The Holy Spirit and Truth

I had some "Oneness," or "Jesus Only" enthusiasts on this page recently, aggressively opposing a post that I had written in regard to the truth of the Father and the Son. Now understand, I love all of my brothers and my sisters in Christ, regardless of the doctrines they uphold, or even regardless of what spiritual condition they may be in. That's my job, and yours too if you aspire to follow Jesus; meaning to have "unfeigned love of the brethren," as I quoted from Peter in yesterday's post. I find it to be an easy job to do, and one that feels really good all the time too. I'm perfectly content with just that, except that I want to see ALL of God's people have the true capacity to do the same. The problem with erroneous "belief" of the scriptures is that every false teaching about the gospel is designed to hinder, alter, and suffocate that capacity in God's people. And unfortunately I have to say that the traditions and doctrines of Christianity have been quite successful in that devilish endeavor. Just look around, there's hundreds of sects, affiliations, denominations, non-denominations, and everything else that stand in division one against the other, throughout Christianity. That is why God is calling HIS people out of the whole confused mess, to come to him and him alone; with honesty, humility, and persevering faith (Mat. 11:28; Rev. 18:4). The scriptures plainly tell us that Jesus sent back the holy Ghost from heaven when he went back, and that the same holy Ghost will "teach us all things," "guide us into all truth," and reveal the truths of God to us; IF THAT IS WHAT WE REALLY WANT!! (Jn. 14:26; Jn. 16:13; Rom. 8:14; I Cor. 2:10; I Jn. 2:27). So what would the body of Christ look like if we were all TRULY taught by the Spirit of truth, and following thereafter? Of course, it would be "ONE," as in "there is ONE body" (I Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:4). And how would that true "oneness" come about? Well, we just saw that from the scriptures - BY AND THROUGH THE SPIRIT teaching us INTO "one mind and one accord;" which sounds REALLY FAMILIAR: Oh yeahhh, that's the way this whole thing started, isn't it? (Acts 2:1-4). Yeah, that's right, and as I recall REALLY GOOD things were happening because of that oneness of mind and spirit between believers: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:32,33). Oh yes my friend, very good things indeed. So in light of these inescapable scriptural realities, I have to say that it does matter very much what we believe to be true about the gospel that God's Son gave his life for us to be partakers of. What kind of a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ is it, for his people to be needlessly divided from him, from his Father, and from one another on a massive scale? It certainly is not a TRUE witness, you will have to admit. And I have said these few things here in order to show why I so often reprove the erroneous traditions and doctrines that hold God's dear people captive, and why I am about to do so today in short order. Believe it or not it is my job, and believe it or not it is a job that God has appointed me to. Is it an easy job? Has it ever been easy? Read the Bible, and see whether it was easy for those whose books and letters are contained there.

In any event, let me get back to the "Oneness," or "Jesus Only" doctrine, which states that God is one person, manifested bodily in Jesus Christ alone; and operating in three offices - Father, Son, and holy Ghost, of course. The "oneness" crowd really have a problem when you start talking about Jesus being God's Son, and it's a problem you can feel a mile away. Now what spirit do you suppose is behind THAT?? I mean Jesus IS the Son of God, and if we have a problem with that, then we really need to throw the Bible out and write our own Bible. But then again, the spirit of Christianity has done a good job of doing that already, through a vast network of false teachings ABOUT the Bible. Anyway, I would like to present just ONE scripture today to the "Oneness" contingent, and ask, What do you do with this? There are many, many more that I can use, and have; but this one stood out to me earlier. It is where the HEAVENLY, GLORIFIED Jesus Christ is personally dictating letters to his beloved disciple and apostle on the island of Patmos: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name" (Rev. 3:12). Okay, like I said, this is Jesus many years after he had left the earth, appearing to John in his true heavenly body; and that's going to make it mighty tough on these folks who contend that Jesus' flesh was praying to his Spirit while he was on earth. In fact the "Jesus Only" sects want to put EVERYTHING pertaining to the obvious reality of God and his Son, off on the faulty concept that "the flesh was the man and the spirit was God." But look at what the HEAVENLY Jesus said in his statement to the pastor at Philadelphia: He referred to God as "MY GOD" four times in this one breath, one of which times saying that HE would write the NAME of "[HIS] God" on those who overcome. And in the same sentence he ALSO stated that that HE would write "HIS [own] new name on those who overcome. You may note that he used the conjunction "and" before saying that he would write his name on the faithful, as well as the name of his God. That is one name plus one name, which equals two names, for two separate "God persons" (Jn. 1:1,2; Gen. 1:26; Gen. 3:22; Gen. 11:7; Prov. 8:29,30; Eph. 3:9; Heb. 1:2,8,9). There's no room for the "flesh and spirit" concept there my friend. Jesus Christ the heavenly Lord, distinctly made a difference between himself and his Father, in person and in name. They are certainly two separate persons who are "one" in the same way the early believers were one, and in the same way we would be one if we would all heed the leading and teaching of the holy Ghost. And again, how is that oneness constituted? BY AND THROUGH THE SPIRIT, which Spirit is NOT a THIRD person, but rather it is the divine eternal life which first dwelt in the Father, which he gave to dwell in the Son; and the Son came to make the way for this unifying, divine life to dwell in us (Mk. 1:7,8; Jn. 5:26; Jn. 10:10; Rom. 8:2,10). If the "Trinity" doctrine were true, which it obviously is not, the Spirit could not be "A" person anyway; but rather it would have to be MANY, MANY persons, seeing at least hundreds of millions of people have received the Spirit since Pentecost. The truth is that the Father and the Son each have their own body, even as we each have our own body. Jesus made that perfectly clear when he was here (Mat. 18:10; Jn. 5:37). Were it any other way, then we could NOT be one with one another the same way the Father and the Son are one, which is what Jesus prayed for us to be (Jn. 17:21-23). But the Spirit of God being the life of God, when it dwells in us fully, will make us one in the exact same way that the Father and the Son are one. The apostle Paul understood this TRUE oneness when he admonished the believers in Corinth to fulfill that prayer of Jesus among themselves: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. 1:10). It is that simple my friend, and maybe what I love about it the most is that it just makes good plain sense. Amen.