The Holy Spirit and the Trinity

 

This mediated message deals with the subjects of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. It builds on the previous message in showing the function of the Holy Spirit and explains why the Trinity teaching is incorrect. It also explains the nature of the spirit of man and how it parallels the Holy Spirit. For related information, go to this page.

 

Luke States What the Holy Spirit Is,

and Declares That the Mystery of the Godhead, Three in One, Is a Myth.

He Also Explains What Is Meant by the Spirit of Man.

(LUKE, THE APOSTLE)

(November 5th, 1916 | Received by James Padgett)

 I AM HERE. Luke.

I come tonight to write you a message upon the Truth of what the Holy Spirit is.

I know that the orthodox generally believe and classify It as a part of the “Godhead,” being one with and the equal of God, the Father, and not merely a manifestation of the Father as Spirit; hence, that It is necessarily identical with the Father, though having a different and distinct personality.

The orthodox preachers and theological writers teach that it is a fact that these three are one, co-equal and existing, and that fact is the “great mystery of God.” Further, that men should not endeavor to fathom the “mystery” because the “sacred things of God” are His Own, and it is not “lawful” for men to enter into these “secrets.”

Well, this declaration and admonition are very wise, as men’s wisdom goes, and save the expounders of these doctrines of mystery from attempting to explain what they cannot explain. For it is impossible for them to unravel that which, as a presumed fact, has no existence.

All down the ages, men of thought have sought to understand this “great mystery,” as they called it, and have been unsuccessful. As the early fathers met with the same defeat in their endeavors to understand this “mystery,” and then, because of such defeat, declared the explanation of the doctrine to be a “secret of God,” not to be inquired into by men, so all these other instigators of the church adopted the admonition of the old fathers that God’s “secret” must not be inquired into when they became convinced of the futility of the search. For this “secret” belonged to God, Alone, and both sinful man and the redeemed man must respect it, so they claimed.

Thus, from the beginning of the established church, after the death of Jesus and his apostles, this doctrine of the “Trinity” was declared—one in three and three in one, yet only one—and this was made the vital foundation stone of their visible church’s existence. Of course, from time to time, there arose men who, having more enlightenment than their brothers in the church, attempted to gainsay the truth of the doctrine and declared and maintained that there was only one God, the Father.

But they were in the minority and not acting with the more powerful. Their views were rejected, and the “mystery” became the church’s “sacred symbol of truth”—unexplainable, and therefore more certain and entitled to more credence. And it seems to be the tendency of men’s minds, or at least of those who believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, to welcome and encourage those things which savor of the mysterious as the more wonderful and important and the more to be cherished, rather than welcome those which a man may read and understand as he runs.

NOWHERE, NOT EVEN IN THE BIBLE, IS THERE ANY SAYING OF JESUS TO THE EFFECT THAT GOD IS TRIPARTITE, CONSISTING OF THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. AND, AS A FACT, JESUS NEVER TAUGHT ANY SUCH DOCTRINE WHEN ON EARTH, BUT ONLY THIS: THAT THE FATHER IS GOD AND THE ONLY GOD; THAT HE, JESUS, IS HIS SON AND THE FIRST FRUIT OF THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD; AND THAT THE HOLY GHOST IS GOD’S MESSENGER FOR CONVEYING THE DIVINE LOVE, AND, AS SUCH, IS THE COMFORTER.

In some of the Gospels, as now contained in the Bible and adopted as canonical, I know it is said, in effect, that the “Godhead” consists of the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”—these three are allegedly one—but such Gospels do not contain the Truth in this respect, and they are not the same Gospels that were originally written. In the passing of the years, these original Gospels have been added to, and taken from, in the copying and the recopying that occurred before the adoption of the same.

The adopted Gospels were compiled from many writings. And as the compilers in those early times differed in their opinions, as men now do respecting religious Truths, the more powerful of these, having authority to declare what should be accepted according to their interpretations of those manuscripts that were being copied, directed that the copies be made in agreement with their ideas and, I may say, desires. Then they announced and put forth that such productions were true copies of the originals. And, as these copies were successively made, the preceding ones were destroyed. Hence, the earliest existing manuscripts of these Gospels came into being many years after the originals were written and destroyed.

AND I, LUKE, WHO WROTE A GOSPEL AND WHO AM ACQUAINTED WITH THE PRESENT GOSPEL ASCRIBED TO ME, SAY THAT THERE ARE MANY VITAL THINGS AND DECLARATIONS CONTAINED IN IT THAT I NEVER WROTE AND THAT ARE NOT TRUE; AND MANY TRUTHS THAT I DID WRITE ARE NOT CONTAINED THEREIN—AND SO WITH THE OTHER GOSPELS.

In none of our Gospels did the “mystery” of the “Godhead” appear, and that for the reason that there was not and is not any mystery. We did not teach that there was any “Godhead,” composed of three personalities, but only one God, the Father. Jesus was a son of man in the natural sense, and a son of God in the spiritual sense; but he was not God, or a part of God, in any sense except that he possessed the Divine Love of the Father and, in that sense, was a part of His Essence. The Holy Spirit was not God, but merely His Instrument—a Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

As you have been informed, the soul of man existed prior to man’s creation in the flesh, and was the only part of man that was made in the image of God. It existed in this pristine state without individuality, though having a personality, and resembled the Great Soul of the Almighty, which Soul is God, Himself. And the soul that was given to man was not a part of the Great Soul—merely a likeness of it.

Some of you mortals have said that man’s soul is a part of the “Oversoul,” meaning the Soul of God, but this is not true. If it has been said that the soul of man is a part of the Soul of God in any of our communications, and I mean while it existed before its incarnation, our saying must not be so interpreted.

The Ego of God, as may be said, is the Soul. And from this Soul emanates all the manifested Attributes of God, such as Power and Wisdom and Love, but not jealousy or wrath or hatred, as some of the writers of the Bible have said; for He possesses no such attributes.

The ego of man is the soul, and, in his created purity and perfection, his soul emanated all the manifested attributes belonging to him, such as power and love and wisdom; and neither were jealousy, nor hatred, nor wrath attributes of his before his fall.

It is said that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit, and this is true. From your life’s experience, you know what the body is, and I have told you what the soul is. And now the question arises, what is the spirit?

I know that there have been great differences of opinion among the theologians and other wise men for centuries as to what the spirit is. Some have contended that it and the soul are the same thing; others, that the spirit is the real ego of man, and the soul something of less quality and subordinate to the spirit; and still others have had other views, and all wrong. For as I have said, the soul is the ego. And anything else connected with man, and forming a part of his creation (when he was pronounced to be “Very Good”), is subordinate to the soul and only its instrumentality for manifesting itself.

As Jesus has told you, the spirit is the active energy of the soul and the instrumentality by which the soul manifests itself. And this definition applies to the spirit of man while he is a mortal, as well as when he becomes an inhabitant of the spirit world. The spirit is inseparable from the soul, and it has no function in the existence of man except to make the potentialities of the soul manifest its activities. Spirit is not life, but it may become an evidence of life. It is life’s breath.

As man was created in the image of his Maker, and as spirit is only the active energy of the soul,  by the application  of the principle  of correspondences, which one of your former psychics declared to exist, IT MAY BE ASSUMED, AND IT IS A TRUTH, THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE ACTIVE ENERGY OF THE GREAT SOUL OF THE FATHER. AND, AS WE KNOW FROM OUR EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS, THE HOLY SPIRIT IS USED AS THE MESSENGER OF THE FATHER TO CONVEY HIS DIVINE LOVE TO MANKIND. AND I DO NOT MEAN TO RESTRICT THE MISSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO MANKIND IN THE FLESH, FOR IT ALSO CONVEYS AND BESTOWS THIS GREAT LOVE UPON THE SOULS OF THE FATHER’S CHILDREN WHO ARE SPIRITS WITHOUT THE BODIES OF BONE AND FLESH, AND WHO ARE INHABITANTS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD. AND, SO, IT IS A TRUTH THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT GOD AND NO PART OF THE “GODHEAD.” IT IS MERELY HIS MESSENGER OF TRUTH AND LOVE THAT EMANATES FROM HIS GREAT SOUL, BRINGING LOVE AND LIGHT AND HAPPINESS TO MAN.

I have written longer than I expected, but I hope many mortals may receive the Truth from my message, and that they will believe that the Holy Spirit is not one of the “Godhead,” that the “mystery of the Godhead” is a myth, without substance, and that there is no Truth in all God’s Universe that man is not invited to search for and understand and possess.

I will now stop. In doing so, I will leave you my love and blessings, and will pray to the Father to send the Holy Spirit to you with Its great abundance of the Divine Love.

Good night and God bless you until I come again.

Your brother in Christ,

LUKE.

 

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