"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"

[Rev. Autrey]

"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"

This post is dedicated to all those who want to know Jesus as God, and I will make this as simple as I can.  What God said to the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8 is a reference to himself as a Trinity of persons or selves existing as one God, i.e., one being.  It reads: "Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?"

But first let's understand the basic meaning of words self and person in the Bible.  They mean the same thing. For example, Ephesians 4:22 (NIV) says: "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires." But it is translated elsewhere: "You were taught to change the way you were living. The person you used to be will ruin you through desires that deceive you." 

I say this to say that your self or person is who you are, or how you present or express yourself to other people.  You might say it is a mental concept of who you are.  For instance, I see myself as Rev. Autrey, and I present myself to others as Rev. Autrey.  So Rev. Autrey is who I am.  And to those I speak to Rev. Autrey is just as real a person as I am a real person.

What I mean is, God sees himself as Jesus, and He presents himself to us as Jesus, i.e., "and the Word (Jesus) was God."  This is why the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are about Jesus.  Jesus, then, is who God is; making him the Immanuel, meaning God is with us.  And it is also why Thomas referred to Jesus as "My Lord and MY God."

Another way to understand what I am saying is to express the meaning of self or person as self identity or self expression.  Self or self identity requires no time and space in a person to be real.  It too, requires no change in your substance, or a dividing of your substance to be real.  It is purely mental.  All you have to do is to think it and it is so.  In other words, you can have as many selves or self identities as you like and still be you.  So as I said, it is a mental concept of who you are only, and does not add to or subtract from your substance or being.

So we can stop auguring over what space God's persons or selves occupy in God.  The subject is irrelevant and need not come up.  They don't take up any separate space.  They are all the same him.  The Father is him.  The Son is him, and the Holy Spirit is him.  Let's say it like this.  They are all the same God. 

So yes, the Father and the Holy Spirit are often mentioned in the Bible, especially in the Gospels and the writings of Paul.  And they should be.  They are God too.  In fact, one of the aims of Jesus as God was to introduce us to the Father and the Holy Spirit as selves or persons of God.  That is to say, as God's other selves or persons.  Before this time this was not known.  All the Jews knew before this was God as YHWH, the person or self of Jesus.

But their roles as God are different from the role of Jesus as God.  The Father as God directs the affairs of God.  That is why Jesus as God can say that the Father as God sent me.  The Holy Spirit as God inspires us to believe in what God is doing as Jesus.  This is why Jesus as God can say of the Holy Spirit as God, "He will tell you of me."  But God always speaks to us as Jesus.  Thus we see Jesus as God saying to us, "Come unto me and I will give you rest." Or to put it more plainly, "Come unto me as God and I will give you rest."

So what we see in Isaiah 6:8 when God said "Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people?  And who will go for us?" is a summary of what I have just explained to you.  That is to say, God, as one being, has three distinct selves or self expressions, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Many refer to them as persons.  Jesus then is the person, or self expression, or self, by whom God is speaking, and the Father and the Holy Spirit, along with Jesus, make up the "Who will go for us."

Please consider this in your daily prayers.

God bless you,

Rev. Autrey

[DaveW]

Not sure what the post has to do with the subject line or what it has to do with Messianic Judaism.