“Son
of God” clarified and illustrated
Think of what
it's like to watch a good movie. It will hold your interest and make you
anticipate what will happen. However, after watching the movie enough times
and memorizing it all, it won't have the same effect. Think of what it is
like to watch a movie that you've seen "a million times." In a
way it seems like everything has happened already. You can no longer
anticipate what might happen because you already know exactly what will
happen. Everyone can probably agree that watching a good for the first time
is most enjoyably desirable.
The vast majority of people
who believe in God will agree that He is omniscient - He knows everything.
So to God it is like everything has already happened. Jesus, His apostles
and prophets have told that the Son of God learns from the Father. This is
why I came to the conclusion that Jesus
is the desire of God to experience His creation, since God's
omniscience would be like watching a movie that He has seen an infinite
amount of times. This interpretation claims that Jesus is not omniscient.
This doesn't mean that He is at all ignorant with anything He knows about
creation - His figurative movie. It implies that Jesus doesn’t know
everything in order to experience it like watching the best movie for the
first time when all He's seen is the trailer. The trailer representing what
Jesus does know about the future.
This analogy gives a better
understanding of Jesus’ role, however it is incomplete; God wouldn’t get
bored of creation like we get bored of a movie. The idea that “Jesus is the
desire of God to experience His creation” doesn’t explain why. A simple
fact of the Bible is that all mankind has rejected God in some way. It
eventually got to the point where the people God chose specifically (the
Jews) became atheistic in their hearts, or in other words, they questioned
whether there really is a God like the one they are taught about. This has
been happening on and off within the Jews. Their stubborn nature leads them
to doubt the evidence God gave them simply because it didn’t happen to them
personally.
When God opened the door to
the gentiles, the same thing happened. It is in a sense a part of the human
condition. God doesn’t desire to experience His creation like we are
entertained by a movie; rather He desires it because of His creations
stubbornness. Humans insist on “a sign,” yet they quickly forget when God
actually gives them one. Jesus is the personification of God’s love in a
visible sign; this is the sense of God’s desire to experience. If man did
not sin, then we would need no visible sign to prove God’s existence. Yet
there is a deeper meaning behind “Jesus is the visible image of an
invisible God,” (Col 1:15) and “all things were created through Him” (John
1:3) than just a visible sign.
To further illustrate “God’s
desire to experience His creation,” think of the light in a copying
machine. As it scans, the left would be our past, and the right would be
our future. As the scanner scanned over a paper that represents creation,
it comes to life. God’s light is life
and life is existence. Jesus represents the light of the scanner and
God experiencing His creation. As Jesus scanned over God’s creation, it
came to life and experienced its existence with God.
Gen 1:2 says “the earth was
formless and empty; darkness was over its surface.” This is an illogical
description. If the earth had no form, was empty and dark, then it wasn’t
earth yet. It is illogical until it is looked at from the perspective of
Yahweh. Prior to Jesus scanning over creation to give it a beginning and
subsequent timeline, it would be dark, as in it wasn’t alive with light
yet. This is basically saying God knew it would be, but until the light Jesus
gave came across like the scanner that starts from the left of the paper,
earth would only exist in God’s omniscience. God sits outside the confines
of time just as the copying machine exist before it scans the paper. To the
Father, everything existed before it came to be. However, from our
perspective we couldn’t exist until Jesus gave us our timeline. Without a
timeline we would simply be God and there could be no evil. Without our
time, we could not be individuals. So any reference to an individual is a
reference to a temporal person, so Jesus is the temporal aspect of God and
His ability to experience time. Our existence depends on temporal nature.
Those who receive eternal
life will have their sins removed like they never existed. God wouldn’t have
known about the evil that has crept into creation unless we had a timeline
since it wouldn’t have existed. As I confuse further with clarification,
things that don’t exist represent things that God could not know. This may
sound like we have a free ride as sinners if we are destined to hell,
because at first glance hell appears to be non-existence. Only the forgiven
sinners can have their sins forgotten as if the sin never existed. The
gloomy reality is un-forgiven sinners have existed, so they will continue.
Or, they happened so they will have consequences. As long as God has a plan for us, we will be eternal.
Likewise, God’s plane for use doesn’t expire until He is done.
Just as we can’t say we
existed before our beginning, so to we can’t say Jesus was before our
timeline started because He is God experiencing creation. “before” is a
strictly temporal term, and Jesus is the temporal aspect of God. God is
unrestricted to time, so He is simply “I am” when asked when. The
references of Jesus as “firstborn” don’t mean He was created. It means His
beginning is our beginning in our created ability to understand. Jesus was
our beginning in the sense that the invisible God had no visible image to
be seen, until there was something to see Him. If light has nothing to
illuminate, or if there was no matter for light-to-light up, was it really
light? This question should intrigue people who are interested in science
since science believes that light has no particles or mass. Think of it
this way: if there were no mass, there would be no forces since forces are
influences on mass. (Keep in mind that God’s “light” is life and
existence). These concepts are the heart with the mystery of the trinity.
To contemplate God’s position outside time as He relates to temporal states
is inconceivable to a point for a finite mind. Jesus had both a beginning,
and an eternal state; “I Am He” (John 18:6).
PS. I’m not ignorant of
traditional Trinitarian theology. I understand it well. Traditional
theology states coequality of three individual persons, and specifies that
they are individual in role and function. While I understand that the term
"Persons" is a misleading term for the intended meaning,
co-equality is still both the contradiction and the fundamental concept of
the traditional trinity. Coequality means that you can replace one person
with the other, and would state the Father is Jesus and the Holy Spirit,
and vice versa. Trinitarian theology strongly opposes this, even though
they are blindly opposing there own understanding. Traditional Trinitarians
oppose modalism in support of their incomplete conception of coequality. It
should be the other way around to a degree. Modalism is the non-contradictive
concept, but it is currently quite invalid and hard for everyone to
understand. This is why I am writing this article. It’s an attempt to
explain a deep and involved concept. Even traditional Modalism has many
flaws, such as not applying co-eternality, and it doesn’t explain the
mention of three aspects of God with any rational clarity.
© 2004 Kai Napohaku
![Text Box: Ø Jesus and the Holy Spirit are unique because they have been parts of God from the beginning (John 1:1 Genesis 1:2). They are also unique since all their attributes are direct attributes of God.
Ø There is only one Spirit (John 4:24, Rom 8:9, 1 Cor 12:4)
Ø Jesus is “preparing a place for” us. Jesus forgives us on earth so the invisible Father will be able to accept those He saves. (Matt 6:14-15, 7:2, 9:6, John 14:3)
Ø In Rom 1:4 God raised Jesus from the dead by the Holy Spirit, and in John 2:19, Jesus said "I will raise this temple" referencing that He will resurrect Himself. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection" in John 11:25, and in John 11:43 Jesus commands "Lazarus, come forth" showing His authority.
Ø In John 11:42 Jesus said His Father always hears Him. When Jesus asked out loud why His Father has betrayed Him (Matt 27:46), it was because His Father no longer assured Jesus, indicating that every sin was on Jesus by then.
Ø The Father did Jesus’ miracles in conjunction. It isn’t possible for Jesus to do miracles without the Father since Jesus power without the Fathers omniscience would be like shooting a gun with no ammunition.
Ø Philippians 2:6 describe Jesus, as God in human form and that He understood his humble role - to save. John 1:1-14 suggests we can't define God without including Jesus.
Ø According to 2 Corinthians 8:9 and 1Timothy 3:16, Jesus is equal to God's veracity. (He is true/can't lie)
Ø Jesus, in John 10:30, reveals that He and His invisible Father are really two aspects of one God. For example: your visible skin and your invisible insides are really two aspects of your one body. The Father proved that Jesus is right in saying "I and the Father are one" by doing all the miracles through Jesus as John 10:38 states.
Ø Is it possible to define God without Jesus in John 14:1-14?
Ø John 12:45 was Jesus' way of saying He is the visible aspect of God, and the Father is the invisible aspect of God.
Ø Only Jesus, "the firstborn" (Revelation 1:5), has seen God (John 1:18) and He is the active ruling of God (Revelation 1:5, Isaiah 9:6).
Ø Jesus, "the visible image of an invisible God," is logically the best way for God to rule, since we exist as visible temporal beings (Hebrews 7:26). “Every created thing… [Worshiped Jesus]” (Rev 5:13). If Jesus were a created thing, this would be a contradictive scripture.
Ø We are made in God’s image (Gen 1:26). Looking at a person, you would see a visible side, but there would also be an invisible side. There is the backside and the person’s insides that are not visible. Mans image is visible and invisible. We also have an individual character (spirit), knowledge of past present and future, and the ability to rule. Our very mode of existence is in the image of God with: visible, invisible, spirit, knowledge, and power. Our individual spirit is a varied reflection of God’s one Holy Spirit. If everyone had the same type of character/spirit, we would have no need for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We would be equals of God and behave just as Jesus Christ would.
Ø To say Jesus is God, or the Holy Spirit is God isn’t accurate. Jesus isn’t the whole God; He is only the “Visible image of an invisible God” (Col 1:15), which is “the Son of God.” It’s more accurate to say they are aspects of God.
Ø In order to understand this temporally relative relationship, try to think with temporal logic. Prior to creation God wouldn’t have manifest His power. His presence would have no dimension to contain. So before anything, there would only be the Father. The Father would know of His power and presence like He knew of earth in Gen 1:2. But until He manifests it in time, it wouldn’t have existed (as If God could change). I realize this is difficult if not impossible to grasp, but this is why we can’t call Jesus or the Holy Spirit God. Saying so would be implying that God isn’t eternal (not necessarily intentional) since Jesus and the Holy Spirit are temporally relative.
Ø The disciples worshiped Jesus and Jesus didn't correct or rebuke them, revealing the truth of His deity (matt 14:33). When John fell down to worship the angel in revelations, the angel corrected Him
Ø Ignatius wrote to Polycarp in the year 105 bc: “Await the one who is above every season. The eternal, the invisible, the one who for our sake became visible, the untouched, the impassible, who for our sake suffered, who endured in every way for our sake.”](http://www.geocities.com/mixinman7/B5Trinity_files/image004.gif)
