O foolish
Galatians! Who has bewitched you
that you should not
obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus
Christ was clearly portrayed
among you as
crucified?
This only I want to
learn from you:
did you receive the
spirit by works of the law,
or by the hearing of
faith?
Are you so
foolish? Having begun in the Spirit,
are you now being
made perfect by the flesh?
As we study
the history of the early church it is clearly demonstrated by the many false
teachings, and heresies, that Paul must address this problem that some
Christians were being bewitched. The
Gospel, which is simply that Jesus Christ came down from heaven, God himself,
the very Wisdom of God clothed in human flesh, Who suffered, and died upon the
cross, was resurrected from death after three days, and ascended bodily into
heaven in this site of many witnesses, so that the debt of sin was paid in the
result of his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven could now be
applied to all of God's children. The
question that was asked years are you so like to once by faith believed upon
this gospel to have now returned to the works of the flesh? This is what was happening in the early
church and is happening in many of those churches who claim to be Christian. Yes, we walk by faith and not by sight but
this faith is the faith in that which is real, that which is the highest object
for our faith and our worship.
Therefore the question for each of us is simply this; watch or who holds
the highest estimation in our lives and has our faith? What holds the highest enjoyment in our
lives? For us to enjoy a thing is to
rest solely upon and four the sake of the thing. When we employee they use of a thing is to use what ever means or
at our disposal enabling us to obtain that which we desire, that is, if it is a
proper object of desire, for if not, then it is to be called abuse. If while I was in a foreign land and became
homesick desiring to go home I am a properly used an object of my enjoyment;
i.e., a candy apple red Corvette. Ha!
While I was traveling to my desired destination, in my candy apple red
Corvette, a destination which is my home, and I became in Hamburg by the
surrounding lands due to their beauty and began to desire of them causing them
to become my objects of enjoyment, I may become unwilling to continue towards
my destination and be diverted from my home which is my true happiness, I am
misusing a thing, a candy apple red Corvette in this case. Is this not the condition in which this life
which is immortal? We desire to turn to
and return to our Fathers home, yet we have wandered far from our desired
destination. We have allowed other
objects to become the highest priority for our enjoyment. This enables us to be diverted from our
destination, our return to the Fathers home.
Yes, we must use this world, we are a part of this world, and what the
world can offer is for us to be able to use and enjoy. But we are not to enjoy this world in such a
manner as to turn us aside from our destination, causing us not to see the
invisible things of God who is to be understood by the things of this world
that are made by God: "For since the
creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even he is eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are with out excuse" (Romans 1: 20). Our proper use of the things of this world,
those things that are temporary material we are able to a whole upon that which
is spiritual and eternal.
A question that must be asked at
this point in this discussion is; What Clark threw objects of our
enjoyment? Is it the Trinity? It is the Trinity that is our crew object of
enjoyment, the father That, the Son, and the Holy, who are all at the same time
the Trinity, one Being, Supreme above all, all the same essence. It is the Trinity that is the common object
of our enjoyment. This is true if He is
an object and not simply the cause of all objects or even if he is the cause of
all things. How do we express the One
of such excellence? It is impossible
unless we speak of Him this way, the Trinity, one God, of Whom all things are
and exist, maintained, and controlled by his providence. The Trinity is not three separate god's for
Scripture speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as God at the
same time, not as the Donatists say, then each is God and there is no separate
Person's that make up the Trinity rather they believe and teach that God
operates in separate modes. Scripture is clear on this fact, that God in
three Persons, the same substance. The
Father is not the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit Son. The Son is not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit: the holy That
Spirit is not the Father nor a Son. The
Father he is the Father, The Son, The Son; the Holy Spirit is the Holy
Spirit. Each poll belong to eternity
and they all have the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, and the same
power. And they Godhead, The Trinity
there is unity in the father That, the quality in the Sun, and in the Holy
Spirit so that all our harmonious of unity and equality, and these three have
all the same attributes and each have attributes that are displayed towards man,
and are all one. Before closing this
particular discussion allowed me to use Tertullian’s argument in favor of the
Trinity where he was the one who first used the term Trinity. His argument is by way of illustration using
the sun, the ray of the sun, and the power released by the sun. All three of those separate parts of the sun
are the sun, and all are of the same essence, therefore all already the sun;
three in one.
Let me ask this
question in closing: who or what is your highest enjoyment? I pray that God of the Scriptures is that
object.
Those who forsake the law
praise the wicked,
but such as keep the law
contend with them.
Proverbs 28: 4
Praise God for He is Good
Richard L. Crumb
No comments:
Post a Comment