are contradictions of a most serious nature in the Scriptures concerning God.

No one has seen Him at any time, yet Israel saw the God of Israel.  No one

has heard His voice, yet Israel heard the voice of the Lord.  If, however,

the God of Israel be He Who was the Image of the invisible God and the same

as the One Who in the fulness of time became man and lived on earth, Who

could say, 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father', then, although still

confessedly great is the Mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16), this most

glorious fact does reconcile all the statements of Scripture that otherwise

must remain contradictions to the honest inquirer after truth.  Tertullian

saw and examined this problem, saying:

'God was not always Lord until the work of creation was completed.  In

like manner he contended that the titles of Judge and Father imply the

existence of sin and of a Son.  As, therefore, there was a time when

neither sin nor Son existed, the titles, Judge and Father, were not

applicable to God' (The Bishop of Bristol on Tertullian in The

Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries).

These admissions of Tertullian, if taken to their logical conclusion,

would have led to the construction of a very different creed from that

attributed to Athanasius, and have led the way to a more Scriptural

conception of the nature and being of God.

One of the most conclusive pieces of evidence that 'Jesus' is

'Jehovah', is provided by the last chapter of the book of the Revelation.

When John records the actual words of the Lord Himself he says, 'I

Jesus have sent Mine angel' (Rev. 22:16) but when he records the statement of

the angel he writes:

'The Lord God of The Holy Prophets sent His angel' (Rev. 22:6).

This is conclusive; argument must cease and adoring worship take its

place; we bow in this august Presence and unreservedly take the words of the

Angel, of Thomas, and of Paul on our lips and their attitude in our hearts

and in our testimony, and in full consciousness of what we are saying and

doing we say:

The Greek word Theos, 'God', occurs in Paul's Epistles some 700 times,

so that a vast amount of material on the subject is available.  We have

attempted an analysis of its distribution, but time, space and the necessary

ability not being ours to command, we offer the reader the following list by

way of a sample which we believe is truly representative of the whole, for we

have not consciously omitted any item vital to the presentation of a complete

view of Paul's teaching.

God is the Creator.  In accord with the Scriptures which he

acknowledged, Paul ascribes the creation of all things to God.  In Romans

1:19 -25 he uses the title, 'The Creator', and declares that by means of the

creation of the world and of the things that are made, those invisible things

of God, such as His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen, so clearly

indeed, as to make all idolatry 'without excuse'.