Many people seem to think that the man Jesus of Nazareth and God are one so does that mean that when Jesus walked this earth God was no longer in Heaven?

Answer 1

Christians believed that God is three in one: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is a very difficult concept for humans to understand. Myself including. (know how hard it was to phrase that?)

Additional Answer:

A fair treatment of this question requires some exploration of the relation, or connection, if any exists, between God and humankind.

To many, it seems strange and unlikely that God and a manshould be deemed one and the same. But if, from the outset, it is understood that there is already some natural, fundamental connection between God and humankind, then the notion of oneness becomes believable.

Then what - if any - is the existing relation between God and man?

The human body consists only of material stuff. Burn it all up and you are left with ash and many millions of carbon particles diffused into clouds of steam and other gases. In summary: body = ash + smoke. Science confirms this truth that we are made from the "dust of the earth", from the elemental stuff of the natural universe.

Here is a question that you have to decide for yourself: Are you more than that? - are you more than a material body?

What is the aspect of any man or woman that is not flesh, that is not the body? It is the spirit. It is the human spirit that makes us different - it makes us persons.

Reflect on the oddness and illogicality even of normal human behaviour: The human spirit is clearly subject to its own laws; it does not conform to the laws of nature (physics, Biology, etc.) as does the material body.

How about Jesus? - he, too, was human. Was he more than his own flesh? Yes, he was; his spirit was the divine spirit (of the living, eternal "Word") who took up our flesh, so becoming a man - see John 1: 1 & 14. Because the Word, who became the spirit of the man Jesus, is and always was divine, Jesus shared the personal nature of God; he and the Heavenly Father were one in holiness and in unbounded love.

All human spirits, as was also the case for the man Jesus, are 'grounded' in the sense that they are somehow integrated with our physical bodies. However, they are not subject to the natural limitations of our flesh. For example, human beings have imagination: if you dream of flying and it becomes your greatest ambition, then someday you will invent the hang-glider, the helicopter, the jet-pack … where the human spirit is concerned, not even the sky is the limit.

Your 'heart', your spirit, can go out to someone without your needing to move a muscle. Even by the use of a radio or telephone contact, you can mentally and emotionally apprehend and directly spiritually support a person even though you may be thousands of miles distant from them.

The human spirit carries the biological life principle that maintains the bodily (organic) life. And it carries the human consciousness which is the basis of our personal (spiritual-mental-emotional-social) life.

Apart from ourselves, no other living creatures are persons. But we men and women, formed in the likeness of our Creator, are most fundamentally spiritual beings: Like God, we are persons. (Genesis 1:26-27; John 4:24)

The human body is a distinct, physical object. It has been dissected, studied and finely analysed.

However, the human spirit is not visible or tangible. It is not bound by physical limits; it is not physically palpable and substantial as are material things. Thus it is not spatially located and accessible like the objects in the natural world. Unlike an object, the spirit cannot be dissected and studied.

Because a person is not only a body but is most essentially a spirit, she or he cannot be neatly described or tidily defined. We cannot conclusively say just what any human being is any more than we can comprehensively define or describe what God is.

And that is why this question is answerable. God is personal and so are we; this means that neither God nor we may be considered as completely distinct and separate objects. For, indeed, we men and women are made in the likeness of our own Creator: God and man are intrinsically one in as much as both are personal beings. This is not to suggest that men and women are normally - naturally - divine in form or in personal nature but, that within our creaturely limits, we are a direct reflection of God's own form. That is how a special spiritual connection exists between God and man: we are personal-spiritual beings, made for fellowship with God.

Then, what is understood by the notion that God is "in Heaven"?

Heaven - the eternal - is God's own element in which he is free from the constraints of matter, time and space. God's spirit being is all-powerful; he does not have to be bound by the limitations of the natural universe. At present there is a very necessary divide between we who are of the created order, and the absolute fullness of God's presence (not only in terms of his power but also of the burning radiance of his generic being and holiness - his glory).

So when the Word (divine Spirit) took on our flesh and lived among us as one of us, he necessarily had to set aside those Heavenly attributes, the power and glory of his divine form. It may be helpful to think of the divine form as analogous with the human form (the body). The Word set aside his powerful and glorious form and instead took on the human form. He could not, of course, also leave behind his divine, personal nature. If 'the Word' came among us without his very own personal nature, he would be some other person, simply another natural man and not Jesus the Son of God.

Hence, here is yet another very significant sense in which man can be one with God. We can become one with Him in personal nature and character. Even now, we can begin to participate in the divine nature and, finally, become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13) For this development to become possible we first need a renewal of our own personal spirits, a spirit-ual 'upgrade'. That renewal is known as spiritual regeneration.

God the Holy Spirit is the divine person who makes possible this renewal of our spirits. As is Jesus, he is free to meet with us personally (in spirit). Unlike Jesus, who had a human body like ours, he is invisible to the eye.

I hope this consideration of the ways in which all men and women are, and may be, related to God, might be helpful in providing some insight into how the man Jesus of Nazareth was one with the heavenly Father.

The Word, the Holy Spirit and the Father are, all three, of the same generic stuff - the same personal 'substance', that is, spirit. In heaven, they also share the same glorious divine form (Jesus now has a glorified, spiritual body). Even more, they are of the same personal nature and character, as typified by their unfailing love and holiness. In all these senses the three persons of God are one.

If we say that God is "in Heaven", does that mean he is separate from us? God being 'in' heaven means that when he is not constrained to be present to us in the form of a man, or to live within the limitations of the physical universe, he is then absolutely free and fully himself; it does not mean that he- his personal Spirit - is not present to us here and now. It is only because he is 'in Heaven' - not finite and limited - that he is able to be with each and every one of us in the present moment, which is always (for we are only alive in the present, in the ever continuing 'moment' that is now; we cannot truly say that we live within last week or within next year).

If God's Spirit is personally, spirit-ually, present to me, then of course he is even 'nearer' to me than the cells in my brain or the blood in my veins.

We have briefly explored and discussed the relation of Man to his Maker. For a man or woman within whom the Spirit of God has taken residence, this relation takes on the dimension of relationship and of spiritual union.

To quote St. Catherine of Genoa (1447 to 1510 - the pioneer of modern hospital work), "My me is God, nor do I know my selfhood save in Him."

That does not mean that God has pushed a person out of her own body and taken it over; it means that, with her ready consent and invitation, God's Spirit lives in union with her human spirit - she is thus spiritually regenerate. There is no disrespect, rudeness or coercion in God; he only ventures where he is given welcome. So there is now a relationship and a personal oneness between her and her Maker that allows her to be what she most truly is - a daughter of God.

As explained above, Jesus Christ was both of God and of Man. As Son-of-God and Son-of-Man he represents God to us and us to God.

He famously said, "No one comes to the Father except through me." Since we are all created through him (i.e. through the eternal Word), and since our life is sustained in him, he is the agency of our natural, human relation to God - the source of our very being. (John 14:6; Acts 17:28)

We may invite him to be our redeemer, too. He then becomes the agent of our personal oneness with God - of our spiritual union with God. If Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life", he meant it literally.

If, in the Word, we are one with God, then we have within our spirits his life which is eternal life. "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." (John 5:24)

References:

[All references have been checked against the current New International Version - NIV - Bible.]

For references to "dust of the earth" - see Genesis 2:7; 3:19; Psalm 90:3; 103:14; Ecclesiastes 3:20; 12:7; Daniel 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15:45-47.

Men and women participating in the divine nature 2 Peter 1:4

The Word became flesh. John 1:14

The Word set aside his heavenly attributes (divine form) to become man. Philippians 2:6-7

Father, Son and Spirit (the Holy Spirit) are spirit-beings. John 4:24; Romans 8:9-11

We are formed in the likeness of our Creator. Genesis 1:26-27

Jesus now has a glorified, spiritual body. Our resurrection bodies also will be like his. 1 Corinthians 15:42-44; Romans 8:11; Philippians 3:21

"I am the way and the truth and the life" John 14:6

Jesus: My sheep (i.e. followers) listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:27-30)

Yet to all who did receive him (i.e. Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)

"My (Jesus') prayer is not for them (the disciples) alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:20-23)

But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17)

Both the one (Jesus) who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:11)