5 Questions

So, I guess it is my turn.      I wouldn't say that I yet have a complete understanding of the nature of God, as revealed in scripture, that I would be comfortable teaching others.  While I do believe I am understanding some aspect of God more clearly than before I still do have some question.  

Here is how I understand Christ.  I believe He is the word of God who came forth from God.  The Word has always existed within the Father because it is his Word.  Never has the Word of God not existed with in God the Father.  God as His first work brought forth His word and granted Him life with in himself.  The Son – The Word now existing from the Father and apart from the Father…though He is one with the Father.  Christ is called the wisdom of God.  The Wisdom of God is referred to in Prov 8 as being everlasting and being brought forth.  This agrees with the rest of scripture.  

Verses that agree with the above:  
John 1:1 -word was God with God
John 5:26 -granted life in Himself by the Father
Col 1:15 -first born of Creation (following passage then talks about Christ creating) then Christ is also the firstborn from the dead…so He has preeminance in all things.
1 Corin 1:24 – Christ is the wisdom of God
Prov 8:22,23 – wisdom of God is everlasting..always withing the Father
Prove 8:24,25 wisdom was “brought fourth”.

I also believe the account in Genesis is given to give us more understanding of God.

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28

Then we have the account in Gen 2 of Adam and Eve:

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said:
    “This is now bone of my bones
    And flesh of my flesh;
    She shall be called Woman,
    Because she was taken out of Man.”

I believe this parallels God bringing forth His word from within Himself.  What “was” Eve was always within Adam.  What was Adam was brought forth and became Eve.  In one sense a beginning and in one since no beginning since what was Eve was within Adam.  

A summary is given in Gen 5:2
2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

2 people referred to as one.  

I believe this also agrees with:

1 Corinthians 11:3
But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

Woman came from Man.  Man and women were created by Christ and Christ was brought forth from the Father.

There are a couple of quotes from the “What Christians have said prior to Nicea” article that explain better what I am trying to convey.  I will post two of them:

Hippolytus (ca. 230 A.D)

The first and Only, both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself… He was One, Alone in Himself…. this Solitary and Supreme Deity, by an act of reflection, brought forth the Word first, not the Word in the sense of being expressed by voice, but as a Reason of the cosmos, conceived and residing in the Divine mind. Him alone He produced from existing things, for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Word was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of his Progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with his procession from His Progenitor, inasmuch as he is this Progenitor's firstborn, he has, as a voice in himself, the concepts conceived in the Father. And so it was, that when the Father ordered the world to come into existence, the Word one by one completed each object of creation, thus pleasing God…. God, who is the source of all authority, wished that the Word might render assistance in accomplishing a production of this kind…. The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Logos is God [that is, “deity,” in the sense of nature of substance], being the substance of God…. Now the Word of God controls all these, the first begotten child of the Father, the voice of the Dawn antecedent to the Morning Star…. This Word, the Father in the latter days sent forth, no longer to speak by a prophet, and not wishing that the Word, being obscurely proclaimed, should be made the subject of mere conjecture, but that He should be manifested, so that we could see Him with our own eyes. This Word, I say, the Father sent forth…. This Word we know to have received a body from a virgin, and to have refashioned the old man by a new creation…. This Man we know to have been made out of the compound of our humanity…. He did not protest against his Passion, but became obedient unto death, and manifested his resurrection. Now in all these acts He offered up, as the first-fruits, his own manhood, in order that you, when you are in tribulation, maye not be disheartened, but, confessing yourself to be a man, may dwell in expectation of also receiving what the Father has granted unto this Son. (Against all Heresies, 10).

and:

Theophilus of Antioch (ca. 175 A.D)

God made all things out of nothing, for nothing was coexisting with God, but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known, for him, therefore, He prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy, but He that is uncreated stands in need of nothing. God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bosom, begat him, emitting him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by him He made all things. He [the Word] is called “the Beginning” [arche],1 because he rules, and is Lord of all things fashioned by him. He, then, being Spirit of God, and arche, and wisdom, and Power of The Highest, came down upon the prophets, and through them spoke of the creation of the world and of all other things. For the prophets were not when the world came into existence, but the wisdom of God which was in him, and His holy Word which was always present with him. Wherein he speaks thus by the prophet Solomon: “When He prepared the heavens I was there, and when He appointed the foundations of the earth I was by Him as one brought up with Him.”

So I do believe the Son could have been forsaken by the Father and God could still have been God.  This makes the understanding of their relationship “in love” more meaningfull.  The Father loves the Son because the Son always does those things that please the Father.  He really is the Son.  He is God because He is from God.  But He is not the Father.  They are one in unity.  Unity in the sense that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father.  Jesus left the Father and His nature and became a man. He lived as one of us yet filled with the Spirit of God without measure.  He was really tempted in every way as we are yet without sin.  He poured out His soul unto death.  He became sin for us.  The Father poured H
is wrath out on His Son instead of us and forsook Him on the Cross.  God resurrected Christ from the dead.  And Christ is now a faithful High Priest able to sympathize with our weakness…tempted in all way as we are yet without sin.  

It is easier to die for someone yourself that to send your son. This is what God did.  He did that which shows the greatest amount of Love.  He sent His word brought forth..He sent His Son.  That is the greatest expression of love.

This also makes every passage of where Jesus says the Father is greater than I make sense – as well as the passages where Jesus calls God His God.  

Also from Heaven.net.nz:

“For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Word, coming forth from the Word-Power of the Father, has not divested of the Word-Power Him who begat Him”.

I am still praying and working on the understanding of the Holy Spirit.  I'm thinking the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father that He and Christ share.  I heard an analogy once and the Sun was used to describe the Spirit.  The Sun is the source and the rays are part of the Sun sent forth by the Sun.  They are in essence “Sun” but they are not “The Sun”.  The sun rays convey the nature and warmth of the Sun because the are Sun just not The Sun.  The Father sends forth His Spirit and communicates with us by His Spirit.  I wish I had the actual analogy to post.  But, this part is still confusing to me because in Rev. is says there are seven Spirits of God.  So…may God help me understand.  

I hope my explanation makes sense in the way I am trying to explain it.  Please ask me any questions to help clarify if need be.  

In Him,

sscott

Jn 5
26For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;

So if eternal life is in the Son
and the Son was with the Father
yet the Son was given this eternal life
then the Son had a beginning.