It is an unfortunate and unpalatable fact: We Christians, even the most scripturally enlightened of us, cannot seem to grasp the full ramifications of the different but equal / dissimilar yet undeniably ONE structure of the Godhead. I say this not so much as an indictment against us as it is an acknowledgement of our mental shortcomings and our lack of spiritual perception. Our mental shortfall is not of our doing; the lack of spiritual perception is, to some extent, our fault; we could surely be on better speaking terms with our Creator. To put it bluntly, we are indolent creatures who do not like to inconvenience ourselves in the most important phase of our lives, namely, our service to, worship of and communion with God. That is the nucleus of the Christian’s life.
Yet if we were all the most spiritually attuned people that God ever created, we would still be splashing around in the spiritual shallows and muddying the doctrinal waters with our futile floundering. We say we understand the intellectual maze that is the Godhead, nevertheless even saints that have been around the block more than a few times find it difficult to conceive of the Godhead as three different expressions of a God who is in truth but one God.
I am glad and proud to assert that most of these, my spiritual colleagues, never waver in their belief in the rock-solid oneness of God – and I do not limit these spiritual colleagues to the Pentecostal persuasion. Despite the limited understanding we all presently have of Scripture, three Gods would be unthinkable in the extreme. So it is evident that we are not hopeless idiots.
If Scripture tells us time and again that, no matter how it appears when God assumes multiple offices and simultaneously fulfills the capacities of the offices by Himself (the one only God), He is (say it loud and often) ONE ALMIGHTY GOD AND THERE IS NOT ANOTHER.
Part of our difficulty lies in our thinking that God the Author of the Bible presumes that we humans are smarter than we are in real life. It is true that we do wander all over the doctrinal map seeking answers to the riddle of the Godhead thus: 1) At one moment we are malingering fetuses who are reluctant to leave the comfortable, relative ignorance of the womb, relaxing in our motto of laissez faire, that is, “Let the individual’s belief be what it may be”; 2) in the next moment we think we can see there are three definite, separate Gods whom we must worship and seek to please at all times; but 3) in the next epiphanic second and in the next awesome verse or chapter of the Bible we are reassured – even cautioned – there is strictly one God reigning over the universe that He, the one God, created all by Himself.
I have to admit there are some of us who cannot find a sure place in which to fix our doctrinal anchor, but God did not misjudge our mental capacity; He never thought we were more intelligent than we are. He is merely waiting patiently for us to get our bearings and set our anchor in item #3 above, which is “There is strictly ONE God reigning in the universe He created all by Himself.” You will not fully understand this tenet in your present life, but you are required to embrace it as Truth.
Don’t worry, God is not about to disown you simply because you do not fully understand what you most firmly believe. If that were true, we would all be consigned without exception to a devil’s hell. Now there in itself is an unfathomable mystery, that we should receive God’s salvation, for which we did not labor and suffer and which we did not merit. Jesus did the hard, dirty work for us and all we have to do is believe.
Let’s not allow our shortfall of knowledge and understanding hinder us in our walk with Christ. We need to go past what we do not know and proceed with the knowledge we have. It is like a written classroom test: If you cannot answer a particular question, don’t let it stop your progress. Go to the next question. Then after you have gone through the entire test, come back to the unanswered question. You will have time to come up with the right answer; and, if not, you will not have wasted valuable time on one question to which you did not have the correct answer.
The Life Test we are going though now is one of a kind in that we are not graded on how many questions we answer correctly, but on the sincere effort we expend to learn and to grow in Christ. In other words this Life Test is not so much about knowledge as it is about a relationship, i.e., our relationship with God.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1Co 13:12)
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