Something about the Three who are One
“Let’s pray..”
I’ll be trying for a while to unravel one of the big stumbling blocks in Christian teaching. It is about our understanding of God. That it is an important question shines through in many places in the Word. “He who wants to come to God must believe that God is, that God exists, and that He rewards those who seek Him.” It cannot be insignificant to know who God claims to be. And a further question can be asked, is God who He says He is or is He really something else, but we are too limited to understand the true image of God? Is God playing hide and seek with us?
One of the best known reformers was the Franco-Swiss Calvin. He meant that we don’t really know God in any other way than through God’s work. But that is not the whole truth. He made it clear that we know nothing at all about God outside of God’s actions. In practice, that would mean that a lot of Bible words about God do not stand up to scrutiny. “Seek God while he lets himself be found”, after all, does not sound as if it was primarily his work that we should seek, but rather God himself. Read the words from Deuteronomy 4:29
“But if you seek the Lord your God there, you will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.” In Paul’s speech to the Athenians he let us know the following. Acts 17:26-28
” From one man he has created all people and peoples to live on the whole earth, and he has established fixed times and limits within which they should live . He did that so that they would seek God and perhaps be able to reach out and find him, although he is not far away from any of us.For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said: We are of his family.”
If we are in some incomprehensible way enclosed in God, we constantly encounter God in the creation that surrounds us according to Paul in Romans 1. God is not an object separated from the world that we can study. We are, so to speak, already inside God as that which is radically separate from us. We glimpse Him, we see the shadow of His outstretched hand, we have, like Job, “seen the edge of His work.” Paul knows the message according to 1 Tim 6:13-16 “I exhort you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who testified before Pontius Pilate with the good confession: keep the message pure and unadulterated until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the blessed, only Ruler will let us see when the time is right. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, he who alone is immortal and dwells in a light where no one can come and which no man has seen or can see. To him belong glory and eternal power! Amen.”
You can get ants in the head for less. Who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?
Revelation 17:13-15 “They will fight against the Lamb, but the Lamb will defeat them with his called, chosen and faithful, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings.” Follow this up with Rev 19:12-16 “His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head he wore many crowns. He had a name written that no one knows but himself, and he was clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is The word of God. The heavenly hosts followed him, and they were clothed in white linen. From his mouth came a sharp sword, with which he will rule the nations, and he will tread on the God of the Almighty. , the winepress of wrath. And on his mantle and on his hip he has a name written: “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
All this John saw in his visionary existence in captivity storehouse on Patmos. But none of this that he conveys is “taken out of thin air” but has its roots in the prophecies of the former covenant, brought forth from the dark room of history by the same Spirit that inspired all scripture. Read with me Isaiah 63:1f
“Who is he who comes from Edom, from Bozra in crimson clothes,
so majestic in his clothing, so proud in his great power?” It is I who speak in righteousness, who is mighty to save. “
Why is your robe so red, why do your clothes resemble those of a wine trampler?
“I have trodden the winepress by myself, none among the people helped me. I trampled them in my anger, trampled them in my wrath. Their blood spattered my clothes, and it stained all my garments. For the day of vengeance was in my heart and the year of my redemption had come.
I looked around, but there was no helper. I stood there amazed, but there was no one to support me. Then my own arm helped me, and my anger supported me. I trampled the people down in my anger and made them drunk in my anger, I let their blood run down on the ground.”
Who is he who speaks of himself as “I”, if it is not He whom we know as “I Am”?
Maybe it is that your idea of who Jesus is does not have room for the Jesus who is not only the Saviour of the world but also the Judge of the world? Perhaps your Bible reading has been radically filtered through another gospel, so that you are completely alien to the idea that this “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” will really call his enemies to account? The best counterweight to that error is to hear his own words and what the apostles conveyed, driven by the Holy Spirit who revealed everything.
Acts 10:42 f ”And he commanded us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one whom God has chosen to judge the living and the dead. About him all the prophets testify that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
1 Tim 4:1 “I charge you earnestly before God and Christ Jesus who will judge the living and the dead, before his revelation and his kingdom. “
1 Pet 4:5-6 “But they will give an account before him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. That is why the gospel was preached also to those who are now dead, so that they would be judged in the body as men are judged but live in the spirit as God lives.
Joh 8:15-16 “You judge by outward appearances. I don’t judge anyone. And though I judge, my judgment is just, for I am not alone, but the Father who sent me is with me .
Joh 5:21-23 “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills.” And the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Sonthat all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.
I think you understand what is at stake. If your Jesus cannot judge, he cannot save either. If you do not want to know that the Son and the Father are so connected that no one can be said to have one without the other, then you must give them the same status, i.e. Godhead, to both.
1 John 4:2f ” This is how you recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, it is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus, it is not from God. This is the spirit of Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and which is already in the world.”
1 John 4:15-17 “If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he himself abides in God. And we have come to know the love that God has for us and believe in it. God is love. He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. So love has reached its goal with us: that we have boldness on the day of judgment. Because as he is, so are we in this world.”
Is there then a contradiction between God’s love and God’s judgment?Never on time! Away with that delusion!They are connected, seamlessly. Johannes wrote that absolutely unambiguously and irrefutably.
John 3:16-18 “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God has not sent his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already, because he does not believe in the name of God’s only begotten Son.
The Trinity then. We use words like “trinity, or tri-unity” even though it is never mentioned as such in the scriptures, because of the fact that there are five equally true statements in the Bible.
1 One is God, God is one
2 One who identifies himself as the Father is God
3 One who is identified as God’s son, the exact image of God, is God
4 One called the Holy Spirit is both God and personal.
5 The three are never separate, but never different names for the same thing. They are three while remaining One..
You can easily agree that it is difficult to understand. But there another insight can emerge. If I, who was created in God’s image, were capable of comprehending, understanding and explaining God’s secrets, then I would at least be God’s equal, and no longer his creation. The reality of sin is that the created puts itself above the Creator. Even thought-wise. And that intellectual pride is our bane!
Worship has no problem with God being greater than what words can outline. The intellect, on the other hand, has problems. Especially if it hasn’t realized its limitation. “We all see in part”.
How do we then pray now, because that was our question . We pray to the only God who has made himself known as the Father, but without the Son the work of the Father would have remained a thought, and without the Spirit there is no single way of communication to God. Prayer is the work of the Spirit in us, who through the finished work of the Son reaches the Father. Therefore, there is a narrow strip of foothold between heaven and hell. Either “let it happen to me according to MY will, or let it happen to me according to YOUR will.”
The Danish philosopher and theologian Sören Kierkegaard would have said: “it’s either or”. No further options available!
2
The second episode about the Three in One.
“But of the Son He says”
” To those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received the same precious faith as we do. Grace and peace be with you in ever richer measure through the knowledge of God and our Lord Jesus.” 2 Pet 1 :1-2
” Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders, to be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. ” Acts 20:28
“ But of the Son he says:
God, your throne endures forever and ever,
and the sceptre of your kingdom is the sceptre of justice.
You love righteousness and hates iniquity.
Therefore, God, has your God anointed you with the oil of joy
more than your fellows.” Hebrews 1:8-9
If you listen from time to time to various forms of worship and praise given to God, you can easily get confused and ask who are you really praying to? Questions that may appear unasked are, for example, “Is it the Father that is meant?” Is the Lord the same as the LORD? ” “Is Jesus both Lord and Father? What role does God’s Spirit play in the life of prayer and praise. If God is Spirit, then what does the Spirit of God have for another Spirit who does this and that in the congregation?
These and many similar questions are connected with a question which in the language of theologians is called “the mystery of the Trinity”. The Bible has no explicit doctrine of the Trinity as I said in the previous chapter. But it often touches on something that can be called the “three in one” problem of unity. This means that concrete statements are constantly made such as that on the one hand there is no God other than Yahweh (Avoid Jehovah, it is a linguistic fad and cannot possibly be the name of God.) The Israelite creed carries considerable weight with its “The Lord our God is one God.”
It doesn’t get any easier when the Scriptures also make it clear that “No one has ever seen God”, “No one can see God and live.” But then there are statements like “ And she gave a name to the Lord (YHWH) who had spoken to her. She said: “You are the God who sees me”, because she thought: “Have I seen here a glimpse of him who sees me?” (Hagar in Genesis 16:13) Or when Jesus in his own person shamelessly declares that “he who has seen me has seen the Father. No one has seen the Father except the Son.” So, help! Can anyone see God or is it impossible? Obviously: it depends.
God’s name is very markedly often mentioned. It is as if the name also stands for the program of who God is. Therefore, we get to know God through the attributes that are always connected with the name. You probably all know about the peculiarity that God is recognized by his works and it is the works that prove their origin. Thus, it is not surprising that it is through the work of His fingers that He makes Himself known. A very enlightening piece of information is given in Exodus 6:2-3” And God said to Moses: “I am the Lord . 3 To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I appeared as God Almighty, but under my name the Lord (YHWH)I did not make myself known to them.”
So it was that since Adam all who knew God had not known about God’s own name which is in Hebrew “Eyeh asher Eyeh”, I AM THAT I AM “, Exodus 3:14 It is reduced or shortened to the four (holy ) letters YHWH which over time became so sacred that they chose to use a paraphrase instead and only whispered or shouted “HaShem”, i.e. “the name”. (Other alternative: Adonai) They had mostly known God as Elohim, as El Shaddai, as Yahweh with the addition of Yahweh Jireh or something else that only God could have done. But only with Moses’ meeting with the Elohim who there at the burning bush declared himself to have a real proper name do we know that ” I am who I am ” is his real proper name.
I pointed out that Jesus claimed that whoever has seen me has seen the Father. The entire NT asserts that Jesus is the Son of God. Does it mean that the Son is as much God as your son or daughter is human because you are the human that gave birth to that child? The term son or sons of God does not necessarily mean that they are godlike. Being a child of God is never the same as being God. Since the days of the Roman Empire and the dominance of Greek and Latin that the church very soon came to live under, and should I say, suffer from, we lost sight of the fact that Jesus was not called that at all. But He was and is and remains what His mother, after angelic instructions, called Him. ” You shall call him ‘Yahshua’ .” You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:30ff and see 1:46-47 “ Then Mary said : “My soul exalts the Lordand my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour ,. Add the excerpt from Zechariah’s hymn to the unborn child in Luke 2:68-71
” He has raised for us the horn of salvationin the house of his servant David,as he long ago promised through the mouth of his holy prophets: salvation from our enemies and from all who hate us.”
If Yashua/Jesus/Iesous never means neither more nor less than ” the God who saves, or the saving God” are you not clear that Jesus is God? “In no other name is there salvation”! Acts 4:12 As you read at the beginning of the text, Peter called Jesus God and saviour, as you read in Paul, God bought his people with his own blood. Throughout we find that God, Yahweh knows of no saviour other than himself.
Let it sink in: ” You are my witnesses, says the Lord , and my servant whom I have chosen, for you to know me and believe me and understand that I Am.
Before me no God was formed, after me no one shall come.
I, I am the Lord . Besides me there is no savior. It is I who have predicted and saved and proclaimed, no strange god among you.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord , and I am God .” Isaiah 43:10-12
If the Father is God and the Son is God, do we not have two gods? If, moreover, the Holy Spirit is God, then do we not have three Gods? But we recognize only one God. We confess to the only one who is God? This is the mystery of the “three united” or “three in one united” image of God that the theologians formulated as the Doctrine of the Trinity. He who cannot worship God unless he “intellectually understands” this composite reality cannot, of course, worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit without serious difficulties.
Let me end this section, there will be more on the subject to come, by quoting Zechariah 10:12. The one who speaks through the prophet is the LORD i e Yahweh. He speaks to those whom he has had mercy on and greets “I (the LORD) will strengthen them in the LORD, and in His name they shall go forward, says the LORD.”
Here again the LORD speaks with the LORD, ie Yahweh speaks with Yahweh about those who have been saved by the LORD.
Is it weird? Yes, it is. But even though it offers lots of chewing resistance, the conclusion is inevitable. The Father and the Son speak to each other and we know both as those who call themselves I AM.
Worship can never be directed only to one or the other because in all spiritual events Father, Son and Spirit are always working together, without conflict, without competition and without contradiction.
No, I do not understand this deep secret, but I allow myself to be encompassed by it, for it is in Him that we live, breathe, think and exist.
3
The third episode about the three in one
“The hidden God” The one of the three who is hardly ever seen.
This third consideration of the mystery “Three yet one” is devoted to the Holy Spirit who, in theological terms, is seen “as the third in the Godhead”. How can one safely speak of three different ones which are nevertheless always one as if “third” would assign a lower place than “first” and “second”! If they are one, they have the same “value number” regardless of the fact that they have different tasks. It’s not what they do that keeps them together. They belong together because of their common nature: they are God together, and perhaps would not be if they were not always one? You have to think about that.
One of the key words throughout this investigation is the word “person”. Are the Father, the Son and the Spirit persons in the same sense that I and my wife are persons? Is it not to have reversed the important distinction between the Creator and the created which is expressed in the “image of God”. We are different people, with different personal numbers and different characteristics, and we spend a significant part of life trying to understand who this person is that I see myself to be. This fact alone should make us cautious when we use the word “person” about them.
A common way to approach the problem is to point to the Greek word behind the Swedish or for that matter English “person”. The Greek “per sona” was used for the characteristic mask that actors wore according to the role in question. Role change took place by changing the mask. Through the mask, the role player could be heard. (Sound through = per sona) The sound that sounded through the mask portrayed the person behind the mask. The picture is just a picture. God does not switch between three masks. The three understand themselves as independent of each other and do not deceive us with the play’s “through sounders” who after all represent different actors when in fact they are all one behind the various masks.
That the Son is never the same as the Father but still the same kind, the same nature, the same type of being as the Father, it does not take many hours of reading to see. (The conclusion that Jehovah’s Witnesses, among others, draw that Jesus is a lesser kind of god than the Father is probably one of the most clumsy abuses of language in world history. Are sons less human than their fathers or mothers?)
It is much more difficult to get hold of the Holy One Spirit. The spirit is stealthy, is behind, is visible not for its own sake but through what it does. And its cosmic task in this as in all other worlds is to make the Son known, exalted, honored and loved. The clearest “Christophanies”, i.e. revelations of Christ, are all the work of the Spirit, but the Spirit rarely signs his works with his name. Does the Spirit have enough properties to be called a “person”? It depends on our definition of the word person. What does it take to be able to define a person as their own person?
Presumably, such a human being is aware that he is separate from all other human beings. It has what we would call an identity of its own . The child’s search for himself should, over the time of the first 20 years of life, lead to an identity. Contemporary culture offers a placebo by enticing the young to try to achieve idol status by imposing idols on them. Which are often essentially nothing but what they pretend to be but are not. Note the war that is being waged against all other role models than those that are tolerated today. Individualization only leads to identity if it also frees the individual from the expectations of the environment.
A person who has his own identity also has more than just a hint of integrity . Its response to the environment is matched by its internal properties. They are outwardly what they appear to be inwardly. The central qualities “Reason, Will and Emotions” are a harmonious reality in the integrated individual. It does not act in conflict with itself. It does not act solely on what is imposed on them, but chooses to act based on its own inner reality. Another image: if a stone is thrown into still water, it causes rings to form that move away from the place where the stone fell. The action of the stone leads to the reaction of the water . Those who lack their own will respond to the will of others and become a reagent instead of an agent . Salvation’s clearest result is that will, feeling, reason are restored and contribute to a new integrity in identity. It is the result of rebirth. (I speak like a fool would, as if I understood the mystery. I know my limitation.)
Thus we must examine how Scripture describes the Holy Spirit. Does the Spirit have self-awareness, own will, own decision-making ability? Does the Spirit have the ability to react emotionally?
Does the Spirit act independently?
The starting point must be by embracing what is the Spirit’s primary role for the believer. In John 14:25f “ This I have told you while I am still with you.But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have told you.” ” John 16:8-11 “ And when he comes, he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. About sin: they don’t believe me. About righteousness: I go to the Father and you see me no more.About judgment: the prince of this world is condemned.” The inescapable conclusion that the ‘Teacher’ is the executor of the greatest ‘Rabbi’ is at hand.
Without the Holy Spirit we have no knowledge of either God the Father, the Son, or anything that these produce. And without the Holy Spirit there is no understanding of why we need to be saved because the reality of sin is revealed by the Holy Spirit in us. Without the realization of being lost in transgression and sin, no one comes to salvation at all. It is against this background that we now understand what Jesus said according to Matthew 12:32 and Luke 12:10 ” Whoever says anything against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come.”
What is blasphemy is never directed at someone who is not personally insulted by the blasphemy. You cannot blaspheme the notes of a piano. According to the Bible, who is worthy of the death penalty? Well the one who blasphemes God! That was the core of the Jews’ request to crucify Jesus. When Jesus claims to be “I am” before Abraham existed, he made himself God, also when he calls God his Father. The death penalty is only for that kind of crime against the ultimate Majesty.
The Spirit is thus so much God that what is said against Him leads to irreversible consequences: utter darkness. No conviction of either sin, righteousness, or judgment can any longer penetrate the human heart if the Spirit is blasphemed. (A further passage on the seriousness of that matter is in Hebrews 6:4-8 “ For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 tasted the good word of God and the miracles of the coming age, and then have committed apostasy, to renew them again to repentance, since] they are crucifying the Son of God for themselves all over again and holding him up to contempt.) He who denies or belittles the Son of Man can always turn back, but if the active working Spirit is blasphemed, then the primary tool of conversion has been lost. “And great was the fall.” It is the Spirit of God who realizes Jesus Christ in us. The divine person Christ is assigned to the person NN through the person the Holy Spirit. How could Christ in us be realized by anything less than a Person who is the Spirit? Many want to reduce Jesus to some kind of cosmic radiation and in the same breath reduce the Holy Spirit to an impersonal radiation. The Bible texts deny us that possibility.
In Acts 5 we encounter the first known death in the NT after Calvary. Ananias and Sapphira perish suddenly because they jointly decided to deceive the Holy Spirit. The art of lying, which is one of the targets of the Ten Commandments, has a brutal resolution here. ” “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you lied to the Holy Spirit and embezzled some of the money for the land? Was it not yours while you had it? And when it was sold, was not the money yours? Why decided you in your heart for this? You have not lied to men but to God. ” When Ananias heard those words, he fell down and died, and great fear came upon all who heard it.”
To treat the Holy Spirit as many a modern translation do (denying the personality and independence of) means that the readers of these versions are intentionally misled away from the Holy Spirit whose business it is to keep the Christian life in the earthly body. Step on the Spirit and your life is in danger. As if this event was not warning enough to be careful about the Spirit and spiritual things, read what Paul writes to the Corinthian church. 1 Cor 5:3-5
“I who am absent in body but present in spirit have already, as if I were there,in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ pass judgment on the one who acted like that. When you are gathered and my spirit is with you in the power of our Lord Jesus,shall that man be delivered unto Satan unto the corruption of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
What unites all the believers together, when they are together and when they are apart? We have a (un)habit of ending our gatherings with a greeting from 2 Corinthians 13. ” The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ , the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” I wrote (un)habit because I have seen over the years how thoughtless, contentless and in reality invisible that talk of community is. What the unifying work of the Spirit would bring about among all believers has been reduced to a habitual slogan. The last verse of 2 Corinthians 13 only makes sense if you read the context. ” Finally, brothers: be of good cheer, be edified and exhorted, be of one accord and keep peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.Greet each other with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you”
The Spirit can be grieved, extinguished, reviled and lied to. The spirit has its own agenda. Acts 13:2-3 tells how the Spirit during a meeting of leaders in Antioch gives his marching orders to Paul and Barnabas. ” As they served the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said , “Separate for me Barnabas and Saul for the task to which I have called them.” Then they fasted and prayed and laid hands on them and then sent them out. Sent forth by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.”
The apostles returned to Jerusalem and reported according to chapter 15. Their greeting was that those who heard the Word preached believed and received the Holy Spirit just as they themselves had done when they believed. And there followed a long discussion about the relationship between law and grace. Finally summarized the whole meeting in a letter. Then they wrote about how it had gone. Acts 15:25f ” Therefore we have unanimously decided to appoint some men and send them to you together with our dear brothers Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.So we send Judas and Silas, and they will verbally announce the same thing . The Holy Spirit and we have decided not to put any more burden on you except the following necessary rules:that you abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the flesh of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You are doing the right thing if you avoid such things. All good!”
About the person and work of the Spirit, the Scriptures have much more to say that cannot fit here. I end this manna greeting by quoting the last book of the Bible. First from the opening chapters where every letter to the churches of Asia Minor ends with the exhortation ” You who have ears, hear what the Spirit says to the churches! “The stealthy third party in God speaks to ears that are ready to listen. He does not stand in a pulpit and judge but speaks most of the time with a still voice. It becomes more and more difficult to hear the still voice in the maelstrom of words that rages around us, in the world and in the churches.
At last the Spirit of God will make common cause with the Bride of Christ human heart most needs to hear. How shall they hear that voice of God that is both God’s and the Son’s?
” And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” say, “Come!” And he that thirsteth shall come, and he that will receive the water of life freely.
When we pray, it is the Spirit working in us that is to be wrought through us. But what he does will always point to and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and give glory to God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. We baptize in the threefold name, we bless in that name, we are saved by the cooperation these Three always agree upon.
The apostle Peter began one of his epistles with this closing greeting of mine from the Three who are one.
“You are predestinated by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to obedience and purificationwith the blood of Jesus Christ . Grace and peace be with you in ever richer measure. “
“You worship what you do not know,” said the Lord to a woman at a well. He said even more: “ We worship what we know, because salvation comes from the Jews.But a time is coming, and it is already here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Such worshipers the Father wants . God is spirit , and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
4
The fourth section of the three in one
Great is the secret of the Godhead. He became like one of us .
” See that no one ensnares you with the empty and treacherous philosophy that is based on human traditions and worldly powers and not on Christ. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form , and in him you are fulfilled, he who is the head of all rulers and powers.” Colossians 2:8-10
“But if I delay, I want you to know how you should behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. And acknowledged great is the secret of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, proved righteous by the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory.” 1 Tim 3:16f
“Now when the children had partaken of flesh and blood, he himself partook of it in a similar way , in order that by his death he might render powerless the one who had power over death, i.e. the devil, and free all those who for fear of death lived in slavery his whole life. It is not angels he is dealing with, but Abraham’s children. Therefore, he must become like his brothers in everything, to become a merciful and faithful high priest before God and atone for the sins of the people. Because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he can help those who are tempted.” Heb 2:14-18
” And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten from the Father. And he was full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
“ No one has ever seen God. The Only Begotten, who himself is God and in the bosom of the Father , he has made him known.” Joh 1:18
“Then Jesus said to them: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am and that I do nothing of myself, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Joh 8:28
The most wonderful, puzzling, difficult to understand and perplexing thing in the word of God is undeniably this deep secret: God becomes a true and genuine man who shares all the conditions of man without falling victim to the temptations of these conditions. God’s becoming man is undeniably the real crux of the doctrine of the Three who are one. Consequently, it is not difficult to understand that the history of dogma and theologies have branched out into widely different positions when it comes to this particular secret. Or perhaps better said: this mystery. There is no hidden secret in the matter, it is already clear from the excerpts the introduction gives at hand. But it is a mystery. How can three be one without being just three sides of the same thing? How can three be different from each other without being three different gods? How can God become man in the Son without ceasing to be Father and God while he appears in the form of the Son on Earth for 33 years? Is it the Father who dies on the cross if he is one with the Son?
These questions have caused many to attach themselves to one or another pattern of interpretation that takes a stand for or against the various statements. The desire and the need to “sort out this to the intellect incomprehensible doctrine has been the object and subject of thousands of volumes of learned books. And yet none of them have given us the final and definitive solution. It seems perfectly logical to me that this should be the case.
If it wasn’t a mystery, it wouldn’t be confusing either! It points to a rather striking reluctance to accept that there is more than what man understands. It is part of the fall’s effect on the mind that it thinks it can understand everything, without at the same time understanding its limitation. It hurts the human soul to stop before that which is greater than one’s own self. The ego’s stubborn pride gets a crack when it is forced to kneel before that which it cannot understand. There must be no one above me! (it’s the autocrat’s parlance) It’s the last lifeline the self-glorifying sinner has. In order to be saved from that deification, it is necessary for the rope to run out and slip out of their hands.
Listen to the limitations of the mind.
” Who has searched the Spirit of the Lord? Who can counsel him and teach him? Whom does he consult, who will give him understanding and teach him the right path, teach him knowledge and show him the way of understanding?” Isaiah 40:13f
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. Count on him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and avoid evil.” Proverbs 3:4f
Add what Paul wrote to the Corinthians ch 1 “ Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Mosaic law? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of preaching. For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, but we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 1 Cor 1:22-25
Human presumptuousness takes many forms and takes on infinite expressions. It does not want to revere or respect God, it wants to sit in judgment over God’s actions and it constantly strives to master God. And it is presumptuous enough to demand proof of great things which it is incapable of understanding even if they came to her. (The dialogue between God and Job should be pondered by all.)
It is only when she unreservedly acknowledges her own metaphysical smallness, admits that she herself never in this life sees more than the fringes of God’s work, and reaches out in unconditional adoration, that the mystery can glow with the glory of God within you.
Those who work to eliminate the mystery also eliminate the God that exists. It is the equivalent in theology of Santa’s workshop!
“How backwards you are! Should the clay be considered equal to the potter ? Should the work say of its master: “He did not make me”? Or shall the formed say of him who formed it, “He understands nothing”? Isaiah 29:16
” You man, who are you to question God? Surely what is formed cannot say to the one who forms it: Why did you make me like this? Doesn’t the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump a vessel for honorable purposes and another for less honorable purposes?” Rom 9:20-21
Yes, someone might say, we must strive to reach the wealth of full understanding! Doesn’t that mean we should question everything and only give up when we understand everything? The full certainty of reason does not exclude the mystery of the Incarnation, it embraces it!
” Therefore I bow my knees before the Father,he from whom all that is called father in heaven and on earth has its name. I pray that in the riches of his glory he will give power and strength to your inner man through his Spirit, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith and that you will be rooted and grounded in love. Then you, together with all the saints, will be able to grasp the breadth and the length and the height and the depthand come to know the love of Christ, which goes far beyond all knowledge. Then you will be completely filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19 That Jesus Christ became a true man is the mystery of the incarnation. But that’s just the one mystery. It is followed by a second: Christ in us our hope of glory! The incarnation, the becoming flesh, is for Christ himself, through his Spirit, to work in and through us so that the purpose for which we were created will become a reality. It’s just as big a mystery, how does it happen? It works the same way. The Father said to the Son, today I have begotten you! (Heb 1:5) To us the Word says the same. ” Jesus answered: “I tell you the truth: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised that I said you must be born again. The wind blows where it will, and you hear its whistling, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8 John This is no less a mystery than that the Son is of the same nature as the Father!
“But to all who received him he gave the right to become Children of God, to those who believe in his name. They are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Joh 1:12-13
If our thought backs off because of the idea of God becoming man, then it stops and shies away even more before the wonder that Christ would take his form and reform us and restore what was lost in Adam. See this against the background of God’s intention to populate the world through man, ( in the double form of Adam and Eve), which he created in his own image, (ie all other living organisms are created in their own image.) Only mankind is created to bear the image of the Creator.
During his lifetime “Yehoshua” was never less than God and never more than true man. In those years he demonstrated that a fully human life was such that he could say it plainly. ” Jesus answered, “I have been so long with you, and you have not come to know me, Philip. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say: Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak of myself. The Father dwells in me, and the works are his works.” John 14:8-10
While he was alive, his body was the bearer of the glory of the Godhead. When, through his death and resurrection, he becomes the firstborn of an entirely new phenomenon, the corporate church body, it is again an incarnation. (Where He Himself is the head!) But now in the diversity called “the body of Christ”. The re-creation of God’s image is going on in us who are born again, or as Paul writes to Titus. ” But when God, our Saviour, revealed his goodness and love to us humans, he saved us, not because of righteous deeds that we had done but because of his mercy. He saved us by a bath to new birth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Saviour,that we may be justified by his grace and become heirs with the hope of eternal life.” Tit 3:7f
“Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man, who is renewed in right knowledge and becomes the image of his Creator. Here there is no longer Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all. Col 3:9-11
One wonders if this is not the real reason why many do away with the incarnation. They lack experience of this second mystery. If one looks with a spiritual perspective, one sees the purpose of Creation and God’s plan of salvation through Jesus’ becoming human and its result, the restoration of the first Adam in the image of the last Adam. ” See what love the Father has given us: that we may be called children of God! And so are we. The world does not know us, because it has not come to know him.My beloved, now we are God’s children , and it has not yet been revealed what we will become. But we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him, because then we will see him as he is. And everyone who has that hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”
That and nothing less is the action plan of the Body of Christ. So has the Head decided and intended. The Three who are One have spoken.
Teddy Donobauer November 2024