean that God is mechanical, that he has no emotions, or that he is the helpless prisoner of his own laws. What it means may be summarized from two aspects.
Firstly, the unchangeability of God means that, because he is infinite, there is no way in which any of his attributes can become greater or less. They cannot change for either better or worse. God can neither increase nor decrease in knowledge, love, righteousness, truth, wisdom or justice, because he possesses these attributes in perfection (Exo_34:6-7).
Secondly, God’s unchangeability means that he is consistent in all his dealings. His standards do not change according to varying emotions or circumstances as do the standards of human beings. His love is always perfect love, his righteousness is always perfect righteousness (Heb_6:17-18; Jam_1:17). God’s unchangeable nature guarantees that every action of his is righteous, wise and true.
We must not understand God’s unchangeability to mean that he is unmoved by human suffering on the one hand or human rebellion on the other. In his mercy he may have compassion on the weak, and in his wrath he may punish the guilty (Exo_2:23-25; Exo_32:9-10; Jam_5:4; 1Pe_3:12). He may change his treatment of people from blessing to judgment when they rebel (Gen_6:6-7; 1Sa_15:11; 1Sa_15:23) or from judgment to blessing when they repent (Joe_2:13-14; Jon_3:10).
This does not mean that events take God by surprise and he has to revise his plans. He always knows the end from the beginning, and he always bases his plans on his perfect knowledge and wisdom (Num_23:19; 1Sa_15:29; Isa_14:24; Isa_46:9-10; Rom_11:29).
Righteous yet loving
When the Bible speaks of God as holy, the emphasis is not so much on his sinlessness and purity as on his ‘separateness’ from all other things. A thing that was holy, in the biblical sense, was a thing that was set apart from the common affairs of life and consecrated entirely to God. God is holy as the supreme and majestic one who exists apart from all else and rules over all (Exo_15:11; Isa_40:25; Joh_17:11; Rev_4:8-9; Rev_15:4; see HOLINESS). Any vision of such a holy God overpowers the worshipper with feelings of awe, terror and unworthiness (Job_40:1-4; Isa_6:1-5; Hab_3:3; Hab_3:16; Rev_1:17).
Since holiness means separation from all that is common, it includes separation from sin. Therefore, God’s holiness includes his moral perfection. He is separate from evil and opposed to it (Hab_1:12-13). The Bible usually speaks of this moral holiness of God as his righteousness (Psa_11:7; Psa_36:6; Isa_5:16; Heb_1:9; 1Jn_3:7; see RIGHTEOUSNESS). God’s attitude to sin is one of wrath, or righteous anger. He cannot ignore sin but must deal with it (Psa_9:8; Isa_11:4-5; Jer_30:23-24; Rom_1:18; Rom_2:8; see WRATH; JUDGMENT).
But God is also a God of love, grace, mercy and longsuffering, and he wants to forgive repentant sinners (Psa_86:5; Psa_145:8-9; Rom_2:4; Tit_3:4; 2Pe_3:9; 1Jn_4:16; see LOVE; PATIENCE). His love is not in conflict with his righteousness. The two exist in perfect harmony. Because he loves, he acts righteously, and because his righteous demands against sin are met, his love forgives. All this is possible only because of what Jesus Christ has done on behalf of sinners (Rom_3:24; see PROPITIATION). The God who is the sinners’ judge is also the sinners’ saviour (Psa_34:18; Psa_50:1-4; 1Ti_2:3; 2Ti_4:18; Tit_3:4-7; see SALVATION).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

god (אלהים, 'ĕlōhı̄m, אל, 'ēl, עליון, ‛elyōn, שׁדּי, shaddāy, יהוה, yahweh; Θεός, theós):
I. Introduction to the General Idea
1. The Idea in Experience and in Thought
2. Definition of the Idea
3. The Knowledge of God
4. Ethnic Ideas of God
(1) Animism
(2) Fetishism
(3) Idolatry
(4) Polytheism
(5) Henotheism
(6) Pantheism
(7) Deism
(8) Semitic Monolatry
(9) Monotheism
II. The Idea of God in the Old Testament
1. The Course of Its Development
2. Forms of Its Manifestation
(1) The Face or Countenance of God
(2) The Voice and Word of God
(3) The Glory of God
(4) The Angel of God
(5) The Spirit of God
(6) The Name of God
(7) Occasional Forms
3. The Names of God
(1) Generic
(2) Attributive
(3) Yahweh (Jehovah)
4. Pre-prophetic Conceptions of God
(1) Yahweh Alone Is the God of Israel
(a) His Early Worship
(b) Popular Religion
(c) Polytheistic Tendencies
(i) Coordination
(ii) Assimilation
(iii) Disintegration
(d) No Hebrew Goddesses
(e) Human Sacrifices
(2) Nature and Character of Yahweh
(a) A God of War
(b) His Relation to Nature
(3) Most Distinctive Characteristics of Yahweh
(a) Personality
(b) Law and Judgment
5. The Idea of God in the Prophetic Period
(1) Righteousness
(2) Holiness
(3) Universality
(4) Unity
(5) Creator and Lord
(6) Compassion and Love
6. The Idea of God in Post-exilic Judaism
(1) New Conditions
(2) Divine Attributes
(3) Surviving Limitations
(a) Disappearing Anthropomorphism
(b) Localization
(c) Favoritism
(d) Ceremonial Legalism
(4) Tendencies to Abstractness
(a) Transcendence
(b) Skepticism
(c) Immanence
(5) Logos, Memra), and Angels
III. The Idea of God in the New Testament
1. Dependence on the Old Testament
2. Gentile Influence
3. Absence of Theistic Proofs
4. Fatherhood of God
(1) In the Teaching of Jesus Christ
(a) Its Relation to Himself
(b) To Believers
(c) To All Men
(2) In Apostolic Teaching
(a) Father of Jesus Christ
(b) Our Father
(c) Universal Father
5. God Is King
(1) The Kingdom of God
(2) Its King
(a) God
(b) Christ
(c) Their Relation
(3) Apostolic Teaching
6. Moral Attributes
(1) Personality
(2) Love
(3) Righteousness and Holiness
7. Metaphysical Attributes
8. The Unity of God
(1) The Divinity of Christ
(2) The Holy Spirit
(3) The Church's Problem
Literature

I. Introduction to the General Idea
1. The Idea in Experience and in Thought
Religion gives the idea of God, theology construes and organizes its content, and philosophy establishes its relation to the whole of man's experience. The logical order of treating it might appear to be, first, to establish its truth by philosophical proofs; secondly, to develop its content into theological propositions; and finally, to observe its development and action in religion. Such has been the more usual order of treatment. But the actual history of the idea has been quite the reverse. Men had the idea of God, and it had proved a creative factor in history, long before reflection upon it issued in its systematic expression as a doctrine. Moreover, men had enunciated the doctrine before they attempted or even felt any need to define its relation to reality. And the logic of history is the truer philosophy. To arrive at the truth of any idea, man must begin with some portion of experience, define its content, relate it to the whole of experience, and so determine its degree of reality.
Religion is as universal as man, and every religion involves some idea of God. Of the various philosophical ideas of God, each has its counterpart and antecedent in some actual religion. Pantheism is the philosophy of the religious consciousness of India. Deism had prevailed for centuries as an actual attitude of men to God, in China, in Judaism and in Islam, before it found expression as a rational theory in the philosophy of the 18th century. Theism is but the attempt to define in general terms the Christian conception of God, and of His relation to the world. If pluralism claims a place among the systems of philosophy, it can appeal to the religious consciousness of that large portion of mankind that has hitherto adhered to polytheism.
But all religions do not issue in speculative reconstructions of their content. It is true in a sense that all religion is an unconscious philosophy, because it is the reaction of the whole mind, including the intellect, upon the world of its experience, and, therefore, every idea of God involves some kind of an explanation of the world. But conscious reflection upon their own content emerges only in a few of the more highly developed religions. Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity are the only religions that have produced great systems of thought, exhibiting their content in a speculative and rational form. The religions of Greece and Rome were unable to survive the reflective period. They produced no theology which could ally itself to a philosophy, and Greek philosophy was from the beginning to a great extent the denial and supersession of Greek religion.
Biblical literature nearly all represents the spontaneous experience of religion, and contains comparatively little reflection upon that experience. In the Old Testament it is only in Second Isaiah, in the Wisdom literature and in a few Psalms that the human mind may be seen turning back upon itself to ask the meaning of its practical feelings and beliefs. Even here nothing appears of the nature of a philosophy of Theism or of religion, no theology, no organic definition and no ideal reconstruction of the idea of God. It never occurred to any Old Testament writer to offer a proof of the existence of God, or that anyone should need it. Their concern was to bring men to a right relation with God, and they propounded right views of God only in so far as it was necessary for their practical purpose. Even the fool who ?hath said in his heart, There is no God? (Psa_14:1; Psa_53:1), and the wicked nations ?that forget God? (Psa_9:17) are no theoretical atheists, but wicked and corrupt men, who, in conduct and life, neglect or reject the presence of God.
The New Testament contains more theology, more reflection upon the inward content of the idea of God, and upon its cosmic significance; but here also, no system appears, no coherent and rounded-off doctrine, still less any philosophical construction of the idea on the basis of experience as a whole. The task of exhibiting the Biblical idea of God is, therefore, not that of setting together a number of texts, or of writing the history of a theology, but rather of interpreting the central factor in the life of the Hebrew and Christian communities.
2. Definition of the Idea
Logically and historically the Biblical idea stands related to a number of other ideas. Attempts have been made to find a definition of so general a nature as to comprehend them all. The older theologians assumed the Christian standpoint, and put into their definitions the conclusions of Christian doctrine and philosophy. Thus, Melanchthon: ?God is a spiritual essence, intelligent, eternal, true, good, pure, just, merciful, most free and of infinite power and wisdom.? Thomasius more briefly defines God as ?the absolute personality.? These definitions take no account of the existence of lower religions and ideas of God, nor do they convey much of the concreteness and nearness of God revealed in Christ. A similar recent definition, put forward, however, avowedly of the Christian conception, is that of Professor W. N. Clarke: ?God is the personal Spirit, perfectly good, who in holy love creates, sustains and orders all? (Outline of Christian Theology, 66). The rise of comparative religion has shown that ?while all religions involve a conscious relation to a being called God, the Divine Being is in different religions conceived in the most different ways; as one and as many, as natural and as spiritual, as like to and manifested in almost every object in the heavens above or earth beneath, in mountains and trees, in animals and men; or, on the contrary, as being incapable of being represented by any finite image whatsoever; and, again, as the God of a family, of a nation, or of humanity? (E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, I, 62). Attempts have therefore been made to find a new kind of definition, such as would include under one category all the ideas of God possessed by the human race. A typical instance of this kind of definition is that of Professor W. Adams Brown: ?A god in the religious sense is an unseen being, real or supposed, to whom an individual or a social group is united by voluntary ties of reverence and service? (Christian Theology in Outline, 30). Many similar definitions are given: ?A supersensible being or beings? (Lotze, Asia Minor Fairbairn); ?a higher power? (Allan Menzies); ?spiritual beings? (E.B. Tylor); ?a power not ourselves making for righteousness? (Matthew Arnold). This class of definition suffers from a twofold defect. It says too much to include the ideas of the lower religions, and too little to suggest those of the higher. It is not all gods that are ?unseen? or ?supersensible,? or ?making for righteousness,? but all these qualities may be shared by other beings than gods, and they do not connote that which is essential in the higher ideas of God. Dr. E. Caird, looking for a definition in a germinative principle of the genesis of religion, defines God ?as the unity which is presupposed in the difference of the self and not-self, and within which they act and re-act on each other? (op. cit., I, 40, 64). This principle admittedly finds its full realization only in the highest religion, and it may be doubted whether it does justice to the transcendent personality and the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. In the lower religions it appears only in fragmentary forms, and it can only be detected in them at all after it has been revealed in the absolute religion. Although this definition may be neither adequate nor true, its method recognizes that there can be only one true idea and definition of God, and yet that all other ideas are more or less true elements of it and approximations to it. The Biblical idea does not stand alone like an island in mid-ocean, but is rather the center of light which radiates out in other religions with varying degrees of purity.
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with the problem of the philosophy of religion, but to give an account of the idea of God at certain stages of its development, and within a limited area of thought. The absence of a final definition will present no practical difficulty, because the denotation of the term God is clear enough; it includes everything that is or has been an object of worship; it is its connotation that remains a problem for speculation.
3. The Knowledge of God
A third class of definition demands some attention, because it raises a new question, that of the knowledge or truth of any idea whatsoever. Herbert Spencer's definition may be taken as representative: God is the unknown and unknowable cause of the universe, ?an inscrutable power manifested to us through all phenomena? (First Principles, V, 31). This means that there can be no definition of the idea of God, because we can have no idea of Him, no knowledge ?in the strict sense of knowing.? For the present purpose it might suffice for an answer that ideas of God actually exist; that they can be defined and are more definable, because fuller and more complex, the higher they rise in the scale of religions; that they can be gathered from the folklore and traditions of the lower races, and from the sacred books and creeds of the higher religions. But Spencer's view means that, in so far as the ideas are definable, they are not true. The more we define, the more fictitious becomes our subject-matter. While nothing is more certain than that God exists, His being is to human thought utterly mysterious and inscrutable. The variety of ideas might seem to support this view. But variety of ideas has been held of every subject that is known, as witness the progress of science. The variety proves nothing.
And the complete abstraction of thought from existence cannot be maintained. Spencer himself does not succeed in doing it. He says a great many things about the ?unknowable? which implies an extensive knowledge of Him. The traditional proofs of the ?existence? of God have misled the Agnostics. But existence is meaningless except for thought, and a noumenon or first cause that lies hidden in impenetrable mystery behind phenomena cannot be conceived even as a fiction. Spencer's idea of the Infinite and Absolute are contradictory and unthinkable. An Infinite that stood outside all that is known would not be infinite, and an Absolute out of all relation could not even be imagined. If there is any truth at all in the idea of the Absolute, it must be true to human experience and thought; and the true Infinite must include within itself every possible and actual perfection. In truth, every idea of God that has lived in religion refutes Agnosticism, because they all qualify and interpret experience, and the only question is as to the degree of their adequacy and truth.
A brief enumeration of the leading ideas of God that have lived in religion will serve to place the Biblical idea in its true perspective.
4. Ethnic Ideas of God
(1) Animism
Animism is the name of a theory which explains the lowest (and perhaps the earliest) forms of religion, and also the principle of all religion, as the belief in the universal presence of spiritual beings which ?are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man's life here and hereafter; and, it being considered that they hold intercourse with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, and, it might almost be said, inevitably, sooner or later, to active reverence and propitiation? (E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 426-27). According to this view, the world is full of disembodied spirits, regarded as similar to man's soul, and any or all of these may be treated as gods.
(2) Fetishism
Fetishism is sometimes used in a general sense for ?the view that the fruits of the earth and things in general are divine, or animated by powerful spirits? (J.G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 234); or it may be used in a more particular sense of the belief that spirits ?take up their abode, either temporarily or permanently, in some object.... and this object, as endowed with higher power, is then worshipped? (Tiele, Outlines of the History of Religion, 9).
(3) Idolatry
Idolatry is a term of still more definite significance. It means that the object is at least selected, as being the permanent habitation or symbol of the deity; and, generally, it is marked by some degree of human workmanship, designed to enable it the more adequately to represent the deity. It is not to be supposed that men ever worship mere ?stocks and stones,? but they address their worship to objects, whether fetishes or idols, as being the abodes or images of their god. It is a natural and common idea that the spirit has a form similar to the visible object in which it dwells. Paul reflected the heathen idea accurately when he said, ?We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man? (Act_17:29).
(4) Polytheism
The belief in many gods, and the worship of them, is an attitude of soul compatible with Animism, Fetishism, and Idolatry, or it may be independent of them all. The term Polytheism is more usually employed to designate the worship of a limited number of well-defined deities, whether regarded as pure disembodied spirits, or as residing in the greater objects of Nature, such as planets or mountains, or as symbolized by images ?graven by art and device of man.? In ancient Greece or modern India the great gods are well defined, named and numerable, and it is clearly understood that, though they may be symbolized by images, they dwell apart in a spiritual realm above the rest of the world.
(5) Henotheism
There is, however, a tendency, both in individuals and in communities, even where many gods are believed to exist, to set one god above the others, and consequently to confine worship to that god alone. ?The monotheistic tendency exists among all peoples, after they have reached a certain level of culture. There is a difference in the degree in which this tendency is emphasized, but whether we turn to Babylonia, Egypt, India, China, or Greece, there are distinct traces of a trend toward concentrating the varied manifestations of Divine powers in a single source? (Jastrow, The Study of Religion, 76). This attitude of mind has been called Henotheism or Monolatry - the worship of one God combined with the belief in the existence of many. This tendency may be governed by metaphysical, or by ethical and personal motives, either by the monistic demands of reason, or by personal attachment to one political or moral rule.
(6) Pantheism
Where the former principle predominates, Polytheism merges into Pantheism, as is the case in India, where Brahma is not only the supreme, but the sole, being, and all other gods are but forms of his manifestation. But, in India, the vanquished gods have had a very complete revenge upon their vanquisher, for Brahma has become so abstract and remote that worship is mainly given to the other gods, who are forms of his manifestation. Monolatry has been reversed, and modern Hinduism were better described as the belief in one God accompanied by the worship of many.
(7) Deism
The monistic tendency, by a less thorough application of it, may take the opposite turn toward Deism, and yet produce similar religious conditions. The Supreme Being, who is the ultimate reality and power of the universe, may be conceived in so vague and abstract a manner, may be so remote from the world, that it becomes a practical necessity to interpose between Him and men a number of subordinate and nearer beings as objects of worship. In ancient Greece, Necessity, in China, Tien or Heaven, were the Supreme Beings; but a multiplicity of lower gods were the actual objects of worship. The angels of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Islam and the saints of Romanism illustrate the same tendency. Pantheism and Deism, though they have had considerable vogue as philosophical theories, have proved unstable and impossible as religions, for they have invariably reverted to some kind of polytheism and idolatry, which seems to indicate that they are false processes of the monistic tendency.
(8) Semitic Monolatry
The monistic tendency of reason may enlist in its aid many minor causes, such as tribal isolation or national aggrandizement. It is held that many Sere tribes were monolatrists for either or both of these reasons; but the exigencies of intertribal relations in war and commerce soon neutralized their effects, and merged the tribal gods into a territorial pantheon.
(9) Monotheism
Monotheism, ethical and personal: One further principle may combine with Monism so as to bring about a stable Monotheism, that is the conception of God as standing in moral relations with man. Whenever man reflects upon conduct as moral, he recognizes that there can be only one moral standard and authority, and when God is identified with that moral authority, He inevitably comes to be recognized as supreme and unique. The belief in the existence of other beings called gods may survive for a while; but they are divested of all the attributes of deity when they are seen to be inferior or opposed to the God who rules in conscience. Not only are they not worshipped, but their worship by others comes to be regarded as immoral and wicked. The ethical factor in the monistic conception of God safeguards it from diverging into Pantheism or Deism and thus reverting into Polytheism. For the ethical idea of God necessarily involves His personality, His transcendence as distinct from the world and above it, and also His intimate and permanent relation with man. If He rules in conscience, He can neither be merged in dead nature or abstract being, nor be removed beyond the heavens and the angel host. A thoroughly moralized conception of God emerges first in the Old Testament where it is the prevailing type of thought.

II. The Idea of God in the Old Testament
1. Course of Its Development
Any attempt to write the whole history of the idea of God in the Old Testament would require a preliminary study of the literary and historical character of the documents, which lies beyond the scope of this article and the province of the writer. Yet the Old Testament contains no systematic statement of the doctrine of God, or even a series of statements that need only to be collected into a consistent conception. The Old Testament is the record of a rich and varied life, extending over more than a thousand years, and the ideas that ruled and inspired that life must be largely inferred from the deeds and institutions in which it was realized; nor was it stationary or all at one level. Nothing is more obvious than that revelation in the Old Testament has been progressive, and that the idea of God it conveys has undergone a development. Certain well-marked stages of the development can be easily recognized, without entering upon any detailed criticism. There can be no serious question that the age of the Exodus, as centering around the personality of Moses, witnessed an important new departure in Hebrew religion. The most ancient traditions declare (perhaps not unanimously) that God was then first known to Israel under the personal name Jehovah (Yahweh (YHWH) is the correct form of the word, Jehovah being a composite of the consonants of Yahweh and the vowels of 'ădhōnāy, or lord. Yahweh is retained here as the more familiar form). The Hebrew people came to regard Him as their Deliverer from Egypt, as their war god who assured them the conquest of Canaan, and He, therefore, became their king, who ruled over their destinies in their new heritage. But the settlement of Yahweh in Canaan, like that of His people, was challenged by the native gods and their peoples. In the 9th century we see the war against Yahweh carried into His own camp, and Baal-worship attempting to set itself up within Israel. His prophets therefore assert the sole right of Yahweh to the worship of His people, and the great prophets of the 8th century base that right upon His moral transcendence. Thus they at once reveal new depths of His moral nature, and set His uniqueness and supremacy on higher grounds. During the exile and afterward, Israel's outlook broadens by contact with the greater world, and it draws out the logical implications of ethical monotheism into a theology at once more universalistic and abstract. Three fairly well-defined periods thus emerge, corresponding to three stages in the development of the Old Testament idea of God: the pre-prophetic period governed by the Mosaic conception, the prophetic period during which ethical monotheism is firmly established, and the post-exilic period with the rise of abstract monotheism. But even in taking these large and obvious divisions, it is necessary to bear in mind the philosopher's maxim, that ?things are not cut off with a hatchet.? The most characteristic ideas of each period may be described within their period; but it should not be assumed that they are altogether absent from other periods; and, in particular, it should not be supposed that ideas, and the life they represent, did not exist before they emerged in the clear witness of history. Mosaism had undoubtedly its antecedents in the life of Israel; but any attempt to define them leads straight into a very morass of conjectures and hypotheses, archaeological, critical and philosophical; and any results that are thus obtained are contributions to comparative religion rather than to theology.
2. Forms of the Manifestation of God
Religious experience must always have had an inward and subjective aspect, but it is a long and difficult process to translate the objective language of ordinary life for the uses of subjective experience. ?Men look outward before they look inward.? Hence, we find that men express their consciousness of God in the earliest periods in language borrowed from the visible and objective world. It does not follow that they thought of God in a sensuous way, because they speak of Him in the language of the senses, which alone was available for them. On the other hand, thought is never entirely independent of language, and the degree in which men using sensuous language may think of spiritual facts varies with different persons.
(1) The Face or Countenance of God
The face or countenance (pānı̄m) of God is a natural expression for His presence. The place where God is seen is called Peniel, the face of God (Gen_32:30). The face of Yahweh is His people's blessing (Num_6:25). With His face (the Revised Version (British and American) ?presence?) He brought Israel out of Egypt, and His face (the Revised Version (British and American) ?presence?) goes with them to Canaan (Exo_33:14). To be alienated from God is to be hid from His face (Gen_4:14), or God hides His face (Deu_31:17, Deu_31:18; Deu_32:20). In contrast with this idea it is said elsewhere that man cannot see the face of God and live (Exo_33:20; compare Deu_5:24; Jdg_6:22; Jdg_13:22). In these later passages, ?face? stands for the entire being of God, as distinguished from what man may know of Him. This phrase and its cognates enshrine also that fear of God, which shrinks from His majesty even while approaching Him, which enters into all worship.
(2) The Voice and Word of God
The voice (ḳōl) and word (dābhār) of God are forms under which His communion with man is conceived from the earliest days to the latest. The idea ranges from that of inarticulate utterance (1Ki_19:12) to the declaration of the entire law of conduct (Deu_5:22-24), to the message of the prophet (Isa_2:1; Jer_1:2), and the personification of the whole counsel and action of God (Psa_105:19; Psa_147:18, Psa_147:19; Hos_6:5; Isa_40:8).
(3) The Glory of God
The glory (kābhōdh) of God is both a peculiar physical phenomenon and the manifestation of God in His works and providence. In certain passages in Exodus, ascribed to the Priestly Code, the glory is a bright light, ?like devouring fire? (Exo_24:17); it fills and consecrates the tabernacle (Exo_29:43; Exo_40:34, Exo_40:35); and it is reflected as beams of light in the face of Moses (Exo_34:29). In Ezekiel, it is a frequent term for the prophet's vision, a brightness like the appearance of a rainbow (Eze_1:28; Eze_10:4; Eze_43:2). In another place, it is identified with all the manifested goodness of God and is accompanied with the proclamation of His name (Exo_33:17-23). Two passages in Isa seem to combine under this term the idea of a physical manifestation with that of God's effectual presence in the world (Eze_3:8; Eze_6:3). God's presence in creation and history is often expressed in the Psalms as His glory (Psa_19:1; Psa_57:5, Psa_57:11; Psa_63:2; Psa_97:6). Many scholars hold that the idea is found in Isa in its earliest form, and that the physical meaning is quite late. It would, however, be contrary to all analogy, if such phenomena as rainbow and lightning had not first impressed-the primitive mind as manifestations of God. See GLORY.
(4) The Angel of God
The angel (mal'ākh) of God or of Yahweh is a frequent mode of God's manifestation of Himself in human form, and for occasional purposes. It is a primitive conception, and its exact relation to God, or its likeness to man, is nowhere fixed. In many passages, it is assumed that God and His angel are the same being, and the names are used synonymously (as in Gen_16:7; Gen_22:15, Gen_22:16; Exo_3:2, Exo_3:4; Jdg_2:4, Jdg_2:5); in other passages the idea blurs into varying degrees of differentiation (Gen 18; Gen_24:40; Exo_23:21; Exo_33:2, Exo_33:3; Jdg_13:8, Jdg_13:9). But everywhere, it fully represents God as speaking or acting for the time being; and it is to be distinguished from the subordinate and intermediate beings of later angelology. Its identification with the Messiah and the Logos is only true in the sense that these later terms are more definite expressions of the idea of revelation, which the angel represented for primitive thought.
(5) The Spirit of God
The spirit (rūaḥ) of God in the earlier period is a form of His activity, as it moves warrior and prophet to act and to speak (Jdg_6:34; Jdg_13:25; 1Sa_10:10), and it is in the prophetic period that it becomes the organ of the communication of God's thoughts to men. See HOLY SPIRIT.
(6) The Name of God
The name (shēm) of God is the most comprehensive and frequent expression in the Old Testament for His self-manifestation, for His person as it may be known to men. The name is something visible or audible which represents God to men, and which, therefore, may be said to do His deeds, and to stand in His place, in relation to men. God reveals Himself by making known or proclaiming His name (Exo_6:3; Exo_33:19; Exo_34:5, Exo_34:6). His servants derive their authority from His name (Exo_3:13, Exo_3:15; 1Sa_17:45). To worship God is to call upon His name (Gen_12:8; Gen_13:4; Gen_21:33; Gen_26:25; 1Ki_18:24-26), to fear it (Deu_28:58), to praise it (2Sa_22:50; Psa_7:17; Psa_54:6), to glorify it (Psa_86:9). It is wickedness to take God's name in vain (Exo_20:7), or to profane and blaspheme it (Lev_8:21; Lev_24:16). God's dwelling-place is the place where He chooses ?to cause his name to dwell? (2Sa_7:13; 1Ki_3:2; 1Ki_5:3, 1Ki_5:5; 1Ki_8:16-19; 1Ki_18:32; Deu_12:11, Deu_12:21). God's name defends His people (Psa_20:1; Isa_30:27). For His name's sake He will not forsake them (1Sa_12:22), and if they perish, His name cannot remain (Jos_7:9). God is known by different names, as expressing various forms of His self-manifestation (Gen_16:13; Gen_17:1; Exo_3:6; Exo_34:6). The name even confers its revelation-value upon the angel (Exo_23:20-23). All God's names are, therefore, significant for the revelation of His being.
(7) Occasional Forms
In addition to these more or less fixed forms, God also appears in a variety of exceptional or occasional forms. In Num_12:6-8, it is said that Moses, unlike others, used to see the form (temūnāh) of Yahweh. Fire smoke and cloud are frequent forms or symbols of God's presence (e.g. Gen_15:17; Exo_3:2-4; Exo_19:18; Exo_24:17),and notably ?the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night? (Exo_13:21 f). According to later ideas, the cloud rested upon the tabernacle (Exo_40:34), and in it God appeared upon the ark (Lev_16:2). Extraordinary occurrences or miracles are, in the early period, frequent signs of the power of God (Ex 7ff; 1 Ki 17ff).
The questions of the objectivity of any or all of these forms, and of their relation to the whole Divine essence raise large problems. Old Testament thought had advanced beyond the na?ve identification of God with natural phenomena, but we should not read into its figurative language the metaphysical distinctions of a Greek-Christian theology.
3. The Names of God
All the names of God were originally significant of His character, but the derivations, and therefore the original meanings, of several have been lost, and new meanings have been sought for them.
(1) Generic
One of the oldest and most widely distributed terms for Deity known to the human race is 'Ēl, with its derivations 'Ēlı̄m, 'Ĕlōhı̄m, and 'Ĕlōaȟ. Like theos, Deus and God, it is a generic term, including every member of the class deity. It may even denote a position of honor and authority among men. Moses was 'Ĕlōhı̄m to Pharaoh (Exo_7:1) and to Aaron (Exo_4:16; compare Jdg_5:8; 1Sa_2:25; Exo_21:5, Exo_21:6; Exo_22:7; Psa_58:11; Psa_82:1). It is, therefore, a general term expressing majesty and authority, and it only came to be used as a proper name for Israel's God in the later period of abstract monotheism when the old proper name Yahweh was held to be too sacred to be uttered. The meaning of the root 'Ēl, and the exact relation to it, and to one another, of 'Ĕlōhı̄m and 'Ĕlōah, lie in complete obscurity. By far the most frequent form used by Old Testament writers is the plural 'Ĕlōhı̄m, but they use it regularly with singular verbs and adjectives to denote a singular idea. Several explanations have been offered of this usage of a plural term to denote a singular idea - that it expresses the fullness and manifoldness of the Divine nature, or that it is a plural of majesty used in the manner of royal persons, or even that it is an early intimation of the Trinity; other cognate expressions are found in Gen_1:26; Gen_3:22; 1Ki_22:19 f; Isa_6:8. These theories are, perhaps, too ingenious to have occurred to the early Hebrew mind, and a more likely explanation is, that they are survivals in language of a polytheistic stage of thought. In the Old Testament they signify only the general notion of Deity.
(2) Attributive
To distinguish the God of Israel as supreme from others of the class 'Ĕlōhı̄m, certain qualifying appellations are often added. 'Ēl ‛Elyōn designates the God of Israel as the highest, the most high, among the 'Ĕlōhı̄m (Gen_14:18-20); so do Yahweh ‛Elyōn (Psa_7:17) and ‛Elyōn alone, often in Psalms and in Isa_14:14.
'Ēl Shaddāy, or Shaddāy alone, is a similar term which on the strength of some tradition is translated ?God Almighty?; but its derivation and meaning are quite unknown. According to Exo_6:3 it was the usual name for God in patriarchal times, but other traditions in the Pentateuch seem to have no knowledge of this.
Another way of designating God was by His relation to His worshippers, as God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen_24:12; Exo_3:6), of Shem (Gen_9:26), of the Hebrews (Exo_3:18), and of Israel (Gen_33:20).
Other names used to express the power and majesty of God are cūr, ?Rock? (Deu_32:18; Isa_30:29), 'ăbhı̄r (construct from 'ābhı̄r), ?the Strong One? (Gen_49:24; Isa_1:24; Psa_132:2); melekh, ?King?; 'ādhōn, ?lord,? and 'ădhōnāy, ?my lord? (Exo_23:17; Isa_10:16, Isa_10:33; Gen_18:27; Isa_6:1). Also ba‛al, ?proprietor? or ?master,? may be inferred as a designation once in use, from its appearance in such Hebrew proper names as Jerubbaal and Ishbaal. The last three names describe God as a Master to whom man stands in the relation of a servant, and they tended to fall into disuse as the necessity arose to differentiate the worship of Yahweh from that of the gods of surrounding nations.
A term of uncertain meaning is Yahweh or 'Ĕlōhı̄m cebhā'ōth, ?Yahweh? or ?God of hosts.? In Hebrew usage ?host? might mean an army of men, or the stars and the angels - which, apart or in conjunction, made up the host of heaven. God of Hosts in early times meant the war god who led the armies of Israel (1Sa_4:4; 2Sa_7:8). In 1Sa_17:45 this title stands in parallelism with ?the God of the armies of Israel.? So all Israel is called the host of Yahweh (Exo_12:41). In the Prophets, where the term has become a regular appellation, it stands in relation to every form of the power and majesty, physical and moral, of God (e.g. Isa_2:12; Isa_6:3, Isa_6:5; Isa_10:23, Isa_10:33). It stands in parallelism with Isaiah's peculiar title, the Holy One of Israel (Isa_5:16, Isa_5:24). It has, therefore, been thought that it refers to the host of heaven. In the Prophets it is practically a proper name. Its original meaning may well have been forgotten or dropped, but it does not follow that a new special significance was attached to the word ?hosts.? The general meaning of the whole term is well expressed by the Septuagint translation, kúrios pantokrátōr, ?Lord Omnipotent.?
(3) Yahweh (Jehovah)
This is the personal proper name par excellence of Israel's God, even as Chemosh was that of the god of Moab, and Dagon that of the god of the Philistines. The original meaning and derivation of the word are unknown. The variety of modern theories shows that, etymologically, several derivations are possible, but that the meanings attached to any one of them have to be imported and imposed upon the word. They add nothing to our knowledge. The Hebrews themselves connected the word with hāyāh, ?to be.? In Exo_3:14 Yahweh is explained as equivalent to 'ehyeh, which is a short form of 'ehyeh 'ăsher 'ehyeh, translated in the Revised Version (British and American) ?I am that I am.? This has been supposed to mean ?self-existence,? and to represent God as the Absolute. Such an idea, however, would be a metaphysical abstraction, not only impossible to the time at which the name originated, but alien to the Hebrew mind at any time. And the imperfect 'ehyeh is more accurately translated ?I will be what I will be,? a Semitic idiom meaning, ?I will be all that is necessary as the occasion will arise,? a familiar Old Testament idea (compare Isa_7:4, Isa_7:9; Psa_23:1-6).
This name was in use from the earliest historical times till after the exile. It is found in the most ancient literature. According to Exo_3:13 f, and especially Exo_6:2, Exo_6:3, it was first introduced by Moses, and was the medium of a new revelation of the God of their fathers to the children of Israel. But in parts of Genesis it is represented as being in use from the earliest times. Theories that derive it from Egypt or Assyria, or that would connect it etymologically with Jove or Zeus, are supported by no evidence. We have to be content either to say that Yahweh was the tribal God of Israel from time immemorial, or to accept a theory that is practically identical with that of Exodus - that it was adopted through Moses from the Midianite tribe into which he married. The Kenites, the tribe of Midianites related to Moses, dwelt in the neighborhood of Sinai, and attached themselves to Israel (Jdg_1:16; Jdg_4:11). A few passages suggest that Sinai was the original home of Yahweh (Jdg_5:4, Jdg_5:5; Deu_33:2). But there is no direct evidence bearing upon the origin of the worship of Yahweh: to us He is known only as the God of Israel.
4. Pre-Prophetic Conceptions of Yahweh
(1) Yahweh Alone was the God of Israel
Hebrew theology consists essentially of the doctrine of Yahweh and its implications. The teachers and leaders of the people at all times worship and enjoin the worship of Yahweh alone. ?It stands out as a prominent and incontrovertible fact, that down to the reign of Ahab ... no prominent man in Israel, with the doubtful exception of Solomon, known by name and held up for condemnation, worshipped any other god but Yahweh. In every national and tribal crisis, in all times of danger and of war, it is Yahweh and Yahweh alone who is invoked to give victory and deliverance? (Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures (3), 21). This is more evident in what is, without doubt, very early literature, even than in later writings (e.g. Jdg 5; Dt 33; 1 Sam 4 through 6). The isolation of the desert was more favorable to the integrity of Yahweh's sole worship than the neighborhood of powerful peoples who worshipped many other gods. Yet that early religion of Yahweh can be called monotheistic only in the light of the end it realized, for in the course of its development it had to overcome many limitations.
(A) His Early Worship
The early worship of Yahweh did not exclude belief in the existence of other gods. As other nations believed in the existence of Yahweh (1Sa_4:8; 2Ki_17:27), so Israel did not doubt the reality of other gods (Jdg_11:24; Num_21:29; Mic_4:5). This limitation involved two others: Yahweh is the God of Israel only; with them alone He makes a COVENANT (which see) (Gen_15:18; Exo_6:4, Exo_6:5; 2Ki_17:34, 2Ki_17:35), and their worship only He seeks (Deu_4:32-37; Deu_32:9; Amo_3:2). Therefore, He works, and can be worshipped only within a certain geographical area. He may have been associated with His original home in Sinai long after the settlement in Canaan (Jdg_5:4; Deu_33:2; 1Ki_19:8, 1Ki_19:9), but gradually His home and that of His people became identical (1Sa_26:19; Hos_9:3; Isa_14:2, Isa_14:25). Even after the deportation of the ten tribes, Canaan remains Yahweh's land (2Ki_17:24-28). Early Israelites are, therefore, more properly described as Monolatrists or Henotheists than as Monotheists. It is characteristic of the religion of Israel (in contrast with, e.g. Greek thought) that it arrived at absolute Monotheism along the line of moral and religious experience, rather than that of rational inference. Even while they shared the common Semitic belief in the reality of other gods, Yahweh alone had for them ?the value of God.?
(B) Popular Religion
It is necessary to distinguish between the teaching of the religious leaders and the belief and practice of the people generally. The presence of a higher religion never wholly excludes superstitious practices. The use of Teraphim (Gen_31:30; 1Sa_19:13, 1Sa_19:16; Hos_3:4), Ephod (Jdg_18:17-20; 1Sa_23:6, 1Sa_23:9; 1Sa_30:7), Urim and Thummim (1Sa_28:6; 1Sa_14:40, Septuagint), for the purposes of magic and divination, to obtain oracles from Yahweh, was quite common in Israel. Necromancy was practiced early and late (1Sa_28:7; Isa_8:19; Deu_18:10. 11 ). Sorcery and witchcraft were not unknown, but were condemned by the religious leaders (1Sa_28:3). The burial places of ancestors were held in great veneration (Gen_35:20; Gen_50:13; Jos_24:30). But these facts do not prove that Hebrew religion was animistic and polytheistic, any more than similar phenomena in Christian lands would justify such an inference about Christianity.
(C) Polytheistic Tendencies
Yet the worship of Yahweh maintained and developed its monotheistic principle only by overcoming several hostile tendencies. The Baal-worship of the Canaanites and the cults of other neighboring tribes proved a strong attraction to the mass of Israelites (Jdg_2:13; Jdg_3:7; Jdg_8:33; Jdg_10:10; 1Sa_8:8; 1Sa_12:10; 1Ki_11:5, 1Ki_11:33; Hos_2:5, Hos_2:17; Ezek 20; Exo_20:5; Exo_22:20; Exo_34:16, Exo_34:17). Under the conditions of life in Canaan, the sole worship of Yahweh was in danger of modification by three tendencies, co?rdination, assimilation, and disintegration.
(i) Coordination
When the people had settled down in peaceful relations with their neighbors, and began to have commercial and diplomatic transactions with them, it was inevitable that they should render their neighbor's gods some degree of reverence and worship. Courtesy and friendship demanded as much (compare 2Ki_5:18). When Solomon had contracted many foreign alliances by marriage, he was also bound to admit foreign worship into Jerusalem (1Ki_11:5). But Ahab was the first king who tried to set up the worship of Baal, side by side with that of Yahweh, as the national religion (1Ki_18:19). Elijah's stand and Jehu's revolution gave its death blow to Baal-worship and vindicated the sole right of Yahweh to Israel's allegiance. The prophet was defending the old religion and Ahab was the innovator; but the conflict and its issue brought the monotheistic principle to a new and higher level. The supreme temptation and the choice transformed what had been a natural monolatry into a conscious and moral adherence to Yahweh alone (1Ki_18:21, 1Ki_18:39).
(ii) Assimilation
But to repudiate the name of Baal was not necessarily to be rid of the influence of Baal-worship. The ideas of the heathen religions survived in a more subtle way in the worship of Yahweh Himself. The change from the nomad life of the desert to the agricultural conditions of Canaan involved some change in religion. Yahweh, the God of flocks and wars, had to be recognized as the God of the vintage and the harvest. That this development occurred is manifest in the character of the great religious festivals. ?Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep ... and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou sowest in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field? (Exo_23:14-16). The second and the third obviously, and the first probably, were agricultural feasts, which could have no meaning in the desert. Israel and Yahweh together took possession of Canaan. To doubt that would be to admit the claims of the Baal-worship; but to assert it also involved some danger, because it was to assert certain similarities between Yahweh and the Baalim. When those similarities were embodied in the national festivals, they loomed very large in the eyes and minds of the mass of the people (W.R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, 49-57). The danger was that Israel should regard Yahweh, like the Baals of the country, as a Nature-god, and, by local necessity, a national god, who gave His people the produce of the land and, protected them from their enemies, and in return received frown them such gifts and sacrifices as corresponded to His nature. From the appearance in Israel, and among Yahweh worshippers, of such names as Jerub-baal, Esh-baal (son of Saul) and Beeliada (son of David, 1Ch_14:7), it has been inferred that Yahweh was called Baal, and there is ample evidence that His worship was assimilated to that of the Canaanite Baalim. The bulls raised by Jeroboam (1Ki_12:26) were symbols of Yahweh, and in Judah the Canaanite worship was imitated down to the time of Asa (1Ki_14:22-24; 1Ki_15:12, 1Ki_15:13). Against this tendency above all, the great prophets of the 8th century contended. Israel worshipped Yahweh as if He were one of the Baalim, and Hosea calls it Baal-worship (Hos_2:8, Hos_2:12, Hos_2:13; compare Amo_2:8; Isa_1:10-15).
(iii) Disintegration
And where Yahweh was conceived as one of the Baalim or Masters of the land, He became, like them, subject to disintegration into a number of local deities. This was probably the gravamen of Jeroboam's sin in the eyes of the ?Deuteronomic? historian. In setting up separate sanctuaries, he divided the worship, and, in effect, the godhead of Yahweh. The localization and naturalization of Yahweh, as well as His assimilation to the Baals, all went together, so that we read that even in Judah the number of gods was according to its cities (Jer_2:28; Jer_11:13). The vindication of Yahweh's moral supremacy and spiritual unity demanded, among other things, the unification of His worship in Jerusalem (2 Ki 23).
(D) No Hebrew Goddesses
In one respect the religion of Yahweh successfully resisted the influence of the heathen cults. At no time was Yahweh associated with a goddess. Although the corrupt sensual practices that formed a large part of heathen worship also entered into Israel's worship (see ASHERAH), it never penetrated so far as to modify in this respect the idea of Yahweh.
(E) Human Sacrifices
It is a difficult question how far human sacrifices at any time found place in the worship of Yahweh. The outstanding instance is that of Jephthah's daughter, which, though not condemned, is certainly regarded as exceptional (Jdg_11:30-40). Perhaps it is rightly regarded as a unique survival. Then the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, while reminiscent of an older practice, represents a more advanced view. Human sacrifice though not demanded, is not abhorrent to Yahweh (Gen 22). A further stage is represented where Ahaz' sacrifice of his son is condemned as an ?abomination of the nations? (2Ki_16:3). The sacrifice of children is emphatically condemned by the prophets as a late and foreign innovation which Yahweh had not commanded (Jer_7:31; Eze_16:20). Other cases, such as the execution of the chiefs of Shittim (Num_25:4), and of Saul's sons ?before Yahweh? (2Sa_21:9), and the ḥērem or ban, by which whole communities were devoted to destruction (Jdg_21:10; 1 Sam 15), while they show a very inadequate idea of the sacredness of human life, are not sacrifices, nor were they demanded by Yahweh's worship. They were survivals of savage customs connected with tribal unity, which the higher morality of Yahweh's religion had not yet abolished.
(2) The Nature and Character of Yahweh
The nature and character of Yahweh are manifested in His activities. The Old Testament makes no statements about the essence of God; we are left to infer it from His action in Nature and history and from His dealing with man.
(A) A God of War
In this period, His activity is predominantly martial. As Israel's Deliverer from Egypt, ?Yahweh is a man of war? (Exo_15:3). An ancient account of Israel's journey to Canaan is called ?the book of the Wars of Yahweh? (Num_21:14). By conquest in war He gave His people their land (Jdg 5; 2Sa_5:24; Deu_33:27). He is, therefore, more concerned with men and nations, with the moral, than with the physical world.
(B) His Relation to Nature
Even His activity in Nature is first connected with His martial character. Earth, stars and rivers come to His battle (Jdg_5:4, Jdg_5:20, Jdg_5:21). The forces of Nature do the bidding of Israel's Deliverer from Egypt (Ex 8-10; Exo_14:21). He causes sun and moon to stand while He delivers up the Amorites (Jos_10:12). Later, He employs the forces of Nature to chastise His people for infidelity and sin (2Sa_24:15; 1Ki_17:1). Amos declares that His moral rule extends to other nations and that it determines their destinies. In harmony with this idea, great catastrophes like the Deluge (Gen 7) and the overthrow of the Cities of the Plain (Gen 19) are ascribed to His moral will. In the same pragmatic manner the oldest creation narrative describes Him creating man, and as much of the world as He needed (Gen 2), but as yet the idea of a universal cause had not emerged, because the idea of a universe had not been formed. He acts as one of great, but limited, power and knowledge (Gen_11:5-8; Gen_18:20). The more universal conception of Gen 1 belongs to the same stratum of thought as Second Isa. At every stage of the Old Testament the metaphysical perfections of Yahweh follow as an inference from His ethical preeminence.
(3) The Most Distinctive Characteristic of Yahweh
The most distinctive characteristic of Yahweh, which finally rendered Him and His religion absolutely unique, was the moral factor. In saying that Yahweh was a moral God, it is meant that He acted by free choice, in conformity with ends which He set to Himself, and which He also imposed upon His worshippers as their law of conduct.
(A) Personality
The most essential condition of a moral nature is found in His vivid personality, which at every stage of His self-revelation shines forth with an intensity that might be called aggressive. Divine personality and spirituality are never expressly asserted or defined in the Old Testament; but nowhere in the history of religion are they more clearly asserted. The modes of their expression are, however, qualified by anthropomorphisms, by limitations, moral and physical. Yahweh's jealousy (Exo_20:5; Deu_5:9; Deu_6:15), His wrath and anger (Exo_32:10-12; Deu_7:4) and His inviolable holiness (Exo_19:21, Exo_19:22; 1Sa_6:19; 2Sa_6:7) appear sometimes to be irrational and immoral; but they are the assertion of His individual nature, of His self-consciousness as He distinguishes Himself from all else, in the moral language of the time, and are the conditions of His having any moral nature whatsoever. Likewise, He dwells in a place and moves from it (Jdg_5:5); men may see Him in visible form (Exo_24:10; Num_12:8); He is always represented as having organs like those of the human body, arms, hands, feet, mouth, eyes and ears. By such sensuous and figurative language alone was it possible for a personal God to make Himself known to men.
(B) Law and Judgment
The content of Yahweh's moral nature as revealed in the Old Testament developed with the growth of moral ideas. Though His activity is most prominently martial, it is most permanently judicial, and is exercised through judges, priests and prophets. Ṭōrāh and mishpāṭ, ?law? and ?judgment,? from the time of Moses onward, stand, the one for a body of customs that should determine men's relations to one another, and the other for the decision of individual cases in accordance with those customs, and both were regarded as issuing from Yahweh. The people came to Moses ?to inquire of God? when they had a matter in dispute, and he ?judged between a man and his neighbor, and made them know the statutes of God, and his laws? (Exo_18:15, Exo_18:16). The judges appear mostly as leaders in war; but it is clear, as their name indicates, that they also gave judgments as between the people (Jdg_3:10; Jdg_4:4; Jdg_10:2, Jdg_10:3; 1Sa_7:16). The earliest literary prophets assume the existence of a law which priest and prophet had neglected to administer rightly (Hos_4:6; Hos_8:1, Hos_8:12; Amo_2:4). This implied that Yahweh was thought of as actuated and acting by a consistent moral principle, which He also imposed on His people. Their morality may have varied much at different periods, but there is no reason to doubt that the Decalogue, and the moral teaching it involved, emanated substantially from Moses. ?He taught them that Yahveh, if a stern, and often wrathful, Deity, was also a God of justice and purity. Linking the moral life to the religious idea, he may have taught them too that murder and theft, adultery and false witness, were abhorred and forbidden by their God? (Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures3, 49). The moral teaching of the Old Testament effected the transition from the national and collective to the individual and personal relation with Yahweh. The most fundamental defect of Hebrew morality was that its application was confined within Israel itself and did little to determine the relation of the Israelites to people of other nations; and this limitation was bound up with Henotheism, the idea that Yahweh was God of Israel alone. ?The consequence of this national conception of Yahweh was that there was no religious and moral bond regulating the conduct of the Hebrews with men of other nations. Conduct which between fellow-Hebrews was offensive in Yahweh's eyes was inoffensive when practiced by a Hebrew toward one who was not a Hebrew (Deu_23:19 f) ..... In the latter case they were governed purely by considerations of expediency. This ethical limitation is the real explanation of the 'spoiling of the Egyptians'? (Exo_11:2, Exo_11:3) (G. Buchanan Gray, The Divine Discipline of Israel, 46, 48).
The first line of advance in the teaching of the prophets was to expand and deepen the moral demands of Yahweh. So they removed at once the ethical and theological limitations of the earlier view. But they were conscious that they were only developing elements already latent in the character and law of Yahweh.
5. The Idea of God in the Prophetic Period
Two conditions called forth and determined the message of the 8th-century prophets - the degradation of morality and religion at home and the growing danger to Israel and Judah from the all-victorious Assyrian. With one voice the prophets declare and condemn the moral and social iniquity of Israel and Judah (Hos_4:1; Amo_4:1; Isa_1:21-23). The worship of Yahweh had been assimilated to the heathen religions around (Amo_2:8; Hos_3:1; Isa_30:22). A time of prosperity had produced luxury, license and an easy security, depending upon the external bonds and ceremonies of religion. In the threatening attitude of Assyria, the prophets see the complement of Israel's unfaithfulness and sin, this the cause and that the instruments of Yahweh's anger (Isa_10:5, Isa_10:6).
(1) Righteousness
These circumstances forced into first prominence the righteousness of Yahweh. It was an original attribute that had appeared even in His most martial acts (Jdg_5:4; 1Sa_12:7). But the prophet's interpretation of Israel's history revealed its content on a larger scale. Yahweh was not like the gods of the heathen, bound to the purposes and fortunes of His people. Their relation was not a natural bond, but a covenant of grace which He freely bestowed upon them, and He demanded as its condition, loyalty to Himself and obedience to His law. Impending calamities were not, as the naturalistic conception implied, due to the impotence of Yahweh against the Assyrian gods (Isa_31:1), but the judgment of God, whereby He applied impartially to the conduct of His people a standard of righteousness, which He both had in Himself and declared in judgment upon them. The prophets did not at first so much transform the idea of righteousness, as assert its application as between the people and Yahweh. But in doing that they also rejected the external views of its realization. It consists not in unlimited gifts or in the costliest oblations. ?What doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?? (Mic_6:8). And it tends to become of universal application. Yahweh will deal as a righteous judge with all nations, including Israel, and Israel as the covenant people bears the greater responsibility (Am 1 through 3). And a righteous judge that metes out even justice to all nations will deal similarly with individuals. The ministry of the prophets produced a vivid consciousness of the personal and individual relation of men to God. The prophets themselves were not members of a class, no order or school or profession, but men impelled by an inner and individual call of God, often against their inclination, to proclaim an unpopular message (Amo_7:14, Amo_7:15; Isa_6:1-13; Jer_1:6-9; Eze_3:14). Jeremiah and Ezekiel in terms denounced the old idea of collective responsibility (Jer_31:29; Ezek 18). Thus in the prophets' application of the idea of righteousness to their time, two of the limitations adhering to the idea of God, at least in popular religion hitherto, were transcended. Yahweh's rule is no longer limited to Israel, nor concerned only with the nation as a collective whole, but He deals impartially with every individual and nation alike. Other limitations also disappear. His anger and wrath, that once appeared irrational and unjust, now become the intensity of His righteousness. Nor is it merely forensic and retributive righteousness. It is rather a moral end, a chief good, which He may realize by loving-kindness and mercy and forgiveness as much as by punishment. Hebrew thought knows no opposition between God's righteousness and His goodness, between justice and mercy. The covenant of righteousness is like the relation of husband to wife, of father to child, one of loving-kindness and everlasting love (Hos_3:1; Hos_11:4; Isa_1:18; Isa_30:18; Mic_7:18; Isa_43:4; Isa_54:8; Jer_31:3, Jer_31:34; Jer_9:24). The stirring events which showed Yahweh's independence of Israel revealed the fullness of grace that was always latent in His relation to His people (Gen_33:11; 2Sa_24:14). It was enshrined in the Decalogue (Exo_20:6), and proclaimed with incomparable grandeur in what may be the most ancient Mosaic tradition: ?Yah, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin? (Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7).
(2) Holiness
The holiness of Yahweh in the Prophets came to have a meaning closely akin to His righteousness. As an idea more distinctly religious and more exclusively applied to God, it was subject to greater changes of meaning with the development or degradation of religion. It was applied to anything withdrawn from common use to the service of religion - utensils, places, seasons, animals and men. Originally it was so far from the moral meaning it now has that it was used of the ?sacred? prostitutes who ministered to the licentiousness of Canaanitish worship (Deu_23:18). Whether or not the root-idea of the word was ?separateness,? there is no doubt that it is applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament to express his separateness from men and his sublimity above them. It was not always a moral quality in Yahweh; for He might be unapproachable because of His mere power and terror (1Sa_6:20; Isa_8:13). But in the Prophets, and especially in Isa, it acquires a distinctly moral meaning. In his vision Isaiah hears Yahweh proclaimed as ?holy, holy, holy,? and he is filled with the sense of his own sin and of that of Israel (Isa_6:1-13; compare Isa_1:4; Amo_2:7). But even here the term conveys more than moral perfection. Yahweh is already ?the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy? (Isa_57:15). It expresses the full Divinity of Yahweh in His uniqueness and self-existence (1Sa_2:2; Amo_4:2; Hos_11:9). It would therefore seem to stand in antithesis to righteousness, as expressing those qualities of God, metaphysical and moral, by which He is distinguished and separated from men, while righteousness involves those moral activities and relations which man may share with God. But in the Prophets, God's entire being is moral and His whole activity is righteous. The meanings of the terms, though not identical, coincide; God's holiness is realized in righteousness. ?God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness? (Isa_5:16). So Isaiah's peculiar phrase, ?the Holy One of Israel,? brings God in His most exalted being into a relation of knowledge and moral reciprocity with Israel.
(3) Universality
The moralizing of righteousness and holiness universalized Deity. - From Amos downward Yahweh's moral rule, and therefore His absolute power, were recognized as extending over all the nations surrounding Israel, and the great world-power of Assyria is but the rod of His anger and the instrument of His righteousness (Am 1 through 2; Isa_10:5; Isa_13:5; Isa_19:1). Idolatrous and polytheistic worship of all kinds are condemned. The full inference of Monotheism was only a gradual process, even with the prophets. It is not clear that the 8th-century prophets all denied the existence of other gods, though Isaiah's term for them, 'ĕlı̄lı̄m (?things of nought,? ?no-gods?), points in that direction. At least the monotheistic process had set in. And Yahweh's control over other nations was not exercised merely from Israel's point of view. The issue of the judgment upon the two great powers of Egypt and Assyria was to be their conversion to the religion of Yahweh (Isa_19:24, Isa_19:25; compare Isa_2:2-4 = Mic_4:1-3). Yet Hebrew universalism never went beyond the idea that all nations should find their share in Yahweh through Israel (Zec_8:23). The nations from the ends of the earth shall come to Yahweh and declare that their fathers' gods were ?lies, even vanity and things wherein there is no profit? (Jer_16:19). It is stated categorically that ?Yahweh he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else? (Deu_4:39).
(4) Unity
The unity of God was the leading idea of Josiah's reformation. Jerusalem was cleansed of every accretion of Baal-worship and of other heathen religions that had established themselves by the side of the worship of Yahweh (2Ki_23:4-8, 2Ki_23:10-14). The semi-heathen worship of Yahweh in many local shrines, which tended to disintegrate His unity, was swept away (2Ki_23:8, 2Ki_23:9). The reform was extended to the Northern Kingdom (2Ki_23:15-20), so that Jerusalem should be the sole habitation of Yahweh on earth, and His worship there alone should be the symbol of unity to the whole Hebrew race.
But the monotheistic doctrine is first fully and consciously stated in Second Isa. There is no God but Yahweh: other gods are merely graven images, and their worshippers commit the absurdity of worshipping the work of their own hands (Isa_42:8; Isa_44:8-20). Yahweh manifests His deity in His absolute sovereignty of the world, both of Nature and history. The prophet had seen the rise and fall of Assyria, the coming of Cyrus, the deportation and return of Judah's exiles, as incidents in the training of Israel for her world-mission to be ?a light of the Gentiles? and Yahweh's ?salvation unto the end of the earth? (Isa_42:1-7; Isa_49:1-6). Israel's world-mission, and the ordering of historical movements to the grand final purpose of universal salvation (Isa_45:23), is the philosophy of history c
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

The two principal Hebrew names of the Supreme Being used in the Scriptures are Jehovah and Elohim. Dr. Havernick proposes the reading Jahveh instead of Jehovah, meaning 'the Existing One.'Both names, he admirably proves, are used by Moses discriminately, in strict conformity with the theological idea he wished to express in the immediate context; and, pursuing the Pentateuch nearly line by line, it is astonishing to see that Moses never uses any of the names at mere random or arbitrarily, but is throughout consistent in the application of the respective terms. Elohim is the abstract expression for absolute Deity apart from the special notions of unity, holiness, substance, etc. It is more a philosophical than devotional term, and corresponds with our term Deity, in the same way as state or government is abstractedly expressive of a king or monarch. Jehovah, however, he considers to be the revealed Elohim, the Manifest, Only, Personal, and Holy Elohim: Elohim is the Creator, Jehovah the Redeemer, etc.
To Elohim, in the later writers, we usually find affixed the adjective 'the living' (Jer_10:10; Dan_6:20; Dan_6:26; Act_14:15; 2Co_6:16), probably in contradistinction to idols, which might be confounded in some cases with the true God.
The attributes ascribed to God by Moses are systematically enumerated in Exo_34:6-7, though we find in isolated passages in the Pentateuch and elsewhere, additional properties specified, which bear more directly upon the dogmas and principles of religion, such as e.g. that he is not the author of sin (Gen_1:31), although since the fall, man is born prone to sin (Gen_6:5; Gen_8:21, etc.). But as it was the avowed design of Moses to teach the Jews the Unity of God in opposition to the polytheism of the other nations with whom they were to come in contact, he dwelt particularly and most prominently on that point, which he hardly ever omitted when he had an opportunity of bringing forward the attributes of God (Deu_6:4; Deu_10:17; Deu_4:39; Deu_9:16, etc.; Num_16:22; Num_23:19, etc.; Exo_15:11; Exo_34:6-7, etc.).
In the Prophets and other sacred writers of the Old Testament, these attributes are still more fully developed and explained by the declarations that God is the first and the last (Isa_44:6), that He changes not (Hab_3:6), that the earth and heaven shall perish, but He shall endure (Psa_102:26)?a distinct allusion to the last doomsday?and that He is Omnipresent (Pro_15:3; Job_34:22, etc.).
In the New Testament also we find the attributes of God systematically classified (Rev_5:12; Rev_7:12), while the peculiar tenets of Christianity embrace, if not a farther, still a more developed idea, as presented by the Apostles and the primitive teachers of the church.
The expression 'to see God' (Job_19:26; Job_42:5; Isa_38:11) sometimes signifies merely to experience His help; but in the Old Testament Scriptures it more usually denotes the approach of death (Gen_32:30; Jdg_6:23; Jdg_13:22; Isa_6:5).
The term 'son of God' applies to kings (Psa_2:7; Psa_82:6-7). The usual notion of the ancients, that the royal dignity was derived from God, may here be traced to its source. This notion, entertained by the Oriental nations with regard to kings, made the latter style themselves gods (Psa_82:6).
'Sons of God,' in the plural, implies inferior gods, angels (Gen_6:2; Job_1:6); as also faithful adherents, worshippers of God (Deu_14:1; Psa_73:15; Pro_14:26).
'Man of God' is sometimes applied to an angel (Jdg_13:6; Jdg_13:8); as also to a prophet (1Sa_2:27; 1Sa_9:6; 1Ki_13:1).
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

God
from the same Saxon root as good, thus beautifully expressing the divine benignity as the leading attribute of the most general term for the Deity, and corresponding almost invariably to two Hebrew words, both from a common root (אוּל, au, to be strong). Hengstenberg, however, regards the simpler of these words (אֵל, El) as a primitive (Auth. of Pent. 1:251), while some consider the extended form (אֵֵלוֹהּ, Elo'dh) as derived from a different root (the obsolete אָלָהּ, found in Arabic = to worship). The corresponding Shemitic terms are: Arabic, Al or Allah (q.v.); Syriac, Ilo or Eloho; Samar. El or Chilah (= powerful; Castell, in Walton's Polyglot Bible, 6, s.v.); Phoenician El (ἠλ or ἰλ), as in En-el (῎Ενυλος, עינאל), Gag-el (Gagilus, גגאל), Ε᾿λοείμ (Sanchon.). SEE ALMIGHTY.
The only other Hebrew word generally employed in naming the Supreme Being is Jehovah, יְהוָֹה, which some (so Havernick, Historische-critsche Einleitung ins alte Testament, Berlin, 1839) propose to point יִהְוֶה, Jahveh, meaning "the Existing One," holding that Elohim is used merely to indicate the abundance and super-richness contained in the Divine Being. With such, therefore, Jehovah is not of the same origin as the heathen Jove, but of a strictly peculiar and Hebrew origin. Both names are used by Moses discriminately, in strict conformity with the theological idea he wished to express in the immediate context; and, pursuing the Pentateuch nearly line by line, it is astonisling to see that Moses never uses any of the names at mere random or arbitrarily, but is throughout consistent in the application of the respective terms. Elohim is the abstract expression for absolute Deity apart from the special notions of unity, holiness, substance, etc. It is more a philosophical than devotional term, and corresponds with our term Deity, in the same way as state or government is abstractly expressive of a king or monarch. Jehovah, however, seems to be the revealed Elohim, the Manifest, Only, Personal, and Holy Elohim: Elohim is the Creator, Jehovah the Redeemer, etc. SEE JEHOVAH.
The translators of the Eng. A.V. have invariably translated this last Hebrew word by " Lord," which is printed in those passages in small capitals in our common Bibles, but whenever the two words which they thus render occur together, Adonai-Jehovah, the latter is rendered "God," in order to prevent the repetition of " Lord." The Greek has θεός (either with or without the art.). Jerome and the Rabbins enumerate ten Heb. words as meaning God; but they relate rather to his attributes. SEE LORD.
I. Usage of the Hebrew terms properly rendered "God."
1. אֵל, El. This term is used in the most general way as a designation of Deity, whether of the true God or of the false gods, even the idols, of the heathen. In the latter reference it occurs Isa_44:10; Isa_44:15; Isa_45:20; Isa_46:6; and in the plur. אֵלַים, Elim', Exo_15:11; Dan_11:36; though in both these last instances it may be questioned whether the word is not used in the sense of mighty ones. To render the application of the term in this reference more specific, such epithets as אִחֵר, other, foreign (Exo_34:14), זָר, strange, hostile (Psa_81:10), נֵכָר, strange (Deu_32:12), are used. When used of the true God, אֵלis usually preceded by the article (הָאִל, Gen_31:13; Deu_7:9), or followed by such distinctive epithets as שִׁדִּי, Almighty (Exo_6:3); עוֹלָם, eternal (Gen_21:33; Isa_40:28); עִלְיוֹן, Supreme (Gen_14:18); חִי, living (Jos_3:10); גַּבּרֹ, mighty (Isa_9:5); or such qualifying adjuncts as כָּבוֹד, of glory (Psa_29:3); אֵֶמת, of truth (Psa_31:6); גְּמֻלוֹת, of retributions (Jer_51:56); בֵּיתאּאֵל, of Bethel (Gen_31:13). יַשְׂרָאֵל, of Israel (Gen_33:20); יְשֻׁרוּן(Deu_33:26). In poetry אֵל sometimes occurs as a sign of the superlative; as הִרִרֵיאּאֵל, hills of God, very high hills (Psa_36:7); אִרְזֵיאּאֵל, cedars of God (Psa_80:11). The phrase בְּנֵיאּאֵלַים. occurs Psa_29:1; Psa_89:7; and is supposed by some to refer to angels; but others take אלים here for אילים, and translate Sons of the mighty (see Rosenmuller, ad loc.). There is no instance of אֵלin the singular being used in the sense of mighty one or hero; for even if we retain that reading in Eze_31:11 (though thirty of Kennicott's codices have the reading איל, and the probability is that in those which present אל the י is implied), the rendering "God of the nations" may be accepted as conveying a strong but just description of the power of Nebuchadnezzar, and the submission rendered to him; compare 2Co_4:4. In proper names אל is often found sometimes in the first member of the compound word, e.g. אליה, Elijah; אלדד, Eldad, etc., and sometimes as the last member, e.g. שׁמואלSamuel; למואל, Lemuel; טבאל, Tabeel, etc. SEE EL.
2. אלֵוֹהִּ, Elo'ah, plur. אלֵהַים, Elohim'. The singular form occurs only in poetry, especially in Job, and in the later books, such as Daniel, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. It is used as well of idol deities as of the true God (Dan_11:37-38; Hab_1:11; Deu_32:15; Psalms 1:22; Hab_3:3, etc.); once in the former case with the addition of נֵכָר (Dan_11:39), and in the latter with that of יִעֲקֹב (Psa_114:7). The more common usage is that of the plural. This pervades all the books of the Old Test., from the earliest to the latest. Thus it is used principally of the true God, and in this case frequently with the article prefixed (Gen_5:22; Gen_6:9; Gen_6:11; Gen_17:18), as well as with such adjuncts as הִשָּׁמִיַם (Neh_1:4), or with the addition of וְהָאָרֶו ֹ (Gen_24:3); אָמֵן (Isa_65:16); צִדַּק (Psa_4:2); הִצִּבָּאוֹת (Amo_3:13), etc. When the relation of Israel to God is to be indicated, the phrases God of Israel, Jacob, Abraham are used (Eze_5:1; Psalm 20:2; 47:10, etc.); and in this case, as the term Elohim is equivalent in effect to Jehovah, it is often used interchangeably with that term; thus Moses, who is designated עֵבֶד יְהֹוָה, Ebed-Jehovah (Deu_34:5), is called in the same sense ע אלֵהַים, Ebed-Elohim (Dan_9:11); and the same object is designated indifferently רוּחִ יְהֹוָה, Ruach-Jehovah, and ר אלֵהַים, Ruach-Elohim (comp. Jdg_3:10, and Exo_31:3, etc.). Not unfrequently the two terms are combined (Lev_18:2; Lev_18:4, etc.; Lev_19:2, etc.; 2Sa_5:10; 1Ki_1:36; 1Ki_14:13; Psa_18:29, etc.). Most commonly, however, they are used distinctively, with respect, probably, to the difference between their primary meanings (see Hengstenberg, Auth. d. Pent. 1:181 sq.). In the Pentateuch this discriminative usage has given ground for certain hypotheses as to the composition of that work. SEE PENTATEUCH.
In the earlier historical books, Jehovah is more frequently used than Elohim; in Job, Jehovah is more frequently used in the poetical, Eloah or Elohim in the prosaic portions; in the Psalms, sometimes the one, sometimes the other predominates, and this has been thought to afford some criterion by which to judge of the age of the psalm, the older psalms being those in which Elohim is used; in Proverbs we have chiefly Jehovah; in Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Jonah almost exclusively Elohim, and in the other prophets chiefly Jehovah. Elohim is also used of idol deities or false gods, because these are worshipped as if they were God (Exo_19:20; Exo_32:31; Jos_24:20; Jer_2:11; Jon_1:5, etc.); and, like El, it is used as a superlative (Psa_68:16; Psa_65:10, etc.). Kings and judges, as the vicegerents of Deity, or as possessing a sort of repreasentative majesty, are sometimes called Elohim (Psa_82:1; Psa_82:6; Exo_21:6; Exo_22:8). Whether the term is used of angels may be made matter of question. This is the rendering given to אֵֹלהַים by the Sept.,Vulg., Targ., Syr., etc., in Gen_3:5; Psa_8:6; Psa_82:1; Psa_82:6; Psa_97:7; Psa_138:1; but in the majority of these instances there can be little doubt that the translators were swayed by were dogmatical considerations in adopting. that rendering; they preferred it because they avoided thus the strongly by anthropomorphic representation which a literal rendering would have preserved. In all these passages the proper signification of אלֹהַים may be retained, and in some of them, such as Gen_3:5; Psa_82:1; Psa_82:6, this seems imperatively required. In Psa_8:6 also the rendering "angels" seems excluded by the consideration that the subject of the writer is the grace of God to man in giving him dominion over the works of his hands, in which respect there can be no comparison between man and the angels, of whom nothng of this sort is affirmed. In Psa_97:7, the connection of the last clause with what precedes affords sufficient reason for our giving Elohim its proper rendering, as in the A.V. That the author of the epistle to the Hebrews should have adopted the Sept. rendering in citing these two passages (Heb_2:7; Heb_1:6), cannot be held as establishing that rendering, for, as his argument is not affected by it, he was under no call to depart from the rendering given in the version from which he quotes. But, though there be no clear evidence that Elohim is ever used in the sense of angels, it is sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen powers or superhemman beings that are not properly thought of as divine. Thus the witch of Endor saw "Elohim ascending out of the earth" (1Sa_28:13), meaning thereby some beings of. an unearthly, superhuman character. So also in Zec_12:8 it is said, "The house of David shall be as Elohim, as the angel of the Lord," where, as the transition from Elohim to the angel of the Lord is a minori ad majus, we must regard the former as a vague designation of supernatural powers. Hengstenberg would explain Psa_8:6 in accordance with this; but the legitimmicy of this may be doubted. SEE ELOHIM.
On the use or absence of the article with אֵֹלהַים see Quarry (Genesis, page 270 sq.), who, after an elaborate examination of the subject, sums up the results as the following: "The dispelling of the supposition that any essential difference existed, at least in the earlier books, between Elohim with and without the article — any difference at all, but such as the exigencies of each occasion with respect to sense or grammar would have made in the case of any common appellative; the illustration of the use of the article with particles and prepositions, elucidating many passages of Scripture, and explaining many seeming causes of perplexity; and the establishment of an important characteristic difference as regards the usage in the case of Elohim with or without the article, between the earlier and later books of the sacred canon." SEE ARTICLE (IN GRAMMAR).
II. The attributes ascribed to God by Moses are systematically enumerated in Exo_34:6-7, though we find is isolated passages in the Pentateuch and elsewhere additional properties specified, which bear more directly upon the dogmas and principles of religion, such as, e.g. that he is not the author of sin (Gen_1:31), although since the fall man is prone to sin (Gen_6:5; Gen_8:21, etc.). But, as it was the avowed design of Moses to teach the Jews the unity of God in opposition to the polytheism of the other nations with whom they were to come in contact, he dwelt particularly and most prominently on that point, which he hardly ever omitted when he had an opportunity of bringing forward the attributes of God (Deu_6:4; Deu_10:17; Deu_4:39; Deu_9:16, etc.; Num_16:22; Num_33:19, etc.; Exo_15:11; Exo_34:6-7, etc.).
In the prophets and other sacred writers of the Old Testament these attributes are still more fully developed and explained by the declarations that God is the first and the last (Isa_44:6); that he changes not (Hab_3:6); that the earth and heaven shall perish, but he shall endure (Psa_102:26) — a distinct allusion to the last doomsday — and that he is omnipresent (Pro_15:3; Job_34:22, etc.).
In the New Testament also we find the attributes of God systematically classified (Rev_5:12; Rev_7:12), while the peculiar tenets of Christianity embrace, if not a further, still a more developed idea, as presented by the apostles and the primitive teachers of the Church (compare Semisch's Justin Martyr, 2:151 sq., translated by J.E. Ryland, 1843).
The expression "to see God" (Job_19:26; Job_13:5; Isa_38:11) sometimes signifies merely to experience his help; but in the Old Testament Scriptures it more usually denotes the approach of death (Gen_32:30; Jdg_6:23; Jdg_13:22; Isa_6:5). SEE DEATH.
The term בֶּןאּאֵֹלהַים “son of God," applies to kings (Psalm 2:7; 82:6, 27). The usual notion of the ancients that the royal dignity was derived from God may here be traced to its source: hence the Homeric διογένης βασιλεύς. This notion, entertained by the Oriental nations with regard to kings, made the latter style themselves gods (Psa_82:6). Add. בְּנֵי אֵֹלהַים"sons of God," in the plural, implies inferior gods, angels (Gen_6:2; Job_1:6);also faithful adherents, worshippers of God (Deu_14:1; Psa_73:15; Pro_14:26). אַישׁ אֵֹלהַים "man of God," is sometimes applied to an angel (Jdg_13:6; Jdg_13:8), as also to a prophet (1Sa_2:27; 1Sa_9:6; 1Ki_13:1).
When, in the Middle Ages, scholastic theology began to speculate on the divines attributes as the basis of systematic and dogmatic Christianity, the Jews, it appears, did not wish to remain behind on that head, and, collecting a few passages from the Old Testament, and more especially from Isa_11:2, and 1Ch_29:11, where the divine attributes are more amply developed and enumerated, they strung them together in a sort of cabbalistic tree, but in reality representing a human figure. SEE CABBALA.
III. The Scriptures contain frequent notices of false gods as objects of idolatrous worship:
1. By the Hebrews. These were of two kinds:
a. Adoration of other beings than Jehovah, held as divine (Ehrlen, De diis et deab. Gentil. in S.S. memoratis, Argent. 1750; Leusden, De idolis V.T. in his Philolog. Hebr. mixt. page 291 sq.; Kalkar, Udsigt over den idolatr. Cultus som omtales i bibeln, Odense, 1838 sq.). Such false deities (which are generally identified with their images, Deu_4:28 sq.; Psa_115:4 sq.; Psa_135:15 sq.; 2Ma_2:2; comp. also עֲצָבַים, idols, in passages like 1Sa_31:9; Hos_4:17) are called אֵַלילַיםnothings (perhaps a play upon אֵֹלהַים), in the Jewish Church phraseology (Lev_19:4; Lev_26:1; comp. Hab_2:18), or חֲבָלַים, breaths, i.e., vanities (Jer_2:5; Jer_8:19; Jer_14:22), הִבְלֵי שׁ וְאutter vanities (Jon_2:9; comp. τὰ μάταια, Act_14:15), שַׁקּוּצַים, abominations (1Ki_11:5; Kings 23:13); derisively גַּלּוּלַים, logs (Eze_6:4; Eze_14:3); their sacred rites אָיֶן, frivolity (1Sa_15:23; Isa_66:3), and their whole worship harlotry (Ezekiel 23; compare זָנָה, and derivatives, in Winer, Simonis Lex. p. 286 sq.), in contrast with which Jehovah is called the true God (אֵֹלהַים חִיַּים, Jer_10:10 sq.; Dan_6:20; Dan_6:26 [compare מֵתַים, Psalm 116:28]; Act_14:15; 2Co_6:16), the God of Heaven (Jdt_5:7; compare Jer_10:11, etc.). Indeed idolatry was reprobated as a capital offense in the Mosaic law, under penalty of extirpation and destruction in the case of the whole people (Lev_19:4; Deu_6:15; Deu_8:19; Deu_11:16 sq.; Deu_28:15 sq.; Deu_30:17 sq.; Deu_31:16 sq.; comp. Jos_23:16; 1Ki_9:6 sq.), and stoning for individuals (Exo_22:20; Deu_17:2 sq.; comp. Deu_6:14 sq.; Deu_7:16; Deu_8:19; Deu_13:2 sq.; Exo_20:3; Exo_20:23); and the Israelites were admonished in their campaigns utterly to demolish idolatrous images (Exo_23:24; Exo_34:13; Deu_7:5; Deu_7:25; Deu_12:2 sq.; comp. 1Ch_14:12; 1Ma_10:84), and not to tolerate any heathen whatever in their land (Exo_23:33; Deu_20:17), and, furthermore, to shun all connection (even civil and political) with idolatrous nations (Exo_23:32; Exo_34:15 sq.; Deu_7:1 sq.). Even instigation to idolatry was liable to punishment by death (Deu_13:6 sq.). In spite, however, of these severe statutes, we find the Israelites, not only during the passage through the wilderness and the unsettled period of their polity (Num_25:2; Deu_13:13; Jos_24:23; comp. Amo_5:25 sq.), but also under the monarchy, sadly departing from the worship of Jehovah, and addicting themselves to the adoration of Phoenico-Philistine-Syrian and Arabico-Saboean (in the time of the Maccabees also to Graeco-Syrian) deities (see Gramberg, Religionsideen, 1:436), such as Baal, Ashtaroth, Moloch, Chemosh, Thammuz, etc., and connecting therewith soothsaying and sorcery (Deu_18:10 sq.; comp. Dale, De divinationib. idolol. V.T. in his work De origine et progr. idolol. page 363 sq.). See each of these names in its place.
The service rendered to foreign deities was very multiform (Mishna, Sanhedrinm, 7:6), but consisted principally of vows (Hos_9:10), incense (1Ki_11:8; 2Ki_22:17; 2Ki_23:5; Jer_1:16; Jer_7:9; Jer_11:12; Jer_13:15; Jer_32:29), bloodless (Jer_7:18) and bloody offerings (2Ki_5:17), including even human beings. SEE MOLOCH. The incense and offerings were presented on high places and hills (Isa_57:7; Jer_2:20; Jer_3:6; Jer_13:27; Hos_4:13; 1Ki_11:7; 2Ki_23:5; comp. Philostr. Apoll. 2:4; Spanheim, ad Callim. Del. 70; SEE HIGH PLACE ), on roofs. (Jer_19:13; Jer_32:29; Isa_65:3), under shady trees (1Ki_14:23; 2Ki_16:4; 2Ki_17:10; Hos_4:13; Isa_1:29; Jer_2:20; Jer_3:13; Jer_17:2; 2Ch_28:4; Eze_6:13; Eze_20:28; see Movers, Phönic. page 577 sq.), also in valleys (Jer_2:23; 2Ch_28:3) and gardens (Isa_1:29; Isa_65:3). SEE GROVE. The votaries of many of these deities made an offering of their own chastity to them, and illicit commingling of the sexes was a chief element of such cultus. SEE BAAL; SEE ASTARTE. Sitting upon graves formed also a part of idolatry, either as a propitiation to the manes or in necromancy (Isa_65:4). Lustration even was not wanting (Isa_66:17). The priestly castes of these idolatrous systems were numerous (1Ki_18:22; 2Ki_10:21) and in good station (Hos_10:5). One kind of them was called Kemarim (כַּמָרַים, Zep_1:4; 2Ki_23:5; a Syriac word, Gesen. Thes. page 693; Mishna, Megil. 4:9). SEE IDOLATRY.
b. The worship of Jehovah, under the form of any image whatever, was strictly forbidden (Exo_20:4; Deu_4:16; Deu_5:8; Deu_27:15; comp. Tacit. Hist. 5:5). Such symbols as the Golden Calf (q.v.) were borrowed from Egypt (Jos_24:14; Eze_20:7 sq.). See Ewald, Isr. Gesch. 2:109 sq.; Gerritsen, Cur Hebraei ante exil. Babyl. se ad idolorum et plurium deor. cultum valde promos ostenderint, in the Annal. Acad. Rheno-Traject. 1822-3, page 120 sq.; Michaelis, Mos. Recht, 5:98 sq.; Otho, Lex. Rabb. page 286 sq. SEE IMAGE.
2. Idolatry of non-Israelitish Nations. — See each in its place. This was frequently portrayed by the prophets in all its grossness (1Ki_18:27; comp. Deyling's Observ. 1:136 sq.), especially by exhibitions of the (mechanical) construction of these gods (images, Isa_2:8; Isa_2:20; Isa_44:10 sq.; Jer_10:3 sq.; Hos_13:2; Psa_115:4; Bar_6:3 sq.; Wis_13:11 sq.; Wis_15:7 sq.; compare Philo, 2:472; Horace, Sat. 1:81 sq. Arnob. 3:12; 6:13 sq.; Augustine, Civ. Dei. 6:10), and their powerlessness (Isa_41:29; Isa_42:17; Isa_46:1-2; Jer_2:28; compare Deu_4:28; Deu_28:36 Psa_115:5 sq.; Hab_2:18). The images of the gods (מִצֵּבוֹת) were sometimes cast (metallic, Jdg_17:4; Isa_2:20; Isa_40:19; Hos_13:2), נֶסֶךְ, מִסֵּכָה; sometimes carved (of wood, Isa_44:13; Jer_10:3; comp. Pliny, 12:2; 13:17; Pausan. 2:19, 3), פֶּסֶל, פְּסַילSEE DIANA, or even moulded of clay (Wis_15:8; Pliny distinguishes "lignea et fictilia simulacra," 34:16). They were fastened with chains, so as not to fall down or be carried away (Isa_41:7; Jer_10:4; comp. Pausan. 3:15, 5; 8:41, 4; Arnob. 6:13), and were usually overlaid with gold or silver, and were, besides, richly decked with apparel (Isa_2:20; Isa_30:22; Isa_31:7; Isa_40:19; Jer_10:4; Hos_8:4; Baruch 12:16; compare Dougtaei Analect. 2:179 sq.; Bahr, Symbol. 1:277 sq.). They were also painted with red (vermilion) color (Wis_13:14; compare Pliny, 33:7, 36; 35:12, 45; Virgil, Eclog. 6:22; 10:26 sq.; Plutarch, Quaest. Romans 98; Arnob. 6:10; Bahr, Symbol. 1:334). They were taken by armies with them into battle (2Sa_5:21; comp. Curtius, 8:14, 11; Polyamn. 7:4). Victors were accustomed to carry them about in triumph, in order to despoil the subject nations of their divinities (Isa_10:10; Isa_36:19; Isa_37:12), or to bind them to greater fidelity (Isa_46:1 sq.; Jer_48:7; Jer_49:3; Hos_10:5; Dan_11:8; compare Pausan. 8:46, 1; see Bochart, Hieroz. 1:372; Withof, Opusc. page 143 sq.). The weapons of slain enemies were hung as trophies in the temples of the gods (1Sa_31:10; Pausan. 1:13, 3; Xenoph. Anab. 5:3, 4; Euseb. Chron. Arm. 1:67). Soothsaying and sorcery ever stand in, connection with this cultus (Isa_19:3). SEE MARK IN THE FLESH.
IV. The Christian Doctrine of God. —
1. Source. — The Christian idea of God is derived from the Scriptures. The statement GOD IS GOD suffices for the wants of theology in itself, and is given as a complete proposition in the Scriptures (Exo_3:14; Isa_43:12). But the Scriptures afford many indications, not merely as to the character of God, but also as to his nature. The substance of these teachings may be summed up in the statements. God is a Spirit, God is Love, God is Lord. These statements include the idea of an immaterial, intelligent, and free personal Being, of perfect goodness, wisdom, and power, who made the universe and continues to support it, as well as to govern and direct it, by his providence. Dr. Adam Clarke gives the following general statement of the doctrine of the Great First Cause: "The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being; the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence; he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, the most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy; the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made; illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, can not err or be deceived, and, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, and right, and kind." The Christian doctrine of God, in its development, involves the idea of the Trinity: God the Fathar, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. SEE TRINITY.
2. Connotation of the term God. — The word Θεός, God, taken to signify "an object of religious venersation," was formerly applied to the pretended deities of the heathen, and accordingly Δευς and Deus were employed by the promulgators of the Gospel when calling on the heathen to transfer their worship from their idols to Jehovah. But the word "God" has come to signify in Christian sense the Maker and Ruler of the world, and is absolutely and exclusively applied to him. There is "one God" in the Christian sense, and there can be but one. "It is not meant merely that we believe this as a fact, but that it is moreover implied in the very meaning we attach to the word. And this is a distinction which should always be carefully attended to. The word 'Mohamedan' means nothing more or less than a believer in Mohammed, though the Christian regards Mohammed as having been in fact an impostor, and the Mohammedans regard him as a true prophet; but neither of these is implied (or connoted) by the word 'Mohammedan' when used by a Christian. On the contrary, thee word 'God' does imply what has been above stated, as is evident from this: that any one who should deny that there exists any such being as a Maker and Governor of the world, would be considered by Christians not only as in error, but as an Atheist — as holding that there is no God (while whoever should affirm the existence of more than one God would be held to be an idolater); and this not the less though he should admit the existence of some being superior to man, such as the fairies, demons, nixes, etc., which are still feared lay the vulgar in almost all parts of Christendom; the genii of the Eastern nations, and the gods and goddesses of the ancient heathens, which were all of this description. None of them was accounted the 'Creator,' and the births of most of them are recorded in their mythology; and altogether the notions entertained of time seem to have been very nears the same as the vulgar superstitions still prevailing in most parts of Europe relative to the fairies, etc., these being doubtless no other than the ancient heathen deities of those parts, the belief in their existence and dread of their power having survived the introduction of Christianity, though the title of 'gods' has been dropped, as well as the words 'sacrifice' and 'worship' in reference to the offerings, invocations, and other tokens of reverence with which they are still in several places honored. It appears, therefore, that as the ancient heathens denounced the early Christians as Atheists for contemning the heathen deities, so they may be considered as being, in the Christian sense of the word, themselves Atheists (as indeed they are called in Eph_2:12), and that consequently the word 'God,' in the Christian sense sand in the heathen must be regarded as having two meanings. Wide, therefore, of the truth is the notion conveyed in Pope's 'Universal Prayer,' the Pantheism, as it is called, of the ancient heathen philosophers and the Brahmins of the present day, who applied the word God to a supposed soul of the universe:
"'Mens agitat molem, et toto se coampore miscet,'
a spirit pervading all things (but not an agent or a person), and of which the souls of man and brutes are portions. In the Book of Revelation, 'Jehovah, the self-existent and all-perfect Being, with the world which he created and which he is ever ruling, alone meets our view. Though intimately present with all his works, he is yet entirely distinct from them. In him we live, and move, and have our being. He is infinitely nigh to us and he is intimately present with us, while we remain infinitely distant from his all-perfect and incommunicable essence'" (Eden).
3. Can God be known? — The Scriptures declare that God is invisible (Exo_33:20; Joh_1:18; 1Jn_4:12; 1Ti_6:16, etc.) and unsearchable (Job_11:7; Job_37:23). But the very existence of the idea of God, and even the use of the name God, with its connotation as given above, imply, not indeed that it is possible for man to comprehend God, but that it is not impossible to know God. And so the Scriptures make it man's duty to become "acquainted with God" (1Ch_28:9; Jer_9:24; 2Pe_1:2; Joh_17:3, etc.). Even Atheists are bound to explain the res in intellectu manifested in the thought and language of men. To deny absolutely that God can be known is to deny that he exists; and, on the other hand, the proof, or even the admission that God exists, implies that it can not be absolutely unknown what or how he is: the knowledge of his existence implies as a necessary condition some knowledge of the mode of his existence, i.e. his power, wisdom, justice, etc. The passages cited above, declaring that God is invisible, etc., are not to be tortured to favor the idea that the human mind is absolutely incapable of knowing God. On the contrary, their purpose is to vindicate the claims of revelation as the source of knowledge of God. The Scriptures teach that God is made known him Christ (1) by his works (Rom_1:20; Psa_19:1-2); (2) through his Son, which is, in part, his essence. True, God revealed his "glory" to Moses (Exo_33:18-23), but the manifestation was given through a medium, or, rather, reflection, making "the goodness" of God to "pasbefore" Moses. Not sight, but faith, is the condition and means of our knowledge of God in this life (2Co_5:7). God, then, can be known, but only so far as he gives the knowledge of himself, and so far as the capacity of man can reach. Johannes Damascenus said truly, "It is not possible to know God altogether; neither is it altogether impossible to know God." To see him with the bodily eyes would be fatal to a sinful creature (see citations above). But there is a dead "knowledge of God" (Rom_1:21; Jam_2:19); and, in contrast with it, there is a living knowledge of God, which includes a spiritual seeing of the invisible, the privilege of all who are in vital union with God through faith is his Son (Heb_11:27).
Science trusts to the functions and laws of the human mind as its instruments for the discovery of truth. But to know the truth, and to recognize the ground and object of phenomena in their connection and unity, is a process which leads invariably to the knowledge of the original and perfect Being; for every science which recognizes truth and goodness in the world, in nature and in reason, recognises therewith a power of wisdom and goodness. But as we cannot recognize such a power abstractly, in recognizing it at all we recognize the eternal God (Suabedissen, Metaphysik, 1836, page 143). Yet as man, by science, can know the works of God only very imperfectly and incompletely, criticism and skepticism are alwvays the companions of science , and she can be, at best, only the pioneer of true religious knowledge, or its servant. For the true religious knowledge of God is not founded upon science, but upon life — the life of communion with God. In the religious life the consciousness of God is before and apart from all reflection, all speculation; the souls, in its rapid dialectics, under the pressure of religious needs, has no need of syllogism to prove the existence of God. So Tertullian declares (in his Testimonium Animae) that even the common heathen mind, a part from philosophy, reached a truer knowledge of God and of divine things than the heathen mythology and philosophy could teach. Even the Platonic philosophy taught that the longing of the soul for the truth and beauty of goodness leads to a renunciation of the outward and visible in behalf of an apprehension of the spiritual and real. Spiritual Christianity transforms this teaching into a higher one, viz. that the longing of the soul for God, the search for God in Christ, is always rewarded, and that the "pure in heart" see God with the spiritual eyes of faith. Luther's doctrine that God may be taught, named, and apprehended in Christ, and in Christ alone, is quite in harmony with the early theology of the Church (e.g. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 2).
Not that a mere intellectual faith in Christ brings this knowledge of God. With the conversion of the soul begins its new, spiritual capacity to receive and apprehend God; and as the soul is emptied of self and purged from sin by the Holy Spirit, it grows in knowledge of God, in light and love, until the "life of God" becomes the "life of the soul." Dr. Nevin (Reply to Dorner, 1869) has the following striking passage as to the specifically Christian conception of God: "There is a sense in which the absolute being of God, as related immediately and directly to our created being, must be considered the necessary ground of our knowing him and coming into union with him in the way of religion. The whole possibility of religion for us starts in the God-consciousness, or direct sense of Deity, which is as much a part of our original nature as the sense we have of the world around us or of our own existence. It is not put into us by any outward evidence or argument. It authenticates and necessitates itself as a fundamental fact in our life; and in doing this it certifies, to the same extent, the truth of the object on which it is exercised. Or, rather, we must say, the truth of the object on which it is exercised, which is the Divine Being, or the existence of the Absolute, certifies itself, makes itself sure in and through the consciousness into which it enters. In this sense, the idea of God comes before Christianity, as it comes before religion in every other form. But who will say that this general idea of God can be for us, therefore, the actual root of Christianity, so that any among us, starting with that alone, could ever by means of it come to a full construction of what God is for true Christian faith? It lies at the ground of pantheism, dualism, polytheism, deism, and all false religions, no less than at the ground of Christianity. For the distinctive knowledge of Christianity, then, we need some other specific principle or root. which, however it may be comprehended in the general principle of all religion, must be regarded at the same time nevertheless as the ground and beginning, exclusively and entirely, of religion under this its highest and only absolutely complete form. Where, now, is that principle to be found? Where does the whole world of Christianity, the new creation of the Gospel (life, power, doctrine, and all), take its rise and start? Where do we come to the source of its perennial revelation, the ground of its indestructible life? Where, save in the presence of the Word Incarnate, the glorious Person of him who is the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and morning Star — the faithful and true Witness, the BEGINNING of the creation of God!"
But Religion has had her errors and excesses as well as Science. As the latter seeks in its pride, by purely intellectual effort, to apprehend the absolute, so the former has at certain periods allowed mysticism to take the place of the simple revealed truth as to the life of God in the soul, and, in the spirit of the Oriental theosophy, has called the "redeemed soul but a drop in the ocean of God", SEE MYSTICISM. The orthodox Christian doctrine keeps the golden mean between these extremes. It asserts, and has asserted from the beginning, that a real and objective knowledge of God comes only from God's revelation, and that only κατὰ τὸἐφικτόν, pro virili (Arist. De Mund.), according to the best capacity of man. It teaches not only that God is "incomprehensible," but also that every step taken in the true knowledge of God by the soul makes his "incomprehensibility" more obvious. It does not pretend that the scriptural doctrine of one God in three persons is perfectly within the scope of the human intellect to comprehend as well as to apprehend; but all Church history shows that a genuine and even scientific knowledge of God has been better maintained with the doctrine of the Trinity than without it. When the Arians attacked the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity on the ground that it transcended human reason, the orthodox replied that it was easier to know God by receiving the doctrine of the Trinity than by rejecting it. Naked monotheism, whether in Judaism, Islamism, or elsewhere, has always ended in bald pantheism (q.v.), while on the other hand the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, though stigmatized by infidel and rationalistic opponents as Tritheism, has, from the beginning, preserved in the Church the idea of God as the eternal, spiritual, and personal Being, and has kept up, also, a pure and spiritual worship of the Great Supreme. See Ritter, Ueber die Erkenntniss Gottes in der Welt, 1836; Nitzsch, Syst. d. Christlichen Lehre, § 7, 60-80; Nitzsch, in Herzog's Real-Encyklop. s.v. Gott.
V. Substance and Mode of the Scripture Teaching. — In the Scriptures no attempt is made to prove the existence of a God. The error of men consisted not in denying a God, but in admitting too many; and one great object of the Bible is to demonstrate that there is but one. No metaphysical arguments, however, are employed in it for this purpose. The proof rests on facts recorded in the history of the Jews, from which it appears that they were always victorious and prosperous so long as they served the only living and true God, Jehovah (the name by which the Almighty made himself known to them), and uniformly unsuccessful when they revolted from him to serve other gods. What argument could be so effectual to convince them that there was no god in all the earth but the God of Israel? The sovereignty and universal providence of the Lord Jehovah are proved by predictions delivered by the Jewish prophets, pointing out the fate of nations and of empires, specifying distinctly their rise, the duration of their power, and the causes of their decline; thus demonstrating that one God ruled among the nations, and made them the unconscious instruments of promoting the purposes of his will. In the same manner, none of the attributes of God are demonstrated in Scripture by reasoning: they are simply affirmed and illustrated by facts; and instead of a regular deduction of doctrines and conclusions from a few admitted principles, we are left to gather them from the recorded feelings and devotional expressions of persons whose hearts were influenced by the fear of God. These circumstances point out a marked singularity in the Scriptures, considered as a repository of religious doctrines. The writers, generally speaking, do not reason, but exhort and remonstrate; they do not attempt to fetter the judgment by the subtleties of argument, but to rouse the feelings by an appeal to palpable facts. This is exactly what might have been expected from teachers acting under a divine commission, and armed with undeniable facts to enforce their admonitions. The sacred writers furnish u with information on the existence and the character of God
(1) from the names by which he is designated; (2) from the actions ascribed to him; and (3) from the attributes with which he is invested.
"1. The names of God as recorded in Scripture convey at once ideas of overwhelming greatness and glory, mingled with that awful mysteriousness with which, to all finite minds, and especially to the minds of mortals, the divine essence and mode of existence must ever be invested. Though ONE, he is אֵֹלהַים, ELOHIM, GODS, persons adorable. He is יְהוָֹה, JEHOVAH, self-existing; אֵל, EL, the Mighty, Almighty; שׁדּי, SHADDAI, omnipotent, all-sufficient; אֲדֹנָי, ADONAI, Lord, Ruler, Judge. These are among the adorable appellatives of God which are scattered throughout the, revelation that he has been pleased to make of himself. But on one occasion he was pleased more particularly to declare his name, that is, such of the qualities and attributes of the divine nature as mortals are the most interested in knowing, and to unfold not only his natural, but also those of his moral attributes by which his conduct towards his creatures is regulated: 'And the Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and fourth generation' (Exodus 34). This is the most ample and particular description of the character of God, as given by himself in the Old Testament" (Watson). The name "which is above every name" (Php_2:9), is the name JESUS (Col_3:17). The name in Exo_3:14 is peculiar in denoting God as the "God who reveals himself." The declaration "I am that I am," or "I will be that I will be," does not so much include a predicate of God as a declaration of the eternal being of God, as revealing himself and his kingdom in time; it involves not merely the sense of existence (to which it is limited by the Septuaguint version ὁ ὤν), but also the idea of the continual self-revealing of God, and thus unifies, so to speak, all the successive steps and epochs of revelation. HE is "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come — the Almighty" (Rev_1:8). The name Jehovah was too holy to be uttered, and others were substituted for it by the Jews; the fearful penalty for blaspheming it was death (Lev_24:16; see Clarke's note ad loc.). In the names Father and Redeemer (Isa_63:16), new elements of the character of the self- revealing Jehovah are set forth; he shows himself as the God of grace and love to his people who turn unto him. — Watson, Institutes, part 2, 100:1; Nitzsch, in Herzog's Real-Encyklop. s.v. Gott; Hengstensberg, Die Gottesnamen des Pentateuch; Knapp, Theology (Wood's ed. page 84) Lange, On Genesis, Introd. § 7.
2. Actions. — "The second means by which the Scriptures convey to us the knowledge of God is by the actions which they ascribe to him. They contain, indeed, the important record of his dealings with men in every age which is comprehended within the limit of the sacred history, and by prophetic declaration they also exhibit the principles on which he will govern the world to the end of the so that the whole course of the divine administration may be considered as exhibiting a singularly illustrative comment upon those attributes of his nature which, in their abstract form, are contained in such declarations as those which have been just quoted.
(1.) The first act ascribed to God is that of creation. By this were manifested: his eternity and self-existence, as he who creates must be before all creatures, and he who gives being to others can himself derive it from none; his almighty power, shown both in the act of creation and in the number and vastness of the objects so produced; his wisdom, in their arrangement and in their fitness to their respective ends; and his goodness, as the whole tended to the happiness of sentient beings. The foundations of his natural and moral government are also made manifest by his creative acts. In what he made out of nothing he had an absolute right and prerogative; it awaited his ordering, and was completely at his disposal; so that to alter or destroy his own work, and to prescribe the laws by which the intelligent and rational part of his creatures should be governed, are rights which none can question. Thus, on the one hand, his character of Lord or Governor is established, and, on the other, our duty of lowly homage and absolute obedience.
(2.) Providence. — Agreeably to this, as soon as man was created he was placed under a rule of conduct. Obedience was to be followed with the continuance of the divine favor; transgression, with death. The event called forth new manifestations of the character of God. His tender mercy, in the compassion showed to the fallen pair; his justice, in forgiving them only in the view of a satisfaction to be hereafter offered to his justice by an innocent representative of the sinning race; his love to that race, in giving his own Son to become this Redeemer, and in the fullness of time to die for the sins of the whole world; and his holiness, in connecting with this provision for the pardon of man the means of restoring him to a sinless state, and to the obliterated image of God in which he had been created. Exemplifications of the divine mercy are traced from age to age in his establishing his own worship among men, and remitting the punishment of individual and national offenses in answer to prayer offered from penitent hearts, and in dependence upon the typified or actually offered universal sacrifice; of his condescension, in stooping to the cases of individuals, in his dispensations both of providence and grace, by showing respect to the poor and humble, and principally by thee incarnation of God in the form of a servant, admitting even into familiar and friendly intercourse with himself, and then entering into heaven to be their patron and advocate until they should be received into the sauce glory, 'and so be forever with the Lord;' of his strictly righteous government, in the destruction of the old world, the cities of the plain, the nations of Canaan, and all ancient states, upon their 'filling up the measure of their iniquities,' and, to show that 'he will by no means clear the guilty,' in the numerous and severe punishments inflicted even upon the chosen seed of Abraham because of their transgressions; of his long-suffering, in frequent warnings, delays, and corrective judgments inflicted upon individuals and nations before sentence of utter excision and destruction; of faithfulness and truth, in the fulfillment of promises, often many ages after they were given, as in the promises to Abraham respecting the possession of the land of Canaan by his seed, and in all the 'promises made to the fathers' respecting the advent, vicarious death, and illustrious offices of the 'Christ,' the Savior of the world; of his immutability, in the constant and unchanging laws and principles of his government, which remain to this day precisely the same in every thing universal as when first promulgated, and have been the rule of his conduct in all places as well as through all time; of his prescience of future events, manifested by the predictions of Scripture; and of the depth and stability of his counsel, as illustrated in that plan and purpose of bringing back a revolted world to obedience and felicity which we find steadily kept in view in the scriptural history of the acts of God in former ages — which is still the end towards which all his dispensations bend, however wide and mysterious their sweep, and which they will finally accomplish, as we learn from the prophetic history of the future contained in the Old and New Testaments. Thus the course of divine operation in the world has from age to age been a manifestation on the divine character, continually receiving new and stronger illustrations until the completion of the Christian revelation by the ministry of Christ and his inspired followers, and still placing itself in brighter light and more impressive aspects as the scheme of human redemption runs on to its consummation. From all the acts of God as recorded in the Scriptures we are taught that he alone is God; that he is present every where to sustain and govern all things; that his wisdom is infinite, his counsel settled, and his power irresistible; that he is holy, just, and good — the Lord and the Judge, but the Father and the Friend, of Man_1:3.
Nature and Attributes. — "More at large do we learn what God is from the declarations of the inspired writings. As to his substance, that 'God is a Spirit.' As to his duration, that 'from everlasting to everlasting he is God;' 'the King, eternal, immortal, invisible.' That, after all the manifestations he has made of himself, he is, from the infinite perfection and glory of his nature, incomprehensible: 'Lo, these are but parts of his ways, and how little a portion is heard of him!' 'Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out.' That he is unchangeable: 'The Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' That 'he is the fountain of life,' and the only independent Being in the universe: 'Who only hath immortality.' That every other being, however exalted, has its existence from him: 'For by him were all things created which are in heaven and in earth, whether they are visible or invisible.' That the existence of every thing is upheld by him, no creature being for a moment independent of his support: 'By him all things consist;' 'upholding all things by the word of his power.' That he is omnipresent: 'Do not I fill heaven and earth with my presence? saith the Lord.' That he is omniscient: 'All things are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.' That he is the absolute Lord and Owner of all things: 'The heavens, even the heaven of heavens, are thine, and all the parts of then;' 'The earth is thine, and the fullness thereof, the world and them that dwell therein;' 'He doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants 'of the earth.' That his providence extends to the minutest objects: 'The hairs of your head are all numbered;' 'Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.' That he is a Being of unspotted purity and perfect rectitude: 'Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts!' 'A God of truth, and in whom there is no iniquity;' 'Of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.' That he is just in the administration of his government: 'Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?' 'Clouds and darkness are round about him; judgment and justice are the habitation of his throne.' That his wisdom is unsearchable: 'O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' And, finally, that he is good and merciful: 'Thou art good, and thy mercy endureth forever;' 'His tender mercy is over all his works;' 'God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ;' 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;' 'God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.' SEE ATTRIBUTES; also VI below. "Under these deeply awful but consolatory views do the Scriptures present to us the supreme object of our worship and trust; and they dwell upon each of the above particulars with inimitable sublimity and beauty of language, and with an inexhaustible variety of illustration. Nor can we compare these views of the divine nature with the conceptions of the most enlightened of pagans without feeling how much reason we have for everlasting gratitude that a revelation so explicit and so comprehensive should have been made to us on a subject which only a revelation from God himself could have made known. It is thus that Christian philosophers, even when they do not use the language of the Scriptures, are able to speak on this great and mysterious doctrine in language so clear and with conceptions so noble; in a manner, too, so equable, so different from the sages of antiquity, who, if at any time they approach the truth when speaking of the divine nature, never fail to mingle with it some essentially erroneous or groveling conception. 'By the word GOD,' says Dr. Barrow, 'we mean a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, the Creator and the Governor of all things, to whom the great attributes of eternity and independency, omniscience and immensity, perfect holiness and purity, perfect justice and veracity, complete happiness, glorious majesty, and supreme right of dominion belong, and to whom the highest veneration and most profound submission and obedience are due' (Barrow, On the Creed). ‘Our notion of Deity,' says Bishop Pearson, 'doth expressly signify a Being or Nature of infinite perfection; and the infinite perfection of a being or nature consists in this, that it be absolutely and essentially necessary, an actual being of itself, and potential or causative of all beings beside itself; independent from any other, upon which all things else depend, and by which all things else are governed' (Pearson, On the Creed). 'God is a Being,' says Lawson, 'and not any kind of being, but a substance which is the foundation of other beings; and not only a substance, but perfect. Yet many beings are perfect in their kind, yet limited and finite; but God is absolutely, fully, and every way infinitely perfect, and therefore above spirits, above angels, who are perfect comparatively. God's infinite perfection includes all the attributes, even the most excellent. It excludes all dependency, borrowed existence, composition, corruption, mortality, contingency, ignorance, unrighteousness, weakness, misery, and all imperfections whatever. It includes necessity of being, independency, perfect unity, simplicity, immensity, eternity, immortality; the most perfect life, knowledge, wisdom, integrity, power, glory, bliss, and all these in the highest degree. We can not pierce into the secrets of this eternal Being. Our reason comprehends but little of him, and when it can proceed no farther faith comes in, and we believe far more than we can understand; and this our belief is not contrary to reason, but reason itself dictates unto us that we must believe far more of God than it can inform us of (Lawson, Theo-Politica). To these we may add an admirable passage from Sir Isaac Newton, 'The word GOD frequently signifies Lord, but every lord is not God: it is the dominion of a spiritual Being or Lord that constitutes God; true dominion, true God; supreme, the Supreme; feigned, the false god. From such true dominion it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful, and from his other perfections that he is supreme, or supremely perfect; he is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity, and is present from infinity to infinity. He governs all things that exist, and knows all things that are to be known; he is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present — he endures always and is present everywhere; he is omnipresent, not only virtually, but also substantially, for power without substance can not subsist. All things are contained and move in him, but without any mutual passion; he suffers nothing from the motions of bodies, nor do they undergo any resistance from his omnipresence. It is confessed that God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists always and every where: hence also he must be perfectly similar, all eye, all ear, all arm, all the power of perceiving, understanding, and acting; but after a manner not at all corporeal, after a manner not like that of men, after a manner wholly to us unknown. He is destitute of all body and all bodily shape, and therefore can not be seen, heard, or touched, nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of anything corporeal. We have ideas of the attributes of God, but do not know the substance of even anything; we see only the figures and colors of bodies, hear only sounds, touch only the outward surfaces, smell only odors, and taste tastes, and do not, cannot, by any sense or reflex act, know their inward substances, and much less can we have any notion of the substance of God. We know him by his properties and attributes.'" — Newton, Principia, 2:311, ed. 1803; Watson, Instit. part 2, 100:1.
VI. Dogmatical Treatment of the Doctrine of God. —
1. The exposition of the doctrine of GOD is the province of Theology proper, as distinguished from Anthropology, Soteriotogy, etc. SEE THEOLOGY. The doctrine is set forth by writers on systematic theology according to their views of the relations of the subject to the other branches, but in general it constitutes the first topic treated, and is divided very much as follows:
2. Division. —
I. The NATURE OF GOD:
1. As the original and unoriginated personal Being: (a) One; (b) self- existent; (c) infinite.
2. As the original Word and Will: (a) Creator; (b) preserver; (c) governor of the world.
3. As the original Spirit: (a) Essential Spirit; (b) origin of all moral and spiritual laws and existences. And hence,
II, the TRINITY of three persons in the one Godhead: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. SEE MONOTHEISM; SEE TRINITY.
III. The ATTRIBUTES of God. These are not parts of the divine essence, but conceptions of the idea of God in his relations to the world and to human thought (Suabedissen, page 150). Perfectiones Dei, qaue essentiam divinam nostro concipiendi modo per se consequuntunr, et de Deo paronymice praedicantur (Hollaz, page 234). So Aquinas: "The name of God does not express the divine essence as it is, as the name of man expresses is its signification the essence of man as it is; that is to say, by signifying the definition which declares the essence" (Summa, part 1, q. 13, art. 1). The ground of this distinction was the conviction that finite things cannot indicate the nature of the infinite God otherwise than by imperfect analogies. The attributes of God must be represented to our minds, so far as they can be represented at all, under the similitude of the corresponding attributes of man. Yet we cannot conceive them as existing in God in the same manner as they exist in man. In man they are many, in God they must be one. In man they are related to and limit each other; in God there can be no relation and sea limitation. In man they exist only as capacities at times carried into action; in God, who is purus actus, there can be no distinction between faculty and operation. Hence the divine attributes may properly be called mysterious; for, though we believe in their coexistence, we are unable to conceive the manner of their co-existence" (Quarterly Review, July 1864, art. 3). There have been many divisions of the attributes of God. The scholastic theology set forth the attributes in three ways: 1. by causality (via causalitatis), in which all the perfections we observe in creation, and especially in man, are necessarily to be attributed to their Creator;
2. by negation (via negationis), under which the imperfections of created beings are kept out of the conception of God;
3. by analogy or eminence (via analogiae, via eminentiae), by which the highest degree of all known perfections is attributed to God.
Accordingly, the attributes of God were classed en negative and positive, the negative being such as remove from him whatever is imperfect in creatures — such are infinity, immutability, immortality, etc; while the positive assert some perfection in God which is in and of himself, and which in the creatures, in any measure, is from him. This distinction is now mostly discarded. Among modern writers, Dr. Samuel Clarke sums up the attributes as ultimately referrible to these three leading ones: omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. Others distinguish them into absolute and relative: absolute are such as belong to the essence of God, as Jehovah, Jah, etc.; relative ones are such as may be ascribed to him in time, with relation to his creatures, ass creator, governor, preserver, redeemer, etc. Others, again, divide them into conmmunicable and incommunicable attributes. The communicable are those which can be imparted to the creature, as goodness, holiness, wisdom, etc.; the incommunicable are such as cannot be so imparted, as independence, immutability, immensity, and eternity. Another division makes one class of natural attributes, e.g. eternity, immensity, etc., and another of moral, e.g. holiness, goodness, etc. The later German theologians attempt more scientific discriminations; e.g. Böhme (Lehre v.d. Göttl. Eigenschaften, 1821; last ed. Altenurg, 1842) distinguishes the attributes is to those which refer to the world in general, and those which refer to the moral world in particular. Schleiermacher makes two classes:
(1.) attributes which refer to the universal sense of dependence on God, viz. omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence;
(2.) attributes which refer to the Christian sense of redemption and of dependence on God, viz. holiness, justice, wisdom, love.
Pelt (Theolog. Encycl. § 74) classes them as
(1.) attributes of God as absolute cause (a.) in himself — eternal, infinite, self-sufficient; (b) in relation to the world — omnipotent, omnipresent;
(2.) attributes of God as the original and self-revealing will — good, holy, just, benevolent, etc. Rothe's scheme of the attributes is thus set forth by Babut in the Bulletin of the Revue Christienne (1868, No. 3, Juillet):
I. Absolute or immanent Attributes:
1. self-sufficiency of God as a pure and absolute Being; 2. majesty; the divine will; 3. blessedness.
II. Relative Attributes, implied in God's relation to the universe; the love of God is the source of creation and being, While the essence of God is expressed in infinity, immensity, immutability. The personality of God is manifested to the world in goodness, wrath, grace; the intelligence of God in omniscience, holiness, truth. The will of God is manifested in omnipotence, justice, faithfulness; and the divine nature is manifested in the one attribute of omnipotence. See Bates, Harmony of the Divine Attributes; Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God (Lond. 1845, 8vo last edit.); Elwert, in Tüb. Zeitschrift, 1830; Blasche, göttl. Eigenschaften (Erfurdt, 1831); Andreae, De Attrib. Divin., etc. (Lugdun. 1824); Bruch, Lehre v. d. göttl. Eigenschaften (Hamb. 1842); Moll, De justo attributorum Dei discrimine (Hal. 1855); Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:240; Hase, Evang. Dogmatik, § 102 sq., s and writers on systematic theology generally. SEE CREATION; SEE TRINITY; SEE PROVIDENCE.
VII. History of the Doctrine of God. — The history of the argument for the being of God will be found under NATURAL THEOLOGY. We treat here briefly the history of the doctrine of the nature and attributes of God. The first office of Christianity was to vindicate the spirituality of God against the material and anthropomorphic ideas of paganism, and even of corrupted Judaism. The proposition "God is a Spirit" was therefore a fundamental one; yet at an early period anthropomorphic ideas were developed in the Church. Melito, bishop of Sardis, in his treatise Περὶ ἐνσωμάτ
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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