part 2
The absolute ONENESS of Father and Son, as stated in the Scriptures, seems to permit no separate identity. The identities, like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in relationship only. We have no equivalent of that Oneness to illustrate it by, or analyze it. When Jesus said I and the Father are One, He meant more than being ONE in thought, purpose, and agreement, as Man and Wife or any other separate identities. Who ever heard of a wife being so absurd as to say, when a visitor calls to see her husband: “He that sees me sees my husband.” The thing simply doesn’t make sense, but nonsense!
The human mind cannot conceive of a Oneness more absolute, than that of which Jesus spoke: “Believest thou not, that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” This absolute oneness Jesus elucidated thus: “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” In other words, Jesus definitely taught that God, the Eternal Spirit, so obsessed Him, that every manifestation of power, through His lips or hands, was definitely the work of the Father who dwelt within. The Son, Himself, disclaims, disavows, disallows any glory whatsoever. I, of mine own self, can do nothing! The definite, solitary, motive power in the life of the Son of Man was that of God the Invisible.
John gives us the biography of The Logos --The Living Word. He jumps back over the Bethlehem manger, discarding the flesh, and makes three statements in introducing his subject: First, His eternality: In the beginning was the Logos. Second, His identity as the Logos --the expression, or soul of God: The Logos was with God. Third, His absolute Deity: and the Logos was God.
Here we have Christ before the Bethlehem manger He did not exist as the Son of God, but the Word of God. And as God is the final, certain, solitary ONE, that cannot be diminished, divided, or multiplied, as the Logos He was no more separate from Deity or God, than a man’s soul can be said to be separate from his body. There is that mysterious, indefinable thing in God, which answers to the soul in man, and explains the statement, “So God created man in HIS OWN IMAGE.”
If we simply rest in God’s statement, that in the beginning, Jesus was the Logos --the Word or Expression of God-- then the unity of the Deity is sustained. The Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. If the Logos was the second person of the Deity, separate as to individuality, then the Scriptures would say: The Logos was of God. This is what Russell taught, and in view of the unimpeachable unity of God, is utter blasphemy. If the Logos back in the beginning was a created being, separate from God, the difficulties are many and insuperable, but, if the Logos was God, just as the soul of a man can be said to be the real man, there is no difficulty, and the absolute unity of the Deity is sustained.
The Logos or Word went forth from God and formed the Theophany. The Logos or Word of God spake through the prophets unto the fathers. The Logos or Word created the universe. The Logos or Word was before all things and by Him and for Him all things consist. The Logos or Word was the beginning of God’s creation. The Logos or Word had the glory of God’s own self before the world was (see
John 17:5). Every Scripture fits this identification of Christ back in the beginning. He was The Word. This Logos came out from the Father God, and came into the world in the form of God’s son, and after the resurrection He left the world and went back into the Father. For of Him and through Him and back into Him are all things, to whom be glory forever Amen!
An earnest humble inquirer after truth will ask, the exponent of the eternal sonship theory, where or when was this Son born? He will answer, that this is the mystery. However, the Scripture declares that Jesus was God’s only begotten Son. The Son was not begotten or born twice. Hs birth as the Only Begotten Son was at Bethlehem. It was said, That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. Mary’s son was the only Son that was called the Son of God. Likewise the exponent of the theory that Jesus was created back in eternity, has to confess that as a created Being he would be inferior to both God and the Son of God. And as a created Being would be no better than Adam, and certainly not of the Angels. But the Scriptures declare that His superiority is in the fact that by birth or inheritance He hath received the more excellent name than they (
Heb 1:4). Jesus in prayer said, I have declared unto them Thy Name. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matt 28:19).
In
Rom 1:20, Paul declares that the Godhead may be understood by the things that God hath made. This greatest of all truths, the absolute unity of God, is all through nature. A tree is three in one. Light is three in one, and in every case, we have an inseparable unit. In conformity with nature revelation declares that the True God and Eternal Life, is the Father or Logos, incarnated in the Son. Little children keep yourselves from idols!
If Jesus, the Christ, is God’s final theophany, and God’s last word (for He commands, Hear ye him!) then we can make this significant deduction: What Jesus said about Himself, is absolutely final, as regards this controversy about His absolute Deity. It has been said, gloatingly, that Jesus never said that He was the Father. In the sense of relationship taken on through the incarnation, Jesus couldn’t call Himself the Father. However, in the sense of His eternality, He was equal with the Father. He thought equality with God a thing not to be grasped as a robber’s prize (Phil 2:6). In the wonderful discourse about Himself in
John 14, Jesus said, I won’t leave you comfortless, I will come unto you. That word, comfortless, would be better translated fatherless. Jesus claims to be the I AM that spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. It is Jesus who is speaking all through the Revelations, and He calls Himself, The First and the Last; the Alpha and the Omega; and the Almighty, Amen (see
Rev 1:11, also
Rev 1:8). So when the Final Theophany, the Beginning and End of the creation of God, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, even the Almighty speaks; though the mystery is great, let us in reverential awe, fellowship the mystery. Amen.
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