Referring once again to Isaiah 43:10, we continue the subject of

Jehovah's witnesses:

'Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me'.

The immediate context of these words places 'no strange god' over against 'no

God formed', and in Isaiah 44:10 speaks of one 'who hath formed a god, or

molten a graven image'.  Calvin says of the words, 'Before Me there was no

God formed' -- 'This contains a kind of irony, as if it had been said that

there was no other god that had not been made and formed by mortals'.  Had

the passage stayed there, no difficulty would have presented itself but it

continues, 'neither shall there be after Me'.  If this is taken to mean that

after the revelation given by and through Isaiah, no one would ever make an

idol any more, it is manifestly untrue.  Again, it does not say 'after' a

revelation, etc., but 'after Me'.  The full sentence therefore is:

'Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall (there) be (a God

formed) after Me'.

The Hebrew word yatsar, 'to form' is found three times in Isaiah 43:

'He that formed thee, O Israel'; 'Every one that is called by My name

... I have formed him'; 'This people have I formed for Myself; they

shall shew forth My praise' (Isa. 43:1,7,21).

From Isaiah 44:2 and 24 we discover that this word 'form' can refer to

childbirth, and before any of these lines were written, Isaiah had uttered

the great Messianic prophecy:

'For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the

government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called

Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father (lit.

The Father of the Ages) The Prince of Peace' (Isa. 9:6).

'A child Born ... The Mighty God (El Gibbor, Hebrew).  Were ever such

momentous words written before or since?  There can be no possible doubt as

to the intention of Isaiah here.  There can be no possibility of watering

down this extraordinary revelation, for in the next chapter the same prophet

who had revealed the glorious mystery of the First Advent, takes us to the

Second Advent, and uses the same title:

'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and

such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay

upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of

Israel, in truth.  The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob,

unto The Mighty God (Hebrew, El Gibbor)' (Isa. 10:20,21).

The first occurrences of the Hebrew word yatsar, 'form', are in Genesis

'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground ... the man whom

He had formed'.

This man was made in the image and after the likeness of his Creator,

and in Genesis 5:1 -3 that 'image' was passed on to Seth who was begotten in

his father Adam's likeness.  We must consider this revelation further, but

before we do, let us consider a related theme.  The three outstanding