Isaiah 45:5: "I am the LORD, and
there is no other; besides me there is no God. I will equip you, though you do
not know me".
Isaiah 44:6: "Thus says the Lord,
the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I
am the last; besides me there is no god”".
The
Christians are not claiming that simply 'God' was incarnate in Jesus. They are
claiming that the one true God is He whom the Jews worshipped as Yahweh, and
that it is He who has descended. Now the double character of Yahweh is this. On
the one hand He is the God of Nature, her glad Creator. It is He who sends rain
into the furrows till the valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and
sing. The trees of the wood rejoice before Him and His voice causes the wild deer
to bring forth their young. He is the God of wheat and wine and oil. In that
respect He is constantly doing all the things that Nature-Gods do: He is
Bacchus, Venus, Ceres all rolled into one. ....
On the
other hand, Yahweh is clearly not a Nature-God. He does not die and
come to life each year as a true Corn-king should. .... He is not the soul of
Nature nor of any part of Nature. He inhabits eternity: He dwells in the high
and holy place: heaven is His throne, not His vehicle, earth is His footstool,
not His vesture. One day He will dismantle both and make a new heaven and
earth. He is not to be identified even with the 'divine spark' in man. He is
'God and not man'. ....
Yahweh is
neither the soul of Nature nor her enemy. .... She is His creature. He is not a
nature-God, but the God of Nature—her inventor, maker, owner, and controller.
To everyone who reads this book the conception has been familiar from
childhood; we therefore easily think it is the most ordinary conception in the
world. 'If people are going to believe in a God at all,' we ask, 'what other
kind would they believe in?' But the answer of history is, 'Almost any other
kind'.
Isaiah 45:21-22: "Is it not I, the
LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there
is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I
am God, and there is no other".
Isaiah 46:9: "Remember the former
things of long ago; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is
none like me".
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