Most Protestants have adopted the Catholic view of The Holy Trinity. As a result, most of them believe in The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
We may picture such believers as looking at God through a tube, a little longer than the cardboard tube inside a roll of paper towels. Visible through the tube is The Holy Trinity: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. That’s pretty much all they can see.
If the viewing tube is a little shorter, things outside The Holy Trinity become visible. Suddenly, one finds oneself saying “Who’s that person sitting next to Jesus, The Son?”
“Why, that’s Mary, of course?”
“How did She get there?”
“She is The Mother of God, created as the Perfect Woman from the beginning of time in order to be a flawless vessel in which Jesus, God and man, could be formed and brought to life as a man.”
Suddenly, the viewing tube gets even shorter. Around the Throne of God and the Seat of Mary other beings become visible. “Who are they?”, the person who’s getting a clearer view of God asks.
“Those are the angels and the saints. They are praising God. Sometimes, they hear our requests and pass them on to Him. If He chooses, He may direct them to provide us with the answers to our prayers.”
Suddenly, the tube is shorter, and the increasingly Catholic view takes in elements of the actual operation. Jacob’s Ladder is seen, correctly, as a description of the process by whichThe Loving Programmer provides Programming Assistance to His beloved human programs; they are those who see things clearly enough to ask for Programming Assistants to to ask The Loving Programmer to provide them what they needed.
Soon, the viewing tube disappears altogether, and we see all that we can. This is one way to get closer so that we may begin to see as the Saints see. As the viewing tube gets shorter, we get a clearer view of God, one that gets clearer and clearer as time goes by.
