Why God Says He Alone Is God

That this is the prophet’s meaning is clear and plain to everyone. But the impious men put forward these passages too, dishonoring the Lord and reproaching us. “Look,” they say, “God is said to be one, and only, and first. How can you say that the Son is God? If he were God, he would not have said, ‘I alone,’ or ‘God is one.’” So it is necessary to set out the meaning of these phrases as well, as far as we can, so that all may know from this also that the Arians are truly fighting against God. If the Son were a rival of the Father, then let such words be spoken against him. If the Father looks on the Son the way David was told about Adonijah and Absalom, then let him utter such words and press them against him, so that the Son, by calling himself God, may not make anyone revolt from the Father. But it is the opposite. Whoever knows the Son knows the Father, since the Son himself reveals him to him, and in the Word he will rather see the Father, as has been said. And when the Son came, he glorified not himself but the Father. To one who came to him he said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” To one who asked what was the great commandment in the Law, he answered, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” To the crowds he said, “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” And he taught the disciples, “My Father is greater than I,” and “Whoever honors me honors him who sent me.” If the Son is like this toward his own Father, what is the difficulty, that anyone must take such a view of these passages? And on the other hand, if the Son is the Father’s Word, who is so wild, apart from these opponents of Christ, as to think that God has spoken in this way to slander and deny his own Word? This is not the mind of Christians. Perish the thought! These things are not written with reference to the Son, but to deny those falsely called gods, invented by men. [a]

This account of the meaning of such passages is satisfactory. Those who are devoted to gods falsely so called revolt from the true God. So God, being good and caring for mankind, calls the wanderers back and says, “I am the only God,” and “I am,” and “Besides me there is no God,” and the like, so that he may condemn the things that do not exist and turn all people to himself. Suppose that in the daytime, while the sun was shining, a man crudely painted a piece of wood that did not even have the appearance of light, and called that image the cause of light. If the sun, with regard to it, were to say, “I alone am the light of the day, and there is no other light of the day but me,” he would say this with regard not to his own radiance but to the error arising from the wooden image and the unlikeness of that empty representation. So it is with “I am,” and “I am the only God,” and “There is no other besides me.” They are said so that he may make people renounce gods falsely so called, and recognize him instead as the true God. Indeed, when God said this, he said it through his own Word, unless, of course, the Jews of today add this too, that he did not say it through his Word. But that is how he spoke, rave as they may, these followers of the devil. For the Word of the Lord came to the prophet, and this was what was heard; and there is nothing that God says or does except that he says and does it in the Word. So this is not said with reference to him, you enemies of Christ, but to things foreign to him and not from him. For according to the illustration given above, if the sun had spoken those words, he would have been correcting the error, and he would have spoken so, not as having his radiance outside himself, but as showing his own light in the radiance. So such passages are not meant to deny the Son, nor are they said with reference to him, but to overthrow falsehood. That is why God did not speak such words to Adam at the beginning, though his Word, through whom all things came into being, was with him. There was no need before idols came in. But when men rose in revolt against the truth and named for themselves whatever gods they pleased, then the need arose for such words, to deny gods that did not exist. I would add, indeed, that they were said even in anticipation of the folly of these opponents of Christ, so that they might know that whatever god they devise outside the Father’s substance is not the true God, nor the Image and Son of the One who is only and first. [d]

If, then, the Father is called the only true God, this is said not to deny him who said, “I am the Truth,” but to deny those who by nature are not true, as the Father and his Word are true. That is why the Lord himself added at once, “and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” Had he been a creature, he would not have added this and ranked himself with his Creator, for what fellowship is there between the true and the not true? But as it is, by adding himself to the Father he has shown that he is of the Father’s nature, and he has given us to know that he is the true Offspring of the true Father. And John too teaches this, as he had learned it, when he writes in his letter, “And we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” Again, when the prophet says of the creation, “who alone stretches out the heavens,” and when God says, “I alone stretch out the heavens,” it is plain to everyone that in the Only One is signified also the Word of the Only One, in whom “all things were made,” and without whom “not one thing was made.” If, then, they were made through the Word, and yet he says, “I alone,” and together with that Only One the Son is understood, through whom the heavens were made, then so too, when it is said, “one God,” and “I alone,” and “I am the first,” in that One and Only and First the Word is understood as existing together with him, as the Radiance in the Light. And this can be understood of no one but the Word alone. For all other things came into existence out of nothing through the Son, and are very different in nature; but the Son himself is the natural and true Offspring from the Father. And so the very passage these senseless men have seen fit to put forward in defense of their heresy, “I am the first,” rather exposes their perverse spirit. For God says, “I am the first and I am the last.” If, then, he is called first of the things after him as though ranked with them, so that they come next to him, you will certainly have shown that he goes before his works in time only; and that, to go no further, is extreme impiety. But if he has said, “I am the first,” to prove that he is not from anyone and that no one is before him, but that he is the Origin and Cause of all things, and to destroy the myths of the pagans, then it is plain too that when the Son is called Firstborn, this is not done to rank him with the creation, but to prove that all things were fashioned and adopted as sons through the Son. For as the Father is first, so the Son too is first: both as Image of the First, and because the First is in him. And he is also the Offspring from the Father, in whom the whole creation is created and adopted into sonship. [f]