article 20 of the belgic confession states:

we believe that god - who is perfectly merciful and also very just - sent the son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. so god made known his justice toward his son, who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his son to die, by a most perfect love, and raising him to life for our justification, in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life.

“oh, how boundless is our father’s love for us!”

“we look to athanasius (296-373 AD) to confirm the reality of salvation offered to fallen mankind through jesus christ. athanasius is regARDED AS THE FATHER OF CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY, AND HE CHAMPIONED THE ‘VIEW THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS A FULLY DIVINE PERSON LIKE THE FATHER AND THE SON.’ ATHANASIUS ‘FOCUSED ON HOW THE IDENTITY OF CHRIST IN THE INCARNATION MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO ACCOMPLISH SALVATION. BEING BOTH GOD AND MAN HE COULD REPRESENT BOTH PARTIES AND RECONCILE THEM THROUGH REDEMPTION. . . . THE LOGIC OF NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON SALVATION ASSUMED A DIVINE-HUMAN CHRIST.’ HIS BIBLICAL ARGUMENT WAS THAT ONLY GOD CAN SAVE PEOPLE FROM THEIR SIN. JESUS CHRIST SAVES PEOPLE FROM THEIR SIN. THEREFORE, JESUS CHRIST IS GOD INCARNATE. NO HUMAN CREATURE CAN SAVE ANOTHER CREATURE; THUS IT WAS VITAL TO SALVATION THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS THE GOD-MAN.

“RESTITUTION OF AN INTIMATE, DIRECT, PERSONAL COMMUNION BETWEEN THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND REPENTANT SOUL OF MAN HAS BEEN MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE LIVING JESUS CHRIST. MANKIND IS REDEEMED. SIN IS FORGIVEN. THE PENALTY HAS BEEN PAID.”

“jesus committed his human spirit to the holy spirit of his father god as he was dying. when the purpose of the father for his death had been accomplished, giving death to sin, the spirit of jesus could be reunited with the holy spirit. by the belgic confession we see that the glorified jesus remained fully human in unity with his deity, the hypostatic union. so his spirit became again fully at one with the holy spirit in eternal triune communion with god the father and with power within and beyond our human space-time dimensions. . . . the tearing of the temple curtain in the ninth hour signified that man’s spirit again had direct access to the [indwelling] spirit of god. mankind no longer was necessarily condemned to an eternal spiritual death.”

In the beginning of chAPTER 3 IN MY BOOK i share THE FOLLOWING:

“IN THE BELGIC CONFESSION WRITTEN IN 1561 BY GUIDO DE BRES AND ADOPTED BY THE REFORMED CHURCH OF AMERICA IN 1792 THE SPIRIT AND SOUL OF JESUS THE MAN ARE ADDRESSED. IN article 18 it is written:

the son took the ‘form of a slave’ and was made in ‘human form,’ truly assuming a real human nature with all its weakness, except for sin; . . . and christ not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul, in order to be a real human being. for since the soul had been lost as well as the body [at the fall of adam], christ had to assume them both to save them both together.

“in article 19: the two natures of christ, it states:

we believe that by being thus conceived the person of the son has been inseparably united and joined together with human nature. . . . thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated. . . . and even though he, by his resurrection, gave it [his body] immortality, that nonetheless did not change the reality of his human nature, for our salvation and resurrection depend also on the reality of his body. but these two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death. so then, what he committed to his father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body. but meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave, and his deity never ceased to be in him. . . . these are the reasons why we confess hiim to be true god and truly human - true god in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh.

I concluded the second chapter of my book with a quote from watchman nee, whose books gave direction to my research into our communion with the holy spirit:

the greatest negative in the universe is the cross, for with it god wiped out everything that was not of himself: the greatest positive in the universe is the resurrection, for through it god brought into being all he will have in the new sphere.

i closed with the following:'

“there is a deep mystery here. how could jesus die for all? how could he take the place of each of us? how could he be the substitute for every human being in history? we shall see in the next chapter that this mystery is addressed in articles 18 and 19 of the belgic confession.”

at the beginning of chAPTER TWO OF MY BOOK I SHARE THE FOLLOWING:

“WE HAVE SEEN THAT JESUS WAS BEGOTTEN BY THE FATHER AS THE SON AND NOT CREATED AS HUMANITY HAS BEEN THROUGH ALL OF ITS HISTORY. THE NICENE CREED MAKES THIS CLEAR:

AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD, BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS; GOD OF GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD; BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER, BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE.

“IN MY BOOK I MAKE REFERENCES TO THREE CREEDS AND ONE CONFESSION, INCLUDING THE NICENE CREED ABOVE. KEN SAMPLES IS A SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR, THEOLOGICAN AND PHILOSOPHER WITH REASONS TO BELIEVE (WWW.REASONS.ORG). HIS DISCUSSION OF CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS EXPLAINS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PASSAGE FROM THE NICENE CREED.

“SAMPLES SHARED POINTS ABOUT CHRISTIAN CREEDS WHICH HAVE BEEN PART OF HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY FROM ITS BEGINNING. ‘CREED’ COMES FROM THE LATIN CREDO WHICH MEANS ‘I BELIEVE.’ CREEDAL STATEMENTS ARE SEEN IN ThE BIBLE, INCLUDING THE SHEMA, ‘HEAR O ISRAEL: THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.’ . . . CREEDS THEREFORE HAVE A BIBLICAL BASIS AND SERVE TO FORMULATE AND AFFIRM ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND TO AID IN CATECHETICAL INSTRUCTION IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY. PERHAPS OF MOST IMPORTANCE SAMPLES STATES THAT ‘ALL OF CHRISTENDOM’S FORMAL CREEDS WERE WRITTEN TO SPECIFICALLY COMBAT HERESIES THAT HAD ARISEN IN THE EARLY CENTURIES OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH [SUCH AS] THE CHRISTOLOGICAL HERESY KNOWN AS ‘ARIANISM.’ ARIAN TEACHINGS WERE ATTRIBUTED TO ARIUS, A CHRISTIAN PRESBYTER IN ALEXANDRIA OF EGYPT. ARIUS WHO LIVED FROM 256 TO 336 A.D. BELIEVED THAT JESUS, THE SON OF GOD, DID NOT ALWAYS EXIST BUT WAS BEGOTTEN WITHIN TIME BY THE FATHER.”

THE NICENE CREED ADDRESSES THIS HERESY.

“prior to his arrest jesus made this promise to the disciples, ‘if you love me, you will obey what i command. and i will ask the father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever - the spirit of truth. the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. but you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you . . . . i will not leave you as orphans; i will come to you . . . . on that day you will realize that i am in the father, and you are in me, and i am in you . . . . whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. he who loves me will be loved by my father, and i too will love him and show myself to him.’”

this concluding passage from the first chapter of my book shows the intimate, personal interactive relationship between the holy spirit and the human spirit and soul.

“throughout his life jesus lived and spoke in complete obedience to god’s counsel through his indwelling Holy spirit. in john 15:9-15 jesus teaches that he has obeyed his father’s commands and that everything he has learned from his father he has made known to his disciples. . . . responding to a question from phillip jesus stated, ‘anyone who has seen me has seen the father. how can you say, ‘show us the father? don’t you believe that i am in the father, and that the father is in me? the words i say to you are not just my own. rather, it is the father, living in me . . . who is doing his work. believe me when i say that i am in the father and the father is in me.’”

in my book’s first chapter i share the following:

“. . . jesus explained what had been proclaimed in the old testament, that god is spirit, a living person. god can be known apart from our physical senses since human beings were created with spirit providing for an intimate and personal access to a bidirectional communion with the holy spirit, the father god. jesus the god-man was begotten with a human spirit and soul as has been all of mankind. the first created humans, adam and eve, while residing in the garden, possessed the capacity for an intimate communion with god the father through man’s animating spirit by which they knew the divine. but sin accounted for the fall of adam and eve, and the intimate, direct, personal interactive communion with the godhead was lost. because god is holy he could not abide the willful sin of man and withdrew his indwelling spirit from the spirit of man. this was the spiritual death about which god had warned them. but god had a plan for the redemption of man. spiritual death was to be undone by the sinless life and substitutionary death and resurrection of the ‘last adam,’ jesus christ, the word/logos. the sinless life and death of jesus served as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all mankind against god, against his holy spirit.”

“in john 1:1-4 we read, ‘in the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god. he was with god in the beginning. through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. in him was life, and that life was the light of men.’ word in the greek language is logos, a term referring to both the spoken and unspoken word, the word yet in the mind. [and in my blogs i have shown how the ‘word’ consists of specified information that is generated only by a mind, never from a material process.] it also refers to the rational principle of the universe that governs all things. [this is by means of the instantiation of specified information.] it refers to the divine, god’s ‘firstborn’ through whom god created all things. though the word was distinct from the father, the word was and is god in the fullest sense. in john 10:30 jesus said ‘i and the father are one.’ in hebrews 1:3 we read ‘the son is the radiance of god’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’ the triune godhead created man with whom he would have a special relationship as his ‘bride of christ.’ the logos came from god to fulfill his purpose in and for the world and for the crown of his creation, man, who had fallen into sin through adam. god’s purpose was for man’s redemption through jesus christ.”

and by redemption the indwelling by the holy spirit lost by man at the fall could be restored to the human spirit and soul in repentance.