While it must ever be the aim of any Christian ministry to preserve a balance of truth,

it is not possible for any one human witness so to present the truth that there shall not,

at times, be given the impression of undue emphasis upon some one particular doctrine.

In fact, the circumstances associated with a witness may call for insistence upon some

one feature to the practical exclusion of much else that is profitable. We could enumerate

quite a number of useful organs that give voice to some one particular doctrine or group

of doctrines--one stand for the inspirations of Scripture, another for the exposition of

prophecy, a third for the purity of Protestanism; and we might continue the list at

considerable length.

The Berean Expositor is primarily a witness for the truth of the mystery, and that

being so, the prison epistles of the apostle Paul, and related themes, must always hold the

first place. It is, however, our desire, as indeed it has been our practice from the first

Volume, to give as full a presentation of truth as our space will permit, and a glance at

our indices is a sufficient rejoinder to the unjust charge that four epistles constitute our

Underlying the whole revelation of Scripture, the obvious or hidden reason for all

doctrine, and the goal of all prophecy, is the knowledge of God Himself. At bottom, sin

is an ignoring or an ignorance of God, a denial of God, a substitution of something else

for Him. If we meditate upon the purpose of redemption, the basis of righteousness or

sanctification, the glory of heaven, the blessedness of hope, we shall be led at length to

see that the knowledge of God Himself and love to Him lie close to the heart of them all,

and that every line of truth in Scripture converges upon the statement: "That God may be

all in all." We propose, therefore, to prosecute a series of studies that shall enable us to

repeat, with meaning, the words of the Psalmist: "This God is our God" (Psa. 48: 14).

Into the metaphysical side of such a study, we do not propose to enter, except that we

draw attention to the importance of estimating the magnitude of the subject, and,

correspondingly, our own limitations. If a finite creature could, in the full sense of the

word, really "know" God, then God would cease to be "infinite", and not the God of

Scripture. All knowledge of God, however received, whether through the dim light of

nature, the brighter light of Scripture, or in the Person of Christ, must be relative and

conditioned. We cannot know God at all unless He reveals Himself, and unless in that

revelation He condescends to our low estate, and speaks in human terms. So far as the

nature and attributes of God are concerned, we must remember that the whole of

language is symbolic, and that in every utterance concerning Himself, the revelation is

limited by the necessity of using human forms of thought. Perhaps some reader may, at

this point, object that we are wasting time in speaking of metaphysics at all--if the