LORD
in
Relationships

[Writer’s Note: What follows is interpretive and should be considered as not inspired interpretation of the Scriptures. It is not God-breathed and should be considered in the light of orthodoxy. It is my understanding of part of who Yahweh is.]

In the last Encounters ‘Lord Completely’ I began this discussion of the LORD’s identity and how He has made Himself known to us in a way we may begin to comprehend. What follows continues in the context of that article.

Many of us have a tendency to limit anyone to certain criteria making it easier to categorize them but also meaning we either overlook or minimize the fullness of all they actually are. This may also apply to the ways we think of the LORD.

For instance, I had a biological father and three more stepfathers but never was fathered. My biological father was both an entrepreneur and an alcoholic and was largely absent from the parenting role. I had no positive relationship with him. The first stepfather was a godly but ill-equipped man for parenting another man’s son and left my life with more negative than positive influences. When I became serious about knowing the LORD, I pursued the Father God and wanted Him to be what I had not had in a father relationship. Being as I had received copious quantities of absence from #1 and punitive discipline from #2, what I wanted from the LORD was distorted. I certainly did not seek the discipline of discipleship. See the conflict? Limiting God to a single role and defining that role according to our expectations limits His access and fullness of relationship with us.

As a reminder, roles and relationships are how we identify others and how we interface with them. We learn to perceive those nearest ourselves through our senses and our interactions. Those interactions typically form our viewpoint of life. Think of the infant expressing needs and the response of others in the care for those needs and how that shapes the early understanding of relationships, care, nurture, identity as part of the family. Now take that thought and apply it to the LORD making Himself known to His created ones. Would it not seem most likely to be by relational comparisons?

Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. ¹

We would think of ‘master’ and ‘servant’ as roles lacking a personal relationship, where one has specific duties that define the role relating to the other. In a modern context, this would be owner and employee. In the eternal context, the proximity between the two becomes greater when we add another dimension.

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²

Here’s a different element for consideration: the LORD is ‘spirit’ in His most basic nature and yet He is ‘Father’ to those who would worship Him. The reality of our existence is flesh, tangible, touchable, finite, see-able, present. How do we begin to comprehend the reality of someone who is ‘spirit’?

In Greek, ‘spirit’ is pneuma and is used for breath and wind as that which is felt but not seen, that which moves, that which emanates from. We easily recognize the effect by sight or feel but the source is unseen even though still very real. How do you relate to Someone who is by nature of a form you cannot comprehend?

Let us consider YHWH for a few moments more. Yahweh—the I AM—transcends any understanding we have of reality. He is present and yet everywhere at the same time, He is all-powerful and yet self-controlled, knows all that is knowable and yet does not force Himself upon His created beings. YHWH is spirit and yet is quite able to manifest Himself physically with all the attributes of physical being. YHWH is One Being and yet Three Persons without violating unity or function. Yahweh simply is beyond our comprehension of what is possible because His being is so different than ours. How can He be everywhere at the same time and yet be personal? How can He have all power and yet choose to limit His expressions of that power? And if He is three persons all at the same time and is present everywhere at the same time…?

We tend to make a disconnect between YHWH and Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Those believing in the triune God, the Trinity, often think of them in a structure of priority and superiority. The Father is first, superior in nature and first in order of beginning, the Son is just a little later and lower and by definition is somehow birthed of the Father and then the Spirit is lesser than both of the others and is something like steam compared to water. But that cannot be the Three Persons of the Trinity. If YHWH is the I AM that His name states, He has no beginning, has always existed in the same essence He always has. If the Father is YHWH, He has always been as He is now and will be forever. If Jesus the Son is also YHWH, He has always been as He is now and will be forever. If the Spirit is YHWH, He has always been as He is now and will be forever.

We mere mortals have a problem accepting what we cannot comprehend or rationally explain. Many of us slip into the rationalism of the Father coming first in time, ‘begatting’ ³ the Son and then something about the Spirit being an emanation from them. Be honest—your theology on YHWH is a little fuzzy, isn’t it? Think for a moment about how the Spirit was translated in the King James Version—in the Old Testament mostly as the Spirit but frequently in the New Testament as the Holy Ghost, that somehow His nature changed when Jesus was incarnated or a ‘ghost’ when Jesus was killed. The original language word does not change but the way translators and readers think of the Spirit does.

Jesus repeatedly is referred to as Lord and God. In the New Testament the common Greek words are kurios and theos (Lord and God) which are also used of the Father God. John 1 is irrefutable in declaring that Jesus is YHWH for it uses the same phasing as Genesis One.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ⁴

But Jesus is the Son of God! He must be the son of the Father for that is what those words mean. And if Jesus is the son of the father in the sense of His beginning, then He cannot be eternal for He would have a beginning. See how quickly we can take reasoning into heresy? If both God the Son and God the Father are YHWH then they must both be eternal and neither preceding the other. Both must have the same eternal duration—forever—and equal presence, power, essence. The same can be said of the Spirit. Remember, all three are YHWH and all three are spirit.

Let me suggest that difference of function does not indicate or presume difference of essence. My understanding is that before the beginning of what we know, YHWH who is one being and equal in three persons willfully, deliberately and in total continuing agreement choose to function in individual roles while remaining one being. Yes, I know, that is more than I can comprehend from a created viewpoint but they are outside of what they created and are what they are. Creation is not a complete revealing of all that they know to be real or true.

Back to that Father – Son relationship being biological:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ⁵

In the biological sense, the Son of God is son of the Spirit for Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. But. Jesus is the Son of the Father relationally just as they both are relational with the Spirit. The Bible is texted to communicate the infinite YHWH to finite beings. How would you express the divine relationships if not in terms created beings could understand? There are things in the counsel of YHWH that we do not comprehend but which are still true even if unfathomable.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ⁶

John 1 is largely about Jesus, the Word of God, who ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’ so we could begin to ‘see His glory’ or as it says in 1 Timothy 3:16,

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. ⁷

‘Manifested’ carries the idea of being made visible in a way that can be observed. God who is spirit is not visible in His natural essence to his creation other than when He ‘makes Himself visible’ as during the Exodus when He led by a pillar of cloud or fire, when He descended upon Mt. Sinai as fire, when the light of His presence caused Moses’ face to glow. With these thoughts as background, let me go into how the LORD revealed Himself in a progression so we could begin to understand His identity.

When God introduces Himself to Moses in Exodus 3, Moses asks for God’s personal name for Moses recognizes that ‘god’ is more of a Role title than a personal name. Moses wants to be prepared to answer the Israelites’ questions when he tells them ‘god’ sent him to talk to them.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. ⁸

Later in Exodus, the LORD uses this name to identify Himself with His character after Moses returns to Him for the second set of tablets after Moses had broken the first:

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. ⁹

Yahweh reveals Himself as a singular being in three persons and then manifests Himself in ways we can begin to comprehend. It is because we keep Him distant as a Role-bearer that we have difficulty entering Relationship with Him even after He has dealt with the sin problem.

Think of the word pictures given by Jesus of how YHWH desires relationship:

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ¹⁰

That is not a LORD desiring to be remote, uninvolved, distant but rather a LORD desiring intimacy, close enough to be engaged.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹¹

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ¹²

In the Jewish culture there was nothing more meaningful than the closeness of the Abba relationship. It was touchable, intimate, protective, understanding, personal. The pattern of relationship we see in the triune YHWH is extended into the desired likeness ‘of the image of God’ created into us but it is a Relationship and not a Role. It is also noteworthy that this relationship is not forced by biology but voluntary through adoption. YHWH chooses to ‘adopt’ those who are willing to enter relationship with Him as sons of God.

Relationship is better than Role.