TYMK - Making himself known
Six testimonies
- 1Jo 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
- 1Jo 5:8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. [1]
John is not giving new revelation with this teaching. He is making a commentary on the Old Testament using the method of interpretation that Jesus taught. [2] Unlike any other language, Hebrew words derive their meaning from the combined meaning of the letters.
John is demonstrating his knowledge of the letter-metaphor in the word for 'heaven' and the word for 'earth'. [3] [4]
John is using the metaphor of each of the consonants in each word; heaven שמים and earth ארץ, as they are used in Genesis 1.
John is also demonstrating the metaphor of the number two. From Ge 1:1 it is discerned that there is only one creation, yet it has two parts; heaven and earth. This is not a moral duality which would have good and evil to be equal opposites. Nor is it a mitigated dualism where one of the gods is inferior, but always opposing. It is not a Gnostic dualism of a spirit trapped in a body. And it is not a Hindu dualism where the spiritual is a completely separate universe from the material.
The Holy God
The first expression of Biblical dualism is that God is Holy; he is separate, he is different.
John has declared that no man has seen God [5] Not only has he not seen him, but he cannot see him. This teaching comes from the hidden. God is to men, like water is to the fish, and air is to the bird. The fish cannot see the water; if they could, they could see nothing else. The birds cannot see the air; if they could, they could see nothing else. We are immersed in God!
Some mock the idea that God is so big that he fills the universe. God doesn't fill the universe. God is bigger than the universe! [6] When God separated heavenly stuff from earthly stuff; the stuff the universe is made of, the earthly stuff was a void within God. [7] Christians have the idea that God took absolutely nothing, and changed it's nature to be something, then organized the something into stuff.
The picture painted by Genesis is that in the beginning there was only God. He was all that there was. There was no place to put a universe, so he opened a void in himself. He then made stuff from the immaterial void. The universe is still void. He formed stuff from the holes within himself. We are immersed in him.
- Ac 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
We are immersed in God like fish in water and birds in air. We cannot and never will be able to see him. He is Holy, separate, and different. He must make himself known in some way. There are three testimonies in heaven.
The incarnate God
In order to be understood, God had to take a form from the same material as the universe. That form is the exact representation of the essence of God. [8] He took on the form of the earth 'erets' ארץ. The word 'earth' not only means 'land, earth, ground, etc.' but also means 'the inhabitants of the earth'. [9]
And in that form gave three testimonies on earth.
Next: TMYK - Three in heaven - The Spirit
References
- ↑ We are aware that modern experts claim that the verse quoted above should not be in the Bible. Is it a fact? or is it their belief? If it is just their belief, and cannot be proven or falsified using their hermeneutics; if all they can do is banter and argue, why should we get involved? It is just a distraction. If they are not the word of God, it will be simple enough to know when we learn to read and recognize the word of God. We will not need church councils to canonize scripture for us.
- ↑ This assertion will be demonstrated as the methods for interpreting sensus plenior are shown to be used and taught by Jesus.
- ↑ There are 28 letter in the Hebrew alphabet, each deriving it's metaphoric meaning from the strokes within it. Everything that can be said or thought can be expressed by combining the strokes into letters and the letters into words. Considering that God spoke creation into existence, they are also the key to understanding all.
- ↑ Yes. I know your seminary professors will tell you that there are only 22 letters in the alphabet. That's part of the reason they cannot read the OT the way Jesus and the NT authors did.
- ↑ Joh 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].
- ↑ 1Ki 8:27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?
- ↑ Ge 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
- ↑ Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person [hypostasis, essential nature], 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;
- ↑ Php 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
