In reference to His substance, God is SPIRIT. In reference to His state of being, God is ONE. ONE means united, undivided, unfragmented. Oneness speaks of unity, harmony, singleness, concord, solidarity. God is ONE. The fact that there is one GOD must not be confused with the truth that GOD IS ONE. Perhaps, as someone has said, this is only another aspect of viewing the same truth, for God is truly one, undivided in His will and purpose in Himself.
Surely HE alone is God, but that God IS ONE is a great and blessed fact. God is united, undivided and unfragmented in every aspect of His nature and state of being. He cannot be influenced, affected, moved, upset, frustrated, changed, altered, damaged, destroyed, made discordant or set at variance in any way. The character of God is changeless, unaffectedly abiding in love, joy, peace, righteousness, wisdom, justice, and power.
God's substance and character does not rise to fall, rise and fall, fall to rise. Matters not what happens, what men say or what evil does, the love of God, the purpose of God, and the power of God is steadfast, unmoved, unaffected, without fluctuation. He is Yahweh, the SELF-EXISTENT ONE. God is ONE. No power in the universe can cause any deviation whatsoever in God's nature, will or action.
There can be no doubt that each aspect of God's being moves in perfect harmony and accord with every other part of His being. Here in the physical world there are contradictions in man's value systems because there are contradictions within man. Man’s best state is moral philosophy limited by finite and faltering human thinking of faulty reasoning. Controlling human conflict by moral philosophy has to overcome the ultimate contradiction between the desire for JUSTICE and the heart's call for MERCY.
A moral judge, if he is a good judge, will be just. He will not let somebody get off with murder without paying their due sentence. Moral justice demands that evil be punished because if evil goes unpunished, then the judge is a participant in letting crime go unchecked. Justice is like one side of a coin. The other side of the coin is mercy. Mercy says, "I want to forgive you, when you don't deserve it.” God's mercy is made of pure gold, reaching out to conquer the more deeply undeserving of us. Is this a contradiction? How can we possibly combine these two creative principles in our earthly life?
We can speak of law and love, of truth and grace, of justice and mercy, so long as sin does not exist to create controversy between any of us. If there were no sin in mankind, love would not be out of harmony with having grace for each of us. Truth and grace go ever hand in hand; justice and mercy sing a common anthem. But if the law be broken, what is love to do? If truth be violated, how can grace operate? In the presence of crime, how can justice and mercy meet?
Yes, this is but one of the problems with justice and mercy being harmonized within our earthly members. So, God is one, but we are not. If God is making us ONE with Him it can be done only by receiving from the the spirit realm a celestial faith of knowing the God who is one. We know every facet of God's nature is unified, so that His justice is not warring against His mercy, neither is His judgment set against His grace.
Herein lie many mysteries and the wonder of it all is there is no conflict in God, no contradictions. In God, and in God alone, we see no contradictions combined with peace, love and joy, justice and mercy are “kissing each other” because God is just AND God is merciful. God is ONE.Our God is not schizophrenic, He does not have a split personality like men. He is not both infinitely merciful and infinitely vindictive.
The Lord our God is ONE so that all the attributes and powers of His being are working together in perfect accord, each harmoniously synchronized in the same purpose and toward the same end, without any contradiction. Scripture links HIS justice inherently to HIS salvation.
"There is no God else besides me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside Me.” Isaiah 45:21
He is a SAVIOUR because He is also JUST. His righteous nature requires that He be our Saviour. He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust, and He knows right well that;
"…the premonition of the creation is awaiting the unveiling of the sons of God. For to vanity was the creation subjected, not voluntarily, but because of Him Who subjects it, in expectation that the creation itself, also, shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God." Romans 8:19-22 concordant
Yes, HE WILL CORRECT US to free us , and by this very correction make the necessary changes in us to bring us into the full salvation, a freedom from death worked out in us as it is in Jesus Christ.
"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness [justice] and peace have kissed each other." Psalms 85:10
This kingly viewpoint is true in Him. Mercy and truth are gloriously working together to fulfill God's plan of redemption in us. Yet where mercy alone cannot produce the needed change, God applies His judgment. And when His judgment has accomplished its intended work, mercy is remembered. His passion (wrath) is that we be changed to COOPERATE one with the other, designed to play our role in God's plan of bringing each creation man and woman to an expected end of reconciliation with God, delivered from separation, delivered from death.
There is no conflict in the King's mind between two opposites if they are both working toward the objective, if each is REDEMPTIVE, not vindictive. There are many false concepts promoted in churches about the judgment of God being pitted against some people being forever in hell where His mercy does not extend. This is a false and distorted concept of the justice of God. No punishment will last longer than His mercy, His wrath does not triumph over His grace. His mercy triumphs over our errors sooner or later, because the Lord our God is ONE! He is making us to be of one spirit now.
By teaching the ultimate salvation of all men, we are not pitting one group of scriptures against another, or one aspect of God's nature against another. The solution can be found in the correct HARMONIZATION of all the scriptures and ALL the characteristics within God Himself, not ignoring one while advancing the other. Like God's justice and His mercy, God's judgment and His salvation are MET TOGETHER AS CO-AGENTS IN GOD'S REDEMPTIVE SON, else there would be lasting warfare and irreconcilable conflict within us all. All the judgments of God are disciplinary and correctional in nature rather than vindictive and final.
According to the word of God, God is at the same time the JUDGE OF ALL and the SAVIOUR OF ALL. He is not the Judge of some and the Saviour of some, but both Judge and Saviour of ALL! Judge of all must mean that He judges all; none escape. Saviour of all must mean that He saves all; none are left out. Within these wonderful facts we must see the beautiful HARMONIZATION of the timing for justice and the determined course for the mercy of God. His judgment leads us to change (repentance) by knowing of His mercy.
The judgments of God can not be rightly understood apart from seeking to know and understand His nature. God's judgments spring from His love, for He IS LOVE. What should this teach us about His judgments? The pen of inspiration wrote,
"My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord, nor yet faint when being exposed by Him. For whom the Lord is loving He is disciplining, Yet He is scourging every son to whom He is assenting. For discipline are you enduring. As to sons is God bringing it to you, for what son is there whom the father is not disciplining? Now if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, consequently you are bastards and not sons. Thereafter, indeed, we had the fathers of our flesh as discipliners, and we respected them. Yet shall we not much rather be subjected to the Father of spirits and be living? For these, indeed, disciplined for a few days as it seemed best to them, yet that One for our expedience, for us to be partaking of His holiness." Hebrews 12:5-10 concordant
God doesn't go around anywhere purposelessly punishing or vindictively torturing any of His creatures. Yet, He does go about precise paths of bringing forth correction UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS in His sons and daughters as the prophet says,
"When Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Isaiah 26:9
God's judgments, whether upon saints, nations, or the wicked dead in general are all corrective in nature, accomplished by the motivation of His nature which is LOVE. Truly the Lord our God is ONE!
How obvious today the vast difference between those who are either IN or OUT of Christ.
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation;”
"...who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ;"
"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,"
But of our state before we were in Christ, it is said,
"At that time ye were without [Greek: apart from, outside of] Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." Ephesians 2:12
OUTSIDE of Christ is naught but sorrow, darkness and death. In or out - what a great gulf separates these two. The very process of creation's coming out of God produced a disruption and fragmentation of the whole, yet:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One Lord.” Deuteronomy 6:4
That which is ONE is UNITED, UNDIVIDED, UNFRAGMENTED, for all contained within is harmonized, synchronized and joined in perfect unity. IN HIM creation was once harmoniously whole without a discordant note anywhere. It was pre-eminently a spiritual celebration vibrating as a symphony of unutterable beauty, a triumphant masterpiece of dynamic harmonious accord. In the records of scripture, our Father's celestial beginnings:
"In the beginning was the word, and the word was toward God, and God was the word. This was in the beginning toward God. All came into being through it, and apart from it not even one thing came into being which has come into being. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light is appearing in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not." John 1:1-5 concordant
In the beginning there was the word toward God — no trace of evil, no death, no adversary, and no darkness or discord at all. Everything everywhere has come into existence through IT. God, in every spirit He Fathers, longs for God's majesty to be pulsating as the dynamic anthem in our being to now be one with His exulting, creative glory. This oneness is what God calls us to. As we think on these things, it will bring freedom to our spirit and light to our soul.
As God marvelously created the creation, the planets, the plant life, the animal life, men and women, it is only the spirit of man that longs for the realm of pure sonship experience as Jesus attained after He left this gross material plane, where occurred mighty disruptions, breaking up, and fragmentation of the old. Yet even we are, like the creation, MADE SUBJECT TO VANITY. We never stopped the whole downward process of disintegration and dissolution that results in death.
This process continues to hold us downward into fragmentation and dissolution through various stages and vast ages of time until today's depths of frustration were reached. Likewise, God's people are ASCENDING into the image and fullness of God through various stages and vast ages of time until the highest intent of God's purpose for us is fulfilled — "from glory to glory," "from faith to faith," and "from experience to experience."
It was a great work of fragmentation when God said, "Let there be light!”
"And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:4-5
This business of division, separation and fragmentation did not stop with that one inauspicious act. God divided the waters from the water (Genesis 1:6). He set great lights in the firmament of the heavens, the stars, sun and moon; and made a difference between them. God separated Eve from Adam, so that the graces and powers of man are divided. Only in the twain is there oneness in the flesh.
When God took a "rib" from Adam, (the Hebrew word is TSELA used elsewhere of "side", or "side chamber", or just "chamber"), obviously God took more than just a bone, but a whole chamber, the womb. From this womb He built a womb-man, a woman. From that time on she would help, assisting the man to bring forth after his own kind. Without her help man could not come to fulfill God's command to be fruitful and multiply on the earth:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: ... So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply," Genesis 1:26-28
"In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." Genesis 5:1-2
When God brought forth Adam, there was a state of oneness between male and female being as one, and "He called their name Adam.” God had originally brought forth male, and then the female. He did not first bring them forth in a divided state. Adam and Eve were brought forth in ONENESS, being Adam. All of us should see that God will help us to be RESTORED to that original state of Oneness and more. Note then:
"Yahweh Elohim formed the human out of soil from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the human became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7 concordant
The very fact that the scripture states that Adam became alive in his SOUL reveals that there was a process of not being alive to knowing just pure Oneness of spirit — oneness of spiritual thought and oneness of existence — into a lesser earthy realm. Adam had been lowered, as it were, a little lower than the messengers (angels), so that he willingly partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He never fully woke up from the slumber and sleep he had been put into when Eve was removed. He was blind to the existence of his own spiritual connection with God. Now Adam, the first man, is lowered from the higher realm of spiritual oneness to partake of death. One of the outstanding texts which shows this lowering of man is wherein we read:
"What is man that Thou rememberest him? The son of man that Thou inspectest him? And caused him to lack a little of Godhead, and with honour and majesty compassest him. Thou dost cause him to rule over the works of Thy hands, all Thou hast placed under his feet. " Psalms 8:4-6 YLT
The word "angels" in this passage is from the Hebrew ELOHIM and is always the Old Testament word for GOD. The phrase should read "made a little lower than God." It would more freely be translated from the Hebrew text, "You have caused him [man] to LACK FROM ELOHIM."
When God would reveal the purpose of the ages, He lays hold of His faithful followers and strips them from every falsehood to show some of the glory of full salvation, the oneness, the release into freedom from every cause lacking God. It was GOD who subjected us to the bondage of vanity and corruption, emptiness and nothingness, not willingly on our part, but by reason of HIM who subjected us in hope. HOPE is given that out of all of this travail and processing would come forth a freedom in us that would redound to the work done in the firstborn Son of God.
To gain His praise, we need to inherit the glory of our High Priest's pre-existent state of oneness in God. So with us being made one spirit with the Lord yet in contact with evil, the overcoming thereof should combine to increase our radiance. Our latter state will be greater than the former! Then all we can know is what is generated of the Father's mind, with all the power wrought out in Jesus's redemptive glory shining into our heart within us, to God's praise. He promised to draw all men and ALL MEN SHALL BE DRAWN to throb anew with the wonder of spiritual power working to bring about God's glorious kingdom plans.
In the meantime, we are made to lack, lowered from that pure complete ONE existence as is the image of God.
"You have made him a little lower than Elohim,"
The spirit God gave to man was lowered, made to lack. It slept in the darkness of this world and earth, so that the counter-balancing qualities of God in our spirit which promote order and righteousness were missing. God made us lower, to lack. This immediately made man vulnerable to the many temptations that might come his way. History shows man has obviously fallen further and further into the delusions of fleshly error. The hidden inner spirit was made to lack, man was lowered under the powers of vanity and death.
This in turn produced changes in the soul and body of man to become progressively worse, being subject in America to gross earthly thinking and materialism as we know exists today even in the American church. When the Lord God formed Adam of the dust of the ground and placed him in the garden to dress it, guard it, keep it, and take care of it, Adam was ALREADY MADE TO COME SHORT OF THE ONENESS OF GOD. He had already been lowered. His course had already been laid, as it were — he had been made to lack. He did not have sufficient resources to fulfill the commands of God. And God planned it this way!
The moment we understand these truths, and, in a simple matter, grasp the fact that all sin is conquered by Christ within, He becomes now our sufficiency against the whole realm of vanity, darkness, evil and death. Death is the end manifestation of an IMBALANCE CAUSED BY A LACK, a DEFICIENCY, a FRAGMENTATION from the oneness of God's Life. God is responsible for this condition, as He subjected us to it.
God is also responsible to save us from this condition. The God of our Lord has also planned a glory beyond description that raises us all, ALL of mankind, into the Oneness which He is now in Jesus and those with Him, making us completed Sons and Daughters of God:
"For to vanity was the creation subjected, not voluntarily, but because of Him Who subjects it, in expectation that the creation itself, also, shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
For we are aware that the entire creation is groaning and travailing together until now. Yet not only so, but we ourselves, also, who have the first fruit of the spirit, are groaning in ourselves, awaiting the sonship, the deliverance of our body. For to expectation were we saved. Now expectation, being observed, is not expectation, for what anyone is observing, why is he expecting it also! Now, if we are expecting what we are not observing ,we are awaiting it with endurance." Romans 8:20-25 concordant
GOD IS ONE with us whom He has written upon. We are becoming messengers who “sing a new song” even about the celestial throne. We are not polluted with the false teachings of Babylon, but are flawless, of one mind, as one of the many clouds the Lamb appears in to reap and harvest His people's spirit homeward toward entering the celestial city of New Jerusalem.