Hi Vic,
This is one of those things that is really hard to grasp all the intricacies of this concept of, who is the Father and who is Jesus Christ and how they are related to one another.
I found this from the 2006 Mobile Conference transcript.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,3720.0.html ----------
So let’s think about this a little bit, who is the Father? In Him we live and breath and have our being. Liken the ocean to the Spirit of God, and liken us to the fish. The fish are 95% water, the ocean is in the fish, and the fish are in the ocean, get it.
A bird has very porous bones, because they have to be very light. It flies in the heavens, it breaths fast, because it needs strength and oxygen. So the air (which is like the Spirit of God, which is what he calls it in the NT, Greek word for spirit is pheuma), the expanse is even called heaven, where the bird flies, and liken the air to the Spirit of God. The bird has air in him and is flying through the air.
Now this is what the scripture say, we are in God and God is in us. So, get it out of your head that God is a man, sitting on a stone throne, like Abraham Lincoln in Washington D.C., an old man with gray hair. God is right here, it (Bible) says so, we have to just listen to the words.
God is Spirit, it also says God is invisible, you can’t see Him, not literally. We can see Him in Spirit, as in our heart, in our mind, our soul, our spirit, in our intermost being.
The thing that makes us different from plants and other animals, is we can see God. I’m trying to help you right now, to see God. So when you leave here, you will see God in a way you didn’t, when you walked in here. If God opens it up to you, I can only tell you, but God must open it up for you to grasp it.
God is here, not here because we are here, but He was here before we got here and He’ll still be after we leave. Because this desk is here and this desk has it cohesion in Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus Christ that this desk holds together or it would fall apart. It takes energy and power, what is the source of the power, Jesus Christ, which comes from the Father and it’s passed off out of Him. One Father, one God, all and everything is out of Him. GOD IS ALMIGHTY!
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The creator of heaven and earth is Jesus Christ.
The creator of the human race is Jesus Christ.
No man has ever seen God, only Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ when He acts on behalf of God, with the power of God, The knowledge of God, wisdom of God, and the love of God, with the strength of God and the character of God, IT IS GOD. But He is not the Father. He came to reveal the Father.
John 7:29 “But I (Jesus Christ) know Him (the Father), for I am from Him, and He has sent Me.
Now you know the one that sends someone is greater than the one who was sent.
John 13:3 “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands,
and that He had come from God and went to God,”
Where did Jesus Christ come from? Well was it the Trinity, the third part of the Trinity? A third part of the Trinity, equal with the other two parts of the God Trinity? NO, He came from God.
So in John 13:3 “and that HE CAME FROM GOD,” that’s where Jesus came from, GOD.
Not from the Godhead, not from the Trinity, FROM GOD.
John 16:27 “for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I CAME OUT FROM GOD.” (Just like Eve came out from Adam)
v. 28 “I CAME FORTH FROM THE FATHER, and have come into the world.”
1 John 4:9 “In this the love of God was revealed in us, because GOD SENT HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON into the world that we might live through Him.”
v. 14 And we have seen and testify that THE FATHER SENT THE SON to be the Savior of the world.
Heb 1:2 “has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom HE HAS APPOINTED heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds,”
If Jesus Christ was part of a triune god, a trinity, then nobody’s appointed anybody, nobody is sending anybody. There is not one greater authority in a perfect equilateral triangle. But Christ said, My Father is greater than I, (John 14:28).
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
The beginning was the Word of God, what did God began with? Jesus Christ, right? The Word, that’s what God began with, Jesus Christ is the beginning.
In Gen. 1:1 it says, “In the beginning[ Heb: reshiyth - spec. Firstfruits] God [Heb: Elohim] created the heavens and the earth”
We read in 1 Cor 15:20 “But now Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the Firstfruit of those who slept.”
That Jesus Christ “became the Firstfruit of those who slept.” Who is the Firstfurit? JESUS CHRIST.
Where did Jesus come from: John 7:29; John 13:3; John 9:42; John 16: 27-28; 1 John 4:9, 14.
Jesus was created by the Father; Heb 1:2; Rev 3:14. Jesus Christ was created and than became the Creator of all. So when you talk about Jesus Christ, you are talking about God. But you are talking about the One who was begotten in the God family, and one who could be emptied and formed such as a man.
A couple of other points here. Christ said to the Pharisees, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58). He didn’t say I was, He said “I am.” And what did He tell Moses? Moses said who will I say sent me and He said tell, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exo. 3:14), or I Am what I will be, is what the Hebrew indicates.
So Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and the Hebrews, never knew God the Father, they knew Jesus Christ - Yahweh. When they hung Christ on the cross, they crucified their own Creator.
In 1 Cor 10:4, that Rock was CHRIST. It also says in verse 9 that follows that “we should not tempt Christ.” When they tempted “the Lord” (Exo. 17:7) back then, they murmured against(tempted) Christ (Deu. 1:27; 1 Cor. 10:10), is what it tells us.
So Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament. He is the reason Elohim is plural, “and God said let US.”
So the Father is doing the creating, but it is done through His Son, Jesus Christ, His first born. Now for scriptural proof, in Heb. 1:8 it says "Thy throne, O God, is for the eon of the eons ...” Now I know the Jehovah Witness and I’ve read all their stupid ways of trying to get around that verse, and it just won’t smoke. It means what it says, God addresses Jesus Christ as “Thy throne, O God,” and the O is in there, it’s in the Greek and it’s back in the Hebrew where this verse is quoted from as well.
Only God is to be worshipped, the leper came and worshipped Him (Matt. 8:2), the chief, worships Him (Mat. 9:18), and the woman came and worships Him (Matt 15:25). Rev 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega … the Almighty." That’s Christ, God. “And the Word was God,” (John 1:1) Thomas said, when he felt the holes in Christ’s body, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). And Christ did not correct Him.
Titus 2:13-14 “The Great God and Savior Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us…”
So He is God, but He is not His own Father, ok. And Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father, Luke 10:22; John 6:46;
Matt 11:27, “Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal Him.”
Nobody knew anything about God the Father, until Jesus Christ revealed Him. The only God that anybody knew was Jesus Christ.
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I hope this helps
mercy, peace and love
Kat