"I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty."—Revelation i. 8.
We have considered the two great instruments of God by which He fashions the spiritual life of man, and we have considered that spiritual life itself in the outline at least of its four main departments; and now, as we close our line of thought, we need still to consider how it is that, in these fields and by these instruments, God carries forward His work.
The conception of God as at work in human history, guiding it, controlling it, and judging men by its course, is the great contribution of Israel to the religion of the world. It is linked of course with that belief in the union of perfect righteousness with the divine, power which we usually speak of under the somewhat cumbrous title of Ethical Monotheism. We remember what was really at stake in that great day upon Mount Carmel when Elijah confronted the priests of Baal; it was whether the conception of God as righteous and demanding righteousness should prevail, or the conception of God as a capricious Being, needing only to be propitiated, and in connection with whose very worship licentiousness was tolerated and even encouraged.
But, after all, the greatest souls, at least in every highly-developed religion, have believed that God is righteous in Himself. What gives to Israel its supreme significance in the spiritual history of mankind is the conviction that this righteous God is daily and hourly at work in the history of men; and that conviction gives to the faith of Israel a primacy and supremacy over all the other partial faiths, even though they may be superior in certain departments.
If we think of some of the conceptions by means of which we try to bring before our minds the meaning of the word "God," we may find that with regard to several of them, other nations had advanced further than Israel before the coming of the Lord.
God is Spirit. The Hindu knew that, and knows it still, quite as much as Israel.
God is Law. The more thoughtful at least among the ancient Romans, and particularly the great Roman Stoics, knew that with a vividness that was scarcely ever attained in Israel.