51-REGARDING DEITY

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 24, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 46.

51—REGARDING DEITY

Is it right to say of the heavenly Trio, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit”? Do the heavenly Trio have the same equal eternal existence? T. A. Z.

1. It is always safe to confine ourselves to the terminology of the Word, and we never find these expressions among the Bible terms. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all of Deity; but why try to divide them up in a way that the Bible has not? The counsel we would give is that the closer we adhere to Bible language the better it is.

2. It would clearly seem that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have existed to eternity. This is a question that is utterly and absolutely incomprehensible by man. “Who by searching can find out God?”

Of the Son it is said, in predicting His coming in the flesh, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Micah 5: 2. The margin reads, “the days of eternity.”

In the first chapter of John we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Certainly no mortal or finite mind can comprehend what lies beyond that period.

The Spirit is common to both the Father and the Son; and all God's works are operated through the power of that Spirit,—the great life of God.