There is but One God, by Whom and out of
Whom all things have been created, and in Whose immensity-filling Spirit
all things subsist; that He Who is thus the Father of All dwells in
unapproachable light, styled in the Scriptures, "heaven, his dwelling
place." He and the Spirit are one, but only in the sense in which the
sun in the heavens and the light of day are one. Jesus is His
manifestation by the Spirit. (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 45:5; Mark
12:29; John 17:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:5; 1 Tim 6:15-16; 1 Kgs 8:30,
34, 39; Matt. 6:9)
The Spirit is not a personal God distinct from the
Father, but the radiant invisible power or energy of the Father,
filling universal space and forming the medium of His omniscient
perceptions and the instrument of His omnipotent behests, whether in
creation or inspiration; the distinction between the Father and the Spirit
being, not that they are two persons, but that the Father is Spirit in
focus so intense as to be glowing substance inconceivable, and the Spirit,
the Father's power, in space-filling diffusion, forming with the Father, a
unity in the stupendous scheme of creation, which is in revolution around
the Supreme Source of all Power. (Gen. 1:2; Pss 139:2-12; Job
33:4; Job 26:13; Pss 104:30; Judges 14:6; Num. 27:18; Neh. 9:30; 2 Pet.
1:21)
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God in
official manifestation. This is a mode of description almost peculiar to
the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is the same Spirit mentioned in the
testimonies quoted from the Old Testament, but styled Holy Spirit by way of
distinction from Spirit in its free, spontaneous, universal form in nature.
It is the same Spirit, gathered up, as it were under the focalizing power
of the divine will, for the bestowal of divine gifts and the accomplishment
of divine results. (Luke 1:35; Acts 10:38; John 14:26; Matt.
3:11; Acts 1:5-8; Acts 2:2-4; Acts 11:15-16; Acts 8:17-19)
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is not the
"second person" of an eternal Trinity, but the manifestation of the One
Eternal Creator, who is "above and through all" (Eph. 4:6), and
"out of whom are all things" (Rom. 11:36). This Creator is Spirit,
dwelling corporeally and personally in heaven, yet, in His Spirit effluence
filling immensity. By this Spirit-effluence, He begot Jesus, who was
therefore His Son: by the same power He anointed him and dwelt in him, and
spoke to Israel through him (Heb. 1:1). Jesus Christ, therefore, in the
days of his weakness, had two sides, one Deity, the other Man; but not as
construed by Trinitarianism, which makes Jesus the Son Incarnate. The man
was the son, whose existence dates from the birth of Jesus; the Deity
dwelling in him was the Father, who, without beginning of days, is
eternally pre-existent. There were not two or three eternal persons before
"the man Christ Jesus," but only One God the Father, whose relation
to the Son was afterwards exemplified in the event related by (Luke 1:35),
by which was established what Paul styles the mystery of godliness:"
"God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
glory" (1 Tim. 3:16). (Luke 1:35; Matt.1:20; Isa. 9:6;
Matt. 3:16-17; Luke 4:18; John 3:34-35; John 7:16; John 14:10; Matt. 19:17;
John 14:28; Mark 15:34; Acts 2:22; Acts 10:38)
Jesus was of our nature, notwithstanding the
mode of his conception and his anointing with the Holy Spirit. He was
raised up as a second Adam (constituted of flesh and blood as we are, and
tempted in all points like unto us, yet without sin), to remove (by his
obedience, death and resurrection) the evil consequences resulting from the
disobedience of the first Adam. (1 Tim. 2:5; Rom. 8:3; Heb.
2:14; Gal. 4:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Cor. 15:21, 45; Rom. 5:15, 19; Heb. 5:7-8;
Heb. 2:17; Heb. 4:15)
The Death of Christ was not to appease the
wrath of offended Deity, but to express the love of the Father in a
necessary sacrifice for sin that the law of sin and death which came into
force by the first Adam might be nullified in the second in a full
discharge of its claims through a temporary surrender to its power; after
which immortality by resurrection might be acquired, in harmony with the
law of obedience. Thus sin is taken away, and righteousness established.
(John 3:16; John 1:29; Acts 10:43; Acts 4:12; Rom. 3:25; Heb.
9:26; Gal. 1:4; Titus 2:14; 2 Cor. 5:21)
God raised Jesus from the dead and exalted
him to a glorified, incorruptible, immortal (because spiritual) state of
existence, in which he at the present time acts as priestly mediator
between the Father and those who come unto God by him. (Acts 2:24; Acts 5:30; Acts 10:40; Acts 17:31; Rom 1:3-4; 2 Cor.
13:4; Rom. 6:9; Acts 3:13; Eph. 1:20-21; Heb. 3:1; Heb. 4:14-15; Heb
8:1)