God
The God whom scripture confesses is one, living, holy, and personal — the maker of heaven and earth, the redeemer of a people he calls his own, and the judge before whom every life is laid open. He is not described abstractly. He is named, he speaks, he acts, and he passes by his servants in proclamation of his own character. The pages that follow gather the threads under which Yahweh is set forth in the UPDV — name, attributes, acts, and the way he gives himself to be sought, feared, and trusted.
One God, and No Other
The first thing scripture insists on is that this God is one. The Shema gives the confession its concentrated form: "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one" (Deut 6:4), and Jesus repeats it without alteration in the Gospel: "The first is, Hear, O Israel; Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one" (Mark 12:29). Moses had already pressed the same point on the people in the wilderness: "To you it was shown, that you might know that Yahweh he is God; there is no other besides him" (Deut 4:35). Yahweh's own self-witness in the song of Moses speaks in the same key: "See now that I, even I, am [the Speech], And there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; And there is none that can deliver out of my hand" (Deut 32:39).
Israel's prophets carry the confession forward. Yahweh through Isaiah speaks as the only one of his kind: "You⁺ are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and my slave whom I have chosen; that you⁺ may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me" (Isa 43:10), and again, "I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God" (Isa 44:6); "I am Yahweh; and there is no other" (Isa 45:18). The psalmists say the same in praise — "you alone, whose name is Yahweh, Are the Most High over all the earth" (Ps 83:18); "you are great, and do wondrous things: You alone are God" (Ps 86:10).
The apostles bring this Hebrew confession into the Greek world without softening it. Paul tells the Corinthians that "no idol is [anything] in the world, and that there is no God but one" (1 Cor 8:4) and adds the early-church formulation: "yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we to him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him" (1 Cor 8:6). To the Ephesians: "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph 4:6). To Timothy: "there is [only] one God, and [only] one mediator between God and men, [the] man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).
Because there is only one of him, no comparison is exact. Moses' question to Pharaoh's magicians remains the question Israel asks of every rival: "Let it be according to your word; that you may know that there is none like Yahweh our God" (Ex 8:10). The song at the Sea makes the question celebratory: "Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, awesome in praises, doing wonders?" (Ex 15:11). Moses sums it up in his blessing of the tribes: "There is none like God, O Jeshurun, Who rides on the heavens for your help, And in his excellency on the skies" (Deut 33:26). David's prayer after the dynastic promise echoes the same: "you are great, O Yahweh God: for there is none like you, neither is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears" (2 Sam 7:22). The post-exilic chronicler repeats it word for word: "O Yahweh, there is none like you, neither is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears" (1 Chr 17:20). The psalmist asks the same question of the celestial beings: "For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the mighty is like Yahweh" (Ps 89:6). Isaiah turns it on idolaters: "To whom then will you⁺ liken God? Or what likeness will you⁺ compare to him?" (Isa 40:18); and on Yahweh's own lips, "To whom then will you⁺ liken me, that I should be equal [to him]? says the Holy One" (Isa 40:25).
The Name
To call upon this God is to call him by a name he has given. The naming text is at the bush. Moses asks what to tell Israel; "[the Speech of] God said to Moses, I AM WHO ALWAYS IS: and he said, Thus you will say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you⁺. And God said moreover to Moses, Thus you will say to the sons of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your⁺ fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you⁺: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations" (Ex 3:14-15). The name marks him out from the gods of the nations and places his identity in unending self-existence: he is the one who always is, and the patriarchs' God is this God.
The name multiplies in compound titles tied to particular places of encounter. After the binding of Isaac, "Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh-jireh. As it is said to this day, On the mount of Yahweh it will be provided" (Gen 22:14) — Yahweh the Provider. After the rout of Amalek, "Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Yahweh-nissi" (Ex 17:15) — Yahweh my Banner. When the angel of Yahweh meets Gideon at the threshing floor, "Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh, and called it Yahweh-shalom: to this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites" (Judg 6:24) — Yahweh is Peace. The name is given for the city of Ezekiel's restoration vision: "the name of the city from that day will be, Yahweh is there" (Ezek 48:35) — Yahweh-shammah. And to the Branch from David, Jeremiah twice gives the name "Yahweh our righteousness" (Jer 23:6; cf. Jer 33:16). The name carries place, person, and promise together.
The name is also the people's confession. Jacob at Bethel pledges, "[the Speech of] Yahweh will be my God" (Gen 28:21). Israel at Sinai says, "You have declared Yahweh this day to be your God" (Deut 26:17). Ruth, leaving Moab, binds her future to Naomi's by the same vow: "your people will be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16). Naaman, washed clean in the Jordan, will not sacrifice to other gods "but to Yahweh" (2 Kings 5:17). The watching crowd at Carmel confesses, "Yahweh, he is God; Yahweh, he is God" (1 Kings 18:39). The psalmists speak in the first person what the people confess in the plural: "I have said to Yahweh, You are my Lord: I have no good beyond you" (Ps 16:2); "I trusted in you, O Yahweh: I said, You are my God" (Ps 31:14); "O God, you are my God; earnestly I will seek you" (Ps 63:1); "Whom have I in heaven [but you] And there is none on earth that I desire besides you" (Ps 73:25); "You are my God, and I will give thanks to you" (Ps 118:28); "I said to Yahweh, You are my God" (Ps 140:6).
The Living God
This God is alive — set sharply against the idols that are not. Joshua tells the tribes at Gilgal, "Hereby you⁺ will know that the living God is among you⁺" (Josh 3:10). David at the valley of Elah lifts the same standard against the Philistine: "What will be done to the man who kills this Philistine, and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (1 Sam 17:26). Hezekiah prays in the same language when Sennacherib's letter is laid before Yahweh: "hear all the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God" (Isa 37:17). Daniel's deliverance from the lions ends in Darius' decree: "in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for he is the living God, and steadfast forever" (Dan 6:26).
The psalmists speak of him as the one their souls thirst for. "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: When shall I come and see the face of God?" (Ps 42:2). "My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of Yahweh; My heart and my flesh cry out to the living God" (Ps 84:2). Jeremiah marks the gravity of the title against false speech: "you⁺ have perverted the words of the living God, of Yahweh of hosts our God" (Jer 23:36). Paul, looking back on the Thessalonians' conversion, sees the same turning: they "turned to God from idols, to serve as slaves to a living and true God" (1 Thess 1:9). Hebrews makes the title a warning: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 10:31). And John in his apocalypse sees an angel "having the seal of the living God" (Rev 7:2).
God Is Spirit
Twice the Gospel of John records Jesus naming God in a single phrase. To the Samaritan woman at the well: "But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such does the Father seek to be his worshipers. God is spirit: and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24). The naming is also a directive about the kind of worship that matches what God is.
Creator of Heaven and Earth
The opening of scripture sets the figure: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And [the Speech of] God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen 1:1-3). The work involves God, the Spirit of God, and the Speech of God in the same opening lines. The making of man stands within the same chapter: "And [the Speech of] God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26); "And Yahweh God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7); "male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name Man, in the day when they were created" (Gen 5:2). Moses recalls the work in the Sabbath law: "for in six days [the Speech of] Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day" (Ex 20:11), and again before the people: "Ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth" (Deut 4:32). Malachi bases the unity of the people on the same fact: "Has not one God created us?" (Mal 2:10).
The work continues to be confessed in Israel's worship. Nehemiah's great prayer addresses Yahweh as the maker and the sustainer: "you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all; and the host of heaven worships you" (Neh 9:6). Job remembers the same hand: "the hand of Yahweh has wrought this" (Job 12:9); "He stretches out the north over empty space, And hangs the earth on nothing" (Job 26:7). The psalms repeat it from many angles: "For he has founded it on the seas, And established it on the floods" (Ps 24:2); "By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" (Ps 33:6); "The sea is his, and he made it; And his hands formed the dry land" (Ps 95:5); "Of old did you lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of your hands" (Ps 102:25); "Who laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be moved forever" (Ps 104:5); "You send forth your Spirit, they are created; And you renew the face of the ground" (Ps 104:30); "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, The moon and the stars, which you have appointed" (Ps 8:3).
The work is also confessed of the human creature in particular: "For you have made him but a little lower than God, And crown him with glory and majesty" (Ps 8:5); "Know⁺ that Yahweh, he is God: It is he who has made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture" (Ps 100:3); "The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4). Sirach repeats the figure: "God created man out of the earth, And returned him into it again" (Sir 17:1); "As was fitting for them, he clothed them with strength; And in his image he made them" (Sir 17:3); "For he who despises his father acts proudly, And he who curses his mother provokes his Creator" (Sir 3:16). Yahweh himself names the work in Isaiah: "I [by my Speech] have made the earth, and created man on it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and all their host I have commanded" (Isa 45:12); "[my Speech] has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spread out the heavens" (Isa 48:13); and the people are called back to him as "Yahweh your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth" (Isa 51:13).
The Greek Scriptures gather it into the apostolic confession. Faith reads creation as the work of speech: "By faith we understand that the ages have been provided by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which appear" (Heb 11:3). The Gospel of John names the agent in the opening: "In the beginning was the Speech, and the Speech was with God, and the Speech was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things came into existence through him; and without him nothing came into existence" (John 1:1-3). The throne-room song closes the canon on the same note: "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for you created all things, and because of your will they were, and were created" (Rev 4:11).
Sirach returns to it through long lyric stretches. "When God created his works from the beginning, Concerning their life he assigned them portions" (Sir 16:26); "He set in order his works forever, And their rule from generation to generation. They do not hunger, neither are they weak, And they do not cease from their works" (Sir 16:27); "With every living soul he covered the face of it; And into it is their return" (Sir 16:30). "Then the Creator of all things gave me a commandment, And he who created me fixed my dwelling place" (Sir 24:8); "He created me from the beginning, before the world; And I will never fail" (Sir 24:9). "He who lives for ever created all things together" (Sir 18:1). "For all these things bless your Maker, Who satisfies you with his goodness" (Sir 32:13). "For great is Yahweh who made it, And his word causes his mighty one to shine" (Sir 43:5); "Behold the rainbow, and bless the Maker of it; It is exceedingly majestic in its glory" (Sir 43:11); "Yahweh has made everything, And to the godly he has given wisdom" (Sir 43:33). The Greek apologetic to outsiders makes the confession plainly: God is "truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, the invisible God ... the craftsman and builder of all things himself. By whom he created the heavens; by whom he shut the sea within its own bounds" (Greeks 7:2).
Eternal, Unchanging, Unsearchable
The God who made all things is older than the things he made, and he is not himself measured by them. Moses' prayer prefaces the prayer of generations: "Lord, you have been our dwelling-place In all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or you had ever formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God ... For a thousand years in your sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night" (Ps 90:1-4). Moses' last blessing returns the eternity of God to the help of his people: "The eternal God is [your] dwelling-place, And underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut 33:27). Isaiah binds it to the work of creation: "The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding" (Isa 40:28). Daniel's vision of the throne of nations declares "his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation" (Dan 4:3). Sirach concentrates the same in a phrase: "He who lives for ever created all things together" (Sir 18:1).
What is from everlasting also does not shift. Yahweh through Malachi states the principle: "For I, Yahweh, do not change; therefore you⁺, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed" (Mal 3:6). Balaam's oracle says it the other way: "God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither a son of man, that he should repent: Has [the Speech] said, and will he not do it? Or has [the Speech] spoken, and will he not make it good?" (Num 23:19). James gives the same in its NT form: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights [of heaven]; with whom there is neither shift in position, nor shadow that is cast by turning" (Jas 1:17).
Such a God is not contained inside what creatures can reach. The clearest statement is also a turning point in Israel's hearing: "For my thoughts are not your⁺ thoughts, neither are your⁺ ways my ways, says Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your⁺ ways, and my thoughts than your⁺ thoughts" (Isa 55:8-9). Paul's doxology after the long argument of Romans gathers it into a benediction: "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? ... For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him [be] the glory forever. Amen" (Rom 11:33-36). Sirach has the same posture: "We will still magnify, though we cannot fathom, For greater is he than all his works" (Sir 43:28); "Who has seen him that he may declare him? And who shall magnify him as he is?" (Sir 43:31); "Many things, greater than these, are hidden, I have only seen a few of his works" (Sir 43:32). The Greek apology notes that no man can claim to know him "before he came" (Greeks 8:1).
Glory and Majesty
Yahweh's glory has visible weight in scripture: it appears, it fills, it terrifies. At Sinai "the appearance of the glory of Yahweh was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the sons of Israel" (Ex 24:17). When the tabernacle was finished, "the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle" (Ex 40:34). When Solomon's temple was dedicated, "the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh" (1 Kings 8:11). The psalmist hears it preached without words from above: "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows his handiwork" (Ps 19:1); and addresses Yahweh in the same key: "O Yahweh, our Lord, How majestic is your name in all the earth, Who has set your grandeur on the heavens!" (Ps 8:1). Sirach gathers up the seeing of glory from Sinai to the present: "Their eyes beheld his glorious majesty, And their ear heard his glorious voice" (Sir 17:13); "Fill Zion with your majesty, And your temple with your glory" (Sir 36:14); "The rising sun is revealed over all, And the glory of the Lord upon all his works" (Sir 42:16); "Great glory did the Most High allot them, And they were great from the days of old" (Sir 44:2); "And he made him glorious as God, And made him mighty in awe-inspiring deeds" (Sir 45:2). Paul, looking back on the same glory through the gospel, says, "But all of us, with unveiled face looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor 3:18). And Hebrews opens with the figure of the Son in whom that glory is now spoken: "who being the radiance of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power" (Heb 1:3).
The companion word is majesty. David's last prayer joins them: "Yours, O Yahweh, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the grandeur: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth [is yours]" (1 Chr 29:11). Job names a manifestation of it: "Out of the north comes golden splendor: God has on him awesome grandeur" (Job 37:22). The psalms answer in their own register: "The voice of Yahweh is powerful; The voice of Yahweh is full of majesty" (Ps 29:4); "Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, Your grandeur and your majesty" (Ps 45:3); "Yahweh reigns; he is clothed with splendor; Yahweh is clothed with strength; he has girded himself with it" (Ps 93:1); "Grandeur and majesty are before him: Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary" (Ps 96:6). Sirach matches majesty with mercy in a single line: "For as is his majesty, so also is his mercy, And as is his name, so also are his works" (Sir 2:18); and asks the question that answers itself: "To none has he given power to declare his works, Yes, who can trace out his mighty deeds?" (Sir 18:4); "Who can declare the might of his majesty, And who can recount his mercies?" (Sir 18:5); "Exceeding terrible is Yahweh, And wonderful are his mighty works" (Sir 43:29). Isaiah hears the same as a warning: "Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the majesty of his splendor" (Isa 2:10). And Micah anchors the splendor in the hope of the shepherd-king: "he will stand, and will shepherd [his flock] in the strength of Yahweh, in the splendor of the name of Yahweh his God" (Mic 5:4).
Holiness
Holiness is what Yahweh is to himself, and what he requires the people who bear his name to be. The seraphic cry is the title text: "Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa 6:3). The throne-room cry of the Apocalypse repeats it word for word in another idiom: "Holy, holy, holy, [is] Yahweh, the God of hosts, He Who Was and Who Is and Who Is To Come" (Rev 4:8); and again, "you only are holy" (Rev 15:4). The song at the Sea names it as the differentia: "Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, awesome in praises, doing wonders?" (Ex 15:11). The men of Beth-shemesh, who stood in front of the ark, ask the same question with another inflection: "Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this holy God? And to whom will he go up from us?" (1 Sam 6:20). Asaph's worship turns it into command: "Exalt⁺ Yahweh our God, And worship at his holy hill; For Yahweh our God is holy" (Ps 99:9). Yahweh promises to keep his name from being profaned and to make himself known by it: "And my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel; neither will I allow my holy name to be profaned anymore: and the nations will know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel" (Ezek 39:7). Habakkuk lays the holiness against evil: "You who are of purer eyes than to look at evil, and who cannot look at perverseness, why do you look on betrayers" (Hab 1:13).
What this God is, his people are to be. "For I am Yahweh who brought you⁺ up out of the land of Egypt, to be your⁺ God: you⁺ will therefore be holy, for I am holy" (Lev 11:45). "Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and say to them, You⁺ will be holy; for I, Yahweh your⁺ God, am holy [in my Speech]" (Lev 19:2). Israel is to be "a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation" (Ex 19:6). The high priest carries on his crown the engraving "HOLY TO YAHWEH" (Ex 39:30); David's worshipping assembly is called to "Worship Yahweh in holy array" (1 Chr 16:29); and Zechariah's vision of restoration extends the engraving outward to common things — "In that day there will be on the bells of the horses, HOLY TO YAHWEH; and the pots in Yahweh's house will be like the bowls before the altar" (Zech 14:20). Isaiah promises a road for the redeemed called "The Way of Holiness" on which "the unclean will not pass over it" (Isa 35:8). Peter takes up Leviticus' command without alteration: "because it is written, You⁺ will be holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet 1:16); "But you⁺ are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God's] own possession, that you⁺ may show forth the excellencies of him who called you⁺ out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet 2:9). Paul prays for the same: "to the end he may establish your⁺ hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father" (1 Thess 3:13); commands it: "let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1); and traces it back to chastening: "he for [our] profit, that [we] may be partakers of his holiness" (Heb 12:10). Hebrews says of the requirement that without it "no man will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14). Sirach's prayer matches it: "As you have sanctified yourself in us before their eyes, So sanctify yourself in them before our eyes" (Sir 36:4); and: "now sing praises with all your heart, And bless the name of the Holy One" (Sir 39:35).
Mercy, Goodness, and Loving-kindness
When Yahweh shows Moses his glory, what passes by is a self-naming of mercy: "Yahweh, Yahweh God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, keeping loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means leave unpunished [the guilty]" (Ex 34:6-7). The phrase becomes the standing confession of who Yahweh is. It returns in David's psalm: "Yahweh is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness. He will not always chide; Neither will he keep [his anger] forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins, Nor rewarded us after our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is his loving-kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has he removed our transgressions from us. Like a father pities his sons, So Yahweh pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust" (Ps 103:8-14). And in the great hymn that ends the psalter: "Yahweh is gracious, and merciful; Slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness. Yahweh is good to all; And his tender mercies are over all his works" (Ps 145:8-9), running to the conclusion that "Yahweh is faithful in all his words, And merciful in all his deeds" (Ps 145:13).
Goodness is the constant property of his rule. "Good and upright is Yahweh: Therefore he will instruct sinners in the way" (Ps 25:8). "He loves righteousness and justice: The earth is full of the loving-kindness of Yahweh" (Ps 33:5). "Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good: Blessed is the [noble] man who takes refuge in [his Speech]" (Ps 34:8). "You are good, and do good; Teach me your statutes" (Ps 119:68). "They will cause the memory of your great goodness to gush out" (Ps 145:7). Sirach's pastoral counsel matches it: "Do not say, I have sinned, and will he do anything to me? For God is slow to anger" (Sir 5:4); "And after these things the Lord looked upon the earth, And filled it with his good things" (Sir 16:29). Isaiah sums up his own retrospective in the same key: "I will make mention of the loving-kindnesses of Yahweh ... and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses" (Isa 63:7). Jeremiah hears it sung in his oracle of restoration: "Give thanks to Yahweh of hosts, for Yahweh is good, for his loving-kindness [endures] forever" (Jer 33:11). Nahum turns it into a refuge in the day of trouble: "Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in [his Speech]" (Nah 1:7). The Greek apology to outsiders puts it in a single line: "this God was, and is, and ever will be kind and good, and not given to anger, and true, and the only good" (Greeks 8:8). Lamentations, in the very middle of disaster, turns the mercy back into morning praise: "[It is of] Yahweh's loving-kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions do not fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (Lam 3:22-23).
In Paul's letters, the same mercy becomes the doctrine of grace. "the goodness of God leads you to repentance" (Rom 2:4); "See then the goodness and severity of God: toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, God's goodness, if you continue in his goodness" (Rom 11:22). "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3:24). "if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many" (Rom 5:15). "if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace" (Rom 11:6). "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor 15:10). "in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" (Eph 1:7); "even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you⁺ have been saved)" (Eph 2:5); "that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:7). "And my God will supply every need of yours⁺ according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:19). "the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men" (Tit 2:11); "being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Tit 3:7); "not by works [done] in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Tit 3:5). The Lord's word to Paul in his weakness: "My grace is sufficient for you: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9). And Paul's gratitude for his own conversion: "though I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: nevertheless I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 1:13-14). James and Peter together: "But he gives more grace. Therefore [the Scripture] says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (Jas 4:6; cf. 1 Pet 5:5). And the closing grace of the canon: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all" (Rev 22:21).
The confession that God is love stands behind all this. "He who doesn't love doesn't know God; for God is love. In this was the love of God manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him" (1 John 4:8-9).
Father
Yahweh names himself father of his people in the song of Moses: "Isn't he your father who has bought you? He has made you, and established you" (Deut 32:6). David at the end of his life prays in the same way: "Blessed be you, O Yahweh, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever" (1 Chr 29:10). The psalmist names him as the father whose care reaches the most exposed: "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, Is God in his holy habitation" (Ps 68:5); the same image meets us in Sirach: "Be as a father to the fatherless, And in the place of a husband to widows. And God will call you son, And will be gracious to you" (Sir 4:10); "O Lord, Father, and Master of my life, Do not abandon me to their counsel" (Sir 23:4); "Yes, I cried: 'Yahweh, you are my Father, My God, and the strength of my salvation, Do not forsake me in the day of trouble'" (Sir 51:10). Isaiah carries the address into the post-exilic posture of a people who have lost everything but the title: "you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us: you, O Yahweh, are our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is your name" (Isa 63:16); "But now, O Yahweh, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and all of us are the work of your hand" (Isa 64:8). And Malachi makes the title the basis of a moral claim: "Don't we all have one father? Has not one God created us?" (Mal 2:10).
In the New Testament the Father is the name through which the people now address God in the Spirit. "you⁺ received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15). "yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things" (1 Cor 8:6). "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph 4:6). "we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: and shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb 12:9). "if you⁺ call on him as Father, who without favoritism judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your⁺ sojourning in fear" (1 Pet 1:17). The Father is not the Father of one ethnicity only: "Or is God [the God] of Jews only? Is he not [the God] of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also" (Rom 3:29).
Foreknowledge, Wisdom, and Counsel
Yahweh declares the end from the beginning, and what he says he means to do. "Look, the former things have come to pass, and I declare new things; before they spring forth I tell you⁺ of them" (Isa 42:9); "declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel will stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isa 46:10). Daniel addresses the king on the same point: "but there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and he has made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days" (Dan 2:28). Sirach makes it a theological summary: "Declaring the things that are past and the things that will be, And revealing the traces of hidden things" (Sir 42:19). In the New Testament Paul builds the doctrine of election on it: "For whom he foreknew, he also preappointed [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Rom 8:29); "God did not cast off his people which he foreknew" (Rom 11:2). Peter joins it to the Spirit's sanctifying work: "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet 1:2).
Omnipresent and Omniscient
David's psalm makes the proof from absence: "If I ascend up into heaven, you are there: If I make my bed in Sheol, look, [your Speech is there]" (Ps 139:8). The whole of Psalm 139 sets out the case in a single voice: "O Yahweh, you have searched me, and known [me]. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought far off ... For there is not a word in my tongue, But, look, O Yahweh, you know it altogether ... Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? ... If I take the wings of the morning, And stay in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there your hand will lead me, And your right hand will hold me ... Even the darkness does not hide from [your Speech], But the night shines as the day" (Ps 139:1-12). Moses presses the same point on Israel: "Yahweh he is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other" (Deut 4:39). Solomon in Proverbs frames the same as a moral fact: "The eyes of Yahweh are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good" (Prov 15:3). Jeremiah hears Yahweh make the question audible: "Can any hide himself in secret places so that I will not see him? says Yahweh. Don't I fill heaven and earth? says Yahweh" (Jer 23:24). Isaiah hears the same on his own side of the throne: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what manner of house will you⁺ build to me? And what place will be my rest?" (Isa 66:1).
Sirach extends the figure into the moral sphere: "Their ways are ever before him, They are not hid from his eyes" (Sir 17:15); "All their works are clear as the sun before him, And his eyes are continually upon their ways" (Sir 17:19); "the eyes of the Lord Are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, Beholding all the ways of men, And looking into secret places" (Sir 23:19); "all things are known to him before they are created, So also [he sees them] after they are perfected" (Sir 23:20); "He searches out the deep, and the heart [of man], And discerns all their secrets; For the Lord knows all knowledge, And he looks into the signs of the world" (Sir 42:18); "No knowledge is lacking to him, And not a thing escapes him" (Sir 42:20); and in summary: "He is all" (Sir 43:27).
The Judge of All the Earth
Yahweh judges. Abraham at Mamre, pleading for Sodom, names the principle on which the plea rests: "will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen 18:25). The psalmist sees his work as a weighing and a setting straight: "But God is the judge: He puts down one, and lifts up another" (Ps 75:7). And the closing of the same book of psalms says it the same way: "Yahweh upholds the meek: He brings the wicked down to the ground" (Ps 147:6). The Lord's own words in Luke turn it into the great reversal of the new age: "Woe to you⁺, you⁺ who are full now! For you⁺ will hunger" (Luke 6:25); "remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things: but now here he is comforted, and you are in anguish" (Luke 16:25); "many [who are] first will be last; and the last first" (Mark 10:31); Sirach has the same image: "From him who sits upon a throne in exaltation, To him who sits in dust and ashes" (Sir 40:3). Peter's address to scattered Christians grounds reverence in the same fact: God is the one "who without favoritism judges according to each man's work" (1 Pet 1:17). The doxology of Hebrews names him the "judge of all the earth" by another phrase. The psalmist's confession turns the same fact into trust: "Good things for the good he has allotted from the beginning; [Even] so to the evil; good and evil" (Sir 39:25).
Sovereign Over All
The throne is real, and it is over everything. "Yahweh sat [as King] at the Flood; Yes, Yahweh sits as King forever" (Ps 29:10); "Yahweh is King forever and ever" (Ps 10:16); "the kingdom is Yahweh's; And he is the ruler over the nations" (Ps 22:28); "Yahweh Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth" (Ps 47:2); "Yahweh has established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom rules over all" (Ps 103:19); "Whatever Yahweh pleased, that he has done, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps" (Ps 135:6); "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom" (Ps 45:6); "Who is this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah" (Ps 24:10); "For Yahweh is a great God, And a great King above all gods" (Ps 95:3); "Yahweh reigns; he is clothed with splendor" (Ps 93:1). The song at the Sea sets the keynote: "Yahweh will reign forever and ever" (Ex 15:18). David's prayer at the offering says, "Both riches and honor come of you, and you rule over all; and in your hand is power and might" (1 Chr 29:12); and Jehoshaphat's prayer in crisis: "are not you God in heaven? And are not you ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? And in your hand is power and might, so that none is able to withstand you" (2 Chr 20:6). Job's question concedes the same: "Look, he seizes [the prey], who can hinder him? Who will say to him, What are you doing?" (Job 9:12).
This sovereignty reaches into the choices of men. "The king's heart is in the hand of Yahweh as the watercourses: He turns it wherever he will" (Prov 21:1). Yahweh tells Sennacherib by the prophet, "I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came" (2 Kings 19:28; cf. Isa 37:29); and to the prophets of the nations, "who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes fortune-tellers insane; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish" (Isa 44:25). Job's voice answers in the same way: "He leads priests away stripped, And overthrows the mighty" (Job 12:19). Daniel, after seven years of madness, says it from the king's mouth: "the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whomever he will" (Dan 5:21); "all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can hold back his hand, or say to him, What are you doing?" (Dan 4:35); "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase" (Dan 4:37); "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; for wisdom and might are his" (Dan 2:20).
The sovereignty also takes a christological form. The promise to David through the prophets gives Yahweh's reign a human face: "Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David" (Isa 9:7); "Look, a king will reign in righteousness" (Isa 32:1); "Look, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely" (Jer 23:5); "There was given to him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion" (Dan 7:14); "his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" (Zech 9:10); "your king comes to you; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey" (Zech 9:9). Nathaniel makes the confession at the Jordan: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are King of Israel" (John 1:49); Jesus says it again before Pilate: "Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. To this end I have been born, and to this end I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37); Paul names the term of his rule: "he must reign, until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (1 Cor 15:25); the doxologies of the Apocalypse close it: "Great and marvelous are your works, Yahweh, the God of hosts; righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations" (Rev 15:3); "Hallelujah: for Yahweh our God, the Almighty, has begun to reign" (Rev 19:6); "Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, [be] honor and glory forever and ever. Amen" (1 Tim 1:17); "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom [be] honor and power eternal. Amen" (1 Tim 6:15-16). Sirach makes the same confession its way: "There is one, he alone is to be feared, Yahweh, he rules over her treasuries" (Sir 1:8); "In the hand of God is the dominion of the world; And a man at the time will stand on it" (Sir 10:5); "Good and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from Yahweh" (Sir 11:14); "As the clay of the potter in his hand, All his ways are according to his good pleasure; So men are in the hand of him who made them, To render to them according to his judgement" (Sir 33:13); "He causes his will to prosper, And there is no restraint to his salvation" (Sir 39:18); "From everlasting to everlasting he beholds, Therefore there is no limit to his salvation, Nothing is small or insignificant with him, And there is nothing too wonderful or too hard for him" (Sir 39:20); "The mighty works of his wisdom, he has ordered; One is he from everlasting; Nothing has been added, and nothing taken away [from them], And he needs none to instruct [him]" (Sir 42:21); "For his own sake he makes his work prosper, And by his word he works his pleasure" (Sir 43:26).
Providence and Care
What this God rules he also keeps. The great vault of providence is the watching of the saints from beneath. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Will reside under the shadow of the Almighty" (Ps 91:1). "Yahweh is your keeper: Yahweh is your shade on your right hand" (Ps 121:5); "Look, he who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep" (Ps 121:4); "He will not allow your foot to be moved: He who keeps you will not slumber" (Ps 121:3). "He keeps all his bones: Not one of them is broken" (Ps 34:20). "Yahweh preserves the faithful, And plentifully rewards him who deals proudly" (Ps 31:23); "For Yahweh loves justice, And does not forsake his saints; They are preserved forever" (Ps 37:28); "Yahweh preserves the sojourners; He upholds the fatherless and widow" (Ps 146:9). The promises in Isaiah are of the same kind: "Don't be afraid, for [my Speech] is with you; don't be dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness" (Isa 41:10); "even to old age, I am he, and even to hoar hairs [my Speech] will carry [you⁺]; I have made, and I will bear; yes, I will carry, and will deliver" (Isa 46:4); "in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isa 63:9). The law remembers it the same way: "in the wilderness, where you have seen how that Yahweh your God bore you, as a man does bear his son, in all the way that you⁺ went, until you⁺ came to this place" (Deut 1:31); "The eternal God is [your] dwelling-place, And underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut 33:27); "As an eagle that stirs up her nest, That hovers over her young, He spread abroad his wings, he took them, He bore them on his pinions" (Deut 32:11); "I bore you⁺ on eagles' wings, and brought you⁺ to myself" (Ex 19:4). At Bethel the promise is given Jacob: "[my Speech is] with you, and will keep you, wherever you go" (Gen 28:15). And Moses' confession on the plains of Moab: "Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand; he has known your walking through this great wilderness: these forty years Yahweh your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing" (Deut 2:7).
The providence supplies. The widow's jar of meal "did not waste, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Elijah" (1 Kings 17:6-16). Elijah at the broom tree finds "at his head a cake baked on the coals, and a cruse of water" (1 Kings 19:6); the Shunammite's vessels run with oil "until ... There is not another vessel" (2 Kings 4:6); the lepers walk into a deserted Aramean camp and find food and wealth (2 Kings 7:8); and the day after Elisha's word, "water came by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water" (2 Kings 3:20). The same posture continues into the New Testament: "casting all your⁺ anxiety on him, because he cares for you⁺" (1 Pet 5:7); "the very hairs of your⁺ head are all numbered. Don't be afraid: you⁺ are of more value than many sparrows" (Luke 12:7); "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor 2:9); "my God will supply every need of yours⁺ according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:19); "the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your⁺ hearts and your⁺ thoughts in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:7); "the Lord is faithful, who will establish you⁺, and guard you⁺ from the evil [one]" (2 Thess 3:3); "I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day" (2 Tim 1:12); "who by the power of God are guarded through faith to a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet 1:5); "Now to him who is able to guard you⁺ from stumbling, and to set you⁺ before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy" (Jude 1:24). Sirach matches it line for line: "the works of God are all good, And for every need he provided in its time" (Sir 39:16); "the works of God are all good, They supply every need in its season" (Sir 39:33); "There is one who is beaten down, and who perishes in his walk, Lacking everything and has abundant hardship. But the eye of Yahweh watches him for good; And he shakes him free from the stinking dust. He lifts up his head and exalts him; And many are amazed at him" (Sir 11:12-13); and the practical verse on physicians: "Be friends with the physician since you have need of him, For God has ordained him also" (Sir 38:1); "God has created medicines out of the earth, And do not let a man of discernment despise them" (Sir 38:4); even the carrying of crafts: "the fabric of the world, they will maintain, And their thoughts are on the handiwork of [their] craft" (Sir 38:34). The shelter is also a poetic image: "in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, Until [these] calamities have passed by" (Ps 57:1); "in the shadow of your wings I will rejoice" (Ps 63:7); "I have put my words in your mouth, and have covered you in the shadow of my hand" (Isa 51:16); "you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat" (Isa 25:4).
Wonders and Works
Beyond what providence keeps, Yahweh does wonders that no power of nature could account for. "Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, awesome in praises, doing wonders?" (Ex 15:11). "see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand" (Ex 4:21). "tomorrow Yahweh will do wonders among you⁺" (Josh 3:5). The psalmist sums it up: "You are the God who does wonders: You have made known your strength among the peoples" (Ps 77:14). Daniel addresses the gentile court in the same key: "How great are his signs! And how mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation" (Dan 4:3). And Joel keeps the door open into the day of Yahweh: "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke" (Joel 2:30).
The works themselves stretch beyond enumeration. Job's friend speaks for the whole tradition: God "does great things and unsearchable, Marvelous things without number" (Job 5:9). David sums it up: "Many, O Yahweh my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, And your thoughts which are toward us; They can't be set in order to you; If I would declare and speak of them, They are more numerous than can be numbered" (Ps 40:5). "He has made his wonderful works to be remembered: Yahweh is gracious and merciful" (Ps 111:4). "I will give thanks to you; because of your awesome works I am distinguished Wonderful are your works; And my soul knows that very well" (Ps 139:14). "Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing: Then they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for them" (Ps 126:2); "Yahweh has done great things for us, [Of which] we are glad" (Ps 126:3); "This is Yahweh's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes" (Ps 118:23). "He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which your eyes have seen" (Deut 10:21). Yahweh is also the strange worker: "Yahweh will rise up as in mount Perazim, he will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act" (Isa 28:21); "look, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hid" (Isa 29:14). Solomon admits the limit of looking: "He has made everything beautiful in its time: also he has set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end" (Eccl 3:11). Sirach repeats it: "the works of Yahweh are wonderful things; And his work has been hid from man" (Sir 11:4); "the holy ones of God do not have the power To recount the wondrous works of his might; [Yet] God has given strength to his hosts To stand in the presence of his glory" (Sir 42:17); "How desirable are all his works, And they are as a spark to behold" (Sir 42:22); "Let me make mention of the works of God, And what I have seen I will also recount. By the word of God are his works, And he does his good pleasure according to his decree" (Sir 42:15); and the figure of the unfathomable: "The sand of the seas, and the drops of rain, And the days of eternity: who will number [them]? The height of heaven, and the width of the earth, And the depth of the deep: who will search [them]?" (Sir 1:2-3).
Jealous
Because the relationship is exclusive, Yahweh names himself jealous. "I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the sons" (Ex 20:5); "you will worship no other god. For Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Ex 34:14); "Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God" (Deut 4:24); "the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smoke against that man" (Deut 29:20). Joshua presses the same on the people who have just sworn the covenant: "You⁺ can't serve Yahweh; for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God" (Josh 24:19). Judah under Rehoboam "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done" (1 Kings 14:22). Paul puts the same warning to a Corinthian church flirting with idol-feasts: "Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?" (1 Cor 10:22).
Reckoned With and Trusted
Such a God is appealed to as the irrefutable witness. "God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit" (Rom 1:9); "I call God for a witness on my soul, that to spare you⁺ I forbare to come to Corinth" (2 Cor 1:23); "God is my witness, how I long after all of you⁺" (Phil 1:8); "neither at any time did we come in words of flattery, as you⁺ know, nor in a cloak of greed, God is witness" (1 Thess 2:5). The same appeal already runs through the OT. Laban and Jacob set up a heap of stones: "[the Speech of] God is witness between me and you" (Gen 31:50). Moses calls heaven and earth: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you⁺ this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse" (Deut 30:19). Jephthah and the elders make their pact: "[the Speech of] Yahweh will be witness between us; surely according to your word so we will do" (Judg 11:10). Samuel's farewell turns the same: "[the Speech of] Yahweh is witness against you⁺, and his anointed is witness this day, that you⁺ have not found anything in my hand" (1 Sam 12:5). Job, in distress, knows where his case lies: "look, my witness is in heaven, And he who vouches for me is on high" (Job 16:19).
The right posture before such a God is therefore to wait. "Guide me in your truth, and teach me; For you are the God of my salvation; For you I wait all the day" (Ps 25:5); "Wait for Yahweh: Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for Yahweh" (Ps 27:14); "My soul, wait in silence for God only; For my expectation is from him" (Ps 62:5); "as the eyes of male slaves [look] to the hand of their master ... So our eyes [look] to Yahweh our God, Until he has mercy on us" (Ps 123:2); "Wait for Yahweh, and he will save you" (Prov 20:22). Sirach presses the same: "You⁺ who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy; And do not turn aside lest you⁺ fall" (Sir 2:7); "Give the reward to those who wait for you, That your prophets may be shown to be faithful" (Sir 36:16). Isaiah hands on the proverb that has carried the church across centuries: "those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they will run, and not be weary; they will walk, and not faint" (Isa 40:31); and elsewhere: "I will wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him" (Isa 8:17). Hosea ends with the same posture: "you will turn to your God: keep kindness and justice, and wait for your God continually" (Hos 12:6).
Sought, Seen, and Known
This God will be found, but he must be sought. "from there you⁺ will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut 4:29). "Seek⁺ Yahweh while he may be found; call⁺ on him while he is near" (Isa 55:6). "you⁺ will seek me, and find me, when you⁺ will search for me with all your⁺ heart" (Jer 29:13). "Seek⁺ Yahweh and his strength; Seek his face evermore" (Ps 105:4). "let us follow on to know Yahweh: his going forth is sure as the morning; and he will come to us as the rain" (Hos 6:3). "for thus says Yahweh to the house of Israel, Seek⁺ me, and you⁺ will live" (Amos 5:4). "Seek⁺ Yahweh, all you⁺ meek of the earth, who have kept his ordinances; seek⁺ righteousness, seek⁺ meekness: it may be you⁺ will be hid in the day of Yahweh's anger" (Zeph 2:3). "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness; break up your⁺ fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you⁺" (Hos 10:12). The seekers in scripture are remembered for the seeking itself: "such as set their hearts to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to Yahweh" (2 Chr 11:16); "the land is yet before us, because we have sought Yahweh our God; we have sought him, and he has given us rest on every side" (2 Chr 14:7); Jehoshaphat "sought to the God of his father, and walked in his commandments" (2 Chr 17:4); Uzziah "set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the vision of God: and as long as he sought Yahweh, God made him to prosper" (2 Chr 26:5); Ezra at the Ahava: "I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of him a straight way for us" (Ezra 8:21); "set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes" (Dan 9:3). The psalmist's posture is the same: "This is the generation of those who seek after him, Who seek your face, Jacob. Selah" (Ps 24:6); "My heart said to you, My face will seek your face. O Yahweh, I will seek [you]" (Ps 27:8); "With my whole heart I have sought you: Oh don't let me wander from your commandments" (Ps 119:10); "For my eyes are to you, O Yahweh the Lord: In [the Speech] I take refuge" (Ps 141:8); and Job's longing in distress: "Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!" (Job 23:3). Hebrews presses the same: "without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing [to him]; for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of those who seek after him" (Heb 11:6). Sirach turns it into wisdom counsel: "He who seeks God receives discipline, And he who seeks him early obtains favor" (Sir 32:14).
To see God is rare and weighty. Jacob, after the Jabbok struggle: "I have seen God face to face, and my soul is preserved" (Gen 32:30). The seventy elders: "they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness" (Ex 24:10). Manoah, after the angel goes up in the flame: "We will surely die, because we have seen God" (Judg 13:22). Job, at the end of his ordeal: "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees you" (Job 42:5). Isaiah at the death of Uzziah: "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim ... And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory ... Then I said, Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts" (Isa 6:1-5). Isaiah elsewhere holds out the same as a future joy: "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty: they will look at a land that reaches far" (Isa 33:17). And Jesus to Philip: "He who has seen me has seen the Father; how do you say, Show us the Father?" (John 14:9). Yet the New Testament also names the same God as the one "whom no man has seen, nor can see" (1 Tim 6:16); and the apologetic of the Greeks puts the same antinomy in two lines: "No one among men has seen him, or made him known; but he has showed himself. He has showed himself through faith, through which alone it is granted to see God" (Greeks 8:5-6).
Father, Son, and Spirit
The opening lines of scripture name the maker, the Spirit hovering over the waters, and the Speech that calls light into being (Gen 1:1-3). The Gospel of John makes the same naming explicit at the end of Jesus' farewell: "the Spirit, the Supporter, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you⁺ all things" (John 14:26); "When the Supporter has come, whom I will send to you⁺ from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of me" (John 15:26). Peter's opening of his first letter binds them together in a single act of saving: "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet 1:2). The shape of the act is one shared by Father, Son, and Spirit; the canonical confession of one God (Deut 6:4; Mark 12:29; 1 Tim 2:5) is not modified by it but takes this triune shape.
Angel of His Presence
In the patriarchal and Mosaic narratives a figure called the angel of Yahweh appears repeatedly and is regularly identified with the very presence of Yahweh. The angel finds Hagar at the spring on the way to Shur: "the angel of Yahweh found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur" (Gen 16:7); the angel calls a second time on Mount Moriah: "the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time out of heaven" (Gen 22:15). At the sea, "the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them" (Ex 14:19). On the road to Pethor the donkey sees the angel "standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand" (Num 22:23). After Joshua's death the angel comes up "from Gilgal to Bochim" and rebukes Israel for breaking the covenant (Judg 2:1). And at Zorah the angel announces the birth of a son to Manoah's barren wife (Judg 13:3). Isaiah's retrospective on the exodus gives the figure its tenderest summary: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isa 63:9).
Redeemer
To call Yahweh redeemer is to invoke the kinsman who has the standing and the will to act for those who cannot act for themselves. Job confesses it from the dust: "as for me I know that my Redeemer lives, And at last he will stand up on the earth" (Job 19:25). The psalmist makes the corporate confession: "he will redeem Israel From all his iniquities" (Ps 130:8). Proverbs binds it to the lawcourt of the orphan: "their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against you" (Prov 23:11). Isaiah uses the title in close association with the Holy One of Israel: "[my Speech] will help you, says Yahweh, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 41:14); "Thus says Yahweh, your⁺ Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 43:14); "Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb: I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who stretches forth the heavens [by my Speech] alone; who spreads abroad the earth (who is with me?)" (Isa 44:24); "Our Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 47:4); "And a Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, says Yahweh" (Isa 59:20). And Jeremiah, naming Babylon's coming downfall: "Their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh of hosts is his name: he will thoroughly plead their cause" (Jer 50:34).
A People for His Own Possession
The end of the work is a people who belong to him. "Now therefore, if you⁺ will obey [my Speech] indeed, and keep my covenant, then you⁺ will be my own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine" (Ex 19:5). "you are a holy people to Yahweh your God: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deut 7:6); "you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession" (Deut 14:2); "to make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, and in name, and in honor; and that you may be a holy people to Yahweh your God" (Deut 26:19). The promise is anchored to Yahweh's own name in the time of Saul: "Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you⁺ a people to himself" (1 Sam 12:22). The psalmists carry it forward: "Yahweh will give strength to his people; Yahweh will bless his people with peace" (Ps 29:11); "he led forth his own people like sheep, And guided them in the wilderness like a flock" (Ps 78:52); "Yahweh has set apart for himself him who is godly: Yahweh will hear when I call to him" (Ps 4:3); "It is he who has made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture" (Ps 100:3).
In the New Testament the same designation, without losing its OT shape, names the church. Christ "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works" (Tit 2:14). The new covenant promised by Jeremiah is now named: "I will be to them a God, And they will be to me a people" (Heb 8:10). "you⁺ are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God's] own possession" (1 Pet 2:9); "who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy" (1 Pet 2:10). The election lies behind the title: "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love" (Eph 1:4); "did not God choose those who are poor as to the world [to be] rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him?" (Jas 2:5); "Who will lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies" (Rom 8:33); "And will not God avenge his elect, that cry to him day and night, and [yet] he is long-suffering over them?" (Luke 18:7); "I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim 2:10). The vision of the end names what it has always been about: "Look, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself with them, he will be their God" (Rev 21:3).
Stooping Low
For all his height, this God stoops. The psalmist asks the question in praise: "Who humbles himself to look at [The things that are] in heaven and in the earth?" (Ps 113:6). "Who remembered us in our low estate; For his loving-kindness [endures] forever" (Ps 136:23). "though Yahweh is high, yet he has respect to the lowly; But the haughty he knows from afar" (Ps 138:6). Isaiah sets the high name on the same principle: "thus says the high and lofty One who stays eternally, whose name is Holy: I stay in the high and holy place, and with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isa 57:15). And in the upper room, the figure of the master at the basin gives the Old Testament image its closing illustration: "rises from supper, and lays aside his garments; and he took a towel, and girded himself" (John 13:4).
How God Speaks
The God who is one, holy, eternal, sovereign, merciful, and present has not been silent. Hebrews opens its argument by setting the long history of address against its present concentration: "God, having of old time spoken to the fathers in the prophets by diverse portions and in diverse manners, has at the end of these days spoken to us in [his] Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages; who being the radiance of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb 1:1-3). The same God who said at the bush "I AM WHO ALWAYS IS" has spoken in his Son the Speech who was with him in the beginning, through whom all things came into existence. The two namings — at Sinai and in the Word made flesh — close the loop scripture has been making from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Apocalypse, where Yahweh, the God of hosts, He Who Was and Who Is and Who Is To Come, is worshipped at the throne by the creatures whose existence is owed to his will.