Tag: Father Son and Holy Spirit

We are Temple of the Holy Spirit

Wonderful and Profound Things presented in a Familiar yet Reverent Way

As we read the sayings of the Lord Jesus and the apostles in the gospels and the epistles, we cannot but be impressed with the familiar way in which wonderful things are presented.  As we are near to God, we should be able to present things in a familiar way by reason of our own experience. Of course, we speak of these things very reverently, especially as we recognise our own imperfection.  We can, at the same time, show reverence whilst being familiar with such blessed things.  We say, ‘The Father loves the Son’. What could be simpler or profound?  Apart from it being in scripture (John 3:35, John 5:20), we know it because we ‘have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things’ (1 John 2:20).

 

God has given us the Holy Spirit

God has revealed Himself in love and light, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But God has given us the Holy Spirit, to indwell us, so that we become partakers of the divine nature.  The Spirit assures us that we have been accepted in the Beloved (see Eph 1:6).  The more we know the Holy Spirit, the more we know that He is God.

 

In Ephesians we are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, and are able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height and know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge (see Eph 3:16-19).

 

Eternal Life

By the Spirit we enjoy eternal life.  But to fully enjoy eternal life, our thoughts and actions must be more controlled by the Spirit.   Christ expressed this perfectly.  He is‘declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead’ (Rom 1:4) The power of the life is in resurrection, and Christ is our life. He created a path for believers to walk like Him in wisdom and patience.  We must remain in the path to do right.  If I leave the path I cannot do right, however much I try.  But I can return to the path.

The life of Jesus should be manifested in us.  Our life should express something totally new: divine life in the midst of a world that is away from God.  Only in the new man can this be done ‘the new man which after God is created in righteousness and in true holiness’ (Eph 4:24).   It is not the old man reformed: the old man could never have divine motives, even if it seeks to walk correctly.  It may be decent and respectable, but it never can be right.  It is the nature that has departed from God, and it cannot be right before Him.

 

Spiritual Knowledge

But we have spiritual knowledge. We have ‘put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him’(Col 3:10). Now we know that our bodies are not our own

  • they have been redeemed
  • They are temple of the Holy Spirit
  • They are members of the body of Christ

What a feeling God must have about me – to make a poor creature like me His temple – the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost, seal of His love and of the redemption.  But for this we are absolutely cleansed.  The Holy Spirit could not dwell in a defiled tabernacle.   The Holy Spirit’s presence is the expression of God’s perfect love; for ‘the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us’ (Rom 5:5).

 

The Result:

–  We are not to sin.  How can you go and sin with a body that is the temple of the Holy Ghost? We do fail, and that humbles us.  If we feel our wretchedly low ways and shortcomings, so much the better.

– We have a desire to glorify God, knowing that we are not our own – my body (formerly a slave of sin) no longer belongs to my corrupt will.  We have been bought with a price: we belong to God.  As we walk in His Spirit, our motive is Christ, and have a power the world knows nothing of.

– We have joy of heart and thankfulness of spirit.

 

Sosthenes

April 2018

 

Based on J N Darby: ‘Indwelling of the Holy Ghost – 1 Corinthians 6’ – JND’s Collected Writings Vol. 21 Evangelical 2 page 215.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God is One

We are constrained by the limitations of language, but we understand that there could be no full revelation of the One God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit., but through the Son and by the Spirit. This is what the One God is, one identity of will and being, so that the three Divine Persons are essentially one and one only, distinct in willing and acting, but always willing and acting in total unity. The only full revelation of the one true God is in the Trinity. Our prayers rise to God. Through Christ the Son we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Based on J. N. Darby‘s

JohnNelsonDarbyA few words on the Trinity

God could never be fully revealed as one.  He is one; but He was revealed as one in contrast with a multiplicity of gods. But when revealed to be one, He was not fully revealed.  He existed always in trinity in unity – that is unfathomable – but when He was revealed as one, before Chris’s incarnation, He did not suffer Himself to be approached, dwelling behind the veil.  The way into the holiest had not yet been made manifest.

But when the Son was on earth in the bosom of the Father, He was the image of the invisible God, so ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9).   If God had ceased to be invisible, Christ would have ceased to be God’s revealer and image.  He would not have been God.  The light of God would not have been in the world, and we would never have known God’s love, goodness, forbearance, patience, power or God’s nature and purity.

But this is not all.  Although the darkness did not comprehend the light, the Holy Spirit has quickened us.  The Spirit distributes to whom He will; but this is not separate from the will of the Father and the Son. They are one in counsel, mind, purpose, and thought; yet each acts in a distinct way.  The Son was not separate from the Father. ‘The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works’ (John 14:10). Darby says ‘ There is unity in all that constitutes oneness when we speak spiritually – not unity as one by arriving at the same things, or union, or by being united, as we are by having only one Spirit dwelling in all, but – by being one in eternal being; so that all else flows from that one will and counsel, yet so as that distinction in action in that will is revealed to us: not distinct will, but distinct willing’.

The creature cannot reach to God, or God would not be God.  It is simply impossible for the finite reach to the infinite, otherwise neither would be finite nor infinite.  Nor could the infinite God reveal Himself to a finite creature, neither physically nor morally.  But God is revealed in the Son, by the work of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit.   Man is able appreciate the Father’ s love, glory, righteousness and holiness, and is able to enjoy intelligently the love of both the Father and the Son, by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

We learn a lot from John.  He said that ‘God so loved the world,’ (John 3:16) and speaks of grace and power bringing man into the knowledge and enjoyment of God.  He tells us of the Father and the Son, and what Jesus said about the presence and work of the Comforter. John is the one who speaks particularly of the revelation of God.  He does not emphasise man’s presentation to God whereas Paul does.

We are constrained by the limitations of language, but we understand that there could be no full revelation of the One God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit., but through the Son and by the Spirit.  This is what the One God is, one identity of will and being, so that the three Divine Persons are essentially one and one only, distinct in willing and acting, but always willing and acting in total unity.   The only full revelation of the one true God is in the Trinity. Our prayers rise to God. Through Christ the Son we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Sosthenes

June 2015

For original see  A few words on the Trinity

Whilist writing the above, I thought of the hymn
Josiah Condor – Thou art the Everlasting Word

D-JOSIAH-CONDER03Although verse 3 is not in the 1962 version of the Little Flock hymn book, the Lord being the image of the invisible God was much in mind.

Image of the Infinite Unseen,
Whose being none can know;
Brightness of light no eye hath seen,
God’s love revealed below.
The light of love has shone in Thee,
And in that love our souls are free.

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