Are You Created In The Likeness Of God?

III). GOD THE FATHER OUR THEOLOGY PROPER

D). The Trinity

1). Explanation

ii). Three Persons

I believe it is reasonable to say that God is three souls but one Spirit. How the soul and the Spirit are one inseparable substance is still a mystery to me, but the Scripture is clear that God is three persons/psyches of one and the same self-existing Being. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father; but the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God equally dwelling together as one eternal Being and spiritual essence of one inseparable substance.

The created soul, however, is also a spiritual substance, but how it is distinct from the eternal substance of God’s holiness is also a mystery (under the knowledge of sin) (1Cor.13:9, 12), for God is able to remove his soul and his Spirit (God’s image and likeness) from the nature of a man’s soul (Jer.6:8; 1Sam.4:21-22; Ezk.10:18; Ps.51:11; Gen.6:3; 1Chr.17:13; Heb.4:12). This is why it is essentially necessary to become a new creation in the holiness of the eternal substance, for the soul that sins shall die apart from the soul and Spirit of Christ. Christ is the keeper of the soul; therefore, the fallen soul must be sanctified through him to possess eternal life.

Therefore to die in Christ’s soul (Rev.14:13; 2Cor.4:10; Gal.2:20) is to be raised to resurrection life in the bosom of the Father (Jn.1:18; Lk.16:22; 1Jn.4:9), who could not allow the incorruptible soul of the Son of His love see corruption (Col.1:13; Ps.16:10), for it was not in Christ to enter Death by the separation of body and soul as it is not for the death of the elect to be swallowed up by the second death (1Cor.15:53-55; James 2:26; Rom.1:23; 1Cor.15:42; Rev.20).

The Father is described as having one soul distinctly of himself that is joined to the Son and to the Holy Spirit by one spiritual essence (Lev.26:11, 30; Isa.42:1; Jn.17:11, 17-23, 26; Jn.14:17; 15:26; 16:13; Jer.12:7). The eternal Word is God and is also described as having one soul distinctly of himself that became flesh to ‘tabernacle’ and dwell among us; he came unto us as a son (that is, for our sake); for how is he both the Son and the everlasting Father if it was eternally a Son for God’s sake (Isa.9:6), so he came to be the firstborn and firstfruits of many (Rom.8:29; Col.1:15, 18; Heb.1:6; 12:23; Rev.1:5; Rom.11:16; 1Cor.15:20, 23; James 1:18; Rev.14:4), for he is the “appointed” seed (Gen.4:25; 1Pet.1:23; Jn.1:1-2) and only Son of God received by the Father (for our perspective) as the propitiation for our sins being truly equal with God and true man so that he can be both the only substitute and mediator between God and man (Lev.26:11; Jn.1:1-2, 14; Isa.1:14; Jer.6:8; Lk.19:44; Jer.12:7; Matt.26:38; Jn.12:27; 2Pet.1:17; Mk.9:7; Ps.2:6-7; Heb.1:1-6, 13; Gal.3:20; 1Tim.2:5). Therefore he is not the Son in the generated, begetting, and created sense, for he has come unto us as a Son to display the glory of God and bear its fruit unto the Father and in us by the Holy Spirit.

By the eternal Word in soul and Spirit, we are begotten (Jn.1:12-13; 4:21-24; 1Cor.4:15; 1Jn.5:1), adopted of God to be partakers of the divine Spirit as restored souls (1Cor.6:17; Ps.23:3). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of our individual soul by His one unique psyche/soul (Rom.8:9-17; 1Cor.2:9-16) (with emphasis on v.16). He is the Lord and God of our soul’s liberty in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ (2Cor.3:17-18; Rom.8:18-23). We become a living soul (in God’s perspective) through His union to us by Christ’s eternal Word (Jn.5:39; 6:63; 1Cor.15:45, 47-49; Eph.2:1-10). He lives in us not as His one and unique soul but by the nature of His soul (Jn.3:7-8). Therefore He is not divided in His own person, but He is the possessor of every redeemed soul by His controlling nature (Rev3:1; 2Cor.5:14). And He lives in every redeemed soul by the nature of His eternal Spirit and is therefore called the Holy Spirit distinctly from the soul of the Father and the soul the Word and only Son (Rev.1:4; 4:5; 5:6).

Though we are born and adopted by the living Word (Heb.4:12; 1Pet.1:23), God dwells in us by the Holy Spirit that God may be all and in all the ekklesia (called out ones) (Eph.4:6; Col.3:11). The Spirit does not dwell in all things living (nephesh) but in all things made alive in Christ to bear fruit to God (Eph.2:4-6; Rom.8:6-11). Most animals have a soul (Gen.1:21, 24) (nephesh), but such animals are not alive to the fellowship of the Spirit (2Cor.13:14; Phil.2:1). Sinful man has a soul, but the soul that sins shall die (Ezk.18:4, 20), and is therefore not alive to the fellowship of the Spirit until or unless he is made alive by the Word of Christ (1Pet.3:18; Rom6:11, 13). The soul, as soon as it is conceived under sin, is dying in sin (Gen.217; Ps.51:5), and therefore requires new birth as a new creation in the destruction the body of flesh and blood that defiles the soul that is tied to its fleshly nature (Rom.7:14). The redeemed soul must be liberated from the fleshly nature that defiles it with the nature of sin (Rom.7:24-25; 1Cor.15:50).

The soul is the garment of the spiritual nature of a man (2Cor.5:1-5), whether it be sin leading to death or holiness leading to life (1Jn.5:16; Rom.6:22; 7:10; Acts 11:18), but in the absence of holiness, the soul is empty and fills itself with sin defiling the whole man (Jude 23; Matt.6:23). Therefore the spiritual nature of the flesh is called sin (Matt.15:18-20; 2Cor.7:1). But when the Spirit indwells the soul, holiness puts sin to death and preserves the soul (the garment) alive by the nature of the Holy Spirit (Matt.10:1; 12:43; Mk.3:30; Rev.3:4). And therefore as lungs require air to give life to the body, we must take in the God breathed Word as life for our soul.