Victory for the Weak

I've just thought of a whole new reason why the it is important that the Father and Son are separate Persons.

When Jesus was on earth, He lived by faith, that is He didn't use His own divine power to live a victorious life. He depended wholly on His Father's power (John 5:19,30).

If we believed in the nebulous '3 in 1 God' of many churches then there is no separation between the power of God and the power of the Son. So if Jesus trusted "God's power" in this system, He was simply trusting in His own, innate divine power. In other words, unless the Father and Son are different individuals then Jesus was trusting Himself! This is the very temptation that Satan used in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11) and again at the cross (Matt 27:41-43).

So the implications are:

Rev 14:12 says the saints are those who keep the commandments of God and the FAITH of Jesus. - the saints (hopefully us) must trust Jesus the way that He trusted His Father for the power to overcome (John 15:5 and all of ch 15).

Second, and here is the link to the sanctuary: We have a "great High Priest" who can "sympathise with our weaknesses" (Heb 4:14,15) because He was weak too (He willingly became totally dependent). So in v16 He can invite us to come and boldly ask for mercy and grace so we can overcome as He did.

Neither of these things, empowering trust and enabling sympathy, would be possible unless Christ and the Father were separate individuals.