An alternative way of knowing Christ. Not just about him – or it or they.
And definitely not just by the Book.
I knew Christ before I met Jesus
You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
An alternative way of knowing Christ. Not just about him – or it or they.
And definitely not just by the Book.
Jnana's Red Barn 
Hmmm. I wonder what your thoughts are on this? I’m not sure I understand. Christ means Messiah or Anointed One. The Apostle Paul teaches that we know Jesus Christ because He has come and revealed Himself: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). If God was just a force, we might just be able to feel Him. But God is a Person, and has revealed Himself as and in Jesus Christ. I don’t know how you could know Christ without the Jesus bit — He is a Person revealing Himself, after all.
The Holy One is also presented as being other than Matter or Energy, that is uncontained, universal. The One whose name cannot even be uttered. What could that possibly be? It’s certainly beyond our scientific mindset. Yet many of us also experience this intimately, personally. In the Hebrew Bible, it starts with those afternoons in the garden of Eden and is later presented as Yahweh or Elohim or other nuances. The warrior deity, leading troops into battle — Lord of Hosts, originally as an army but later as angels, especially after Israel has been carried into captivity. In the New Testament, the G-d can be either or both Jesus and the Father. Christ, as I’m reading Paul, can even be more as Holy Spirit, the anointing itself. As I get older, this mystery becomes even more compelling. I’ll leave it at that for now, other than agreeing with the awareness of knowing Christ with through “the Jesus bit” definitely resonating for me.
What do you do with Mark 1:9-11? There, Jesus is on earth doing the Father’s will, the Father speaks from heaven “You are my Beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit descends on Him as a dove. It seems like they are all three separate Persons, but the same God. Later on, Christians would call this the Trinity, and use Person and Being to try and help get a grasp of what they were seeing in the Bible: three Persons united in love, all three being the One God.
In the English Bible’s, when we see LORD or GOD that’s YAHWEH in the original Hebrews. When we see Lord or God, that’s Elohim. They are often paired together, even in Genesis, like so: “LORD God.”