| Response |
In your question, you have identified a major difference between what we believe and what you believe, and that is whether God, our
Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ, His Son, are the same individual being. So the answer to your question will be in two parts. First,
let’s examine what the scriptures have to say about whether God is both the Father and the Son, or whether they are two separate
individuals. Let’s begin with Gen. 1:26, which says, "And God said, let us make man in our own image and after our likeness." The first
thing we know, by looking in the mirror, is that we have a physical form. If we believe the Bible to be the word of God, we must then
agree, just from this scripture at the start, that His likeness and His image is just like us. He has a physical form, not some spiritual
essence that exists in a distant heaven. Then, let’s read Ex. 33:11. We can see there that Moses spoke to God face to face. We now
know that God has a face. From there, let’s examine Matt. 3:13-17. As you can see from that scripture, our Savior Jesus Christ was on
the earth in the river Jordan, having just been baptized by John. The Holy Ghost descended from heaven in the form of a dove and
alighted upon His shoulder, and our Heavenly Father in the heavens spoke so that those attending the baptism could hear: "This is my
Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
From there, let’s go to John 17:9-11. If God, our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ, His Son, are one and the same, why is He praying
to Him? The necessity for that prayer would be meaningless since He would be talking to Himself. The specifics of the prayer make it
perfectly clear that the "oneness" that much of the Christian world believes in is not a oneness of physical being, but a oneness of
purpose.
Notice whom He’s praying for…the eleven apostles. (Judas was not there.) In asking that they be made one just as Christ and
God are one, should we believe that Christ was asking the Father to make His eleven apostles one conglomerate individual, or rather as I
have said above, one in purpose? To clarify that perspective, let’s read on in John 17:20-23. The question there would be, whom was
He praying about? The answer: all those of us who would ever hear and believe in the words of His apostles; that is, the entire Christian
world. Should we think that there is a oneness of being possible in all of the millions of Christians who have ever lived? No. As can be
clearly seen, having read these verses, it surely is a oneness of purpose. Finally, I would refer you to Heb. 1:1-3, which clarifies the
nature of God and the separateness of the Father and the Son in their physical being: "…when He had finished His work, sat down on
the right hand of the Majesty on High."
Sincerely,
Donny Osmond
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