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dwell on all the face of the earth."
WHO is Goo? CREATION is the ha–
sic proof of God. These Athenian
Epicureans and Stoics did not even
know that. Perhaps the adherents of
many religions do not.
But what of the real NATURE of
God? Just WHO and WHAT is God ?
We need a more concrete under–
standing than to say, merely, that
God is the Being who created all.
That is the starting point. Only the
one original Church Jesus founded in
A.D. 31 has the full answer.
lt
seems inconceivable that, of all
the religions and churches in the
world today, only ONE is unique in
UNDERSTANDING the nature of the
CREATOR of all that is!
Mankind
cou/d
know! God reveals
Himself in plain language in His
Word, the Holy Bible. But no book
has been so distorted, twisted, and
misrepresented as this ONE SUPREME
AUTHORITY OF TRUTH!
The generally accepted teaching of
traditional Christianity is that God is
a "Trinity"-God in three Persons–
Fa ther, Son, and Holy Spi rit, which
is designated as a "Ghost."
By about A.D.
59
the gospel Jesus
Christ proclaimed had been sup–
pressed (Gal. 1:6-7). A counterfeit
"gospel" had replaced it. From about
A.D. 70 there ensued "the lost cen–
tury" of Church history. All historie
record of the true Church of God had
been systematically destroyed during
that hundred years. The curtain had
been rung down on Church activities,
and when tbe curtain of recorded his–
tory lifted, an entirely
dtfferent
church appeared, calling itself
"Christian." Extreme persecution by
powerful forces had driven the true
Church of God underground.
The church by the fourth century
was more like the Babylonian mys–
tery religion, having appropriated the
name "Christianity" (Rev. 17:5).
There had been two heated doctri–
nal controversies-one called the
Quartodeciman controversy between
Polycrates and the bishops of Rome
on the observance of the spring festi–
val (should Passover or Easter be cel–
ebrated?). The other, between Arius,
a priest of Alexandria, and the Ro–
roan bishops on the Trinity doc–
trine.
The
PLAIN TRUTH February 1979
Emperor Constantine, the su–
preme head of the Roman Empire,
called the Nicene Council in A.D. 325
and made both the pagan Easter
(named from the goddess Astarte)
and the Trinity doctrine LAw!
The T rinity doctrine
limited
God
to three Persons. More of that later.
The King James biblical scholars
translated the Greek words for Holy
Spirit as "Holy Ghost," under the
delusion that the Spirit of God was a
third Person.
Also the transla tors of the 161 1
version usually used the pronouns
"he," "him," etc., in relation to the
Holy Spirit, but not always: The pro–
noun "it" also is used.
But how does God reveal Himself
authoritatively?
lf one should ask, "Where, in or–
der of time sequence, do we find the
real beginning in the Bible?" the re–
ply probably would be Genesis 1:1,
beginning with the words, " In the be–
ginning God.. .. "
RIGHT?
WRONG! In order of time sequence
the earliest prehistoric revelation is
in the New Testament , in John 1:1-3:
" In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were
made by him; and without him was
not any thing made that wa s
made."
The Word was one Personage.
God was another Personage. Yet the
Word was a Personage separate from
God-as shown in verse 14: "And the
Word was [much later] made flesh,
and dwelt among us.... " The Word
became
Jesus Christ.
The English "Word" is translated
from the original Greek
Logos,
meaning "Word" or "Spokesman."
That all things were made by Him
is confirmed in Ephesians 3:9, where
it speaks of God "who created all
things by Jesus Christ." "He spake,
and it was done" (Ps. 33:9).
Here are TWO Personages, yet
both are Goo. How is that? A man
named David Smith may have a son
named Paul. But Paul, though a sep–
arate individual, is also a Smith.
However, Jesus Christ did not be–
come the Son of God until about
4
B.C.,
when born in human flesh of
the vi rgin Mary. Prior to that, He
had ALWAYS existed, even as had
God. Christ was originally "without
father, without mother , without de–
scent, having neither beginning of
days, nor end of life" (Heb. 7:3) .
Now cometo Genesis 1:1: " In the
beginning God.... " This was writ–
ten originally by Moses in the He–
brew language. The English "God" is
translated from the Hebrew
Elo–
him-a
uniplural noun.
lt
is uniplu–
ral in the same sense as the words
"family" and "church"-denoting
more than one component forming
the whole. Not two Gods-but ONE
God consisting of more than one Per–
son.
When, only nineteen hundred-plus
years ago, Jesus was begotten of God
in the womb of His human mother
Mary, He was the
only
human ever
so begotten
prior
ro
human birth!
Yet , as we shall see later, humans
may become begotten children of
God- after
human birth, but preced–
ing a spi ritual birth.
Throughout the first chapter of
Genesis, the Hebrew name of God is
a lways the Hebrew
Elohim,
which
denotes both the Word and God.
But in chapter 2, Moses began
adding another name for God-
Yah–
weh
in the Hebrew, usually combined
with
Elohim: Yahweh-Eiohim.
In
the King James English translation,
it is rendered "LORD God," which is
somewhat misleading.
lt
is interesting, a t this point, to
explain this name
Yahweh.
There is
no one word in the English language
which adequately translates it.
It
means "the self-existent, eternal-liv–
ing, creative one." The Moffatt
translation renders it "the Eterna!."
The Fenton translation uses "the
Ever-Living." Personally, 1 prefer to
use only the one word "Eterna!," in–
stead of " Lord."
In any event, the English "LORD"
in the King James translation refers
to that
Person
in the Godhead who in
John 1:1 is called "the Word"-the
very one who later became Jesus
Christ.
Who Was the God
of the Old Test ament?
That leads to an important point in
the UNDERSTANDING of WHO and
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