II. THERE IS ONE GOD
One more fact about the Christian conception of God remains to be mentioned and that is: There is but one God. The Unity of God comes out again and again in both the Old Testament and the New. For example, we read in Deut. 4:35: "Jehovah he is God. There is none else beside him." And in Deut. 6:4 we read: "Hear O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." Turning to the New Testament in 1 Tim. 2:5 we read: "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus." And in Mark 12:29 our Lord Jesus Himself says: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
But we must bear in mind the character of the Divine Unity. It is clearly revealed in the Bible that in this Divine Unity, in this one Godhead, there is a multiplicity of persons. This comes out in a variety of ways.
1. First of all, the Hebrew word translated "One" in these various passages given denotes a compound unity, not a simple unity. (Cf. 1 Cor. 3:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:13; John 17:22, 23; Gal. 3:28.)
2. In the second place, the Old Testament word most frequently used for God is a plural noun. The Hebrew grammarians and lexicographers tried to explain this by saying that it was the "pluralis majestatis," but the very simple explanation is that the Hebrews, in spite of their
intense monotheism, used a plural name for God because there is a plurality of persons in the one Godhead.
3. More striking yet, as a proof of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead, is the fact that God Himself uses plural pronouns in speaking of Himself. For example, in the first chapter of the Bible, Gen. 1:26, we read that God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." And in Gen. 11:7, He is further recorded as saying: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they cannot understand one another's speech." In Gen. 3:22 we read: "And Jehovah God said, Behold, man is become as one of us to know good and evil." And in that wonderful vision to which reference has already been made, in which Isaiah saw Jehovah, we read this statement of Isaiah's in Isa. 6:8: "And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
4. Another illustration of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God is found in Zech. 2:10, 11; where Jehovah speaks of Himself as sent by Jehovah in these words: "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah. (11) And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah in that day, and shall be my people and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that Jehovah of hosts
hath sent me unto thee." Here Jehovah clearly speaks of himself as sent by Jehovah, thus clearly indicating two persons in the Deity.
5. Another indication of the plurality of persons in the Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God is found in the fact that "The Angel of Jehovah" in the Old Testament is at the same time distinguished from and identified with Jehovah.
6. This same thought of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead is brought out in John 1:1, where we reach the very climax of this thought. Here we are told in so many words: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." We shall see later, when we come to study the Deity of Christ and the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are clearly designated as divine beings and at the same time distinguished from one another, and from God the Father. So it is clear that in the Christian conception of God while there is but one God there is a multiplicity of persons in the one Godhead.
In these two sermons on "The Christian Conception of God" we have very inadequately stated that conception. This conception of God runs through the whole Bible from the first chapter of the book of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation, and this is one of the many marvellous illustrations of the divine unity of the Book. How
wonderful is that Book, in that there is this unity of thought on this very profound doctrine pervading the whole book! It is a clear indication that the Bible is the Word of God. There is in the Bible a profounder philosophy than is found in any human philosophy, ancient or modern, and the only way to account for it is that God Himself is the author of this incomparable philosophy. What a wondrous God we have! How we ought to meditate upon His person! With what awe and at the same time with what delight we should come into His presence and bow before Him in adoring contemplation of the wonder and beauty and majesty and glory of His being!
IV
The Deity of Jesus Christ
"Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What think ye of the Christ? whose son is He?"—Matt. 22:41, 42.
The question that our Lord Jesus here puts to the Pharisees is the most fundamental question concerning Christian thought and faith that can be put to anybody in any age. Jesus Christ Himself is the centre of Christianity, so the most fundamental questions of faith are those that concern the person of Christ. If a man really holds right views concerning the person of Jesus Christ he will sooner or later get right views on every other question. If he holds a wrong view concerning the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is pretty sure to go wrong on everything else sooner or later. What think ye of Christ? That is the great central question, that is the vital question.
And the most fundamental question concerning the person of Christ is, is Jesus Christ really God? Not merely is He Divine, but is He actually God? When I was a boy, to say you believed in the Divinity of Christ, meant that you believed in the
real Deity of Christ, that you believed that Jesus was actually a Divine person, that He was God. It no longer means that. The Devil is wise, shrewd, subtle, and he knows that the most effectual way to instil error into the minds of the inexpert and unwary is to use old and precious words and put a new meaning into them. So when his messengers masquerading as "ministers of righteousness" seek to lead, if possible, the elect astray, they use the old precious words but with an entirely new and entirely different and entirely false meaning. They talk about "the Divinity of Christ," but they do not mean at all by it what intelligent Christians in former days meant by it. Just so they talk of "the atonement," but they do not mean at all by the atonement the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ in our place, by which eternal life is secured for us. And oftentimes when they talk about Christ they do not mean at all our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the actual historic Jesus of the four gospels, they mean an ideal Christ, or a Christ principle. So our subject this morning is not the Divinity of Christ, but the Deity of Christ, and our question is not is Jesus Christ Divine, but is Jesus Christ God? Was that person who was born at Bethlehem nineteen hundred and twenty-one years ago, and who lived thirty-three or thirty-four years here upon earth as recorded in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who was crucified on Calvary's cross, who rose from the dead the third
day, and was exalted from earth to heaven, to the right hand of the Father, was He God manifested in the flesh, was He God embodied in a human being? Was He and is He a being worthy of our absolute faith, and supreme love, and our unhesitating obedience, and our whole-hearted worship, just as God the Father is worthy of our absolute faith and supreme love and unhesitating obedience and our whole-hearted worship? Should all men honour Jesus Christ even as they honour God the Father (John 5:23)? Not merely is He an example that we can wisely follow, or a Master whom we can wisely serve, but is He a God Whom we can rightly worship?
I presume that most of us do believe that He was God manifested in the flesh, and that He is God to-day at the right hand of the Father, but why do you believe so? Are you so intelligent in your faith, and therefore so well grounded in your faith, that no glib talker or reasoner, no Unitarian or Russellite or Christian Scientist or Theosophist, or other errorist can confuse you and upset you and lead you astray? It is important that we be thoroughly sound in our faith at this point, and thoroughly well-informed, wherever else we may be in ignorance or error, for we are distinctly told in John 20:31 that "These are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye may have life in His name." It is evident from these words of the inspired Apostle John that this question is not
merely a matter of theoretical opinion, that it is a matter that concerns our salvation. It is to confirm and instruct you in your blessed faith, your saving faith in Jesus Christ as a Divine person, that I speak this morning. When I studied the subject of the Divinity of Christ in the theological seminary I got the impression that there were a few proof-texts in the Bible that conclusively proved that He was Divine. Years later I found that there were not merely a few proof-texts that proved this, but that the Bible in many ways and in countless passages clearly taught that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh. Indeed I found that the Doctrine of the Deity of Jesus Christ formed the very warp and woof of the Bible.