On E.A. Larsen's View of God

The Differentiator
Vol. 13, March-April, 1951 No. 2

Dear Bro. Larsen:—Greetings!. . . I am much pleased with the prospect of a CONVENTION in Portland in March.. . . Bro. Thomson's article in the last DIFF. should lead to some real study. Please, invite and publish the views of other brethren on the subject. It is difficult for me to think of our God being in a human form. And please, brother Larsen, see to it that the usefulness of your paper is not hindered by teaching which cannot be clearly proved from the Scriptures. Will you tell me your own thot's on this subject. You are a good student, and I value your views.
Your brother in Christ,
Signed................

EDITOR'S REPLY AND COMMENT:—So you are really going to put me in a corner, brother!—Well, I may lose some of my prestige (?) by exposing my ignorance, but I have found that admitting one's ignorance is the first step towards wisdom and knowledge.
I do not think that there is a more difficult subject in the Scriptures than that of the Godhead. I gladly admit that I am not fully clear on every phase of it. However, certain phases, as for inst. the clearly revealed fact of the pre-existence of the Lord and that He was really "God manifest in flesh" of this I have no doubt. That Christ manifested God the Father in human form I think Bro. Thomson has clearly proved by the Scriptures. At least so it appears to me; but personal apprehension of things spiritual is not always obtained in the same measure by each individual from the same evidence, no matter how Scriptural it is. Only the holy spirit can make divine teaching real and effective, and He does not do it in the same measure and at the same time in all.
Try to think of the Son and the Holy Spirit as two modes of manifestation of the Father. Man, yes all nature even, has three modes of manifestation.
When I speak to you over the telephone it is an invisible and touchless manifestation, but it is audible. If you were deaf and blind I could manifest myself to you by the medium of touch—invisible and inaudible. And sometimes we manifest ourselves to each other visibly but without touch or sound. These three ways God has used to manifest Himself to humanity. Three different modes of expression by the same personality.
Where is the boundary line between usefulness of a paper and the opposite by it, by having or not having debatable subjects in it? I wish some one could define this for me, but no one can. Is it not a fact, that in this prevailing confusion there is hardly a subject that is not debatable and controversial to some one, and not provable by the Scriptures? I dare say that if all the readers of the DIFF., or any other paper, came together and went over all the bible subjects not two of them would agree on. every subject. I thank God for not being responsible for the other fellow's convictions. If I think he is wrong, and I have had the opportunity to try to convince him by; the Scriptures, but he is not convinced, there is where my responsibility for him ends and the application of Christian love begins. Here is where I make use of Paul's principle in Ro. 14: "Hast thou faith?—have it to thyself before God." I may consider the other fellow "weak in the faith." All right, he has the same attitude and evaluation of me. The best is to leave each other to the Lord and let love cover the multitude of infirmities. Now brother, I am sure you can say "amen" to all this.—E. A. Larsen