Isaiah 41:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Who is responsible for this accomplishment? It is He who initiates life from the very outset. It is God's practice to remind us of past events whenever injustice occurs. What events do you envision in this context? Consider the experiences with the Egyptians, the occurrences in Abraham's time, the downfall of Sodom, and the great flood. Do you not observe that He shows equal insistence on justice, whether towards His own people or towards outsiders? To uphold the entirety of truth and ensure that justice does not vanish, God selects both His own and others, based on their deeds, whether righteous or sinful.

He identifies Himself as God not because there exists another deity alongside Him, for such a notion raises questions of origin and existence. There is only one God of all creation, who has no commencement and is, in fact, the source from which everything else comes into existence. Thus, He stands as the singular, eternal, and uncreated God, the ever-present Companion of all. In the endless unfolding of ages that lie ahead, He will remain as He is, for He alone possesses existence. When people gazed upon Christ and the righteousness unveiled through Him, they perceived His glory with their hearts and were filled with awe. Those from the farthest reaches of the earth came together, no longer separated by sin, but united through a shared spiritual connection and common faith.

The Son shares the same essence as the Father. Since neither is God before God, nor is God after God—what follows God is creation, and prior to God there was nothing; nothing exists as God, or more accurately, before God exists the eternal and boundless joy of His own being. Furthermore, as this spiritual truth is communicated through the prophets, we receive the doctrine that there is one divine essence, unique and indivisible, which does not permit any notion of being before or after its existence, even as it is proclaimed in the Trinity. This essence encompasses nothing that could be imagined as older or subsequent. Consequently, since this revelation comes from God, whether ascribed to the Father or the Son, the truth of divinity is affirmed by both.

The eternal and unchangeable. Where do you derive the terms 'unborn' and 'beginningless,' which you hold so dearly, and how do we arrive at the concept of 'immortal'? Present them plainly; if not, we will need to dismiss your terms and eliminate ours, as they do not appear in Scripture. In doing so, the loss of those terms undermines your arguments, causing the sanctuary you relied upon to vanish. Alternatively, it may be clear that, even if these words are not explicitly in Scripture, they are derived from expressions that convey the same truth. Which expressions are these? “I am the first and I am the last” (Isa 44:6); “Before Me there was no God, nor shall there be after Me” (Isa 43:10, LXX). Everything belongs to Him, existing eternally without a beginning or an end. Understanding this, since nothing comes before God and He has no cause prior to Himself, you have rightfully called Him beginningless and unborn. Moreover, because He will never cease to exist, He is immortal and steadfast.

Who has created and accomplished these wonders? And who revealed to Moses the rebuke and the deliverance of those belonging to God?

Who has enacted and brought this to completion? It is He who has initiated creation from its very start. I am the Lord, the first and the last. Who, one might ask, has achieved this? Who has raised the righteous? Who has delivered nations and rulers into His hands? Who has brought all under the dominion of His authority? Certainly, it is He who, from the foundation of the earth, had foreknowledge of it all, the Creator of the universe. When He inquires, Who has brought forth the righteous from the east, and with silence all around, He responds Himself: I am the Lord, the first, and the last. This is the very same individual who declares in the book of Revelation: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:8). Abraham did not achieve this through his own power, but through the grace of the Lord, who had foreseen from the outset that it would come to pass.

The Harmony of the Covenants

From the very beginning, the prophet declares that God has always been aware of righteousness. He entered into a covenant with Abraham, promising, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed” (Gen 26:4), and made similar promises to Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David; He conveyed this message through other prophets as well. “I am God first, and in that which is to come I am” (Is 41:4, LXX). The prophet affirms that the same God who delivered the Old Testament is also the one who initiated the New Covenant. The divine essence remains singular, existent eternally and unchangingly.

The belief in the oneness of God is clear to those who hold the Divine Scriptures in high regard. To those who question these sacred texts, we can reason as follows: God embodies perfection, lacking any flaws in goodness, wisdom, or power. He is eternal, having no beginning or end, being infinite, supreme, and wholly perfect in every aspect. If we acknowledge the existence of multiple deities, a differentiation among them becomes essential. Without a distinction, we are led back to the conclusion of one God rather than many. Yet, if differences exist among them, then where is the absolute perfection? A deficiency in goodness, power, wisdom, time, or space would negate the existence of God. Consistency in all attributes suggests the existence of a singular God, not multiple gods.

This parable reveals the futility of idolatry while providing hope to the exiles of Babylon for their eventual liberation. Thus saith the Lord, I am God first, and in the one who is to come I am. With these statements, the Lord proclaims the everlasting nature of His being. He is the first, indicating that prior to Him, nothing and no one existed; all that exists draws its being from Him. Furthermore, He is present in all future ages, meaning there will never be a moment when His existence ceases. The eternal nature of His existence is encapsulated in the words of the God-Man: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the One who was, and the One who is, and the One who is to come, the Almighty (Rev. 1:8).