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TRINITY

 Chapter 12

from

Chapter 12 SMR Ch. 7, Section 4

pp. 532-560

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER 12

Here in SMR the scriptural FACT of the Trinity is reviewed in considerable breadth, so that the systematics resulting and the necessity impelling are in glorious array, the one insisting and the other assisting.

TRINITY CHAPTER 12

No matter is more important than this. The wrong Christ does not save! (Acts 1:11, II Corinthians 11:4, 13, II John 9-10, Acts 2:36-37). Let us then consider these things.

1) Jesus claimed categorically (John 5:19-23) that He did whatever the Father did in the same way (actually, just the same way, we find in the Greek). Since God dwells in light to which no one can approach (1 Timothy 6:16 - unapproachable) and is Almighty (Genesis 17:1, Revelation 1:8), then it is clear that no one else can reach near His power and position (cf. Isaiah 43:13, 14:27). What He reveals in grace is one thing; what could be achieved to compare, this is another! (Cf. Psalm 89:6, 113:3-6, Isaiah 40:13,25-26, Micah 7:15-20.) Nothing !

What then ? It follows that Christ who claims that whatever the Father does, He does in this same way, is either lying or God's equal. If anyone who can do all another person can do in the same way is the equal of that person, how much more is this so with God, whom none can touch or even approach to in His infinity of brilliance! As the truth, He does not lie; He is God's equal. That testimony is profoundly sure, and surely profound.

In particular, Christ could, and - Colossians 1:16 - did create all things co-authoring them with the Father. If all things, as Paul states, are created by HIM, and He were a mere creature, then He would have to have created Himself: hard to do indeed, when you are (by this particular heresy) not there in order to do it! That is the positive aspect. Now negatively, we find a word from the apostle John (1:3) in his gospel: Without Him was nothing made that was made. Nothing without Him was made! This means... 
is it made ?  Then Christ made it. Not one created thing was made except with the action of Christ's person. Since He has to be there so to act, He could not be a created thing. This is the same as saying He is eternal, preceding the incarnation in His existential correlation with God the Father for ever.

Unless He is eternal, both the apostles John and Paul are false. We however are here engaged in interpreting scripture, not in contradicting it: we shall leave that to the devil, whose essential work it is... This then is what it teaches: The eternity of Christ's person. That is necessary too since He has the same honour as the Father, and this time it is Himself directly who says so... Yet how could He have (John 5:23) the same honour if He does not possess the same attributes of honour and is called the truth... how indeed, if He does not possess the same place, power and authority ? He is no fraud; and God states that He will not share his glory with another (Isaiah 42:8: "I am the Lord, that is My name, and My glory I will not give to another", cf. 48:11). Is it not to give His glory to another if He gives Him the same honour as belongs to His own infinite and eternal self ? If not, then words have no meaning. Thus Christ is God. He is not a diminutive god, a lesser majesty: He has the same honour.

2) That too is the apostle Thomas' conviction. Paul states that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20). We can not dismiss Thomas' statement: and Thomas said to Him, my Lord and my God! (literally: the Lord of me and the God of me cf. John l3:13, Matthew 7:22). Indeed, if Thomas were wrong, why then did Jesus Christ not correct him ?

In fact, the person who rejects Thomas' testimony of Christ would make Christ guilty of blasphemy for allowing what would then be Thomas' blasphemy to remain, and not rejecting the claim that He, Jesus Christ was The God, as Thomas said, and alleged (John 20:28).

To such a rejecter, this must be said: You would then make both Jesus and Thomas wrong in order to hold your view. In that case, Jesus would not thereby become wrong: You however would be attacking Jesus Christ. There is nothing special about that; Judas did it and the High priest did it, in the arena of the crucifixion. It is frequently done by misled church authority...

Now that does not begin to make Him wrong; instead it merely makes such people, not Christians. This is in the false prophet category already examined in Section 3 supra. Christ makes His identity crucial for the very foundation of the church, as shown (Matthew 16), and believing His words crucial to believing in Him (John 12:47-50); so that by their fruits in the actual context, we indeed know them. These are not His; they war with Him. Let us then resume our imaginary conversation with such a person, who combats this claim of Christ, this testimony of Thomas.

But should one believe you and your works, one would continue, rather than credit the Person and works of Christ ? Are your works greater than His, comparable to His ? This would be foolish indeed, and moreover, an attack on the greatest of all men, in terms of works, which in fact, would make it presumptuous as well!

The case for the rejecter of Thomas' testimony however is worse. Christ not only did not 'correct' Thomas (a man in the Old Testament died for just touching the ark, and here would be a man allowing another man to call Him The God!); instead Christ even accepted it as right, making it indeed an example and criterion for others through the ages! saying (John 20:29):

Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

If therefore you reject what Thomas ascribed to Jesus Christ, you are quite simply not one of those who have believed; for what Thomas said signified 'believing': for Christ said so. If then you reject it, you reject Christ from His own lips! Savour it well... lt is only fair to point it out. Naturally, this way leads only to a well-deserved hell, through the rejection of the only haven who conducts to heaven (John 3:18-19,36, 14:6).

3) Jesus said:

"Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).

Now 'I am' is, in Exodus 3:14, the name God takes in order to allow Moses to tell the Jews in Egypt who He is. It is His signature, His identification, His specification; if you will, His code. That distinctive name which shows apart from all others, who He is, and is so used to identify Him, is the very one which Christ takes to Himself - John 8:58. If Jesus were not God, that would be giving God's glory to another... and the resurrection of Lazarus proceeds on the basis of such honour and glory to Christ (John 11:42,48, 10:30-33), just as, indeed, His own resurrection attests His divine acceptance and authentication (Romans 1:4).

Never does Christ reject such ascriptions to Himself. Indeed, If He were not God, the statement of John 8:58, made on this occasion directly by Himself, would be an act of spiritual piracy, so to take His glory! However He could do this in perfect harmony because it was not the glory of another: God is triune .

In terms of this repeated principle that God will not give His glory to another, we notice the same result in Revelation 1. Here God takes the name of Alpha and Omega, and then Christ at once proceeds to use an identical name (Revelation 1:8,17-18, cf. Revelation 22:12-13,16,20, 21:6, Isaiah 44:6). As such, God declares He is The Almighty (Revelation l:8). Thus where God identifies Himself distinctively, it is by the name which Jesus also takes, in these basic cases of divine signature with His name.

Now the scripture forbids the taking of the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7, emphasising the enormity of the offence). Indeed, in that Christ appropriates this divine name of the One who will not give His glory to another, He takes also that of the Almighty: and indeed, we find this is the One who said:

"All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth" (Matthew 28). There can be only one almighty, for if there were two such beings, one would limit the other, of necessity. If however Father and Son are one God, as Christ declares (John 14:9, 8:29,42,58, 5:18, 10:30), then there is one Almighty who, alpha and omega, is expressed both as Son and Father.

4) This of course is what the Bible states. Thus Philippians 2:6 declares Christ was in the form of God. How could someone who is not God be in His form, tell me! If God is a Spirit (and Christ said so in John 4), then to be in His form can only be in His manner of being. That too is made clear by what follows: Christ took the form of a man. He was then the thing that God is and became the thing that man is, changing form as stated, without losing identity (John 8:58).

Philippians is statedly about form. Indeed, this Philippians passage states that Christ being in the form of God, did not think it a thing to be grasped at to be equal with God, but humbled Himself. This too Hebrews 1:5,8 explicitly states:

For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are My Son... but to the Son he says, your throne, O God, is for ever and ever.

Now note:

i) this is said while the author of Hebrews is contrasting Christ with the highest created beings, to do Him justice...

ii) the Son is called God as a form of address (Hebrews 1:8), there being only one such (see also point 5), infra and Ephesians 4:4).

iii) To Him, further, there is here attributed an eternal throne, in terms taken from the Old Testament, relative to the God to whom alone are men directed to give their trust, there being no other God, divine ruler or everlasting majesty (Isaiah 40:25, 43:10-13, 44:6,8,24, 45:5,12,17,21-25, 46:9-10, 51:5-13, Daniel 7:13-14, Revelation 22:12-17, 1:17, Psalm 96:5-13, 2:6-12, 148:13, 72:18, Jeremiah 17:5-13, 10:10-12).

Accordingly, in this Son of God are they exhorted to put their trust (Psalm 2:12). In Hebrews 1, after this reference to Thy throne O God, in terms of Christ, the Father is brought in (1:8-9, cf. 2:3-4). When interpreting the word of God, as here, it is useless to use human reasonings as if they were of equal value to the word: the Son is God and there is one God and His throne is for ever and ever. That is explicit, indeed forcefully put, in Hebrews for example. Not that reasoning is bad; but there is need for extreme care that it does not in fact become mere imagination, or worse, contradiction, a sort of smouldering and squirming... as if to say that the one called God and so addressed, there being one only God, is not God. That is flat contradiction and constitutes unbelief, as we have seen. What is written is God's choice; others are free to reject it, but only as unbelievers!
 

5) There is one God as we learn from the ten commandments (Exodus 20:1-7), Psalm 96, and Ephesians 4:4, Malachi 2:10, Isaiah and Ephesians 4:4, Malachi 2:10. That is the reason for worship being limited to one: there is no other; and God is ''jealous'' of His name; for other name there is none. It is delusion to act as if there were, insupportable, dysfunctional straying from fact and reality. (Cf. p. 547 infra.)

Since this is so, how could one claim that Jesus in John 1:1 is 'a god', when there is, in fact no other! In Isaiah 45:22-25, God is advising that there is no other 'El' and no other 'Elohim': that is in the area of God, the supernatural God, of which He is speaking (cf. 19) infra), there is factually exactly one. Thus Jesus as the word was with God as God (cf. Genesis 17:1,18:1-2, Ps. 45:1-6, Isaiah 48:16).

Giving out various names to signify His power and Being, God uses them all and says: There is no other God. How could Christ then be another of what there is only one ? This fact seems regularly to be lost sight of by the antichristian lobby, whether in Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, weak Liberal theologians or other vaguely or ostensibly sympathetic bodies, relative to what is called Jesus Christ. Reconstructing Him does not alter Him, except mentally, and that only in the mind of the god-maker, or those deluded by such a person; and a reconstructed Christ is merely one more step to fatal delusion.

Relative to the one God who is there, we are told that the word of this God was with Him, in the beginning (John 1:1). That is not at all surprising to the ears of the believer of the Bible, as something to be affirmed of the unvarying God (James 1:17, Malachi 3:6), in whom is not a shadow of intrinsic variation.

This God whose is speech now, never was speechless! or... wordless, had no divine aphasia, was never immature. Any other thought soon becomes an inane and gratuitous assault on the stature of God Himself. No, Father and Son both are declared alpha and omega, and relative to alpha, the pre-time eternity, there was the word, with God. He did not develop speech power; it did not evolve in the changeless God. From the scripture we therefore learn, and this of necessity, that there is one being but more than one person, at whom time stops.

It is in closest and most apparent parallel with Genesis 1 that the apostle John in John 1 (cf. Colossians 1:16) declares these realities of God before the world was. This is the world which Christ should co-create, so that exhaustively nothing made, being made, was there without His being there already to make it. He Himself always preceded (both logically and chronologically) anything that can be called 'made'.

Any action of making, artisanship, bringing into being, sees the Person of Jesus Christ there already and as crafting the thing to come. He outdistances anything made, and so is not Himself made. Otherwise He would have to get to work without being there, to make Himself. Such is the childishness to which obstinate unbelief is reduced, if some approach to scripture is desired... in muted rebellion. No, in fact, Christ of whom Micah (5:l-3) states that His goings are from everlasting, is there at the very alpha. Nothing preceding Him, as with His Father, He takes the name 'alpha'. Do what you will, you cannot precede Him, in the same sense as His Father takes the same designation, in the same place and for the same reason. But let us return from Revelation 1:8,17-18 , to John 1.

The Word was With God and the Word was God, says this same John 1:1; and as God does not change: what He was, He also is, in His personal qualities. Thus following His change of form to man, Christ indicated He would resume (John 17:5) the glory He had left (17:24-5); and left in order to become a man in form (Philippians 2:6-7). The word was the unchanging God and became man (John 1:1-14). In that form, His name is Jesus Christ.

6) In full accord with this, Paul in Colossians 2:9 tells us all, that in Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally, or in bodily form. This one who had assumed the human bodily form could 'contain' eternity, indeed all the fulness of the Godhead: He whose goings were from everlasting did not shrink, merely assuming His humble and eminently serviceable form, in the majesty of His wisdom and the magnificence of His passion, seeking the lost (Luke 19:9), serving as Saviour (1 John 4:14). If part is left out, how is there fulness ? But if no part be left out, then is the Creator's power there, then is the divine nature there, then is the eternity there in that form.

Eternity is God-specific, something conspicuously clear in scripture: all the gods of the heathen being idols (Psalm 96; cf. Psalm 90:2, Isaiah 45:6). Therefore, this decisively distinctive eternity could no more be absent, than a head on a normal human body, if all fulness were in that form of Jesus Christ.

The position is this: the scope of God in the form of a body. If then anything that God is were omitted, as distinct from the form He adopts, the scripture would be lying; and scripturally, any who speaks to the contrary, is deemed lying. The fulness of the Godhead being present corporeally, then the eternity of God has in Christ its full expression, inexpurgatable. According, Christ indicates, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).

7) This eternal being has accordingly baptism into Him, carried out in one name, in which three inhere. How would baptism be carried out in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), if one of these were God, and the rest not ? What blasphemy that would be! Something in ONE name is to be done (and God will not allow His name to be used in vain - Exodus 20:7). One of those involved in that name would be be sinless, pure, infinite God; and IN that same name would appear a sinful or limited, immeasurably inferior person or persons ? This is, for any who holds it, a fundamental failure to understand who God is, and how He takes care of His name, to discern His distinct identity and the name that goes inseparably with it. Indeed, will God share His glory with another ? He says not (Isaiah 42:8, 48:11). "How should My name be profaned!" He exclaims. The baptism is done into this one name, that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Since this is what He says about His name, on the one hand, and His glory on the other, it is simply a matter of believing it and accepting the Trinity; or rejecting the Bible. The choice is simple, and it should be faced openly and clearly. It is not the names of these three, but the name; there is one name, and this Christ bears with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as the scripture shows.

8) Similarly, how would Christ state that to see Him is to see the Father, if not God? Would that not be blasphemy if He were not God ? Could I see you and say that I have seen the Father ? No, because of i) sin, ii) your limits and iii) your being a creature.

So here.

God has none of these things; nor would you, like Him, dwell in light unapproachable. The statement (John 14:9) indeed would be inane if Christ were not God; and that of course would be an attack on Jesus Christ. That is where such a way ends, scripturally. His understanding is infinite (Psalm 147:5).

One in this case attacks Christ, or, like Thomas, instead believes Him, saying the God of me and the Lord of me. In so doing, following this prescribed and commended paradigm, one is attesting what Jesus Christ called 'believing' in Him. Christ in fact made what Thomas said a verbal criterion or necessary part of believing. Thomas had seen and believed: blessed were they who would not see and yet would believe, He affirmed. Thus if Thomas' word be rejected, Christ is rejected, for He adopted and applied it as crucial to and indicative of faith in Him.

It is time to begin to see how often a person must reject what Christ and the Bible say, in order to reject the fact that He is, quite simply, the deity. Once is enough where the word of God is concerned; but this is multiplied, on the left hand and on the right. Indeed, we could apply what Christ said to the case where someone does not provide the testimony of Thomas ( which like that of Peter in Matthew 16 exposed a crucial element, one indispensable to faith ... there His status, here its connotation being in view).

It would go something like this:

Not blessed are you, for you have not seen and have not believed !

Thomas, challenged, attested the way, and Christ identified it as right.  Someone not receiving Christ as the God (the Bible, one recalls, admitting but one, repeatedly and stringently) is then identifying this (what Thomas said to Christ) as wrong! Such a person and Jesus Christ, therefore, are at war (as indeed is such person against the doctrine of Paul and John).

Now Christ said that if anyone wanted to do the will of God, he would know the doctrine, whether it was true or not; and Paul (Romans 16:17) made separation necessary from those who derange, depart from Biblical doctrine. It is, then, cleavage.

Thomas had now not merely received Christ as his Lord ("You call me Lord, and you do well, for so I am..."- John 13:13, the Greek being literally 'the master and the Lord'). He also had acknowledged the crucial criterion: My Lord, and my God, the God of me. It is personal, all-embracive, unequivocal, absolute : all- comprehensive as to status and stature... and that, said Christ of Thomas' words, signified believing.

At war with Jesus Christ ? That is the result of any such divergence as would create of Christ a creature, a mirage-god which, like all the gods of the heathen, would be, as Psalm 96 shows, an idol; a member of a god-class that does not exist, an unreal god - a divinity that is not God.

Assaulting scriptures like ricocheting machine gun bullets, such an unbeliever would find collision with numbers of Isaiah's references, such as this: "To whom will you liken Me!" (Isaiah 40:25), God challenges. Again, in Psalm 89:6,8, we find none in the heavens can be compared to God. Yet Hebrews 1 makes Christ not only comparable with God, but His exact image! (1:3); indeed declares Him, ''brightness of His glory'' and notes the Psalm (45) in which He, the Messiah, is called God, elohim, a name exclusive to deity as such, the Eternal. Again, says Isaiah (43:10-11), before God there was no god formed, nothing that could be called god was there, there was no vestige of divine characteristic; and neither shall there be after Him.

Yet Christ is called God.

Again, God declares there is no other Saviour but Himself (Isaiah 43:11), but not only is Christ at this very level called Saviour, but we are told - "There is no other name by which men may be saved" (Acts 4:12). Christ can take not only what is exclusive to God, but have it as exclusive to Himself.

If that, were He not God, would not be taking the name of God in vain, it would simply not be possible to do so; but the commandment is equipped with penalty in Exodus 20... Further, the prophet declares in God's name: "I am the first and I am also the last: besides Me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6, 48:12), giving meaning and pith to 'the first and the last', 'the alpha and omega' or 'the beginning and the end' name shared by Father and Son in Revelation 1:8,17-18 2:8, 21:6, 22:13. It is a God specific, used in a majestically declarative situation, where God excludes any other from His name! Moreover, in heaven itself as we see, is found no other god, el or elohim: indeed, "A just God and a saviour: there is none besides Me..." (45:21), declares that one and only God.

Nothing could be more comprehensive and complete. Therefore I would urge, indeed entreat any who may be forsaking or have forsaken the scriptural testimony that as to the only God there is, Christ bears this status: rather forsake war with Him, rather make peace quickly, for it is your life. It is this same Jesus Christ (who as the truth does not vary) who said, of men trusting in their own works and applying to Him, but not by faith:

Whoever falls on this stone will be broken: but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder (Matthew 21:44).

And this stone ? It is to Himself that He refers, upbraiding the professionally unbelieving religionists: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the headstone of the corner" (Matthew 21:42). Indeed it was in this context of His rejection and coming work as Judge that He made His announcement about grinding to powder, itself reminiscent of the Messianic Psalm 2 (*1), which, predicting His coming and the authorities' rejection of Him, noted His establishment in the midst of assault, and declared His victory: warning the judges and the rebellious that He would rule with immovable power, in the day set.

Why should the truth be rejected, except that it be not loved! (cf. John 14:21-23).

Relative to the whole realm of divinity, there is no other rock! Psalm 62:2,6 tells us of the devotional uniqueness and solitary character of the Lord as my Rock; Deuteronomy 32:2-3,15-21,30-31, speaks of His operational singularity as their Rock. Only from Him is man begotten; only He can scatter consistently the enemy so that there is no comparison between other (alleged) 'rocks' and Him who is the Rock. As to those who put their trust in other 'rocks', other gods: their gods are demons (Deuteronomy 32:17), new boy gods (v.17), recent arrivals, pre-fabs from the factory of the misguided and mischievous mentality of man. In fact, God declares, it amounts to provoking "Me to jealousy with what is not God." So too, is there one Rock actually and factually, as II Samuel 22:32 reveals again: 

"For who is God, 
except the Lord ? and who is a rock, except our God ?"

Divinity-wise, rock-wise, there is one; multiplication does not deform God, for He stays what He is - I am; but it does defame Him. It is like using the name of a given famous doctor, and yet not visiting his premises but going, in the mind, to some other door.

It is useless folly, self-deception, not availing with God, except as hideous blasphemy. In passing, it is well to note that the Roman Catholic idea, to arrogate the Rock status to the Pope, doctrinally merely adds impertinence to deception, and idolatry to defamation! A specific of God, to whom no other is given access, in which He is unique and inviolable, if grasped by another, it seized by an idol, or for it.

God is the only Rock (Isaiah 44:8, Psalm 62:2); and as Christ is that Rock manifest: "Christ was that Rock" in ancient times following the Jews (1 Corinthians 10:4), and is the Rock now (1 Corinthians 3:11); misuse does not bruise the Rock, but the handler. Depreciate that rock, and only judgment remains. Why ? It is because His mercy is then defiled! Thus the 'grinding to powder'. He is the rejected Headstone (Matthew 21:42), and it is this which will grind. In the context of this utterance, Matthew 21:44, we see Christ had just told the parable of the tenants who would not give their fruits to the beloved Son of the owner, refusing to recognise him; and in Matthew 7 similarly, Christ spoke of Himself in terms of rock, rejecting at the time of judgment, those whose claims are their works.

Colossians 1:19-23 in fact tells us that Christ having made peace through the blood of the Cross, it was the Father's will for Him that He might reconcile all things to Himself. Many - and conceivably some readers, may not come. It is sad; but the offer has come!

The blood of the cross... is the death of the One who made Himself a curse that we (if we accept Him as is and for what he has done, authenticate Him and receive Him), might be redeemed from the curse we deserve ourselves (Galatians 3:10-13). It is in fact a kindness (Titus 2:11, 3:14-15): to be rejected - when no other way is there - only to just damnation (John 3:18-19). We therefore appeal to you, if you do not yet know and receive this only Saviour and true and only Lord, this one God, to come to Him as He is, to the "I am" (John 8:58) who is Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, that, "having been justified by His grace", you "should be made heirs" (Titus 3:7), with no condemnation (John 5:24).

The Second Step of Facing the Trinity

Since we have looked at some aspects of the Biblical teaching on this great truth, let us extend a little for edification now.

9) In Isaiah 48:16, God is speaking, and declares (v.2) that as to the God of Israel, the Lord is His name. Continuing to speak, He says in v.16: "I have have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, has sent Me."

Here God is sending the Lord. Thus, as the Lord is God, as has just been stated, God-the-sender is sending God-the-sent. There are two personalities here seen, in the trinity.

10) The same is seen in Zechariah 11:12. God is speaking, talking of feeding the flock of the slaughter (v.7) and of appointing this one or that, and of having no more pity on the inhabitants of the land (v.6): then He indicates that a sale is to occur, of which He is the object, and that 30 pieces of silver will be the value set upon Him.

In 12:10, He continues that "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him..." Thus is the House of David, appalled at an act in which they not only had the opportunity to sell one who is God; but did it! (You will now perhaps recall that the Bible in Exodus 20 and in Isaiah 45 repeatedly declares that as to the entity called God, there is just one. Never does the Bible vary from this, and that of course is one reason why John 1:1 is telling us that as to the only one God, Jesus is this.)

Thus Zechariah, then, notes an historical incident in which God is sold at a designate price and pierced in such a way that this specific matter is later mourned. This argues incarnation, since a Spirit is unpierceable. In Zechariah 2:8, we see God talking and stating that He is sent after the glory to the earth. That is, He is sent by God the Father to 'display the glory of God upon the heathen' (as Keil expresses it, in his commentary on Zechariah, cf. Ezekiel 36:23- "and I will sanctify My great name among the nations..."). This has dimensions of pity, portraying power and reality to all who will receive it, but also of judgment where all option is past. (Cf. Zechariah 2:9,11.)

Incidentally, the pierced God is seen also in Psalm 22, where they ''look upon Me whom they have pierced,'' and He, the focus of this great... Jewish national tragedy, is seen indeed as a man.

That is what Philippians 2 expressly teaches, as we saw. He was in such a form, that of God, that being equal to this God was not something to be grasped for. It was because He was in God's form (it is written) that God's glory was not something to be grasped for. At the top, there is nowhere higher to go; but, it says, He humbled Himself and took the form of a servant.

11) It should by now begin to occur to the alert student that humbling in form does not have no consequences. That would make it quite meaningless.

Thus there are results such as these: in this form, (as of course the Messiah, Hebrew for 'Christ'), Christ could thirst (unthinkable for God in His normal form), could suffer excruciating spiritual and physical pain crying to His Father, "Why hast thou forsaken Me!" as the Psalm 2 predicted He would. That was the experiential price of paying for sin. Impossible for God in His own form ... He could also refer to His Father as greater than He, for how would He have humbled Himself if in all respects, He remained as high as before ? That is not even worth serious thought! It is obvious.

Again, when the Son on earth does not know when the time of the end is to be, these things being known only to the Father - that is, His return time leading in due course to the final removal of heaven and earth: He does not state He cannot know, merely that He does not; and of course He uses the Son of Man title, significant of His self-imposed limit of form. That is one more example that being in the form of man is being humbled.

It is not, indeed, that the information is not His by right... for He says, "All that the Father has is Mine" (John 16:15)... indeed, all things: it must therefore be simply that it was not expedient to draw on this while He, being Messiah, was a man. It was not part of His ministry, was indeed contrary to it, for if it were told, then they would learn what they should not know. Not holding back from them, therefore, equally, He did not draw on it Himself! Do you use your Cadillac on the battle-field, or have your chauffeur drive it into the trenches? (cf. Matthew 26:53-54). That, then, is how He can be and is repeatedly stated to be equal to the Father, and yet, in the form of a man, has the Father greater. As to status, as He states in John 5, He is equal, by the Father's own will; but as to state, form, as a man, He is in that form and while so, lesser. If it were not so, He would not have humbled Himself in form; but He did.

The main problem with the trinity attack is mere lack of thought and/or ignorance. So far from there being any problems whatsoever in the matter, research confirms how often it is taught, and how logical the whole matter is. It is a marvel of perfect consistency. That of course is one of the main features of the Bible on all its teachings, and one major point where it differs from all human philosophy: it agrees always with itself and with all truth. Indeed, the deeper one probes, as in looking at some perfectly cut gem, the more lustre one finds. This is the normal mark of authenticity.

The Third Step in Facing the Trinity

12) Let us examine further this question: When on the Cross, why did Christ cry, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me ?" This not only occurred in history but was predicted in Psalm 22, where, of this episode we learn, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord" (Psalm 22:27). Such an epochal and universally significant event is it that not only will this be, but "a generation will serve Him," and "declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.''

What is it, which is so great, that He has done ? : that is pictured in great detail in vv.12-18, where the God who was to be pierced (point l0) above) is here seen being pierced and indeed, with his clothes made the subject of lots by other people, keen to possess them.

Isaiah 59:2: "Your iniquities have separated you from your God: and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

Thus in Psalm 22:1- where this cry to a God who is forsaking Him is made - and in history where Jesus Christ fulfilled this verbally - there is not only a matter of extreme interest, but of ready solution. If sin separates from God, and Christ was bearing sin (Isaiah 53 again pictures this grand gift of this Person in death, to accept as a redeemer, as a ransom, as a sacrifice, as a substitute for the sins of all to be delivered, and states that "He was bruised for our iniquities, and again, "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all", all being those who - v.5 - are "healed" through him!) ... what then ?

Then, of necessity, Christ must be separated in some sense from His Father; otherwise, as true man, He would not be bearing what in fact separates. Here is the height of the atonement; and to ignore this is done at extreme peril to eternal life, for it comes near to 'treading under foot the blood of Christ' (cf. Hebrews 10:29). The case is similar to that expressed in Hebrews 6. To go so far and draw back is a danger not to be relished. The answer, however, to this cry of Christ is simply that it fulfils what other scriptures a) predict and b) require. Only deity could atone amply for man, to cover the scope, to bear the results, and to temper these results with mercy to pardon, indeed obliterative pardon of the guilt, a fact clear from Psalm 49:7,15 with Hosea 13:14, Micah 7:19, Psalm 103:12.

13) Have you taken this Christ as your substitutionary sacrifice or do you prefer to cry to God, one day, at being forsaken ? For Christ, being sinless, was resurrected and vindicated (Romans 1:4), declared to be the Son of God with power by the Spirit; but you, like all other men than Christ Himself, being a sinner, without Christ have no way back from the separation that sin brings (Acts 4:12). No other name is there, and as to this name, all that the Father has is His (John 16:15): eternity, omnipotence, divine nature, the role of creator... all. To see Him is, as such, to see the Father. There is nothing left. As His word, He expresses all. Reject Him as He is, and likewise there is nothing left; for all is His, and without Him there is simply no way (cf. John 14:6).

14) But what of the Spirit ? It is not a duplicate but a member of a trinity. As to that, note Hebrews 1, where Christ is the explicit image of God (cf. John 15:16). Whatever therefore is in God, or of God: it is His - Christ's: otherwise, He would not be the full image, but a part. The Spirit however ?

Notice that He, the Spirit, sometimes referred to as such, will guide into all truth. Nothing therefore is too hard for Him. He speaks as He hears and "not on His own authority" (John 16:13). (That reminds you of Christ in the form of a man - John 12:48-50.) As to the Spirit, blaspheming against Him is so significant as to exclude from salvation, preventing the application even of the salvation of Jesus Christ; it is therefore of the utmost height, a matter of total personal insult to deity.

Thus we read in Hebrews that those who trample under foot the blood of Christ are linked with those who have "insulted the Spirit of grace", and this is seen in fatal arenas. The highest penalty comes from the greatest transgression, and this, trampling under foot the blood of Christ and insulting the Spirit of grace leads to falling into the hands of the living God, a fearful thing as the epistle declares (Hebrews 10:29-31). Hence it is seen that the Spirit is personal, is expressive of God, and is so totally intimate to Him that an insult to the Spirit is the highest form of insult to God. He, the Spirit, is therefore at the level of equality with God.

Such a blasphemy appears linked with the derogation of the saving work of of Christ, while He is engaging in it; but it is a question when this phase is reached, and only God knows, who is love (cf. 11 Thessalonians 2:10-11, 1 Timothy 4:1-6, Matthew 12:22 ff.). When the person comes to Christ, it cannot have occurred, for "He who comes to Me, I shall in no way cast out!" (John 6:57); nor can His children commit this, since in them wells up a spring of water to eternal life, and they shall never thirst again (John 4:13-14).

This mercy of the Lord does nothing, however, to lessen the message we gain in this matter, on the Trinity; but rather the sacredness of the Spirit to His name is the more emphasised in the setting of this grace.

15) Again, let us now briefly recall that in Matthew 28, there is baptism in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one name, one God. God, we saw, will not give His glory to another. There is a dynamic complementarity which does not divide.

16) In II Corinthians 13:14, moreover, and in a somewhat similar way, the three are linked as of one honour: "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit", Paul asks to be with them. This is all at the one level; and God has infinite height above all other things. Hence all these are at the one level, and as one is God, so are the others: a trinity being the divine mode of consisting.

17) "Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts", is the word of God appearing in Zechariah 4:6. It is His Spirit. Since He is deity, so is His Spirit. We are made in His image (He being a Spirit - John 4, this is not geometrical but a matter of nature); and our spirit is our very essential being. So then is the Spirit of God of His essence; and hence divine. The spirit in us makes us what we are, men; so the spirit of God is inseparable from, and wholly at the level of God. These things hardly need saying, they are so basic and obvious; but lest any stumble, and because weakness can come at inopportune times, let it be said now.

18) "Now the Lord is that Spirit", says Paul in 11 Corinthians 3:17. There is a statement that the Lord may be wholly identified through the Spirit, has the ability wholly to represent Himself through the Spirit, who, therefore, is nothing less than He. When the Bible says the Lord is that Spirit, only contradiction can assert that the Spirit is not at the level of deity.

As to the basic introduction, therefore, and any genuine difficulties, nothing more should need to be said. Spiritual discernment is needed, and God gives it as we need it if we are His; for to the natural man, spiritual things are foolishness, says Paul, in 1 Corinthians 2:14. To lose that status, one must be born again, for without this, as we saw in John 3, a man cannot enter and in fact cannot even see the kingdom of God! Being born again is a work wrought by the Spirit (as Jesus there indicated), and this as He also showed, on the basis of the Son. Both these things were taught in John 3:1-16. It works on His being lifted up as a sin-bearing sacrifice, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, that those looking on this sign of sin transfixed, could be free.

Not being born again, not accepting the blood of Christ as the blood of Him who is pierced, even God in human form is to be not even a child in the kingdom of heaven. It is pre-natal. That is the force of Jesus' words to Nicodemus. He had to start. There was no question of continuing; for he had not even begun!

He, a teacher, had not begun his lessons. How ludicrous! How ridiculous! It is ridiculous to deal with Christian things without being saved, and adopted by God (Romans 8:14-15); except in this, going to the maternity hospital, as it were, to start. You can't go to university without some primary education, without for example being able at least to read!

The alternative

Endless night is the alternative, knowledgeable perhaps, but without understanding, for the blindness obscures, and the night presses: Matthew 8:12, Mark 9:42-47. No wonder there shall be weeping for opportunities lost, sins unforgiven and insult to the Lord: to the Father - because His Son is dishonoured (John 5:19-23); to the Son, because His gift is despised, as if it were merely a created thing; and to the Holy Spirit, because He is resisted, despite the words which He inspired in the prophets and in the apostles on whom, in Christ, the Church is based (Ephesians 2:22) ... Acts 7:51 gives the sense of this awful phenomenon.

Better is the humbling of happy content in Christ, who having humbled Himself, may well expect us, mere men or women or children, sinners, to humble ourselves and be saved by the great I am, on whom history depends, including... our own.

For my part, I counted it a privilege to begin again and be born again, and those who remain blind will see neither this, nor any other thing truly, of God. So be it. As Revelation puts it, Let him who is righteous be righteous still. But as to the unrighteous: because unsaved, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, declares Isaiah (64:6). Let then the unrighteous be unrighteous still (Revelation 22:11); or let him drink of the water of life freely: "Let him who is thirsty come: let the one who wishes take the water of life freely" ( 22:17).

What is done, will be; and so will it be in the end, for on him who does not believe (John 20, cf. John 3), the wrath of God abides. It is "that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us" (1 John 1:2), Jesus Christ, as John 1:1-14 also puts it, who must be received; not some mental substitute, made by the mind of man. The height of what is rejected is index to the loss to be sustained, should He be rejected not as He is imagined, but as He is.

It is the Co-Creator of all things who is to be received, so that nothing that was made was made without Him (John l). He therefore is before all things, as Colossians 1 also states. Any created datum: He is before it. He is pre-creation, God in form; and indeed, Colossians 1 makes it clear that not only is He before all things, so that all creation depends on as well as derives from Him ("consists"), but it is this same totality to which, where relevant in sin, His salvation is offered (1:19-23). Both the creation and the salvatory offer are emphasised grandly in scale and in force of the heart: in regal co-ordination.

Further, He is first-born (or first begetter) over all creation and first-born from the dead (Colossians 1:18), both His entry into creation and His exit-resurrection constituting absolute priorities, as trail-blazing in the direct, immanent power of God; for Him the whole of creation was made, and to Him it is responsible (Colossians 1:16 b... ''for Him'').

As to creation, He co-operated in every single part of it, so that of nothing made, did He not participate in the making... this then is the Lord's Christ who is thus eternal before all things made! He who would teach otherwise is calling God a liar. The occupation may not be uncommon; nor the penalty; and as God is the truth, calling the truth a liar becomes quite absolutely fatal.  Flee therefore for refuge to the Creator of all things at once, for now is the day; and seek the Lord while you may (Isaiah 55:6-7, Hebrews 6:18). Eternity may not be put on hold. It is not a thing, but a personal Being, the God of truth.

19) Now we come to the need to consider the nature of what is revealed, its composure, for although it is crucial Biblically to receive the truth, it is also necessary to seek understanding in the interests of growth.

God is not three gods, in one being. That is contrary to the revelation that there is one God, and indeed the reason given. Revelation and reason are wholly in accord, though of course only revelation can deliver the internal reality, as we have shown, concerning God.

God is one God in three persons. We have a conversation, at times, within ourselves, musing, contemplating, or even exhorting ourselves, examining ourselves (sometimes appearing in dramas as soliloquies)... To discuss within oneself - to know one's own mind, and so on, this is part of the extraordinary rational, spiritual and moral reality we are.

Now that God is one Being is simple: How He consists within Himself, only He can say. He does say, as we have seen. There is a continual sharing which comports with a communing collaboration, which nevertheless does not have the force of a resultant, but rather that of a mutual permeation and penetration; with special features too.

Thus the Father has an express image, Hebrews 1 tells us; and that is an exact replica, an expression which omits nothing. The Son is also called the Word, by which what is to be expressed, is so. Now a son is an offspring, biologically, an intimately close collaborator socially, where there is (properly) affection and mutuality. Since then God is a Spirit (John 4:24), without internal biological function in the form of God, even the angels, as Jesus stated, neither marrying nor giving in marriage, the Son of God is here (John 8:42, 3:13, Hebrews 1:2) therefore, an expression which signifies what biology, in its limited analogy, exhibits. It requires the essence of the concept, the ultimate reality on which our created form is patterned, in sonship. On earth, a father and a son are both human, should be are both human, close, collaborators: Father and Son in heaven are both deity, intimate in and to infinity, since not divided in dispersed creation, but necessarily one being, as presented in Chapter 1, supra, and seen constantly in both the Old and the New Testament, as we find.

That is, He is one of the same quality - His own Father, John 8:58 - as the Father Himself. He is one indeed with an additional close affinity that relates directly to what the Father personally is, without being in every respect simply identical - thus it is He who shows the Father, a specific function and feature. 'Only begotten' singularises, clarifies, intensifies: we are in the realm of the intimate, not of vague generalities, such as a teacher's 'children', or adaptations such as adoption. The unique eternal expression of God, of equal honour is in view.

A family is a less close analogy at this point; but the concept of several making one is there. The oneness of God is however such that there are not even in principle separable or isolable entities, for there is an everlasting co-existence (John 8:58), such that eternal existence in an unchanging God (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) is a functional reality: that is how you have only one God, but both Christ and the Father bearing the name; only one Creator, but both Christ and the Father explicitly doing the work; only one Saviour statedly the case, and that God Himself, while Christ declared the only name given among men by which they must be saved (Acts 4:12).

No beginning of anything that is per se God is possible, since He does not change, and from everlasting to everlasting is God (Psalm 90:2); and only one God is in view as noted in Isaiah 45:22 ff., where God using the name el and the name elohim alike, protests He is but one. Any interpretation of Psalm 82:6 which contradicts this is not merely unnecessary, and founded on contradiction of what is undoubtedly declared, but represents a case of blindness to the sardonism and irony, so great as not even to merit contempt. Because these 'gods' are not eternal, they are no challenge to God, are merely corrupt social powers. This word 'el' can be used that way, quite outside the domain of Creator and heaven; and the devastating satire is quite simply that they act as if they were virtual 'gods', but their pathetically creaturely status, chasms apart from God, will be all too simply exposed when they die... in the normal course of their kind, that is, as men. Their pretensions are ridiculed.

Let us then sum up, consider the conspectus as far as we may: God is one in Being, three in constitutive personalities, communing in correlation; eternal as to existence, almighty as to power; not fused, but functionally transcendent over parts, being neither synthesised nor scrutinised by His creation: but rather social in the internal extent of His relations, individual in the mutuality of His unity, not a trilogy but a trinity, a unity where not organs but personalities exist in a oneness so profound that space and time are irrelevant, indeed creations of His power.

The differentiation of His Persons in function, is not an isolation in state; and their concurrence is not simply co-ordination, for they transcend all system, an exterior imposition, or structural pre-condition; whereas God has no pre-conditions, being alpha and omega. Three harmonious persons in infinitely loving concord and identity of nature, fulfil the life of the Being whom they comprise, being intensely and perfectly intimate, each with the other, exhaustively mutually aware. The Being does not transcend them, as if they were federated (able to fail, like the Soviet Union).

God is, as this trinity, not severally computable, but dispositionally comprising His eternity in this form; the mutuality and inter-penetration - since God is a Spirit - being not spatially but dispositionally dynamic.

Three in personality, one in Being, God is different numerically in different respects, a situation which even on earth is not in the least provocative of concern, merely evocative of interest. When such oneness applies to three mutually consisting persons, it is in particular evocative of wonder at the immensity and intensity of the love, the basis of the human aspiration and force in diverse expressions, of this focus.

There is nothing upsetting to reason in this; indeed, it is superlatively interesting and fascinating; but naturally, as reason cannot even discern the thoughts of someone else with sure intuition, if they are not told, far less can we - rationally ought we to have power to - construe creatively what God is. He says. We can contemplate the beauty of His order and the immensely and profoundly reasonable nature of His ways; but by His nature as Creator, it is not possible for us to inspect Him and analyse Him, in the mechanistic manner appropriate to our dealings with our subordinate, matter. We merely consider the harmonious manner of His ontological specialness, that there is none like Him: an everlasting Being. The everlasting Being, entirely personal and so personal as to be three as to person while, diversity without divergence, He is one in nature, He is so functionally identifiable, a communion without beginning or synthesis, mutually comprehending and comprehensive.

Space-time being a mere creation of His, it is neither limiting to Him nor constitutive of Him (cf. Romans 8:30 ff.); hence He says, ''Before Abraham was, I am...''; for time per se began from Him; and hence again, He is alpha and omega, for beyond time to be alpha, is to be God. Hence God definitively reveals Himself to Israel in Isaiah 48:12 by stating that He is the first and the last. This name used of the Son 3 times, in Revelation (1:17-18, 2:8, 22:13), is specific (Isaiah 44:6) to the only God, the King of Israel and his Redeemer (cf. Hebrews 9:12,15): it includes features which exclude any other would-be gods: Thus Father and Son alike are the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8, 22:13): "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

Just as every knee must bow to the Lord (Isaiah 45:23), this being His stated singular and solemn specific as the Eternal Sovereign, so they will bow specifically to Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:9-10), who thereby bears the divine glory just as was predicted, this Messiah (Zechariah 2:8, cf. Isaiah 22:24-25). When they bow to the name of Jesus, it is to the glory of God the Father, that they do so (Philippians 2:11), even of Him who refuses to share His glory with any other. Thus God is gaining what He claimed He would gain for Himself, in that it is given to Christ, who is not another god (heaven knows but one) but another Person within the Godhead. God's name, functions and honour He shares; just as He shows (John 5:19-23) so clearly. This level is infinitely above that of creatures.

''All that the Father has is mine,'' says Jesus Christ (John 16:15); and this means not at all that there are ontological gaps, where His nature is not God. All bears no exception; and so they are - these things which the Father has - eternity, infinity, one and all within the Son, the praise and the honour and the glory, and the ground for it, all. Yet it is a trinity; and while the Son-on-earth has been vested with Messianic mission, and incarnate format, and as the power of God acts, when that role and plenipotentiary agency is over, He will resume in the blessed oneness of God, not bereft of the Lamb's worthiness (Revelation 5:13) or service, but without the singularity which of necessity appeared while He was on earth.

This, being by mission in character, ends with the consummation of that mission (I Corinthians 15:28), and the resumption of His eternal place as the Word, expressive of the Father, and in that sense proceeding from Him eternally. That role of outgoing mission becomes subordinate while God in His oneness continues; the Father delighting to honour the Son as Himself (John 5:19-23). This is witnessed in the sublimity of Revelation also:

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing (5:12) ... and The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it (22:3). Indeed:

''The lamb is its Light" (21:23); and ''His servants'' - ''His name on their foreheads'' - ''shall reign for ever and ever'' (22:3-5).

Moreover, John there also tells us that he :

Beheld and lo in the midst of the throne ... stood a Lamb
(Revelation 5:6) and again,

For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them (7:17),

He having nothing peripheral but but standing even there, constitutively occupying sovereign place;

and John reveals the testimony:

Blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever (5:13 cf. Daniel 7:13-14).

He shows, suitably to One in the very midst of the ruling, sovereign power of God:

I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it (Revelation 21:22, it. added).

God is worshipped, the whole holiness of the Temple is enshrined in Father and Son, and the Son participates, thus receiving full worship, which God alone may do, as Jesus told the devil (Matthew 4:10).

Indeed, as He, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so placed in the throne and in glory and in honour, with the Father undivided, so is He as Judge named King of Kings and Lord of Lords, having:

On His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16).

Just as there is none before Him who is alpha, there is none beyond Him who is Lord of Lords, in the midst of throne ruling, one God, triune. Unbelief can reject; but reason cannot contest the awe-ful clarity of this revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as God.

Constitutive of the centre of worship are Lamb and Father, jointly praised, jointly ruling, jointly worshipped (cf. John 9:38-39). What He received on earth, continues in heaven. Executive at the centre of the throne is none other than the Son; eternally worthy and eternally joined, Father and Son, Alpha and Omega each (Revelation 1:8,17, 22:13): these to whom every knee shall bow, who share each other's domain for ever, each in the form of God by nature (Philippians 2:6, John 17:5) are now so beheld (John 17:24). For the Father and the Son - the Messianic humiliation being now past (Acts 3:13), but not its beauty - with the Spirit (Revelation 22:17), shall provide that eternal life which the Son is (1 John 1:1-4), in the beauty of holiness for ever. He is its expression, from whom is its impression; He is the source, from which multitudes of His creation drink, by the Spirit now, seeing Him face to face then, so that reality is expressly manifest, direct (1 Corinthians 13:12).

What the believing disciples had seen and handled (1 John 1), this was that eternal life which was with the Father. He does not merely have it; it is rather declared that He is it, and that life is endless, from everlasting to everlasting; for before all time (which He helped create, Romans 8:38-39), He is it. Eternity is without commencement, just as without end: this is the God who is worshipped, and of others, as He regularly emphasises, there is... not one!
 
 

More Marvels of the Trinity -

The Fourth Step: Life Inlet

The first-born: Christ is seen as The First and the Last, The Beginning and the End in Revelation 1:8,17, 2:8, 21:6, 22:7,12-16,20 (cf. Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and note equivalents). Both Father and Son share this distinctive appellation of Deity. It occurs as such in Isaiah 44:6,8 in the context of no other rock, except the one God. As the First and the Last, He has nothing before Him, and nothing shall be after Him. He is definitively the "I AM" (John 8:58, Exodus 3:14).

It is He who is called in Colossians 1:15, the first-born. Normally the first-born was the first to be born, and had various hereditary privileges. In the case of Jacob, however, he was given this birthright of his brother in the famous pottage transaction. The result (though not the method) was something God had already decreed at the birth: the ''elder shall serve the younger''. Though Esau was the first of the twins to arrive, God reversed it in this aspect !

Now as in many other things, such terms can be used metaphorically; we can use something well-known as a kind of illustration. Thus when Jesus Christ arrived on this 

this world's scene as an uncreated Prince, poured into flesh, He (Colossians 1:15) is called the ''first-born of ('over') all creation''. Thus His birth, though virgin birth, was not the first human birth, or the first birth process leading to a male child, that had ever occurred in the history of the world. Notwithstanding this - though the incarnation of God, the 'I am' as we saw, as a man via a human birth was obviously not the chronological first event of birth: the prince and potentate whose birth it was, appeared on earth with the status of 'first-born'. It was naturally because of His eternal and internal eminence as God, that He took over the powers, as it were, of primogeniture, of being the first-born. Quality, and logically, pre-existence prevailed. Even if the prince arrives last on the scene, he is first in position. This is not a question of queue, but of quality.

Indeed, as we shall observe, He could not as created be said to be the first-born 'because' (Colossians 1:16) all things were created by Him: for then the ground declared in the text for His being first-born would contradict the name itself ... created because creator! That would be interpretation by contradiction, and deserves no thought.

'Because' He created 'all' things (and if a creature, He could not have created Himself if not there, for on that view, He would be one of the 'all things' still to come, which He was to create - the second logical impossibility for the 'creature' view!): because of this, on arrival He is the first-born. That is how the explicit logical sequence flows in Colossians 1. He is not a creature because total Creator! Since Creator, therefore on arrival in His own created field, as to form, His of course by pre-existence and glory is the first-born's position. That is the 'because' or 'for' which is statedly the ground for the place of 'first-born.'

As Creator, He is first-born on reaching the field He made, and this over all the creation. You get the same sort of imagery in the statement that He is the first-born from the dead, also arresting, made by Paul in Acts 13, where he quotes Psalm 2, saying: "As it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art My son, this day have I begotten Thee." This follows the statement: God fulfilled the same in that He raised up Jesus. The 'begetting' in this illustration is from the dead, as is explicitly stated. Does then death give birth ? Is it a womb ?

Now you would have to be rather obtuse not to see that what is meant is this. Christ was the first one thus to be resurrected direct from the dead by the Father, breaking the teeth, the force, the holding power of death (cf. Acts 2:24, where Peter declares of Christ, ''whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that He should be held by it''). In that sense, it was as if death were a womb and the corpse a babe held there, and He had come forth, and when He did, He is metaphorically called (image is necessary, since literally death has no womb...), the first-born from the dead (Colossians 1:18).

Thus imagery is used in some of these illustrations. But the fact is as Peter states, it was impossible for death to hold Him: the Creator is not subject to the creation. That is why. Christ's status as first-born from the dead may also refer, and is certainly parallel to the post as first-born of all creation. As Creator, He secures privileges of ingress and egress suitable to His position in name, though He bears the blame on behalf of reconciled sinners. Thus also He is "declared to be the Son of God with power", Romans 1:4. How ? BY the resurrection from the dead: His irruption into human life and eruption from the dead, these ruptures of nature and norm are those of the Creator assuming place as first-born in eminence over His creation, and confirming it with His breach of the power of death, due to all sinners.

When He came to earth, naturally He took precedence over all those who, though coming earlier in time, did not have the majestic distinction which Colossians 1:16 affirms, of having made without exception everything created - and of course, preceding everything created in order to do just this! No, being absent, because as yet 'uncreated', He did not create Himself while non-existent. We must use a little thought and seek to understand the reason given for the term used in Colossians 1:15 without actually contradicting both that reason, and reason itself in the process! You can do nothing if you do not exist, far less create everything that does. Finally, Dr Buswell in his famous work, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, (pp. 109-110, Book 1), notes that the Greek of the New Testament in its usage, here equally admits the translation, 'first-begetter of all creation', which of course fits perfectly with the next verse, Colossians 1:16, "For by Him were all things created."

Whether or not this usage be applied, there is in any case no slightest difficulty here, but rather grounds for exegesis, not eisegesis, intruding thought to the expulsion of the reasoning given in this scripture. Christ's participation in every act of creation before His own incarnation, declared emphatically and repeatedly, is clearly affirmed. There is nothing created at all that He did not act to create: He is the First not the Second, a and not b, of the order of creator therefore, not creature (Revelation 1:8,17, Isaiah 41:4 - sharing this explicit title of deity with His Father). He is not something He made! As to God Almighty, He alone creates (Isaiah 45:12,18, 44:24).

The role of creature is expressly excluded of the One who universally creates all there is. It follows of course clearly that the teaching here is this: Christ is not and could not be a creature: His order of being is creator, and in that setting, there is only one other, creature. They are reciprocals. Being the one, He cannot be the other. What He can be - and did become as we read, is a unique entrant into that created world, taking late in history a part more sympathetic, yes more than empathetic, rather peripatetic, and in the process, walking on earth, being treated... as an intruder on His own planet, which with all in it, He made. That of course is precisely the point John is making so forcibly in John 1:12.

His role is no mere creator's adventurism, however, but as 1:12 states, it made a channel for creatures to be adopted when rightly responding to the blazing light (1:14) of His incarnation.

The Fifth Step on the Trinity -

Life Outlet Deity: the resurrection of the salvation-format,
and so, of the body of Christ

Death, however, is something that God made. How then did the God-as-man, the Saviour Jesus Christ handle, deal with that ? What distinctives accrued, unique to Himself ? As for death, said Peter, it was not possible for it to hold Christ (Acts 2:24). Was God to be doomed by the discipline of death which He Himself created ? Was He to be subjected to its final dynamic ? or bearing it, would He dispense with it, having achieved salvation for sinners who received Him ?

A crucial question, it is integral to His status, to determine how He answered it. As we note in its place, it was predicted of Him, He predicted it of Himself: that He would rise in such a way as to avoid the rotting of His body (e.g. Psalm 16, Acts 2:25 ff.). Doubly required to 'pay up' on this highly unpsychological matter of raising His body (John 2:29 ff.) on time, to fulfil what He so repeatedly emphasised: what did He do ? In this phase, we are seeing what is the teaching, so that none can misunderstand it.

If Christ were to be received as God, then, should He not only suffer death vicariously, but actually be beholden to it, subdued by it! Then where would His eternal counsel, not to say competence be ? (Acts 2:23, Ephesians 1:11).

If, on the other hand, He dispensed with it on time, planning, performing and perfecting, then death was His subject; and so it ought to be, since as God He made it. If Christ be deity, as is the case, the impossibility of death retaining Him (in any form He chose) is to be set against the natural impossibility (miracles by the Creator apart) of death being dispelled. Yet in the end, what God made, God can resurrect: miracles not apart. If however Jesus Christ were merely a biological being or an 'agin the government' fraud, he would find it decidedly difficult, being dead, to resurrect himself. Could He ? If so, surpassing all bodily limits, He would be ''declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead'' (Romans 1:4).

Would the Creator intervene, could the Christ continue His own power, minus living body ? That would validate as well as vindicate His claim that it was He Himself as the Expression, Son and Word, who was that man, Jesus Christ... the personal expression of God Himself. If He had the power, let Him then use it! Not at the Cross, as He might be tempted by jeering to do (Matthew 27:43). Would the Father, indeed, verify Christ's often repeated prediction that not only would death not hold Him, but that He would break it and rise on the third day, being arithmetically precise as well as irresistible in power ?

Indeed, as we saw, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days!" He said (John 2:29). Could He ? As man - if that were all He was - certainly not; or if fraud, truth would lend Him no support. It was clear, simple, refreshingly direct... But as God incarnate ? yes of course, no problem in the world.

God confirmed, authenticated, verified, in fact declared Christ's status by this act: the resurrection of the dead. It is now our task to check simply from the text that it meant what we say... the resurrection of the body, that delightfully non-metaphorical fact!

Let us consider it briefly i) in principle and ii) in practice.

l) In principle

In Acts 2:24-31, Peter's words are given on this topic. We find (v.23) that God predetermined the death, and the resurrection (vv. 24-31): this crucified Being, He 'raised up'. How did He raise Him up ? Raised in this, that "it was not possible that He should be held by it" - in context, by what ? by death. What are the criteria? These: that death had inflicted pains on Him (v.24) and temporarily 'held' Him (v.24); but this action was dissolved and what death did, was countermanded so that it became inoperative. Now what does death do to a person by way of pains and holding ? It divorces biological life from a person, and holds the person so that that individual cannot move the body, and the total bodily efficiency departs absolutely, terminating the association of spirit and action locale in the form of a body. What then is the teaching here in principle ?

It is this. What death is, brought pains; and it took hold on this person; but God intervened to ensure that what it had done was undone, what it had immobilised was so no longer; what it had pained, escaped from those pains through dismissal of the same. How then is this done ? only by

i)

restoring the mobility

ii)

returning the efficiency and

iii)

cancelling the rigorous pain which brought discontinuance and imminent corruption of the former body.

What then did God raise ? clearly, the thing that was brought down in pain, and held immobile. And what is that ? It is without doubt normally called the body. This then is the bodily resurrection. Nature has to do a rearguard, because God countervails.

What principle is in view ? One for which we may pause is near at hand. Already we have seen that whatever else may suffer in death, have pain, the body is clearly part of this, the visible, obvious and clear part. It is disrupted in death, its organisation tending to be dispersed, its order grieved, its grip dispensed with by another grip, that of death. With Christ, this is expressly stated to have been removed in that He was raised. Nothing could be clearer.

Peter however is not satisfied with this as a total coverage of the theme. At once he presses on to the prediction (vv. 25 ff.) that the Christ was not to have His soul left in hell, or to see corruption. Let me, he continued, be frank. David the author of this predictive, Messianic psalm (we paraphrase) died, his body did rot, and it was not of himself he wrote: it was of course of the Messiah. It is of this predicted Messiah he wrote; it is of the same I speak . His body, that of this Jesus Christ who is the Messiah, it did not rot. That is the fulfilment of the prediction (v.31).

No other interpretation of the Greek is available, nor would the context admit it if it were. This body did not rot. But how is this a matter of principle ? It is so in this, that God declared in advance the tenacity of His purpose and the ambit of His operations which would satisfy Him, on the one hand, and testify to witnesses, on the other. This had to be and if it had not, then all would have been proved futile, fraudulent.

Houdini almost died in one of his escape acts, when beer was used as a fluid: it affected his responses even from outside his skin, during immersion! But Houdini, for all his skill, did not attempt resurrection. God used it as one of the criteria which in principle as well as practice, He set for the saving work of His Son. The saviour was to be set on a throne (v.30) and His body was to the point, His overcoming... relevant, His power indispensable.

Now we come to a further specifically focussed feature. It was the pained body which was loosed: not a substitute. It was, as Machen pointed out for 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 - The thing that was buried which is in point, and of this it is said that it was raised. Now what was the thing buried ? Beyond question, the body (that is what one normally buries...) of Jesus Christ. This: which was buried, of this is it said, the subject, that it was raised. This body did not fact achieve the power to rot: God prevented that. Now, says Peter:

He foreseeing this (i.e. David) spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that... His flesh did not rot - Acts 2:30.

To what, we may ask, did the non-rotting flesh of Jesus Christ relate ? Was it put in a case, without refrigeration, like an earlier Lenin ? is that to what it related ?

Peter's words state something very different. The non-rotting flesh related to the resurrection. The venue for non-rotting flesh ? the resurrection. The bearing on the case of non-rotting flesh, in particular, that of the Lord Jesus Christ: the resurrection. Thus non-rotting flesh has the resurrection for its terms of reference; resurrection is its destiny, its ambit, its focus, its place. That is what is being taught by the apostle Peter.

Very well, the flesh did not rot, says Peter, and it is this which is our concern in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. "This Jesus God has raised up".  Not some other; not some invention: This non-rotting flesh is the one which relates to the flesh of the resurrection. That is... bodily resurrection.

Now we come to practice.

2) In practice

What does the Bible tell of the practical features of this resurrected body ? First, in Matthew 28:5-6, we read from the angel at the tomb:

Do not be afraid: for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen. Come and see the place where He was lying.

He is not here, for He is risen. Now note

a) they are told to stop looking.

b) they are invited to look at the place where He lay.

c) the reason why He was not there was simply this: That He had risen. This means, can mean only one thing: a crucified corpse sought by anointing women was not available for their purpose, owing to the fact that this same crucified and sought body was risen. Being risen, He was no longer in the place where in fact He had been; hence ("for") no longer available for the practical, physical purpose of anointing. Evacuated, the physical body was not there for this to happen to it.

It was because of these considerations that they were to tell others that He was risen from the dead. How ? Via the displacement of His corpse, not there because He was risen. What is this ? Once again, it is bodily resurrection.

Second for our review is this Scripture: Luke 24:4-6. The women, here, are being told that it is out of place to seek for the living among the dead. 24:1 shows their intention - to anoint the body. The angel insists that they are astray because what they seek is not there. As a demonstration of that fact, the women are advised that Jesus is risen. Now what bearing could the fact that He, Jesus, being dead, had risen, have on His body being unavailable for anointing, for the comment that seeking the living among the dead was inept ? Only this: that He had taken it with Him when He rose, so removing it from the precincts where otherwise it might confidently have been expected.

More, their error was not only that He was not there because He was risen; they were guilty of a categorical error: they were seeking on the assumed basis that their quarry was a corpse, dead. In reality, this was contrary to fact. Now what would be contrary to fact about the expectation that a body was dead ? Why only this, the reality that it was not dead. Now what is that ? It is called, once again, bodily resurrection.

The body in every case is re-animated, restored to mobility, and acts of will are at the disposal of the one whose it was, in this resurrected vehicle, called... the body. Jesus, then, is not available to their (otherwise) perfectly apt little proceeding of anointing, little service to the body, because, in a word, He (whose body it is), He is not there, owing to the supernaturally announced fact that HE IS RISEN.

Third in our review is Luke 24:39. Here, Luke records that Jesus said:

See my hands and feet, that it is I myself: Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.

Thus the physical mobility, physical carrying off of the body by Himself, is not all. No, the body is such that it may be handled; and in fact, Jesus Christ presents it for experimental verification. He adds a logical principle to their practical endeavours. He makes declaration with all the straightforwardness of someone who has just done what man might call impossible, of someone who exploded (in fact) the first atomic bomb, but with more directness still, since that is is a matter of degree, this is one of kind! What does He declare ? This: The reason why they are invited to handle His body is that spirits don't have any. See, He says, my hands and feet! Handle them. Spirits don't have them. In other words, He is making them realise that this is straightforward biological fare before them; whatever more, it is no less!

Thus the body which was not available because it was risen, is distinguished by the Master Himself from a spirit (admittedly, something that would be the position if He had not physically risen- cf. Ecclesiastes 12:7). It is asserted by Him to have features not found except in bodies (''flesh and bones''), as distinct from spirits. Thus this, His body, had not only risen, but it was still around, available and operative as a body in a studiously physical sense.

Fourth in our coverage, comes John 20. Here we notice the apostles investigating the tomb, and with respect to its noted emptiness, we read:

For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead (v.9).

Thus the emptiness of the tomb is, in order to be understood, dependent on the true fact that Jesus rose from the dead. This is its stated rationale, its basis. Now how could the rising of Jesus be said to be the fact that explained the empty tomb, as here, unless what made the tomb empty (and that is the absence of the formerly present body of Jesus Christ) was the evacuation-by-resurrection of Jesus, moving His body out of the place (rising being the stated event in view)! Thus the rising of Jesus, as explaining the empty tomb and making it empty, must of course be the rising of the body. A spirit does not empty a space on its removal!

Thus again in John 20, verse 17, we read (N.A.S.B.): ''Stop clinging to Me!'' This is addressed to a devoted Mary Magdalene. The Greek word here refers to adhesion to something and the dictionary meaning ( Thayer ) is provided in terms of 'stop handling me to verify' or a concept of that kind. The tense of the verb 'handle' is here 'present', meaning a continuing action: this and the word as such, together give just the dictionary's stated sense for this passage. An action of verificatory or devoted handling of His feet was in process, and He asked for its cessation. He did not say that it was irrelevant, but to stop! So far from not finding what it sought, the handling was to cease, thereby releasing the feet of the body. This coincides with what we see of Matthew 28:9:

Jesus met them and greeted them, and they came up and took hold of His feet and worshipped Him.

The devotion becomes worship in the manifest presence of this divine confirmation before their very eyes; and the act of worship occurs while they in fact are experiencing that miracle with their hands, which validates, as it does once and for all, the authenticity of Jesus Christ. In this, they are left overwhelmingly and simply assured; and that is precisely the hallmark - both in doctrine and practical implication, in fearlessness of death indeed, for those who perceived His victory over it on their behalf- which adorned that century ... for Christians. Having seen how the 'operation' went, and with whom it went, they are arrested into joy, and reinforced into courage.

What then ? Physical hands can hold and retain physical feet in their grip, so that the unhanding becomes a desirable result, and one required! Physical resistance or interaction is in view.

The physical feet are part of the physical structure of things. This not only categorically confirms that the body (which, we know, possesses feet as part of its structure and form) was in fact not destroyed, being risen, but capable of being grasped; it also relates to the articulation of the body's parts. Grasping of feet is not irrelevant to this body; it was His, and having arisen without rotting, because He did not allow death to commandeer it (Acts 2:24), He was not inclined to extend the privilege of doing so ... to others!

Fifth and finally at this level - for it is enough - we note two episodes. First, this body of Jesus Christ could ingest fish. He could have fish handed to Him and make it approach His mouth, then eat it. The correlations and functions are all there! That is seen in Luke 21:41-43, and relates to the "handle Me and see" area of action.

Now in line with this very physical side of things comes of course John 20. Here, Thomas, waxing scientific, decides that unless he has a physical test of a crucial and adequate kind for a tough mind (manual investigation, no less, of the holes made in Christ's body was in view - John 20:25), he declined to believe...

Believe what ? Believe the statement that they had seen the Lord. In what context? That of John 20:19 ff.; and what was that ? The case was that in which Christ showed them the physical condition of His hands and side. He was not dead but risen and there to show it. No ! said Thomas. Now you see the inference.

Believing for Thomas meant believing that the body was literally, physically, non-metaphorically a physical item, a non-corpse, and that of Jesus Christ, possessing continuity down to the marks of abuse at the Cross. Actually, that says everything about that aspect of the resurrection. On site terminology is as Thomas shows and Christ declares; on site examination for believing is physical.

Of course, Thomas was invited to make his tests, and repented and acknowledged this so open and testable Jesus Christ, saying to Him: My Lord and My God, we read ... very much as the women, holding his feet, worshipped Him. In John 20:29, we see a further principle concerning this intensely physical and practical and personal matter. Thomas saw and believed (and we now know what that means); others will be blessed, however, if without seeing, they too believe: That is Christ's open declaration. Why not see ? When He proceeds, as He stated He would do (John 20:17-18, John 16:7, Luke 24:26, John 6:60-63) and as Peter tells (Acts 3:21), to glory, then his body will not any more be available for on site testing. Then the principle of non-experimental testing will supervene. The case is closed; the things are done; the opportunities have been provided liberally. Now is the time not therefore of action (in these gospel basics, these are done), but of believing. This is the principle provided.

What it is that is required, relative to believing in this field, that of the resurrection, is as simple as it is clear; as clear as it is radical and as repeated as it is decisive; as decisive as it is indeed a matter of stated principle as well. What then is that ? It is ... the bodily resurrection.

As Jeremiah puts it so succinctly and tersely;

"The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens" (10:11); but as to that One who did make them, and who became in His time, flesh (John 1:14): He cannot perish from the earth and from under the heaven. This is a criterion of deity; and as God is much interested in man (Psalm 113:6), and has so acted on behalf of those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:12, 1 Timothy 2:3 ff.), this has a close and illustrative connection with those who do receive Christ and so, as adopted children (Romans 8:15-16), "participate in the divine nature" (11 Peter 1:4, 1 John 3:1-3).

Their resurrection depends on that of the paragon and indeed paradigm, the crux and criterion - Jesus Christ. Hence we find that this, their resurrection, their rising, by His achievement and donation, is one (John 5:28 ff.,1 Corinthians 15:51 ff.) incorporating that divine power by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:2): that crux of deity. By this, for His people He will - "transform our lowly body so that it may be conformed to His glorious body".

In the special case of those who are still living when He comes (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17), this power at once transforms those same bodies, evicting death by the overflowing of the Creator's irresistible vitality, so that mortality is "swallowed up in immortality" as He says (1 Corinthians 15:53-54), while the dead are "raisedincorruptible". Here the continuity, through 'transformation' is total, as with Elijah.

God must be understood in the terms of His expression: He crushed the crisis and confers the consequences: He is God over the living and the dead, and over death, His instrument.

Endnote

*1

Facing the Trinity. The whole verse 12 of Psalm 2, following as it does the account, noted by Peter at Pentecost, of the lustful desire of men to be done with God, and to be finished with His Messiah (2:2), comprises a remarkable counsel in itself. Let us ponder it:

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

No wonder it precedes this in verse 11 with the remarkable exhortation:

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Here is a crux cruxorum, a pivot of pivots: the Son, the predicted Messiah, to whom David so often refers, even calling Him his Lord ( Psalm ll0 ), as Jesus Christ noted to His enemies.

First the relationship, seen right from this particular prophecy, with the Messiah is to be one of devotion ("Kiss the Son"). It is not mawkish sentimentality; for its omission rouses anger. It is the Eastern mark of affectionate consideration and recognition in greeting. A failure courts destruction. A failure, that is, to love the Lord your God with all your heart ... this is no option, but absolute, a requirement to be rendered to God only, with spiritual destruction the result of failure. We live by Him, and He is love; and to depart from Him is death.

Not only so. If this Son becomes only a little wrathful, perishing is in view. While the conditions of His pardon are not mitigated, this Psalm is dealing with direct and obvious rebellion, and is urging instead real and proper devotion, such as is the lot of the one who is forgiven much, who has no illusions about his /her sinfulness and the necessity of salvation. Such a one naturally loves (that is, in the setting of being born again, supernaturally, for then it is natural to so relate to the supernatural).

This area of direct rebellion is fraught with peril: danger arises when wrath comes only a little. The world is finding this out by stages, and its child poverty alone (Time September 1990) is enough to shock the angels. Man's rule and self-confidence appear to have no bounds; the impudence of the twentieth century rebellion seems to be as aspiring in deluded grandeur, as are its results subterranean almost to hell, in total abysmal failure. It is beginning to taste what Revelation 6:16 calls ''the wrath of the Lamb''.

In view of this necessity of His favour, and the peril of His wrath, and the (implicit) total jurisdictive power accorded to Him (as expressed in the New Testament also by Jesus Christ in John 5:26-27): we are advised how blessed are the people who put their trust in this Son, this Messiah (Psalm 2:12). This is the Old Testament's caution, advice, exhortation and warning. Though "cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength" (Jeremiah 17:5) , yet blessed, the exact opposite is he who puts his trust in the Messiah. His stature is that of God. It is in the same chapter of Jeremiah as that just quoted and two verses on that we learn: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord". It is the Lord who is so to be trusted, who is the only Saviour (Isaiah 43:11), and thus alone may be so engaged by faith.

The majestic sovereignty, the devotion, discipleship and faith to be rendered to, or placed in the Son is that due to God alone. As God (Psalm 45, Hebrews 1, John 20), He receives it, even just the same honour (John 5:19-23) as that due to the Father, since in Him is all the fulness of the Godhead (Colossians 1:19-23, 2:9).

When you consider it, Psalm 2 is just as absolute a salute to the sovereign deity of the Son as is Psalm 45, Isaiah 48:16 and Micah 5:1-3.

At the verificatory level, it is timely here to note a rather special point. Different people write at God's command in the Bible, with deliciously different art or emphasis or exposures, but they all cohere like sultanas cooked in a particularly attractive and well integrated steam pudding, work of one cook . This verifies a legitimate expectation of the word of God; and it does it now subtly, now delicately, now with force.