In New Testament times, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, has been revealed to us plainly, but He has always been in the presence of the Father. That’s why we should expect to see signs pointing to God the Father’s eternal Son throughout the Old Testament. For example, when the psalmists speak of God’s ‘strong right hand,’ or His ‘holy arm,’ we are seeing references to Christ. Christ sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, the place of honor. Thus, He is God’s right hand.
To call Christ the God’s holy arm evokes another truth. Consider your own arm. It is one with you, and yet it is distinct from you. It obeys whatever you tell it to do, and it works for you in the world. So it is with the Father and His holy arm. Jesus is one with the Father, and yet distinct from Him. Jesus obeys His Father in everything and does His work in the world.
So how does the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, fit into this divine metaphor? Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “…If it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.” The finger of God is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and through the Son.
The will and work of God in our world is done in this way: by the Head, through the Arm, and the finger; which is another way of saying, everything is accomplished by the Father, through His Son, and their Holy Spirit.
Let us pray that we shall never oppose the hand of God acting in our lives. For, Jesus as tells us, ‘whoever is not with Him is against Him, and whoever does not gather with Him scatters.’
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