The Spiritual Realm is Real and Active - The Roles of God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit

 

 I am going to attempt to share my understanding of how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit exist and interact with each other and us. The Bible does not specifically lay out the roles of each of these three persons of the being of God, and many, many people struggle with trying to wrap their minds around the notion of the Trinity, or the tri-une nature of God. To be clear, nowhere in the Bible will we see the use of the word "trinity", but it is a central aspect of the nature of God in Christian theology. 

There is a distinct possibility that in my attempt to explain the persons of God and their apparent roles as seen in Scripture, I will state some things that seem to be contrary to other things that I am stating. This is simply due to the fact that this is a very complicated and convoluted subject and that my own theories have to remain flexible and fluid so that, if I come across some information that dictates that I need to adjust my understanding of God, I have to do so, but I may not have yet had the time to consider all of the ramifications of that adjustment. So please, do not send me messages challenging what I am writing on the basis of contradictions; please just accept this as a work that is constantly in process. 

There are those who will argue against the fact of the existence of the tri-une God. But, there is one place in Scripture where we do see the three persons of the tri-une God in the same place at the same time, and this is at Jesus' baptism. In Luke 3:21-22 we read, "Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." So we have God the Son coming out of the water, God the Spirit descending on Him in the form of a dove, and God the Father proclaiming His pleasure on His Son. All three in one scene at one time, with the Father calling Jesus His Son. But that is where explaining the Trinity of God stops being easy.

In order to understand the tri-une nature of God, we need to scour the whole of Scripture and grab bits and pieces from all over and place them together like a puzzle. As we attempt to do this, we will inevitably separate the three persons of God, but we need to always remember that the three persons of God are all of the same being of God; that is, they all have the same goals and desires and they always work in unison and harmony. It is not unlike a couple that are in a healthy marriage situation; they have shared goals and morals and they will work together to reach those goals; the main difference is in the ability to communicate between the persons. There is plenty of opportunity for miscommunication between a husband and wife while there is no miscommunication between the three persons of God.

As I have already stated, the three persons of God are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Scripture supports the idea that there is a hierarchy among the persons of God, which makes sense especially with the first two persons; the Father and the Son. In fact, Jesus Himself informs us of the hierarchical system between Himself and His Father in John 14:28c where He states that, "the Father is greater than I." Just as we see among mankind, the father has authority over the son, though in the case of the Godhead, we are not to presume that this means that the Son was created by the Father, nor was the Spirit created by the Father or the Son; they have always been.

The Scriptures give us instances where we are told that God the Father and God the Son were together "in the beginning". John 1 starts off with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God." And who was "the Word"? Verse 14 tells us that; "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." So we know that "the Word" is a reference to Jesus, who was God and who became flesh, and we know from John that Jesus was in the beginning, with God, and that Jesus was God in the beginning. But in verse three, John goes on to tell us that "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." This gives a new understanding of creation when we consider that Jesus is the Word, and God 'spoke' the world into being, thus having created by the Word of His mouth and the person of the Son.

So if we take all of that information together, we see that Jesus was in the beginning, He was with God in the beginning, He was God in the beginning whom He was also with, and since Jesus is the One through whom "all things came into being, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being", then Jesus cannot be a created being, since He could not have created Himself. This also indirectly places Jesus in the creation story of Genesis 1:1-2 where we see the specific mention of God and His Spirit. Therefore, we see God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit are all in existence before the account of creation.

Further to these proofs, the Apostle Paul also asserts in his letter to the Colossians that "For by Him [Jesus] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him."(1:16) Paul tells us that all things in heaven and on earth were created by Jesus, including the spiritual forces, that being the angels, including those who would become the fallen angels. Later in Colossians, Paul also tells us that "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (KJV), further attesting to the deity of Jesus and His God nature.

Then there is the testimony of Jesus Himself in John 8:58, when the Jews were arguing with Jesus and He refers to their patriarch, Abraham, saying that, "before Abraham was born, I am.". Here He is equating Himself with God, not only by claiming that He pre-existed Abraham while also existing in the time in which He was speaking, but by using the same phrase that God used to identify Himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3; "God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’", Jesus is actually claiming His oneness with God. And one more place where Jesus explicitly tells the people that He is God is found in John 10:30, where He says "I and the Father are one."

Yet even though the Father and the Son are One, they have different roles to perform. It is my understanding that God never leaves His throne in Heaven. To do so would be to abdicate His role as the ruler of the universe. This is not strictly Scriptural; this is how I have separated the roles of the Father and the Son in my own mind. We have references, specifically in the Psalms, that speak of God on His throne as the ruler of all nations and that He is on His throne forever (Psalm 9:7, 47:8, 93:2, 120:12, 103:19). Because this is poetic language, it is not to be taken literally, but as I continue to fill in this picture, we will see that, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, there should be no reason for God the Father to have need to leave His throne. So in my understanding of spiritual issues, God the Father is always seated on the throne and He delegates His desires to Jesus, who acts to pursue the will of God and who instructs the Spirit towards the same.

This is in part the reason that Jesus was incarnated on earth to sacrifice Himself for us. In John 6:38, Jesus states this plainly when He tells the people, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." We see the same thing in creation, where the Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, yet later on we see the clarification that all things were created by and through Jesus, who was performing the will of His Father. This is the hierarchy and an example of the roles that each one plays. 

We also see that Jesus has a role to play through His own visitations on earth prior to His incarnation in the New Testament. I delve into this in more depth in my article Christophany - Christ Among Us Before He Came As Messiah, but some quick examples of this are when Abraham is hosting and talking with God in Genesis 18, when Hagar is met by "the angel of the Lord" in Genesis 16:7, when Jacob wrestles with an unnamed man in Genesis 32, who injures Jacob with a touch, changes his name and tells Jacob that he has wrestled with God, and many other such encounters throughout the Old Testament. It is also curious how the "angel of the Lord" never appears in the New Testament, after such time that Jesus walked the earth as the proclaimed Son of God. There could be several reasons for this, but I think that the main reason for this is that Jesus is now exalted to His throne and the Holy Spirit is now among us to minister to us in ways that Jesus did before His incarnation.

This is where one contradiction may be found. If Jesus is on His throne and no longer walks the earth, then how is it that many hundreds or thousands of Muslims are having visions of Him in the Middle East and are coming to accept Him as the Son of God and their Saviour? We can argue that since they are seeing visions of Him, that He has not actually left His throne, but we won't understand this fully this side of Heaven.

Now I want to point out one more apparent contradiction in my own thoughts to what I have written above. This contradiction is found in Exodus where Moses is with God on Mount Sinai. We are told in Exodus 33 and 34 that God allows Moses to see His back, and as a result of being exposed to the glory of God, Moses' face glowed for some time afterwards. I don't believe that this was a Christophany, or a physical manifestation of Jesus prior to His incarnation, since there is no mention of those who were in the presence of the "angel of the Lord" having a glowing countenance afterwards. That must mean that this was God the Father, on earth, having shown Moses his back. This is contrary to what I said that God does not leave His throne. I have not yet been able to align these things in my own mind, and I may never be able to. It is also possible that I have an error in my thinking which makes these two things unable to line up; but this is where I am at right now.

That just leaves the Holy Spirit's role left to be explained. As previously mentioned, we see the Spirit of God first mentioned in Genesis 1, but we don't really know His role in creation or even if He had one. If God the Father is the master-mind and Jesus is the facilitator, then maybe the Holy Spirit acts as the hands and feet of God through creation, much in the same way that He motivates us to be the hands and feet of Christ now? I suspect that the Spirit had some role in creation, but what that role is is purely speculation.

Beyond creation, we see the Holy Spirit fill other roles throughout the Scriptures. I think the first role is similar to what He does now, in that He draws men's hearts towards God. Prior to Jesus' incarnation, people sought relationship with God through the Law if they were Jews, but I have no doubt that God also called non-Jews to Him as well through other means, since they did not have the Law to point them to their fallen nature in the eyes of a loving God.

Another way that we see the Holy Spirit work in the Old Testament that is somewhat contrary to how He works in the New Testament is in His indwelling of people for a specific time and a specific purpose. In Numbers 27:18, we read that the Spirit had already indwelled Joshua prior to his being commissioned to replace Moses upon his death. Joshua had been Moses' assistant for years already at this time, and he had learned from Moses what it meant to have a relationship with God, though God had apparently not, as of yet, conversed directly with Joshua. We also see in 1 Samuel 10:10 that the Spirit comes upon Saul "mightily" after Samuel had anointed him as king and he came upon some prophets, as Samuel foretold. We see the same happen to David at the time of his anointing as the future king of Israel. In 1 Samuel 16:13 we read that "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward", indicating that the Spirit remained upon David and did not only come on for a short time for a specific purpose, as we will soon see He has also done. But before we leave Saul and David, note in 1 Samuel 16:14, just after David is anointed and the Spirit comes upon him, we also read that "the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul". It appears that the Spirit would come upon those whom God appointed to lead, but would not be on more than one leader at a time.

One other way that the Spirit worked in the Old Testament was to come upon people "with power" for a short time in order to achieve a specific purpose, and again it appears that He comes upon those who were called upon to lead the people of Israel. This was quite evident during the times of the judges of Israel, before God allowed them a king. In the book of Judges we read of the Holy Spirit coming on the following men in order to empower them to accomplish mighty works according to the will of God; Othniel (Judges 3:9-10), Gideon (Judges 6:34), Jephthah (Judges 11:29), and Samson (beginning in Judges 13:25; 14:6,19; 15:14). Without actually looking up and listing them, it is also arguable that the Spirit came upon the prophets when they delivered their words from the Lord that are recorded in the Bible, and some, in fact do claim that the Spirit came upon them before they prophesied.

But I think that the ultimate purpose of the Holy Spirit is that which believers can experience now, living under the new covenant. In Ezekiel 36:26-27 we read of God's promise to those who love Him; "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances". We see the fulfillment of these words around 600 years later, as we read in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room. This was the first instance of what is to be one of the main purposes of the Holy Spirit from that point until He is removed from the earth.

The purpose of this 'permanent' indwelling is for Him to teach us and remind us of all the things that Jesus has said to us. In John 14:15-17 & 26, Jesus tells His disciples about the One that He will send to them after He has returned to His Father. He says, "If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you";  "26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." 

The Holy Spirit is our advocate, which is our representative. The French use the word 'avocat' to mean a lawyer, as one that will represent you in the presence of a judge; what a suitable title for the Holy Spirit, since He will intervene for us with God the Father, to bring our prayers to Him and to bring God's response back to us. This is the still, small voice that you sense if you quiet yourself before God and seek His will. He will also bring Scripture verses to mind when we need them, either for correction or encouragement or enlightenment. He will also remind us of the rhema words of God that He speaks to our hearts. So the Holy Spirit is subject to the will of the Father in the same way that Jesus is, and His role is to remind us of what Jesus has told us. This seems to indicate that the Holy Spirit is subject to both the Father and the Son, completing the hierarchical layout of the Trinity.

Another role of the Holy Spirit seems to be to act as a restrainer against the darkness in this world in the form of the "man of darkness". This is gleaned from 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 where we read, "And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way." The 'man of darkness' is the anti-christ, but he cannot act until God allows it, and it is not the church that keeps him at bay, but rather the Holy Spirit Himself.

So we see that the Bible speaks of the nature of the tri-une God without ever referring to them as the Trinity; we see that there is a hierarchy to the Trinity and that each has their specific roles within it; we see that each ones' role is vitally important to the functioning of the Godhead and we see that, as in everything else, God loves order and not chaos. Chaos comes into the mix when the dark forces act in the world; that is where they operate most efficiently.

Again, please continue to pray for me as I strive to determine how much and what to say about this topic. This article took me a long time to compile, and this focused on the good and righteous side of the spiritual realm. I need to be doubly careful if I write about the evil side of things, so your prayers are coveted.

As always, please let me know what you think in the comments section below or send me an email, for which you can find a link on my profile page. Also visit my home page to see if there are any other articles that might interest you.

You can find the next article in this series by clicking here.