40. Thus God is in God, and it is God in
Whom God dwells. But how is There is no God beside Thee
true, if God be within Him? Heretic! In support of your
confession of a solitary Father you employ the words, There is no
God beside Me; what sense can you assign to the solemn declaration
of God the Father, There is no God beside Thee, if your
explanation of There is no God beside Me be a denial of the
Godhead of the Son? To whom, in that case, can God have said,
There is no God beside Thee? You cannot suggest that this
solitary Being said it to Himself. It was to the King Whom He
summoned that the Lord said, by the mouth of the men of stature who
worshipped and made supplication, For God is in Thee. The
facts are inconsistent with solitude. In Thee implies that
there was One present within range, if I may say so, of the
Speaker’s voice. The complete sentence, God is in
Thee, reveals not only God present, but also God abiding in Him Who
is present. The words distinguish the Indweller from Him in Whom
He dwells, but it is a distinction of Person only, not of
character. God is in Him, and He, in Whom God is, is God.
The residence of God cannot be within a nature strange and alien to His
own. He abides in One Who is His own, born from Himself.
God is in God, because God is from God. For Thou art God, and
we knew it not, O God of Israel, the Saviour.