1-800-HEAVEN    WHEN IS AN EGG NO LONGER AN EGG?

In my early morning call to my best friend, Jesus, at 5:am, I wanted to know how to present the three persons in a single theological explanation of who God is and what He is all about. Mind you, this is not just a question to bring understanding, but one that, if answered, may shed light on many things I know the Lord has been teaching me over the past 50 years. 

Allow me to share a view of our early walk with the Lord, which began during a financial crisis. While juggling my newfound faith with my work as a sprinkler fitter and my previous life before the Cross as a seller of drugs on construction sites, things started to go south. In my zealous state as a newborn Christian, I was telling everybody about my conversion. My previous customer would say, “Ya, but all I want to know is you still selling?” My answer was the same to all: “No, I flushed it all down the toilet.” The shock on their faces was nearly comical, but then came the anger, distrust, and loss of my job. Reality check, nobody wants an ex-drug dealer around that would possibly be their downfall. Soon, a Christian artist friend saw our situation and felt we needed to see ourselves within it to move in the right direction, with understanding, and to give us a start toward recovery. One day, she presented us with a framed 10” x 10” picture of a broken egg. Her statement to us at the time was, “I have no idea why the Lord would want me to paint a broken egg, but I know that it will be up to you to discover its meaning. 

Genesis 1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”

In this verse, notice that it says LET US, and follows it with OUR IMAGE and OUR LIKENESS. Does that mean we are the spitting image of the creator? I hope not, I know for sure I am not the vision of perfection. 

Genesis 1:1 says that God formed the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1 says that the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

1 John:1-2 States that in the beginning was the Word…the Word was with God…  the Word was God.  Verse 2 He was in the beginning with God.

These verses state that the Father of all creation, the Word of God, was at the beginning of creation, and that the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.  Three in ONE. BEAUTIFUL. 

We separately teach the three into one to make it easier to teach about the person of God. But this distracts from the unity that is God, so with that, I continue with the picture of the egg.

If I asked you what an egg is, you would say it is what we have for breakfast, but if I had never seen an egg, the answer would be that it's got a hard shell and a clear substance called the surrounding, and a yellow ball called the yoke. You fry it, and it tastes great. 

 

So my question is, when is an egg no longer an egg? Simple answer: when it's broken into its parts —the shell, the yoke, and the white, which was once an egg.

God cannot be divided; He is complete and yet functions as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three testify to the others. The Word testifies to the truthfulness of the Father. The Son died for our sins at the cross and rose again to everlasting life, and the Spirit of God is our Teacher who reveals all the mysteries of the Living God.

Can God be divided? NEVER! So when Jesus said that after the Day of Pentecost, He would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and He would teach you all things. Again, can God be divided? NO. So God lives within the believers. 

So how are we like God, in His Image? We are a three-part being created in the likeness of God. We have a body that shelters our Soul, which is who we are. Me, Lou, my total self as a person. All my good points and all the ugliness that I became over my lifetime, without the influence of God. We also have a soul. However, because the original sin was created by rebellion in our Father Adam and our Mother Eve, our souls were darkened with sin and separated from fellowship with the creator of all things. Now hear me on this: man became defective, in that his tripart existence is broken like the egg, which, when broken, is no longer an egg but three parts that were once united as an egg. Man's fellowship with God was broken because of sin. Adam walked with God in the cool of the evening. With salvation in Christ, the spirit of man is revived by the presence of God. Men and women who reject the gift of salvation that Christ has provided remain separated from the fellowship with God and enter eternity to be forever separated.

One last thing: the condition of the believer and that of those who are lost without Christ are very different. At salvation, it is promised that at our death, we will be transformed into our spiritual body. What that entails, I can not wait to see. Our revitalized spirit will be with us, and our soul and spiritual body will be complete as when man was first created.

The unbeliever will also be raised on the last day, and his soul, the essence of his life, will be united, but his spirit will not. It is recalled back to the creator. The Word of God is clear that the body of the unbeliever, with all that he once was, is destined for destruction for eternity. There is no changing that judgment after the breath of life leaves the body.

The following Verse is for clarification of what has been written above and demonstrates the enormous amount of love that comes from the Father.

Ecclesiastes 12:6-7   Remember Him before the silver cord (speaks of Gods offer of salvation) is broken. The golden bowl (salvation no longer offered) is crushed, the pitcher (water is the washing by the Word of God) by the well is shattered and the wheel (ability to reach salvation and knowledge is no longer accessible) at the cistern is crushed; 7: then the dust (body of man)will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit (man’s spirit)will return to God who gave it.