This was super helpful . Thanks a lot .
You mentioned John 8:58 … Before Abraham was I AM . The one Abraham believed in Genesis 15:6 was Jehovah , LORD. Would it be correct that the one Abraham believed in Genesis 15:6 was Jesus also ?
A replete understanding and explication of the Holy Trinity (one God, three distinct Persons, bearing personal property, sharing the same substance, equal in power and glory) is a revelation that waited for the NT to show with clarity. No truth of God underwent any change in the transition from pre- to post-Incarnation time. God did not evolve, not even in the mind or experience of the OT from Adam's creation through the coming of John the Baptist.
God is utterly unapproachable in his essential being, even unknowable. Consider that a gnat or ant does not in any way comprehend my being as I go about in its vicinity. Even sucking my blood, the gnat does not know me, what or who I am. And we share an order of being, the insect and myself. Even so, I could not know God apart from his intentional self-disclosure. General revelation (that found in creation) is
revelation, and without it I could not know even the limited information it offers. God and I do not even share an order of being (ref. creator/creature distinction).
Yet, God from the very beginning condescends to his creation, to man, even sinful man, to make himself
and his mind, his internal reality apprehensible to men, who he has designated his image bearers and from which population he summons a forever company to glorify and enjoy him forever. The manner or form in which he makes such revelation suited for us receivers is by word, verbally. This primary revelation has also been accompanied by attendant signs, sensible accessories; brought by messengers. Those messengers have been beasts (e.g. Num.22:28), men (prophets), angels (both visionary and in some kind of bodily form), and even a certain Angel (one who willingly received worship or commanded it, e.g. Ex.3:2,6; cf. angel of Rev.19:10).
It is the latter we call a "theophany," a revelation of God in some personal exhibit still prior to and distinct from the Incarnation. In the nature of the case, we understand this personal figure to be the Second Person of the Godhead, because he is the one who came to reveal the Father, and indeed always was the revealer. "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father," Jn.14:8. It would be anachronistic to name "Jesus" the divinity that appeared to Abraham in dreams, and in a figure with whom he ate, Gen.18, who he came to identify as the LORD, v22. Yet, it could be none other than the Second Person who did take on flesh at the proper time, even to be born of the virgin and grow up among men as a tender shoot.
So, Abraham would not have so full a doctrine of the being of God in triune majesty (during A's earthly life) as a well-catechized NT believer of ordinary capability now has. But God was the same then as now (yesterday, today and forever), and his personal revelation comes in such a way that his revelation has his own exact divine majesty and authority as the absconded (hidden) Majesty, who we now name "Father" as did the Son of his love who taught us to know him just as He knows. Abraham has had perfect acquaintance with the triune God in heaven since he found rest in his eternal city, whose architect and builder is God. Abraham on earth probably knew better that we can tell he could, using nothing more than the text of Genesis; while still reserving the kind of fulfillment knowledge imparted by the coming of Christ for our privileged era.
