5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

The Spirit-Elohim was also "God"; nevertheless they are created. They are formed and made out of and by that which is uncreated. They are Spirit-Forms, the substance of which (spirit) is eternal; while the forms are from a beginning. Each one is a God in the sense of partaking of THE DIVINE NATURE, and being therefore a Son of God.

Now, if we understand this, we shall be able to discern the force and beauty of the expression Yahweh-Elohim, which occurs so frequently in the Hebrew Scriptures. Yahweh is the name of Uncreated Power, Elohim, the organizations of that Power after its image and likeness, whether they belong to the sun, moon, and stars of the universe, or to Israel. Hence also the beauty and the fulness of the phrase, "I am He the Mighty Ones, that formed the earth and made it -- I Yahweh and none without" -- ani-hu ha-elohim; ani Yahweh.

If we comprehend this multiplication and manifestation of Divine Unity, many obscure passages in the English version of Moses and the prophets are easy to be understood; and the mind is prepared to understand the otherwise abstruse teaching of Jesus and the apostles concerning "God."

And I would here remark that in making a new translation of the Scriptures into English, the original words, misrepresented in the common version by the Anglo-Saxon words Lord and God, or in combination Lord God, should be left untranslated, but printed in small capitals and italics; and at the beginning of the book a literal definition of the words be given, without regard to "theology," or "plurals of majesty or excellence."

The English reader might then be able to perceive how no man has seen God at any time; and yet that Jacob had a personal encounter and wrestle with God; and that Moses talked with Him face to face.

When then we read

"And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness,"

we find Moses teaching the contemporary existence of a plurality of Gods before the creation of man but we do not therefore find him teaching a plurality of Eternities in One Eternity, or Three Gods in one Godhead.

This is the notion, not of Moses and the prophets, who positively declare the contrary, but the crotchet of the Old Man of the Flesh, who, professing to be wise, became a fool, "and changed the truth concerning God into a lie."

Paul and Moses agree in this, as we have shown before, saying: "There be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be Gods many and Lords many." There is, consequently, no room for dispute on this point. Paul affirms the plurality of Gods, and Moses shows that they existed before the creation of man.

Phanerosis - The Memorial Name

6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

"Out of Deity, all things have proceeded: His free, radiant Spirit is the substratum of every existing thing, from the star of the first magnitude to the smallest insect of the air."

("Eureka," Vol. I., p. 97 logos ed).

In the Father

We are "in the Father" in the sense that

"in Him we live and move and have our being."

Those who have believed and obeyed the truth are in Him in another sense. In Christ, they are incorporated in his present arrangements and future purposes. But it is reserved for those who experience the change from the earthy to the spiritual nature at the resurrection to know what it is to be in Him in the highest sense; assimilated to the Spirit, they will be one with the Father and the Son, in a sympathy and communion, whose delights are unknown to the flesh.

The Christadelphian, May 1874