Tag: John 14:9

God reveals Himself in Persons

Dr. J.D. WilkinsLeave a comment

The third type of media God uses to come to us, besides events and words, is PERSONS. God Himself is a person so it doesn’t shock us that persons are a significant form of God revealing Himself to us.

Think of it this way… in general revelation God displays His Lordship attribute of control over all things in this universe. In special revelation God demonstrates His Lordship attribute of authority over all things, including His plan to save the world. In personal revelation God demonstrates His Lordship attribute of presence among us.

Theophany is one of those ten-dollar seminary words that pastors like to use. It just means: those times when God takes on a physical form to communicate with mankind. See these passages for examples: Genesis 16:7-14; Genesis 21:17-20; or Exodus 23:31. There are many more, but this is just a sample. The form God takes might be of a man, angel, or heavenly being surrounded by the host of heaven itself.

The most significant theophany is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to specifically, and in person, helps us all to see and know God personally. In Jesus God dwelt among us (John 1:14). All the apostles saw Him, including the apostle Paul. They touched Him, they handled Him (1 John 1:1-3). If you saw Jesus, He said you were seeing the Father (John 14:9).

At Pentecost, God also revealed Himself as the Holy Spirit. Each of those first receivers of God’s Spirit were empowered in specific ways to speak the truth of God in love to others who would also believe. And each of these new believers also received this same Holy Spirit of God inside themselves.

So here’s the thing.

The most important, the most significant, the most powerful revelation of God happens when a person formally an enemy of God, surrenders to God’s LORDSHIP, and finds new life, eternal life, in Jesus. At that very moment God begins to write His own word inside that persons heart.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.“ They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

This action on God’s part in theological terms is called “illumination.” It is like a light in your home on a dimmer switch. When you first turn the light on it’s low setting, while the bulb is shining, it isn’t that bright. But as you give it more electricity, the bulb gets brighter and brighter. The Holy Spirit inside of us is the first illumination. The more we turn to God’s Word, to God in person, the Holy Spirit’s power is released in our hearts and minds, making us more and more like Jesus.  We have all the Spirit we’re ever going to need.  What we must do is learn to yield to the Spirit’s leading, surrender to the Spirit’s power, and trust in God’s Lordship over us.

The more we turn to God’s Word, the more illuminated we become, the more we come to love it, and it becomes the central focus of our world.

This is what it means to serve God as Lord.

 

 

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Identical

Dr. J.D. WilkinsLeave a comment

How does one distinguish between the two distinct people and personalities that result from identical twins?  In college I found it hard to know which was which.  They laughed the same, walked, talked, ate, and looked the same.  If one showed up without the other, few knew them well enough to know who was standing before them.  The degree of likeness, one to the other, could not be described any better, or more appropriately than, identical.

When Jesus arrived in Judea, traveling from one tiny village to the next, proclaiming “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel…” [Mark 1:15] the crowds that followed were “…amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” [Mark 1:22]

Maybe the explanation is as simple as this.  The scribes, rabbis, and other teachers, while knowing the law of God, continually used other men’s interpretations and ideas when they taught what God was saying through the Law and the Prophets.  Since Jesus was, and is God, along with the Holy Spirit and the Father, He was able to speak from original intent, since He was there when the words of the Law and the Prophets were inspired then written.  As such, Jesus would quote the original text without the aid of scrolls kept in the synagogues or the Temple.  The words He spoke were identical to those written in ancient days.

So when Jesus would begin, “You have heard that the ancients were told…  But I say to you…” [Matthew 5:21-22], He was speaking about how the teaching of men erred from the original intended meaning behind each passage He quoted.  This alone gave Him the authority to also say, “I and the Father are one.” [John 10:30]

Having spoken these words, it’s easy to see why the Jewish leaders took offense, since there isn’t another way to interpret this statement except Jesus claiming He and the Father are IDENTICAL.  Now don’t go so fast here… linger a minute.

Jesus isn’t saying He is “another- like” the Father.  Jesus isn’t saying God and the Son are identical twins.  The one-ness Jesus is claiming is further captured in His statement to Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” [John 14:9]

One of the spiritual games we like to play seems to be finding an explanation of the Trinity:  God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three in ONE.  This idea is captured in an ancient image, that most of us have no construct from which to assimilate it’s truth.  We recognize the second part, but mostly skip completely over the first part.  It goes like this…

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [Deuteronomy 6:4-5]

Even the most simple explanation is mind boggling, because LORD (Yahweh – the proper name used for God) and God (Elohenu – the divine being) are the same. Since both God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are invisible to human eyes, it makes it virtually impossible to wrap our minds around the idea of One-ness. So…

Let’s not make this harder than God intended it.  In fact, while it may be fun to come up with human images that help us deal with the Trinity of ONE, our focus should be on the most complete revelation of who God is, and what He wanted us to know about Him.  And in this case, all we have to do is look to Jesus and see the ONE.  He is identical in every way, yet was visible for awhile on the earth, and will one day soon (I hope) reappear on this planet to demonstrate His One-ness.  What did this man Jesus say to John the Apostle that He wanted us to know?

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” [Revelation 1:8]

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.”
Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus. [Revelation 22:20]

Identical