Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews

97:7.1The de­struc­tion of the He­brew na­tion and their cap­tiv­ity in Mes­o­po­ta­mia would have proved of great ben­e­fit to their ex­pand­ing the­ol­ogy had it not been for the de­ter­mined ac­tion of their priest­hood. Their na­tion had fallen be­fore the armies of Baby­lon, and their na­tion­al­is­tic Yah­weh had suf­fered from the in­ter­na­tional preach­ments of the spir­i­tual lead­ers. It was re­sent­ment of the loss of their na­tional god that led the Jew­ish priests to go to such lengths in the in­ven­tion of fa­bles and the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of mirac­u­lous ap­pear­ing events in He­brew his­tory in an ef­fort to re­store the Jews as the cho­sen peo­ple of even the new and ex­panded idea of an in­ter­na­tion­al­ized God of all na­tions.

97:7.2Dur­ing the cap­tiv­ity the Jews were much in­flu­enced by Baby­lo­nian tra­di­tions and leg­ends, al­though it should be noted that they un­fail­ingly im­proved the moral tone and spir­i­tual sig­nif­i­cance of the Chaldean sto­ries which they adopted, not­with­stand­ing that they in­vari­ably dis­torted these leg­ends to re­flect honor and glory upon the an­ces­try and his­tory of Is­rael.

97:7.3These He­brew priests and scribes had a sin­gle idea in their minds, and that was the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Jew­ish na­tion, the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of He­brew tra­di­tions, and the ex­al­ta­tion of their racial his­tory. If there is re­sent­ment of the fact that these priests have fas­tened their er­ro­neous ideas upon such a large part of the Oc­ci­den­tal world, it should be re­mem­bered that they did not in­ten­tion­ally do this; they did not claim to be writ­ing by in­spi­ra­tion; they made no pro­fes­sion to be writ­ing a sa­cred book. They were merely prepar­ing a text­book de­signed to bol­ster up the dwin­dling cour­age of their fel­lows in cap­tiv­ity. They were def­i­nitely aim­ing at im­prov­ing the na­tional spirit and morale of their com­pa­tri­ots. It re­mained for later-day men to as­sem­ble these and other writ­ings into a guide book of sup­pos­edly in­fal­li­ble teach­ings.

97:7.4The Jew­ish priest­hood made lib­eral use of these writ­ings sub­se­quent to the cap­tiv­ity, but they were greatly hin­dered in their in­flu­ence over their fel­low cap­tives by the pres­ence of a young and in­domitable prophet, Isa­iah the sec­ond, who was a full con­vert to the el­der Isa­iah’s God of jus­tice, love, righ­teous­ness, and mercy. He also be­lieved with Jeremiah that Yah­weh had be­come the God of all na­tions. He preached these the­o­ries of the na­ture of God with such telling ef­fect that he made con­verts equally among the Jews and their cap­tors. And this young preacher left on rec­ord his teach­ings, which the hos­tile and un­for­giv­ing priests sought to di­vorce from all as­so­ci­a­tion with him, al­though sheer re­spect for their beauty and grandeur led to their in­cor­po­ra­tion among the writ­ings of the ear­lier Isa­iah. And thus may be found the writ­ings of this sec­ond Isa­iah in the book of that name, em­brac­ing chap­ters forty to fifty-five in­clu­sive.

97:7.5No prophet or re­li­gious teacher from Ma­chi­venta to the time of Je­sus at­tained the high con­cept of God that Isa­iah the sec­ond pro­claimed dur­ing these days of the cap­tiv­ity. It was no small, an­thro­po­mor­phic, man-made God that this spir­i­tual leader pro­claimed. “Be­hold he takes up the isles as a very lit­tle thing.” “And as the heav­ens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

97:7.6At last Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek be­held hu­man teach­ers pro­claim­ing a real God to mor­tal man. Like Isa­iah the first, this leader preached a God of uni­ver­sal cre­ation and up­hold­ing. “I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have cre­ated it not in vain; I formed it to be in­hab­ited.” “I am the first and the last; there is no God be­side me.” Speak­ing for the Lord God of Is­rael, this new prophet said: “The heav­ens may van­ish and the earth wax old, but my righ­teous­ness shall en­dure for­ever and my sal­va­tion from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.” “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dis­mayed, for I am your God.” “There is no God be­side me—a just God and a Sav­ior.”

97:7.7And it com­forted the Jew­ish cap­tives, as it has thou­sands upon thou­sands ever since, to hear such words as: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have cre­ated you, I have re­deemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.’” “When you pass through the wa­ters, I will be with you since you are pre­cious in my sight.” “Can a woman for­get her suck­ling child that she should not have com­pas­sion on her son? Yes, she may for­get, yet will I not for­get my chil­dren, for be­hold I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I have even cov­ered them with the shadow of my hands.” “Let the wicked for­sake his ways and the un­righ­teous man his thoughts, and let him re­turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abun­dantly par­don.”

97:7.8Lis­ten again to the gospel of this new rev­e­la­tion of the God of Salem: “He shall feed his flock like a shep­herd; he shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bo­som. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might he in­creases strength. Those who wait upon the Lord shall re­new their strength; they shall mount up with wings as ea­gles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

97:7.9This Isa­iah con­ducted a far-flung pro­pa­ganda of the gospel of the en­larg­ing con­cept of a su­preme Yah­weh. He vied with Moses in the elo­quence with which he por­trayed the Lord God of Is­rael as the Uni­ver­sal Cre­ator. He was po­etic in his por­trayal of the in­fi­nite at­tri­butes of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. No more beau­ti­ful pro­nounce­ments about the heav­enly Fa­ther have ever been made. Like the Psalms, the writ­ings of Isa­iah are among the most sub­lime and true pre­sen­ta­tions of the spir­i­tual con­cept of God ever to greet the ears of mor­tal man prior to the ar­rival of Mi­chael on Uran­tia. Lis­ten to his por­trayal of De­ity: “I am the high and lofty one who in­hab­its eter­nity.” “I am the first and the last, and be­side me there is no other God.” “And the Lord’s hand is not short­ened that it can­not save, nei­ther his ear heavy that it can­not hear.” And it was a new doc­trine in Jewry when this be­nign but com­mand­ing prophet per­sisted in the preach­ment of di­vine con­stancy, God’s faith­ful­ness. He de­clared that “God would not for­get, would not for­sake.”

97:7.10This dar­ing teacher pro­claimed that man was very closely re­lated to God, say­ing: “Ev­ery one who is called by my name I have cre­ated for my glory, and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their trans­gres­sions for my own sake, and I will not re­mem­ber their sins.”

97:7.11Hear this great He­brew de­mol­ish the con­cept of a na­tional God while in glory he pro­claims the di­vin­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, of whom he says, “The heav­ens are my throne, and the earth is my foot­stool.” And Isa­iah’s God was none the less holy, ma­jes­tic, just, and un­search­able. The con­cept of the an­gry, venge­ful, and jeal­ous Yah­weh of the desert Bed­ou­ins has al­most van­ished. A new con­cept of the su­preme and uni­ver­sal Yah­weh has ap­peared in the mind of mor­tal man, never to be lost to hu­man view. The re­al­iza­tion of di­vine jus­tice has be­gun the de­struc­tion of prim­i­tive magic and bi­o­logic fear. At last, man is in­tro­duced to a uni­verse of law and or­der and to a uni­ver­sal God of de­pend­able and fi­nal at­tri­butes.

97:7.12And this preacher of a su­per­nal God never ceased to pro­claim this God of love. “I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a con­trite and hum­ble spirit.” And still fur­ther words of com­fort did this great teacher speak to his con­tem­po­raries: “And the Lord will guide you con­tin­u­ally and sat­isfy your soul. You shall be like a wa­tered gar­den and like a spring whose wa­ters fail not. And if the en­emy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a de­fense against him.” And once again did the fear-de­stroy­ing gospel of Mel­chiz­e­dek and the trust-breed­ing re­li­gion of Salem shine forth for the bless­ing of man­kind.

97:7.13The farsee­ing and coura­geous Isa­iah ef­fec­tively ec­lipsed the na­tion­al­is­tic Yah­weh by his sub­lime por­trai­ture of the majesty and uni­ver­sal om­nipo­tence of the su­preme Yah­weh, God of love, ruler of the uni­verse, and af­fec­tion­ate Fa­ther of all man­kind. Ever since those event­ful days the high­est God con­cept in the Oc­ci­dent has em­braced uni­ver­sal jus­tice, di­vine mercy, and eter­nal righ­teous­ness. In su­perb lan­guage and with match­less grace this great teacher por­trayed the all-pow­er­ful Cre­ator as the all-lov­ing Fa­ther.

97:7.14This prophet of the cap­tiv­ity preached to his peo­ple and to those of many na­tions as they lis­tened by the river in Baby­lon. And this sec­ond Isa­iah did much to coun­ter­act the many wrong and racially ego­is­tic con­cepts of the mis­sion of the prom­ised Mes­siah. But in this ef­fort he was not wholly suc­cess­ful. Had the priests not ded­i­cated them­selves to the work of build­ing up a mis­con­ceived na­tion­al­ism, the teach­ings of the two Isa­iahs would have pre­pared the way for the rec­og­ni­tion and re­cep­tion of the prom­ised Mes­siah.