I believe in communicating the Word of God very simply. In the beginning God planted a beautiful garden, put His children in it and then kicked back to watch them play and enjoy what He had given them. They only had one commandment to obey then; they were told not to eat the fruit of a particular tree or they would die. The first theologian was right there on the scene to contradict God’s simple instruction with “That’s not what He meant” - And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die: For God knows that in the day you eat it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:4,5).
     God’s commandment was disobeyed. Suddenly everything went from simple to complicated and the peaceful life God had originally planned for His children was cruelly violated.

There are a lot of theologians out there who, whether they realize it or not, are emulating that first theologian’s technique. I have noticed that some who have been schooled in a particular theology and parts of it do not line up with the whole of what the Scriptures are actually saying, can use an elaborate, wordy thesis as a means of decoying the student into a particular religious philosophy. God’s Word is written very simply. The teachers He appointed to pen His Words by His Spirit did not overwhelm us with complicated explanations, but explanations, but wrote simply and to the point. We can wrestle with the Word when conviction or some other excuse compels us to try and rearrange what God is actually saying, but we do so to our detriment.

When studying the Scriptures the context must always be consider as well as any relating texts. The Jews practiced the technique of “Scripture linking.” They would take a keyword, then search other texts to see how the same word was used as a means of enlightening the particular passage they were studying. Also the technique of linking Scriptures together as a means of illuminating the meaning of a subject is illustrated for us in the Word as an effective means of teaching Scripture. The writer of Hebrews effectively links a series of different verses from the Old Testament together from verses five through thirteen as the finale of chapter one. The Apostle Paul actually “talks” with the Word in Romans three, verses ten through eighteen, where he eloquently links Scriptures and parts of Scriptures together to paint a word picture of the wicked. This technique for study is criticized by some, even though the Word gives us a clear model for its value and use.

The Bible is like a treasure chest filled with jewels. Each Scripture is a rare gem of God’s truth. A good teacher of God’s Word is like a fine jeweller. Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, the jeweller sets each jewel in its proper order to create the finished work. Like a beautiful necklace, the jewels of Scripture should stand out on their own. The setting that the jeweller creates should accent and enhance, but never overwhelm or detract from the beauty of the jewels. The Scriptures have been designed to interpret themselves; the light of each jewel illuminates the other. If a doctrine is correct, then all the other jewels will relate to each other in perfect harmony. In this study I have tried to be a good jeweller and keep the setting of my own words at a minimum.
     Also, I would like everyone to know that I have not been indoctrinated into anybody's particular denominational theology, therefore this is an objective study that is based thoroughly upon the Word of God. I believe that if a doctrine cannot be taught exclusively from the Word of God, then we have no business teaching it as the Word of God.
     I give God all the glory for this work and I praise Him for the beauty His Word contains.

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same God which works all in all. - I Corinthians 12:4-6 KJV

One that is Three

The Scriptures tell us that there are “three” – One Spirit, One Messiah and One God the Father. -

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4: 4-6).

In this verse the Apostle Paul is recording what has previously been revealed in the Old Testament where we see the Three in Isaiah 42:1. – Behold My servant, whom I uphold; My elect, in whom My soul delights; I have put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:1
     In this messianic passage, God the Father gives His Holy Spirit to the Messiah.

The basis of Trinitarianism is that the "Three," God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all operate simultaneously. All Three are distinct from each other, yet they are all one. Each is the totality of the other, which means you cannot have one without the other. They are not separated; they are One Spirit operating as one inseparable unit. This distinguishes Biblical Trinitarianism from tritheism, which is the worship of three individual, separate gods/personalities as one.
     The premise of the Three operating at the same time is supported one hundred percent by the Word of God. The Apostle Paul tells us that God is seated on His throne while Jesus is at the right hand of the Father at the same time the Holy Spirit is in the believer. –

Who is he that condemns ? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us (Romans 8:34).
     For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father (Romans 8:15).
     …the Spirit of God dwells in you… (Romans 8:9).

At Jesus’ baptism we see Him in the water as the Holy Spirit descends from Heaven and we hear the voice of the Father declare Jesus is His beloved Son. -

And Jesus, when He was baptized, went straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” ( Matthew 3:16, 17).

In Daniel chapter seven, we are shown the Messiah as the Son of Man being brought in clouds, (an element often associated with the Holy Spirit,) before the Ancient of Days (God the Father).

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him (Daniel 7:13).

From these Scriptures we can see that all three operate at the same time, and all three are distinct from each other. What makes them a “Trinity” is their unity. The word trinity comes from the Latin word, “trinitas” which means “a union of three.” In this study we shall see how the scriptures reveal how the Three are unified and how all three are “God” through that unification. However, Biblical Trinitarianism does not teach that Jesus is God the Father. Christians need to understand that whenever we use the word “God” in relation to Jesus, to the Jewish and Muslim minds we are saying that Jesus is God the Father. Jesus is not God the Father, they are two distinct “persons” that are one. To understand this relationship and its significance to us, is the goal of this journey into the mystery of what man has christened the “Trinity."
     Before I begin, the reader needs to understand that this study is based on a trichotomous view of God. And it is important to understand this concept before we start to explore the universe of how our wondrous God has chosen to reveal His construction to mankind.

Trichotomous or Dichotomous?

There are lots of tricky sounding words that have been cut and pasted into Christian theology. The words themselves are not found in the Scriptures, but they are used to define concepts that are contained in the Word of God.
     The word “trichotomy” or “trichotomous” is used to describe the belief that human beings consist of “three” – spirit, soul and body. The apostles were trichotomous in their theology. The Apostle Paul said; –

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thessalonians 5:23).

The Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments make a distinction between the soul and the spirit; the spirit being the the body’s life force. In the Old Testament the word for spirit is Ruach, in the Greek, Pneuma. The word for soul in the Hebrew is Nephesh, in Greek, Psuche (psoo-khay).
     Sometimes the words for spirit and soul are used interchangeably and the meanings overlap. The word for spirit is used on occasion to indicate the soul, and vice versa. Because of this there arose out of the murky swamp of theological definitions the ominous two-horned “dichotomous.” A dichotomist believes the spirit and the soul are the same, therefore humans are merely two, soul and body. Some folks even go so far as to label anyone who is a trichotomous as a heretic. It is time for the three-horned trichotomous to stop being chased through the swamp to turn and defend its theological right to exist. Actually, the dichotomous position originated with Plato, was perpetuated by Augustine and was eventually adopted by Calvin.
     I’m sure no one would want to deliberately offend the Apostle Paul by accusing him of being a heretic for his comment in I Thessalonians 5:23, yet that is what those critics of the trichotomous position are doing when they contradict the Apostle who said; -

You be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ (I Corinthians 11:1).

The Apostle Paul was a very fine Hebrew scholar and who I am sure, recognized the distinction in the Hebrew of soul and spirit; the spirit being the life force, and the soul the actual person. Following the Apostle’s example I don the name tag that designates me as a trichotomist. Now I must respond to the growling protests of the dichotomists in our audience who think the Apostle Paul is wrong.
     I am willing to acknowledge that the words soul and spirit are sometimes used interchangeably; at the same time I also recognize that they are also used separately, indicating that they are two distinct elements. Can both concepts be reconciled? Yes they can.
     It is generally understood by those who follow the trichotomous theology that the spirit gives life to the body and influences the soul. The soul is understood to be the person of anyone. We save souls, because the soul survives the death of the body and must be cleansed by faith in the atonement through Messiah Jesus in order to inherit eternal life.

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (psuche)? (Mark 8:36).
He will redeem his soul (nephesh) from going down to the pit, and his life shall see light (Job 33:28).

Dichotomists believe that the soul gives life to the body, but the Scriptures show us that the soul is a created entity. – "The souls which I have made" (Isaiah 57:16).

That which is created does not have the ability to give life, especially sinful souls that require redemption. Only God has the power to create life from nothing. However, in the original Greek it is indicated that the soul can also be part of the life force. Yet, at the same time the very definite distinction between soul and spirit still exists, leading us to the conclusion that spirit and soul are two distinct elements of a human’s construction that are one to the point of being indistinguishable from each other, but they can also function separately. Therefore because of the intimate union of soul and spirit, there is the appearance of the soul being part of the life force.
     Let’s take a look at this example from the Scriptures that illustrates the distinction between soul and spirit. The prophet Isaiah says;

With my soul (nephesh) have I desired You in the night, yes, with my spirit (ruach) within me I will seek You early, for when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9).

The prophet’s soul/person desires God, he seeks Him with his spirit.

And Mary said, My soul (psuche) does magnify the Lord, and my spirit (pneuma) has rejoiced in God my saviour (Luke 1:46,47).

Mary’s soul, her person, who she is, magnifies, her spirit rejoices. Therefore, the spirit and the soul can operate simultaneously in separate functions.
     The soul/person is made by God through His Spirit and given life by His breath. -

The Spirit of God has made me (the soul/person) and the breath (neshamah) has given me life (Job 33:4).
     And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (neshamah) of life; and man became a living soul (nephesh.) (Genesis 2:7).
     As the Lord lives, that made us this soul (nephesh) (Jeremiah 38:16).

The word neshamah (breath), which can also mean spirit, is used in reference to the life force in a human to distinguish it from God’s Holy Spirit (Ruach). The word ruach can be used to designate man’s spirit and also God’s Holy Spirit. We must then examine the texts that we are studying to determine the usage; whether the word ruach is being used to designate a human spirit, or God’s Holy Spirit.
     Jesus said that; -

“It is the spirit (pneuma) that quickens” (gives life) (John 6:63).
     For the body without the spirit (pneuma) is dead (James 2:26).

Here Jesus and the Apostle James are telling us that the pneuma/spirit is the life force. When we die;

- Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit (ruach) shall return to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

While the spirit, or life force, can return to God upon the death of the human body, the soul, which is the person, cannot return to God unless it is redeemed; that is sanctified by the atonement of Jesus Christ.
     We see from the examples given to us in the Scriptures that when someone dies, their spirit, the life force returns to God, but the soul remains. When Abel was murdered by his brother Cain, Abel’s spirit, his life force returned to the God who gave it, but his voice was heard crying out from the ground. –

And He said, "What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood cries to Me from the ground" (Genesis 4:10).

The person/soul that needed to be saved remained behind.
     The prophet David says in Psalm 71:20...and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
     The Hebrews believed that after the death of the body, souls were separated into two dwellings based on their deeds. The righteous dead remained in paradise and the wicked were in hell to await the resurrection of the dead. So we see that when the beggar Lazarus died in Jesus' parable, his spirit returned to God, but Lazarus' person/soul is seen in paradise with Abraham. –

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:22, 23).

The Apostle Peter tells us that after Jesus died on the cross He was sent by the Spirit to hell where He ministered the Gospel to the souls there. Their spirits/life forces had returned to God, but their souls, their persons, who they are, remained in hell or paradise awaiting redemption.

For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison; which sometimes were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water (I Peter 3:19,20).

(Jesus was never beaten and tortured by the devil in hell as some mistakenly teach. This false doctrine originated from someone’s personal philosophy with no basis in Scripture).

The writer of Hebrews tells us that; –

The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

In this verse from Hebrews, the Word tells us that there are two; soul and spirit. The context indicates that these two are united so closely they are also like two parts of one body, the joint (the bone), and the marrow, the inner part of the bone. The Scriptures are showing us by this comparison of soul and spirit and bone and marrow, that these two things that are so intimately connected as one are also two and can be separated.
     Therefore, the soul/person of anyone is intimately joined to the spirit in such a union of the two, so as to make the two completely one to the point of being indistinguishable from the other, yet they can operate separately and be separated from each other upon death.
     Because soul and spirit are so closely united, we can begin to see why in the Scriptures the two elements of spirit and soul are sometimes used interchangeably and viewed as one.
     As we proceed in this study we will see this principle operating in the relationship of the Father and the Son. In His Image

The Bible tells us that people are made in the image of God.

And God said, Let us make man in our image (Genesis 1:26).

Humans are also one that is three, – body, soul and spirit, so the concept of the Trinity is not a mystery that cannot be explained. God has placed everything we need to know about His miraculous construction within the pages of His Word. One of my favourite Scriptures is Proverbs 25:2 – It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. When we combine our seeking with a child-like inquisitiveness, God is most happy to oblige us and He responds by opening His Word and begins to reveal His secrets to His children. Jesus said, - “I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes” (Matthew 11:25).
     Come children, we are about to begin an inspirational game of “Seek and you shall find….”

The Omnipresent, Majestic God The Father

God the Father is One Spirit. One of the most common misconceptions some folks have is that Trinitarians teach that God is more than one giving rise to claims of polytheism. This is particularly true of Muslims. In a conversation I had with another Christian he related to me an incident that took place at a public forum where Christians were given the opportunity to question a Muslim cleric. My friend had stood up during the question and answer time and asked the Muslim if he believed in the Trinity.
     “He was so upset, he was almost shaking the pulpit,” I was told with amusement.
     My friend was startled when I replied, “I don’t blame him. He thinks you are a polytheist. In his mind you were asking him if he believed in more than one god.” This would be a great blasphemy to a Muslim – and also to a Christian for that matter.

Any competent theologian will tell you that in most cases in the New Testament when the word God is mentioned, Jesus and the apostles are referring to God the Father. Trinitarianism does not teach that God the Father is plural or more than one. Jesus said that; –

God is a Spirit, (singular) (John 4:24). (The King James translators added the “a” to emphasize the singularity of the word Spirit.) God is one Spirit.
     Hear, Oh, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4).
     This is the shema. Jews are required to recite it twice a day. In the ancient world, the Jews were the only people who recognized that there is one God. All other nationalities at that time were polytheists, people who believed in more than one god.

The belief that there is only one God is called monotheism, and it is the basis for the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths.
     There is only one God and He is one Spirit. The minute we have more than one spirit, we have more than one god and we are jumping the fence into polytheism. The Apostle Paul said, –

…God is one (Galatians 3:20).
     There is none other God but one (I Corinthians 8:4).

Our God is one God who is one unlimited, omnipresent, omniscient Spirit and; –

For with God nothing shall be impossible ( Luke 1:37).
     Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me? (Jeremiah 32:27).

He knows the thoughts of every human being on this planet and every human being who has ever lived. –
     For I know their works and their thoughts (Isaiah 66:18).

He is omnipresent and can be in more than one place at a time. He can keep track of the ever changing number of the hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30) as He is conversing with the angels around His throne while He oversees the intricate workings of the earth and the universe, monitors our heart beats and contemplates the motives behind our prayers.
     He could, through His Spirit, have a detailed, intimate conversation simultaneously with every human being on this planet and still be one.
     We must grasp this concept of His unlimited omnipresence if we are to comprehend anything about Him at all.
     Because God is unlimited, He has the capability to operate in the plural or as more than one if He so chooses, because nothing is impossible to Him – but He is never more than one.

God the Father is One Person

God the Father is One God who is One Spirit. As we have discussed in the previous section, the Hebrew word for spirit is ruach. God tells us in His Word that He also has a “soul,” which is His "person" or being, and again, the Hebrew for this word is nephesh. God's Spirit is His substance; what He is. His soul/person is His being, who He is.

Behold! My servant whom I uphold, My elect One in whom My soul (nephesh) delights! (Isaiah 42:1).
     Be instructed, O Jerusalem, lest My soul (nephesh) depart from you, lest I make you desolate, a land not inhabited (Jeremiah 6:8).
     Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul (nephesh) (Jeremiah 32:41).
     I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul (nephesh) shall not abhor you (Leviticus 26:11).
     The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul (nephesh) hates (Psalm 11:5).

God is Spirit; His Spirit fills the universe and beyond for infinity. His soul or “Person” directs the operations of His Spirit. God wills, sends, and ministers His Spirit to create and interact with men.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1,2).
     You send forth Your Spirit, they are created (Psalm 104:30).
     I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17).
     He therefore that ministers to you the Spirit, and works miracles among you… (Galatians 3:5).
     God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will…(Hebrews 2:4).
     And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all (I Corinthians 12:6).

We can clearly see from these Scriptures the interaction of a Mind that wills and a Spirit that responds.

God’s invisible Spirit can interact with men and speak through His prophets and can manifest visibly as cloud and fire. We have many examples of this throughout the Old and New Testaments. But at the same time God is also described as dwelling in light that no man can approach. –

Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach to; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen (I Timothy 6:16).

If God’s Spirit can interact and communicate with people like the gentle rays of the sun, then we can assume that God’s soul, His person, is like the sun itself, generating an unapproachable light.
     God’s invisible Spirit encapsulates God’s soul like the encasing on an electrical cord. We can touch the cord, but not the electrical power it is insulating.
     Jesus Christ is the image of God’s invisible Spirit, the Father’s Ruach and His unapproachable light, His soul, His being, His Nephesh.

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature (Colossians 1:15).
     He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9).

To understand how Jesus can be the image of the Father, we need to understand a little bit more about the Holy Spirit and how God causes His Spirit to operate.

God's Holy Spirit

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth...And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters – Genesis 1:1,2.

The Holy Spirit is not a second spirit. Remember, if we have more than one Spirit, we have more than one God and we are entering into the forbidden realm of polytheism. There is One God who is Spirit; therefore there can be only one Spirit that is God’s Spirit.

There is one body and one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4).
     For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body (I Corinthians 12:13).

As we have been shown in the previous chapter, there is only One Intelligence that directs the operations of His Spirit.

I will pour out My Spirit (Joel 2:28).

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. –

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send (by prayer) to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me (John 15:26). –

(The Holy Spirit is sent by the intelligence/will/person of the Father). –

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you (John 14:26).

The Holy Spirit is sent by the prayer of Jesus. –

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever (John 14:16). –

And is the Spirit of the Father. –

For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you (Matthew 10:20).
     For it is not you that speak but the Holy Spirit (Mark 13:11).
     God is a Spirit (John 4:24). –

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of our God. –

…you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God (I Corinthians 6:11).

God is one Spirit. The Holy Spirit is "portioned" from the Spirit that is God the Father. Let's study carefully the text in Joel 2:28.

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit (singular) upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit (Joel 2:28,29).

God pours out or "portions" His Spirit upon all flesh, thereby causing His Spirit to operate in multiples of the One Spirit that is God the Father.
     The prophecy in Joel 2:28 was fulfilled dramatically in the second chapter of Acts when individual tongues of fire appeared above the heads of the disciples.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them (Acts 2:1-3).

The one Spirit of God the Father is bestowed in individual portions upon each believer because God is the God of the individual.

God’s Holy Spirit is often manifested in the Scriptures as elements; cloud and fire, wind and water. In addition to the example of the Spirit’s appearance as fire in Acts 2, God announced His Spirit’s arrival by a rushing, mighty wind (Acts 2:1-30). The Spirit was seen as cloud by day and fire by night to the Jews in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21). The Spirit is also paralleled to water and is referred to as the latter rain. –

Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for He has given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month (Joel 2:23).
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He (God the Father) shall come to us as the rain, as the latter and former rain to the earth (Hosea 6:3).

It is interesting to note that the Scriptures here do not make any distinction between the LORD (the Father) and His Holy Spirit, they are the same element.

The fire of the Holy Spirit is also sometimes manifested and used in conjunction symbolically with plural eyes. Plural eyes represent the Spirit’s omnipresence; – one eye can see in one place, two eyes can see more, and many eyes can see all over the place!
     In Ezekiel’s vision we see cloud and fire manifesting with the plural eyes that were on the wheels (Ezekiel 1:4, 1:18). In Revelation chapter four, verse five, there are seven “lamps” burning with fire before the Throne of God. (Remember, God’s “Person” can be on His throne while His omnipresent Spirit is everywhere). -

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne which are the seven spirits of God (Revelation 4:5).

The lamps made their initial debut in Zechariah 4:2,10. The prophet sees a vision of seven lamps and in verse ten we are told that the lamps are "the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole earth.”
     In Revelation chapter five, verse six, we see Jesus as a slain Lamb representing Him in His incarnate state, but this Lamb has seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God, the“lamps” in Revelation chapter four, and Zechariah 4:2, 10, sent forth into all the earth. –

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

There is only one Spirit that is God as we have seen. The eyes and the plural Spirits represent the omnipresent Holy Spirit of God that is everywhere, and can operate as more than one at the same time. And this omnipresent Spirit is seen in Jesus.
     In the Scriptures, Jesus is referred to as a Rock. – (Romans 9:33, I Corinthians 10:4). In the book of Zechariah, Jesus is represented symbolically by a stone.

For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day (Zechariah 3:9).

Here we see God engraving plural eyes upon the Rock of our salvation. –

Behold My servant, whom I uphold; My elect, in whom My soul delights; I have put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:1).
     “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” (Luke 4:18).

God engraved His law in the tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18). He engraved His Holy Spirit in the Rock of our Salvation.

Through Jesus we receive the “seal” of the Holy Spirit. The Rock in Zechariah can also be translated as a gem stone. Certain stones were used as signets or seals. A design was carved into the stone and then pressed into wax or moist clay. God engraves His Spirit in Jesus and through Him, His Spirit is impressed into the clay of God’s creation, and we become the possession of the most High God.
     On the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:3) the Holy Spirit was manifested as fire upon the heads of one hundred and twenty believers in multiples of one God; the Omnipresent Spirit that fills the whole universe and beyond, is the God of the individual. God has the ability to designate individual portions of His Spirit to every believer, and this is another reason why His Spirit is represented as individual lamps of fire in Revelation 4:5, and also individual “drops” of the latter rain.

I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (II Corinthians 6:16).

The Spirit of the Son

The believers in the second chapter of Acts received God’s Holy Spirit in individual portions and the very first person/soul to experience this “portioning” of God’s Spirit is Jesus Christ, the Firstborn, only "begotten" Son of God.
     The Holy Spirit is the portion of God’s Spirit that God, the Father has designated to be the Spirit of His Son – and God gave of His Spirit to His Son without measure. -

For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for God gives not the Spirit by measure to Him (John 3:34).

In most cases, the Holy Spirit is rendered in the neuter in the Greek, possibly because there is no soul or “person” associated with the Spirit apart from the Father’s soul or person and the Son’s soul. This is why the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as an "It," a grammatical occurrence that is never associated with either the Father or the Son. -

The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Romans 8:16).
     Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).
     Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (I Peter 1:11).

The Holy Spirit was not referred to specifically as a "person" until the end of the second century by Origen. One of the top Greek Language experts, Daniel B. Wallace, who is a Trinitarian, asserts that the evidence for the Holy Spirit being a person is lacking in the original Greek. (Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit, Bulletin for Biblical Research 13:1 (2003) 97-125).
     While the Greek may not support the Holy Spirit as being a person, this does not mean that the Holy Spirit does not have a person. Just as the spirit in a human is a distinct entity from the soul, the Holy Spirit is a distinct entity from the Father’s and the Son’s persons/souls. Because God has designed for spirit to operate with the soul, the person of the Holy Spirit is the person of the Father and the Son which we will explore more fully as this study continues.

The Jews who lived prior to Jesus, believed that “the Spirit of God” that moved upon the waters in Genesis 1:2, was the same Spirit of Isaiah 11:2; the Spirit of the Messiah. This oral tradition was written down in the Midrash approximately in the second century. The Apostle Paul reiterates this belief when he said in reference to the Holy Spirit, – the Lord (Jesus) is that Spirit (II Corinthians 3:17).
     The Apostles made no distinction between the Father’s Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus. The Father’s Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit (Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of His Son are synonymous. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father which is Jesus’ Spirit.

…the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His (Romans 8:9).
     Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (I Peter 1:11).
     And because you are sons, God (the intelligence that directs the operations of His Spirit – Psalm 104:30) has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6).
     For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:19).
     I (Jesus) will come to you (John 14:18).
     For without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5).
     For I (Jesus) will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist (Luke 21:15).
     And if Christ be in you… (Romans 8:1).
     …if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
     Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord ( II Corinthians 3:17,18).

The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Spirit, which is the Father’s Spirit in His Son, and God the Father speaks through His Spirit in His Son.

God, who at various times and in divers manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:1,2).

How does the Father speak by His prophets? The Apostle Peter tells us. -

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1:21).

Jesus also says that the Holy Spirit “speaks what He hears” (John 16:13) – from the God the Father, as illustrated for us by the Apostle Paul. –

Wherefore (as the Holy Spirit says; Today if you will hear His voice,
     Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
    When your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years.
     Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, they do always err in their heart; and they have not known My ways.
    So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest (Hebrews 3:7-11).

Paul is quoting from Psalm 95:7-11, where God speaks by His Holy Spirit through the prophet David. Likewise God also speaks though His Son.
    When Jesus’ disciple Philip, asked Him to show them the Father, the Father spoke by His Spirit through His Son as He did through His prophets. –

Have I been such a long time with you, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? (John 14:9).

Then Jesus reminded them that He is the image of the invisible God. –

He that has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9).
     The Father that dwells in Me, He does the works (John 14:10).

Jesus said, "He that dwells with you"– meaning that the Father by His Spirit was dwelling with the disciples in the image of His Son – would also be in them. -

He that dwells with you…shall be in you (John 14:17).

As we enter the Door of God’s Son, – (I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture – John 10:9) – we enter into the sweet paradise of restoration of fellowship with our Father and His Son.-

I (Jesus) will come to you (John 14:18).
     We (The Father and The Son) – will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23).

And we are made a "habitation of God through His Spirit," (Ephesians 2:22).–

For through Him (Jesus) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Ephesians 2:18).
    And because you are sons, (by faith in Messiah Jesus) God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, "Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6).

There is only One God who is Spirit and there is only One Spirit that is God – and God imparts His Spirit to us through His only begotten Son.

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this, which you now see and hear (Acts 2:33).
     …according to mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour (Titus 3:5,6).
     Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).

Jesus comes into us through His Holy Spirit. The Voice of Jesus is the Voice of the Holy Spirit.-

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them and they follow Me – (John 10:27).

In the book of Revelation, the Father declares that He is the Alpha and Omega. –

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son (Revelation 21:6, 7).

With the same Voice of the Father’s Spirit Jesus also declares that He is the Alpha and Omega. –

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Revelation 22:13,1:8,11).

Two Persons, One Voice, One Spirit - One Amazing God.

The resurrected person of the Son is seated at the right hand of the Father, (Romans 8:34) while the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son indwells the believer, linking the believer to the person of the Son and the Father through one Spirit. –

For through Him (Jesus) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access are by one Spirit unto the Father ( Ephesians 2:18).
     In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22).

Human beings were created for fellowship with God. This fellowship was severed by mankind’s disobedience. We are created in the image of God’s image of soul and spirit. Our souls have eternal properties and were originally designed to live forever. With the advent of sin, the spiritual connection to God disintegrated and our souls essentially became earthbound and unable to enter God’s presence when the body dies and the soul is released. It was for the restoration of this relationship of man to God that the Son of God was manifested.
     Jesus, the Messiah, was sent to accomplish the greatest rescue mission of all time. And it is for this reason that God’s “two” of soul and spirit are joined with His Son and the “three” have been revealed to mankind.

The Son of God – The Last Adam

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit - I Corinthians 15:45

The Son of God is Jesus the Messiah. (The word “Christ” is a Greek derivative for the Hebrew word for Messiah). In the Scriptures Jesus is a parallel to Adam and is referred to as the last Adam in His incarnation.
     While the Scriptures tell us specifically that Jesus is not an angel, (Hebrews 1: 1-14) the term “sons of God” is also used to describe the angels (Job 1:6) and is the term that is used in the New Testament to describe people who have become believers in God through faith in His Messiah, Jesus, (Romans 8:14, 16, I John 3:1.) These are spiritual sons through spiritual “adoption” (Galatians 4:5, Ephesians 1:5, John 1:12) and God prophesized of them in the Old Testament Scriptures.

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth (Isaiah 43:6).
     Even to them will I give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: for I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off (Isaiah 56:5).
     And will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (II Corinthians 6:18).

Adam is also referred to as “The son of God,” because he too had his beginning from God (Luke 3:38).
     Jesus is referred to as the “only” Son. “Begotten” in John 3:16 is monogenes in the Greek which means only, which sets Him apart from the “sons of God.”

For unto which of the angels said He at any time, “You are My Son, this day have I begotten You” (Hebrews 1:5, Psalm 2:7).

The word for “begotten” that is used in Hebrews 1:5 is gennao, Greek for ‘to be born’. That which is “begotten” or “birthed” designates a life that is brought forth from a pre-existing substance, which distinguishes it from something that is created out of nothing or made.
     Jesus is the “only” son because He was the only son, or soul, to be “begotten” or birthed directly from the substance of the Father. He is the “Firstborn.” All other life was brought forth by God through Christ and in this sense Jesus is the Father of the angels.
     Jesus is the firstborn of every creature (Colossians 1:15) the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18) the firstborn of many brethren (Romans 8:29) (sons of God who have been resurrected from the dead) and the beginning of the creation of God - Revelation 3:14, meaning that God instigated the creation of all things through His Son.

The early Christian church believed, that while Jesus always pre-existed within the Father as the essence of His being, there was a specific time when his soul, or person was brought forth from God’s substance or being. – You are My Son, this day I have begotten You (Psalm 2:7, Hebrews 1:5).
     John Wesley says in His Commentary on the whole Bible regarding Colossians 1:15 - that Jesus is - …”the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, begotten before every creature; subsisting before all worlds before all time, from all eternity.”
     Justin Martyr (150 AD) in his “Dialogue with Trypho” says, - “God begat before all creatures a Beginning, a certain Reasonable Power from Himself.” John Calvin's commentary on Colossians 1:15 from the Geneva Bible reads – “A graphic description of the person of Christ, by which we understand, that in Him alone God shows Himself to be seen: who was begotten of the Father before anything was made, that is from everlasting. And by Him also all things that are made, were made without any exception, by Whom also they continue to exist, and Whose glory they serve. Begotten before anything was made and therefore the Everlasting Son of the Everlasting Father.”
     It was also commonly taught and reaffirmed by several councils from the fourth and fifth centuries, that Jesus was twice begotten, once prior to His incarnation, (Hebrews 1:5) and again when His embryo was supernaturally placed in Mary’s body (Hebrews 1:6) and if you didn’t believe that you were “anathema” or cursed.
     (We have to remember when contemplating the beginning of Jesus’ person that we are talking about a birth that is confined to the limitlessness of eternity; and this is why He is referred to as the “eternal” Son).

The doctrine that Jesus was begotten at some point in infinity, is the actual orthodox teaching. Some modern churches have drifted away from the previous authority.

The bringing forth of Jesus’ soul, His person, is a parallel of the creation of the first man. Adam was brought forth, “birthed” or “begotten” from the pre-existing substance of the earth. God breathed into him the breath (neshamah) of life and Adam became a living soul - (Genesis 2:7) - and all subsequent life proceeded from the first man.
     Jesus’ person, soul or being was brought forth from the pre-existing substance of God’s Spirit (Ruach) and God created everything through Him, in concert with His Son. -

"Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26).
     And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:9).
     All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3).
     God who at various times and in divers manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom He also made the worlds (Hebrews 1:1,2).

Like the first Adam and all men, Jesus as a man was born with a spirit, a soul and body (I Thessalonians 5:23). As we have learned in the previous chapters, our souls are who we are, the “person.” We “save” souls by sharing the Gospel, because the soul is the inner being of a human that survives death and will be with God in His presence - or without Him depending on the decisions made in this life. -

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? (Mark 8:36).
     And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).
     He will redeem his soul from going down to the pit, and his life shall see light (Job 33:28).

Jesus had a soul like any human. His soul, or “person” which was begotten by the Father, was the offering for our sins. -

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief: when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand (Isaiah 53:10).

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil and to remove our sins.

And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin (I John 3:5).
     He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (I John 3:8).

The devil instigated death upon the human race; God foreordained that it would be through death that its plague upon mankind would be eliminated. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He (Jesus) also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14,15).
     God took the very thing that the devil intended for evil, and turned it into a weapon that would result in the devil’s ultimate destruction and our redemption. In order to accomplish this extraordinary feat, the God who is two, of spirit and soul, would become three upon the birth of the soul of His Son in infinity, and the Spirit of God was joined with the person/soul of Jesus, the Messiah. – “I have put My Spirit upon Him” (Isaiah 42:1).
     This union does not make our God plural or more than one. The Holy Spirit and the person of His Son are all part of the Father's construction of Person/soul, Spirit and Image. Humans are also made in God's image of soul, spirit and body/image. Does this make us plural, or more than one? We can ask this question, - Do you prefer to think of yourself as three that are one or one that is three? We don't generally think of ourselves in "parts," do we? We think of ourselves as one, even though we are constructed as more than one.

The Word tells us that God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8). Jesus' soul is the perfect image of God's soul or person in holiness and character. God placed His Spirit in union with the perfect image of Himself, but, in order to accomplish our salvation and receive our sins upon Him, Jesus would have to identify with mankind. Thus, Jesus’ person/soul would have to be a distinct “begotten” entity from the Father.
     Souls are made by God....–

For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which I have made (Isaiah 57:16).
     As the Lord lives, that made us this soul (Jeremiah 38:16). –
     ….and formed in the body. – Before I formed you in the belly I knew you (Jeremiah 1:5).

This is why God is referred to as “The Father” in the Scriptures. Each soul begins from God, He knows us, and forms us within the womb by the loving hands of His Spirit. (And this is why the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” is so important).
     As we have been shown, Jesus’ person/soul was birthed directly from the Father’s substance and not made, distinguishing it from our souls. Jesus' soul was begotten in Heaven prior to His incarnation as a man. That’s why Jesus said,

For I came down from heaven (John 6:38).
     I am from above…I am not of this world (John 8:23).
     I am the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:51).
     What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? (John 6:62).
     And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven (John 3:13).

It is interesting to note here, that Jesus said He came down from heaven, yet indicated in John 3:13 that He was also “in heaven” at the same time, verifying the fact that His Spirit is God’s Spirit and is omnipresent and can be in more than one place at once.

The human embryo is conceived by sperm and egg, and life begins by the breath of life, the inherited breath (neshamah) that gave life to the first man, Adam. The soul is made by God and formed in the body. To be a human Jesus had to be born or birthed through a human body.
     To my knowledge there are no words in either the Hebrew or Greek languages to describe a supernatural birth, and this is why we are limited by the words “begotten” and "conceived" simply because these are the only words we have to describe Jesus’ beginning as a human being. Unfortunately these terms refer to a human conception which has nothing to do with Jesus’ miraculous debut. This has led to a great deal of misunderstanding, especially among Muslims, who think because we use those words that God somehow had sexual relations with Mary. This is a great blasphemy to Muslims and also to Christians. Christians have always believed that the embryo that was to house the soul of the Firstborn Son of God began supernaturally by the breath of the Holy Spirit of God, and this is what Muslims also believe.

For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 2:20).

Again, the word “conceived” is misleading, because our Saviour’s beginning as a human being was totally supernatural. God breathed His Holy Spirit into Mary's body igniting her womb with supernatural life. There are no words to describe how God accomplished this miracle, because there has never been a supernatural birth before which is to the Glory of God. God designated Jesus’ birth as unique among all the births in the entire world including all the other prophets, designating Jesus as very special – He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the prophesied Redeemer of mankind.
     As we have been shown from the Scriptures, all humans are born in God’s image of soul and spirit. Jesus had a Spirit. The spirit animates and gives life to the soul and body. –

For as the body without the spirit is dead... (James 2:26).

When God created the first Adam, He breathed into him the “breath of life” and Adam became a living soul (Genesis 2:7.)

And so it is written, the first Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening (Greek, zoopoieo- life giving) Spirit (I Corinthians 15:45).
     For as the Father has life in Himself: so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26).

Here the Scriptures make a specific distinction between the spirit that animated the first Adam’s soul “The breath (neshamah) of life” from the Father and the “quickening” life giving Holy Spirit (Ruach) of the Father that animated His Son’s human soul.

It is the Spirit that quickens - gives life (John 6:63).
     I have put My Spirit upon Him (Jesus' soul/person) (Isaiah 42:1).

Corruption was inherited through the first Adam. This event is referred to as the “original sin.” God gave a very simple commandment to His children. – But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:17).
     Then along came the very first theologian and he told them in essence, “That’s not really what He meant,” (Genesis 3:4). Those who do not believe in Adam and Eve’s original sin are basically still listening to the first theologian.

Scientists have traced the DNA of every human being on this planet back to one woman who lived in the Middle East or Africa. (Robert Ebisch – “The Family of Woman” The Orange County Register, July 23, 1986). Every one of us shares the lineage of Eve, the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). All of us have the same human nature of our first parents; therefore, even though we were not present in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned, we all would have made the same fatal choice. We all share those same fragile feet of clay, "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and we all have an "original sin" lurking in our own personal histories.
     When mankind disobeyed God in the garden, we gave the devil the right to afflict us through our lineages and the result is sin, sickness, death and the disease of human rebellion against God. Adam was forgiven and covered by a sacrifice that was instigated by God.

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them (Genesis 3:21).
     God was saying –“the sacrifice I make will cover you.” The covering that Adam made from leaves was insufficient. –
     And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons (Genesis 3:7).
     Adam’s own efforts to cover himself would fail; the leaves would dry up and blow away. – But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6). Only God can cover sin, His way by sacrifice. It is impossible for humans to do what can only be done through an act of God.

Because Adam chose to believe the first lie, "you shall not die," meaning that there would be no consequences for his disobedience, Adam would have to live with the painful results of his sin as we all do to this day. The ground was cursed (Genesis 3:17), he would obtain his bread by labor. He was denied access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22, 23); the element in his diet that was maintaining his life was removed; and he would experience death as God said.
    Adam did not have the ability to live forever apart from a provision from God, because Adam's life force was the "breath" the nashamah, not the Holy Spirit. When Jesus tells us to eat His flesh, and drink His blood He is telling us that faith in His death and resurrection is the new Tree of Life that will restore the eternal life that was lost to Adam.

Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you (John 6:5).

God’s Word shows us that Adam’s soul is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) – which has eternal properties. God originally designed the human soul to live forever. It cannot literally die, but the death referred to in the Scriptures means a total separation from God and the paradise of His presence. The fellowship that Adam shared with God prior to his fall was severed by his disobedience and our souls became earthbound and cannot ascend into God’s presence after the body dies. Because mankind was basically intended by God to inhabit the earth realm, the “breath of life” that animated the soul of the first man was not the Holy Spirit, and was not designed to transport our souls into God’s presence when we die.

God loves His creation and wanted to restore the fellowship that was lost and make a way for the human soul to return to Him after the body dies. In other words, the “breath of life” that cannot give eternal life to the soul would have to be replaced. God would provide a new sanctified “breath,” a new holy source of animation for our souls that would enable our beings to enter God’s presence after death.
     Because the human soul was not outfitted to abide in the holy, unapproachable light of our Creator, the soul must now be cleansed from its defilement in this realm and receive the necessary covering to enable the soul to exist in Heaven’s pure holy environment.
     For example, imagine an astronaut attempting to walk on the moon without a space suit. He’d die very quickly without the suit and the oxygen it contains because he is in an environment that he was not designed to inhabit.
     In Jesus' parable of the wedding feast, he asks His guest, “Where is your wedding garment?” The guest cannot answer, he is speechless, and is subsequently cast out into outer darkness (Matthew 22:11-14).

Scientists will tell you that the portion of light in the universe is very small compared to the amount of darkness it contains. It is primarily darkness. When the prophecies concerning the destruction of this planet are eventually fulfilled (II Peter 3:10-11, Revelation 20:11, 21:1, Isaiah 65:17), then those souls who have rejected God’s provision for them through His Messiah, will eventually find themselves trapped in an eternal outer darkness (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30). In order to enter Heaven, the human soul must first be cleansed from the pollutions, the sins it has acquired in the earth realm and be given a new source of “oxygen” that will enable life in Heaven’s holy atmosphere.
     Jesus Christ provides the cleansing of the soul through repentance and faith in His death and resurrection, and through Him the believer receives His righteousness, the wedding garment, the "space suit," and the "oxygen" – the Holy Spirit - which will enable the soul to abide in God’s Holy presence.
     Jesus’ soul is the perfect, sinless soul ordained to be the unblemished sacrificial Lamb, the prophesied offering for our sins. –

Christ our Passover – (I Corinthians 5:7).
     A Lamb without blemish and without spot (I Peter 1:19).
     Who knew no sin – (II Corinthians 5:21).
     Who did no sin – (I Peter 2:22).

If Jesus had been given life by Adam's neshamah, then Jesus would have inherited sin and could not have been born a sinless offering for our souls. Thus we have a new sinless last Adam, and through His death for our sins and His resurrection from the dead we receive a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) that is in Christ, passed into us. Through this transaction we have a new source of life-giving animation for our souls that overrides the breath of life passed on to us through the first Adam. This same quickening Spirit of the Father given to us by the blood of Jesus is the eternal life force that embraces our souls and carries us into eternity.

A Review

The first Adam was begotten by the Father from the earth and is “earthy” (I Corinthians 15:47.) Adam was birthed with a human spirit “the breath of life from the Father” that animated his soul. The word neshamah in the Hebrew is used to designate the life force in a human, distinguishing it from the word ruach, which also can be used to designate God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus was begotten with a Divine Spirit – the Spirit of the Father, the Holy Ruach, which is the Holy Spirit, the “portion” of God’s Spirit that animated Jesus’ soul. Muhammad also recognized this fact and called Jesus "Ruh Allah” which means “Spirit of God.”
     Jesus’ soul or person was begotten - His Spirit /life force is Divine, uncreated and eternal.

Ignatius, (AD 67-110) the Bishop of Antioch and a student of the Apostle John, concurs saying, “There is one Physician, both fleshly and Spiritual, made and not made…God incarnate…even Jesus Christ our Lord” – Epistle to the Ephesians 2:7. (The Epistles of Ignatius are: Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrneans, and Polycarp; all others are considered to be spurious).
     Jesus’ soul was begotten from the Father’s substance which is Spirit, and joined to the Father’s Spirit – “I have put My Spirit upon Him.” God did not disconnect Himself from His Spirit when He put His Holy Spirit upon His Son's person; thus the Two are made completely One. –

I and My Father are One (John 10:30). The last Adam is – …the Lord from heaven (I Corinthians 15:47).
     This is what made the last Adam distinctly different from the first, or else Jesus would have been born an ordinary man like Adam and not “Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14) which means God with us. – God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them (II Corinthians 5:19).

In Isaiah 9:6, The Messiah is referred to as The Everlasting Father and The Mighty God, which is a reference to the Spirit of the Father that is in Him. - For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

The Prince of Peace refers to the Messiah Himself. God the Father is never referred to as a prince. Princes are subordinate to the King, and therefore the use of the word “Prince” refers to the Messiah, the human element, making an obvious distinction between the Messiah and God the Father who is in Him through His Holy Spirit. Thus we see the "tri-unity" of God, His Spirit and His Son's person as an inseparable unit, and because of this unity we can never have one without the other.
     Jesus said He is the Son of God because; – …. the Father is in Me and I am in Him (John 10:32-38).
     This is what qualified Him to be God manifest in human flesh, in His own words, and is the Biblical, Scriptural definition of Christ’s Divinity. John Wesley, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, concurs in his interpretation of II Corinthians 5:19 –“God- the whole Godhead, but more eminently God the Father was in Christ, reconciling the world.”
     Thus, for Jesus to be called “The Great God” by the monotheist Apostle Paul, (Titus 2:13) and “The Mighty God” by the prophet Isaiah, (Isaiah 9:6) Jesus would have to be God incarnate by His Spirit, even though He had a separate human will and soul. (Mighty God in the Hebrew is translated “The Most High God”- Genesis 14:18, 19, 20, and 22. Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily - Colossians 2:9).
     And if Jesus was an ordinary man or just a prophet as some assume, He also would not have been able to purchase our souls because we are purchased by the blood of God.-

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28).

The Life is in the Blood

It is so important to grasp the concept of the Divinity of Jesus’ Spirit, because without the impartation of the Holy Spirit through the blood of the Lamb of God, we cannot be saved. The inherited sin cycle from Adam cannot be broken without faith in the atoning blood of Jesus. Our sins are covered and removed by His blood and in His blood, His righteous Holy Spirit of the Father in Him is imparted to us and we are seen as righteous in the eyes of the Father. If Jesus had been given life as a man by the same "neshamah" or “breath of life” that animated Adam’s soul, and not the Holy Spirit/Ruach of the Father, then Jesus would not be able to procure our salvation or bestow eternal life to the believer.
     The Spirit is Life, the Life is in the blood. –

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11).
     How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through The Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14).
     God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19).

The Spirit of the Father, The Eternal Spirit is the Life in the blood of Jesus that purchased our souls.

The Apostle John witnessed the centurion pierce Jesus’ side with his spear and saw what he thought was water pour out with the blood (John 19:34,35). What John actually saw was fluid from the heart’s pericardial sac. (For those who are trying to claim that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, this verifies that He did. His heart was pierced – for us). John described this later symbolically (I John 5:8) when he referred to the elements of water, which is symbolic of the Spirit (John 7:38, 39), and blood, bearing witness to Christ (I John 5:6). (The reference to The Father, Son and Holy Spirit in I John 5:7 seven is not found in any of the earliest manuscripts. It appeared in only two manuscripts in the sixteenth century and is thought to be a copyist’s error).
     The Life is in the blood, the Spirit, which is represented by the water, poured out with the blood from Messiah’s side, is symbolic of the Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of the Father who is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19) and we are purchased by the blood of God. The Father was not far removed from our rescue, but came to us by His Spirit in His Son to redeem our souls. Can you see how much we are loved?

Immediately after Jesus’ resurrection He appeared to His disciples and “breathed” upon them His Spirit, the Spirit of the Father. – He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
     The word “breathed” here is only used one other time in the Scriptures and that is when God breathed the breath of life into Adam. Here Jesus is overcoming the breath of life with His breath, the Holy Spirit, and our souls, through faith in His atonement, are cleansed, and forgiven. His Spirit embraces our believing souls, and when we die this new life within us will carry our beings into God’s holy presence and eternity.
     Jesus has become our High priest replacing the priest’s office in the Old Testament. There no longer needs to be anymore sacrifices, for Messiah has made one sacrifice for all time.

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
     Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others;
     For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
     And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation (Hebrews 9:24-28).

Messiah Jesus is the fulfilment of the plan God instigated from the beginning of time for the redemption of His creation.
     To help us understand this we find ourselves suddenly beholding a beautiful scarlet red key. It is in the shape of a cross. It sparkles like a jewel and we know this key is priceless, for it opens the door to eternal life.
     As it comes closer to our understanding we begin to see pictures in its facets. We see it being forged in Genesis from the blood of the first sacrifice that clothed Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21).
     It was in the blood of the lamb that Abel offered to God that made his choice of offering acceptable (Genesis 4:4).
     It is found in the blood of the ram that was offered in place of Abraham’s son (Genesis 22: 1-18).
     It was in the blood of the Passover lamb that shimmered upon the doorposts of the houses of God’s people that saved them from the plague of death that ravage the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:21-23).
     It was in every offering made upon the altar in the tabernacle because “the life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11) and without blood there can be no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22).
     And this precious key pours forth from the veins of the Messiah, the prophesied unblemished lamb described for us from the mouth of God’s prophet Isaiah who proclaimed that the Messiah was; -

…Wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities and with His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5); Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief: when Thou shall make His soul an offering for sin… (Isaiah 53:10).

This wondrous jewel is the key to the door of our eternity. Only Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life can give us this key (John 14:6).
     It is the key of atonement. It is the most valuable possession in existence.

God the Father says in His Word that there would come a time when His people would call Him Ishi (pronounced eesh) – which means a man or a husband, (Hosea 2:16).
     God in Christ is the promised Bridegroom we will someday wed in total spiritual union through His Son, (Revelation 19:7-9).
     God is wooing us now by His Spirit through the voice of our Messiah Jesus.

The Scriptures tell us that Eve was made for Adam. The last Adam was made for fallen Eve. As Eve was birthed through Adam’s side, so the Bride of Christ is born again through the wound in the side of her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, the last Adam.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him (Romans 3:8,9).
     For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16).
     For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
     He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

The Omnipresent God and The Cross

How did the Father accomplish our salvation on the cross through His Son? We must first comprehend that God is omnipresent and can be in more than one place at a time, and we also must understand that the Divine Spirit in Jesus is united to His human soul but can function separately. Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man.
     To begin, we must understand that even though the Father’s Spirit was in His Son at birth as His life force, to identify fully with man, Jesus also needed to receive the Holy Spirit as a man. John the Baptist, who was baptizing people for repentance and the remission of sin, recognized that Jesus needed no repentance and did not want to baptize Him (Matthew 3:13-15). Jesus, the Son of God needed no repentance, but the Son of Man who is to identify fully with man was to fulfil all righteousness (Matthew 3:15).
     When Jesus was baptized, the omnipresent Spirit of the Father was in His Son in the water as the visible manifestation of the omnipresent God’s Holy Spirit descended into Jesus’ soul and cradled it as the Spirit cradles any man who repents and receives Christ. God's Holy Spirit manifested visibly as a sign for John the Baptist (John 1:32,33) and descended into Jesus’ human soul while the Father spoke from heaven, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

(As we have been shown, Jesus already had the Father’s Spirit in Him as His life force (John 5:26) before He was baptized. Is there a Biblical precedent for receiving the Holy Spirit twice? After Jesus’ resurrection He breathed His Spirit into His disciples (John 20:22) thus they already had the Spirit before Pentecost and received the “Baptism” of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33) and were “immersed” in the fullness of God’s Spirit as a second experience. The Breath of the Spirit is for sanctification and salvation, the Baptism of the Spirit is for equipping for ministry).

Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). He did not suddenly stop being the fullness of God in human form when He was nailed on the cross. When the dark hour approached, and all the sins of mankind were thrust into Jesus’ soul, the offering for our sins (Isaiah 53:10), He cried, “My God, My God why have you forsaken Me?”(Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46 – Please see note on page 114,) - as the Holy Spirit that He received at His baptism withdrew from His soul. Then Jesus who is identifying with man experienced what any man would feel suddenly cast out of God’s presence. David felt a small measure of this withdrawal after his sin with Bathsheba and he cried out to God not to take His Holy Spirit from Him (Psalm 51:11). Many Christians who have sinned have also endured the agony of this experience. Although no matter how intense, there can be no comparison to the horror that Jesus felt. (I suspect that the measure of misery the Christian experiences may be in part based on the degree of intimacy he has with God; the deeper the relationship, the greater the pain).

The Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of Life in the blood of God’s Son, was cleansing, purging and reconciling until the moment when the Father’s Spirit whispered through the lips of His image, “It is finished.”

It’s interesting to note here that the Scriptures record Jesus’ crying out in a loud voice just before He died (Luke 23:46). This occurrence caused the centurion to proclaim that Jesus was the Son of God, and a righteous man, (Luke 23:47, Mark 15:39, Matthew 27:54). This soldier had most likely witnessed many crucifixions. He had seen over and over again how ordinary men die when most of their blood has been drained from the body and total weakness renders the victim speechless. But when Jesus was at the point of death He suddenly revived! He miraculously regained the strength to cry out in a loud voice in a glorious supernatural moment that testified that the Holy Spirit of God the Father was alive and well within the body of His image.

The Father did not die on the cross. His Spirit can’t die. He withdrew His Spirit of Life from His Son at the proper moment and Jesus’ body died. While the omnipresent Eternal Spirit was in His Son on the cross reconciling, He was also filling the universe, overseeing all of creation, and reading the thoughts of every human being on the planet.
     Did the Father suffer while His Son was on the cross? Yes, the same way He suffers with His children when we suffer. We forget that “The” Father is “A” Father. God the Father was never far removed or distanced from the work of securing the salvation of the people He loves, which is part of the miraculous beauty of the atonement. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him (Psalm 103:13).

Where did Jesus go after His soul and His Spirit left His body? The Apostle Peter tells us that “by the Spirit” (I Peter 3:18), “He went and preached to the spirits in prison” - verse 19. (Disembodied souls were commonly referred to as spirits). The gospel was preached to the dead so they could be judged according to the living (I Peter 4:6).
     Jesus did not experience torment by the devil in hell at this point as some mistakenly teach. His descent into hell was in total victory. Peter is telling us here in chapter three and four that Jesus went to hell, “the prison” and brought the Gospel to those souls who had died prior to His coming. Thus even those who had died in the flood were given an opportunity to receive the Lord. Jesus is an equal opportunity Redeemer.
     In Summary: God the Father was in Christ by His Eternal Spirit reconciling the world to Himself. And someday the Ancient of Days will return in His Son (Daniel 7:22) and; -

They shall look upon Me (God the Father) whom they have pierced and mourn for Him (Jesus, the Messiah) as one mourns for his only son... (Zechariah 12:10).
I and My Father are One (John 10:30).

Jesus Christ: The Image of God

In Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily – Colossians 2:9
I and My Father are one - John 10:30

As we have been shown in the previous chapters, Jesus’ soul, His person, was begotten of the Father prior to His incarnation in Heaven from the Father’s substance - Thou art My beloved Son, this day I have begotten Thee (Hebrews 1:5, Psalm 2:7)- and His soul is animated by and joined to the Holy Spirit of the Father.
     A son cannot be a son without a beginning from a father, but if Jesus’ person had always been eternal with the Father without a beginning at some point in infinity, then there would not be a Father and a Son, but two co-eternal Gods and we are jumping over the forbidden boundary of monotheism into polytheism – and yet; if God the Father views His Son as One with Him, then they are One God with no distinction other than that which defines the difference between soul and spirit united within one image.

The term "God from God" which found its way into the Nicene Creed is somewhat misleading and automatically directs the mind toward the polytheistic concept of two gods. The term originated from Origen who taught that everything begets after its kind, therefore God begets God. And on the surface this makes sense. but when a human being has a child, for example, there is nothing more the mother has to do to make the baby a human. According to Scripture, Jesus' person/soul was begotten and then joined to the Father, "As the Father has life within Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself" (John 5:26). Therefore Jesus' divinity is bestowed upon Him by the Father, thus guarding us from the concept of polytheism, they are not two gods, they are One.
     Jesus is one substance (Spirit) with the Father through the union of the Father's Holy Spirit in the Son. Everything that pertains to Jesus' divinity and authority is bestowed upon Him from the Father. -

All things are delivered unto Me of My Father (Matthew 11:27).
And the glory which You gave to Me (John 17:22).
…that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: - (John 17:24).
Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: (Philippians 2:9).
God put all things under Him (I Corinthians 15:28).
As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26).

In order to accomplish our salvation and receive our sins upon His soul in identification with mankind, Jesus’ soul had to have been a distinct, begotten entity from the Father, yet our sins could not be removed if Jesus was an ordinary man. This is why His divinity was bestowed upon Him by the Father. Jesus’ begotten soul receives our sins; and because His Spirit is the Father’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit of the Father in the Son is capable of imparting eternal life to the believer.
     Thus the Scriptures declare Jesus as the Son of God, meaning that He shares His divinity and is equal with God, and as we have previously stated, the Scriptures also protect us from the polytheistic concept of two gods; they are not two gods, they are One. “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30).
     The Jews had a custom that whenever a father had to conduct some business and he sent his son in his place to complete the transaction, the son was looked upon as if he was the father himself. So when Jesus said to the religious leadership that God was His Father, the Pharisees tried to stone Him for blasphemy because according to their custom Jesus had just declared to them that He was equal with God (John 10:30-33).
     Jesus’ soul is the express image of God’s “Person.” –

Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person… (Hebrews 1:3).

The Greek word that is used for person in reference to God the Father is hupostasis which means substance or real being. Jesus’ soul is an exact image of God’s soul or person – His real being, character, and the express image of who God the Father is.
     A different word is used in the Greek to describe Jesus’ person, "the person of Christ" in 11 Corinthians 2:10 and that is “Proposon” which in the Greek literally means “face.” Jesus’ soul is the “face” or image of God’s hupostasis, His total being and person. Jesus’ person/soul is not a second “hupostasis” but is the image of the hupostasis.
     The Spirit that is in Christ Jesus is the Spirit of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit. There are not three spirits, or three gods, but One Spirit, One God and the One Spirit is in Christ.

I have put My Spirit upon Him (Isaiah 42:1).
The Father is in Me and I in Him (John 10:38).
In Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9).

The Godhead consists of the Three – and all three, the Person of the Father, the Son’s Person and the Holy Spirit are operating simultaneously in one image. Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). This illustrates a principle of Trinitarianism, that all Three are the totality of the One. In other words, you can’t have one without the other. The Father is in the Son through His Spirit. The Son is in the Father through the same mutual union of the Father’s Spirit; “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (John 14:11, 10:38); and the Holy Spirit is inseparably united to the Persons of the Father and the Son. This distinguishes Biblical Trinitarianism from Trithesism, which is the worship of three individual deities/gods that are one.
     The Egyptians worshipped three gods as one, a father, mother and son. This practice was inherited from the ancients who worshipped Nimrod, his wife and son, who were the first human beings to be deified as gods. The Greeks derived their religion from the Egyptians and the concept of worshipping three gods as one permeated the prevailing religious philosophies during the early days of Christianity.
     Christians are sometimes accused of practicing this form of Tritheism which is not taught in the Holy Scriptures. Christians do not worship three gods that are one.

The Apostle Paul tells us that we worship One God the Father, by One Spirit through the Messiah Jesus; the object of worship is the Father through the Son, because the Father is in the Son.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19).
…..for through Him (Jesus) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Unto Him (the Father) be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, (Ephesians 2:18, 3:21).

Tritheism offers no explanation as to how the three are connected. As the scriptures show, the linking factor between the Person of the Father and the Son is the Father’s Holy Spirit. The scriptures do not support any fourth element as the unifying factor in Biblical Trinitarianism.
     As we have been shown through this study, there is One God the Father who is united to His Image by the Father’s Spirit. Every aspect of God’s construction, His Person, Spirit and Image are all one unit. The word trinity is derived from the Latin word, trinitas, which means tri-unity. God is one tri-unity, a union of one that is three, one circle, which is a far cry from the Greek's and the Egyptian’s three god definition of ‘the deity.’

The “With” and the “Was”

Jesus’ soul was birthed or brought forth from the Father’s substance and joined to God’s Spirit and the two are made one. Jesus’ soul was begotten, His Spirit is eternal and uncreated, the Eternal Spirit of the God that birthed Him in infinity and gave Him life as a human being. It is a relational oneness of soul joined with the Divine Spirit; just as it is impossible for a man to separate his soul from his spirit, so it is with the Father’s Spirit and the Son’s soul. The two are one.
     Jesus’ soul or person is distinct from the Father “with” God, but His Spirit is God's Spirit and “was” God. This explains the riddle of the “with” and the “was” of John 1:1. –

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (the Father) and the Word was God (the Father) (John 1:1).
And now, O Father, glorify Me with Your own self with the glory which I had with You before the world was (John 17:5).

Jesus’ person, the “Word” (Greek-Logos) that pre-existed with the Father before the world was, and the Father’s Spirit are one.
     Jesus’ soul, His person is begotten and can operate separately from the Father’s soul, or person, for they are two persons. -

I am one that bears witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me bears witness of Me (John 8:18).
The testimony of two men is true (John 8:17).
The Father is in Me, and I in Him (John 10:38).

Jesus’ Spirit is "portioned" from the Father’s Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit. The Father’s soul, His person, remains distinct, thus Jesus can communicate and have a relationship with His Father, even though they share the same Spirit, and are the same Spirit. Spirit and soul can function independently of each other, just as Paul could pray and his spirit could also pray operating separately from his soul at the same time. -

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful (I Corinthians 14:14).
And Mary said, My soul (psuche) does magnify the Lord, and my spirit (pneuma) has rejoiced in God my Saviour (Luke 1:46,47).

Mary’s soul, her person, who she is, magnifies, her spirit rejoices. The spirit and the soul can operate simultaneously in separate functions, as we have been shown.
     Jesus communicated and had a relationship with His Father before His incarnation and afterwards during His life on earth. – The Father is in Me and I in Him (John 10:38).

Jesus prayed to the Father who is in Him. – Father, glorify Thy name (John 12:28).
     And the omnipresent God who can be in more than one place at a time answers from heaven as He dwells within His Son. – Then came a voice from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again” (John 12:28).

Because Jesus’ Spirit is the Holy Spirit which is a “distinct portioning” of the Father’s Spirit, the Mind of the Spirit is the Mind of His Son. -

And He (God the Father) that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He (Jesus’ Holy Spirit) makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:27).
For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16).

The Mind of the Spirit and the Mind of Christ are synonymous, which is also the Holy Spirit in us.
     Jesus as our high priest and intercessor, intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father, (Romans 8:34) while His Spirit which is the Holy Spirit, prays in us directed by the will of the Father. The communication between the Father’s “person,” the Son’s Holy Spirit and the Son’s person can operate simultaneously and distinctly.
     Because God’s person or soul/being is eternal and uncreated and Jesus’ person is begotten, Jesus’ human aspect is always treated separately throughout the Scriptures and is always subordinate to the Father.

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God (I Corinthians 11:3).
The Apostle Paul recognized this distinction addressing God as; –

…the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 11:31).
…the God of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:17).

After Jesus’ resurrection He tells His disciples that He is returning to My God and your God (John 20:17). In Revelation 3:12, the human aspect defers again to “His God” then He quotes God the Father from the Old Testament and applies it to Himself; – I am the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:11, Isaiah 41:4;). Two Persons, One Voice, One Spirit.

In the book of the prophet Daniel, we see Jesus, the Son of Man being brought before God, the Ancient of Days. – I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him ( Daniel 7:13).
     Then in verse twenty-two, we see the Ancient of Days as Jesus coming back to earth the second time supernaturally at the time of the end as prophesied. –

I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; (verse 21)
Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom (verse 22).

The Father is united to the Son by His Spirit and this is why Jesus said, “I and My Father are one” - John 10:30. God’s Spirit is one with Jesus’ soul. A man cannot separate his spirit from his soul. And this is why Jesus is referred to as the Image of the invisible God and His unapproachable Light (Colossians 1:15, I Timothy 6:16); and also why Jesus is seen as the Father returning at His second coming. – And the LORD (YAHWEH - God the Father) shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and His name one (Zechariah 14:9).
     When we understand that Jesus’ deity is derived from the fact that God is His Father, that there is only One Spirit, and God’s Spirit is Jesus’ Spirit and that the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father, (John 14:10,10:38), it is easier to comprehend the Scriptures and how Jesus’ human statements interweave with the Divine. When Philip said to Jesus, “Show us the Father,” the Spirit answers, -

Have I been so long time with you, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? (John 14:9).
     Then the Son speaks. –
He that has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9).
     The Son speaks; - I will pray the Father and He will send the Comforter (John 14:16).
     And because Jesus’ Spirit is God the Father’s Spirit, Jesus says;

I will come (John 14:18)
We will come (John 14:23).
I and My Father are one (John 10:30).
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do (John 5:19).
I can of My own self do nothing (John 5:30).
The Father that dwells in Me, He does the works (John 14:10).
My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me (John 7:16).
Before Abraham was I AM (John 8:58).

Ignatius concurs with the Lord and the Apostle's view when he says, “As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him” (Magnesians 2:8).
     You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know (Acts 2:22).

When the Apostle Paul says we speak before God in Christ (II Corinthians 12:19) he means he is speaking before God the Father who is in Christ – and now because of Christ Jesus, the Father is in all true believers as well. – Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (I John 4:13).
     When we deny Jesus, we deny the Father because the Father is in His Son. – Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ (The Messiah, the Logos who was with God and is God and has come in the flesh)? He is antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father (I John 2:22, 23).

The Apostle Paul was a monotheist and a Jew who would not contradict the Shema. To the apostolic mind there is only One God and One Lord. –

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him (I Corinthians. 8:6).
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4).
God is our Saviour, (Titus 3:4)
The Lord Jesus is our Saviour (Titus 3:6).
Jesus is - the Lord from heaven (I Corinthians 15:47).

"My Lord (Jesus) and My God" (the Father) (John 20:28) Thomas cries at the feet of the resurrected Saviour in whom is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). I and My Father are one (John 10:30) - the inseparable tri-unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

A Review

There is only One Spirit, (Ephesians 4:4). The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, (John 15:26) – and is the Spirit of the Father - (Matthew 10:20) – which is Christ’s Spirit – (Romans 8:9).
     There is only One God, there is only One Spirit that is God. God the Father’s Spirit is Jesus’ Spirit. God gave the soul of His Son “The Spirit of the Father” which enables Him to have life in Himself (John 5:26). Thus Jesus’ soul which is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18) is joined with God’s Spirit and the two are One. I and My Father are One (John 10:30).
     Jesus is not a second god but God the Father is within Him; in Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossian 2:9),- the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). No man has seen God at any time - John 1:18. He who has seen Me has seen the Father - John 14:9.
     God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8). Therefore Jesus can be worshipped, (Luke 24:52, Hebrews 1:6, Rev. 5:13, Philippians 2: 10, Romans 14:11, Isaiah 45:23) and it is not idolatry because His Spirit is God’s Spirit, or God manifest in human flesh (I Timothy 3:16).

The prophet David is used as a similitude of the Messiah in Scripture; Jeremiah 30:9, Ezekiel 34:24,37:24,25. In I Chronicles 29:20, King David is worshipped with God and it is not idolatry, because David represents the Messiah.
     When we worship Jesus, we are worshipping the Father through Him, just as the first century church worshipped God through the Messiah Jesus; they recognized that God the Father was in the Messiah by His Spirit. Again, the Apostle Paul tells us that we worship the Father through the Son by One Spirit, the object of worship is the Father through the Son.

For through Him (Jesus) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by One Spirit unto the Father - Ephesians 2:18.
Unto Him (God the Father) be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end (Ephesians 3:21).

Jesus our High Priest

Jesus is our High Priest. According to the Apostles there is only one mediator between God and man – the Man Jesus Christ. –

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ (I Timothy 2:5) – A priest after the order of Melchisedec, without father and without mother (Hebrews 7:3).

Here the writer of Hebrews attributes an aspect of deity to Jesus’ human office as high priest - God manifest in human flesh – One Spirit of God the Father that has no beginning and no end, enveloped in humanity for the sole purpose of reconciling mankind to Himself; (II Corinthians 5:19) – One Spirit of God operating with a human body and soul, – Immanuel, God with us, (Isaiah 7:14), The Great God, (Titus 2:13), The Mighty God, (Isaiah 9:6) who is in the Lord from heaven (I Corinthians 15:47).
     Jesus is the “mediator” of the New Covenant.

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises (Hebrews 8:6).
And for this cause He is the mediator of the New Testament that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:15).

We worship God through Jesus as the Apostle Paul said. –

I thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:25).
To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen (Romans 16:27).
…but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement –Romans 5:11 - having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him (Romans 5:9).
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).
For through Him we both have access by One Spirit unto the Father (Ephesians 2:18).
By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God (Hebrews 13:15).
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him (Colossians 3:17).

We worship God through Jesus Christ and God responds back to us through our Priest and Intercessor, our Mediator of the New Covenant. -

God supplies our needs by Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:19).
God speaks by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2).
God judges by Jesus Christ (Romans 2:16)…working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ – Hebrews 13:21.
Raises us up from the dead – also by Jesus (II Corinthians 4:14).
And called us unto His eternal glory by Jesus Christ (I Peter 5:10).

We worship God the Father through Jesus because like the first century believers, we recognized that the Father is in Jesus by His Spirit. In Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily – Colossians 2:9).

We cannot be connected to God without the Messiah. He alone removes our sins, substitutes the breath of life we’ve inherited from Adam with the Holy Spirit and makes intimate fellowship with God possible.
     When Jesus’ role as intercessor and mediator is completed, then the Scriptures tell us that God will be all in all.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when shall shall have put down all rule and all authority and power He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power (I Corinthians 15:21-24).
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him that God may be all in all (I Corinthians 15:28).

But Jesus and the Father are always one and will always be our Light. - And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (Revelation 21:23).

Just as the children of Israel needed Moses, an intercessor, to get them out of Egypt and lead them through the wilderness to the Promised Land, so do we need our High Priest and our Intercessor Jesus Christ, our “Joshua” (Yeshua) who leads us into our Promised Land of Eternal Life.
     The Apostles tell us that God created everything by Jesus Christ. -

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:9).
All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3).
     And the Spirit said to His Son’s soul; - Let us make man in our image (Genesis 1:26).

The Epistle of Barnabas, (Paul’s traveling companion,) which was included in one of the oldest, most complete manuscripts, the Sinaitic manuscript or codex Sinaiticus contains this commentary on Genesis 1:26– And for this cause the Lord was content to suffer for our souls, although He be the Lord of the whole earth; to whom God said before the beginning of the world, Let us make man in our image and likeness (Barnabas 4:7).
     God’s Spirit, which is also Christ’s Spirit created everything by Jesus Christ, His Son who is the first soul united with the Divine. God did not create anything pertaining to man, including the Heaven he would eventually inhabit, without identifying with man from the beginning of creation.

In Ezekiel’s awesome vision of the glory of God, amidst the cloud and the fire of His Holy Spirit, he beheld a throne, and upon that throne was seated a Man, (Ezekiel 1: 26-28). He saw YAHWEH - Saviour – Jesus, the image of the invisible God, One God, One Spirit, and One Image- the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
     I read a comment by a prominent Christian speaker and when I first heard it I thought he was really off the wall. He’d read in Isaiah where God created everything with the span (Isaiah 40:12). A span is about five inches – or the length of a man’s hand. He concluded that God was the size of a man. He received a great deal of criticism and I was among the critics at that time. I thought, how ludicrous. God is a Spirit who fills the universe…but Jesus is the image of the invisible God, sitting on a throne in Ezekiel’s vision, (Ezekiel 1:26) walking with Adam in Eden, (Genesis 3:8) strolling through a fiery furnace with Daniel’s friends (Daniel 3:25) having lunch with Abraham (Genesis 18), and appearing to Joshua as the Captain of the Hosts (Joshua 5:13-15). He is seen as the God of Israel – and they saw the God of Israel (Exodus 24:10) –The similitude of the Lord (Numbers 12:8).

Can you picture Jesus sitting upon the throne gazing out upon the fathomless black void and shouting “let there be light!” as His hand sweeps the darkness away like a cobweb instantly transforming darkness into light with His glory?

For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him, and for Him. And He is before all things and by Him all things consist (Colossians 1:16).
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not (John 1:10).
I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end, the first and the Last (Revelation 22:13).
…The Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

When this life is over and we finally arrive in His domain, the fiery brilliance that is the Holy unapproachable Light of the Father will be radiating through Jesus’ smile, and His children can touch the Son. Who only has immortality, dwelling in the Light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to Whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen (I Timothy 6:16).

We worship God as He is revealed in the soul of His Son as He walked among us. We worship God as He is expressed in His Spirit that reaches out to us with the arms of His image. When we worship God the Father, we worship Jesus. When we worship Jesus, we worship God, for the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (John 10:38). – Before Abraham was I AM (John 8:58).
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus you shall say unto the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14).

When Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was I Am,” the Pharisees picked up stones to stone Him for according to the law Jesus had committed blasphemy. Jesus was saying to them that He was YHWH, the “I AM” manifest in human flesh. “I and the Father are one.”
     Jesus’ soul unified with His human body makes Him fully man. His soul unified with His Holy Spirit makes Him fully God.
     The Apostle Paul recognized the same God diverse in His operations – the same Spirit diverse in His gifts, differences of administrations, but the same Lord. One God who works all in all, diverse in His operations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - I Corinthians 12:4-6.

The Firstborn Son – First born of Many Brethren

I will dwell in them, and walk in them - And will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty - II Corinthians 6:16, 18

Jesus is God’s treasured Son. Jesus is the only “begotten” Son (John 3:16). – (Begotten -monogenes – Greek – single of its kind – only) and “begotten” Son of God, (Hebrews 1:5) –(begotten – gennao - to be born – of fathers) that is; He was birthed from the Father’s Spirit and born as a man with His soul united with God's Spirit. He is the only natural born Son, the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18) and the firstborn of many brethren (Romans 8:29).
     Jesus was begotten so we could be adopted.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15) – to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:5), having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, (Ephesians 1:5).

We receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) through repentance and faith in the atonement. The Holy Spirit is imparted to us through the conduit of Messiah’s blood, and our souls are joined with God’s Spirit. This is the Divine Purpose, this is what it is all about. We are saved to be sons and daughters of God. The model of this relationship is made visible to us by the relationship of the Father and Son, the union of human soul with the Divine operating as one.
     When we receive the Holy Spirit, we begin by being in unity with His Spirit and are brought into union with the Father through the sanctification process. We are being conformed into Christ’s image, the image of a soul in perfect union and harmony with God, a union where our human wills are totally submitted and one with the Father in all things.
     This relationship, the joining of Divine Spirit with soul, is the relationship Jesus had with the Father on earth, and is the same relationship that existed prior to His incarnation and is the similitude and the model for the relationship that God intends to have with all of His children.
     Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, our fellowship with God is restored; and when we receive the Messiah through repentance and faith in His death for our sins and His resurrection from the dead, we receive the “Breath.” God breathes His Holy Spirit into us.

Don't you know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (I Corinthians 3:16).
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:6).
For you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (II Corinthians 6:16).

We humans can now communicate with the Divine Spirit of God who is indwelling us, in one body, just as Jesus’ soul communicated with the Father prior to His incarnation and afterwards as our example of what man in relationship to God should be, humble, dependant and submissive. My Father is greater than I (John 14:28). Although He was equal with God, (Philippians 2:6, John 5:18) He took upon Him the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7) is limited through His human constraints, and not fully omniscient and subject to revelation by the Holy Spirit like any man who is following God and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is God’s “Word” to us made “Flesh” (John 1:14) so we can literally see the Word of God in action. Jesus is our example of the soul that loves God and is willing to die to carnal desire and submit to the Holy Spirit within. Jesus as a human could experience temptation (Hebrews 4:15) and thus “suffer” (Hebrews 2:18) in resisting it illustrating what our response to sin should be, Not My will, but Thine be done (Luke 22:42). When the writer of Hebrews says that we have not resisted unto blood in our striving against sin (Hebrews 12:4) I believe that he is making a reference to Jesus’ shedding of blood in Gethsemane in the battle with His own flesh to fulfil the will of God.
     Jesus’ Spirit is God’s Spirit which cannot be tempted and cannot sin (James 1:13); but Jesus’ human aspect could experience temptation and wrestle with it. Jesus resisted sin as no man has ever done and became the perfect unblemished sacrifice for our sins. As Christians we have the Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit in us cannot be tempted, even though our separate human souls can be tempted. Jesus had a separate human will from the Father in order to be able to choose the Father’s will, but because of His reliance as a man on God’s Holy Spirit that He received as a man at His baptism, Jesus had the ability to resist sin and not succumb. This is why we are given the Holy Spirit. We also can have supernatural help in overcoming sin in our lives when we choose the Father’s will above our own.

Saved by Grace

We are saved by the free gift of God’s grace. There is no “work” we can perform to save ourselves, because there is nothing we can do as humans to eliminate the corruption, the “DNA” that we’ve inherited from the first Adam. This is the “birth defect” that must be covered by the atonement before any sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to conform us to Jesus’ image can begin.
     Our salvation is at once a completed act and a continuing process which shall be finished upon our deaths when we receive the outcome of our faith, “the salvation of our souls” (I Peter 1:9). In order to receive this salvation, we must remain in the faith to the end. –

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved (Matthew 24:13).
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell (from belief) severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness: otherwise you also shall be cut off (Romans 11:22).
But Christ is a Son over His own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end (Hebrews 3:6).
But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven (Matthew 10:33).
We are kept by the power of God by faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (I Peter 1:5).

We are kept by faith, so where there is no faith, we cannot be kept to receive - the end (outcome) of your faith, the salvation of your souls (I Peter 1:9). (A “prodigal” who is not walking with God, but still believes and has not renounced Christ after having full knowledge of Him, is always welcomed home with open arms by our loving Father God (Luke 15:11-24).
     We are sanctified by the Spirit when we receive Jesus by faith, and we are being sanctified as the Spirit continually works within us to change us into the people God has destined us to be. This is what it means to become a disciple and why Jesus instructs us to “Abide” in Him. –

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing (John 15:4,5).

We have been shown the beautiful unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. In Jesus’ illustration of the vine, we can see the “sap” of God’s Holy Spirit flowing from the Father through His Son, the Vine, and into us as we abide in the Vine by faith, prayer and the study of God’s Word. We cannot develop in our relationship with God without remaining in Christ, for “Without Me you can do nothing.”
     The fruit the Lord is referring to in this illustration is a holy character of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and moderation (Galatians 5: 22,23). This is the “New Creature” (II Corinthians 5:17) and true holiness, a holiness that has nothing to do with religious ritual or legalism, and this holiness is the divine goal of any sincere Christian.

For by grace we are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Their righteousness is of Me, says the Lord (Isaiah 57:17).

The “Work” of Grace

It is the “work” of grace to change us, we cannot change ourselves. A true believer has repented of his sins and is willing to allow the Holy Spirit to change him into the person God wants Him to be and yields to the Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit and the “seed” of the Word is in him, he cannot deliberately, wilfully continue to practice sin, because the Spirit and the word within is the convicting check upon the person’s soul that eventually brings him into submission to the will of God.
     Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; (I John 3:9). - The original Greek conveys the meaning of a continuing practice – for His seed (The Word, The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Son) remains in him: and he cannot sin (continually practice unrepented sin) because He is born of God – born again, born of the Spirit (John 3:5-7).

This does not mean that a believer does not sin, because we are subject to the continual influences of our corrupted flesh and spirit. Therefore through the weakness of our flesh we can fail. When this happens we are promised restoration through confession and repentance. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:8,9).

A true believer is always struggling to avoid sin and this warfare we endure because we love God is very well pleasing to Him.
     Our salvation is never contingent on the amount of spiritual development we are able to achieve in this life. This is illustrated by Jesus’ parable of the vineyard. The workers who laboured all day, that is, who spent their whole lives walking and yielding themselves to the Spirit for correction and sanctification, received the same wages as those who had just received their commission and had opportunity to labour but a little (Matthew 20:1-14).
     The Scriptures give us a beautiful illustration of God’s work of grace in the Old Testament. In the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, verses four through fourteen, God is showing Israel how He found her as a helpless abandoned baby, and through His love and nurturing she developed into a beautiful, mature woman adorned with the jewels of His virtue. She is entirely a work of God’s love and there is no way this helpless one could be rescued, “washed” and restored without being a complete work of God; because; – God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (I Peter 5:5).

And as for your nativity, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to supple you; you were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
     No eye pitied you, to do any of these to you, to have compassion uponyou; but you were cast out in the open field, to the loathing of your person, in the day that you were born.
     And when I passed by you, and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, Live; yes, I said to you when you were in your blood, live.
     I have caused you to multiply as the bud of the field, and you have increased and waxed great, and you are come to excellent ornaments: your breasts are fashioned, and your hair is grown, whereas you were naked and bare.
     Now when I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread My skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and you became Mine.
     Then washed I you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil.
     I clothed you also with broidered work, and shod you with badgers' skin, and I girded you about with fine linen, and I covered you with silk. I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon your hands, and a chain on your neck.
     And I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head.
     Thus you were decked with gold and silver; and your raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; you did eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and you were exceedingly beautiful, and you did prosper into a kingdom.
     And your renown went forth among the heathen for your beauty: for it was perfect through My comeliness, which I had put upon you, says the Lord GOD (Ezekiel 16:4-14).

This child develops as a work of God’s grace. She is His workmanship.
     In this illustration we see God’s role changing from that of a parent to bridegroom and lover. As we grow in our relationship with Him from a child under the law, needing the restraints of the law, as we mature we begin to willingly yield ourselves to Him because now it is our desire to obey Him because we have fallen in love with Him. We are now in a relationship with Him that produces the fruit of a divine nature, the result of “abiding” in His Spirit – "for without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5).
     In the book of Revelation, chapter twenty-one, we are shown the bride of Christ, His church, as a beautiful city adorned with precious jewels, gold and pearls. Each one of these jewels represents the virtues He has bestowed upon our lives by His Spirit. We are the city that God has made that will be His habitation throughout eternity, - as God has said;- "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (II Corinthians 6:16).

At this moment you are a questioning child. God has placed the desire to know Him within your being and He is drawing you to Him. He begins by washing you with His Word, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God – Romans 10:17. You must first understand and believe the beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the Word of faith, which we preach; that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation – Romans 10: 8-10.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him might be saved – John 3:16, 17.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord – Romans 6:23.
He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed – Isaiah 53:5.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God - Romans 3:23.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly – Romans 5:6.
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, (The Atonement) to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say at this time His righteousness: that He might be just and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus – Romans 3:24-26.

Now that you have believed, you need to receive, that is repent. You must realize that you have sinned, confess your sins to the Lord and be willing to turn from them. This will initiate the beginning of God’s sanctifying work to change you into the person He desires you to be. In this, God is no different than any good parent who wants the best for His children.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent - Acts 17:30.

The dictionary defines repentance as “Deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrong doing regret for any past action.”
    The Bible defines repentance as the need to change.

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin (Ezekiel 18:30).

You seek the Lord while He may be found, you call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:6, 7). See also Isaiah 59:20, Proverbs 28:13, Job 36:10.

Actually, it is sorrow for one’s sins and the recognition that we need forgiveness that leads to repentance, the desire to change one’s behaviour. When we believe the gospel, that Jesus died for our sins, the acknowledgment that we have sinned which caused Jesus’ suffering for us, should produce a deep remorse that results in repentance, a willingness to change, to turn from sins. Therefore repentance is the result of a genuine faith in the atonement.

…you sorrowed to repentance (II Corinthians 7:9).
For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation… (II Corinthians 7:10).
To you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. (Acts 3:26).
I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32).

We are shown in John 15:5, that without Jesus “we can do nothing.” When we believe we receive the Holy Spirit, who then works with the believer to change us into the people God wants us to become. The process of becoming a “New Creature” (II Corinthians 5:17), is the result of salvation, not the means. The purpose of this transformation is to glorify God, validate the gospel message and bring others to Jesus. In the first century church repentance, the need to turn from sin, was preached with the gospel.

They went out, and preached that men should repent (Mark 6:12).
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:47).
…to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31).
…they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance (Acts 26:20).
You repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out (Acts 3:19).

Now begin your relationship with God through prayer. Make a formal invitation to receive Jesus into your heart and ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Through faith and repentance you are saved. Your sins are cleansed and the “Breath” of the Holy Spirit is received for the sanctification of your soul. Now are ready to begin your walk with God. –

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7).

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (II Thessalonians 2:13).

Now that you have asked Jesus into your heart, you are ready to make a covenant with Him by water baptism. This is the “betrothal ceremony,” the baptism into the Messiah, the commitment you make to walk with Jesus for the rest of your life as you await "The marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).
     We can be technically saved by faith without water baptism, but we cannot receive the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls, without remaining in the faith (I Peter 1:9, Hebrews 3:14). This is the commitment that water baptism represents, and the commitment that God requires.
     Water baptism is the fruit of a genuine repentance. When we are water baptized we are formally acknowledging our willingness to identify with Jesus’ death and burial. When we rise up out of the water, we are symbolically leaving our old lives behind. We are making a commitment to God to become fully submerged in His Spirit and we cannot become the new creatures He desires us to be without this commitment. To the first century Christians and Apostles, water baptism was synonymous with receiving Jesus. Just as a genuine faith will produce fruit and a changed life, a genuine repentance will submit to this divinely appointed ordinance. A true believer does not need to be convinced he needs this commitment of water baptism, the Spirit compels him into the waters of obedience - and everywhere else the Holy Spirit leads him for the rest of his life.

The Scriptures tell us that there are three dispensations of the Holy Spirit, the first is for sanctification – John 20:22. The second is the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” or “full immersion” of the Spirit, which is for equipping. Here God bestows upon the believer gifts of His Spirit to help you in your walk with Him and to minister to others – Acts 2:1-4. The Spirit can also be received in subsequent dispensations for renewal to refresh and renew us in our walk with God when we need reinforcement – Acts 4:31.
     Some believers receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit upon initial belief, with others the Baptism of the Spirit can arrive at a later time. I believe that God intends the believer to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with water baptism, but God’s Spirit can arrive upon the believer before water baptism as the Scriptures indicate – Acts 10:44-47.

It is God’s will and purpose for you to have His best and that includes all of His Spirit and subsequent gifting - Quench not the Spirit – I Thessalonians 5:19. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33) and He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). There is no indication anywhere in the Scriptures that this aspect of Jesus' job description has ever been changed.
    Continue to seek the Lord and ask Him for the gifts you will need to help you in your walk with Him. The gifts are always there for you because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29), which means they cannot be recalled, they are always available, even if they are not appropriated.

If you have had any involvement in the occult, do not seek the Baptism of the Spirit until you have been walking with the Lord for a long time and have had counselling from a qualified deliverance minister, as some gifts can be counterfeited by demonic entities. Mature believers have learned to “test” the spirits to discern legitimate manifestations of God’s Spirit from counterfeits (I John 4:1).
    The Holy Spirit will never lead you into sin, or tell you to do something that the Bible forbids.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them and they follow Me – John 10:27.

My children, know this - you are loved, you are not forsaken and though the road of this life is difficult and exacting, you have the promise of something that is so much better. Do not neglect the offering of God’s heart to yours.
     You are loved.

Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father, except through Me. - Jesus John 14:1-3, 6

Copyright 2013 by H. D. Shively

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