MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
September 18, 2024
Third Person of the Godhead Series – Part 28
LOVE: THE ‘FIRST FRUIT’ OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
“God is love.” 1 John 4:8-16.
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is ONE LORD. And thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with ALL thine heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy might [or strength].” Deut. 6: 4, 5. (Compare to Mark 12: 28-34; Luke 10: 25-28).
To be sure, there is only one God—the Creator and the Redeemer. All others who claim and pretend to be (or are made to be so by idolaters of all stripes, such as the sun, moon, stars, and animals, etc.) beginning with Satan “the enemy of God and man,” their master, are false gods.
The fulness of God Almighty the Eternal One, is beyond ken of His intelligent creatures; much less of fallen, sinful, finite mortals. But according to His own Word, omniscience, love, and “enduring mercy,” He chose to reveal His fulness in and through the GODHEAD made of three Persons. “For there are THREE that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost (Spirit): and these Three are ONE.” 1 John 5:7, A.V.
The Word is first and foremost, Christ, Jehovah the Creator (John 1:1-3, 14) and then, Redeemer through His mysterious incarnation, atoning sacrifice in His death by crucifixion, victorious resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father in His glorious, white throne in heaven. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. . .” John 1: 1-3. Then the Word is both “the written and the spoken word by and through the power of the Holy Spirit: “It is written”; “Thus saith the Lord.” “To the law and the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word it is because there is NO light [of truth] in them.” (Isa. 8:20).
The God of love is the “Lord our righteousness” Jeremiah 23:6. Thus, God’s “Righteousness is LOVE, and love is the LIGHT and LIFE of God.” (E. G. White, Sons and Daughters, p. 304).
John was the youngest of the first Twelve when they were “called from their nets” by Jesus. He was drawn to and personally stayed closer to Christ than the eleven. Thus he was called even to this day as “John the beloved,” i. e.. of Jesus. Among the four synoptic gospels, John presents the most sublime aspect of the same gospel recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
It is in John’s gospel where we read a concentration of Christ’s pre and post crucifixion promises of the coming of, person, presence, office work, and efficiency of the Holy Spirit, His appointed Successor and vicegerent on earth after His ascension—the third Person of the Godhead “but devoid of the personality of humanity and independent thereof.”
In solemn biblical fact and spiritual truth, the Holy Sprit is “the fulness Godhead”—not “bodily” as Christ alone, “the “only begotten Son of God,”
incarnated into “the likeness of sinful flesh” in “the great mystery of godliness which is beyond any controversy” and thus gain the new identity and unique relationship to the Father. In both Sonships, Jesus repeatedly declared to the Pharisees and the Jewish nation in His time, “I and My Father are one.”
John wrote in language that even a child and the unlearned can understand regarding the love of the Father in Christ for Christ, His only-begotten Son and their undeserved love for fallen men.
John 3:16 is a keystone verse of this glorious truth of God, and the Godhead’s love underwriting the “counsel of peace” entered into by the Godhead “before the foundations of the earth were laid,” where and when the plan of redemption was contemplated and devised in the event man would fall, and did fall.
For beginners, we’ll just quote “what is written” from the “little John’s.”
“Behold, what manner of LOVE the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the WORLD knoweth us not, because it knew Him NOT.” 1 John 3:1.
“My little children, let us NOT LOVE in word, neither in tongue but in DEED and in TRUTH.” 1 John 3:18.
“The Lord our Righteousness.” Jer. 23:6.
“Fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Col. 2:9, 10; 1: 19, 16-18.
“In the likeness of sinful flesh.” Rom. 8:3.
“Beloved, let us LOVE ONE ANOTHER: for LOVE IS OF GOD and everyone the loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the LOVE OF GOD TOWARD US, because that God sent His only-begotten Son INTO the world, that WE MIGHT LIVE THROUGH HIM. Herein is love, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation [atoning sacrifice in His substitutionary death] for our sins.” 1 John 4: 7-10, KJV.Likewise, beloved brethren in Christ, as you pray daily, “ask, seek, and knock” for the Holy Spirit” for it is only by and through Him that we can “bear the fruit of the LOVE OF CHRIST for undeserving sinners like us, and His perfect ENMITY (righteous indignation and hatred) towards SIN (transgression of His law) for it SEPARATES (Isa. 59: 2) the omnipotent Creator from His creatures, the loving Redeemer from all who are deceived, mesmerized, enamored, and enslaved to sin and Satan “the father of lies and murderer from the beginning.”
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.