Love, Saviour & the Spirit…..and these three are one (1John 5:7).

            What does the baptismal creed instruct? “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:” [Matthew 28:19]. The Greek text actually says, “…into the name of……” Baptism is a dedication of the baptised to the service of the Deity and never to any creature. These Three share eternity of Divine nature, simply because this consecration is eternally to the One receiving the dedication: God, in Three Persons. The concluding grace benediction of every Christian service includes Them in 2Corinthians 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.” This is the benediction which proves the doctrine of Divine Trinity in unity, according to JFB COMMENTARY.

   Seated behind the katapetasma

            In the Palestinian days of His earthly sojourn, and in fact, centuries before then, Jehovah God was seated in the holiest compartment of the temple, covered by the second veil, called katapetasma (kat-ap-et’-as-mah). God, the Father, needed not come down. Seated in Majestic Divinity, receiving worship was the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Trinity constitutes one God. We understand from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit, both of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is, therefore, not left out in the profundity of John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” Put ‘I’ and ‘are’ together and an invocation of ‘I AM,’ the covenant name of JEHOVAH has been established. The verb ‘are,’ esmen (es-men’), is the plural of eimi (i-mee’): ‘to be, to exist;’ which God used in ‘I AM.’

                The personal ‘my’ is in italics, hence, not in the original script. Remove ‘my’ and it comes in its forceful: “I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE.” The last word, ‘one’ is heis (hice), a neuter ‘one’ implying one in all things: essence, power, majesty, knowledge.’ The conjunction ‘and’ is kai (kahee): ‘also, even, indeed, but; a primary particle, having a copulative and sometimes also a cumulative force.’ Together with the Holy Spirit, the Trinity is One God, having a community of all the attributes of Deity. The Trinity share in the glory of salvation. Hebrews 9:14, “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?” attests to it. They do not stop working for the saved souls. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” [Ephesians 2:18].      

The Trinity shares Divine attributions

                They are co-eternal:

                Psalm 41:13, singing the eternal nature of the Father, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen;” is a psalm of David. Moses, the great prophet of God, wrote of the Father’s eternal attribute in Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”  Jesus told Apostle John in Revelation 1:8 of His Being: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.

                Prophet Isaiah corroborates in the 41st chapter the 4th verse of his prophetic utterance, “Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.” Is it not elucidative that both the Father and the Lord Jesus are “the first, and with the last?” The Holy Spirit is eternal as Paul teaches in Hebrews 9:14, “…who through the eternal Spirit….” The questions I would like to ask those who think and teach a non-intelligent Holy Spirit are: Did God have to create His own Spirit –having none in the beginning? How can a lifeless Spirit teach (John 14:26), receive worship (seated in the holy of the holies of the Temple) and punish (Acts 5:4-11)? God must be exanimate to need a Spirit for Himself.                 

(…to be continued…)

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