A Logical Concept

by Rick Campione

The Power of God

Is it much of a stretch to believe that there is a “Supreme Being”? Even if you embrace “the big-bang theory”, some entity of supremeness would to have at least lit the fuse… Is it possible then that this “Supreme Being” could at some point manifest Himself in the likeness of what He would be responsible for creating? Could this Being craft and develop a specific domain of existence for His creation to dwell on? Is any of this in the realm of possibility?

The Presence of God

I’d like to take an opportunity to tell of our great God; known as The One, True and Living God, The God of Israel. As “THE Godhead”, He has revealed Himself to humanity as He has existed, exists now and will forever exist in the form of three distinct personalities, three distinct offices, that are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not impersonal entities. God possesses personhood and from eternity past has lived in personal relationship with Himself. God lives in relationship with Himself because God exhibits qualities of distinct “personhood” within each member of The Godhead (i.e., will, emotion, intellect, moral character, etc.). Each member of the Godhead (also commonly referred to as the Trinity or Tri-unity) can refer to Himself as “I” and can communicate to another member of the Godhead as “You.” Though the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, they are distinct enough to love one another, to give to one another, to communicate to one another, to live for one another, and to indwell one another.

God is not three roles played by one person (that is modalism), nor is He three gods in a cluster (that is tritheism); but the One God (“He”) is also, and equally, “They,” and “They” are always together and always cooperating, with the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both, which is His will also. This truth about God is revealed throughout the Old and New Testament writings, but plainly discussed in many, many New Testament verses. In fact, God reveals this part of His nature in other ways throughout creation as well as those physical-scientific principles of which exist today including things like:

Space consists of length, width, and height—three in one. If you were to take away any of these dimensions, you would no longer have space.
Time consists of past, present, and future—three in one. If you were to take away any of these aspects, you would no longer have time.
Matter consists of energy, in motion, producing phenomena—three in one. If there were no energy there could be no motion or phenomena. If there were no motion, there would be no energy or phenomena. If there were no phenomena, it would be because there was no energy or motion.

It is my belief that is why many unbelievers and secularists get so annoyed or even angered when they hear the name of Jesus Christ mentioned in the context of God, because it states exactly what it’s meant to imply; that Jesus Christ is God! This fact differentiates Him from all those that would hope to “humanize” Him or make Him contemporary with other great men, prophets, teachers or philosophers in the history of man’s existence. His Deity, Office, Sacrificial-work, Personhood, Position, Creativity and many, many other attributes differentiate Him from The Adversary, Satan himself, as many mock this fact in writings, cartoons, illustrations and parodies. Satan of course (formerly Lucifer) was created by God as His highest ranking angel and would eventually become so enamored with himself that he would spend the rest of his existence against The One who brought him into being; how sad and pathetic….

The Perpetuity of God

The one thing that differentiates God from all of the pseudo-gods, deities, religions and faith systems that man has thought up during his existence, is the concept of acquiring eternal life. In his pride, man wants to have something to do with “making his own way” or having his fingerprints on leaving this plane gracefully and righteously, but on his terms. Man can never be just enough, holy enough, or perfect enough to dwell with God. In fact, man has proven when he is tested by God, he fails every time! This is why God has given us the “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” manual; The Bible. It is full of man’s failures and God’s successes. God wants us to know about mankind’s pathetic history so that we don’t extinguish ourselves in the process. Man is a wretched sinner and nothing he does is for the benefit and love of another person. When man is left to his own devices, he has proven that he will destroy himself and those around him. Theologically, there are examples in the Old Testament where man was so depraved and wicked that God had to destroy a subset of the human race so that it would not destroy itself completely (The Flood). From a secular perspective, man has been at war (literally) with himself since creation (without even delving into lawlessness and crime).

Mankind can never say (although he does), that God didn’t give him an opportunity to take Him at His word. For 6,000 years God has dispensed instructions for man to follow, man promptly exercises his free will and rejects them, God judges man and in His grace (unmerited favor), mercy (not getting the full measure of punishment deserved), and love (unconditional) He then dispenses another set of instructions for man to follow. But what really makes God unique is that He created a plan to redeem man Himself. God The Son, by reconciling man’s sin debt to zero at Calvary took the judgement of God The Father that was meant for man. No other “god”, faith system, religion, philosophy can boast that it’s “pseudo-deity” loved them as much as Jesus Christ loved us; loved them enough to lower themselves simply to die for them so that they could live forever…..while still giving them an opportunity to take Him at His word all the while as to not infringe upon free-will. After all, isn’t true love about someone loving you because they want to and not because they have to or are threatened to???

For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing (charging) their trespasses (a blunder, false step, a deviation from truth and uprightness) unto them and has given us the word of reconciliation. God, The Father made God, The Son to be sin for us; Christ who “knew no sin” so that we “might” be made the righteousness of God in Him. God in His divine foreknowledge would plan in eternity past, before man’s very existence, that He would take full responsibility of resolving man’s sin issue as well was what would be required for man to dwell with Him; the imputation of His very rightness upon man! But God would not force His very righteousness upon man, instead he would take away every excuse for mankind to use by taking all of man’s sin; past, present, and future upon Himself. All that man is expected to do is believe that through the 2nd person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, paid for the full measurement of his sin debt and sin state at Calvary and accept his free gift of righteousness thus enabling man to be infused into Christ through the baptism of God, The Holy Spirit.

This, my friend, is the best message and the best offer that mankind will ever get. It’s a message that is lovely and beautiful and it doesn’t matter what gender you are, what race you are, what faith system you’ve committed your life to, what political party you are, what age you are, what your stature is, and what your financial portfolio looks like. And if that’s not enough to piss people off, this good news from Christ Himself is for all people to accept. From a vertical perspective, God doesn’t care what you’ve done in your life because Christ’s work at Calvary completely satisfied the holy requirements of God, The Father. Mankind now truly has a “2nd chance” but he must make the decision to accept this free gift before he draws his last breath.

This is the conclusion of this logical concept that briefly describes God’s power, presence and perpetuity.

God so badly wants man to be with Him in eternity, bad enough to do everything for him accept violate his free-will. He wants man to choose either to take Him at His word or not. You see friends, that is the definition of faith….