IT’S EASY for Western Christians to forget that Jesus Christ was the ultimate Jew. This has implications no only for understanding the nature of the gospel, but for end times prophecy.
Messianic teacher and lecturer Rabbi Michael Bugg, author of When the Stars Fall: A Messianic Commentary on the Revelation, discusses the visions of the end given to the Apostle John by Jesus Christ in light of the richness of Jewish culture and rabbinic tradition.
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Oy! 3+ times in the Revelation – “God who was, God who is, God who is to come.” = The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
This isn’t hard. We’re made in God’s image. We have a past, present, and future. We don’t think of ourselves as 3 beings.
The difference is that The Father isn’t in the past; the past is in the Father. The future is in the Holy Spirit. The present, the “I am,” The Son is always present.
The Holy Ghost is the Husbandman. He is joined to His Wife (New Jerusalem). We as His bride, will become more and more perfectly like Him as eternity progresses. The difference between the Son and the Holy Spirit (God’s present and His future) is a matter of marriage.
What happens to the branches and the vine? He is the Vine, we are the branches. This never ends. His Spirit flowing through us like blood and breath does not mean His Spirit is any less personal as each future moment arrives in the present.
Come quickly, Y’shua. No more Baali, but Ishi. Bringing us into the intimacy of your heart.
Tea Ice,
There are a couple of reasons why that model doesn’t work. It’s basically falling into the trap of modalism, saying that God is sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, and sometimes the Spirit. The Eternal One does not change, nor was Yeshua praying to an empty throne.
I’m not anti-Trinitarian, per se: I just think that it overemphasizes *Tri* to the point where the traditional and faithful Jew, to whom the Shema is the central creed of faith in the Living God, can’t accept it. Remember, “Trinity” as a term is an invention and tradition of men long after the Apostles. On the other hand, Yeshua Himself quoted, “Hear O Israel, Hashem our God, Hashem is One” as being the most important commandment (Mark 12:29). That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that Yeshua is the Word who was with God and *was* God from the very beginning. But I prefer to explain the relationship in Jewish terms that won’t close the ears of my brethren.
Shalom
I understand your point MB. Re: “modalism” … the apparent difference is in us, our perception of time, not in His (Christ’s = G-d’s = Y’shua’s).
So when “time is no more” the difference fades, and His prayer in the Gospel of John, that we be One as He and the Father are One is complete. In Him there is no difference, He sees himself in us. In His relating to us, He presents a difference for our benefit, putting himself in our place — so that we direct our worship to Him. … that we relate to Him, not objectify him. Perhaps also well understood in Martin Buber’s sense, regarding Him without distraction or limitation.
The apparent difference is in us. And the Father and Holy Spirit inhabit the instant (present) in Christ. He is not in the present. The present is His attending to us.
Please consider, long before me and after I pass, the distinction pointed to in Revelation 1:4, 1:8, 4:8, and 16:5, remains. He’s revealed himself to us in this way intentionally.
In more mathematical terms, He is Alpha and Omega, also epsilon, (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Epsilon.html).
Correct me please if I missed your point, which is to not misdirect others into a trinitarian idolatry.
My concern was not to dismiss the Holy Spirit as impersonal.
In simpler terms, God as Holy Spirit, in the future is setting up the stage for us. In the present, we interact with Him (the Son of God). In the past, long before us or before Creation, He remains as the Father.
For G-d, each of His experiences that rolls into the past, is in the Father (as His own past tense). And each expectant moment arriving is in the Holy Ghost (as future tense of G-d). Christ as Son of God in the flesh, evermore dwells in the present with us.
There is only one time that was ever disrupted, when Christ died at the Cross — he died to us. That experience is now in the Father. The Son was never forsaken. The Father has taken on the Crucifixion from Him. And King David’s joy is complete as in Psalm 22, where from the depths of separation, Christ goes through death, burial, and resurrection, overcoming death — which He extends to us — as the very essence of the Gospel.
Our Captain, Yahshuah (or Yeshua), rides the present with us evermore. (Just as a captain pilots a ship.)
The Holy Ghost is not only God in the future, but all futures, which is Glory to us. He (very definitely He) is Husband of His wife, New Jerusalem. We rightly consider Him most glorious, since He multiples and adorns Himself with His Wife, collectively, who we shall be. So we can say that is G-d’s most feminine aspect due to oneness with His wife. But we may not say like James Trimm and others, that the Holy Ghost, “She.”
The better understanding is that the Son extends from the Father as a child, and we extend from the Son, likewise as branches. That speaks to continuity in time. The Father ever exists revealed as the Son to us personally and infused within us most intimately as the Holy Spirit.
I mean to make this short, but enjoy the presentation. I’ve every faith that we’ll come more in accord — in Him, Christ.
Thanks for your response!
My best regards…
Grace & Peace