—is the Word and the Creator, for in their view the Word and the Essence are one and the same; they draw no line between the attribute and the One described. Then they go on to say, “The being that united with the Messiah is the Word, not the Essence whom they call ‘the Father,’” and at the same time they insist that no partition or division has taken place. Yet sound reason makes it perfectly clear that the Word, being an attribute, cannot be separated from the One it describes; it cannot unite with, or indwell in, anything apart from that One. This is all the more evident because, according to them, the entity that unites and indwells is the Creator, which would require that it be the Father. But they do not claim that the One who unites and indwells is the Father; they say it is the Son. If, then, they maintain that the Son alone united and indwelt, whereas the Father did not, it necessarily follows that the entity which united is not the one that did not unite: the Son united, the Father did not.

They further state that the One who united adopted Jesus as a veil behind which He concealed Himself, as a dwelling in which He resided, and through which He addressed the people. Yet they also say in this connection that it was the Son who united with him, while the Father neither hid behind him, nor dwelt in him, nor united with him. It therefore follows inevitably that one part of the Godhead united while another did not: the Father did not unite, the Son did. This flatly contradicts their assertion that He was not partitioned, and it demolishes their analogy with the One who spoke from the bush, for that was God, Lord of the worlds, not the Son to the exclusion of the Father—quite apart from the many clear distinctions already mentioned which show how invalid that comparison is.

Sixteenth Response: When the Lord—glorified and exalted—speaks, He speaks