And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said to him,…. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. – Matt. 16:16-18
But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. – John 20:31
But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified. – John 7:39
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. – Rom. 8:11
When Christ our life is manifested, then you also shall be manifested with Him in glory. – Col. 3:4
And He subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, Which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. – Eph. 1:22f
[Emphasis added]
Any message from the Bible or interpretation of the scriptures that ignores the crucial elements of Christ, the Spirit, life and the church will surely miss the mark. But, in these scriptures we see a sketch of something wonderful in God’s working.
Continuing from Part 4, we are continuing with our discussion of John 7:39.
NOTE: Please go back an digest Part 3 before going forward with this portion. It will be important for you to have laid the foundation with what is found in there.
We reiterate the question with which we ended the last article: In what sense was the Spirit “not yet,” as stated in John 7:39?
To answer that question, let’s go back to the names of God used in the Old Testament. There is a rather large number of names applies, be here we want to deal with only two:
Elohim – God revealed relative to His creation, as in Genesis 1:1
Jehovah – God revealed in relationship to man and His covenant with man
Elohim – The Triune God
The Hebrew language has singular, dual and plural forms of nouns, unlike English and most other languages that are limited to only singular and plural forms. Elohim is the plural form of “God” (with El being the singular and Eloha being the dual forms).
The unveiling of God as Elohim corresponds to verses like Deuteronomy 6:4—the famous Shema: “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Elohim is one.” This, of course, express God’s Tri-Unity on the face of it. The Elohim (plurality) is one (unity).
We find a similar application of this concept in Psalm 133: “Behold, how good and how fitting it is for brethren to sit down together as one.”
Jehovah – The God expressed for man
The traditional translation of Jehovah is “I AM what I AM,” yet anyone looking critically at the word—without any knowledge of Hebrew whatsoever—can see that it does not say: Jah-ho-jah. There is a change in form between the first and last syllable.
This is why some scholars have drawn the conclusion that Jehovah really should be translated as “I AM what HE IS.” This translation and understanding fits perfectly with the expression of God economically in relationship to man.
Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” John recorded: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” And the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus Christ is the very out-raying (KJV: effulgence) of the shining God.
Elohim is God in His eternal essence. But Jesus Christ is God’s expression to and for man. What the I AM is, Christ expresses.
So, then how is the expression of God through Christ carried forward through God’s economy—His dispensing?
We will answer that question further in coming articles.
[To be continued]
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