One God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters....” (Genesis 1:1, 3)

“God is spirit…” (John 4:24)

I think of POWER when I read the word “Spirit” in the Bible. And when I read the words “Holy Spirit” I think of God's omnipotent POWER. Power flows from the generator of that power, it is NOT the generator itself. Think of an electric generator. You turn it on and power flows out of it to provide the energy to turn on the lights.

God is both the generator and the power flowing from it to create all things. In that sense only is the Holy Spirit God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God...the Word became flesh...No one has seen God at any time; the ONLY BEGOTTEN GOD who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him...Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him...” (John 1:1-18; 1 John 4:15)

Jesus is the Word of God, the express image of God, the Son of God...Jesus is the one who explains to us what God is like...in that sense only is Jesus God. And after the resurrection all those who are reconciled, justified, saved and glorified will be GODlike...Jesus prayed for it to be so...

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-26)

The phrase “trinity” is not is the Bible. There is no such message in the Bible about three persons who are at the same time one person (which defies logic). There is only one God out of whom comes all things, beginning with the Son...

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things....there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came...the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15)

This is not rocket science, just a matter of reading the Bible and believing what it says, and rejecting any teaching from men which contradicts what God says.

”For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. However not all men have this knowledge…” (1 Corinthians 8:5-7)

I suppose that there are as many gods and lords as there have been cultures and religious men over the years. And of course Paul is talking about those men or idols made up by men that people worship. He does not condemn such people to hell, but simply says that all men do not have the knowledge of the “one God, the Father, from whom are all things…and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things”. But they will one day, if not predestined to do so in this life, then after the resurrection of both the just and the wicked. Jesus told his listeners...

“Verily, verily, I say to you — He who is hearing my word, and is believing Him who sent me, hath life age-during, and to judgment he doth not come, but hath passed out of the death to the life…. Wonder not at this, because there doth come an hour in which all those in the tombs shall hear his voice, and they shall come forth; those who did the good things to a rising again of life, and those who practiced the evil things to a rising again of judgment." (John 5:24-29 YLT)

Jesus was speaking to Israel concerning the Kingdom AGE to be established on earth and Revelation 20 tells us this AGE will last 1000 years. At the BEGINNING of that Kingdom those who did the “good things” will be raised from the dead to LIFE and LIVE in that AGE (Daniel 12 tells me that resurrection will occur exactly 1335 days after the Messiah Jesus returns to earth) and these will rule and reign with Christ during that AGE. Revelation also tells us it is at the END of that AGE that the wicked who have practiced “evil things” will be raised from the dead and judged. So what happens to them at the "judgment"?

“And when the thousand years may be finished, the Adversary (Devil) shall be loosed out of his prison, and he shall go forth to lead the nations astray…and there came down fire from God out of the heaven, and devoured them; and the Devil, who is leading them astray, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night — to the ages of the ages. And I saw a great white throne, and Him who is sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven did flee away, and place was not found for them; and I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God… and they were judged, each one according to their works…if anyone was not found written in the scroll of the life, he was cast to the lake of the fire…— this is the second death…” (Revelation 20:7-15)

The Bible is true, men not so much. Christianity has made the “lake of fire” equivalent to their fictitious hell, but GOD says the “lake of fire” is the "SECOND DEATH". I choose to believe God, you can believe who you want.

But you say, they are still dead. Yes but not forever. I won’t quote the Scripture now but Revelation tells us about an AGE that will follow the 1000 year AGE. It is the AGE of the New Heaven and New Earth. Those of the first rising will continue to rule and reign with Christ while the rest will be dead the SECOND time. Paul was given the mystery of what happens at the close of that age and it is summarized as follows…

“And now, Christ hath risen out of the dead — the first-fruits of those sleeping he became…for even as in Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive, and each in his proper order, a first-fruit Christ, afterwards those who are the Christ’s, in his presence, then — the end, when he may deliver up the reign to God, even the Father, when he may have made useless all rule, and all authority and power — for it behoveth him to reign till he may have put all the enemies under his feet — THE LAST ENEMY IS DONE AWAY – DEATH...for all things He did put under his feet…and when the all things may be subjected to him, then the Son also himself shall be subject to Him, who did subject to him the all things, THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL….The Death was swallowed up — to victory...” (1 Corinthians 15:20-54 YLT)

I am confident that my family and I, along with most of you, will be among those in the “first rising” and we will be happy about it and we do not have to more about the second death (the lake of fire).

“Happy and holy is he who is having part in the first rising again; over these the second death hath not authority, but they shall be priests of God and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6)

But I am equally certain that the bible teaches that death, even the second death, will be abolished and all of God’s creation will have then been reconciled to God by Christ Jesus.

“And himself is the head of the body…a first-born out of the dead, that he might become in all things…first…and through him to reconcile all things to himself — having made peace through the blood of his cross — through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens. And you — once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile, in the body of his flesh through the death, to present you holy, and unblemished, and unblameable before himself…" (Colossians 1:18-22)