(Fwd) Re: Oneness question

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------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From:          Self <TPLEX/MSHAW>
To:            higher-fire@prairienet.org
Subject:       Re: Oneness question
Date:    19  

Sister Lisa, et. al.,

Praise the Lord!  It's good to be back on Higher-Fire.  I've been 
gone for several months now and have begun to miss the fellowship.

You have asked a very intriguing question about the two witnesses of 
Jewish Law and Christ's appeal to His own witness and the witness of 
the Father.  When approaching this passage, it should be remembered 
that Jesus Christ possessed a dual nature by which He was human and 
divine.  While the two are inextricably in unity and cannot be 
divided (lest we fall in Nestorianism), the realities are present and 
identifiable in the Word.  

Verse 19, and related verses throught the NT, seems to resolve this 
question:

Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father?  Jesus answered,
Ye neither know me, nor my Father:  if ye had known me, ye should 
have known the Father also.  

The Scripture teaches us that:  'Whosoever denieth the Son, the same 
hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the 
Father also.'  The Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in the Gospel of 
John could not understand the relationship of the Father and the Son, 
and Jesus Christ explains the impossibility of knowing the Father 
while rejecting His identity.

John analyses the relationship of the Father and the Son throughout 
his Gospel.  We find that the Son is completely dependent upon the 
Father:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, te Son can do nothing of himself, but 
what he seeth the Father do:  for what things soever he doeth, these 
also doeth the Son likewise. (Jn. 5.19)

I can of mine own self do nothing:  as I hear, I judge:  and my 
judgment is just:  because I seek not mine own will, but the will of 
the Father which hath sent me.  If I bear witness of myself, my 
witness is not true.  (Jn. 5.30-1)

We find that He is the expression and authority of the invisible 
Father:

And the Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. 
 Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.  
And ye have not his word abiding in you:  for whom he hath sent, him 
ye believe not.  (Jn. 5.37-8)

I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not:  if another 
shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (Jn. 5.43)

In all of these verses, Jesus the man and messiah is revealing the 
Father.  He speaks of the condescension of His flesh, giving 
precedence to the Father that sent Him.  As St. Paul said:  'Who, 
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
God:  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form 
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.' (Ph. 2.6-7).  

In His flesh, Jesus Christ condescends, and this passage that you are 
concerned about evidences the testimony of both natures Incarnated in 
the ONE GOD.

Time prevents a longer explanation, but we know that Jesus is one 
with the Father, as He said to Philip:

Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, 
Philip?  he that hath seen me hath seen the Father' (Jn. 14.9).  

There is no division of personality.  We have only a description of 
our fully human and divine Saviour.

 All Honour to Christ Jesus.

Bro. Matthew Shaw