It is apparent that the revelation God has been pleased to make of Himself is gradual and progressive. Now believers walk in the light, as He is in the light, but in a former day clouds and darkness were round about Him, and necessarily so as long as righteousness and judgment were the habitation of His throne. But when Christ had accomplished the work of atonement, God could righteously come out into the full display of what He is as revealed in Christ, on the ground of redemption. God is the same in nature and attributes both in the Old and New Testaments, for this is a necessity of the perfections of His divine being, yet it is true that the aspects under which He is presented in different ages vary, and it is these aspects which are embodied in His several names.
The Trinity
It was not until the baptism of our blessed Lord that the whole truth of the Trinity came out. Then God spoke from heaven; His beloved Son was on the earth, and the Holy Spirit descended and abode upon the Son. But now that the full revelation of God has been made, we can go back, as led and taught of Him, and discover much that could not have been before understood. The latent meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures can only be apprehended when looking back upon them from the full shining of the light of Christianity. There is no incongruity whatever, therefore, in affirming that God chose the special word “Elohim” to express the truth of the Trinity. We read in Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth, and in John’s Gospel it is said of the Word, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” We know consequently that the eternal Son is comprised in the word “God” in Genesis, and we learn more of the glory of the person of our Redeemer.
El Shaddai
To the patriarchs God made Himself known under another appellation. The first mention of this is found in Genesis 17:11And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1): “The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God,” that is, El Shaddai — God Almighty. The meaning of the word El is said to be strength and omnipotence, and Shaddai is thought by some to signify the same thing, while others prefer the rendering of all-sufficient or self-sufficiency. The combination of the two words signifies divine attributes, as omnipotence and all-sufficiency can be found only in God. When the word “Almighty” stands alone in our translation, it generally represents Shaddai. There is a beautiful combination of this name with that of Jehovah in 2 Corinthians 6:17-18: “I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the LORD Almighty.” The God who was known to Abraham as Shaddai and to Israel as Jehovah was now declared as Father in that blessed relationship into which He had taken His people in association with Christ.
E. Dennett, adapted