Wednesday, March 23, 2011

through the rift



The Word for today:
Luke 11:53-12:12

mark this: Luke 12:10
And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

Theologians go on and on about Trinity until they're blue in the face. Most of their Trinitarian treatises resemble botched dissections.

But rest assured that even a theologian can't sever the Trinity. That's because the Trinity is is a unity, held together by the strongest bond in the cosmos:
love

Here's the essential verse in scripture for the understanding of Trinity:
God is love. (1 John 4:8, 16)

There had to be Trinity--throughout the eternal past, before anything else was--because God is love and you can't love nothing! Thus, Trinity.

Love is a verb which has to have an object. You cannot say, "I love." An object has to complete the thought: I love Jesus, I love Shelley, I love dogs and I love Skittles. So, since God is love, Trinity is a logical inevitability.

The Bible contains a few fleeting glimpses of the sweet relationships within the Trinity. We see them cover for one another, protect one another, promote one another, submit to one another. They are perhaps the dearest and sweetest moments in the Book:

Jesus Christ told the Pharisees--who attributed his healing power not to the Holy Spirit but to Beelzebub, "lord of the flies"--that you could drag his own name through the dirt and maybe live to tell about it. But should you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, you've punched your own ticket to hell:
And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. (Luke 12:10; see also Matthew 12:22-32)

The Father set up the entire universe--all dominions and realms of both the spiritual and physical dimensions--in order that all glory be given to the Son.

The Holy Spirit never shines a light on himself, but seeks a bride for another. He is the unnamed servant in Genesis 24, who goes forth in order to procure a bride for the Son of Promise.

Jesus Christ is in absolute submission to the will of the Father. He won't do or say anything unless he sees or hears it first from his Father. (John 5:19, 7:16; 8:28, 12:49, 50; Deuteronomy 18:18)

They each scramble in a mad rush for the last seat at the table, so the other will not have to sit there.
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The greatest anguish of the cross was not physical. Others have suffered to the physical extent that Jesus did.  His greatest suffering was a spiritual agony, when sin rent the Trinity asunder:
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

No man but Jesus has entered into that realm of suffering.  But all of the Trinity--you'd swear they share one heart--entered through the rift into a dimension of pain so intense that it may have rendered Jesus' physical suffering moot.

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