The Only True God

“This is life eternal, that they might know thee, The only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent “(John, 17 :3).

To know this one true God, it is necessary to learn from His word — the Bible — of the things which He has done in the past, and the things which He has promised to do in the future. In learning of Him, we come to believe in Him, and to have faith that what He has promised, He is able to fulfill. “But without faith it is impossible to please him ; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarded of them that diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

In “Old Testament” times, God manifested Himself to mankind through angels and, in some cases, these angels are called “God” and “Lord,” because they are God’s agents in carrying out His will. We have one such case in Ex. 3 :2-4 where Moses was attracted to a flame of fire which he saw in the midst of a bush. He turned aside to see why the bush, though burning, was not consumed. Verse 2 says that it was “The angel of God” who thus appeared to him, while verse 4 relates, “And the Lord saw that he turned aside to see” and, “God called unto him out of the midst of the bush.” So we see that when an angel is doing God’s bidding, he is called by the name of God.

Another incident where an angel is called God is in Exo. 19:2-3, where it relates of Moses going up unto God in Mount Sinai, and of the Lord calling unto him. Stephen, speaking of this same incident in Act 7 :38, says “The Angel which spake to him (Moses) in the Mount Sinai.” To make this a little more clear in our minds, we turn to Exod. 23:20,21, and there we read of God telling Israel —through Moses—that an angel should go before them as they travelled to the land of promise, and warning them to obey his voice, “For my name (God’s name) is in him.” This helps us to understand better Gen. 1 :26, where we read “And God said let us make man in our image.” This again would be the angels of God doing His will.

When God sent Moses to deliver His people Israel from Egypt, he was instructed to say, “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you.” The prophets of Israel, and later, the disciples of Jesus Christ often spoke of God, as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob —thus emphasizing the fact that Israel are His chosen people, and that He guided them and watched over them—because of His covenant with their fathers.

In Exo. 20:3-5, God commanded Israel that they should have no other gods before Him. Also they were forbidden to make any graven image or any likeness of anything in the heaven, the earth, or the water. They were forbidden to bow down to, or to worship any other god.

Coming to “The New Testament,” Jesus is very emphatic in His teaching about the one and only true God—in replying to the scribe who came to him — He quoted from Duet. 6:4, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29).

Jesus recognised the supremacy of God over himself. He said, “My Father . . . is greater than all” (John 10:29), and again “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Also in John 5:19, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” In this same connection we see that the apostles of Jesus Christ also recognised the supremacy of the Father over His Son, for Paul says in 1 Cor. 11 :3, “The head of Christ is God.” Jesus does say in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one,” but if we look at John 17 :21 and 22, we shall see wherein this “oneness” consisted. Jesus prayed that His disciples, and those who believed on Him through their word, might be one, even as He and His Father were one—that is, one in mind and purpose.

From the foregoing scriptures we can see that Jesus was not “coequal” with the Father; it was he who said, “My Father is greater than I.” In John 17:24, Jesus said that the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world. This does not mean that Jesus was “coexistent” and “co-eternal with the Father, but that He was in the plan and purpose of the Father from the beginning. He (Jesus) was the seed promised to Eve (Gen. 3:15), who was to bruise the serpent, or sin power in the head.

Eve thought when Seth was born that he was this promised seed. She was, however, premature in her hopes at that time, but the seed did come through Seth—the forerunner of Noah—who was the father of Shem — who, in turn, was the ancestor of Abraham. To this man Abraham a seed was again promised through whom all nations of the earth were to be blessed, because he (Abraham) obeyed God’s voice (Gen. 22:18).

To prove to us that this seed promised to Abraham was the Lord Jesus Christ, we refer to Gal. 3:16, where we read “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ”. So we begin to see in what way the Father loved Jesus before, or from the foundation of the world, for it was to be through His own beloved Son that the blessings promised to Abraham were to be fulfilled. As Peter said, “God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning every one of you from his sins (Acts 3:25,26).

Jesus is the “way” to the Father —the one and only true God. He is the mediator between God and man. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. This (then) is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).