"Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, O give me understanding that I may live. Be Thou my stronghold whereunto I may always resort, for Thou art my house of defence and my castle. The Lord is my shepherd therefore can I lack nothing. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. Who so dwelleth under the defence of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
In a faith like this we can face our duty manfully. In life's responsibilities and perplexities we can trust our Father.
IT IS A TRUTH OF PERMANENT VALUE.
Personality in God and in man are closely related one to another. That men are persons and must be so regarded is a matter of intense practical concern to us all and to the social life of this and every age. We cannot ignore personality in man. To do so is to awaken resentment, unrest and strife. The statesmen already quoted are clearly right. Peace and progress in the world depend on the recognition of this truth growing more and more adequate until we realize fully the brotherhood of men which is implied in God's Fatherhood. We cannot ignore Personality in God, or pass it by as a truth that belongs to childhood only. It is a vigorous intelligent faith which commands the allegiance of men. Ultimately the dignity of our own manhood will be found to depend upon it. To lose sight of it is to lose our way in religious life and thinking. To hold it fast is not an attempt to make God in our image, but to acknowledge that we are made in His.
GOD IS HOLY
In the Old Testament God is the Holy One in Israel. In the New Testament also we remember Christ's own words in prayer, "Holy Father keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are one". God's Holiness is closely connected with His glory; we must associate with it all passages in Holy Scripture which attribute to Him majesty and radiance, beauty and light. The religious value of this truth is very great.
In the vision of the Holiness of God men have found their chief impulse to worship Him, and have felt the claim on their own lives exercised by the moral splendour of God's own character. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." Further, in proportion as they have realised God's holiness and moral claim, men have felt the need in His presence of acknowledging their own infirmity and sin. This was the experience of Isaiah and of St. John. It has been the experience of an innumerable company since. We all have our share in it in the services of the Church. It finds expression in one of the greatest of our hymns,
"Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art Holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in Love and Purity."
This is undoubtedly the first great impression that the Holiness of God should make upon us. There is, however, another truth within it which must not be forgotten. There are in both the Bible languages Hebrew and Greek two words which in English are represented by the one word "holy". One of them stands for moral righteousness, the other has the meaning of set apart or consecrated. This latter word when used of God means that God is set apart from the world He has made. Not in the sense that He is separated from it, for He is very near; but in the sense that He is not himself a part of it or identified with it or confused with it.
This truth was needed in Old Testament times to save God's chosen people from falling back into dark immoral forms of nature worship which possessed the kindred people from whom they had been called out. It is needed no less to-day to save us from falling back into non-Christian ways of thinking. God is distinct from His world; He is never separated from it. Is this difficult? An illustration may help if it is not pressed too far. An eagle is perched on the topmost bough of a tall dead tree. A motor boat hurries by at some distance across the water. The great bird takes flight. It is in the air. It breathes the air and is upheld by it. The air is in the bird, in every quill, I believe, of every feather. Yet the bird is not the air, and the air is not the bird. They are distinct; separated they cannot be. Without the air the bird could not exist. "In God we live and move and have our being." We cannot for a moment imagine Him away. Without Him we could not exist. Yet man is not God. We are close akin, He is very near. But God is not man, nor man a part of God. We hear sometimes that God is all and all is God. Christian truth cannot be expressed in this way. Our faith in the Holiness of God declares that He is within the world but distinct from it, above it, around it, controlling it, making it the servant of His will, that He is the source of all, the upholder of all, the Master of all.