Understanding the God Head now some would say that this statement is a oxymoron. To even began to understand the God head we must be informed in the differences of opinions concerning it. This article is not meant to be comprehensive but explanatory only. I decided to write it this way because I know I don’t need to know how the sun comes up in the morning I only need to know that it will. I can and probably will write a sister article to this one that will be comprehensive and if you would like that study please fill free to e-mail me and I will send it to you ASAP.
Let’s begin by making generalized statements on the different conceptions of the God head.
- Some people believe that Yeshua Jesus was the son of Yah but that alone does not qualify him to be recognized as a deity. I call this the fully man concept.
- Some people believe that Yeshua was Fully YHVH, in the since that he was YHVH (God the Father). Just manifest in the flesh.
- Some believe that Yeshua was YHVH’s son but had all the power of YHVH.
- The Unitarian Belief is that Yeshua was Elohim Manifest in the flesh. Meaning that He was YHVH, YESHUA, And the RUACH all three at the same time
- The Trinitarian belief is that Yeshua Was a Separate entity all to gather, from YHVH, and the RUACH.
Now I’m sure there will be others but these are the most common. Every one that believes one of these doctrines, believe it with their whole heart. This one topic has brought more division to the body then probably all the other topics of divisions combined. So let’s see if we can try to make some sense of all this madness.
What if I told you that, all of the afore mentioned assumptions are exactly right. You would probably think that I had lost my mind right? Well then I will just say it, they are all exactly right, In PART. All of these beliefs where born out a true hunger to get to know the creator of this universe on an intimate level. I do not believe that there is underlying desire to deceive people when it comes to the way they view the God head it just is simply where they are in their walk with Abba Yah.
No true believer would ever deny that Yeshua is the only begotten Son of YHVH. This is the core principle for our belief system. And if they question this fact then they are not a believer they are a deceiver and should be put out of the assembly. So if they believe that Yeshua was the son of YHVH then why can they not see him as deity also?
One reason is they have become so smart they have made themselves stupid. This was a roman belief system. One in which a God like Zeus would leave the heavens, and come down and impregnate the human women and they would bare the children of the God’s. Children like Hercules the son of Zeus. Because of Zeus being his father he had supernatural strength and abilities that no mere mortal man could ever posses. So these people will convince themselves that the Roman Catholic Church must have manipulated the scriptures to make Yeshua into one of these super men.
In trying so desperately to separate themselves from the manipulation of the Catholic Church they are blinding themselves in part. And with all the seemingly conflicting scripture stating that Yeshua is YHVH, then stating that he is not their must have had to be some manipulation in this area. Or so they convince themselves.
I could take this one statement and start explaining the Deity of Yeshua but I want to address all of the above mentioned.
The second belief system is that Yeshua was YHVH and that he manifested himself in his fullness on the earth. They get this belief system from scriptures like Col 2:9 for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And if you where going to just pick a scripture here and there you to might get stuck in this mind set.
Thirdly that Yeshua is the son but operates with all the power of YHVH. Not deity himself but endued with the ability to be like a conduit between YHVH and humans. This is probably the closest to the truth out of the five but has some error in its thought process also. Again because of the aforementioned verse in Col among others which state emphatically that he was deity and not just a man acting as a conduit.
Ok now we get to the two most popular thought process concerning the deity of Yeshua the forth and fifth ones stated above the Unitarian and the Trinitarian. The Unitarian is very different then the send belief mentioned except it differs in the since that the Unitarian believes in the three personages of YHVH. (YHVH) ((God the Father))(Yeshua) ((The Son)) (Ruach) ((Holy Spirit)). But that Yeshua was the physical manifestation of all three of them at the same time. That he was manifested in his fullness as the Son of YHVH and not as YHVH.
The final belief being discussed is the Trinitarian belief system. This belief system states that Yeshua is deity, that YHVH is deity, and that the Ruach is deity also. All three of these are separate, set up in sort of a chain of command, with YHVH as the commander and Chief. Yeshua is his second in command, fallowed by the Ruach. This again has some truth in it as well.
Now that I have generalized all of these beliefs to pieces but in a way that I fill accurately depicts their core belief. Let us move on to showing the truth of the matter as I see it and then look again at all of the above belief systems and see where they strayed and went off tract but not in a critical manor but trying to see how they are all right at least in part.
To begin to understand the Godhead we must go back to the beginning. The very first line in the Torah is. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This word god is often misunderstood to the Hebrew or Christian mind. They both equate this word god with YHVH (God the Father) when in fact it is something entirely different. This word is Elohim, Elohim is plural by nature, meaning more then one.
In fact the fist time we see the singular YHVH name of god appear is in Gen 6:5 the entire creation happened by the working of God in the form of Elohim. So with that in mind lets focus on when Elohim really fist reviled his plural personage to us in the scriptures. This happens when he creates man. Elohim makes a profound statement by adding the plural words “US” and “OUR” in his creation of man, “let us create man in our own image” thereby inadvertently giving us our first view into his personage.
Lets continue to examine this scripture though because we can gain a greater insight in doing so. Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Lets focus on the completed creation. So Elohim created man in his image, in the image of Elohim created he him, (Man) male and female created he (Elohim) them. I said we could understand by going back to the beginning I did not say we would not have to draw from what came after to understand. Without understanding the beginning though you can not understand the completed.
If I where an genetic scientist I would never be able to truly understand genetics until I truly understood the DNA structure. The DNA is the beginning of the genetic process or so we believe at this point. It is called reverse engineering. This is where you take the completed product dissect it to all of its ordinal elements, only then can we understand the process of assembling these elements to form the finished product. The same is true with understanding the God head. You must break it down to its original for as I just did using scripture and some understanding of Hebrew.
Now you may be asking yourself how this gets me any closer to understanding the Godhead. Well the answer is in the scripture I stated before. “in the image of Elohim created he him”. That is the key line in understanding the Godhead, the DNA if you will.
When we break man down what is he made up of? Is he not made up of three key elements? (A body, a spirit, and a soul) So taking man in his striped apart elements lets see how he relates to being made in the image of Elohim.
Fist lets look at the spirit of a man and see how this relates to Elohim. Joh 4:24 God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth. remembering that this is Yeshua speaking and relating to us his followers who YHVH is. The word God here is the Greek word Theos, which means supreme deity. So an accurate Hebrew translation would be. YHVH is a spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. At this point we have now solidified that we are at least as far as are spirit is concerned created in that portion of Elohim. One part of Elohim is spirit and one part of man is spirit.
Now let’s look at man being a body where do we see this coinciding with Elohim. Yeshua was the bodily form of Elohim. Joh 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, [even] the Son of man which is in heaven. Yeshua was that tangible form that we could feel, see, and touch. He was for all intents and purposes the bodily part of Elohim whom we where created in the image of. Now we have proven completely that we are exactly created at least two thirds in the image of Elohim. So lets move on to the third and final part of a man. The third part being the Soul of a man. We will once and for all prove that we are completely and perfectly made in the image of Elohim or that scripture has been manipulated by the evil Roman Catholic Church to convince us to worship a false Elohim.
Now this one is a tough one for most people how does the Ruach fit in and coincide with the soul of a man. Elementary my dear Watson, well maybe not so elementary maybe a little more like college then elementary. But here again we must go back to the beginning to see the truth. Many Messianic’s understand that the word Ruach means breath. I think I may have just let the cat out of the bag for some of you but I will continue anyway. Elohim knelt down and breathed the breath of life into Adam and he became a living soul. Now we see that we are perfectly made in the image of Elohim clearly.
Now lets look at the dynamic of this triune nature of Elohim and of man. I will do my best to make it short. The body wile the may be some exception taken with this statement does not control the spirit. In fact just the opposite happens the body reacts and obeys the spirit. This is how a boxer that does not have the talent of his opponent can stay in the fight. This how a soldier can offer his life for someone he has never met. I could go on and on with the analogies but I think you see my point.
Yeshua was clearly the prompter of the Ruach to come and give us true life once again. Now look at all of the different belief systems concerning the Godhead and now you will understand that their really is a method to my madness in stating that they are all right. They are not wrong just incomplete in their search. What makes them wrong is that will go to the extremes of telling people if they do not believe like they do then they must not have truly given their life’s to the same one that they have and must not be truly be born again.
Now I fill compelled to address the messianic mindset even further. Elohim is Ecad in the same since that you are ecad. The word ecad will meaning one does not mean singular. In fact if you do the gamatria of ecad you will see that it equals thirteen even the word ecad is not ecad. We will become ecad with Yeshua. We will become ecad body, ecad bride, ecad people and ecad nation.
I hope this has helped you in your understanding of the god head in some way and that you will no longer let this subject be a point of contention among you but rather a drawing point by which we can all see that we are being lead by the Ruach we just need to keep letting him lead us and guide us and quit getting stuck on the bumps along the way.
Shalom
James Gillispie