Pinkham, Wesley M. and Gruenberg, Jeremiah, Relational Christianity: A Remarkable Vision of God, Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2022

God created Man to have a personal communion with Him, a dual, bidirectional interaction between the Mind of God and the mind of Man.  The Creator God is triune, comprised of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It is a tripartite communion based in Love.  God created mankind with spirit, soul and body, and love was to guide mankind’s interrelationships as well as with the Creator.  But the relationship was lost in sin, so that Man lost an indwelling communion with the Spirit of God, manifesting thereby a spiritual death.  By the grace and love of God through His sinless Son, Jesus Christ, Jesus became a sin sacrifice for all mankind for all time.  By his resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit victory over spiritual death was provided to those who repented and accepted the Truth of the Gospel in faith.  The Spirit of God was sent to believers through the resurrected Son who lives at the right hand of the Father.  What then is the nature of the restored relationship between the triune God and believers?  Doctors Pinkham and Gruenberg eloquently address this question in their book, Relational Christianity: A Remarkable Vision of God. 

As Love defines the triunity of God, so also is the relationship intended between God and believers and between believers in the church.  The authors characterize this relationship as holistic, consisting of an interpersonal Oneness between the triune God and believers.  It is a relational Oneness that gives believers identity as Sons of God and the Father as abba. It is a “kenotic” relationship exhibited by the life and ministry of Jesus who emptied himself, revealing the Trinitarian priority of Oneness over individualism.  Likewise, believers should emulate Jesus’ Oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit, having the Spirit as an indwelling sent as Jesus promised at Pentecost.  Believers are to live a servanthood lifestyle in the name of Jesus Christ.  As Jesus fully depended upon the Father during his life and ministry on Earth, so also are believers to depend upon the indwelling Holy Spirit as their Counselor and Helper, a relationship for all members of the church. 

The authors decried the reality that much teaching in the church today is binitarian rather than trinitarian.  The Holy Spirit is neglected though fundamental to Christian orthodoxy.  Drs. Pinkham and Gruenberg successfully explain how the “kenotic” relationship should be nurtured in the church, so that God’s Holy Spirit indwells believers and governs their lives as was the life of Jesus Christ during his ministry on Earth.

Thanks to advances in the technology of the neurosciences we are beginning to understand the reality and mechanism of the personal interaction between the Mind of God and the mind of Man.  It is a causal interaction between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man through the material synaptic networks of the human brain.  God does commune with Man in our time in fulfillment of His plan since the creation of Adam, a communion lost at the Fall but restored by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for all mankind.

I heartily recommend this book.  It is a must read for Christian believers so that the relationship with our triune Creator and Lord is fulfilled.

i draw the reader’s attention to romans 8:1-17 which speaks to the comments i shared in my last blog post about our direct access to the “most holy place” made possible by the sin sacrifice of the living jesus christ.

for what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, god did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. and so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the [holy] spirit.

you, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the spirit, if the spirit of god lives in you. and if anyone does not have the spirit of christ, he does not belong to christ. but if christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin,yet your [human] spirit is alive because of righteousness. and if the spirit of him who raised jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, who lives in you. (romans 8;3-4: 9-11)

we have direct communion with the holy spirit, sent by jesus from the father at pentecost and on to the present day. it is a dual interaction made possible by god’s created neural synaptic networks which i trust have been compellingly explained in my writings.

At jesus’ death on the cross as aN ATONING sin sacrifice the curtain of the temple wAS TORN IN TWO (luke 23:45). IT WAS LOCATED BETWEEN THE HOLY PLACE AND THE MOST HOLY PLACE. ITS TEARING SYMBOLIZED cHRIST’S OPENING THE WAY DIRECTLY TO GOD FOR ALL PEOPLE. THE MOST HOLY PLACE IS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PERSONAL GOD. HISTORICally, the levitical priest stood and performed his religious duties, offering sacrifices which could never take away sins. “but when [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of god. since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, becAUSE BY ONE SACRIFICE HE HAS MADE PERFECT FOREVER THOSE WHO ARE BEING MADE HOLY. THE HOLY SPIRIT ALSO TESTIFIES TO US ABOUT THIS. FIRST HE SAYS: THIS IS THE COVENANT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM AFTER THAT TIME, SAYS THE LORD. I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR HEARTS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR MINDS. THEN HE ADDS: THEIR SINS AND LAWLESS ACTS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.” (HEBREWS 10:12-17)

IT IS MY PRAYER THAT THE INFORMATION I HAVE SHARED IN MY BOOKS AND BLOG POSTS PROVIDES COMPELLING EVIDENCE FOR THE PERSONAL COMMUNION AVAILABLE BETWEEN THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND SOUL IN OUR TIME. WE UNDERSTAND BETTER HOW THIS DUALIST INTERACTION TAKES PLACE INVOLVING THE NEURAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS OF THE BRAIN. IT IS BIDIRECTIONAL, GIVING REPENTANT PEOPLE ACCESS TO THE MOST HOLY PLACE IN FAITH.

April 12, 2024

As i wind down the excerpts from dr. pinkham’s outstanding book i am posting the following which gives testimony to how god reveals himself to us:

“we can only know god as he reveals himself to us. he has decided to do so through the heart of the son, the communion of the spirit [Italics added], and the body of christ. knowing the depths of god occurs when we have communion with the [indwelling] holy spirit. grace enables us to share those depths. thus, we can mutually indwell the son, the incarnate word. and we can know the father and be known by him.”

Dr. pinkham continues:

“the kind of relationships enjoyed between father, son, and spirit are now available to us! this is the good news! salvation is not limited to the forgiveness of sin. rather, salvation paves the way for a much deeper and more personal relationship with the members of the trinity, and with one another. . . . believers take on the nature of the trinitarian relationship. this is interpersonal oneness expressed in the divine family. we receive the enabling to engage in this kind of relating due to the miraculous work of christ [who sent the holy spirit as he promised to be our helper and counselor]. however, we are also able to reflect such interpersonal oneness as image-bearers of god.”

pinkham speaks to the mutual indwelling that is the model for christian doctrine:

“in john 5:19-27 and 16:13-14, we see that the relationships between the trinity are self-emptying and self-giving. the father gives his authority AND POWER TO JESUS. YET JESUS GIVES IT ALL BACK BY REFUSING TO DO ANYTHING APART FROM THE FATHER. FURTHER, THE HOLY SPIRIT [INDWELLING THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND SOUL IN OUR TIME] SPEAKS ON BEHALF OF JESUS, AND GIVES GLORY TO JESUS IN THE PROCESS. THE MODEL HERE IS THAT OF INTERDEPENDENCE, UNEQUIVOCAL TRUST, MUTUAL INDWELLING, AND LOVING UNITY. THIS MUST BE THE MODEL FOLLOWED IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, AS WELL AS IN THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.”

pinkham shares:

“certainly, christians should be careful not to neglect any aspect of the faith. while the doctrine of the trinity may be difficult to explain, it is certainly not irrelevant, nor an unnecessary complication. rather, it is a glorious, mysterious, and majestic understanding of god. without it, christianity loses the power of the relationship between father and son, as well as the personal nature of the divine indwelling of the holy spirit within believers.”

I include this important excerpt from Dr. pinkham’s book that speaks to the giving of the holy spirit by jesus christ:

“christ is lord, redeemer, and head of the church. without the holy spirit’s involvement, however, the church does not reflect christ’s own ministry as giver of the spirit. just as jesus himself functioned by the holy spirit, he makes the way for his followers to do the same. without the dependency upon the holy spirit, the church is not only lame and ineffective, but also lacking in genuine christlikeness. christ’s witnesses should be characterized by the power of the spirit.”

again, i share that my writings have provided compelling evidence for dualist interaction between the immateriAL HOLY SPIRIT AND THE IMMATERIAL HUMAN SPIRIT AND SOUL MADE POSSIBLE BY GOD’S CREATED MATERIAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS THAT TRANSMIT SPECIFIED INFORMATION WITHIN NEURAL CODES INTERPRETED BY THE HUMAN MIND. GOD’S PLAN WAS AND IS TO HAVE A PERSONAL, INTIMATE COMMUNION WITH HIS HUMAN CREATIONS VIA THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT.

dr. pinkham cites gordon fee who “finds it ‘utterly tragic that most expressions of the protestant tradition have ended up being trinitarian in name only, but not in practice.’ fee refers here to the ignorance of the person and work of the Holy spirit that leads so much of the protestant church to be, practically, binitarians (acknowledging only two persons in the godhead). christian spirituality, however, cannot be undertaken without the aid of the holy spirit. . . . pinkham cites shivers who writes, ‘just as christ’s personhood is characterized by relationship with others through the power of the spirit, so human personhood must be characterised by the same.’ therefore, the recognition of the role of the holy spirit is integral to the person of christ himself, as well as the christian emulation of christ.”

pinkham refers to the term perichoretic communion which “best expresses the nature of the trinity. barth and t. E. Torrance contend that perichoresis is an ontological way of being that is based on the mutual indwelling of the father, son and spirit. . . . humans were made in god’s image, and therefore a greater understanding of the nature of god naturally results in a greater understanding of the nature of humanity. humans are relational persons, who are able to relate to god in their perichoretic personhood . . . . for T. F. Torrence, ‘the reformed doctrine of communion of the spirit’ is better understood as ‘union with christ through the communion of the spirit.’” (minds in communion, the title of this website) “the combination of ‘union with christ’ and ‘the communion of the spirit’ lies at the foundation of the church’s hope and forms the heart of its eschatology.”