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Presented by Bob Woodburn at the One God Conference, Seattle WA June 1st 2008, commentary by John Obelenus. Click here to listen.

Bob begins by listing off the list of questions that have always surrounded the Trinity and incarnation, the cause for all the creedal statements and councils. He aims to find out how Jesus is God’s son, and God is Jesus’ father. We know that Jesus is human. And we know that Jesus has not sinned. How can that be since even Adam was instructed directly by God, created mature fell and sinned? He remarks that if the holy spirit is a third person - then “God the Father” is a misnomer, since the conception of Jesus occurred via the holy spirit. Rather this problems goes away when we understand that God is spirit and the holy spirit is God’s operational presence. “The holy spirit is just another way to talk about God, what God is, and what God does”.

We turn now to the Logos. Bob remarks that John 1 says that the Logos is God, and the Logos became flesh. But it does not say that Jesus is God, or the Logos is Jesus, or the Logos became human, or God became human - all of which mainstream Christians believe. Where do these ideas come from, the bible or theological speculation?

Bob tells us that things commonly pre-exist as different entities. He uses an example of substantive pre-existence, that Eve was present in Adam, before she was Eve. Though once Eve actually comes out of Adam she has a different identity. To talk about conceptional pre-existence is somewhat the opposite. Jesus existed in the mind of God - but not independently as a being or identity.

Incarnation literally means God in the flesh. The contemporary idea of incarnation is an example of substantive pre-existence, that a separate identity comes into flesh which had existed in another form previously. Though many would seriously downplay that separate identity. Yet Bob says the simplest explanation is that God put his spirit into the womb which was joined with flesh, creating a human being, which when born was a full man Jesus. Not that God took on a disguise, or a something-like-human body around himself with no connection to the human race, or the Davidic line. Mary was not a surrogate mother.