The One God Who Spoke Openly

…should we offer up songs of thanksgiving? “I am, then, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:18). For if He it is who made the heaven, who showed forth the earth and did not make it for nothing but to be inhabited, who else could be thought to be God besides Him? Or who could equal Him in strength and glory? Or who could come near Him at all, even by a little? And how is the whole nature of created things not surpassed by a glory, strength and wisdom so great and so far above all things? There is no one. He alone, then, and no other at all besides Him, could be thought to be God by nature and in truth.

Yes, but someone might perhaps say: “Who has known His purpose in this? Or who can tell whether He wishes some others also to be crowned with the glory and the name of God, or Himself alone?” So He answers this and says: “I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek vain things’” (Isaiah 45:19). I laid down laws for them about these things, He says, not speaking in a corner or trying to escape notice, but clearly and openly.

For the Lord came down on Mount Sinai in the form of fire; there was darkness and storm and smoke, and the piercing sound of trumpets (Exodus 19:16-19; Hebrews 12:18-19). The whole people stood by, with Moses acting as mediator, and laws were proclaimed from God. He did not charge Israel to seek anything vain, that is, an idol or a falsely named object of worship; on the contrary, the commandments kept them from such things. For it was said to him: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve (Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13); and you shall have no other gods besides Me. And you shall not make for yourself an idol, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth” (Exodus 20:3-4).

So it was said to him. And the words “I am the Lord” are as if He were saying, not once but many times over, “I alone am God and Lord of all, speaking righteousness and declaring truth” (Isaiah 45:19). By righteousness, I think, He means the Law, for the Law is the arbiter of righteousness; and by truth, the teachings of Christ. Yet the outline of the truth is present in the Law (Romans 2:20), and the mystery of Christ lies hidden in its shadows; for Moses wrote about Him (John 5:46). So in speaking righteousness, the power of the truth is also declared along with it, since it is true that the Law was a shadow (Hebrews 10:1), and that in it now lies the outline of the truth.

“Gather together and come, take counsel together, you who are being saved from the nations. Those who carry the wood, their carved image, did not know, and they pray as to gods that do not save” (Isaiah 45:20).

The apostate dragon lured those on earth away from their close bond with God, and …