We should be able to find many texts which state God's existence, His Unity, His Omnipotence, His Omniscience. We prefer however to refer the student to whole Books and long passages: such, for instance, as the training of Israel to worship God—the awe and reverence which appear in all the language about God—the consistent Holiness of His character as presented in all the Books. From the first words of the Bible, In the beginning God created, to its last chapter (Rev. xxi. 5), Behold I make all things new, it is a Revelation of the Creator.
The following may be remembered:
Deut. iv. (35) 39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the LORD he is God in {105} heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. 1 Kings viii. (Solomon's Prayer). Isaiah xl. 12-31, xlv. Job xxxviii-xli.
The argument of Socrates pointed to a Creator who loves men. The Bible declares God to be a Loving Father. Deut. xxxii. 6. Is not he thy father that bought thee? Deut. i. 31. The LORD thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went. Acts xvii. 22-31. S. Paul at Athens. vv. 24-28. The God that made the world . . . made of one every nation . . . that they should seek God . . .: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; . . . as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Further He is revealed as the Father of Jesus. S. John xx. 17. I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. S. John xiv. 12, 13 . . . I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. S. Matth. xi. 27. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
The Love of the Father towards men is shown by His tenderness towards them. Rom. viii. 39, (nothing) shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. v. 8, God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Psalm ciii. describes this tenderness, showing (v. 6) that God's judgments against oppression are a kindness to the weak. So in {106} many other places. Note also that vice and crime are an injury to the wicked, and a burden to others. Hence God's hatred of sin is a sign of His Love.
Thus the first paragraph of this Creed is an Act of Worship, from children towards their Father, as well as from the creatures of God's hand towards their God.
II. (a) What the outside world said of Christ.
The foundation of Christianity was not laid with outward marks, but in the hearts of those who, by one, and by two, united themselves together to serve the Lord Christ. As He had said, The Kingdom of God came not with observation. Not with notice from the rulers and the mighty of this world, but in the quietness of homes, and the darkness of prisons, the Church became so wide as to take a foremost place, without much record in the chronicles of kingdoms. We must therefore look to Christian books for the history of early Christianity. At the close of the first century after the Saviour's Birth there were living three great writers who were united in close friendship, viz. the younger Pliny, and the historians Tacitus and Suetonius. Suetonius wrote lives of the first twelve Caesars, and, in his history of Nero (A.D. 54-68), mentions the punishment of Christians, "a set of men of a new and mischievous superstition." Tacitus, describing the same reign[1], and the burning of Rome (A.D. 64), {107} shows that Nero tried to throw the blame from himself, by accusing and punishing the Christians. He adds a few words about them. "The founder of that name was Christ, who was put to death, in the reign of Tiberius, under Pontius Pilate: which temporarily crushed the pernicious superstition, but it broke out again, not only in Judaea, where the evil originated, but in Rome also." Tacitus has the idea that Christians were guilty of many crimes: but their tortures and Nero's cruelty caused them to be pitied. Pliny, on the other hand, made careful enquiries; and gives a very different account of their personal character[2].
Thus we see that almost silently—'without observation'—the Christian
Life grew into its great place in outside history.