Post by Rev. Jim Cunningham on Dec 17, 2008 12:46:29 GMT -5
Brothers and sisters,
One of the top questions I'm asked is "How can Jesus be God?" I'm often stunned at how many Christians do not believe that Jesus is God. So I'd like to answer that question for you now.
It is explanable, but I will warn you that it is meat, not milk.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same God.
Here is how to understand this.
God said that He made us in His image (Gnesis 1:26-27).
When He made us, He created us as a soul, a body and a spirit
(Genesis 2:7 & 1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The soul and the body and the spirit have totally different functions, yet the three constitute a single human.
The body is made of this world's components
into which God breathed the breath of life (the spirit)
and man became alive and conscious (soul),
as it is written:
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground [the body], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [the spirit], and man became a living soul [the soul]."
We are a singular plurality. One, consisting of a trinity.
Because man is a singular plurality existing as a trinity,
and because man is created in God's image,
therefore GOD must be a singular plurality - existing as a trinity.
Each part of Man is made in the image of each part of God.
GOD: Father/Son/Holy Spirit
MAN: Soul/Body/Spirit
Our soul is made in the image of the Father,
our body is made in the image of Jesus the Son,
our spirit is made in the image of the Holy Spirit.
It is written in Colossians 2:9 that Jesus is the body of God,
"For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead BODILY."
Our body does the will of our soul (our mind and conciousness) by the power of our spirit. In other words, your soul (mind) gives the command, your body obeys it, and your spirit empowers you to do it - just as Jesus (the body of God) does the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is why Jesus, as the body of God, always stated that He came to do the will of the Father.
Notice that Jesus said "the will of THE FATHER".
Jesus never said He came to do the will "OF GOD",
an that is because that would imply that Jesus is not God.
For example, say Tom and Jim equally owned a company.
Both Tom and Jim are equally the boss over their employees.
Tom asked Jim to give a message to one of their employees.
Jim would not tell this employee, "I have a message from the boss," because that could be taken to mean that Tom is the boss and Jim is not. Therefore, Jim would say, "I have a message from Tom."
In the same way, The Father and Jesus are both God.
The Father sent Jesus to the People.
Jesus did not say, "GOD sent me and I have come to do God's will".
Jesus said, "THE FATHER sent Me and I came to do THE FATHER's will."
Jesus and the Father ARE GOD, but Jesus (the body of God) was sent to do the will of the Father.
The Son does the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit
as our body does the will of our soul by the power of our spirit.
This is also why Jesus said the Father is greater than Him. It's been asked how Jesus can be God if His Father is greater.
With a human, though the soul and body and spirit are all equal, it is the soul which has the authority to command the body. It is the soul which dreams, invents, thinks, determines, and chooses, and it is the soul which has the final say as to what your entire collective being will do (this is why the mind can even overrule physical trauma in an emergency, performing astounding feats - the soul is the final authority of a person's Being).
Hence, Jesus, though He is God The Body, nevertheless was subordinate to God the Father because the Father is the soul of the Godhead. It is by the Father's will that anything is done - hence, "I have come to do the will of My Father." It is Jesus that does the work of the Father, and He does so by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why Genesis says that, "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth", yet John's Gospel says the JESUS made all things.
But though Jesus, as the Body, is "subordinate" to the Father (as the body is subordinate to the soul), it is written that, because Jesus the Body of God willing chose to pay the penalty for our sins, God the Father has made God the Body (His Son Jesus) to be equal on all terms and in everyway, and has commanded that all creation bow and worship before God the Body (Jesus). And thus Jesus is glorified, and the Father glorified through Him; and at the very end, Jesus Himself will bow and glorify God the Father who, by His will, has done all things.
In Jesus,
Rev. Jim Cunningham
www.GayChristianSurvivors.com
