1. Elohim - God

Remarks upon some of the occurrences thereof. (Continued from Vol. 2 p. 421)
This name occurs unconnected with any other name, in the portion of scripture, Gen. 1:1, to 2:3, which contains the recital of the creation. The diversity of the Divine action and glory, as there recorded, is very great; but all of it is expressive of that which is simply Elohim-glory.
In Eden, He calls Himself "Jehovah-Elohim," and never anything else; that is, as to the book of Genesis, from chap. 2:4 to 3:24, inclusive. But no sooner are we out of Eden, than the name of Elohim (God) is dropped; and we read, as to the Divine action which follows, neither of Elohim (God), nor of Jehovah-Elohim (Lord-God), but simply of Jehovah (or Lord). See chap. 4:4: "The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering;" and ver. 6: "And the Lord said unto Cain;" so, also, ver. 9, 15, etc.: in connection with which we may remark, that (ver. 26) it was said in Seth's family, "Then began men to call upon (or call themselves by) the name of the Lord."
That the Spirit of God should have used "Elohim" as the designation, while describing creation - "Jehovah-Elohim" while describing the Eden scene - and "Jehovah," for the designation after man's expulsion from paradise, is remarkable, to say the least; and, certainly, it was intentional.
I have said, that in Eden He calls Himself Jehovah-Elohim, and never anything else.- In contrast with this, I notice, that in the temptation of man in Eden, the tempter drops the former title altogether-never uses it; so that he speaks only of God: "And he (the serpent) said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Gen. 3:5); and, " Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day' ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open; and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil" (ver. 4, 5). This, and the counterpart of it in Eve, whose answer to the tempter, in like manner, only records the name of " God," is to be observed: " The woman said unto the serpent.... God hath said," etc. (ver. 3).
To the rest of creation, as in Gen. 1, Elohim had not set Himself in Jehovah-Elohim relationship. On Adam and Eve alone, in Eden, that relationship bad shined forth; and it was under the power of the additional blessing found under the compound title, that man was blessed and set upon responsibility. Part of Satan's guile was thus to throw the mind back, out of its present, full, distinctive portion, to another portion, which, though it flowed from the same Person, as Source, and was a blessing to Adam and Eve, was not the distinctive one, upon the ground of which He that had blessed them stood toward them, or held them toward Himself in blessing and in responsibility. It was on this ground, therefore, that the intelligence and affection of Adam and Eve were placed, fed, and sustained. To let this slip, and sink back to the lower ground, was injurious to themselves in the extreme. Here was woman's weakness found; and the stepping back, even if all that the adversary suggested that their Blesser had said had been correctly given, might have suggested a lie; and the admission of the suggestion might have been the acceptance of a lie. It might be true in itself, without being the whole of truth as to themselves.
Elohim and Jehovah-Elohim are one and the same Being; but the display of the manifestations of Elohim-glory is different from the display of the manifestation of Jehovah-Elohim-glory. The privileges capacities, and responsibilities of being under the two differ, though they may both be combined, as they were in Eden, in one and the same party-the human family; but then, and necessarily so, it is the distinctive part of the portion which becomes separative. I cannot doubt but that this, as a principle, is overlooked by the large mass of believers; and that their overlooking of it is to them a mischievous weakness, resulting from a malicious wile of Satan. For it is always true, that if we merge what is distinctive to ourselves in what is common to others, we not only lose our own places, but displace all that is above us, and misplace all that is around and below. Dispensational privilege constitutes dispensational responsibility always; and the first assailant of distinctive privilege, blessing, and responsibility-the first successful attempter of entanglement to the human mind, as to its present subjection and responsibility, by means of merging that which was distinctively peculiar in that which was general and in common-is here presented to us in the serpent.,
- Eternal power and Godhead manifested in the origination of a system; that is what I see in Gen. 1:1; 2:3. The human race set at the bead and as the center of that system, in intelligent dependence and subjection to Jehovah-Elohim; that is what I see in Eden. Had Eve known in herself one proof of power to originate? No; not one. How came she to assume that it was in her then? I should say, " By forgetting her distinctive and peculiar place." She was made to be a help-meet for him into whose hand, to dress it and to keep it, the garden had been given-the honored creature of Jehovah-Elohim. Intelligence in that which is the Divine testimony to us, is power and blessing; the forgetfulness of it, or the corruption or the dilution of it by us has, on the other hand, its corresponding results of ruin and 'weakness.
As to that which is Divine: it had been well-pleasing that, in the midst of that which was to be an expression of Elohim-glory, there should yet bud and germinate something more bright, a fair expression of the Jehovah-Elohim glory. None could stay the blessing, or prevent it. Beguiled, Eve forgat her peculiar connection with and place in the latter, and blindly assumed to herself that she had merely the former.
Let me remark here, ere passing on, that as man's extremity is God's opportunity, so just in this betrayal to Satan, by man, of the charge entrusted to him (for it was man's sin which let Satan into the place of power over man, and, in a certain sense, over man's inheritance, namely, the earth), that the occasion arose for God to show forth the unsearchable depths of His own infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. He could originate that which would meet the needs of His own glory, even in such a case as this; and He could introduce that which would, without any compromise to His own character, eject the power of the adversary, and place man (and man able to stand, too) in fuller and more developed relationship with a heaven and an earth of this globe. And (worthy expression of that Elohim-glory) the seed of the woman, who was beguiled, should bruise the head of the serpent who beguiled her. Redemption by Christ will bring in a full, a perfect display of Elohim-glory; and present, too, a full, a perfect display of Jehovah-Elohim, in blessed relationship with man on the earth---yet in a new phase from what was at first, be-cause God manifest in the flesh will be the pillar of the tabernacle, the dispensing Sun of blessing in that day. And this will necessarily affect and modify everything. The very display of the Trinity will be modified; for the display will be of Jehovah-Elohim-Shaddai and of the Lamb (see Rev. 21;22). And that name, Shaddai, as expressive of power (Almighty), will circle and close in the fruits of redemption-toil in everlasting blessing.
The first place in which we find the word used in a subordinate application, is in Gen. 5, when, in Eden, Satan suggested, " Ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil." It was true; for the Lord God said, when they had done as the serpent suggested (ver. 22), " The man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." But it was truth apart from God as its giver or suggester; and a truth taken out of God's system and order, and misplaced, is not for blessing: The possession of the knowledge of good and evil might be in itself incompatible with man's blessedness, as standing in creation-blessedness; the mode in which it was obtained, certainly, ensured its being a curse, for it was gained by an act of practical independence of God-by positive disobedience. God could know good and evil, and hate the evil and love the good. Satan might know good and evil, to hate the good and to love the evil. Man has known it; and what to him has been the benefit of this knowledge in itself? It came with disobedience; and there in Eden, near to God, it taught first of nakedness, and then of God-a God of judgment.
Out of God's presence, the balance-beam of conscience may go up and down, up and down, quivering in judgment upon right and wrong; but the heart, far from God, loves its own way still, and will take it. But con-science, fruit of the fall, never had power to make a man love the good and refuse the evil. It is to be observed, that the effects of the acquisition of this knowledge were more than one. It did lead into a perception of man's nakedness, and of that nakedness exposing him to God's holiness. God's holiness and man, as he then was, could not meet, save to man's discomfort; but this discovery was attended also with a power of ingenious blending of circumstances around man, so as to meet, as best he might, the difficulties of his own sin-produced needs. The fig-leaf apron, the hiding in the bushes, if foolishness as remedies to the Divine mind, and if sure to pass before His presence more quickly than the dew before the sun, yet told of man at work for himself, blending his own circumstances to meet his own thoughts of his needs. The amelioration of the world, its steam-ships, its railroads, its electric telegraphs, etc., etc.-all that the pride of highly-cultivated civilization now boasts in -is fruit from this root. Just so is all the religion of fallen human nature. Fallen man at work for himself, to alleviate his own misery, or fallen man at work to fact that after chap. 9 the word Elohim does not occur again until chap. 17.
The use of the word occurs also in chap. 19:29: " When God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow " etc., etc.; so (in chap. 20, in the inter- course of God with Abimelech in the matter of Abraham's wife) we find the word largely used; also in chap. 21, the subject being Sarah's conception and Ishmael's rejection; and in chap. 22, which gives the trial of Abraham's faith.
These four chapters, viz., the nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second, deserve a special study.
The connection of this name with any particular person, people, place, etc., gives to that which is thus spoken of a peculiar and sometimes a distinctive honor. Thus He calls Himself constantly "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob;" but we read not of Him as the God of Lot, the God of Esau, of Ammon, or of Moab. So, again, we read of "the God of your fathers" (the address is to Israel). "The God of Israel" is faith's language. Again we hear of "the God of David;" "of Elijah;" "the God of heaven and of earth" (Gen. 24.3), etc.; and (2 Kings 19.16) of "the living God."
In many places the word is used as an adjective, and the force is then vague; the more so, perhaps, because it-is then rarely used by faith. Thus (Gen. 23.6), " Hear us, my lord," said the children of Heth; "thou art a prince of God among us: in the choice of our sepulchers bury thy dead." Again; Rachel said (chap. 30:8), "With wrestlings of God have I wrestled with my Sister, and I have prevailed." See, also, Ex. 9:28: "Intreat the Lord for us," said Pharaoh, "that there be no more thunderings of God."
There are a few passages to be at least noted by the Christian reader: "Thou [Moses] shalt be to him [Aaron] instead of God" (Ex. 2.16). " I have made thee a god to Pharaoh" (chap. 7:1).
In Exodus it is the word translated judges; see chap. 22:8(7), 9(8), 20 (19), 28 (27); so, also, in 1 Sam. 2:25: "The judges shall judge him."
In Psa. 8:5 it is translated angels: "made him a little lower than the angels."
These citations may throw light upon Psa. 82:6: " I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High: but ye shall die like men." This passage is of peculiar interest from its citation in John 10:34,35.
The following terms I also notice:-
The mount of God (Ex. 3.1 and 4:27, etc.). The rod of God (Ex. 4:20).
The God of gods (Deut. 10.17).
The hill of God (1 Sam. 10:5).
The God of my rock (2 Sam. 22:3, etc.).
The temple-the footstool of our God (1 Chron. 28.2). The name does not occur in the books of Esther, the Song, Lamentations, Obadiah, Nahum.
The comparison is interesting of Psa. 78:56, " They [Israel] tempted and provoked the most high God;" and 1 Cor. 10:9, " Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents."
For the most part, the scene and circumstances in which a name is first introduced give best of all the general ideas intended to be presented in that name. This I believe to be the case as to the name " God," as given in the first chapter of Genesis. Its connection with another name, as in the second chapter, may help the mind to apprehend the peculiarities distinctive either to the one taken alone, or to the two as combined. The student of Scripture will also find help by marking passages in which one name is contrasted with another name; or in which a portion of Scripture, which has one name in it in one place, is found in another place with another name substituted for it.
But to learn the force of any name, and really to profit from this study, the Christian must read for himself the whole Bible, and mark the scenes and occurrences in which each name occurs and is contrasted with others.
I pass on now to the names of "El" and "Eloah."