LORD GOD

In i. 8 the title "god" must be added to the word "Lord," according to all the Critical Greek Texts¹⁴¹⁴   Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort. and the R.V.

In chap. xxii. 6 we have the same title. Thus at the end of the book and at the beginning we have this peculiar title, which seems to enclose all that the book contains, and stamp it all with that which the title signifies. What is signifies is clear from the place where we first find it, vix., in the second of the twelve divisions of Genesis (chap. ii. 4 - iv. 26). This division is called "the generations of the heavens and of the earth."

In the Apocalypse we have the final results of all that pertains to the heavens and the earth.

The title "Lord God" is the title used in this division, which treats of the settlement of man in Paradise, or garden of the Lord. In the New Testament it first appears in the Apocalypse; where it has reference to the undoing of the effects of the curse (describe in that section of Genesis), and to the making of the earth again into the Paradise¹⁵¹⁵   The word Paradise occurs in the New Testament three times. Luke xxiii. 43, where the Lord spoke of it in promise and prophecy; in 2 Cor. xii. 9, whither Paul was caught away; and in Rev. ii. 7. of God - the garden of the Lord.

The title implies all this: viz., that God is about to do all that Jehovah has revealed. For Elohim is the God of creation and the commencement of life, while Jehovah is the God of revelation and the development and sustainer of life with regard to His covenant People. Elohim (God) expresses the power which accomplishes; Jehovah (Lord) the grace which provides.

Hence in Gen. ii. 4 - iv. 26, and in Rev. i. 8, and xxii. 5 we meet with this title; which links the two books together in a most remarkable manner, and gives the pledge that Paradise lost will become Paradise regained; and that the curse which drove man out shall no longer keep him out, but shall be "no more" for ever.

This use of the title "Lord God" thus assures us that He who made the promise of Gen. iii. 15, that the Serpent's head should one day be crushed, will, in His own day (the Lord's day), finally crush the Serpent's head.

The fact that this title is never used in connection with the Church of God, affords us one more great and important proof of our proposition that [the] Church is not the subject of the Apocalypse, but that it has to do with the Jew and the Gentile.