Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Religion is a cultural system that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament. Christianity is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion adherents, known as Christians. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as Christ or the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament,

Athenagoras was a second century philosopher who set out to write against the Christians. However, studying the Scriptures in order to carry on the contest with greater accuracy, he himself was caught by the Holy Spirit. His statements on the Triune God reflect the simplicity of the pure Word. He said:

"The one ambition that urges us Christians on is the desire to know the true God and the Word that is from Him — what is the unity of the Son with the Father, what is the fellowship of the Father with the Son, what is the Spirit; what is the unity of these mighty Powers; and the distinction that exists between them, united as they are — the Father, the Son, the Spirit."48

For the full body of this booklet, continue to read it online at:

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/modalism-tritheism-or-the-pure-revelation-of-the-triune-god/



Table of Contents

MODALISM
Some Definitions
The Modalistic Concept of the Trinity
A Brief History of Modalism
TRITHEISM
AN ATTEMPT TO AVOID THE EXTREMES OF MODALISM AND TRITHEISM
THE PURE WORD OF GOD
THE PURE REVELATION OF THE TRIUNE GOD ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE
One Unique God
The Three Persons of the Godhead
All Three Being God and Being Eternal
The Simultaneous Existence of the Father, Son, and Spirit
The Three Being One
The Son Being Called the Father
Christ, the Son, Being the Spirit
GOD’S INTENTION IN REVEALING HIMSELF AS THE UNIQUE TRIUNE GOD
FOOTNOTES

The purpose of this article is to provide the general Christian public with a clear and simple presentation of three views concerning the Triune God: modalism, tritheism, and the pure revelation of the Triune God according to the Bible. By having a basic understanding of modalism and tritheism and by seeing the pure revelation of the Triune God in the Scriptures, the Lord’s people should be able to discern and avoid the heretical extremes of modalism and tritheism, grasp the whole truth of God’s revelation in the Scriptures, and pursue more readily the experience of the Triune God according to His eternal purpose.

GOD’S INTENTION IN REVEALING HIMSELF AS THE UNIQUE TRIUNE GOD

After this consideration of the pure revelation of the Triune God according to the Bible, it should be evident to any fair-minded reader that the biblical revelation of the Triune God is twofold: He is the Three being one, and He is the One being three. What a marvelous mystery! Both modalism and tritheism have been proved false. Instead of these two heretical alternatives – both of which stress one aspect of the truth in an unbalanced way – we proclaim the twofold aspect of God’s revelation in His Word without any attempt at reconciliation or systematization. When people consider the Triune God objectively, trying to analyze what He is in His inner being, they emphasize the aspect of the one-in-three. But when we experience the indwelling of the Triune God subjectively, we enjoy the aspect of the three-in-one, for the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all in us as one (Eph. 4:6; Col. 1:27; John 14:17). While the objective study of the Triune God has some value and may sometimes be necessary, it certainly is neither the emphasis of the New Testament nor the best way to cooperate with God in His desire to dispense Himself into us for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose.

Once we have established what the pure Word says concerning our wonderful Triune God, we should simply rest upon it. As Henry Barclay Swete has said, “The Spirit alone searches the depths of God, and where the Spirit is silent as to their contents it is hazardous and indeed vain to speculate.”82 Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 315-386), who depreciated theological speculation, who focused his attention on experience, and who was reluctant to go beyond the word of the Bible, once remarked:

…but inquire not curiously into His nature or substance: for had it been written we would have spoken of it; what is not written, let us not venture on; it is sufficient for our salvation to know that there is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.83

Any attempts to go beyond God’s revelation of Himself in His pure Word will only lead us into the snare of endless analysis, reasoning, and disputation. The result of this path is spiritual death, the consequence of trying to understand God according to the principle of the tree of knowledge. That the “revelation of the Triune God in the Scriptures should be kept as a fact and as a mystery for our experience” is testified to by the Puritan writer Robert Leighton (A.D. 1611-1684):

As to the mystery of the Most-Holy Trinity … I have always thought it was to be received and adored with the most humble faith and reverence, but by no means to be curiously searched into, or perplexed with the presumptuous questions of the school men. We fell by an arrogant ambition of knowledge; by simple faith we rise again and are reinstated. And this mystery indeed, beyond all others, seems to be a tree of knowledge prohibited to us while we sojourn in these mortal bodies.84

This same humble attitude is expressed by Philip Schaff:

The Nicene Fathers did not pretend to have exhausted the mystery of the Trinity, and very well understood that all human knowledge, especially in this deepest, central dogma, proves itself but fragmentary. All speculation on divine things ends in a mystery … before which the thinking mind must bow in humble adoration.”85

As those who receive with simplicity the whole scriptural revelation of the Triune God, let us turn to Him, open to Him, and enjoy Him as our life and our everything. God’s intention in revealing Himself as the unique Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – is not that we might formulate doctrines of the Trinity and engage in endless arguments about them. Rather, it is to prepare the way for Him to dispense Himself into us according to His eternal purpose. Therefore, let us turn from the way of mental analysis, which has led either to the heretical extremes of modalism and tritheism or to a rigid and lifeless orthodoxy, and turn to the way of receiving in simple faith the whole revelation of the Triune God in the pure word of the Bible and of appropriating Him in spirit as our life and enjoyment. May the wonderful Triune God, the three-in-one and the one-in-three, be our portion and enjoyment now and forever. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” be with us all. Amen.

by Ron Kangas
a co-worker of Witness Lee November 16, 1976
FOOTNOTES

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1968), p. 87.
J. F. Bethune-Baker, An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1929), p. 97.
Frederick F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame (Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1953), p. 256.
Ibid., p. 255.
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1950), vol. 2, p. 576.
R. S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd., 1953), p. 78.
Bethune-Baker, op. cit., p. 102.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 577.
Bruce, op. cit., p. 256.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 577.
Ibid., p. 578.
Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), p. 69.
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 120.
Bethune-Baker,op. cit., p. 104.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 578.
Ibid.
Arthur C. McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought (New York: Charles Scribner’s & Sons, 1931), p. 237.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 589 and Bethune-Baker, op. cit., p. 110.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 581.
Walker, op. cit., p. 69.
McGiffert, op. cit., p. 238.
Walker, op. cit., pp. 69-70.
Ibid. and McGiffert, op. cit., p. 238.
Walker,.op. cit., Pp. 69-70; McGiffert, op. cit., p. 238; and Bethune-Baker, op. cit., p. 105.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 582.
Ibid.
Bethune-Baker, op. cit., p. 105.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 583.
Bethune-Baker, op. cit., p. 106.
William Henry Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1930), p. 31.
H. E. W. Turner, “Tritheism,” in Alan Richardson, editor, A Dictionary of Christian Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969), p. 351.
Bill Freeman, The Testimony Of Church History Regarding the Mystery of the Triune God (Anaheim: The Stream Publishers, 1976), p. 19.
Franks, op. cit., p. 119.
Ibid.
Freeman, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (Mac Millan, 1912), pp.284-285, in Freeman, p. 30.
Ibid., p. 13.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 674.
Freeman, op. cit., p. 25.
Ibid., p. 13.
Ibid., p. 14; see Schaff, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 651.
Cited in Freeman, op. cit., pp. 14-15.
George Bull, Defense of the Nicene Creed (Oxford, 1851), vol. I, p. 203.
_________ The Works of Dionysius. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Wm.. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1971), vol. VI, pp. 92-94.
Bull, op. cit., pp. 302-322.
Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972), pp.140-143.
Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma (Peter Smith Publishers, 1976), pp. 129-131.
Swete, op. cit., pp. 42-43.
Bull, op. cit., vol. 11, p. 438.
Ibid.,vol. 1, p. 56.
__________ Socrates’ Church History, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. II, p. 27.
H. E. W. Turner, “Coinherence,” op. cit., p. 67.
Cited in Freeman, op. cit., p. 17.
Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1912), p. 333.
Ibid.
Bull, op. cit., Book IV, chapter 14, sections 13 and 14, in Freeman, p. 18.
Freeman, op. cit., p. 18.
Robert Govett, “The Twofoldness of Divine Truth” (Harrisburg: Christian Publications), p. 3.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid., p. 6.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 5.
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid., p. 12.
Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, vol. III, pp. 1387-1388, in Freeman, op. cit., p. 30.
Hermann Witsius, The Apostles Creed, vol. I, p. 143, in Freeman, pp. 32-33.
E. W. Bullinger, Selected Writings, pp. 44-45, in Freeman, pp. 36-37.
Witness Lee, Concerning the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Taipei: The Gospel Book Room), p. 4.
Govett, op. cit., p. 12.
Lee, op. cit., p. 6.
William Henry Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God (Grand Rapids:Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.), p. 138.
Lee, op. cit., p. 11.
Ibid., p. 12.
See note on John 1:2 in The Gospel of John, Recovery Version (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1975), p. 11.
Lee, op. cit., p. 19.
Ibid., p. 22.
Neill Q. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957), p. 15.
James Denney, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 134.
Thomas, op. cit., p. 144.
Witness Lee, Life-Study of Revelation, Message Four (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1976), pp. 41-42.
H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, pp. 301-302, in Freeman, op. cit., p. 35.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, XVI, 4, Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. VII, p. 116, in Freeman, pp. 20-21.
Robert Leighten, Lectures and Addresses, pp. 126-127, in Freeman, p. 6.
Schaff, op. cit., vol. 3,.p. 671.

© 1976 Living Stream Ministry. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.


Categories:
1970s Publications, Responses
Tags:
coexistence, heresies, identification, modalism, Sabellianism, Trinity, tritheism, Triune God

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Looks Interesting...

Have saved the link...

Thanks...

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Good article.. I found complete agreement in this paragragh:

Any attempts to go beyond God’s revelation of Himself in His pure Word will only lead us into the snare of endless analysis, reasoning, and disputation. The result of this path is spiritual death, the consequence of trying to understand God according to the principle of the tree of knowledge. That the “revelation of the Triune God in the Scriptures should be kept as a fact and as a mystery for our experience” is testified to by the Puritan writer Robert Leighton (A.D. 1611-1684):

Was a time I went into study of God as “ the church” just did not satisfy my curiosity.. The more I read and studied the more confused and questions I had...

Ultimately I decided denomination was not my choice but rather the simple teaching of Jesus instead..In that came my peace~~ a greater Faith than ever felt before..

Thank You for posting this piece..

Rose42

I too like this paragraph. Man gets captivated by his own wisdom which is foolishness to God. There's a perfect example of this endless analysis, reasoning and disputation in another thread. It goes nowhere. Its no coincidence that there are no sound doctrinal churches who espouse this.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Agreed..

susanblange Loc: USA

If your god is three in one, then the god of Christianity suffers from a multiple personality disorder. The Devil is a father and a son. The living God of Israel is a husband and a wife and they are one flesh. Genesis 2:24. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh". The husband part of God is Energy and the forces in nature. Gravitation, Electromagnetism, and the Nuclear forces. Daniel 11:38. "But in his estate shall he honor the God of forces..." Energy is eternal, it cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. It is also omnipresent, and omnipotent. Our sun is the source of Energy for the Universe. Psalm 19:4-5. "...in them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber..." The wife part of God is the Lord, the Messiah" Isaiah 54:5-6. For thy Maker is thine husband...For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God".

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Susan,

After you have for years now, endlessly assured those on OPP who read your posts that you have been diagnosed with "Mental disorders" and "mental issues," for which you are required to be on mind altering medication, and for which you have received dubious psychiatric care...

Your posts in which you never fail to bring confusion, and a complete lack of cohesiveness, are an exercise in futility.

Unless this is something you are doing deliberately, you should seek out a competent medical authority, and request the correct medication to have a clear mind, and cohesive reasoning.

Surely, you don't choose to live your life as an object of either pity or ridicule.

Please know, the Triune God of the Bible who created you, loves you, and you can know Him as He is, through faith in Jesus, the Christ, who willingly hung on a cross for you, that your transgressions against God might be completely wiped out.

Upon believing this, you will be accepted by God the Father as one without either sin or blemish, and His Holy Spirit will dwell within you forever as your Comforter, Guide, Counselor and Teacher.


"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23

1st Corinthians 2:9-13: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. We have received the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."

Zechariah 4:6: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts."

Romans 8:14:"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons/daughters of God."

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

If I tried to "study God as "the church," I'd have a problem, too, lindajoy.

First, there is the problem of likeability. I have no problem loving God, however loving those who are the crown jewel of His creation are a little more difficult.

Loving them is done as an act of the will, because we are commanded to love one another.

If by the "the church," you mean the visible man made structures and Institutions upon earth, that is NOT the body of Christ.

The Body of Christ, i.e., in Greek, the "Ekklesia," or congregation, the "called out ones," which is translated as "the church," is an invisible spiritual unity of all believers, whose only head is the Lord, Jesus Christ.

We are united through the Holy Spirit, not an organization created and promoted through the earthly knowledge and earthly wisdom of men.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

No coincidence at all, Rose.

Those who refuse to listen to God as He has made Himself known to us, choose rather to listen to the sound of their own voices, as they drone on endlessly, achieving neither rhyme nor reason.

bahmer

Amen and Amen very good post there Zemirah thanks to you and the other posters in here.

susanblange Loc: USA

The Holy Spirit dwells within me. It invaded me on August 22, 1983. I am mental but I haven't been hospitalized since 1986. Psalm 41:8. "An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him..." I am stable and lucid. It is prophesied that the Messiah is mental. Psalm 38:7. "For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh". Job 30:18. "By the great force of my disease is my garment changed..." I have seen the same Psychiatrist for 42 years and he is Elijah the Prophet reincarnated. He is ethnically Jewish, he believes in me, and he's a child Psychiatrist. He is supposed to "...turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." Malachi 4:6. That is what he does for a living. Nobody can die for your sin except yourself. Jesus was hung on a tree. Deuteronomy 21:23. "...for he that is hanged is accursed of God..." Isaiah 44:19. "...shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?" There is no substitutionary atonement, only righteousness delivers from death. The only way into Heaven is if we repent. This is a four step process. Remorse, confession, restitution, and change.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

The Holy Spirit does not invade anyone. The Holy Spirit is a perfect gentleman, taking up residence only upon invitation.

It is Satan and His demons who invade, entering deceitfully in any way possible.

Because you are no longer a child, put away childish things, and seek a physician of good reputation for adults.

susanblange Loc: USA

You are a prisoner of Satan. II Timothy 2:26. "And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will". Revelation 2:24. "...as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan..." IOW, if you abide by the NT then you have known the depths of Satan. If you reject the NT then you have not known the depths of Satan. Tell me, Zemirah, name one complete prophecy from the OT that you claim Jesus fulfilled?

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Susan, because you claim to have invented your own brand of Judaism, and do not abide even by the original Biblical Judaism, you will not accept this, as you have not in the past.

Without faith, you have no spiritual discernment from the Lord.


Jesus Christ himself dwelt among us there, walked among us and renewed his promise to be with us to the end of the age and to the ends of the earth.[Lev. 26:11-12; Matt. 18:20; 28:20] We sought to listen to the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.


This list is far from exhaustive, 44 messianic predictions clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, along with supporting references from the Old Testament and New Testament fulfillment.

There are hundreds more.


44 Messianic Prophecies of Jesus

Prophecies of Jesus Old Testament Scripture New Testament Fulfillment

1 Messiah would be born of a woman. Genesis 3:15 Matthew 1:20 Galatians 4:4

2 Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 Matthew 2:1 Luke 2:4-6

3 Messiah would be born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:22-23 Luke 1:26-31

4 Messiah would come from the line of Abraham. Genesis 12:3 Genesis 22:18 Matthew 1:1
Romans 9:5

5 Messiah would be a descendant of Isaac. Genesis 17:19 Genesis 21:12 Luke 3:34

6 Messiah would be a descendant of Jacob. Numbers 24:17 Matthew 1:2

7 Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10 Luke 3:33
Hebrews 7:14

8 Messiah would be heir to King David's throne. 2 Samuel 7:12-13 Isaiah 9:7 Luke 1:32-33
Romans 1:3

9 Messiah's throne will be anointed and eternal. Psalm 45:6-7 Daniel 2:44 Luke 1:33 Hebrews 1:8-12

10 Messiah would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:23

11 Messiah would spend a season in Egypt. Hosea 11:1 Matthew 2:14-15

12 A massacre of children would happen at Messiah's birthplace. Jeremiah 31:15 Matthew 2:16-18

13 A messenger would prepare the way for Messiah Isaiah 40:3-5 Luke 3:3-6

14 Messiah would be rejected by his own people. Psalm 69:8 Isaiah 53:3 John 1:11 John 7:5

15 Messiah would be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:15 Acts 3:20-22

16 Messiah would be preceded by Elijah. Malachi 4:5-6 Matthew 11:13-14

17 Messiah would be declared the Son of God. Psalm 2:7 Matthew 3:16-17

18 Messiah would be called a Nazarene. Isaiah 11:1 Matthew 2:23

19 Messiah would bring light to Galilee. Isaiah 9:1-2 Matthew 4:13-16

20 Messiah would speak in parables. Psalm 78:2-4 Isaiah 6:9-10 Matthew 13:10-15, 34-35

21 Messiah would be sent to heal the brokenhearted. Isaiah 61:1-2 Luke 4:18-19


22 Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 110:4 Hebrews 5:5-6

23 Messiah would be called King. Psalm 2:6 Zechariah 9:9 Matthew 27:37 Mark 11:7-11

24 Messiah would be praised by little children. Psalm 8:2 Matthew 21:16

25 Messiah would be betrayed. Psalm 41:9 Zechariah 11:12-13 Luke 22:47-48 Matthew 26:14-16

26 Messiah's price money would be used to buy a potter's field. Zechariah 11:12-13 Matthew 27:9-10

27 Messiah would be falsely accused. Psalm 35:11 Mark 14:57-58

28 Messiah would be silent before his accusers. Isaiah 53:7 Mark 15:4-5

29 Messiah would be spat upon and struck. Isaiah 50:6 Matthew 26:67

30 Messiah would be hated without cause. Psalm 35:19 Psalm 69:4 John 15:24-25

31 Messiah would be crucified with criminals. Isaiah 53:12 Matthew 27:38 Mark 15:27-28

32 Messiah would be given vinegar to drink. Psalm 69:21 Matthew 27:34 John 19:28-30

33 Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced. Psalm 22:16 Zechariah 12:10 John 20:25-27

34 Messiah would be mocked and ridiculed. Psalm 22:7-8 Luke 23:35

35 Soldiers would gamble for Messiah's garments. Psalm 22:18 Luke 23:34 Matthew 27:35-36

36 Messiah's bones would not be broken. Exodus 12:46 Psalm 34:20 John 19:33-36

37 Messiah would be forsaken by God. Psalm 22:1 Matthew 27:46

38 Messiah would pray for his enemies. Psalm 109:4 Luke 23:34

39 Soldiers would pierce Messiah's side. Zechariah 12:10 John 19:34

40 Messiah would be buried with the rich. Isaiah 53:9 Matthew 27:57-60

41 Messiah would resurrect from the dead. Psalm 16:10 Psalm 49:15 Matthew 28:2-7
Acts 2:22-32

42 Messiah would ascend to heaven. Psalm 24:7-10 Mark 16:19 Luke 24:51

43 Messiah would be seated at God's right hand. Psalm 68:18 Psalm 110:1 Mark 16:19
Matthew 22:44

44 Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin. Isaiah 53:5-12 Romans 5:6-8

Sources

100 Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus: Messianic Prophecies Made Before the Birth of Christ
by Rose Publishing
Book of Bible Lists by H.L. Wilmington
Story, D. (1997). Defending Your Faith (pp. 79-80)
NKJV Study Bible
Life Application Study Bible

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

We agree.. I was referring to the church by way of denomination. Having visited many in my search for answers to the questions I had and having to go to self study to find them I realized denominational manifestation by man-made believes was not following God...

I chose to seek His teachings over a church..I enjoy attending a church occasionally for the moral reinforcement that it offers and worship with others...
Yet, I am aware of the fact that I can speak to God anytime I want or need and often too...


I really enjoyed this comment you made;
The Body of Christ, i.e., in Greek, the "Ekklesia," or congregation, the "called out ones," which is translated as "the church," is an invisible spiritual unity of all believers, whose only head is the Lord, Jesus Christ.

It is absolutely true, at least it is to me..