FOURTH LETTER TO PASTOR G.
Editor’s note: This is a continuation of my third letter respecting the two questions Pastor G. asked 4.10.2024. These questions are:
First, “Who was present and in what form at the baptism of Jesus Christ?” Second, “Was there a point when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were present simultaneously?”
Dear Brother G. We come now as promised to point three which is: WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY GOD IN CHRIST. The Great Jehovah (the self-existent Eternal One) Who to His creatures is invisible (I Tim. 1:17 and John 1:8) is in the creation in such a way as “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,” Rom. 1:20. That is to say, though God, by the very nature of His Divine Essence, is “invisible”, that which may be known of Him by Creation is “clearly seen” by things that are visible. The thing that may be known is this, “His eternal power and Godhead.” Hence, every created thing leads us step by step toward the “Godhead.” Which to his “workmanship” (Eph. 2:10) can at best be incomprehensible, as to the Divine Essence of the Workman. The work itself cannot comprehend the Workman, being the first and original cause of it. As a creature, we have no light except what is given, and the light of creation discovers the works of the Heavenly Workman.
Creation holds forth the various attributes of our Creator God after a sort, but in the end, we who cannot see through the substance of those things created, CANNOT SEE INTO THE CREATOR to even begin to comprehend His Divine Essence. I will pass now from the first creation, which is the habitation of the first man, the first Adam and his posterity, which is earthly, to the second (and last man) Adam, our precious Redeemer King and His children of the second and new creation, by saying this: What I have said respecting the Divine Essence is not intended to define what God is, but rather what He is not.
The purpose being that we might be delivered from our vain apprehensions in forming a God after our own wicked imaginations. Rather, to say simply, GOD IS THAT GOD IS, but WHAT God is, I know not and certainly do not dare to speak of how God “subsists” within Himself. What then are we to understand by GOD IN CHRIST? God is in creation, but CHRIST IS GOD’S HABITATION. It is this same incomprehensible, invisible, self-existent eternal Creator God, Who “dwells” in the Lord Jesus Christ. “For in Him (Christ) dwelleth (always has and always will) all the FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY,” Col. 2:9. Hence, Christ Himself is “full of grace and truth,” John 1:14; He being “the truth” PERSONIFIED, as in John 14:6. This same God Who is over us in creation, is therefore a loving Father to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, believed on in the world, and received up into glory,” I Tim. 3:16. Notwithstanding, this mystery is hidden to the eyes of the world, and man’s vain imagination fancies an equally vain understanding of this “great…mystery”; I will attempt to speak plainly according to the measure of grace bestowed upon me in much the same way as it has been delivered to me by my Heavenly Prophet/Teacher.
That we may know what we are to understand by GOD IN CHRIST, these three things are to be considered. We get this from the word Christ, which signifies one Anointed. To that end we will examine briefly: THE ANOINTER THE ANOINTED THE OINTMENT ITSELF FIRST: THE ANOINTER That is, the Giver, Dispenser or the One pouring forth the ointment, is the FATHER; God in creation, overall, above all things, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things (See Rom. 11:36). The Anointer is that infinite, incomprehensible majesty which I have (I trust) proven to be incomprehensible. The recently baptized Man-Christ testified of Himself in Luke’s Gospel on the 4th and 16th saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because HE HATH ANOINTED ME…” One thousand years before the incarnation of the Word, the self-existent Eternal One declared: “I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I ANOINTED HIM,” Psalm 89:19-20. Verse 26 following is especially lovely. It reads: “He shall cry unto me, thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.” Compare John 17:1,5,21,24&25. The sweet singer of Israel carried the same tune.
It sounded like this: “My heart is inditing (bubbles up) a good matter…grace is poured into thy lips…Gird thy sword…O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty…Thy throne O God, is forever and ever…God, thy God, hath ANOINTED thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows,” Psa. 45:1-3,6-7, in part. This was prefigured and typed out in the law by Moses’s anointing Aaron. This is the Father’s work. SECOND: THE ANOINTED The subject Anointed is the human nature in which God was “manifested.” For the Eternal Self-existent God “was manifest in the flesh” according to I Tim. 3:16. It was the human body of Christ that the Word “dwelt” in (John 1:14) which “was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Therefore, the scripture in Acts 4:26-27 speaks of “the Lord, and…his Christ…thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast ANOINTED…” Even Jesus of Nazareth, the “son of Mary,” Mark 6:3. That same Jesus who was born of a virgin: “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1) who is called “The man Christ Jesus” in I Tim. 2:5.
It was this particular person who was the subject of the Father’s ANOINTING. Just what is the human nature of Christ? It is the fleshly body and the human soul united in one, which humanity is proper to all men so that every man has the whole human nature in himself. So was this person, this “man Christ Jesus,” this human nature consisting of body and soul in one distinct individual person, the subject of the Father’s ANOINTING. “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell,” Col. 1:19. THIRD: THE OINTMENT ITSELF The ointment itself is that which was poured forth from the “LORD” (Father) upon “the Holy One of Israel” Who “is our king.” See Psalm 89:18. It is the LORD’S “holy oil” with which He “anointed him,” verse 20. This holy oil has several names in Scripture to declare its nature and worth. Some 700 years before the incarnation, Isaiah was inspired to pen the very words of Jesus Christ, which are: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me…” See Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18. It is the same “holy oil” referenced above. David describes it as “the oil of gladness above thy fellows” in Psalm 45:7. Which oil was sweetly typified by Moses to us by the “oil of holy ointment” prescribed by the LORD in Exodus 30: 22-33. Its composition consisted of “principal spices” of “pure myrrh…sweet cinnamon…sweet calamus…cassia…and oil olive.”
The command was, “Neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition of it: it is holy, and it shall be holy unto you,” verse 32. Surely this speaks of the most excellent nature of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus in that it is singular in virtue to the Father’s eternal children. And whereas none were permitted to make any “after the composition of it”; It declares aloud the contrariety of the true Spirit of the Lord to all counterfeit pretenses of it, which are the “powers, signs and lying wonders of the man of sin” which Christ will destroy through the “brightness of his coming.” See II Thess. 2:8-9.
Briefly, have I handled the three essential things to be considered in the true knowledge of GOD IN CHRIST. These are: (1) The Anointer is God the Father (LORD); (2) The Anointed is the human nature of Christ; and (3) The ointment itself which is the Holy Spirit of the LORD as prophesied in Isaiah 61:1. Now know this, that neither of these three, abstracted from the other, standing alone by itself, is the LORD’S CHRIST; it is the composition and conjunction of these three in one person that makes this CHRIST. This is why our old Baptist forefathers often spoke of the “complex Christ” with reference to His post-Bethlehem existence. Therefore, it is said, “the Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD” and yet “was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This leads us to consider the various manifestations of GOD, as they are one in CHRIST JESUS. For this we will return to I John 5:7. “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” That is, ONE GOD in “the man Christ Jesus.” See I Tim. 2:5 with II Cor. 5:19. This mystery of godliness was sometimes identified as the Three-Oneness of God in the Man-Christ Jesus by our Old School forerunners. These “three” are not three persons any more than they are three Gods, but one GOD IN CHRIST made manifest in three manners (or ways) each with peculiar properties. God the Father conceived His Word in His own mind, which is His Son, eternally “brought up with him” being his very “wisdom” and “daily His delight” according to Prov. 8:30. It appears that the Word is the Father’s (LORD’S) own light whereby He knows Himself and brings forth everything by Himself. Though I cannot prove it to be true, it further appears, the Word made flesh is how the LORD (Father) sees Himself to be as visible for the world to see. Wherein, the invisible God is made visible as GOD IN CHRIST. It is by His Word, that is, by Himself in a way of activity, operation, or doing, He made the worlds. His Word was in Himself producing everything below Himself, and the Spirit is the mutual kindness each of other, which is actively eternal. The Spirit is to be understood as the power of God in operation producing and sustaining all things. Sometimes it is taken for the powerful influences of the Father’s love being “shed abroad in the heart’’ of an eternal child of God, “by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us,” Romans 5:5. This is the Spirit of God identified as the Comforter of the Gospel; so that “these three are one.” They also, “agree in one”; and what is attributed to the one, agrees to the other. Hence, these “three” are not three separate and distinct substances or persons in the proper sense of the word, that is, a particular individual substance or being, separate and distinct from another. Now, if it is not proper to identify these “three” as such, it must be improper to do so at all. And if improper, it could be dangerous at best or wicked at worst. In this sense I say, there are not three persons, either real or imaginary, subsisting in God. The Scripture nowhere declares there are three persons in God. I submit the concept is a human invention according to man’s vain wisdom. Whereas, according to the Scripture, “there are three that bear record in heaven:” the Father (Self-existent Eternal One): and the Son (the express image of God, the reflection of Himself made flesh, which is the “Word” begotten of the Father): and the Spirit (the mutual kindness, love, and communication of the Father and the Son; for God is love): all “agree in one.” That is, the One Man-Christ Mediator between God and man, I Tim. 2:5. The Father is in Him, the Word is in Him, being “made flesh, and dwelt among us;” and the Spirit is in Him; Which is the eternal love of the Father and the sweet heavenly influences given to the Man-Christ without “measure.” See John 3:34.
Therefore, God “manifested in the flesh” in a mysterious way of spiritual union is CHRIST. Hence, all that may be known, understood, or enjoyed by God, is bound up, reflected, and revealed in the PERSONATOR of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever God is to a saint, He is that IN CHRIST JESUS, for “the fullness of the Godhead dwelt” in Him “BODILY.” Therefore, the Man-Christ Mediator is the highest manifestation of the LORD (Jehovah Father) in power, grace, and truth, for this complex Christ is “full of grace and truth,” being the embodiment of God’s own TRUTH. In this heavenly manner, the invisible Self-existent One is made visible as GOD IN CHRIST. The sum of what I have been led to write respecting this point is this: the conjunction of the Father, Son, and Spirit, after a mysterious and spiritual manner, in the human flesh of the Man-Christ Jesus, is the “Lord’s Christ.” See Luke 2:26. GOD IN CHRIST, is God the Father dwelling in and uniting the human nature to Himself. Therefore, Christ is identified as both God and Man. Also, because of this union, Christ sometimes spoke as Man, and so died as Man. Sometimes He spoke as the Word, which is God in Him, and so He raised Himself from the dead. Further, he sometimes spoke in a way of the union as the complex Christ being the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” I have not forgotten your questions regarding Matt. 3:15-17. When blessed by grace to do so, I hope to provide you with answers soon.
Wishing you all the best,
A debtor to mercy if my heart does not deceive me.
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