There can be but one only True God; of this the Scripture is emphatic. At the same

time the Father, and the One Whom He sent, are both spoken of as being "The True

God". "This" in I John 5: 20 is the same word that is translated `The same' in John 1: 2

and should be so translated here. Both the Father and Son therefore are `The True God',

yet as the explicit teaching of Scripture is that there is One God, Who is Himself the One

Lord, we perceive that when the present period of our service has passed, when we `know

even as we are known', when type and shadow give place to reality, when we begin to

learn the lesson indicated in John 17: 3 then, if not now, we may appreciate the depth

and wealth of teaching that resides in the much maligned and misunderstood statement of

one of the early teachers of Christian doctrine, namely that the titles of God are

economical (dispensational), assumed for the purposes of Creation, Revelation and

Redemption, that they are `figures of the true' The Goal of the Ages is not expressed in

the words "That Christ may be all in all", that is the blessed anticipatory truth of the

present dispensation of the Mystery (Col. 3: 11) or that `the Father' may be all in all,

that is the climax clause of the Unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4: 6); but that GOD may be all

in all, that is the last word on the subject in Scripture.

In these articles we have been but pointing onward, anticipating by the

`understanding' that the Son of God gives, just a little of the full orbed truth that awaits

us `in that day'. Meanwhile we still see by means of a mirror enigmatically; types,

figures, symbols, shadows are uppermost in our language and in our thinking. Let us at

least recognize these figures, accept them as such, but remember so to frame our

arguments and construct our theology that we do not mistake shadow for substance.

The orthodoxy of Dr. Chalmers is not a matter of dispute, and therefore his statements

concerning the doctrine of the Trinity in his lectures on Divinity may be a helpful

introduction to the subject. He declared that it was his intention to depart from the usual

order that is, that most theological courses `begin at the beginning' and tackle the most

abstruse and difficult of all subjects, the essential nature of God. He drew attention to the

two methods employed in any research, the analytical processes and the synthetic. By the

synthetic you begin, as in geometry, with the elementary principles, and out of these you

compound the ultimate doctrines or conclusions. By the analytic, you begin with the

objects or the phenomena which first solicit your regard, and these by comparison and

abstraction you are enabled to resolve into principles. "This latter mode", Dr. Chalmers

continues, "is surely the fitter for a science beset on either side with mysteries

unfathomable . . . . . Now we cannot but think it a violation of this principle, that so early

a place should be given to the doctrine of the Trinity in the common expositions of

theology . . . . . after having by a transcendental flight assumed our station at the top of