Quote:
Originally Posted by KSA
I would not use the word mimic, but I would say that Jesus was in constant fellowship with His Father and depended on His constant leading.
I am not saying that Jesus is the Father.  But there is no separateness between Him and the Father, only distinction. If, as UntoHim said, we are to follow "creeds" and "historic faith", then we should avoid this heretical word "separate". 
I am not trying to explain away God's word. Please, tell me how you understand the words of Jesus: "Father, why have you forsaken Me?". Do you take them to mean that God the Father left God the Son. Jesus said that the Father is in Him, was it true on the cross? Or the Father was not in Jesus when Jesus died on the cross?
Can you describe the nature of this oneness how you see it? |
Those are the words recorded. It indicates something like a “turning of the back” upon the scene. If we insist on Oneness as being overriding and the distinctions (separateness or whatever you want to call it) as something more like parlor tricks, then how does God turn his back on the One on the cross?
I know you do not believe that God’s distinctions are the divine equivalent of parlor tricks. But I sense a tendency toward the distinctions becoming theoretical and not substantive. Back on the BARM, I could see abugian and Justyn busy making the separateness into the whole thing with a theoretical oneness of essence that makes it less than tritheism.
There is a huge spectrum of truth that exists between the heresies of modalism and tritheism. I agree that there is something about one God turning his back on himself that is mysterious. But that is where the distinctions are at play. On the other hand, Jesus could rightly say that He and the Father were one — not just in agreement, or on the same page, but a singular. That is the oneness of God.
However, to expand one statement concerning the oneness of God onto an account recorded in scripture in which the Three (and the distinctions) are in play is to ignore what God was saying. It is as if we have become convinced that if “X” is said once and it means “Y” then every repetition of the word “X” must mean “Y.” We are comfortable with this throughout translation in which we use one word one way in some places and in another in others. We might try to argue that we could use the same word in all places, but that does not always work.
In this case, the “X” is God. But in one place, it simply says God. In another, there are aspects and actions of God that are attributed to one of the Three names and not the others. In other places, the Three are identified as more like alter-egos of the one God. Why is the scripture written this way? I must say that other than that is the way God did it, I don’t know. But since God did it, I will not be the one to fight it. If we are looking at a passage in which the distinctions of the Three is relevant, such as in the incarnation or the crucifixion, I find no compelling reason to fight that account and dismiss the distinction.
We can argue all we want about what it meant that the Father forsook the Son. But unless we are going to suggest that deity left the man Jesus immediately prior to his death on the cross, the Father did forsake the God-man who was hanging there. What do you think that means?
As for the use of the term “separateness” I find it interesting that we are so sure that we understand that aspect of Gad that a term that is simply used to denote the distinction/persona/person/separateness might be labeled as heresy. It would be heresy only if it is used to describe three separate gods who are not the One God of the Bible.
I think we understand the onenes quite well. God is One. He is as one as I am with myself. But when He says he is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, He is not saying that he has multiple personality disorder and we can ignore them. Whatever the oneness is, it does not turn the distinctions into moot points that didn't deserve the effort taken to write them in the first place. Unfortunately, that is where I see this discussion going. It is further unfortunate that it is somewhat where Lee took us all those years ago. Unbalanced. We loked at everything in terms of teh oneness of God. We had not appreciation for the distinct asapects of God that we revealed as teh Father, Son and Spirit. Everything became a homogenized pea-green porridge of "just the Spirit."
That was part of the out-of-balance reality of the LC that we experienced.