By
Arthur J Licursi
Part 1
of 10 - One God
“Oneness”
is a major theme in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesian believers. There are
several “ones” that we may take note of as elements of the eternal
unity of God and believing men.
Ephesians
4:4-6 There
is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of
your calling; 5 One
Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God
and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all.
In this
series we will look at each of these “ones” noted above, beginning
here with the one true God.
We may
note that the Bible clearly declares that God is one. “Hear, O
Israel
: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy
6:4) Abraham, originally an idol worshiper, was unique
in his time to have become a monotheist follower of the one true God. In
Abraham’s time there were no atheist, rather, virtually all people at
that time had many “gods.”
The
following verse speaks of the oneness of God the Father with and in God
the Son, and yet it is not easily understood.
“For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God,
The everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
Whether
we agree with it or not, it is undeniable that this verse indicates God
the Father and the Son are in fact one in the same being. Here the
prophesied “child” and “son” obviously is Jesus, who
then also is referred to here as “the everlasting Father” and “the
mighty God.” Think of it, this would mean when Jesus of Nazareth was
in the
Garden
of
Gethsemane
praying to the Father the night before He was crucified, it was He, as “the
everlasting Father,” who was listening to Jesus’ prayer.
Considering this, it is no surprise that He here is also here called “wonderful”
– the one who is full of wonder. None of us can fully explain the
Triune Godhead by our finite human logic, but we can accept this Scripture
as truth, by faith, as an expression of the limitlessness of the “LORD
our God (who) is one LORD.”
Thankfully
also, it is this supreme sovereign One Lord who is “above all” (Eph
4:6), over all the things that occur in every believer’s life. We
also believe He loves each of us unconditionally, at all times (Rom 8:39).
Our heavenly Father then is not only governing the positive but also He is
over all the negative happenings of our lives, working “through
all” (ibid) to make “all things work together for the good”
(Rom 8:28)… so that we “might be conformed to the image of His
Son” (Rom 8:29).
Some will
ask, “What does that mean?” when I refer to such a verse as Isaiah
9:6. Most often Scripture means what is says, straight out, literally. We
do not need to spiritualize or allegorize anything to try to make
Scripture more reasonable to our finite understanding. We must not permit
our lack of faith vision to keep us from trusting such a simply put
Scripture just as it is written only because it may seem not to be
understandable to us. I’ve learned that in considering such seemingly
problematic Scriptures the problem is not with the Scripture that I am
reading and not able to understand, rather, the problem is with my
understanding. James 1:5 (AMP) If any of you is deficient in
wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives]
to everyone liberally and
ungrudgingly, without reproaching or
faultfinding, and it will be given him. We can understand these
seemingly mystifying statements of Isaiah 9:6 when, if by faith, we come
to see that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the embodiment and expression
of the Father, that they are truly “one.” Jesus said, “I and my
Father are one.” (John 10:30)
The fact
is that we have but One God and we declare that we need only Him as our
One Lord. He is the Lord Jesus Christ – He is God, the Almighty One.
There is none other; we need no other and we desire no other, for Jesus
Christ is “all.” Today we worship and honor One Lord, the
Father and the Son “… He that honoureth not the
Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.” (John 5:23)
Paul
says the Father indwells the believer even as Paul says Christ indwells
the believer. Ephesians 4:6 One God and
Father of all, who is above all, and through
all, and in you all. Paul’s
great “mystery” (secret) gospel is “Christ in
you the hope of Glory” (
Col
1:27).
Paul here
uses the names and/or titles of the three persons of Triune Godhead;
Spirit, God and Christ are used interchangeably, as they dwell “in
you” the believer. Romans 8:9-10 …
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10
And if Christ be in you…
One day,
in the coming “dispensation of the fulness of times,” in that
final eternal dispensation, God will “gather together in one
all things “in Christ” – both “in heaven”
and “on earth.” (More on this in Part 10.)
“That
in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might
gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:”
(Ephesians 1:10)