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TL;DR:
This exchange with a Jehovah's Witness addresses several theological questions about the nature of God, the Holy Spirit, and Christ's indwelling presence.
Overall, the page emphasizes that the triune unity of God and the intimate, indwelling presence of Christ are central to authentic Christian faith.
"This set of instructions is not to cease being a part of your conversations. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to carry out everything that's written in it." — Joshua 1:8, International Standard Version
Watchtower Society interchange: A Jehovah's Witness and I exchanged numerous email messages about beliefs and doctrines. These excerpts present his questions and my responses. Some material overlaps because our correspondence occasionally returned to the same themes.
My Jehovah's Witness friend rarely asked follow-up questions, so we seldom explored individual subjects in depth.
My answer: The Holy Spirit's influence on our minds does not make Him an impersonal force. A person can teach, guide, and influence another person. Christians confess one God eternally existing as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are not three gods. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share the one divine essence, and there is a fundamental unity within the Godhead.
My answer: First of all, are you reducing God to the limits of time and space as we experience them? Did you know that God created time and space and that He is not limited by them in the ways that we are? Therefore, God is where He acts. Since all things are upheld or exist by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3), God can be said to be everywhere.
For instance, because God is not confined to a particular location, we do not have to travel to Jerusalem or another sacred place to encounter and worship Him. Although the Temple in Jerusalem had a central role in Israel's worship, God's presence was never confined to that building. Jesus made clear that worship would not be tied to Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim: True worshipers worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth (John 4:21-24).
When we say God is omnipresent or present everywhere, that does not mean He is diffused and spread out through space. Remember what Solomon said as he thought of God's fundamental nature in his dedication prayer for the Temple? He said, "The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain You. How much less this temple I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27; see also 2 Chronicles 6:18). So when we say God is omnipresent, what we are saying is that it is impossible to escape His presence (Jeremiah 23:23-24; Psalm 139:8). In fact, it's probably better to say that than to use the "everywhere at the same time" phrase.
God is present everywhere at all times. His presence is not confined to a particular location, and no place lies beyond His knowledge or sustaining power. There is nowhere we can escape His presence. He knows every act performed and every word spoken, as well as every thought, motive, and feeling.
John Wesley, an influential English evangelist and theologian of the eighteenth century, wrote in his sermon "On the Omnipresence of God":
"The great God, the eternal, the almighty Spirit, is as unbounded in His presence as in His duration and power. In condescension, indeed, to our weak understanding, He is said to dwell in heaven: but, strictly speaking, the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; but He is in every part of His dominion."
Allan Turner has said it well:
"God is universally present to all of space at all times. Even so, this does not mean that He is dispersed throughout the infinite reaches of space so that every part of space has at least a little part of God. In other words, God is not present in all space; He is, instead, present to all of space. This means that the unlimited God in His whole being is present at every point of our space. Perhaps a better way to express God's omnipresence is to say that all space is immediately present before Him."
My answer: Essence means the fundamental nature that makes something what it is. Applied to God, it refers to His divine being, rather than merely to a collection of qualities that another being might resemble.
What is the fundamental nature of God? Wouldn't you say that fundamentally, God is eternal with no beginning or end? Isn't eternality something that differentiates God from anything and everyone else? So, if Jesus has the essence or "fundamental" characteristic of God, then doesn't He have to be eternal with no beginning or end?
So, what is the necessary defining characteristic of God? Well, as I've already noted, would not "eternality" with no beginning or ending be one defining characteristic of God?
If you're going to say that Jesus had many of the characteristics of God but not the one defining characteristic of eternality, then don't you need to find a different word to use than "essence"?
Look at Colossians 2:9. It says, "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." Does it say that Christ has most of the major characteristics of God? No, it doesn't say Jesus Christ is like God in most ways. Doesn't it say "all the fullness of the Deity"? As The Living Bible paraphrase puts it, "In Christ, there is all of God in a human body."
Would not "all the fullness" mean that Jesus has every single characteristic of Yahweh, including eternality?
My answer: That is a great question. You have hit on the very heart of what being a Christian means. Did you know that we evangelical Christians did not make up that phrase?
When you hear me say "Christ lives in me," do you know that I am quoting Galatians 2:20? To be sure, Galatians 2 is not the only place that the idea of Christ living in us is found in Scripture. Another clear statement of this idea is found in 1 John 3:24: "The one who keeps God's commands lives in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us."
Another of the great passages in which Paul spoke of this idea is Colossians 1:27: "The glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
"Christ in us" is the transforming principle of the Christian life. Having Christ in us is what makes us different — if we are different at all — from any other human beings on earth. What does "Christ in us" mean? In Colossians, 'mystery' refers to God's purpose once hidden but now revealed. Although I cannot fully explain how Christ dwells in believers, Scripture clearly affirms that He does.
The most wonderful thing about being a Christian is not that a person believes all the right things. It's not even the hope we have about the future, as glorious as that thought can seem. Isn't having Christ in us the most wonderful thing about being a Christian? Pastor and author Ray Stedman once said, "Christ in you is the greatest theme the mind of human beings has ever contemplated."
Charles Finney was a well-known nineteenth-century Christian evangelist. His teaching about Christ as our hope can be paraphrased this way:
We must do more than regard Christ as a figure in history, an atoning Savior, or a risen and ascended Lord. We need to receive Him into our lives and allow Him to reign in our hearts. Our hope rests in the living Christ who dwells in us and governs our whole being.
Paraphrase of Charles Finney's teaching, rather than a direct quotation.
Other Scriptures that speak of Christ being "in us" include:
Many people mistakenly think the Christian life centers around what we believe and what we do. God — who is seen as being up in heaven — is understood to hear us when we pray and to help us when we get off track. In other words, the belief is that (1) if we do our job down here and (2) God does His job up there, then (3) someday we'll come together. However, is that what the Bible teaches?
In Colossians, Paul speaks of "Christ in you" as a mystery. We must remember that many in first-century Judea hoped for a Messiah who would deliver them from Roman rule. In other words, they wanted someone who would fix all the bad things around them. Jesus, conversely, came offering a different kind of salvation. He offered salvation built on a special relationship whereby He enters into the hearts of those who receive Him.
Some people have difficulty with this concept. They point to biblical passages in Psalm 110, Mark 16 and Colossians 3 which say that when Jesus ascended, He took a position at the right hand of the Father. "If this image is true," they ask, "how can Jesus also be living within each of us at the same time?"
The answer lies in the understanding of God as triune and the promise that Jesus made to send the parakletos. That "helper," of course, is the Holy Spirit, whose primary ministry is to live the life of Christ in and through us. If you don't believe Yahweh has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then "Christ in you" is a difficult phrase to understand. If, however, you understand God as one who has revealed Himself in three persons, then it's much easier to understand these Bible passages.
— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu