Equality In Oneness Not Authority

III). GOD THE FATHER OUR THEOLOGY PROPER

D). The Trinity

1). Explanation

i). One Simple God

God is one in substance and totally indivisible (Dt.6:4; Mk.12:29; Jn.17:3; James 2:19). By joining this oneness with the distinct nature of the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ (Col.2:9; Lk.3:22), it will not compound God’s singular essence when we reasonably understand the distinction between soul and Spirit (Heb.4:12). How the soul of Christ functioned in a bodiless substance before the incarnation is a mystery still (Jn.1:1; Gen.6:3; Isa.1:14; Jn.4:24; Nm.23:19; Ps.115:4-8; Acts 17:29). But the one essence sanctifies the other in his coming in the flesh, while each remains distinct (Jn.1:14; 10:36). And therefore, when the Holy Spirit joins the eternal substance to the individuality of our spiritual soul (personhood), God is not divided in the eternal essence of the eternal Being (to make us) (as individual souls) one with the likeness of the Godhead (Eph.4:15; Matt.10:24-25).

In the same way that Christ remained his own person in coming in the flesh, we too remain our own persons in glory but are truly united together in the very likeness of the life of God’s eternal Being (Jn.17:20-26; Ps.36:9; Jn.8:12; 2Tim.1:10; 2Cor.3:18). Only in this way are we partakers of the divine nature (Acts 17:29; 2Pet.1:4; Ps.115:3-8). We do not attribute ourselves nor consist of the Almighty powers of the Godhead that are uniquely the perfection of the Godhead, such as omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, for in these things the wrath of God is revealed in us by suppressing the truth in the nature of unrighteousness and lawlessness (Rom.1:18-23; 1Jn.3:4). The partaking of the divine nature, therefore, is simply regarding the spiritual substance in which the soul functions in everlasting life (2Cor.13:4; 1Jn.4:9; Rom.8:9-14; Jn.4:23-24). The very mind that was in Christ, by which it was “not robbery” to be equal with God on the level of the divine essence (Phil.2:5-7), is encouraged to be “also” in us by walking in the humility of the fleshy nature of the soul’s limitations of the likeness of men (Ps.82; Rom.6:2, 6, 11; 8:10-11).

But while the divine perfections are eternally and unchangeably Christ’s because he was God in the personhood of his eternal and undying soul (Phil.2:6; Jn.1:1, 14; Ps.16:10; Acts 2:31), he chose not to hold onto the Almighty powers during his time in the flesh but walked in the communicable attributes of God’s character to not only save us from sin but as example for us to follow (Rom.1:18-21). Nevertheless, we (by the eternal Spirit) are “becoming” of these (lesser) spiritual characteristics in our sanctification and completely in our glorification (Phil.1:6). But having been created souls, this becoming is a never ending pursuit in knowing God’s eternal design, and therefore we shall never become one with God in the Headship of the perfections as Christ reigns preeminent as the life-giving Spirit to the existence of our souls (1Cor.15:45; Rom.8:29; Col.1:15, 18; Heb.1:6; 12:23). So in application of our being one with the Godhead, to reign together with Christ, we never rise above the communicable attributes in the oneness of our essence with God always having two distinct likenesses in the resurrection and the life of Jesus Christ (Rev.1:4-8; 20; Jn.11:25-26).

Our becoming “gods” in Christ’s likeness is not “being” God, nor dividing God, in this simplicity of the unity of the uniquely individual three persons of the one self-existing God. Yes, our created being exists only by this eternal substance, but we are not self-existing even by being created within God’s Being. Rather God is self-existing of which (the same) eternal life is extended to us through the divine substance of God’s own existence (2Cor.3:18). A soul, then, is like the lungs in the body, which have no wind of their own but requires the Spirit of God to fill the soul like the wind would fill empty lungs. Therefore the Word was before the beginning, and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was God (Jn.1:1-2). As gods, we are merely so-called God (2Thess.2:4; 1Cor.8:5; Rev.3:9; Mk.9:42; Matt.18:1-5), as we come together in the singular will and mind of “the new” man created in knowledge after the likeness of the Holy Spirit that God may be all and in all (Rev.1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6; 1Cor.6:15-17, 19-20; 12:6; 15:28; Eph.1:23; 2:15; 4:24; Col.3:10; Rom.12:16; 15:6; 2Cor.3:11; Phil.1:27; 2:2; 1Pet.3:8; Acts 2:46; 4:32; Ezk.11:19; Num.14:21; Ps.72:19; Hab.2:14).