With God There is Otherness
By John Gavazzoni

I am thoroughly a monotheist. I believe there is only one God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of us all, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. While holding that conviction though, one might miss the complexity within, and which is an extension of, the singularity of God's Being. Paul, as recorded in The Book of Acts, declares by inspiration that the mono-Being of, and which is, God is multi-faceted, having an ontological dimension of internal otherness. Paul's statement: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Note: "in Him" (singular), "we" (plural) and "our" (plural). That plurality of being within God's all-inclusive Being is above all things relational.... obviously since the Divine disposition is that of "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit."

I have in other writings described God as "Family-constituted, Gender-complete Relational Being" That is, within the singularity of the Divine Being, God is a Father to Himself as a Son, a Son to Himself as a Father, a Husband to Herself as a Wife, a Wife to Himself as a Husband, and therefore the Son is a Bridegroom to Herself as a Bride, and a Bride to Himself as a Bridegroom, and a Brother to the many sons whose sonship is constituted by His. In a word, when we contemplate what it means to be members of the family of God---as much as it stretches our conceptual capacity--- that family to which we belong, is the Family which God is.

This principle of otherness, along with the core Familial dimension, is evident in God's creative proclivity. God was not satisfied to simply be All, for He, as J. Preston Eby has observed, created another all, so that He might be All in all. I think I'm quoting our brother Eby accurately as having said, "God who once was All, created another all, that He might be (or become) All in all." With that, there's our brother's other directly-related gem: "God projected Himself out of Himself that He might be Himself in another dimension, and He did that by His Word." My, oh my, oh my; the God who eternally inhabits the transcendence of His own glory, created another dimension (the whole universe) for another habitation, until the All of Him, becomes the All of that other habitation. In the latter there exists still a veiling of the glory that belongs to both, until the glory of the latter equals the glory of the former.

While not backing down at all from this article's thesis, I nevertheless must raise an important theological point as a frame of reference: We must not violate a most important principle in our contemplation of the above by rushing to the conclusion that if we were to total up all of the existences within God's singularity of Being, that total would constitute what God is. Nay! The whole, most certainly in this case, is greater than the sum of its "parts." God does not exist as the sum of all of us, we exist within the Sum of the ALL which He is, and by that freedom which is His alone as our Father and Creator.

Ending this study on a very personal note, that is, in regard to how otherness is at the heart of our Lord and Savior's relationship with us since His resurrection and glorification, a careful reading of particularly the 14th and 16th chapters of The Gospel of John reveals that Christ actually promised another of Himself when He promised to send another comforter (KJV) to them upon His journeying on in death and resurrection. "Journey on," as Jonathan Mitchell has it in his translation, is a more accurate rendering of the Greek than "go away." While on one hand, He promised another Comforter, yet He explains His meaning by going to say that He would come to them and not leave them as "orphans" (also a better translation than "comfortless.")

He, Himself, would be to them, in the new covenant relationship, an "Other" of Himself as their indwelling life, as the life-giving Spirit according to Paul. The heavens must retain Him individually as our glorified Source, while distributing Himself in that otherness of Himself. Traditional trinitarian doctrine falls short of explaining the relationship of the Holy Spirit as our Paraclete (the One called alongside to help) and Jesus as the same. John uses the Greek, "Paraclete" to describe the Holy Spirit in his gospel, while choosing the same Greek word for Jesus in his first epistle. The KJV has it as "Comforter," in the gospel, and "Advocate" in the epistle. Same Geek word in both cases.

Jesus spoke of "when the Spirit of Truth is come," but also declaring Himself to be the Truth. Jesus Himself is the rain of the promised times of refreshment from the Lord (Peter). Our ascended Lord, and the Spirit of Truth are One in the same. Before His death and resurrection, He testified that the words He spoke were Spirit and life. Of course, for His words conveyed the essence, the very Personness of Himself, to those given an ear to hear.