Note: The following text is a vocabulary entry taken from a work still in preparation, translated from the Portuguese.
The basic concept is being separate and isolated. It is used for the uniqueness of the one true God seen in his extraordinary works, Dt 32.12; Job 9.8; Is 44.24; Neh 9.6, or in his splendid exaltation, Ps 72.18; 148.13; Is 2.11, 17. “There is no other besides Him,” Dt 4.35. He alone guided Israel, Dt 32.12.
Israel is isolated as a result of God’s judgment, Is 27.10; Mic 7.14; Lam 1.1.
The leper suffers alone, far from the community, Lev 13.46.
It is not good for man to live alone without a wife, Gen 2.18.
Man does not live by bread alone (material things), but by the word of the Lord, Dt 8.3; Mt 4.4.
Ultimately, sin is against God alone, Ps 51.4.
After the transfiguration, the disciples “saw no one but Jesus alone,” Mt 17.8. It was a sign of His enduring presence and supreme revelation, above Moses and Elijah.
The things written in the Old Testament were not “only for the sake of” Abraham, but for our sake, Rom 4.23-24; cf. Rom 15.4; 1 Cor 10.6, 11.
In his translation of Rom 3:28, “justified by faith,” Martin Luther inserted the word “alone” without justification. Within the context of Romans, faith includes obedience, but it seems this understanding was lacking. Today, many religions mistakenly use the idea of faith alone to reject obedience (in contrast to works of merit) as necessary for salvation, see 1 Pet 1.22.
In fact, “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” Jas 2.24.
[TWOT I: 90-91]
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