Know Him As He Is

November 25

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1

Even before leaving the first verse of the Bible, a student of Biblical truth is confronted with a conundrum, for the translators of the Holy Word agree upon the fact that the meaning of the word for our Almighty Creator, ‘Elohim,’ as being plural in the original Hebrew.

To further affirm the plurality of the Godhead, He says of Himself in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.”

In John 1-4 the beloved disciple says of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning and without Him there would have been nothing made that was made. In Him was life and that life was the light of all mankind.”

This concept confounds unbelievers who deny any possibility for the veracity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ due to their conviction that the affirmation of God Himself, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God,” Deuteronomy 6:4, disavows our Savior as being part of the Triune Deity.

Professors of faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord rob themselves of the ability to identify with the richness of His person-hood when they deny the word of Philippians 2:6-8 which says, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself of no reputation, emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Then, being found in the fashion of a man, He humbled Himself, even unto death on a cross.”

Whether the unbeliever who scoffs at the notion of a Triune Godhead or whether the believer who doubts the veracity of the repeated claims of the plurality of the Person of Almighty God, the man who denies who God is withholds himself from the temporal intimacy of friendship with the One who is the Triune Majesty on High, if not the eternal of assurance of residence with Him.

This is a high price to pay in either case, an unnecessary price for something that the Lord has already given to every man as a “free gift,” Romans 6:23. No matter what belief system our parents or our culture imposed upon us, no matter how our own reason has evaluated the subject of the plurality of the Eternal Godhead, may we relinquish our doubts long enough to objectively assess the claims of Jesus so we might receive the eternal advantage of knowing Him as He is.