Understanding God - 4

Fellow partakers of God's grace,

With love and prayers, we send you another instalment of our messages. We pray, as usual, that the Lord will breathe upon His words and use them to fulfil His purposes.

Beloved of God,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus. We are sending you the fourth instalment of our series on "Understanding God". We hope that, by now, a picture of what God wants to convey is forming in our hearts, minds and, ultimately, our spirits. May God grant us understanding in Jesus Name. Amen.

UNDERSTANDING GOD 4

In our previous studies, we explored introductory matters, considered the difficulties that go with introducing God to men, encouraged us to embrace the fear of the Lord and learn His ways. Finally, we highlighted the attributes of God and pointed out the lessons that may be learnt thereby. In today's study, we are focusing on "The Godhead."
The Godhead
The word “Godhead” implies, among other things, a plurality of Persons (or a group of Persons). This will not come as a surprise to most of us. In the first place, you will discover that, within the Old Testament Scriptures, the most frequently used or name for God is “Elohim”, which carries with it the idea of different Persons in one God. In fact, the first five chapters of Genesis do not ascribe any other name to Him than “Elohim”. This is quite consistent with some expressions found in the Old Testament Scriptures. Examples are: “Let us make man in Our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26); “Behold, the man is become as one of Us” (Gen. 3:22); “Let Us go down, and there confound their language” (Gen. 11:7) and “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” (Isa. 6:8).

Secondly, the word “Godhead” appears thrice in the King James translation of the Bible (and only in the New Testament). Even though this does not appear so in every translation of the Bible, the original Greek words (in those passages) convey the same meaning. In the first passage (in which the word appears), Paul tackles the corrupt understanding that the men of Athens had of God: “We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device” (Ac. 17:29). In the second passage, we learn that the Godhead has been revealed, so much so that, even at the level of nature, the Godhead is manifest: “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20). In the third passage, we learn that the Godhead is revealed through Christ: “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9).

The Bible teaches that the Godhead consists of three Persons: the Father, the Word (or the Son) and the Holy Spirit. In other words, there are three Persons in one God; not three Gods existing as one, but one God manifesting in three Persons (see Prov. 30:4, Psa. 139:7, Matt. 3:16-17, 28:19, Jn. 15:26, 16:13-15, Rev. 1:4-5). The three are one, not just in the general sense of agreement, but also in essence. This is confirmed by the very words of Jesus: “I and My Father are one” (Jn.10:30) The same can be said of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and of the Father and the Holy Spirit, seeing that they have one image, one likeness, one understanding and the same attributes (see Gen.1:26, Jn. 14:9, Heb. 1:2-3, Rom. 8:27, 1 Cor. 2:10-11,Phil.1:19).

In addition, there is an equality of Persons within the ranks of the Godhead. No doubt, there are individual roles, but there is a basic equality that must not be overlooked. For instance, the Bible teaches that the Son, in order to save us, relinquished His equality with the Father and became a man (see Phil. 2:6-7, Jn. 1:1-3, 14). And, as He completed His work on the earth, He began to seek a restoration: “And now, O Father, glorify Me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was (Jn. 17:5). The Son’s share of that glory is in no way smaller than the Father’s; neither is the Holy Spirit’s share smaller than that of the Father or that of the Son (see Heb. 1:2-3, 1 Pet.4:14). However, when we consider the specific role played by each in revealing that glory, we cannot but see a diversity. This prepares us to consider the distribution of roles within the Godhead.