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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:1, 26; 2:4; Exo. 3:14-15; Gen. 15:2, 8; Matt. 1:1, 16, 18, 20-23; Acts 2:36; 10:36; John 7:38-39; Rev. 22:17; 1:4, 8; 11:15; 20:6
The central line of the divine revelation begins with God. What the Bible reveals first and last is God. Nearly every page of the Bible reveals God. God is the main factor in the divine revelation. The Bible shows us the titles of God and the person of God. Then it goes on to show us His economy and His dispensing. These four things are the alpha of the divine revelation — God’s titles, God’s person, God’s economy, and the way to accomplish His economy, which is to dispense Himself into His chosen people. Later, we will see how God carried out His creation in the view of dispensing Himself into His chosen people. The main things that followed God’s creation and man’s fall were the age of promise and the age of types. There were many promises and many types as prefigures of the things to come. In all the types we can see God’s dispensing, and in the promises it is the same.
In the New Testament the first major item is incarnation. We want to study the incarnation this time in a very renewed way. Then we will go on to see Christ’s humanity, including His human living, His all-inclusive death, His resurrection, and His ascension with His heavenly ministry. In His ascension and by His resurrection He ministers, by the divine dispensing, in the heavenlies to produce the church, to build up the church, and to consummate the church age. Then we will fellowship about His appearing. He will appear as a stone from the heavens to fall upon the human government, to smash it, and to crush it (Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45). This will bring in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, the millennium, which will eventually consummate in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem. The negative things and persons in the universe are cleared up through Christ’s death and His last appearing.
Still, however, the rebellious element remains within man during the millennium. Thus, at the end of the millennium there is the last rebellion of mankind instigated by Satan (Rev. 20:7-10). This will be a final sifting of man’s rebellious nature, which will be fully purged away by the Lord’s final judgment on mankind. During the millennium the heavens and the earth remain old. God uses four ages to purge the oldness out of His creation — the age before the law, the age of the law, the age of grace, and the age of the kingdom. Through these four ages everything is brought into His divine newness. The kingdom age, the age of the millennium, will be the age of restoration but not the age of complete newness.
Although Christ’s crucifixion and His second appearing clear up the universe, the old nature of the old creation will still remain. Then there is a need of a burning through which the old heavens and old earth will become new. The new heaven and new earth are produced through a baptism, not of water but of fire (2 Pet. 3:7, 10, 12-13). The entire old heavens and old earth will be baptized in fire. The fire will renew the heavens and the earth into God’s divine newness, consummating in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem with the new heaven and new earth will be the eternal completion, the consummation, of God’s economy. This is the central line of the divine revelation.
We need to pray that we may enter into all these items of the central line of the divine revelation so that we can live Christ and be today’s overcomers to change the age like Daniel and his three companions did. For us to be overcomers we need to know the Word. In order to know the Word properly and fully, we need the help of a proper exposition. Acts 8 tells us of an Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah 53. The Holy Spirit told Philip to visit him because the Holy Spirit knew that the eunuch was not understanding anything. Thus, Philip asked him, “Do you really know the things that you are reading?” (Acts 8:30). The eunuch responded, “How could I unless someone guides me?” (v. 31). This shows that we need the proper opening and expounding of the Word in order to understand it.
Zechariah 1 presents a vision of a man as the Angel of Jehovah riding upon a red horse and standing among the myrtle trees (vv. 7-17). How could we understand this without the proper exposition? I read and studied Zechariah 1 many times without understanding this vision. This vision unveils Christ as the Angel of Jehovah in His humanity. His riding upon a red horse typifies Him moving swiftly in His redemption. The myrtle trees, which are shrub-like trees growing in the valley, signify the precious yet humiliated people of Israel in their captivity. Christ as the Angel of Jehovah was remaining vigorously among the captured Israel in the lowest part of the valley in their humiliation. Without the proper expounding of Zechariah 1 in this way, this chapter is very difficult to understand. The apostle Paul was a major interpreter of the Old Testament types. His book of Hebrews is an exposition of the types in Leviticus.
After the completion of the book of Revelation and beginning in the second century, the church fathers began to study the entire Bible. They were real scholars. They saw that God is triune, and they used this term to describe God. Throughout the centuries many scholars have studied the Bible. Today we have inherited the best interpretations of the Bible, and we are standing on the shoulders of many who have gone before us.
In this series of messages we want to see the central line of the divine revelation. I want to help people know the Bible not merely in letter but in revelation.
Elohim, Jehovah, and Adonai are the three major, divine titles used for God in the Old Testament.
Elohim, a plural noun in Hebrew, implies the notions of the strong One and faithfulness, hence, the faithful, strong One. Our God is strong and faithful. He is strong in strength and faithful in word. Whatever He does shows forth His strength. Whatever He says, He will keep. He is the strong, faithful One. Elohim is a uni-plural noun. The plurality of the word Elohim implies the Divine Trinity (Gen. 1:26a; 3:22a; 11:7a; Isa. 6:8a; John 17:11b, 22b; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). This title, denoting the unique yet triune God, is used more than two thousand five hundred times in the Old Testament.
Jehovah is another divine title of God (Gen. 2:4), literally meaning “He that is who He is, therefore the eternal I Am.” This title primarily denotes the self-existent and ever-existent One (Exo. 3:14-15; John 8:24b, 28a, 58; Rev. 1:4, 8). As Jehovah, He is the One who was in the past, who is in the present, and who is to come in the future. Revelation 1:4 speaks of “Him who is and who was and who is coming.” In the past He was, in the present He is, and in the future He is to be. He is the great I Am. The Lord Jesus told the Pharisees, “Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24b). Eventually, they asked Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus responded, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I am” (vv. 57-58). The Lord Jesus is the great I Am in every age. He is everything. Whatever we need, He is. He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our sight, our ability, our capacity, our light, our life, our righteousness, our holiness, and our kindness. He is thousands of items to us because He is everything and He is in every time.
When Moses was called by God, Moses asked Him what His name was. Exodus 3:13 and 14 say, “Moses said to God, If I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is His name? what shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.” As the I Am, He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob — the threefold yet unique and one God (v. 15). In His person there is the Father like Abraham, the Son like Isaac, and the third One like Jacob. He is threefold yet one unique God.
As the I Am, He is eternal. This means that He does not have a beginning or an ending. A circle is a good illustration of eternity, since in appearance it does not have a beginning or an ending. At a certain place on the circle, we may place a cross signifying the crucifixion of Christ. Where in relation to the cross on the circle would you put Old Testament saints such as Adam and Moses, and where would you put all the believers in Christ throughout the centuries? It would be difficult to say, according to such a diagram, who is before the cross and who is after. This is why Revelation 13:8 says that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, and 1 Peter 1:20 says that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Although Christ’s redemption was accomplished in time, it is an eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). According to God’s figuration, in His way of eternity, it is difficult to say what comes first and what comes last. Jehovah, the eternal One, is in every age. He was in the past, He is in the present, and He will be in the future. He existed, He exists, and He will exist. He is everything, and He is everywhere because He is eternal.
Genesis 18 records that three persons came to visit Abraham. One was Jehovah, and the others were angels. Jehovah appeared to Abraham as a real man. Abraham prepared water for Him to wash His feet, and Sarah prepared a meal for Him to eat (vv. 3-8). He was in the form of a man. Before His incarnation He had already appeared to Abraham as a man. Surely God became a man in time at His incarnation, but with God there is no element of time. With God there is no beginning and no ending. On a certain day in time, the very God, Jehovah, entered into the womb of a human virgin and was born as a man. According to human history, this happened about two thousand years ago. But in God’s sight the incarnation is eternal.
His crucifixion is also eternal. Revelation 13:8 points out that He was slain from the foundation of the world. In God’s eyes, according to His figuration, Christ was slain from the beginning of the creation. However, in time Christ was slain much later. From Adam’s creation to Christ’s crucifixion there were about four thousand years. But in God’s eyes Christ was slain when creation began. With Jehovah there is no time element. He is the One who was, who is, and who is forever.
The Lord Jesus is the great I Am. When the soldiers and deputies from the chief priests and Pharisees came to arrest Jesus and told Him that they were seeking Jesus the Nazarene, He said to them, “I am.” I Am is the name of Jehovah. When the soldiers heard this name, they drew back and fell to the ground (John 18:4-6). The name Jesus means “Jehovah the Savior.” Jesus is Jehovah. The title Jehovah, denoting the Triune God as the One who is not only eternally existing but also eternally being, is used more than seven thousand times in the Old Testament.
Adonai, in Hebrew, denotes Master (Gen. 15:2, 8; Exo. 4:10; cf. Gen. 24:9-10, 12) and Husband (cf. 18:12). In Genesis 24 Abraham’s old servant called Abraham his master. A slave has a lord, and that lord is his master, his owner, his possessor. In Genesis 18:12 Sarah referred to Abraham as her lord. The husband is the lord to the wife, and the lord is the master. On the one hand, our God is our Master. On the other hand, our God is our Husband. As our Master and our Husband, He is our Lord; He is our Adonai.
In the New Testament, the main divine titles used are God, Father, Lord, Jesus, Christ, and Holy Spirit.
God in Greek is Theos. God, Theos, equals God, Elohim, in the Old Testament, denoting the unique yet triune God (1 Cor. 8:4, 6; 1 Tim. 2:5a) — the Father being God (1 Pet. 1:2-3), the Son being God (Heb. 1:8), and the Holy Spirit being God (Acts 5:3-4). Theologians have accurately pointed out that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not three separate gods but three hypostases, or supporting substances, of the one God. Later, theologians began to use the word persons for the three of the Godhead. Person comes from the Latin word persona, which in ancient times referred to an actor’s mask. One person can have three masks or appearances.
Since I came to the United States, I have spoken much on the Divine Trinity. Some have said wrongly that the three of the Godhead — the Father, Son, and Spirit — are separate from one another. I published something pointing out that the three of the Godhead are distinct but not separate. They are always one. When we have the Father, we have the Son and the Spirit because the three are one. When the Son is here, the Spirit and the Father are with Him. The three are not separate. They are distinct but one.
God is three yet one. In essence God is one. In economy, in God’s move, God is three. This is why the best theology refers to the essential Trinity and the economical Trinity. Essentially God is one, but economically God is three. God the Father sent the Son in His economy, in His move. The Son did things by the Spirit in His move. The Father, Son, and Spirit are three economically in Their move and administration but not in Their essence. Essentially, God is one. This is why the Bible shows that the Son is the Father (Isa. 9:6; John 14:9). Furthermore, Paul says that the last Adam, who was the Son in the flesh, after His death and resurrection became a life-giving Spirit. He says in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that the Lord, the Son, is the Spirit. In verse 18 Paul says that we are being transformed “from the Lord Spirit.” The Lord Spirit is a compound title like the Father God and the Lord Christ. This means that the Spirit is the Lord and the Lord is the Spirit.
John indicates that the Son is the expression of the Father. This is why the Son said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (14:9). He also said, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (v. 11). Humanly speaking, no one can understand this. We may say that we are one with another person, but no human being can say that he is in another one and that this other one is in him. The Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son. This is coinherence. The three of the Godhead not only coexist but also coinhere. The Son also pointed out that He did not speak from Himself and that His speaking was the Father’s speaking and working (vv. 10, 24). This is because the Son and the Father are one. Some may say that they believe that God is triune, when they actually have a tritheistic concept of three gods. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three gods. They are one God with three aspects — the aspect as the Father, the aspect as the Son, and the aspect as the Spirit.
Another divine title used in the New Testament is Father. Father, in Greek Pater, denotes that God as the Father is the origin, the source, of all the families of God’s creatures (Eph. 3:14-15). In God’s creation there are many families, such as the family of the angels, the family of mankind, and the family of the animals. The source, the Father, of these families is God.
Eventually, there is a particular family, the highest family, which is the household of the faith (Gal. 6:10). God is the Father, especially of the household of the faith, which is begotten of Him. We believers are a particular family. Actually, we are the genuine family because we were not only created by God as the Creator, the origin, the source, but also regenerated, begotten by God. God has imparted His life essence into our being.
God is the Father of the human race. Luke 3:38 says that Adam was the son of God, but that does not mean that Adam was begotten of God. Adam was only created by God. God was not his Father in life but his Father in creation as the origin. In the new creation, however, we have a Father in life who regenerated us, who imparted His very life essence into us. We are His genuine family, the family of faith, the household of faith.
The Father is also called Abba (Aramaic) Father (Greek). In the Gospels the Lord Jesus addressed God as Abba Father (Mark 14:36). The apostle Paul also says that we cry, Abba, Father! in the spirit of sonship (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Abba, Father is an intensified expression of intimacy. When we say Father, this is sweet. When we say Abba, this is sweeter. But when we say Abba, Father, this is the sweetest.
Lord, in Greek Kurios, denotes Jesus Christ as the Lord of all, who possesses all (John 20:28; Acts 2:36; 10:36). It is often used as a substitute for the title Jehovah in the Old Testament, as in Mark 1:3. Mark 1:3 quotes the word of the Old Testament in Isaiah 40:3. In the word of the Old Testament, it was Jehovah. In the quotation in the New Testament, it becomes the Lord. This indicates that the Lord in the New Testament is a substitute for Jehovah. Another Greek word, Despotes, is used to denote either God or the Lord Jesus as the Master of the slaves (Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10; Jude 4; 2 Pet. 2:1; cf. 1 Tim. 6:1-2). In the Old Testament the Master of the slaves is called Adonai, but in the New Testament, in the Greek, He is called Despotes.
Jesus, meaning “Jehovah the Savior” or “Jehovah the salvation” (Matt. 1:21), denotes that Jesus is Jehovah God becoming our Savior or Jehovah God becoming our salvation. This means that Jesus is the complete God becoming a perfect man (v. 23), thus, a God-man (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus is a God-man. He is the very God and the perfect man.
Christ, in Greek Christos (Matt. 1:16b), equals Messiah in Hebrew (John 1:41; Dan. 9:26). Both of these terms mean the “anointed One” (Psa. 2:2). Christ is God’s anointed One. Christ is a title of commission. To be anointed means to be appointed by God to be His Christ, to be His anointed One, for the accomplishing of His eternal economy (Luke 4:18-19). The anointed One of God accomplishes God’s economy in His salvation. In the New Testament the two titles, Jesus and Christ, are often used as a compound title, either Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus (Matt. 1:1a, 18a; 1 Tim. 1:15-16).
The divine title Holy Spirit, meaning “the Spirit who is holy,” refers to the Spirit of God, who is God and the Lord Himself. Acts 5:3-4 and 9 show this. In verse 3 Peter told Ananias that he lied to the Holy Spirit. In verse 4 he said that Ananias lied to God. Then in verse 9 he told Sapphira that she and Ananias tested the Spirit of the Lord. This indicates that the Holy Spirit is both God and the Lord.
I hope that this simple study of the divine titles will help us. We should do our best to remember these primary divine titles of God. The New Testament also speaks of the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is mentioned in Acts 16:7, the Spirit of Christ is mentioned in Romans 8:9, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is seen in Philippians 1:19. The Spirit of Jesus refers to Jesus as the One who suffered, the Spirit of Christ indicates that Jesus is the One in resurrection, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ indicates that the Lord is the One who suffered and who is now in resurrection. The divine titles in the Bible are very meaningful. In order to know our God, we need to know His divine titles. Our God is not that simple. He is Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, God, Father, Lord, Jesus, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
