6 One God and Father of all, who is above all,
and through all, and in you all.
As Moses repeated to the children of Israel from God’s word
to him;
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Jesus Christ confirmed;
Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the
commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
As did Paul;
Galatians 3:20 Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but
God is one.
The unity of God is a very important Biblical concept to
understand. God is not three separate individuals, three separate Gods. That is
where some religions mistakenly view Christianity as a form of idolatry. Note
the following verses;
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Then, pay close attention to this verse;
1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
(Contemporary Bible versions based on the Westcott-Hort
heretical text remove this verse from the Bible as being a late addition when
the evidence shows it was quoted or alluded to in virtually every century of
Christianity and even the editor of the Latin Vulgate, Jerome, admitted that it
was in the original. It is also in Wycliffe’s medieval Bible).
What are these three? And how are they one? God is composed
of three parts, as we are and as the higher animals are. He is composed of a
soul, the seat of self-identity and will, a spirit, the Holy Spirit, the
principal way He operates throughout His creation, and a body, a physical
image, the likeness of God. Unlike we temporal beings, earth-bound, those three
parts of God can act independently and apart from each other in space-time.
Were we to be disconnected from our spirit or soul we would cease to live
physically.
For man’s body, soul, and spirit;
1Thessalonians
5:23 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.
For the beast’s soul and spirit;
Numbers 31:28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men
of war which went out to battle: one soul
of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses,
and of the sheep:
Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Why would the beast’s spirit go down into the earth? It is
important to know what man’s spirit does.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD,
searching all the inward parts of the belly.
God uses your spirit to see you from the inside, all of your
thoughts and your physical processes. Your spirit does not know God until you
are born again, however, because it is a dead spirit inherited from Adam. Beasts
are not accountable for salvation as they have never been in rebellion against
God. Their suffering and death is a consequence of Adam’s sin.
Paul talks about how he wants to know Christ as Christ knows
him using the word, apprehend, an older meaning being to know.
Philippians 3:12 Not as though I had already attained (understand –Psalm 139:6; Proverbs
1:5), either were already perfect (finished
and complete - 2 Chronicles 8:16;
Colossians 4:12): but I follow after, if
that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
We are made in the image of God as in we are made in the form
of God’s physical appearance. See the word likeness
in the following verse;
Genesis1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
In Adam’s perfect state he looked like God. He had the likeness
of God which is the appearance but in his sin that appearance was compromised.
Adam’s son, Seth, was made in his likeness and each generation bears that
removal from God’s perfect likeness.
Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years,
and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
Mankind is deteriorating so rapidly from the point of view of
genetics that he could not be much older than a few thousand years. I have a
National Academy of Sciences article by researcher, James Crow, from 1997
entitled, “The High Spontaneous Mutation Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” where he
laments man’s deterioration and calls for government action as if the
government could do something about the effects of sin.
Another paper I have from 1995 from the Journal of Theoretical Biology by Alexey Kondrashov cries out, “Why
Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” Clearly, the human race should have been
extinguished by now based on scientific reasoning. Each time our cells divide
information is lost.
You can see it in real-time as you age. Just look in a
mirror holding a picture of yourself at 15 or 20 years of age.
But, those men and women who believe will be returned to
better than that perfect image that Adam bore of God. We will be like Christ
and will not sin again.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren.
That completeness and perfection is our destiny in Christ.
The three operational parts of God; Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit or Ghost, are mentioned throughout Scripture. First, we saw the words us and our in Genesis’ first chapter and then later, when God viewed the
work of man at Babel.
Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound
their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
The three parts of God are active in creation right away in
the first three verses of Genesis setting the understanding for us in all
future references.
Genesis 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth. 2 And the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God (the part of God that interacts with His creation) moved upon the face of the waters.
3 ¶ And God (the Father, the seat
of self-identity and will) said, Let there be light: and there was light (the Word spoken and the Light being God the Son, also the physical image
of God, His person).
The three parts of God are expressed all through the Old
Testament. God the Son walked in the Garden of Eden with Adam.
Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence* of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
*Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed
them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
No man has seen God the Father at any time. He is a Spirit in
distinction from other spirit beings which He created.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.
God the Son, being the, “express image of His person,” is who
is seen virtually every time a person sees an angel or appearance of God or
talks to God face-to-face in the Bible. As God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is seated at the right hand of the Father now we will not see Him face to face
until He returns. We have His Book, the Scriptures, the Bible which tells us
about Him and through which He speaks to us. The three parts of God are
mentioned throughout the Bible but also in the same verse in several places by
different speakers.
Jesus refers to the three as quoted by Matthew.
Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost:
Paul refers to the three.
2 Corinthians
13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you
all. Amen.
The Apostle, John, refers to the three.
1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
Repeating verse 6, “One
God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God is as far above the greatest saint as He is the greatest
sinner so that God’s greatness, above all, is no impediment to your coming to
Him. He’ll come to you.
David pleaded;
Psalm 25:11 For thy name’s sake, O LORD, pardon mine
iniquity; for it is great.
It is the very fact that our sin is so great, so hideous, and
so vile that we can call on God who is so great, so perfect, and so merciful to
us because it is in His character to forgive. The God who made all things is
not a part of all things but is above all things.
When Paul is arguing with the Greeks in Athens he quotes a
pagan poet and prophet, Epimenides from his 6th century BC poem, Cretica, when the poet said, “For in you
we live and move and have our being.”
Acts 17:22 ¶ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill,
and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too
superstitious. 23 For as I passed by,
and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in
temples made with hands; 25 Neither is
worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to
all life, and breath, and all things; 26
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds
of their habitation; 27 That they should
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be
not far from every one of us: 28 For in
him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets
have said, For we are also his offspring. 29
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think
that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and
man’s device. 30 And the times of this
ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in
the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath
ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead.
32 ¶
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and
others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
The Greek wrote this about Zeus and Paul, acknowledging that
to the Greeks Zeus or Jupiter in Rome, was the supreme god, used this
well-known phrase to point out how dependent we are upon the real God who he
linked to a monument to a god the Athenians exalted named “The Unknown God.” The
legend had it that there had been a plague centuries before and sacrifices were
offered to every god that the Athenians thought they might have offended but
the plague continued in spite of that religious effort. So, Epimenides thought
that there was a god they were not honoring, whose name they didn’t know, so they
sacrificed to him and the plague ceased immediately. This supposedly resulted
in the monument to the unknown god whom Paul is insisting is really the God of
creation.
So, God is above all things, through all things, and as Jesus
and Paul both points out dwells within the believer.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man
love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come
unto him, and make our abode with him.
And Paul;
Romans 8:11 But 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 dwelleth in you.
1Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
2Timothy 1:14 That good thing which was committed unto thee
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
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