To be near unto God - pagina 309

pulse from which it proceeds, is never anything mistaken interpretation of the else, then the speech of God in nature and in the conscience. This is the seed of religion of which Calvin bore witness, the increated knowledge of God and the given knowledge of God, which was ever confessed by our fathers. This was not confessed for the sake of glorifying man, who fell, but contrariwise, to render the sinner inexcusable before God. Fallen humanity as such, and every individual sinner in the same, stands deeply guilty before God, because he whose eye is fully open, and whose conscience reacts properly, perceives the eternal power and Godhead of the Lord Jehovah in himself, and everywhere around him in nature and in history. Such being the case, how are we to understand the words of Christ, that no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal

him? It does not say, that no one can have any knowledge of God save through the Son, but that no one knoweth the Father, except he to whom the Son has revealed him. Of Satan and his angels it is clearly stated that they know God and tremble. This could not be otherwise. Satan's fall was nothing else than rebellion against God, evil lust to dethrone the Almighty and to put himself in his place. And how could this have been thinkable, unless he had known the existence and omnipotence of God? But every one understands at once that although Satan knows God, he has never known the Father. He who knows the Father is comforted and reconciled. Satan, on the contrary, whenever he thinks of God, 301

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