Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel… There are four great names by which Almighty God is most commonly called in Christendom — Creator, King, Judge, Father. The first and last, Creator and Father, are probably absolute and literal descriptions of Him; there is no other Creator but He, and all parentage but shadows the great fact of His Fatherhood. The other two names, King and Judge, are figurative and illustrative only. But all four are revealed names; authorized names; names given by God Himself to the yearning, importunate inquiries of men who, like wrestling Jacob, cry to Him, "Tell me I pray Thee, Thy name." We must know God by more than His names if we are in any true sense to know Him; we must realize His presence; be quickened by His life; the presence everywhere revealed; the life everywhere felt. Yet on a consideration of each of His names we may find some interpretation of what is meant by the declaration that He is "the God of the whole earth." I. He is the God as being the Creator of the whole earth. The earth would not have come into existence, and would not be to-day, but for the will, the power, the goodness of God. In the architecture of the whole earth there is God's design; in the structure there is God's might; in both there is God's love. II. He is the God as being the King of the whole earth. Kingship is often a very conventional conception; royalty often a very conventional idea. Back of it all, in essential reality, is intended, not pomp and splendour, not rank and arbitrary authority, but genuine supremacy, the supremacy that must govern, that ought to control, and the glory that is inherent in such supremacy. We do not find much help to understanding the government of God in the kings and queens whose empire is but as an inch, whose reign n hour. Christ's kingship, and not Caesar's, nor Alexander's, nor Solomon's, nor Pharaoh's, is the true specimen of monarchy, of Divine sovereignty. He is Lord of a moral dominion, King of a spiritual empire, and yet, when He willed it, His sceptre controlled material nature, multiplying the handful of loaves and fishes into a sudden harvest by a touch, and calming the tempestuous winds and waves by a word. III. He is the God as being the JUDGE of the whole earth. A world in which there is iniquity demands a Judge. Nay, the necessities of God's own righteous nature compel Him to be a Judge. The whole earth's God must be a universal Judge; between nations like France and Madagascar, between man and man, and between man and law, the God of all must be the supreme Judge. Unerring in His all-pervading knowledge, righteous in His infinite inspiration, infallible in His verdicts, "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" IV. He is the God as being the FATHER of the whole earth. The heart of humanity cries, "Show us the Father and it sufficeth us," and Jesus, by the words of His lips and by the works of His hands — yet more exceedingly by His Cross, by His character, and by His Spirit is ever revealing the Father. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. |
    |