Some time ago a friend of mine discovered that her sister might have to have a kidney operation - it might be necessary to have a new kidney from a donor. My friend offered her own kidney to her sister. This act was a real expression of love. She was saying to her sister, "I am prepared to take a huge risk, so that you might have a full life".
What was the risk? Well, each of us has two kidneys - if one stops functioning, the other one can cope reasonably adequately, but, if my friend gave one kidney to her sister, she would have had no second option. She was willing to take the risk because she loved her sister.
That`s what God`s love is like. He took of Himself; He took everything that He is - all His power, all His glory, and poured it into Jesus. In doing so He says to us, "That`s how much I love you! I love you enough to give you of Myself - my very life, my very truth, my very love, that you might live".
Remember that it wasn`t just WORDS that God gave, nor was it something He MADE. It was HIS VERY SELF that He gave, in Jesus. That tells me that Jesus had all of God in Himself. In fact it tells me that Jesus WAS God, that "In Him was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2.9)
he J.W will not accept this. He finds it inconceivable that all the fullness of God could dwell in a man. So, being a logical human being, he tries to explain things away logically. He says, "How could Jesus be God when he spoke to his Father in heaven - your position is impossible!"
He is, of course, mistaken. He says, "The Bible tells us that Jesus was begotten of God. That means he was created by God!"..... but it doesn`t mean anything of the sort. Being begotten (or being `born`) doesn`t mean being created at all. Something that is created comes into being out of nothing, OR out of a different kind of substance from the one who is doing the creating. (When my son made me a calendar - see Study 2 - he made it out of paper and ink, not out of himself!). But being `born` means that LIFE comes out from another IDENTICAL LIFE. The Bible tells us that Jesus was BORN OUT OF GOD - that`s why it uses the term "ONLY-BEGOTTEN", when it speaks of Him.
Let`s take this a bit further. When we BEGET our children (when they are born), they are "PUT OUT" from us i.e. they are substance of our substance. The kind of life they have is the same kind of life that we have. We do not create them - they are present in us in the ovum in the mother`s body, and the sperm in the man`s. They become our very image.
When the Bible speaks about Jesus it says that He was with God at the very beginning, in the Father and the Father in Him. Whenever God was there, so too the Son was there. Yet there came a special event in time, a time when God poured Himself out into the world in a special way so that, in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. As the Father is the SOURCE of Deity, so the Son is the OUTPOURING of Deity.
The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is the effulgence, or the outshining, of the Father`s glory (Hebrews 1.3 compare with John 1.14). Just as the sun never existed without its rays, so God has never existed with the WORD (Christ). They are CO-ETERNAL ("Before Me there was no God formed, and after Me there continued to be none. I - I am Jehovah and besides Me there is no Saviour" Isaiah 43:10-11 NEW WORLD (J.W) TRANSLATION.). If there was no God formed before Jehovah, and none after Him, then the J.W. Doctrine that Jesus is a lesser god falls to the ground. Only if Jesus has always been with God, and is God from the beginning, does He fit in with what this verse says!
Now, This concept of the outpouring of God is difficult to understand. So is the idea that in Jesus all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus bodily. How could it possibly be so? Does the Bible really teach it?
Let`s turn to an unusual part of the Scriptures, to the first Book of Kings chapter 17. This is the story of Elijah who came to the little village of Zarephath. There he met a widow, and, because he was hungry he asked her for something to eat. Now, at that time, there was a famine in the land, so the widow replied, "I`ve only a little flour, and some oil in a cruse (container); when that`s gone there`s nothing left, we`re going to die". Even so Elijah insisted that she made some bread with the little she had - BUT, when she did, she found that there was still just as much flour and oil left in her containers after she had poured it out to make the bread, as there had been when she started!!! She did it time and time again, but the amount left behind always remained the same!!!
How did it happen? No-one can explain it. It was a miracle, but it happened!
Now, it`s really not logical, is it, that I should have a full cup of oil, and, having poured it all out, I should still have a full cup remaining, so that I`ve got the bread, AND still have a cup of oil and a container of flour!!! No, it`s not logical, BUT IT HAPPENED!!!
lET`S REMEMBER SOMETHING ELSE - in the Bible "OIL" often stands for the Spirit of God - so now let`s look at this story more closely now:
When that woman poured out that second cup of oil, where had it come from? It had come out of the first cup - and yet the first cup stayed completely full!
Which was the original oil? the oil in the first cup or the oil in the second?
The answer is that they were BOTH the original cups of oil! Both cupfuls, and indeed every succeeding cupful had been there in the cup right from the beginning!
THAT`S what it was like with Christ and with God. The Bible stresses that, right from the beginning, Christ was WITH God, was IN God, and WAS God. He was a part of the Godhead, the Godlife, uncreated as God is uncreated, co-existent with the Father sharing the Father`s glory. All the Father`s glory was always His, and He had that glory with God before the world was made. (Jesus claims both these things for Himself in John 17.5 and 17.24). And, right from the beginning, before time began, and before the worlds were made, God set out His plan of salvation, so, when the fullness of time was come, God took `of Himself`,(Christ) and this which was `of Himself` He placed in the womb of Mary through the action of His Holy Spirit - He took of His love, His justice, His power, His salvation and His glory and placed this which was of Himself in the womb of Mary. So Jesus was born "And they shall call His Name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins". (Remember that God claims, besides Me there is no Saviour).
Now, when God took `of Himself`, and placed this here on earth He COULD NOT and WOULD NOT put anything that was less than Himself here on earth. Likewise God cannot take `of Himself` and become LESS than He was! Finally that which He has given `of Himself` cannot be less than He is!
The J.W. finds that hard to understand. He is too used to thinking in PHYSICAL terms. His concept is limited by what seems logical to him. In purely phusical terms, if I take a part of myself, say an arm, or a leg, and put it somewhere else, my body is less than it was (an arm less), and my arm is less than my whole body.
But God is SPIRIT, and what is true of a physical person is decidedly NOT true of a Spirit Person. (We may be made in God`s image, but He isn`t made in ours!). When a Spirit Person gives out from Himself, He gives out what has always been within Him (Christ) - and when a Spirit Person gives out from Himself He doesn`t become less than He was before. No, when God gives of Himself, He remains perfect and complete, as perfect and complete after the giving as He was before. No, when God gives of Himself, He remains perfectly and completely God, just as the cruse of oil remained completely full after it was poured out.
But so also, what He GIVES is ALSO perfect and complete. (The cruse of oil and the flower mixed in to make bread, were still the full and complete cruse of oil and flour!) And what God gives, which is perfect and complete, is THE SON OF GOD! When God poured out of Himself, He poured Himself totally and completely into Jesus, yet remained totally and completely God. Yet what He poured out was also totally and completely God, Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God.
One J.W, on hearing this rather complicated but absolutely vital exposition from Scripture, objected that, when the cruse of oil was poured out and made into a loaf with the flour, it was eaten and came to an end, which invalidated what I was saying. I pointed out that it actually added to what I was saying: "When that loaf entered into Elijah and the widow and her son, it saved them from hunger and from certain death - it gave them life. It kept on giving them life until the conditions of famine ended.
And that`s what happened with Jesus" said. "When He enters us, He is not spent, but gives us new life, eternal life, life that goes on for ever. By entering us, He saves us from certain death, and keeps us safe until the conditions of famine have ended, and we are safe with the Father. That is why He claimed to be the Bread of Life. In making this claim, He was claiming to be GOD, for only God can enter into us and give us eternal life. He claimed the title for Himself, and proved it to be true when He rose from the dead. That astounding event showed that, when His life is poured out, as it was on the Cross, it is not spent. He enters into us and fills us with His divine life. This is God`s provision for a dying world".
So we see see three things about God;
First, that He loves us.
Scond that He pours Himself out for us, and
Third that He acts within us.
This how God acts as Father, and how He acts as Son, and how He acts as Holy Spirit.
This is a MYSTERY. The J.W. prefers to do without mysteries. But the Bible is full of mysteries, actual happenings which go far beyond our normal, logical mind. It`s a mystery how a simple woman can pour out a cruse of oil, and still have the cruse of oil left full, BUT IT HAPPENED! Does the J.W really expect God to ONLY act in ways that he can understand? If so He has forgotten this Scripture: "Your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor are my ways your ways" says Jehovah, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts". Or is there another explanation, as St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, when he says that we cannot hope to understand the thoughts of God unless we have the Holy Spirit within us to explain them. christianity is a faith which is extremely simple, yet, at the same time tremendous profound. Many people have stumbled over it, just because their natural mind couldn`t understand it - though it is simple enough for babes to comprehend!
