The Spirit is, Pt. 5

The voice of the Lord is essentially the Lord, even as a voice on the radio or an image on the television we say is President so-and-so or Mister so-and-so, although understood in a substitutionary sense. God’s strong breath, His transforming life, His disposition, His mind, His pneuma (G4151), or His word logos (G3056), felt by His church can be called “Him” because It is essentially God. “He” is the Spirit as much as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev continued to be felt by many Americans as the sound of his forceful voice and rapping shoe rumbled down through a decade of Cold War.

 

The spirit of the Law that makes us free (see Romans 8:2; 2 Corinthians 3:17) can be said to be the Spirit of God, because the Law is God’s representative. God so equates His Law with Himself and holds Himself subject to It, that we can say God is bound in His Law. He is the Spirit of the Law. And God’s word is full of metaphors; without a parable spake He not. We can equate God with His Law; we face Both and tremble (see Isaiah 66:2). However and whatever and wherever He must use to reach us with conviction, that place is forever holy; the Law is holy because of its divine origin in Him who is holiest of all. Elijah believed Mt. Sinai forever to be God’s holy sanctuary. God is not bound in the Ten Commandments; but He is found in it. He is not the Law, but He places it before Himself in all His communications with humanity, so that It is all we see of Him. If we want to know Him intimately, we must go to His other interface—His Son. We cannot come to the Father through His Law and live. His Law needs a Mediator.

 

In our limited perspective, we say that God is where we found Him, and that such a place is forever holy: Penuel and Bethel remained holy to Jacob, as did Mt. Sinai for Moses and Elijah, and the field near Zorah for Manoah, the brazen serpent of Mt. Hor for Israel; in Jerusalem David “was born there”. We identify the holy Creator with material places and things, and the practice is biblical and was acceptable to the Lord as long as the objects or places weren’t worshiped (see 2 Kings 18:4). God didn’t literally reside at Penuel or on Sinai or in Jerusalem or behind the brazen serpent. But, the faculty of faith was supernaturally charged in the individuals who had met God there and from that time forward the place/object could be a spiritual interface with Jesus. Yet faith gave them the discernment to look beyond the place/object medium of the divine touch, to build there an altar to Jesus, and by faith to speak directly with the Holy One. The new spirit of meekness and faith in His redeemed child made sanctifying the place/object acceptable to the Lord. But, too often the place/object was revered without faith in its Originator and they incurred His rightful anger; for “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6).

 

The Spirit is the divine medium for the Godhead to interface with Their material creation. God’s new gift of spirituality in the soul, which is “sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. 1:12), is receptive to God’s mortifying spirituality in those whose “circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit” (Rom. 2:29, cf Jer. 9:26; Num. 11:29; Rom. 8:26). We must seek a greater measure of this solidification of Jesus’ character into ours both intellectually and spiritually, our heart and mind hardened in conviction by Jesus, walking after His Spirit. The “hand of the Lord God” (Eze. 8:1) must be upon us, “straitening” (see Luke 12:50) our loose, fallen propensities to presumptuous worship and sin, His Spirit’s firm straightjacket keeping us under the control of the heavenly agencies. But, we must never worship the hand of the Lord; we must worship the Lord,  in the beauty of holiness and under the control of His stringent hand.

 

We can identify the Father and Son with Their medium, the Spirit. We call the holy medium “He” by our affectionate identification of It with our new Friend in “God our Saviour” (1 Tim. 1:1) and in His only begotten Son. However, while we identify It with Them, we must give Them our affection. Yes, we must honor and obey the Spirit, no less than we honor and obey the Father and Son ― because we are obeying Them through Their holy medium, the Spirit, Their Spirit. Likewise, to honor and to obey Their media of the prophets who spoke by “the Spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20, cf Heb. 1:1) has always received the same reward, benefits, and blessing as honoring and obeying “the LORD your God” Himself (2 Chron. 20:20, cf Matt. 10:40, 15). And, to dishonor the holy Medium and the token of our reconciliation with God is to give Them dishonor. They deny Christ in God who deny His medium of godliness, His power to make them righteous (see 2 Timothy 3:5). They have snubbed Him in whom is all authority in heaven and earth, and He will deny them before His Father. Similarly, to call Their Spirit’s promptings and convictions the work of the prince of devils is to deny and to blaspheme the Father and Son Godhead who gave It (see Matthew 12:32; 1 Peter 1:11).

 

We baptize in the name of the Holy Ghost, Their holy representative, because of the medium’s necessary involvement in Their condemnation of our sin and in Their comforting our humbled heart, a great work which is done under the Father’s management and by the Son’s direct labors. Yet, the holy Medium is not a third Person of the Godhead; It is Their holy extension, Their means of accomplishing Their will in the human heart for our justification and sanctification (see 1 Corinthians 6:11). We can worship the Godhead by springboarding off of the work of Their medium which is made holy by Its place as the extension of Divinity. But, we cannot worship Their medium, the Spirit. Worshiping the holy extension of God takes our eyes off of the Father and Son who alone all heaven worship, and who deserve our highest love (see Revelation 5:13). We can love and appreciate the Spirit, as we appreciate and love our neighbor; but, as is often the case in this misguided world, the principalities and powers of creation receive higher love and reverence than the Creators. Worse, worshiping the divine/matter Interface of the Godhead creates a diversion, an opportunity and an avenue for Satan to insert himself into our worship. That resourceful genius will make use of the church’s slightest step away from the holy path set up by its Lord and His messengers; and little by little, by the subtlest moves over time take the church far off her original course.

 

God’s holy extension/interface/medium, in the Spirit of God, is purely functional and does not love. It never visibly walked among the children of men; It never pled with us, or fellowshipped with us; It never affectionately called us “little ones”, or disciplined and forgave us. Proverbs chapter 8 refers not to the Spirit, but to Jesus; and every other action by the Spirit has been in conjunction with the Father or the Son. Why should God expect us to love a Person who hasn’t first loved us? He doesn’t.

 

The Spirit has never suffered. It never sacrificed Itself, as both Father and Son did at the cross. Only Jesus reveals the incomprehensible effort of God to save us. The Son of God stretched every limit of His humanity to reconcile the Father to us. But, a nebulous Spirit’s sacrifice does not exist in Christianity, and would mean nothing to us. A Spirit’s sacrifice is unthinkable; it is a spiritual and theological oxymoron. The nebulous Spirit causes no empathy and awakens no sorrow for sin. It reclaims no selfish heart from sin to righteousness; It has no redemptive affect upon our corrupted hearts. The Spirit, independent from Christ, cannot redeem a single soul; It is not the primary cause of our redemption. The Spirit only represents the avenue for our redemption. It is the Father working through the spiritual gestation capability of His only Begotten to quicken our soul’s receptors through which we may know the Deity’s self-sacrificing love for us. Only Father and Son have from the beginning been like a lamb slain. That should leave suspect a third Being in the Godhead.

 

Worshiping the Spirit leads only to confusion of face to no less a degree than worshiping the golden calf, which also never died, but also had a spiritually elusive, religious sense to it. To worship the Spirit that has not suffered even hardens hearts in sin, as Cain discovered by sacrificing inanimate objects. Worshiping the elusive third Person parallels Cain’s worship. Such false worship only exacerbated his chastisement of peace, even while Jesus counseled him to turn back to the true form of worship which pointed to Him. Praying to and worshiping the impersonal, inanimate Spirit not only turned Cain into a murderer, but it has ever since his day generated a race of murderers and assassins, oppressors and enslavers. No less a desolate condition will come from the new focus of Protestantism on the Spirit. We need to set our love on the Son. Everyone who chooses to not know Jesus, the wrath of God abides on him (see Psalm 91:14; John 3:36).

 

In His instruction to His disciples, Christ dwelt upon the great gift of the Spirit [emphasis mine], declaring that nothing was too great to be expected from the coming of the divine Spirit. He longed to quicken and enlarge the conception of His disciples by communicating to them His own complete appreciation of God’s love, that they might be able to comprehend the value of the gift of all gifts [emphasis mine], given by God with the giving of His beloved Son [emphasis mine], ― the gift of the Holy Spirit [emphasis mine]. On all who love and serve God this gift has been bestowed. Christ has made provision for all to receive His Spirit [emphasis mine]; for He desires to see human nature released from the bondage of sin, and, by the power which God gives, renewed, restored, raised to a holy rivalry with the angels Signs of the Times, August 7, 1901 par. 2.

 

The Bible (John 4:10; Luke 11:13, cf Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22), and the Spirit of Prophecy repeatedly, call the Holy Spirit a gift from the Father. The only time a person can be a gift is if that person were a slave. Otherwise, a gift is a thing; that is, a product or a service. Do Trinitarians believe that the third member of the Trinity is a slave or a thing, and wholly subject to the will of God? Not so, if they use the ancient formula of the Nicene Council’s three co-equal persons. And please remember that the gift of the Spirit is tagged with the Son (“Spirit of His Son”, “Spirit of Jesus Christ”, “Spirit of the Lord”, “in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”, etc). Even when mentioned separately, it is in close context to the Father and His Son. At His baptism we see that there were only two divine persons present and a gift from the Father ― not another person, but a special package of glory ― “beams” ― as a message of His love, appreciation, and approval for His Son. The Father of glory is the great Giver of every good and perfect gift.

 

“”…beams of glory rested upon the Son of God, and assumed the form of a dove, in appearance like burnished gold. The dove-like form was emblematical of the meekness and gentleness of Christ Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 2, p. 60.

 

“”…the Father Himself will answer the petition of His Son. Direct from the throne issue the beams of His glory. The heavens are opened, and upon the Saviour’s head descends a dovelike form of purest light, ― fit emblem of Him, the meek and lowly One The Desire of Ages, p. 112.

 

The beams of glory could have been the Father’s reminder to Jesus’ of His heavenly home surrounded by His Father’s eternal love. As we read earlier, “The Son of God shared the Father’s throne, and the glory of the eternal, self-existent One encircled both” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 36. The dove-like form was emblematic of Jesus’ gentleness and meekness, not another, third person of the Godhead. Jesus is the Gift from God at His baptism, there opened to earthly and heavenly public display. Salvation was of the Jews because of Jesus.

 

“”The Father is all the fullness [emphasis mine] of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.

The Son is all the fullness [emphasis mine] of the Godhead manifested.… 

The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness [emphasis mine] of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Saviour…. ― Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 7, pp. 62, 63. (1905) Evangelism, 614, 615.

 

Notice the distinction Ellen White was making between the Spirit and the actual Godhead. In the above statement, she did not write that the Comforter “is” the fullness of the Godhead, as she did for Jehovah and His Son. But, the Comforter has the fullness of the Father and the Son. The fullness that It possesses comes from the Father and Son. It is recognizable only as Their fullness. Their Representative coming from Their fullness is not a source of Godhead fullness, but comes from Their fullness and in Their fullness. Nevertheless, It must be honored, heeded, and obeyed even as much as the eternal Father and His only Begotten are honored, heeded, and obeyed (see John 5:23).

 

Jesus said that He would send “another” convicter and comforter like Himself.

 

I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you….

At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?...

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you….

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:…

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you (John 14:16-18, 20-22, 26; 15:26; 16:13-15).

 

Many have read the above statements from the Lord, and naturally concluded that they teach a third person of a trinity Godhead. “Another Comforter”, “he”, “the Spirit of truth”, all seem to clearly speak of someone other than Jesus, who is talking to the disciples. But, He said plainly, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Of the coming Comforter, He was speaking of Himself. Jesus was both present and future Comforters. And, though Judas didn’t understand Jesus, he heard Jesus to say that He would later manifest Himself to His followers but not to all the people outside their group. Can the Lord say that He will be their comforter, yet also speak of Himself as another comforter? There is a precedent for this in the Old Testament by the Angel in the cloudy pillar.

 

“And the LORD said unto Moses…. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee….

And the LORD said unto Moses… I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite…

And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses.

And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.

And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle….

Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence” (Ex. 32:33, 34; 33:1, 2, 9-11, 13-15).

 

“And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth.

And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth.

And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.

My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and he departed.

And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous” (Num. 12:5-10).

 

“Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him” (Ex. 23:21). That Angel who Israel was to fear was the Son of God, the Lord God, and His heavenly agencies (see Ezekiel 1). In that Angel, He showed Himself as the manifestation of His own voice on Mt. Sinai.

 

In all these revelations of the divine presence the glory of God was manifested through Christ. Not alone at the Saviour’s advent, but through all the ages after the Fall and the promise of redemption, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” 2 Corinthians 5:19. Christ was the foundation and center of the sacrificial system in both the patriarchal and the Jewish age. Since the sin of our first parents there has been no direct communication between God and man. The Father has given the world into the hands of Christ, that through His mediatorial work He may redeem man and vindicate the authority and holiness of the law of God. All the communion between heaven and the fallen race has been through Christ. It was the Son of God that gave to our first parents the promise of redemption. It was He who revealed Himself to the patriarchs. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses understood the gospel. They looked for salvation through man’s Substitute and Surety. These holy men of old held communion with the Saviour who was to come to our world in human flesh; and some of them talked with Christ and heavenly angels face to face. 

  Christ was not only the leader of the Hebrews in the wilderness ― the Angel in whom was the name of Jehovah, and who, veiled in the cloudy pillar, went before the host ― but it was He who gave the law to Israel. Amid the awful glory of Sinai, Christ declared in the hearing of all the people the ten precepts of His Father’s law. It was He who gave to Moses the law engraved upon the tables of stone Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 366.

                                   

“All the communion between heaven and the fallen race has been through Christ…. Christ was not only…the Angel in whom was the name of Jehovah, and who, veiled in the cloudy pillar, went before the host ― but it was He who gave the law to Israel.” In other words, the Angel was the LORD God, whose voice had also spoken to Moses on Sinai. From Sinai Christ spoke of this Angel, who was Himself, “the Lord GOD, and his Spirit” (Isa. 48:16). He spoke of Himself as another person. And please recall His words regarding the Angel, “My name is in Him” (Ex. 23:21). If Christ had never said, “I will send an angel before thee” (Ex. 33:2; 23:20), then Moses could have easily assumed that the God of Israel spoke to him on the mount and then appeared in the pillar of fire and cloud; because this was precisely the truth. Then why veil the truth of Christ in two persons?

 

This interesting duplicity was not meant to deceive Moses or the children of Israel. He wasn’t telling a lie or being convoluted to hide something. It may have been simply using a cloaked third person literary device for discretionary purposes, to keep a personal and loving monotheism as a hedge against an impersonal and violent Egyptian polytheism, and a barrier against Israel’s worshiping the cloudy pillar, which they could see, instead of “seeing him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27), the Person in the pillar who they couldn’t see without faith. And it was a teaching tool to begin the revelation of the Binitary Godhead, an object lesson revealing the eternal order of heaven to deliver sinful man from Satan.

 

Similarly, Christ in the upper room used the same construct in order to be a help to His disciples and to “them also which shall believe on me through their word” (John 17:20). They needed to cease worshiping and hoping in “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). They still needed to see beyond the visible Descendent of David, fully believing in His invisible divinity, as evidenced from the Father’s Spirit without measure. They must know the Holy Ghost experience from His Father above, ever fearing to blaspheme and never to deny It (see Matthew 12:31, 32; Exodus 23:21).

 

Therefore, in both cases with the disciples and with Moses, the Master Teacher spoke in parables. Even though it was the Angel who abode above the mercy seat, the LORD didn’t say that the Angel of the cloud would appear upon the mercy seat. The LORD speaks of Himself appearing there in a cloud.

 

And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat (Lev. 16:2).

 

Christ was their instructor. As He had been with them in the wilderness, so He was still to be their teacher and guide. In the tabernacle and the temple His glory dwelt in the holy shekinah above the mercy seat. In their behalf He constantly manifested the riches of His love and patience Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 288.

 

Again, the Lord who also spoke on the mount was the Angel in the cloud, who would not “pardon…transgressions” (Ex. 23:21, cf Ex. 34:7), yet was sitting upon the mercy seat. Another picture of His “grace and truth” (John 1:14).

 

Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance (Ps. 89:14, 15).

 

It was Jesus speaking from the mount, for He was the Word of God, God’s thoughts made audible. Jesus is the eternal Mediator between God and His creation. The Son of God had ever been God’s divine, ordained Representative, His Father speaking through Him. Jesus was speaking as God from Mt. Sinai in behalf of His Father, and simultaneously pointing to Himself as His Father’s servant to bring His Father’s people into the land that Christ Himself had long before promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He did the same at the end of the desert wandering, claiming the eternal existence of His Father “who only hath immortality…. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:16). He declared, “For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever” (Deut. 32:40, cf Dan. 12:7).

 

Jesus spoke of Himself as another Person, another Comforter and Guide. “All the communion between heaven and the fallen race has been through Christ.” There has never been a divine mediator between Christ and mankind. The Lord of hosts through His prophets is capable of getting and keeping our attention and our hearts.

 

The Lord God who brought the Israelites through the Red Sea would be the same Comforter/Intercessor/Deliverer of the church (see Isaiah 51:10-13; Ephesians 3:9; Revelation 6:2). “Where is the fury of the oppressor?” “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Isa. 51:13; Rom. 8:34, 35).  “I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?... I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: the LORD of hosts is his name” (Isa. 51:12, 13, 15). “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He who died to deliver us from sin is our Intercessor and Comforter and our exceeding great Reward. There can be no other.

 

Another double talk construct, similar to the voice and the Angel both being the Lord, comes in a dream when He spoke to Jacob above the ladder that bridged the gap between God and man (see Genesis 28:12, 13), even though later He manifested Himself as that ladder (see John 1:51). He shows Himself as both the ladder of salvation and the Lord of the ladder. So, as Deliverer He said He would send Himself to guide Israel into Canaan; and as Comforter He said He would send Himself to guide His church into all truth.

 

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father (John 15:26).

 

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you (Acts 3:19, 20).