“The Knowledge of God” part II

As to our understanding, it is very limited, even as to the natural things of this world. Our hearing is limited; our eyesight is limited. All things great or small, high or low, distant or near, are all only relative; they are all matters of degree. It is the same with the words as well as with the works of God. Whatever line of study we may pursue; whatever work of creation we may study; whatever subject or doctrine we may take up, we go on until we come to the end of human understanding - we reach the limit of intellectual power. We come, as it were, to a wall of adamant which we can neither pierce, nor pass, nor climb; and we return with these words impressed upon our hearts - “We know in part”. If this be so in our study of the works and words of God, how much more must it be so in our efforts to get to know God Himself.

In revealing Himself at all He has, at once, to condescend to our capacities. He has to use language which must be understandable by us; but which can never fully reveal Himself; for that which is finite can never explain the Infinite, hence, God must necessarily (by figure of speech called Anthropopatheia) speak of Himself as a man, for so only could we comprehend. Hence, both as to person and actions, everything is spoken of after the manner of men. This is why we read of His “nostrils”. His “bosom”, and of His repenting, and of other human actions. But all these are only Figures of speech by which we can alone obtain an idea of the reality. It is for the same reason perhaps that He speaks of Himself as being three separate Persons; for with our finite capacities we can never comprehend the infinite.

We must therefore take the Scripture language, and, instead of reasoning about the literal words, we must rejoice in the Truths that are revealed. Though we may not be able to understand them or explain them; we are, by Grace, enabled to believe them and experience them.”

Man was once wholly ignorant as to what light is. And ignorant infidels ridiculed the idea of light being created before the sun. But since the discovery of the Prism and, more recently, by it of what are called, and known as, the X-rays, and the N-rays, and Radium, all theories about light have been cast into the melting-pot; and no scientist would, to-day, venture to define the nature of light. “God is Light.” This metaphor explains to us that light represents God. And when, in the absolute darkness of a specially-darkened chamber, we recently saw, after the eye had got accustomed to the darkness (which was a long time), we saw the shining forth of a piece of radium, a thousandth part of a millimetre: then, in the silence of that darkened chamber one felt almost in the presence of God. There it shone in all its glory and solitude; and there it is shining still. And the man of science, who allowed us to see it, confessed that these were his own feelings.

But far short of this wonderful modern discovery, it has long been known that the rays of LIGHT are threefold. We have the Heat rays, which are felt but not seen. We have the Light rays, which are seen and not felt, and we have the Actinic ray, which are known only by the effects of their chemical action (as in Photography), being neither seen nor felt.

Even so it is with VAPOUR. We have it, invisible in the air, visible in the form of water, experienced in its effects.

In Numbers 6:24-26 we read, in the Aaronic BLESSING, the same threefold reference -
�� “YEHOVAH bless thee and keep thee.
�� “YEHOVAH make His face shine upon thee.
�� “YEHOVAH lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.”

In Isaiah 6:3 we have the same threefold reference in the cry of the SERAPHIM :-
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is Yehovah Sabaioth: the whole earth is full of His Glory.”

This is exactly what we see in Revelation. When we come to the Word of God, we have GOD the Giver of the Word: the Word given (CHRIST the Living Word), and the written Word revealed by the SPIRIT, and communicated by Him to our hearts.

Now there are two ways in which we may pursue this study of the revelation of the knowledge of God. We may take separate single passages of Scripture in which the Father, Son, and Spirit are all mentioned in relation to their respective activities, and we may afterward take separate subjects, and then see how, in three different and unconnected passages, these activities of Father, Son, and Spirit are set forth.

Let us first confine ourselves to the consideration of single passages, with the three activities of God. We avoid the use of the Latin word “Person”, because it is not Biblical, and is calculated to introduce ideas into Scripture, and thus hinder us in drawing our knowledge out of the Scripture.

In these Scripture statements the Three are revealed in many ways, and in various order.