The Holy Spirit and the Nature of God

"The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool" (Psm. 110:1). Who wrote this Psalm? David did. So who is David's 'Lord,' and who is 'The Lord' that told David's Lord to sit on his right hand? How about we let Jesus give us the answer: "And he said unto them, How say they that Christ is David's son? And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son?" (Lk. 20:41-44). So Jesus clarifies to us that it is he who David referred to as "my Lord," and he clearly said that David was speaking by the holy Ghost. In fact David didn't even know about the son of God, but the Spirit that inspired surely did. You may also want to note that the point Jesus was making was that he is the Son of God. Peter gave us some powerful confirmation of this truth in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, with an added element defined: "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:32-36). Note that Peter also quoted our text scripture at the end of this passage, and he also told us who it is that is referred to as "The Lord" in Psalm 110:1. Three times in this short passage Peter clearly says it was God that "raised Jesus from the dead," that is God who "exalted Jesus to his own right hand," and that is God that has "made Jesus both Lord and Christ." So the simple and obvious answer is that it was and is God the Father who told his Son Jesus Christ to "sit at [his] own right hand till his enemies be made his footstool." I don't know if you've ever seen this particular oddity, or maybe you have experienced it, but people who are [heck] bent on the 'oneness' doctrine, meaning 'Jesus Only,' have a visible problem when you refer to Jesus as 'the Son of God.' They always have to come back and pound this thing that he was "God manifest in the flesh." OF COURSE he was God manifest in the flesh! What else could he be? He was directly begotten of the Father without a mother, so he couldn't be anything but God. The Son of God was begotten by his Father in heaven long before anything or anyone else ever existed. HE'S THE ONE who created everything and everybody else (Prov. 8:22; Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-17; Eph. 3:9).

God's Son WAS BEGOTTEN, which is to say he had a beginning. He in fact "IS the beginning" (Col. 1:18). His substance was always in God who had no beginning, so in that way the Son is eternal. But as a person with body, soul, spirit, and consciousness, he had a beginning. He is the Son, and it was he who the Father told to sit at his right hand. Jesus is referred to in the scriptures also as "the only begotten" Son of God (Jn. 1:14,18; Jn. 3:16,18; Heb. 11:17; I Jn. 4:9). What this means is that Christ was not created as all else in creation were, but he alone was 'begotten' directly from the Father's substance, making him the only other 'God' being that exists. So according to the scriptures there are two divine persons in the 'God' family. The fact that Jesus Christ was begotten of God also proves that God the Father has a body as well as the Son; otherwise the Son could not be called "the express image of his person" (Heb. 1:3). If God were only a Spirit then he would not be a person, because a person is made up of body, soul, and spirit; as is the Son of God, as also is mankind (I Thess. 5:23; Gen. 1:26). So again, there are two persons in the God family in heaven, and there's nothing wrong about that. Why should it bother us? I have a son, and he and I are two separate persons. In fact I have two sons, and my other son and I are two separate persons as well. You see? The Father and the Son in heaven, and the father and the son in the earth. Nobody is one with their son by being squashed into the same body with them. Jesus prayed that believers would "be one, even as we [he and the Father] are one" (Jn. 17:22). In fact he went on to say that the 'oneness' that he was talking about was by means of the Father being 'in' him, and he being 'in' believers (Jn. 17:23). So are the Father, the Son, and everyone who has ever trusted in Christ all smashed together into one physical body? Of course not. We need only see HOW he is in believers, and how believers are in him, to understand the true 'oneness' of God: "For BY ONE SPIRIT are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into ONE SPIRIT" (I Cor. 12:13). This extremely integral verse tells us how we get into Christ and he into us, and it also shows us something else that is utterly significant. The baptism of the holy Ghost which always carries the sign of speaking in other tongues, is what puts us into Christ and makes us 'one' with he and the Father the same way they are one. It is by having the same holy Spirit, which in fact is the divine, eternal life that dwells in both the Father and the Son; that puts us all 'in' one another. So it is by the Spirit that the Father and the Son are one, and it is by the same Spirit that we are made one.

What this also means is that the holy Ghost is NOT a third person as the 'Trinity' doctrine upholds, but rather it is the very eternal life substance that first dwelt in the Father, and that naturally dwelt in the Son when he was begotten directly of the Father. No? Okay, then try this verse on for size: "For as the Father hath LIFE in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (Jn. 5:26). Not convinced? Okay, then there's this also: "I am come that they might have LIFE, and that they might have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10). Still not enough? I understand, so let's cap it off by what the scriptures says IS that life: "For the law of the SPIRIT OF LIFE in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2). Yes my friend, only the life that dwells in the Father and the Son could reverse the death that our mortal bodies were sentenced to because of Adam's sin (Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:22). "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 [bring to life] your mortal [dead] bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8:11). So Romans 8:2 shows us that the life of God's Spirit will deliver us from sin and from death, and Romans 8:11 makes it crystal clear that it is our dead bodies that God's "Spirit of life" will raise back to life at the second coming of Jesus to this world. The Father and the Son are persons, and we are persons as they are persons, but the holy Ghost is THE LIFE that dwells in the Father and the Son; which the Son came to provide for us to have to dwell in us as well. It is not a person that makes persons 'one,' but rather a shared inner life and nature in and between persons. The Spirit of God is "the divine nature" because "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts BY the holy Ghost," and the nature of God is love (II Pet. 1:4; Rom. 5:5; I Jn. 4:8). That is why there is no mention of the holy Ghost in the two passages where Jesus said that he and the Father are one (Jn. 10:30; Jn. 17:21,22). That is also why there is no mention of the holy Ghost in the salutations of Paul in his epistles, where he says, "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The Spirit is ONLY Spirit, not body, soul, and spirit. We have bodies, as do God and his Son; and we have a spirit IN our bodies, as do the Father and the Son. Our own spirit that we were born with is PART of our person, and the holy Spirit is also PART of the persons of both the Father and the Son. We are made in the image of God, and therefore it is impossible for these things to be any other way. Why do you think God required Abraham to give up his son's life in order for his covenant to be established with him? Sound familiar? For all who will heartily and gladly embrace this greatest of all truths, the unifying process of God's elect in the end time can now begin. So be it.