God, Angels, Jesus Christ, and the Crucifixion, continued

The suggestion that this Unknown Centre is the source of all power is in significant harmony with what the Scriptures reveal concerning God. There is a source--there must be a source--and this source must be a centre, because all power is manifested at centres. The earth draws every object on it to its centre, and pulls the moon round it as well. The earth in its turn is attracted towards the sun and drawn around it; and the sun itself with the whole framework of creation is drawn round A CENTRE. These are facts in the economy of things, and they are therefore divine facts, because the economy of things is the handiwork of God.

The testimonies quoted say that all things are OUT OF the Father. But where is THE FATHER? Does His name not imply that He is THE SOURCE? And, being the Source, is He not the Centre of creation? Some shrink from the suggestion that Deity has a located existence. Why should they? The Scriptures expressly teach the located existence of Deity. We submit the evidence: Paul says in I Tim. 6v 16. God dwells "IN THE LIGHT which no man can approach unto." Here is a localisation of the person of the Creator. If God were on earth in the same sense in which He dwells in LIGHT UNAPPROACHABLE, what could Paul mean by saying that man cannot approach? If God dwells in UNAPPROACHABLE LIGHT, He must have an existence there, which is not manifested in this mundane sphere. This is borne out by Solomon's words "God is IN HEAVEN, thou upon earth" (Ecclesiastes 5v 2); "therefore let thy words be few." Jesus inculcates the same view in the prayer which he taught his disciples: "Our Father which art IN HEAVEN." So does David, in Psalm 102v 19, 20 "He (the Lord) hath looked down from THE HEIGHT Of His sanctuary; from HEAVEN did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner." And again, in Psa. 115v 16 "The HEAVEN, even the HEAVENS, are the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of men." Solomon in the prayer by which he dedicated the temple to God (recorded in the 8th chapter of I Kings), made frequent use of this expression "Hear Thou IN HEAVEN Thy dwelling place." It is impossible to mistake the tenor of these testimonies they plainly mean that the Father of all is a person who exists in the central "HEAVEN OF HEAVENS" as He exists nowhere else. By His Spirit in immensely-filling diffusion, He is everywhere present in the sense of holding and knowing, and being conscious of creation to its utmost bounds; but in His proper person, all-glorious, beyond human power to conceive, He dwells in heaven.

Consider the ascension of our Lord, after his resurrection, and mark its tendency in this direction. Luke says (chap. 24v 51),

"He was parted from them, and carried up into HEAVEN," and Mark reiterates the statement "He was received up INTO HEAVEN, and sat on the right hand of God" (Mark 16v 19). These statements can only be understood on the principle that the Deity has a personal manifested existence in "THE HEAVENS."

What part of the wide heavens this honoured spot may occupy, we cannot and need not know. Probably it is that great undiscovered astronomical centre to which allusion has already been made.

There is great and invincible repugnance to this evidently Scriptural and reasonable, and beautiful view of the matter. It is the popular habit, where serious views of God are entertained at all, to conceive of Him as a principle or energy in universal diffusion--without corporeal nucleus, without local habitation, "without body or parts." There is no ground for this popular predilection, except such as philosophy may be supposed to furnish. Philosophy is a poor guide in the matter. Philosophy, after all, is only human thought. It can have little weight in a matter confessedly beyond human ken. The question is, What is revealed? We need not be concerned if what is revealed is contrary to. philosophical conceptions of the matter. Philosophical conceptions are just as likely to be wrong as right. Paul warns believers against the danger of being spoiled through philosophy (Col. 2v 8). Philosophy or no philosophy, the Scriptures quoted plainly teach that the Father is a tangible person, in whom all the powers of the Universe converge.

There is other evidence in the occurrences at Mount Sinai. There Moses had intercourse with the Deity. We will not say that the Being with whom he had this intercourse was actually THE ETERNAL ONE, because it is evident, from what Stephen and Paul teach, that it was an angelic manifestation (Acts 7v 38, 53; Heb. 2v 2); and because Christ declares no man hath seen God at any time (John 1v 18). Yet it is affirmed that to Moses it was a similitude of Jehovah (Num. 12v 8). It was, therefore, a manifestation of the Deity; and, if so, it illustrated the reality of the Deity; for the Deity must be higher, greater, and more real than His subordinate manifestations. The testimony is as follows:

"The Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I COME UNTO THEE IN A THICK CLOUD, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever Be ready against the third day: for the third day THE LORD WILL COME DOWN in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai... And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were THUNDERS AND LIGHTNINGS, and a thick cloud upon the Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the Mount.

"And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, BECAUSE THE LORD DESCENDED UPON IT IN FIRE, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly . . . And God spake all these words (the ten commandments) . . . And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, 'Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die'.... And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness, WHERE GOD WAS. And the Lord said unto Moses, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven," etc. (Ex. 19v 9, 11, 16-18: 20v 1, 18-22).