One Giant Misstep for Mankind

Regarding the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, justice Anthony Kennedy was a Ronald Reagan appointee. He must surely be "rolling over in his grave" right now - just as much as this decision causes my stomach to turn. Justice David Souter, another Republican appointee from the first Bush administration, carefully timed his retirement to allow Obama to appoint another liberal justice to the court.

Did it ever occur to either of these justices that the people overwhelmingly elected a Republican president at the time and thus expressed a desire for conservative justices on the Supreme Court? Why did Souter wait for Obama and not retire under Bush? This raises my blood pressure a couple of notches when I think about it.

However, the Court can only hold back the tide of majority opinion for a short time, as the ruling today proves. Unfortunately the majority in America has turned against unchangeable truth and taken the next step on its pathway to apostasy and depravity.

First let me say that I don't judge anyone; our Supreme Judge will decide our eternal destiny - not based on our sins which may be forgiven - but based on our acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord.

So for the record, I regard all same-sex relationships simply as friendships whose intimate details I would prefer to remain private, and I will never endorse or render services for a ceremony that sanctifies practices the Bible clearly calls sin. Furthermore, I will do everything in my power to peacefully oppose those who would use the power of government to force me or my Christian brethren to do so. I would go to jail before giving up my right to hold and express this opinion and freely practice my faith.

Understanding the Trinity

One of the things I struggled with over the years is reconciling the monotheistic concept of Judaism with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Since the term "Trinity" is not in the Bible I have felt a need to understand why it has been considered a core doctrine by Christian churches for virtually all of church history.

So before I raise questions in your mind about my own orthodoxy, let me explain. I tremble to even consider that I might misrepresent God's nature, and don't believe that anyone can truly comprehend the nature of God since he exists beyond our frame of reference in time and space. However, I really want to understand what the Bible says about the nature of God and his relationship to Jesus our Lord, so I will proceed with my limited analogy if you will bear with me in this endeavor.

The SHMA

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! (Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB)

This is a phrase that every Jew knows and memorizes as a child. It is the foundation of Judaism and the first commandment in the Torah. Jesus, being a Jewish Rabbi, understood and agreed with the writings of Moses, calling the SHMA the Greatest Commandment. However, the New Testament clearly indicates that Jesus made Himself equal with God by calling God His Father. So now God appears as two personalities in a family relationship.

This Father-Son relationship is most fundamental to Christianity and most abhorrent to the religion of Islam, who consider Christianity to be a polytheistic religion. So how do you explain to a Muslim (or a Jew for that matter) that you believe in one God who has multiple forms or personalities? Is He one God or two or three? One morning recently I awakened with thoughts that helped resolve that question in my mind.

The FORM of God

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6 NASB)

All through the Old Testament there are references to the "right hand" or "strong arm" or "outstretched arm" of God. These references uniformly occur in places where God is interacting with creation as Lord and Savior, in other words, in the role of Messiah. In fact in practically every reference you can substitute the name of the Messiah for this term and it makes perfect sense. For example,

My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, And the Messiah will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait for Me, And for the Messiah they will wait expectantly. (Isaiah 51:5)

Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and the Messiah. (Jeremiah 32:17)

Try this yourself; I think you will find a blessing in that.

In the New Testament we see the glorified Jesus our High Priest, seated at the right hand of God. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Jesus actually is analogous to God's right hand. The concept of a spiritual body consisting of multiple interacting personalities is not foreign to the Bible; reference the Body of Christ for example.

So when Jesus communicates with the Father, is this a conversation, or an interaction analogous to the interaction of the brain with the body, where the brain communicates via a type of nervous system to produce visible action? In this case, even though the Son of God is communicating to the Father as a person, in the spirit the two are considered one. You would not refer to me as "they" in reference to my body parts, but as to "him" who has a single will and many interconnected members. Is it possible that in the incomprehensible nature of God we can make such an analogy? Let me continue.

The Spirit Connection

I now understand that the Holy Spirit is analogous to the central nervous system of God. The Holy Spirit makes it possible to connect directly to God. It was the Holy Spirit that rested upon Jesus, fusing His will to God and allowing Jesus to carry out the perfect plan of God on earth. The Holy Spirit so fully embodied the Father's presence in Jesus that He could say "whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."

Now, the body analogy may be confusing since the Holy Spirit is invisible, like the wind. In my lifetime this has become much easier to visualize since we transmit control signals invisibly all around the world and through the darkness of space by various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Certainly the Creator of the universe could operate in ways that go far beyond our mortal technologies, even transcending the boundaries of time.

Jesus said that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That is our connection protocol. We authenticate by being authentic, by emptying ourselves of our old lives to put on the righteousness of Christ. We connect to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, the Helper whom the Father sends to be with us and in us, who teaches us and intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. The Holy Spirit translates our earthly requests to heavenly and perfect petitions before the throne of God.

Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In our human form we cannot behold the face of God and live, but through His Spirit we can grasp the nail pierced hand of God and draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.

Conclusion

Though we may not comprehend God's true nature while we exist in earthly form, we can understand that God took the form of a man (Jesus), and was indwelt by the Holy Spirit who empowered Him to perfectly reflect the nature and will of God on earth. The creator is still worshiped as the one true God. There is one throne in Heaven, not three, and Jesus is seated or standing there at the right hand of God to execute God's plan for creation.