The Godhead, Symposium of information on
Here are three references that give a clear relationship within the Godhead concerning all
three members:
“The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent,
and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no
avail.”—DA:671.2
“Without the cross, man could have no union with the
Father. On it depends our every hope.”—AA:209.4
“Under the training of Christ the disciples had been led to
feel their need of the Spirit. Under the Spirit’s teaching they
received the final qualification, and
went forth to their lifework.”—AA:45.2
The rest are extras from a compiled resource in favor of the Holy
Spirit as the third person of the Godhead.
***
Can men explain the Holy Spirit? Is He really a person? Is He a
member of the Godhead?
As the Jesuits (Secret service of the Roman Catholic army of
highly trained infiltrators, See the Great Controversy, p. 234-235)
continue their activities, in obedience to the Council of Trent [held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or
Trento, in northern Italy), was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.], in our church and among all protestant pastors, we can
expect every pillar of our SDA faith will be attacked.
The Bible warns:
Col. 2:8—“Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of
the world, and not after Christ.”
Eph 5:6—“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for
because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”
For those who truly believe the Holy Bible and God's prophets,
these questions are answered beyond doubt. The Spirit of Prophecy
answers:
1. 2 Pet. 1:20—“Knowing this first,
that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
2. Am. 3:7—“Surely the Lord GOD will do
nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.”
3. 2 Chr. 20:20—“¶ And they rose early
in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went
forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of
Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe
his prophets, so shall ye prosper.”
The Spirit of Prophecy Speaks:
It is NOT essential for us
to be able to define just what the Holy Spirit is. Christ
tells us that the Spirit is the Comforter, "the Spirit of truth, which
proceedeth from the Father." It is plainly declared regarding the Holy
Spirit that, in His work of guiding men into all truth, "He shall not
speak of Himself." John 15:26; 16:13.
The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Men
cannot explain it, because the Lord has not revealed it to them. Men
having fanciful views may bring together passages of Scripture and put a human
construction on them, but the acceptance of these views will not
strengthen the church. Regarding such mysteries, which
are too deep for human understanding, silence is golden.—AA:51.3-52.1
Third Person of the Godhead
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. 2
Corinthians 13:14.
We need to realize that the Holy Spirit . .
. is as much a person as God is a person. . . .
The Holy Spirit has a personality, else He
could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the
children of God. He must also be a divine person, else He could not search out
the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of God.
The Holy Spirit is a free, working,
independent agency. The God of heaven uses His Spirit as it pleases Him; and
human minds, human judgment, and human methods can no more set boundaries to
its working, or prescribe the channel through which it shall operate, than they
can say to the wind, "I bid you to blow in a certain direction, and to
conduct yourself in such and such a manner."
From the beginning God has been working by His
Holy Spirit through human instrumentalities for the accomplishment of His
purpose in behalf of the fallen race. . . . The same power that sustained the
patriarchs, that gave Caleb and Joshua faith and courage, and that made the
work of the apostolic church effective, has upheld God's faithful children in
every succeeding age.
The Holy Spirit was the highest of all gifts
that He [Jesus] could solicit from His Father for the exaltation of His people.
The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this the
sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. The power of evil had been
strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic
captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through
the mighty agency of the third person of
the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the
fullness of divine power.—FLB:52.1-6
Let us be wise beloved:
What does Jesus call those who do not believe his prophets, or
don't want to believe ALL that the prophets have
spoken?
Luke 24:25—“Then he said unto them, O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken:”
Do we want to prosper spiritually? Here is the formula:
2 Chr. 20:20—“¶ And they rose early in the morning,
and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth,
Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye
inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be
established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.”
Let us believe the word of God and his prophets with the simplicity
of little children.
***
I'd like to share something the Spirit of God just helped me to
understand concerning the Godhead if you should ever come across these kinds of
people with strained inharmonious theories.
John 14:16—“And I will pray the Father, and he shall
give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;”
John 14:18—“¶ I will not leave you
comfortless: I will come to you.”
How ironic that He that is being sent which is “ANOTHER Comforter”
(another is always NOT the Same) besides Himself (Jesus) and God
the Father, is called the SPIRIT of TRUTH. Therefore God the Son cannot be
playing a trick nor lying to us in verse 17 giving the appearance of three
persons only but in actuality, there is only two or as some believe only one?
This cannot be. We cannot subjugate vs. 16 by what is said in vs. 18. They all
need to be harmonized.
The key to the answer for the misrepresentation of John 14:16
which we "Trinitarians" use in our favor and then “anti-trinitarian”
read v. 18 to reverse the understanding in v. 16 is because they don't
understand what is going on in vs. 8-10.
John 14:8-10—“Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us
the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that
hath seen me hath seen the Father; and
how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
10 Believest thou not that I am IN the
Father, and the Father IN me? the
words that I speak unto you I speak not
of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He
doeth the works.”
Who is where? How many are they? What is their destinations? Who
is doing what?
John 14:20—“At that day ye shall
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I
in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them,
he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and
I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto
us, and not unto the world?
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.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my
sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the
Father's which sent me.
As you come to verse 24 in light of verse 8-10 I might as well say
that the Father is consistent with Himself. Because He is doing and speaking by
the individual on earth called the Son of God.
The Apostle Paul testifies to the harmony of the truth in John 14
being an outsider or as he put it “born out of due time.” (1 Cor. 15:8)
2 Cor. 5:18-21—And all things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of
reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation.
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to
God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And the second find is likened unto above.
John 16:27-32—“For the Father himself loveth you,
because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
28 ¶ I came forth from the
Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the
Father.
29 His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly,
and speakest no proverb.
30 Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and
needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou
camest forth from God.
31 Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?
32 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that
ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and
yet I am not alone, because the
Father is with me.”
The reason why John wrote (under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit) “I”, speaking of Jesus, “came out from God” is because
before Time, Space, and (mass/energy*) Matter was ever created
The Institute for Creation Research
|
the only “place” of existence is God Himself. Therefore Jesus
could not have come from any other "place" if there is even such a
thing before creation.
And this is more reason to forbid the idea that God is ONE divided
Himself into three parts to deal with the sin problem. For in Micah we read:
Micah 5:2—“But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth
have been from of old, from everlasting.”
The only “thing” that could ever be everlasting is God himself a
true infinity.
Christ as a separate Eternal entity from God the Father and
God the Holy Spirit stated the following:
Still seeking to give a true direction to her faith, Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived. “He that hath the Son hath life.” 1 John 5:12. The divinity of Christ is the believer’s assurance of eternal life. “He that believeth in Me,” said Jesus, “though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?”—Desire of Ages, p. 530.3
Life, Original, Unborrowed, Underived.—Jesus
declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In Christ is life, original,
unborrowed, underived. “He that hath the Son hath life.” The divinity of Christ
is the believer’s assurance of eternal life.—The Desire of Ages, p. 530 (1898)—Evangelism,
p. 616.2.
If this is true of the person of Christ, then it must also be true
of the other two members of the Godhead.
Rom. 3:4—“God forbid: yea, let God
be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou
mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art
judged.
**[“My words” (John 14:23) has to be in light of the full
copyright built into the Bible.
De. 4:1, 2 “Don't add or take away.”
[Adopted and amplified from]
If each of the words is true and they are allowed to bare their individual and proper meaning then it is that the thoughts or idea will also be true, perfect, able to convert the soul.]
***
The FIRST violated word is
"another."
John 14:16, 17—“And I will pray the
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that
he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot
receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Another will never represent the word same and vice versa. If you
can demonstrate this then I want to see the evidence in which that word
construct is found. You must have a dictionary that is capable of doing this
because your thought construct is suggesting this exists.
There are four readily identifiable individuals in verse seventeen
alone quoted above. There is more than four that can be deduced but strictly
covering just the subject matter contains only four.
1. "I"
is referring to Jesus.
2. "The
Father" is referring to God the Father.
3. "You"
is referring to the recipient(s)
4. "another Comforter"
is referring to God the Holy Spirit (for the purposes of this conversation our
Mystery Guest.)
The fourth individual is called even the Spirit of truth.
The SECOND violated word is
"third."
Numbers are indestructible.
***
The Unpardonable Sin
What constitutes the sin against the Holy
Ghost? It is willfully attributing to Satan the work of the Holy
Spirit. For example, suppose that one is a witness of the special work
of the Spirit of God. He has convincing evidence that the work is in harmony
with the Scriptures, and the Spirit witnesses with his spirit
that it is of God. Afterward, however, he falls under temptation; pride,
self-sufficiency, or some other evil trait, controls him; and rejecting all the
evidence of its divine character, he declares that that which he had before
acknowledged to be the power of the Holy Spirit was the power
of Satan. It is through the medium of His Spirit that God
works upon the human heart; and when men willfully reject the Spirit and
declare it to be from Satan, they cut off the channel by which God can
communicate with them. By denying the evidence which God has been
pleased to give them, they shut out the light which had been shining in their
hearts, and as the result they are left in darkness. Thus the
words of Christ are verified: "If therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness!" Matthew 6:23. For a time, persons
who have committed this sin may appear to be
children of God; but when circumstances arise to develop character and
show what manner of spirit they are of, it will be found that they are on the
enemy's ground, standing under his black banner.—Counsels for the Chruch, p.
81.1
Furthermore:
Nothing can happen in any part of the universe
without the knowledge of Him who is omnipresent. Not a single event of human
life is unknown to our Maker. While Satan is constantly devising evil, the Lord
our God overrules all, so that it will not harm His obedient, trusting
children. The same power that controls the boisterous waves of
the ocean can hold in check all the power of rebellion and of crime. God
says to one as to the other, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no
farther."—FLB:61.3
"The restraining Spirit of God, which
imposes a check upon the cruel power of Satan, was in a great
measure removed, and he whose only delight is the wretchedness of men, was
permitted to work his will."—GC88, p. 285.5
There are three persons aside from the believers and those who
reject truth in this paragraph well illustrated,
"It was just before this that *Jesus had
a second time performed the miracle of healing a man possessed, blind and dumb,
and the Pharisees had reiterated the charge, "He casteth out devils
through the prince of the devils." Matthew 9:34. Christ told them plainly
that in attributing the
322
work of *the Holy Spirit to *Satan,
they were cutting themselves off from the fountain of blessing. Those who had
spoken against Jesus Himself, not discerning His divine character, might
receive forgiveness; for through the Holy Spirit they might be brought to see
their error and repent. Whatever the sin, if the soul repents and believes, the
guilt is washed away in the blood of Christ; but he who rejects the
work of the Holy Spirit is placing himself where repentance and faith cannot
come to him. It is by the Spirit that God works upon the heart; when
men willfully reject the Spirit, and declare It to be from Satan, they cut off
the channel by which God can communicate with them. When the Spirit is finally
rejected, there is no more that God can do for the soul."—DA:321.3
To deny or say one word against the third person of the God is to
be condemned already and Hellfire not heaven is their destiny.
***
Location issues. Omnipresence surrendered, not
available to Jesus after the incarnation. The identity of THE individuality of
the Holy Spirit sustained during the ministry of The Son of man.
Luke 1:35—“And the angel answered and said unto her,
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshdow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God.”
Luke 4:18—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me
to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,”
Acts 10:38—“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with
the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that
were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
2 Cor. 3:18—“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.”
Acts 1:8—“But ye shall receive power, after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of
the earth.”
John 14:16-18—“And I will pray the Father, and he
shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot
receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 ¶ I will not leave you comfortless: I will come
to you.”
John 14:26—“But the Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost, 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 unto you.”
John 15:26—“¶ But when the Comforter is come, whom I
will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have
been with me from the beginning.”
Joh 16:7-13—“¶ Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It
is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will
not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and
ye see me no more;
11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is
judged.
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he
will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to
come.”
He [Jesus] received baptism at the hands of
John, and in coming up out of the water he bowed upon Jordan's
banks, and offered up a prayer to Heaven. Never before had angels listened to
such a prayer as came from his lips. The Father heard the petition of his Son
in man's behalf, and the heavens were opened, and the Holy
Spirit, like a dove of burnished gold, encircled
him, while a voice from the highest glory was heard, saying, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." How many have read over this
relation, and have not had their hearts stirred by its significant truths!—ST,
July 28, 1890 par. 5
Christ has surrendered his omnipresence at this time during His
earthly ministry as a prophet when the HOLY SPIRIT makes a glorious appearance.
Later again after the death and resurrection of Christ the HOLY GHOST makes an
appearance as cloven tongues.
"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like
as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance." The Holy Spirit, assuming the form of
tongues of fire, rested upon those assembled. This was an emblem of
the gift then bestowed on the disciples, which enabled them to speak with
fluency languages with which they had heretofore been unacquainted. The appearance
of fire signified the fervent zeal with which the apostles would labor and the
power that would attend their work.—AA 39.1
There are impersonal attributes or characteristics about myself
and God. For example my strength, my respiratory system, my brain. For God we
don't worship his strength, omnipotence, his ability to be everywhere, his
omnipresence, nor his ability to know all things, his omniscience, nor do we
worship his power to regenerate us from sinners to saints. We don't worship any
of His characteristics or attributes. We worship the person. And should God be
known or described by any of His characteristics we do not automatically reduce
God into that characteristic and destroy his identity as a person, but you have
done so when the Holy Spirit took on another mental image than an individual
distinct person from the person of Christ and from the person of the Father in
heaven.
God has revealed Himself in three persons we need to respect that,
count them, three distinct person's. I believe it to be so because the Bible
declares it so.
All three were there at creation. All three were present at
Christ's baptism. All three are involved in every prayer uttered.
***
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