Further discussions about Jehovah and Jesus – Part 2

This is a vast subject.

Consider this, born in a primitive time in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, more than two thousand years ago. Yet our very calendar is based around his mortal advent. Much has changed in the world since then, yet has it changed? Each man and woman are born, live about seventy years then die. Much time is spent by each individual learning, loving, working, teaching and then dying.

Knowledge is recorded for future generations as man struggles to better the specie as a whole, natural parts of the character of man are selfishness which cause conflict and damage the progress of man. Yet something from within each of us seek more than this finite planet can offer, the hunger of the soul is not easily understood and misdirection wastes the precious resource of limited time. Time cannot be bargained with or ignored, it is inexorable in its march onward.

Many bravely say that at death it is all over. We cease to exist in this marvellous accident of life. This means that anything goes in life, or should. Morality is irrelevant and stupid. Strength should rule and self-absorption is all that one should focus on. Yet mankind as a whole seeks more, to me this is incontestable. To fob it off as foolish superstition of the masses is just too easy.

Yet in this “modern” world most of the planet seek to worship. Why? Is there something within each soul that reaches to the infinite? Christianity is a vast force where many millions worship an obscure man who spent most of his life walking around on dusty roads and preaching to the humble and poor. He got thirsty, he got tired and he had to eat. At the end of his life most of his nation ignored his message and virulent religious clergy thirsted for his blood and celebrated his cruel death.

His disciples, insignificant, untutored by the knowledgeable scholars of the time, taught with inspired zeal that He, Jesus, had risen from the dead and that His message, the Gospel, was there for all men to follow to gain great rewards in an afterlife. These disciples were courageous and most died in the most distressing circumstances without renouncing their testimonies of Jesus Christ.

Many people of the day caught the vision and changed their lives. The Jew who claimed to be the Son of God, was now the focus of their lives. The testimonies of disciples who lived in His day have been collected into a single volume we call the Bible. When this book became available to the common man in the Middle Ages, a revolution of reading and upliftment occurred, much to the displeasure of an oppressive ruling clergy. The serf was now able to read, think and aspire.

So we have this Jesus, a man.
Yet He was more, so much more, He was the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father. He came to earth to be a Pattern for men to follow. He started mortality as a helpless babe, just as we were and yet many will be. He learned and grew from grace to grace. Over time he learned who he was and his awful destiny, yet if he could succeed, the unsought for glory would be his. Mankind would be freed from the two deaths, physical and spiritual. Both gifts for mankind, one free for all and the other gift to be achieved in a partnership of effort with the One, the Son of God.

To know this remarkable being is a worthy aspiration.

In my previous article we looked at the meeting between Christ and Mary after his resurrection. In John chapter 20 verse 17, there is one more thing I need to point out. When he speaks of the Father, he says “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”

I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. Jesus as a divine being, a God, shares with us God as our father and as our God. Yet He separates himself from mortals, such as represented by Mary. The Son and the Father are part of the Godhead, we are not part of that Godhead. Jesus is a Son, just as we are spirit children of the Father, yet he is much more than we, he is a God.

Yet when I was a young man I was puzzled by this, because the Ten Commandments are clear when speaking about God. (see Exodus chapter 20)

1 And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

God is referred to in the singular. He regards worship as His sovereign right and will permit nothing else to come between man and Himself. So if we have the Godhead consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We can see in scripture that the Son worships the Father and prays to the Father, the Son teaches us to do the same. So we know that we must follow the example of the Son and worship the Father. One time as demonstrated in Mark, chapter 10, we see the following.
17 ¶ And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Jesus teaches the man that all glory needs to be deferred to God the Father. It is appropriate to worship the Son in a life of devoted service and adoration, but worship for the purpose of salvation and also the purpose of obediently following the Son requires our full hearted worship and prayer to the Father alone. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught his followers to pray to the Father, not to Jesus. This conduct is pleasing to Jesus, who also spent his whole ministry teaching of the Father and His purposes for the salvation of man. The Father directed the Son in his awful mission of Atonement and Crucifixion to save his children and allow them to be lifted back into His presence.

The close disciples of Jesus after being in his presence after much teaching of the Father, they desired to see the Father (see verses 6 through 10). Yet the answer of Jesus teaches them that if they have seen Him they have seen the Father. How can that be? We are also told that the Father is in the Son. This seems to contradict verse 12, where once again they are told that the Son must still go to the Father? The teaching mechanisms employed here make it difficult for us in our modern day to easily understand this passage.

I believe several things can be revealed here. The most important idea being conveyed is that the Son is so aligned with the will of the Father, that the very spirit of his conduct perfectly mimics that of his Fathers desires. He is the Word of the Father!

John chapter 14
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
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?
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15 ¶ If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

There is another personal, intimate detail that we can glean from Pauls opening words in the Book of Hebrews.
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;
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Look at verse 3 above, it says in the middle part of the verse “and the EXPRESS image of his person”. Paul is actually saying that Christ is in the express image of his Father. This means that their features are the same! The Son looks exactly like His Father. This teaches us a marvelous thing about Paul, how could he know this? Is it possible that Paul saw both the Father and the Son?

The scripture certainly seems to intimate it.

My next article will finally get to seeing how Jehovah and Jesus are the same being.