The Father and The Son
The doctrine of the nature of God , His Son and the holy Spirit has become a standard for Christian orthodoxy. Trinitarianism is required by virtually all of Christianity. Yet the Bible makes many statements that contradict this belief.
More than that, hidden within the prophecies of the Old Testament and the revelation in the New Testament scriptures, is a love story between the Father and His Son, a love revealed by the sending of the Son to redeem men from their sins and giving of the holy Spirit to men.
In the video available at right, Pastor John Clark, Sr. reads the tract "Is Jesus God?" Not only does he read the tract but there is much other good understanding to be received from this reading. We hope you are blessed by what you can learn in this video and from the rest of this topical study page.
Thought for Today
Jan. 17
"THE EXPRESS IMAGE"
"And being the express image of His person . . . [he] sat down on the
right hand of the Majesty on high." - Hebrews 1:3
God uses different means to reach different people with His liberating truth. One bit of truth, the bait, that fisherman Jesus used to catch Brother Gary Savelli was the message that would have frightened most people away: the message of coming out of Christianity. And the last heresy of Christianity that Gary was willing to renounce was the doctrine of the Trinity. He would not even discuss the subject with me for a long time in the beginning. Having taught various church groups for years that a sure sign of a cult was the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, it frightened him in the beginning even to think the thought that the doctrine of the Trinity might be false. "I'm not ready to talk about that," he told me in one of our early conversations. Jesus loved him and was very patient. Eventually, Gary humbled himself to consider, with the help of the Lord, the truth about Christianity's teaching concerning the Father and the Son. His eyes were quickly opened, and he was made free.
Jesus teaches us all compassion by reminding us of how slow and afraid we were in the beginning to believe his truth. Like the priests whom God chose to serve Him, we can "have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way" when we are reminded that we ourselves are "compassed with infirmity" (Heb. 5:2).
Brother Tim was different. The doctrine of the Trinity was not the last thing he was willing to surrender; on the contrary, the truth about that heresy was the bait that Jesus used to hook him and reel him into the light. Still inside the walls of Christianity, Tim's spirit was driven with a burning desire to understand the Trinity, which of course, cannot be done, and when none of his teachers could answer his sincere inquiries, questions arose in his spirit about the veracity of that strange doctrine.
Then one day, as Brother Tim stood before a mirror in his home, the Lord gently asked Tim a question, "What do you see?"
Tim shrugged and responded to the Lord's simple question with what he thought was the obvious answer. "I see me."
To which the Lord replied, "No. You don't see you."
Tim was puzzled for a moment.
Then the Lord continued. "You are out here, in front of the mirror. What you are seeing in the mirror is your image."
Tim immediately understood what the Lord was teaching him. He knew that in Hebrews 1:3, Jesus is described as "the express image of [the Father's] person." The word "express", as used in this verse, means "truly depicted" or "exact". That was the Lord's lesson for Tim. Jesus is the perfect reflection of all the Father is, an exact reflection, but he is not the Father Himself. Jesus told his disciples, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn.14:9). By saying that, however, he was not claiming to be the Father Himself; he was merely telling them that in him, they had seen the holy character and wisdom and power of the Father, that in him, they were beholding the perfect image of the Father.
In reference to the Father, John wrote in another place (Jn. 1:18), "No man hath seen God at any time . . .", and that is true even of the ones who saw Jesus here, face to face, and who touched his human body. Jesus is not God the Father. In that same verse, John added this conclusion: ". . . the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him." And so perfectly did Jesus declare, or reveal, the Father that some people still think that in Jesus, they see the Father Himself. They do not. They see in Jesus only the image of the Father.
Standing before the mirror that day, Brother Tim was made to understand that. It was a gift from Jesus to Tim, a gift of knowledge of eternal truth. Tim swallowed the bait that Jesus had skillfully dangled before him, and now, he was on his way out of Christianity into a new world of light and joy.