The Divine Name defines what the Eternal Spirit is in manifestation. "Yahweh whose name is jealous is a jealous power." Here "name" defines what exists. "The name of the wicked shall rot," that is, the glory, honour, power, substance, that exist, constituting the wicked and their attributes, shall perish. Hence, when the Eternal Spirit is fully manifested on earth according to His revealed purpose, that manifestation is "His Name," or the name of Ehyeh, the I-will-be manifestation of the Spirit.
This name was proclaimed to Israel by Moses in the formula so often quoted by the Jews in their controversy with the friends - Jesus has left on record an infallible rule by which his friends may be distinguished from the Demons. The rule is expressed in his words, saying: "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." "The Demons" is a phrase, in its application to that signifies those who believe that Jesus is the anointed Son of God, but "do not receive his words," nor do what he commands. This is not the only sense of the word but the sense in which it is used in this place, because the possessed of old confessed, but did not obey the truth. (Dr. Thomas)-of Jesus, and with the Demons also, who presume to cry out that they know that he is the anointed Son of God. In Deut. 6:4, Moses says: Sh'ma Yisraail Yahweh Elohainu Yahweh ekhad.
This is incorrectly rendered, both by Dr. de Lara in his letter and in the English version. The Doctor renders it "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one!" In the English version it reads: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord!" But neither of these is a translation. "Lord" and "God" do not express the sense of the original. As we have shown already, the word Yahweh or Ehyeh,** has not the remotest affinity to the English word "Lord." We must, therefore, reject the above, which are mere paraphrases or transformations, and translate the formula literally, that knowing what Moses really did say, we may be able to understand what he said. And doubtless, it must be an important proclamation concerning the Invisible One, or he would not have called the attention of the whole nation of Israel to his words. The literal translation, then, is*** "Hear, 0 Israel! I WILL BE our MIGHTIES is One I will be!
This is the proclamation in plain English. There is no word in it which is not perfectly intelligible. It announces a Person who shall be; and if you ask Moses who that Person is, he tells you in Exod. 3:14-16, and 6:3, that the person who shall be is that same One who, four hundred and thirty years before was known to Abraham as the Strength of the Mighty Ones who visited him from time to time, and whose messenger appeared to himself in the bush. This answer is equivalent to saying that the subject of the proclamation to Israel is "One who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Pantokrator,* or Strength of All." He is while Moses makes the proclamation; He was in Abraham's time, and from an antecedent eternity; and He shall be when He comes as the Prophet like unto Moses. Nothing short of this can be educed from the words of Moses. Had we lived in the days of Moses, speaking the Hebrew as our mother tongue, his proclamation would have created in us an expectation, that, at some future time, 'He', the Possessor of the Heavens and the Earth, the Most High, who admitted Abraham to His friendship, would appear in the midst of Israel; and that then, consequently, whatever His name might be called, He would be lmma-nu-ail, "God with us."
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** "Yahweh or Ehyeh." There is a distinction between Yahweh and Ehyeh. The former signifies "He who will be"; the latter simply "I will be." This distinction is recognised by Dr. Thomas in "Eureka," Vol. 1, pp.99-100. In the latter place he writes: "The form of the name which subsequently prevailed over Ehyeh, is .... Yahweh .... Yahweh signifying "He who will be" is the memorial name the Deity chooses to be known by among His people. It reminds them that He will be manifested in a multitude . . ." (Publishers).
*Yahweh signifies "He who shall be." In "Eureka," Vol 1, p. 100, Dr. Thomas renders Deut. 6:4 as "Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our Elohim is the One Yahweh," that is': "He who shall be our Mighty Ones is the One who shall be." (Publishers).
* The Greek word, "Pantokrator," has been rendered Almighty in 2 Cor. 6:18, and frequently in the Apocalypse. It is derived from "pas," all, and "krateo" to hold, or to have strength; and thus signifies to exercise power or strength over all others; therefore "Almighty."
Now for this result to be manifested, one of three things was necessary; either that "Ail," the Eternal Spirit Himself, should descend from unapproachable light, and plant Himself in the midst of the Hebrew nation unveiled; or, that a portion of free spirit, emanating from His substance, should be embodied, constituting "Holy Spirit Nature," or God veiled; or, that the Eternal Spirit should create a body from the material race of Adam, and fill it with His own power and wisdom without measure. In either of these events, it would have been God with Israel, dwelling in the midst of them. But the first alternative was impossible: for God unveiled in any nation would be its destruction, for Moses testified that Yahweh declared to him: "There shall no man see Me, and live"; and Paul, who taught the same doctrine as Moses, says: "No man hath seen, or can see Him"; and Jesus also bears the same witness, that "No one hath seen the Father, except he who is from Theos (Divine Power) : the same hath seen the Father."
The purpose of the Eternal Spirit to become Elohim to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through their seed, excludes the second supposition. Mighty Ones in Holy Spirit Nature often appeared in the midst of Israel, and were, for a time, God with them. There is a notable instance of this on record in Exodus 24:10. It is there recorded that "Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, saw the Elohim, or Mighty Ones of Israel: and under HIS feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the body of the heavens for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel HE laid not HIS hand; also they saw the Elohim, and did eat and drink. And YAHWEH said unto Moses, Come up to me in the mount, and be there : and Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua; and Moses went up upon the mount of the Elohim. And he said unto the elders, 'Tarry ye here for us, until we come unto you'." In this narration the distinction is maintained between Yahweh and the Elohim; Yahweh referring to the Eternal and Invisible Spirit; the Elohim to the individualized, or embodied, manifestations of power. The Elohim were visible; for Moses says the nobles of Israel saw them, and ate and drank in their presence. The Elohim had spread for them an entertainment of good things, and welcomed them to eat and drink without alarm: for "upon the nobles of the children of Israel HE (the invisible Yahweh) laid not His hand." Moses does not say that they saw Yahweh. He and Joshua alone were permitted to ascend to the mountain top; but even there, they did not see Yahweh; for "no man could see Him and live." They heard, but saw not.
In this scene, Moses and Joshua are types of Messiah in his approach to the Father; while Aaron, Hur, and their associates in company with the Elohim, are types of the saints, the immortal nobles of Israel, in the setting up of the Gospel-Kingdom. The Elohim were the representatives of the personages to be manifested from the seed of Abraham in the Age of glory; the same Eternal Spirit being the substratum, or hypostasis of the representatives, and of those whom they represented; for which cause "He" and "His" are affirmed of them. The Elohim and the Devouring Fire on the top of the mount were the typical manifestation of Yahweh's glory; which finds its antitype in glorious display of the things represented also in Ezek. 1:10; 43:4; Rev. 4:5; 15:2.
All these displays are Mighty Ones in Holy Spirit Nature, and therefore God : and God with them in the midst of whom the manifestation is made. The purpose of Yahweh excludes the Elohim of Sinai from the Elohim of the proclamation. This purpose is the development of Elohim from the Human Race equal to the Elohim of Sinai; or, as it is expressed in the words of Jesus, isangeloi, "equal to angels." The Scripture reveals the principle upon which the Elohim of the Universe are developed by the Eternal Spirit. They are immortals, but were not always so. The Eternal Spirit, dwelling in light, is alone essentially immortal, without beginning; but all the Mighty Ones, or Gods, He has created, have at some period of their history, been subject to evil even as we. Moses teaches this in Gen. 3:5, 22. The sagacious serpent, who had seen and heard the Elohim in Paradise"the Stars of the Dawn and Sons of God" -- told Adam and Eve that if they ate of "the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they should be as the Elohim ('gods') knowing good and evil." The lie he told did not consist in saying this; for the Yahweh-Elohim admitted that, in the eating, and its consequence, they had become like one of them, to know good and evil. "Behold," said He, "the man has become as ONE OF US, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of the Lives, and eat and live for Olahm; therefore Yahweh-Elohim sent him forth from the Garden of Eden." When this was affirmed of Adam and Eve, "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked," and they were both ashamed and afraid. This was the form of the "evil" which they experienced at that crisis; and Yahweh-Elohim testifies, that it was an evil they themselves had been the subjects of. Those who were Elohim contemporary with Adam had once been the subjects of shame and fear; and as these are symptoms of an evil conscience, they had once been sinners; and as it is the law of the Eternal Spirit's empire, that sin works death, so they must have been once mortal : which is a conclusion in agreement with Paul's testimony, that the Invisible One "only hath immortality." Hence though in His universe there are multitudes of Immortal Sons of Deity, yet in all that universe there is but One whose immortality is underived and that august person is He who created them. Thus all immortals but Himself were once mortal -- sinners subject to death; and while so subject as much in need of a remedial system as we.
But at the fitting up of earth as a new arena for the display of the power and wisdom of the Eternal Spirit, they who figure in the work, had attained to their eternal redemption; and had become "spirits" -- Holy Spirit corporeal intelligences -- because they had been born of the Eternal Spirit or Father. To what orb or planet of the universe they are indigenous, is not revealed; but as they are not ab-original to an earth-born race, they are not sovereign here; but only, as Paul says, "public official spirits, sent forth for service on account of those thereafter to inherit salvation" (Heb. 1:14).
These, then, are not " 'our' Elohim" -- they are not the Elohim of Abraham, nor the Elohim of Israel, to whom the "Sh'ma Yisraail" refers.* (The "Sh'ma Yisraail" is the proclamation made by God to Israel in Deut. 6:4 (see p.62). The words are rendered in our version as "Hear, O Israel." (Publishers). These Elohim or Sons of Power, are to be developed from the earth-born seed of Abraham, upon the great moral principle of the intellectual universe, expressed in the two words "faith" and "obedience" -- an obedient faith, tested by trial. This principle necessitates the existence of evil in the system where the development of God is in progress; for there can be, no trial where evil does not exist. The Eternal Spirit has, therefore, wisely created evil -- first as the punishment of sin and secondly, to afford scope for the manifestation of the approved. Upon this principle, Abraham's faith was tried and perfected; and upon the same principle, though not in the same way, the faith of all scripturally recognized as "his seed," is tried and perfected to this day.
The Sh'ma proclaims a plurality of Elohim, but does not define the number. Moses tells us elsewhere that they should be as the stars of the heavens for multitude--"So, O Abraham, shall thy seed be." To this agrees the testimony of the Apocalypse, where it is written "I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palms in their hands." "These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" (Rev. 7:9, 14, 17). These are they whom Ezekiel saw in a vision, moving onward in victorious career. "In their going," says he, "I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, as the voice of Mighty Ones, or in Hebrew shaddai: the sound of the speech was as the sound of a host" (Ezek. 1:24). Daniel also saw them in vision. "I beheld," says he, "until the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool' his throne the fiery flame, and his wheels burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the Judgment was set, and the books were opened" (Dan. 7:9-10). Whence came all these thousands of the fiery stream? They are all the Sons of Power: Spirits born of the Spirit; Israel's Elohim, or Mighty Ones; who were once Jews and Gentiles in unprofitable flesh: sinners under sentence of death, but justified by an intelligent and obedient faith. These are the Elohim of the Sh'ma Yisraail, the hypostasis of whom is the ONE YAHWEH -- the One Eternal Spirit multitudinously manifested in the Sons of Eternal Power. When these become apparent, "at THE ADOPTION, to wit, the redemption of the Body" (Rom. 8:23) -- the "One Body" -- then will be revealed the Mystical Christ -- the seed of Abraham -- the "Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle; his head and hairs like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if glowing in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters" (Rev. 1:13-15) -- the voice of the redeemed of all kindreds, and nations, and peoples and tongues.
Such is the hidden mystery of the Sh'ma Yisraail, revealed in the Nazarene proclamation of the Moses-like prophet and his apostolic associates. Hear, O Israel, the Eternal Spirit, who has surnamed himself 'Ehyeh,' or Yahweh, because He will be for a Starry-Multitude of Sons of Power for Abraham, is nevertheless, but One Eternal Father, and they in Him are One! "To us," then, "there is but one POWER, 'the Father,' out of whom are all, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Anointed, on account of whom are all, and we through him." All this development: of an earthborn family of Sons of God, who shall take their stand in the universe as Seraphim and Cherubim of Glory, is through and on account of Jesus Christ. He is the foundation, the chief and precious corner stone of this new manifestation of the Father-Spirit. Truly, as Moses says, it is a "Glorious and Terrible Name --Eth-Yahweh Elohekha--the I shall be thy Mighty Ones, O Israel'."
We think that by this time our readers will have comprehended the Mosaic teaching concerning God, which is the basis of the revelation which the Eternal Spirit hath given of Himself in the subsequent communications made to Israel through the prophets, Jesus and the apostles. We have seen that Moses did not teach three persons, three essences, or three anythings in One Godhead. By Godhead is meant the source, spring, or fountain of Deity -- the Divine Nature in its original pre-existence before every created thing. He teaches that this Godhead was a Unit --a Homogeneous Unit, undivided into thirds, or fractions.
