I have been asking God for direction for quite a
while concerning the next series of blog posts.
As I was working out on the elliptical recently and listening to praise
music, one of the songs prompted me to thinking about the many names of our
LORD and how those names reflect His character and His actions toward us. What do they reveal to us about Him? Though I have heard many teachings regarding
the names of God, I’ve never done a personal study on that subject. I am hoping that it will be a study that will
encourage, strengthen and even convict us all as we spend some time meditating
on just Who our Lord and Savior is.
Already, at the outset of preparation for this
series of posts, I am finding the amount of scripture involved in some aspects
to be quite overwhelming. Therefore, I
am going to try to be concise in presenting the scriptural support for the
truth I am declaring. I am going to
begin with a fundamental truth that provides the foundation for the whole blog
series. Scripture declares that God is a
triune being, three in one—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The first book in the Bible opens with that
concept.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.”
Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness:”
The Hebrew word for “God” in verse one is the word
“elohim,” it is plural. That fact is
emphasized once the narrative gets to creation of man. God says, “Let us make man”; the pronoun “us” refers back to God, a plural entity.
As I looked through many, many verses that
make reference to this truth, I settled on the following verses as some of the
most explicit in affirming God as a trinity.
Webster expresses it well: “The union of three
persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost) in one Godhead, so that all
the three are one God as to substance, but three persons as to individuality.”
This next verse is an
instruction from Jesus to His disciples to go forth and make more
disciples.
Matthew 28:19 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost….”
Notice that they are to
baptize the new disciples in the name (singular) of the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost.
Titus 3:4–6 “But after that the kindness and love of God our
Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ
our Saviour….”
In this verse we see all three persons
of God at work in the salvation of every believer. Both God the Father and Jesus the Son are
identified as “our Savior.” Distinction
is made, however, as Paul declares that God, the Father, saved us by His mercy
and made us new through the ministry of the Holy Ghost. His mercy and our spiritual rebirth through
the Holy Spirit were made possible by the shed blood of Jesus.
1 Peter 1:2 “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.”
Peter, as did Paul in the verse above,
makes specific reference to each person of the Trinity that exist as One being
in declaring our position as part of the family of believers. We have been chosen according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father and purified through the work of the Holy
Spirit to be able to be obedient to the commands of Jesus who has redeemed us
by His blood.
1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh, but quickened by the Spirit….”
Again Peter references the triune God
in reference to the salvation of every child of God. Christ Jesus, the just and righteous One,
suffered death to redeem us, the unjust/unrighteous ones, from sin. He presents us to God the Father as being
born again. We who have been redeemed
have died to the flesh but reborn to spiritual life through the work of the
Holy Spirit.
Hebrews 9:14 “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?”
The author of the Hebrews is very
clear in declaring that the man Christ Jesus was able to offer Himself as our
perfect sacrifice on the cross through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to
enable us to serve the living God (the Father) in obedience. Jesus gloriously succeeded where Adam, the
first man, had failed so miserably. Adam
chose to rebel against God at a time and place when He was experiencing the
full bounty of God’s blessing. Jesus
chose to remain obedient to God in a time and place when He was confronted with
all the sinful temptations of this world and in conditions that were far
removed from the bounty and beauty of Eden.
John 1:1&14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth.”
1 John 5:5, 7&9 “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?...For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
one….for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.”
John opens his gospel with a declaration that
Jesus is the Word, the declared revelation of God, made flesh—come to earth as
a man. He goes on in his first letter to
affirm Jesus as the Son of God through the witness of all three persons of the
Godhead in heaven—The Father, the Word (Jesus) and the Holy Ghost—and then
declares that all three are one.
1 Corinthians 12:3–6 “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no
man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can
say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but
the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God
which worketh all in all.”
In this excerpt from Paul’s first
letter to the Corinthians, he is emphasizing that it is through the ministry of
the Holy Spirit in one’s heart that one can declare Jesus as Lord; conversely,
no one possessing the indwelling Holy Spirit will curse Jesus. He then begins to give instruction regarding
the gifting of the Holy Spirit to every believer. I think it is important to
note that the work of One is the work of All in reference to the Trinity. The Greek for the word same in the phrase “the same God”
indicates a reflexive pronoun. In other
words, “God” is the power source for these gifts, administrations and
operations. The Holy Spirit distributes the gifts,
the Lord Jesus determines our service and God the Father brings about His
purposes through our service as facilitated by our gifting(s).
I realize that this is a very small
presentation of such a very great truth, but I believe enough has been
presented to make the point and at least challenge one to look further. More scripture affirming this truth will be
presented along the way as we continue looking at the names of God in all three
persons of His triune nature. We just
need to understand that what we say about One is true about All as stated
above.
In the next post we will begin to
address references to the name of God that embrace the fullness of His triune
nature. In later posts we will reference
names of God specifically ascribed to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Though specific in address, the truth about
each applies to all. Is this all hard to
understand? Yes—and that is as it should
be. If we could completely understand
and comprehend God, He wouldn’t be God.
The prophet Isaiah explains.
Isaiah 55:8–9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts.”
(to be continued…)
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