Literature.— H. 'B.TristTa.m, Natural Eislory of the Bible^^, 1911, p. SSff. ; Smith's DB, s.v. ; SiVP vii. 6; E. C. Wick- ham, The Epistle to the Uebrews, 1910, p. 68 ; B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebreu-s'^, 1892, p. 258 S. ; R. Lyddeker, in Murray's DB.s.u. ; UDBii. 195 f. ; SZ)£,p.298f. •,EBi\\.ni-2S.; J. C. Geikie.rAe Holy Land and the Biblc,1903, pp. 40, 80-85, 113.
P. S. P. Handcock.
GOD. — 1. General aspects of the apostolic doc- trine.— The object of this article is to investigate the doctrine of God as it is presented in the Chris- tian writings of the apostolic period ; but, in view of the scope of this Dictionary, the teaching of our Lord Himself and the witness of the Gospel records will be somewhat lightly passed over.
The existence of God is universally assumed in the NT. The arguments that can be adduced, e.g. from the consent of mankind and from the existence of the world, are only intended to show that the belief that God is is reasonable, not to prove it as a mathematical proposition. But undoubtedly the fact that the doctrine is by such arguments shown to be probable will lead man to receive with more readiness the revealed doctrine of God's existence. The biblical writers, however, did not, in either dispensation, concern themselves to prove a fact which no one doubted. Ps 10* 14^ 53^ are no excep- tions to this general consent. The ungodly man (the ' fool ') who said in his heart ' There is no God,' did not deny God's existence, but His interfering in the affairs of men. 'The wicked . . . saith. He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.'
The apostolic doctrine of God as we have it in Acts, Itevelation, and the Epistles does not come direct from the OT. It presupposes a teaching of our Lord. At first this teaching was in the main handed down by the oral method, and tiie Epistles, or at least most of them, do not depend on any of our four Gospels, though it is quite likely that there were some written evangelic records in exist- ence even when the earliest of the Epistles were Avritten (Lk 1^). St. Paul, writing on certain points of Christian teaching, tells us that he handed on what he himself had received (1 Co 112-23 153 . ^j^q expression cltto tou Kvpiov in ll^^ probably does not mean * from the Lord without human mediation ' : it was tradition handed on from Christ).
In approaching the apostolic writings we must bear in mind two points, (a) The NT was not intended to be a compendium of theology. The Epistles, for example, were written for the imme- diate needs of the time and place, doubtless without any thought arising in their writers' minds of their being in the future canonical writings of a new volume of the Scriptui'es. We should not, therefore, a priori expect to find in them any formulated state- ment of doctrine, {b) There is a considerable differ- ence between the Epistles on the one hand and the Gospels on the other in the presentation of doctrine. The Gospels are narratives of historical events, and in them, therefore, the gradual unfolding of Jesus'
teaching, as in fact it was given, is duly set forth. This is especially the case with the Synoptics, tliough even in the Fourth Gospel there is a certain amount of progress of doctrine. At the first tiie doctrines taught by our Lord are set forth, so to speak, in their infancy, adapted to the comprehen- sion of beginners ; and they are gradually unfolded as the Gospel story proceeds. In the Epistles, on the other hand, the writer treats his correspondents as convinced Christians, and therefore, though he instructs them, he plunges at once in viedias res. There is no progress of doctrine from the first chapter of an Epistle to the last.
The question we have to ask ourselves is. What did the apostles teach about God ? Or rather, in order not to beg any question (since it is obviously impossible in this article to discuss problems of date and authorship), we must ask. What do the books of the NT teach about God?
2. Christian dcYelopment of the OT doctrine of God. — It is an essential doctrine of the NT writers that a new and fuller revelation was given by the Incarnation and by the fresh outpouring of the Holy Gliost.
(a) The revelation by the Incarnate. — That the Son had made a revelation of old by the part which He took in creation (see below, 6 (e)) is not explicitly stated, but is implied by Ro P", which says that creation is a revelation of God's everlasting power and Divinity (dei6Tri^, 'Divine nature and properties,' whereas deoT-qs is ' Divine Personality ' [see Sanday- Headlam, ICC, 1902, inloc.'\). But the Incarnate reveals God in a fuller sense than ever before : ' God . . . hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in [his] Son' (He P''). The revelation hy the Incarnation is a conception specially emphasized in the Johannine writings, not only in the Gospel, but also in the First Epistle and the Apocalypse. The Prologue of the Gospel says that ' God only begotten' (or 'the only begotten Son' [see below, 6 (c)]) * which is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him ' ( Jn P^). * What he hath seen and heard, of that he beareth witness ' (3^-). The reve- lation of the Son is the revelation of the Father (14^-11). The 'life which was with the Father' was manifested and gave a message about God (1 Jn r-"5). The revelation of eternal life which is in the Son was made when God bore witness con- cerning His Son (S'"'-). This new and fuller revela- tion is that with which the Apocalyptist begins his book (Rev P) : ' the revelation (apocalypse) of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to shew unto his servants' (see Swete, Com. in loc., who gives good reasons for thinking that the revelation made by Jesus, rather than that made about Jesus, is meant ; cf. Gal 1^-).