“Out of the Abundance of the Heart the Mouth Speaks” Matt: 12:34
When attempting to speak about things eternal we will often find that human languages are woefully inadequate, especially when we attempt to come to an understanding of the Great God, the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, yet human languages are the means by which our God has chosen to convey his self-revelation to us.
God has chosen to bless
us with a body of writings which Christian can resort to for guidance, comfort
and above all, this word to helps us come to a knowing of the person of Jesus
Christ, God’s Holy Son as he reveals the Father to us.
This body of writings,
the Holy Bible, has been given to us by God not just as an instruction manual
or self-help book or an ethical or moral guide, but even more than all of that.
It speaks to us about the person of Jesus Christ.
I Am God
This body of writing
itself tells us that the one who is speaking from it’s pages is the very
Creator of all things.
“I Am God” Isa: 42:8-9
“I Am God” Isa: 44:6,8
This truth, which
Scripture affirms, behooves us that , if it is the Creator God who is speaking
to us from the Bible then we should listen to what he has to say.
What does God have to
say to us, what is it that he wants us all to come to know?
From
the Heart
Our God speaks to us,
and he does so from his very heart, for whatever is in the heart will
ultimately proceed forth out of the mouth of God and humanity. Jesus himself
tells us this as St. Matthew records.
“Out of the Abundance of the Heart the Mouth
Speaks” Matt:
12:34
This means that what has
come forth out of the mouth of God is coming from his heart, this is the
dearest and most personal of communication, in fact ,it goes far beyond just an
exchange of ideas or information, it is communion with God.
The writer of the
Hebrews Epistle tells us that God has spoken to us now in the era of the
incarnation through Jesus.
“In the past God spoke to
our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in
these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all
things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the
radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” Heb: 1:1-3a
It
is through Jesus that the Holy God has come to reveal himself and deliver the
message of his divine love for each and all. Jesus has come to reveal the very
Father heart of God.
After delivering a
discourse regarding the Father St. Phillip asked Jesus to show the Father he
and the other Disciples.
“Philip said, "Lord,
show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jhn:
14:8
Jesus’ answer to St.
Phillip and to us all is of major importance of who Jesus is and why he has
come; that when we look upon Jesus, we are seeing the Father, when we hear
Jesus’ words, we are hearing the Father’s words.
“Jesus replied, “Philip, I have
been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen
Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (9)
Jesus has come and
proclaimed the Gospel and taught the word of God which proceeds out of the
heart of God to show us his Father. It is the revelation of who God is, for and
toward us all who will but freely receive it.
The
Divine Author
St. Peter writes of the
true divine author of the sacred volume which has conveyed the word of God to
us down through the ages.
“Above all, you must understand
that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of
things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets,
though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit.” 2Pet:1:20-21
St. Peter was very much
aware that what has been record with in the word of God was not penned or
arrived at through the mind of man, but that God himself has given it to us
through the person of the Holy Spirit, who is the true divine author of the
Scripture.
The Holy Spirit speaks
to us about Jesus, through whom the Father has revealed himself as Jesus told
his Disciples that the Spirit would speak to them and all believers about
Jesus.
“I have much more to say
to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth,
comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he
will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He
will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make
known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said
the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” Jhn: 16:12-15
We see in the word of
God the Trinity on display, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Some few in the
Christian professing world advance the idea that the Holy Spirit is merely the
“power” of God or an
“impersonal force”
and is not like the Father or the Son having person-hood. They cite, that in
the Greek the words Jesus has chosen to speak to us , that Greek have masculine
or famine gender association regardless of what is being described. Some
believe that the noun “he”
is merely a gender usage assigned to the Greek word “Parakletos”, but that is not the
complete usage of this word, in the Greek this word “Parakletos” carries with it the
implication of person-hood, of
having a distinct identity,
of being distinct , of
being someone, not just
power or force.
Trinity
of the Word
The word comes forth out
of the Father’s heart through Jesus and the Spirit speaks to us about Jesus who
in turn reveals the Father.
This means of
self-revelation of God to us mirrors the very divine nature of God himself.
This divine means of revelation is called by St. Paul as “Theopneutos” which means “God breathed” carrying with it the
concept of the breath of life by which God gave life to Adam in Gen:2, implying God is
breathing into us life through his word.
“All Scripture is God-breathed” 2Tim: 3:16a
We see in the Bible God
presenting himself and his triune nature to us as we read the Bible. All of God
is found in his word to us. No “part”
of God is being omitted in the word; this is seen in the person of Jesus who is
the very Word of God through whom God created all things.
“In the beginning was the Word” Jhn: 1:1
This Word has come among
us as one of us in the person of Jesus.
“and the word became flesh” (14)
St. Paul explains that
in Jesus we find “all the fullness”
of the Godhead in bodily form.
“for in him all the fullness of
the God-head dwells in bodily form” Col:
2:9
When
we come to Jesus we are coming to “all” of God, the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. The Trinity is present in the person of Jesus. When we come to
Jesus we encounter all of God who is being revealed. In the same way, when we
take up the word of God, the Bible, the whole of the Trinity is being
encountered The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
As we read the Scriptures,
we see that God is in three distinct “persons”.
Using the word “persons” when
talking about the Great eternal God is very limited, for though a completely
personal God, he is beyond the limitations of human persons in every way.
The Greek word for each
of the members of the Holy Trinity is; Hypostasis which
can be understood as underlying
state or underlying substance or essence, each being of one essence,
co-essential, co-eternal, yet distinct in full and perfect union each
unalienable from the other.
Some have the advanced
the concept of a God who is a “committee”
of three divine persons who have agreed to eternally “work” together in spite of each as
being their own persons. This concept is called Tritheism and dose not
capture the fullness of God as One.
We
find however that God is , one God in three persons not three persons in one
God.
God the Father is the
"starting point"
for lack of a better way of saying it, from whom the Son is eternally begotten
and is eternally proceeding from the Father and it is through the Son that the
Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding out of from the Father.
Trinity
of the Word
This understanding of
the Trinity also is reveals to us how the word of God the Holy Bible has been
given us, it comes forth out of the heart of God, through the Son and was
inspired by the Holy Spirit and leads us to Jesus who reveals the Father all
that we might come to know him and have eternal life.
“and this is eternal life, that
they might know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” Jhn:17:3
God’s
Holy divine nature is found throughout even the “structure” of the Holy Bible
revealing to us that just as he is fully with in, the incarnate Word so he is
there fully in his written word.
Some ask, if the Holy Spirit is God why do we not
encounter him in Scripture in a more overt way? the answer is, that
we do, we just do not recognize that we are encountering him; for it is the
Holy Spirit who is speaking to us when we read or hear the Bible, so he is
always there even when we fail to see him.
The word of God works
with power in our lives and transforms us and preforms a great work with in us.
“preforms it’s work in us”1Thess: 2:13
We are blessed to have a God who speaks to us through his Holy word and has insured to us that his word is there for us to give us a self-revelation of who he is and invites us to join him in eternity and live in joyful unity with the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit this is the God of his word.
Benediction: May
we each and all ever give thanks to God for his self-revelation to us through
his Holy Word, and has spoken from his heart to us today, tomorrow and
forevermore. Amen
Rev.Todd Crouch, Norman, Oklahoma
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