More Word to the World

The Godhead

What is meant by the word “Godhead” (used in the Bible three times: Acts 17:29, Rom 1:20, Col 2:9)? The state of being God, divinity. From Colossians 2:9 we see that center of the power of God is located in Jesus Christ.

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. KJV
Col 2:9 For in Christ there is all of God in a human body; TLB

This is an easy way to understand the Godhead: God’s spirit that dwells everywhere in the universe at the same time has His power centrally located and administered in and through Jesus Christ. He can be God in heaven and God on earth at the same time. He can listen to every person praying or worshipping anywhere on earth at the same time.

A good example of this picture is seen in the baptism of Jesus. God’s voice was heard from heaven while Jesus was being baptized and the Spirit of God was descending like a dove. (Matt 3:16-17) God was operating in three places at the same time. Although Jesus was God in the water being baptized, He had not ceased to exist as God that always inhabited the entire universe as an invisible spirit.

For humans to look at that picture and to say that God must be three distinct persons or three separate personalities in order to have three simultaneous appearances puts severe restrictions on how we define God and limits His existence to weak human terms of understanding. For instance, God can show up in 100,000 places at the same time in whatever manner He chooses. Does that mean that for God to accomplish that, that He must exist in 100,000 distinct persons? No.

When reading Bible verses that present different manifestations of God, whether visual or audio, we must keep in mind the verse in the Bible that Jesus considered the most important scripture:

Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

More evidence of One: The flesh/image of God

Jesus was the flesh of God. He was the invisible One taking on a visible image:

Col 1:15 [Jesus Christ] Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

God had no other image and in the second commandment (Ex 20:4) He forbid people from making a image of him.

What about three persons? Not one scripture ever declares that God exists in three persons, but 48 times makes reference to the Holy One. Such as:

Isaiah 54:5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

Only one passage uses the word “three” in relation to God and has to do with how God “bears record” in heaven.

1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

“Bear record” comes from one Greek word that most often is translated “witness” or “testify.” Being the only verse that directly refers to three, it is important to note that it does not say is that God is a three-part God, but that God testified in three forms, manifestations or modes of appearance. That does not make God a trinity of persons any more that me being a father, me speaking words, and me having a spirit, makes me three persons. We already noted in the last study lesson how that when Jesus came to earth, He was begotten as the “express image of his person,” meaning the visual expression (body) of the invisible person (God) not the introduction of another person. And the conclusion of 1 John 5:7 is that “these three [manifestations] are one [person].”

A mystery of the ages revealed

The scripture calls this a mystery, meaning that it was a previously unknown fact. Not that it is unknowable, but that it was unknown in the old days but is now revealed in the last days.

1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Jesus Christ was always the one and only true God from the beginning, but was manifest, revealed or made known to people after His birth in Bethlehem . That is the meaning of the “begotten son” as in:

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son , which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

“Declare” means, unfold, to make apparent. The hidden mystery of godliness was unfolded and revealed in Jesus. The Apostle Peter was close to Jesus and he eventually understood this mystery:

1 Peter 1:19-20
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

God’s decision to come to the earth in human flesh was preplanned from before the world was created, but took place during Peter’s day. In these last times, Jesus, the invisible God of eternity, took on a body, an act called the “incarnation”, and in His flesh He was called the Son of God.

The writer of Hebrews made a revealing statement about the incarnation:

Hebrews 1:1-3
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Jesus, “the Son”, was not another person, like a second person of God; He was the image of the one person, God. Jesus was “the express image of his person,” which means “representation or stamp of his essence or substance.” This scripture clearly reveals that Jesus was not another person in the Godhead, but the visible image or stamp of the only divine person that exists.

Jesus is the Father

What do we do with Jesus’ claims that He was the Father? We find a reference to this unique relationship foretold in:

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The child, the son, is the mighty God and everlasting Father. He does not identify Himself as an eternal second person but as the First and Last. Examine how Jesus explained this unique relationship:

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

He further explained it in this way:

John 10:38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

It was a unique idea for them to consider—that God could actually be seen in a fleshly, human form. How could a man see the Father? Even His own disciples who spent much time with Him and knew Him better than any other, needed an extra explanation:

John 14:7-9
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

With the claim of Jesus that God was His father, and then adding that they had seen the Father, He was revealing something altogether different than a second person next to His Father. Jesus answer to the statement, “Show us the Father,” was, “Here I am.” Jesus claimed that the invisible Father and LORD was He Himself. Although God lived on earth in a human body for 33 years, He also continued to live everywhere in the universe as a Spirit as He always had.

Bowing to Jehovah or Jesus?

Through Isaiah, Jehovah of the Old Testament said, “Unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”

Isaiah 45:23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Paul applied that scripture to Jesus as though Jesus and the Old Testament Jehovah were the same person:

Philippians 2:10-11
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

To avoid any misunderstanding or apparent contradiction with those two verses, Paul quoted Isaiah 45:23 and directly applied it to Jesus:

Romans 14:10-11
10 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

It is clear then that the scriptures teach that when you bow your knees before God, you are bowing to Jesus.

Scriptures claim that Jesus=Old Testament LORD

John the Baptist prepared the way of the LORD

We have seen several scriptures that affirm that Jesus and the Father were not two but one, and will look at some other examples of that. When you see the word “LORD” in all caps in the Old Testament, it is a translation of the word used for the name of God, Yahweh or Jehovah.

Isaiah foretold of a man to come in the wilderness who would prepare the way of the LORD on earth.

Isaiah 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

According to Jesus, John the Baptist was the one who fulfilled that prophecy.

Matthew 11:10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

Since John was the one preparing the way for the LORD, who was that LORD he prepared the way for? Jesus. In John 1:30, John the Baptist identified Jesus as the one: “This is he”. Isaiah told us that this person would prepare the way for Jehovah—and in walked Jesus Christ—the “LORD” of the Old Testament.

Visible God

In John 14:6-9, Jesus identified himself as the only way to the Father because He was the Father and the only visible image of the Father.

John 14:6-9
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Jesus also claimed total oneness with God in

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

The orthodox religious leaders understood His claim and again took up stones to kill Him because “thou makest thyself God.”

John 10:31-33
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

Since Jesus taught that He was God in flesh, He created enemies of the strict monotheistic Jews.

I am

Jesus’ enemies had a problem with Him because He claimed equality with God. But did Jesus ever make such claims about Himself?

In Exodus 3:14, God told Moses His name was “I AM” meaning the always existing, self-existent One with no beginning and no creator who created Him. The Jews highly reverenced and respect that name. In John 8:58, Jesus angered His listeners by identifying Himself as that “I AM”.

John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

They understood the significance of His claim to deity and sought to stone Him.

John 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Jesus made it clear that He identified Himself as the “I Am,” making Himself the singular God of the Old Testament, not another.

Summary of the past 8 lessons and moving ahead with more…

The teaching that God is one was what the Jews believed. Moses, the one who spoke with God on the mountain, believed in one God who existed as one. The notion of God being a divided, multi-part deity is a doctrine that is not developed in the scriptures. He is the only God. He is the only Savior. He is the only Creator. The apostle Paul and Jude the brother of Jesus both wrote letters about Jesus and included this phrase about Him: “the only wise God.”

To sum up the past few lessons in one sentence: There is one God and God is one and His name is Jesus.

To further explore that summary, let us look at why Jesus presented a problem to the Jewish people He came to.

Equality with God

Jesus made the claim to be equal to God—this is the Apostle Paul’s description of that:

Phil 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

It was not robbery—Jesus did not steal the position of being equal with God—that is who He was and is. By listening to the enemies of Jesus, we find further evidence of that same claim of Jesus to be equal with God raised strong disagreement from the strongly monotheistic Jews. The commandments didn’t allow worship of any other with claim to be God. The monotheistic Jews believed that their God was an invisible Spirit who filled the heavens.

In addition, they rejected the idea that Jesus was a fulfillment of the messiah scriptures. Their religious leaders knew the scriptures well enough to feel pretty certain that they had found the key to eternal life in them. But Jesus challenged them to carefully search the scriptures because if they would, they would find Him in there:

John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

They saw Jesus simply as the neighbor boy who grew up in the home of Joseph the carpenter along with the rest of the neighborhood kids.

Mark 6:2-3
2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
3 Is not this the carpenter , the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

Their problem was that they saw His humanity and could not accept His claim of deity. When Jesus made claims making Himself equal with God, that came as an attack against their religious upbringing.

John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Is there any like God?

Let’s consider one more question that could be asked about the existence of other gods. We discovered that there were no gods around before God; none came along after God; there was no other savior but God; and no other creator but God. God who is called by the name, Jesus Christ, is the only God.

Here is the question: Could there not possibly exist somewhere out there, another being, maybe not another god, but perhaps something or someone like god? Does God’s Word leave room for the existance of the existance of others perhaps like the gods of the Greeks, Romans, or Hindus, or Buddhists, Muslims? There is not even a god-like being out there according to God:

Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

God said there is not even another like Him out there. Even the devil, who as Lucifer once dwelt in heaven, knows of the one God:

James 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Why would he tremble at that fact? Luke 10:18 reveals that Jesus watched the devil fall from heaven, and Rev 12:8-9 reveals that satan was cast out of heaven after warring with the angel Michael. The devil is still trembling at that one God in heaven, Jesus, who was responsible for his ultimate eviction from heaven.

No, there is not even another god-like being out there. There is but one true God, Jesus Christ!