My Dear Glenn,
Thank you very much for you authentic work
on my question.
I have listened it so many times and have
read it again and again. And every time when I do this I feel
pleasure increasing in me. Thank you, you made it possible on my
request.
Thanks now I know that there are a lot of
things to prove that Christ is the son of God. I have never been
taught like this before. Really it is a deep study of this topic
for a Muslim specially. Friend I am impressed and At least I am
convinced that the Jesus Christ is son of God. But it generated
some more questions in my mind (please don’t mind I just want
some more help about how I trust Jesus is son of God and How
remains there oneness. I have heard this word trinity…what is
all in this trinity?
I hope you will be
helping me same in the matter of father, son and spirit.
I am
desperately waiting for your teachings on three Gods in one.
…………………
In this article, I will try to treat the topic
of God’s oneness as reverently and humbly as I can.
I will say at the outset, though, that the
trinity is not about three Gods in one (God), but about three
Persons in One God. Just like God has knowledge, power, and speech
in His being—but these three things are not three separate GODS,
but they are aspects or parts (not ‘physical parts’ of course!) or
attributes of the One God. So too, the trinity is like that: there
are three persons or agents within the ONE being of God. Just as
God’s knowledge cannot be separated from His power or His speech,
so too the Father, the Son, and the Spirit cannot be separated
from one another inside the being of God. It is this that I will
try to explain to you, friend. Even with three persons (Father,
Son, Spirit) inside God, there is still only ONE God. Just as
there are multiple attributes (for example knowledge, power,
speech, hearing, will, mercy) inside God, there is still only ONE
God. There is none but Him—and only He can be trusted and only He
should be obeyed.
Here is the basic outline of my (attempt at)
explanation:
Apart from the teaching of the New Testament on
the relationship between Messiah Jesus and God the Father,
possibly what is known as the doctrine of the “trinity” comes
closest to being what a traditional Muslim theologian would call
‘shirk’—ascribing partners to God and denying divine unity
(tawhid). Standing outside the world of the teachings of the New
Testament—teachings by Jesus and His companions and apostles—the
doctrine can look like grotesque polytheism. And often, in some
statements of the concept of the Trinity, it probably borders on
it.
The bible never actually used the term
‘trinity’ (like the Quran never uses the word ‘tawhid’). It is a
word invented by theologians to try to set a framework around the
teachings of the Bible on the complex nature and existence of our
amazing God. Trinity comes from an almost desperate linguistic
attempt to say tri-unity (“three-but-only-one”). It is an honest
attempt to assert both the absolute uniqueness of God (there are
no other gods but He) and at the same time the beyond-creaturely
robustness within that single entity known as ‘God’.
Only God can tell us what He is ‘like’. We know
He is ‘more than us’ in both unity and in robustness. I am an
integrated unit (a unity of body, soul, spirit) but God is more
integrated than I—He is a unit of no ‘parts’. I am also a bundle
of various attributes, capabilities, aspects, perspectives,
elements (a plurality of internal states) but God is more robust
that--He has many more attributes, perspectives, internal states
than do I. I am a simple being--but God is 'more simple'. I am a
complex being--but God is 'more complex'.
He is beyond comparison with humans, so we
should not think of Him as bound to our limitations of number,
logic, or psychology. As humans, we cannot be “three full persons
sharing one body” or “three full persons inside of each other”,
but God could be, in His greatness, robustness, and otherness.
Introduction
to
the problem: Diversity and Unity in the history of Muslim
theology
The Quran does not discuss the actual ‘insides’
of God. It describes God’s actions
(past, present, and future), God’s will or law for His
creatures (for example, to believe in His Scriptures and to do
good to the poor), God’s character
(for examples, Merciful and Just), and God’s attributes (for
examples, All-knowing, all-powerful, and eternal).
The earliest Muslims had no problem talking
about the multiple perfections within the one God. They simply
accepted what their Scripture said, and those sayings were not
twisted into meaning something other than what they appeared to
say. When the Islamic scriptures said that God was One, they were
understood to mean that there was only one God—only one being that
could correctly be called God. It meant that there were not two
gods, or three gods, or ten gods, or hundreds of gods. It meant
that God had no partner gods, wife goddesses, or offspring gods --
sons or daughters. There were no other gods in existence to even
be partners, wives, or children gods.
To say that God was One was to say that God was
alone, that God was different from everything else, and that God
had no equals or rivals.
For the first generation of Muslims, it did not
mean that God had nothing inside His being. It did not mean that
God did not have some kind of multiplicity or diversity or
differentiations within His infinite being. They accepted – on the
basis of their understanding of their scripture—that God had both
knowledge and power within His being, that God had both mercy and
justice within His character, and that God was both Creator and
Sustainer of an external creation. But they did not think that
these everyday expressions in prayers or praise somehow made them
into polytheists! They used these expressions because God had used
those expressions in the former scriptures (the Hebrew Bible and
the New Testament) and they read these in their Quran, in
describing His actions in history, His attitudes toward us, and
His wonderful character.
Debate raged within Muslim scholarship over the
centuries since its beginning, over the relationship between these
obviously diverse elements and the assumed uniformity (absolute
unity, with nothing in the essence to actually unite, per se) of
God’s essence. The very strong pro-Uniformity proponents were
branded as heretics, and the mainstream position of the Asharites
(‘we believe it and we do not ask how’ position) left the question
open. The brilliant Muslim philosophers all were heavily
influenced by secular philosophy, and they often took a Uniformity
position as well—and were branded as heretics as well. The strong
assertions that God’s tawhid is some kind of unknowable,
featureless, homogeneous substance—without any real attributes
except perhaps Will—is a more modern phenomenon, and is considered
to be below the standards of Medieval Muslim scholarship:
“TAWHID. An Arabic
term meaning literally "making one" or "unifying," is considered
by many twentieth-century Islamic activists to be the axial or
defining doctrine of Islam. Although tawhid has
traditionally been recognized as a fundamental doctrine of
Islam, its popularity as Islam's defining characteristic is a modern development. Indeed, the
term is not mentioned in the Qur'an. Early theologians used
it in their interpretations of the relationship between divine
essence and divine attributes, as well as in their defense of
divine unity against dualists and Trinitarians… [WR:OEMIW, s.v. “Tawhid”,
4:190ff]
“The most outspoken
critics of Christianity are not always the best ambassadors for
Islam. Not all Muslims appreciate Akhtar's abrasive style (which
has been directed against the Islamic as well as the Christian
tradition, notwithstanding a strongly avowed orthodoxy), or his
rather militaristic interpretations of Islamic teachings. Al-Faruqi's treatment of
some of the traditional areas of tension in Islam, such as
the relationship between God's grace and human deeds, between
God's justice and His mercy, or between God's determining of
history and human free will, is superficial and somewhat dismissive of the rich
legacy of Islamic thought in these areas. …The study of Christianity by
modern Muslims does not, on the whole, compare favourably with
that of the medieval Muslim scholars. The intellectual tools
derived from Aristotelian philosophy have been exchanged for those
of modern Western critical scholarship, which, whatever their
intrinsic merits, are applied in a far less sustained and rigorous
way. These Muslims show
less awareness than did the medieval scholars that some of the
philosophical problems arising in Christian theology,
concerning, for example, the Incarnation and the Trinity, have
their counterparts in Islam in the areas of the attributes
of God, the eternality and Uncreatedness of the Qur'an, and the
need to reconcile the fact of God's absolute transcendence with
His communication with humankind." [WR:MACF2F, 172f]
Later, We will look a little more at how the
Muslim theologians of the past tried to resolve this issue in
Muslim theology, but let me first note that some Muslim authorities
have recognized that the Christian teaching on Trinity is not polytheism. Properly
understood, the doctrine of the Trinity is fully monotheistic.
“Recall the crisply formulated
conclusion that Nicholas of Cusa [an ancient Christian teacher
and church leader of the 15th century] reached after
examining Muslim and Jewish critiques of the doctrine of
the Trinity: "In the manner in which Arabs [Muslims] and Jews
deny the Trinity, assuredly
it ought to be denied by all.” The Christian creeds and
the great Christian teachers reject dividing the divine essence
no less adamantly than do Muslims and Jews. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a preeminent
contemporary Muslim scholar, agrees: "The doctrine of the
Trinity certainly does not negate Divine Unity in mainstream
Christian theology." [Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “We
and You: Let Us Meet in God’s Love,” a lecture delivered at the
‘Common Word’ meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, November 6, 2008.
P2; cited in WR:AACR,135f]
“Certain earlier authors,
such as Ghazali and especially modern Muslim
theologians in dialogue with Christian theologians, can go as far as to recognise that, if
one considers the precise statement of Christian doctrine,
Christianity is an authentic monotheism. But they
would certainly add that it is in form different from the
Islamic monotheism…” [WR:HIIT, 80,81]
“From the Muslim
perspective, the relatively
crude perception of the Christian Trinity as three gods has
gradually been replaced by a deeper appreciation of the
complexities of the Christian understanding of three distinct
persons in one essence. [WR:HTRQ, 28-31]
The early Muslim theologians faced exactly the
same issues we face in trying to understand the teaching of God in
Scripture. We saw this in our article on the Son (howson.html).
First
point—what
the Trinity is NOT.
In trying to describe the Trinity, let me first
remind you of what I had only mentioned in the article about the
Son of God—that the concept or example of the Trinity rightly
condemned in the Quran is different from what the major Christian
groups believe.
The Quranic passages that are sometimes
represented as denying the doctrine of the Christian Trinity are
these (translations here are by AY Ali, MH Shakir, MM Pickthall in
that order):
4:171
O People of the Book! Commit
no excesses in your religion: Nor say of Allah aught but the
truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an
apostle of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a
spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His
apostles. Say not
“Trinity”: desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah:
Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He) above having a son. To Him
belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is
Allah as a Disposer of affairs.
O followers of the Book! do
not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies)
against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of
Marium is only a messenger of Allah and His Word which He
communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore
in Allah and His messengers, and say not, Three. Desist, it
is better for you; Allah is only one Allah; far be It from
His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens
and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for
a Protector.
O People of the Scripture! Do
not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah
save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a
messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary,
and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers,
and say not "Three" -
Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One Allah.
Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should
have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in
the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.
5:73
They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a
Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah.
Certainly they disbelieve who
say: Surely Allah is the
third (person) of the three; and there is no god but the
one Allah
They surely disbelieve who
say: Lo! Allah is the
third of three; when there is no Allah save the One Allah.
5:116
And behold! Allah will say:
“O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother
as gods in derogation of Allah?” He will say: “Glory to
Thee! Never could I say what I had no right (to say).
And when Allah will say: O
Isa son of Marium! did
you say to men, Take me and my mother for two gods besides
Allah he will say: Glory be to Thee, it did not befit me
that I should say what I had no right to (say).
And when Allah saith: O
Jesus, son of Mary! Didst
thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods
beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to
utter that to which I had no right.
But these denials of a type of polytheism are
ones that most Christians could agree with. Anyone who says that
Jesus and His earthly mother Mary are a separate god and goddess
(understood as Allah’s wife) distinct from God the Father would be
considered heretics today.
The trinity condemned by the Quran is one that
would be condemned by modern Christians everywhere. The trinity
portrayed in the Quran was a perversion of the real Christian
understanding of God. The trinity is neither 3 gods, nor does it
contain Mary in any sense of the word.
Many orthodox Muslim commentators (but not all)
commented on this specific version of the Trinity, and they show
that this Quranic Trinity is NOT the Christian trinity as it is
understood and believed by the followers of Christ today or even
back then.
So, for example, ‘Abdullan Yusuf Ali’s footnote
at 5:116 says:
“The worship of Mary,
though repudiated by the Protestants, was widely spread in the
earlier Churches, both in the East and in the West.”
Or the ancient commentators:
“According to the
evidence of the Quran, the Christians maintain that God, Christ,
and Mary are three gods…”
[WR:QIE, 126; Zamakhshari, on 4:171]
“(Surely, they have
disbelieved who say: "Allah is the third of three.") Mujahid and
several others said that this Ayah was revealed about the
Christians in particular. As-Suddi and others said that this Ayah
was revealed about taking
`Isa and his mother as gods besides Allah, thus making Allah the third in a trinity.
As-Suddi said, "This is similar to Allah's statement towards the
end of the Surah,(And (remember) when Allah will say: "O `Isa, son
of Maryam! Did you say unto men: `Worship me and my mother as two
gods besides Allah' He will say, "Glory be to You!"). ... This Ayah also shows
the crime of the Christians who invented a lie against Allah and
His Messenger, thus making
a rival, wife and son for Allah. Allah is glorified in that
He is far above what they attribute to Him [Ibn Kathir, on 5:73]
“Allah then revealed
about the Nestorian Christians of Najran who claimed that Jesus
was the son of Allah and that Jesus and the Lord are partners,
saying: (O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate) do not be
extreme (in your religion) for this is not the right course (nor
utter aught concerning Allah save the Truth. … (and say not “Three”) a
son, father and wife. (Cease!) from making such a claim and
repent ((it is) better for you!) than such a claim. (Allah is only
One God) without a son or partner. [Ibn Abbas, at 4:171; note that
this commentary can refer to the later, more orthodox view of the
Trinity – but it still represents it as tri-theism, at 5:73]
“They are indeed
disbelievers those who say, ‘God is the third of three’,
gods, that is, He is one of them, the other two being Jesus
and his mother, and they [who claim this] are a Christian
sect; when there is no god but the One God. If they do not desist
from what they say, when they declare a trinity, and profess His
Oneness, those of them who disbelieve, that is, [those] who are
fixed upon unbelief, shall suffer a painful chastisement, namely,
the Fire. [al-Jalalyn, at 5:73]
This is in keeping with secular and Christian
understandings of those ayat (verses):
“God is the third of three:
this is not an attack on the standard Christian doctrine of the
Trinity, but on a perversion of it which amounted to the worship
of three gods.” [WR:CTTQ, 77; William Montgomery Watt]
“This particular
passage [5:116f] is certainly a powerful one against the heretic
Miriamites, who had made Mary a goddess, Jesus her son, and God
Almighty her husband. This
definitely is blasphemy and certainly is not accepted by true
Christians who believe in the Holy Bible.” [WR:IR, 114f;
Anis Shorrosh]
“The Christian doctrines of
the Trinity and the Incarnation as represented in the Koran
do not agree with these doctrines as formulated by the
Church councils. With regard to the Christian
Trinity as represented in the Koran, it consisted of God,
Jesus, and Mary. According to the conciliar formulation of the
doctrine, the Trinity consisted of God, the Word, that is, the
pre-existent Christ, and the Holy Spirit. [WR:POK, 304]
“Recall the crisply formulated
conclusion that [Christian author] Nicholas of Cusa reached
after examining Muslim and Jewish critiques of the doctrine
of the Trinity: "In the
manner in which Arabs [Muslims] and Jews deny the Trinity,
assuredly it ought to be denied by all.” The Christian creeds
and the great Christian teachers reject dividing the divine
essence no less adamantly than do Muslims and Jews. … Now, there is a
difference—sometimes even a great difference— between tenets of
normative religion and the actual beliefs of ordinary people.
All religions are beset by such discrepancies, and Christianity
is no exception. The
beliefs of some Christians can be contrary to what Christian
creeds and the great Christian teachers advocate. As with
all religions, some Christian believers are religiously
illiterate or simply mistaken; they know as much about their
faith as the average nonscientist knows about astrophysics or
neuroscience. In
statements that address the doctrine of the Trinity, the
Qur'an may well be targeting the beliefs of such Christians,
for what the Qur'an rejects in this regard, Christians ought
to reject as well.” [WR:AACR,135f]
Basic
elements in the Christian doctrine/confession of the trinity
As I mentioned above: the trinity is not about
three Gods in one (God), but about three Persons in One God. Just
like God has knowledge, power, and speech in His being—but these
three things are not three separate GODS, but they are aspects or
parts (not ‘physical parts’ of course!) or attributes of the One
God, so too, the trinity is like that: there are three persons or
agents within the ONE being of God. Just as God’s knowledge cannot
be separated from His power or His speech, so too the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit cannot be separated from one another inside
the being of God. It is this that I will try to explain to you,
friend. Even with three persons (Father, Son, Spirit) inside God,
there is still only ONE God. Just as there are multiple attributes
(for example knowledge, power, speech, hearing, will, mercy)
inside God, there is still only ONE God. There is none but Him—and
only He can be trusted and only He should be obeyed. This
uniqueness of God is the common confession of the three major
Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
A quick list of the biblical teachings which
are summarized, combined, and harmonized in the doctrine of the
trinity would include these:
1.
There
is one and only one divine being (God), with a unique divine
nature or essence (the Godhead), and possessing the attributes
unique to such a being—eternal, un-caused, all-powerful.
2.
It
is morally wrong, practically destructive, and factually
incorrect to call an agent or a thing by the name ‘God’ if this
agent or this thing is separable from the divine nature.
3.
There
are three agents in the biblical scriptures which clearly are
inseparable from the divine nature and which are described in
the same manner as human persons are—having intellect, will, and
emotions.
4.
These
three agents are distinct from each other, interact with each
other, and yet are often portrayed as identical or as working
together as one in
each of their actions.
The
data of Scripture which teach those elements
Now let’s go through each of the above
statements, and see how God teaches that in His scriptures.
We should note at the outset that – just like
in the case of the relationship with Jesus and God the Father—we will be bound by the
language of revelation. We will be required to accept these
biblical teachings, whether we understand them fully or not. We
will not be allowed to select only the teachings which fit with
our beliefs. We will have to submit to God’s choice of words and
expressions as the foundation for our thinking and building our
doctrines.
Ok, let’s look at the statements above now.
Element one: There is one and only one divine being
(God), with a unique and incomparable divine nature or essence
(the Godhead), and possessing the attributes unique to such a
being—eternal, un-caused, all-powerful.
This is the easy one to show. We already saw
(in the article on Jesus as Son of God) that the New Testament
clearly taught that there is only one God – Jesus, Paul, James and
others were very clear about this.
And our God is without equal or rival:
Here are two beautiful passages from the
prophet Isaiah (40 and 46) in the Hebrew Bible:
Behold, the Lord GOD comes with
might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with
him, and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a
shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry
them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Who has measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a
span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed
the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
Who has measured the Spirit of the
LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?
Whom did he consult, and who
made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and
taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
Behold, the nations are like
a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the
scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough
for a burnt offering. All
the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by
him as less than nothing and emptiness.
To whom then will you liken
God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman casts
it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it
silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful
craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.
Do you not know? Do you not
hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the
earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its
inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens
like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who
brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as
emptiness.
Scarcely are they planted,
scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries
them off like stubble.
To whom then will you
compare me, that
I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up
your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out
their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness
of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is
missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and
speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right
is disregarded by my God”? Have
you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the
everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He
does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is
unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who
has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and
be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait
for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they
shall walk and not faint.
And
To whom will you liken me
and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?... remember the former
things of old; for I am
God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like
me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient
times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and
I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from
the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I
will bring it to pass I have purposed, and I will do it.
One can easily see that the Uniqueness of
God—as held to by Muslims everywhere—is clearly affirmed in the
Hebrew Bible.
And the New Testament praises this Unique God
in highest terms also:
To the King of the ages,
immortal, invisible, the
only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
(1 Timothy 1.17)
to the only God, our
Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
dominion, and authority, before
all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 25)
For from him and through him
and to him are all
things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Roman 11.36)
For what can be known about
God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his
invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the
creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
(Rom 1.19f)
There is nothing controversial in this
statement, even though some later Muslim theologians said that God
was not an essence at all (al-Nasafi, [WR:ICAS, 80f]).
Element Two: It is morally wrong, practically
destructive, and factually incorrect to call an agent or a
thing by the name ‘God’ if this agent or this thing is
separable from the divine nature.
This also is not disputed. This is sometimes
known by the term idolatry, although this term includes worship
and not simply belief. For example, pagan nations in the Old
Testament history might have believed that the Lord God was a real
god and was the true god of the ancient Israelites, but they would
typically have only worshipped their own national deities, such as
the god Nebo in Babylon or the god Asshur in Assyria.
But idolatry is a good enough word for our
purpose here, and worship certainly includes belief.
We have already seen in Element One that
ascribing deity to anyone but the Biblical God was factually
incorrect. There is only one God—the Creator—and anything else is
a creature, and therefore not God.
Idolatry is not just mistaken, but is also
morally wrong--God has judged idolatry in the past and will do so
yet again.
The Apostle Paul describes the moral descent of
pagans in the first chapter of Romans, connecting the judicial
wrath of God with idolatry:
For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to
them. For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been
clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so
that they are without excuse. For even though they knew
God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but
they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish
heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools,
and exchanged the glory
of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of
corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and
crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the
lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be
dishonored among them. For
they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is
blessed forever. Amen. ... and although they know the ordinance
of God, that those who
practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do
the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice
them. (Rom 1:18-32)
And it is the reality of judgment that makes
idolatry more than simply inaccurate and more than simply morally
wrong—it is destructive of human life. It is to be avoided and to
be rebuked.
There are several examples in the Bible where men and angels refused
worship for this reason:
·
Acts 10.25,25: As Peter entered the house,
Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up.
"Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself."
·
Acts 14.11f: When the crowd saw what Paul
had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have
come down to us in human form!" 12 Barnabas they called Zeus,
and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13
The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city,
brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the
crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. 14 But when the
apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their
clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 "Men, why
are you doing this? We
too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good
news, telling you to turn
from these worthless things to the living God, who made
heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. [Notice
that Paul and Barnabas were VERY concerned about avoiding
idolatry--"tore their clothes", "rushed out", "shouted".]
·
Rev 19.9f: Then the angel said to me,
"Write: `Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper
of the Lamb!'" And he added, "These are the true words of God."
10 At this I fell at his
feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a
fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to
the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! [Notice: it is improper
to worship an angel--so a rebuke was given.]
·
Rev 22.8: I, John, am the one who heard
and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at
the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9
But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you
and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the
words of this book. Worship God!" [Notice: it is improper to
worship an angel--so a rebuke was given.]
·
Acts 12.21: On the appointed day Herod,
wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a
public address to the people. 22 They shouted, "This is the
voice of a god, not of a man." 23 Immediately, because Herod did
not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down...
[Notice: Here is a case of a leader who ACCEPTED worship WITHOUT
explaining the real truth.]
One important aspect of this point is that the agent must be separable
from the divine nature. There are cases in the biblical
story where the Spirit of God (otherwise known as The Holy Spirit
or The Spirit of the Lord) comes into a person’s body or human
spirit. The Spirit of God elevates that human to do special acts
(for example to see visions or to utter prophecy) or to experience
new aspects of life (for example to experience new heights of joy,
new depths of peace, or new ranges of love), but the Holy Spirit
does not fuse with that body or that human spirit to make a hybrid
thing. The body remains human, but with the Spirit of the Living
God present somehow inside and acting from inside upon that body.
Or the human spirit remains human, but with the Spirit of the
Living God present somehow inside that human spirit and acting
from within that human spirit. The Holy Spirit gives new powers
and new characteristics to the human from the power and life of
its own divine nature, but the human and the Spirit of God are
still separable.
It is something like the old Jerusalem temple
in the Hebrew Bible. God sent his Spirit to dwell in the Temple,
but the Temple was still separate from the Spirit of God.
Here are a couple of passages about the Spirit
of God—whom we will discuss in a moment-- indwelling humans. This
indwelling of the divine nature of the Holy Spirit does not make the humans
into gods. Even with the Holy Spirit inside their bodies or
spirits, they are not worthy of being worshipped like the Holy
Spirit would be.
In the Hebrew bible, we can note that Joshua
was said to have the Spirit within him:
Moses spoke to the LORD,
saying, 16 “Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a
man over the congregation 17 who shall go out before them
and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them
in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that
have no shepherd.” 18 So the LORD said to Moses,
“Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the
Spirit, and lay your hand on him. (Nu 27:15–18).
And the prophet Ezekiel describes the Spirit
entering him to stand him up before God:
And he said to me, “Son of
man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” 2 And
as he spoke to me, the
Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard
him speaking to me. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, I
send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have
rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed
against me to this very day. 4 The descendants also are
impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to
them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’(Eze 2:1–4).
But in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is
said to indwell all
believers and to give them the experience of spiritual life
from within:
“But if the Spirit of Him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to
your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
(Paul's Letter to the Romans, 8:11)
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You
are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your
body.
(Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, 6:19-20)
This is a beautiful promise to believers in
Jesus—that the Living God would come into their spirits and grow
love, joy, peace, and goodness from within their lives.
But, again, these humans are still just human.
Even though the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is somehow
located within each of them—a wonderful mystery in itself—they are
not divine, and they cannot be called gods. But they benefit
wonderfully from the life of God’s beautiful Spirit living inside
their hearts and lives—and this is a wonderful promise for us,
too!
We should also note that angels (who are good
spirits) are never said to enter a human or to be placed upon a
human. The only cases in the bible where a spirit other than the
Holy Spirit enters into a human are cases of evil spirits, such as
Satan or demons. In the bible, the Holy Spirit is not an ordinary
angel or even a ruling angel like Gabriel. In the announcement of
the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus to Mary, the angel
Gabriel talks about the Holy Spirit in exalted terms:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent
from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a
virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to
her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to
discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the
angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found
favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your
womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most
High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob
forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 And
Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
35 And the angel
answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child
to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. [Gospel of Luke 1.26-35]
Element Three: There are three agents in the biblical
scriptures which clearly are inseparable from the divine
nature and which are described in the same manner as human
persons are—having intellect, will, and emotions.
In the bible there are three agents who fit
this description (God the Father, the Spirit of the Godhead, The
Word of God—or the self-expression of the Godhead, the Son).
Since this article is supposed to be more of an explanation than
a defense of these points, I will only cite some of the
biblical data that God uses to teach us these truths.
In the part of scripture which concerns the
history of Israel prior to the coming of Messiah Jesus—known as
the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament—God teaches the descendants of
Abraham the truth of Monotheism, that there is only One God, and
that all other so-called gods are either imaginary or are created
spirits. God says to Israel over and over and over again that He
is the only God, and that there are no other gods and nothing can
compare to Him.
Yet even in the pages of this bible, God reveals—over and
over—that He is more complex than humans and that He is not
just a human spirit with more perfections and superhuman
qualities. God reveals that He has diversity and complexity and
robustness within His divine nature.
Agent
One (God the Father): It is clear that God the Father is
inseparable from the divine nature and that He is described as an
Ultimate Person. He is constantly described in terms of intellect,
will, and emotions. He is constantly portrayed as performing acts
which only persons do (e.g., speaking, teaching, rebuking,
consoling, grieving). So, in this section I will focus on the
other two agents sharing the Godhead with the Father: God the Holy
Spirit and God the Eternal Son.
Agent
Two (God the Holy Spirit): When we take a look at the Spirit
of God in the Hebrew Bible we can see clearly that He is divine
and is inseparable from the divine nature.
He is the very presence of the Godhead,
yet He is somehow distinct from the Divine Person or Agent who sends Him to accomplish
His will. As the Spirit of God, he is obviously inseparable
from God—as your spirit is inseparable from you. He is the Spirit
of
God, not just a Spirit from God. He is God’s own internal
Spirit and not just a spirit owned or created by God (as would be
the case with an angel).
In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1)
But Moses replied, "Are you
jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD's people were
prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on
them!" (Numbers 11.29)
When you send your Spirit, they
are created, and you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm
104:30)
"Here is my servant, whom I
uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on
him and he will bring justice to the nations. (Isaiah
42.1)
Then his people recalled the
days of old, the days of Moses and his people -- where is he who
brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock?
Where is he who set his
Holy Spirit among them, (Isaiah 63:11)
And I will put my Spirit in
you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to
keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:27)
'This is what I covenanted
with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among
you. Do not fear.' (Haggai 2:5)
You gave your good Spirit
to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their
mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. (Neh.
9:20)
for they rebelled against the
Spirit of God, and rash words came from Moses' lips.
(Ps. 106:33)
He is called God/Lord many times, in passages
like this:
2 Sam 23.1ff in the Old Testament (These
are the last words of David: "The oracle of David son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High, the man anointed
by the God of Jacob, Israel's singer of songs: 2 "The Spirit of the LORD
spoke through me; his word was on my tongue. 3 The God of Israel
spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: `When one rules over men
in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God,) [Notice
how the Spirit of the Lord is the same as the God of Israel.]
This Holy Spirit is God’s presence, but not
just in heaven but rather wherever the Godhead sends Him. As such,
the Spirit is distinct, but
not separable from the presence of God—since He IS the presence
of God.
The Old Testament data on the Spirit of God,
overall, seems to teach
both identification of the Spirit with God and some type of
distinction internal to the Godhead. In other words, if the
Holy Spirit is an 'internal part' of God, then we would EXPECT the
Spirit to be called God/Lord; we would expect God to refer to it
by 'My Spirit' (just as I could refer to "my heart is heavy''). But we might NOT expect
God to refer to it as "THE Spirit"--a seemingly independent title
or reference. But this is JUST what we find in a couple of
passages (Ex 31.3; 35.31; and Micah 2.7 cited earlier) and this
title becomes a standard way of referring to God's Spirit
throughout OT history. The Spirit can somehow be referred to as
distinct from the God who sends the Spirit.
And these facts about the Spirit (identity with
God, distinction within the Godhead, and the personal character of
the Spirit—He is not just a force or attribute) are even more obvious in the
teachings of Jesus and His apostles.
There is too much data to actually go through
here, friend, so I will have to select a few verses in each
category.
First, on the fact that the Holy Spirit is
God—and not just a powerful angel like Michael or Gabriel – there
are several lines of evidence.
He is explicitly called God.
His extremely intimate link with the inner
life of God the Father CAN ONLY be explained by His being a
member of or internal to the Godhead.
The Holy Spirit is identified as the Lord
God (Yahweh) of the Old Testament.
The Spirit is a Person, having personal characteristics and
performing acts which require personality or consciousness. He
is not a mindless force or feeling.
He speaks—
Mark 13.11: Whenever you are
arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what
to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not
you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
Acts 13.2: While they
were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set
apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called
them."
Acts 10.19: While Peter
was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him,
"Simon, three men are looking for you.
Rev 14:13: Then I heard a voice
from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their
labor, for their deeds will follow them."
He warns--Acts 20.23: I only know that in
every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are
facing me.
He reveals/predicts-- Luke
2.26: It had been
revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he
had seen the Lord's Christ.
He teaches/reminds--
Luke 12.12: for the Holy Spirit will
teach you at that time what you should say."
John 14.26: But the
Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have
said to you.
He witnesses/testifies--
Acts 5.32: We are
witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has
given to those who obey him."
Heb 10.15: The Holy
Spirit also testifies to us about this.
John 15.26: "When the Counselor
comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of
truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
Romans 8.16: The Spirit
himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
He encourages--Acts
9.31: Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria
enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by
the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the
Lord.
He knows--I Cor 2.11:
In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit
of God.
He prays for us--Rom
8.26,27: In the same
way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we
ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our
hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for the saints in accordance with God's will.
He has a mind(!)--Rom
8.27: And he who
searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit
He is ALIVE--
·
John 14.17: the Spirit of
truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him
nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be
in you.
·
Romans 8.9:You, however,
are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the
Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
·
Romans 8.11:And if the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he
who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal
bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
·
I Cor 3.16: Don't you
know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit
lives in you?
He evaluations/makes
decisions-- Acts 15.28:
It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…
Our actions toward Him and
His responses to us indicate a personal agent.
He can be lied to--Acts
5:3: Then Peter said,
"Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you
have lied to the Holy Spirit
He can be resisted--Acts
7.51: "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and
ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy
Spirit!
He can be tested--Acts
5.9: Peter said to
her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?
He can be grieved--Ephesians
4.30: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption.
He can be blasphemed—Gospel
of Mark 3.29: But
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven;
He can be insulted or
outraged—Letter to the Hebrews 10.29: How much worse
punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has
trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of
the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the
Spirit of grace?
Notice that all of these images and terms apply
only to personal agents and there are too many of these
descriptions for them all to be cases of figures of speech.
Sometimes we might talk about ‘giving somebody a smile’ or ‘My
fist will teach you not to do that’, without that meaning that a
smile is ‘separate from’ our self, or that our fists are persons
who can teach. But the bible has too many descriptions of the
Spirit as personal for us to be able to avoid the conclusion that
the Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is a personal Agent, a
person within the Godhead. He is someone who can be loved, obeyed,
honored, and depended on. He can be called “God the Holy Spirit”
(as parallel to “God the Father”) without committing the sin of
idolatry.
So, the Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit
is a divine person in the Godhead.
Agent
Three (God the Son):
When we discussed the issue of “How could Jesus be the Son
of God and there still only be one God?”, we spoke about the
intimacy and mystical connection between Jesus of Nazareth and God
the Father. We could not explain how that
relationship could be possible, of course, because the
relationship was beyond anything we know about in this world—but
it was still a revealed truth from God.
But the relationship between the historical
Jesus of Nazareth and God the Father is part of a longer and larger
relationship between God the Eternal Son and God the Eternal
Father.
The Eternal Son of God existed long before the
baby Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary. And just as
God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit to the earth to be His
presence and to perform divine acts at various times in history,
so also God the Father sent God the Son to earth to inhabit a
human body and to perform divine acts. Just as the Holy Spirit was
God’s presence in the earthly Jewish temple, so too God the Son
was fully present in the earthly body of Jesus (and still is, up
in heaven).
Jesus was called Messiah in the Hebrew language
of Israel (as well as in Muslim tradition) and Christ in the Greek
language of the New Testament (and in Muslim tradition too). He
typically referred to Himself as the “Son of Man”, emphasizing His
connection with our humanity and identifying Himself with the
prophets such as Ezekiel.
But the person who spoke from the body of that
Jesus was somehow both human and divine—what theologians call a
result of the Incarnation. Just as Muslim theologians speak about
the eternal almost-divine Quran being incarnated in the scrolls of
the Quran today, so too God teaches in the Scriptures about the
sending of the Son to earth in a body.
Here are a few verses that describe the
ministry of this God the Son/Son of God before He came to earth in
the life of Jesus of Nazareth:
Jesus Himself claimed often to have been pre-existent in heaven with
glory before His incarnation, and to have been sent by the
Father to earth (Jn 3.13; Jn 6.33; Jn 6.38; Jn 6.62; Jn 8.23; Jn
8.42; Jn 10.30-39; Jn 16.28; Jn 17.5). For examples,
No one has ascended into
heaven except he who
descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (Gospel of
John 3:13).
Jesus then said to them,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the
bread from heaven, but my
Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For
the bread of God is
he who comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to
him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35 Jesus said to
them, “I am the bread of
life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever
believes in me shall never thirst. (Gospel of John 6:32–35).
All that the Father gives me
will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
38 For I have come
down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of
him who sent me. (Gospel of John 6:37–38).
When many of his disciples
heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to
it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples
were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at
this? 62 Then what
if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was
before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh
is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life. (Gospel of John 6:60–63).
So he said to them again, “I
am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your
sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews
said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going,
you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below;
I am from above. You are
of this world; I am not of this world. (Gospel of John 8:21–23).
They answered him, “Abraham
is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s
children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but
now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I
heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are
doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not
born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would
love me, for I came from
God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. (Gospel of John
8:39–42).
I have said these things to
you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no
longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you
plainly about the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my
name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your
behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you
have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and
have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and
going to the Father.”
(Gospel of John 16:25–28).
When Jesus had spoken these
words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the
hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to
give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And
this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on
earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with
you before the world existed. (Gospel of John 17:1–5).
These are very strong and very clear statements
by Jesus, who was not an idolater, not an unbeliever, not a
polytheist, nor a deceiver. If we believe Scripture, then we must
accept these truths—that the Person who spoke from within Jesus
existed in heaven before Jesus was born, and had been with the
Father in glory. There are no ways to deny that God said this in
the Holy Scriptures.
And Jesus’ apostles and earliest
disciples had learned this from Jesus and knew this to be
the case also.
He is described by them as pre-existent in glory with
the father and as
being the Creator and Sustainer of everything (including the
angels).
For examples:
Therefore do not be ashamed
of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but
share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,
9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because
of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in
Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now
has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ
Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to
light through the gospel (Second Letter to Timothy 1:8–10).
He who comes from above is
above all. He
who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an
earthly way. He who
comes from heaven is above all. 32 He bears witness to
what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his
testimony. 33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal
to this, that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent
utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without
measure. 35 The
Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever
does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God
remains on him. (Gospel of John 3:31–36, in which John the
Baptist is speaking).
He is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were
created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all
things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things,
and in him all things
hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the
church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that
in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through
him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Letter to
the Colossians 1:15–20).
Don’t look out only for your
own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must
have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did
not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the
humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human
form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a
criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the
place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other
names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father. (Letter
to the Philippians2:4–12).
The reason the Son of God appeared
was to destroy the works of the devil. (First Letter of John
3:8).
God showed how much he loved
us by sending his one
and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal
life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we
loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a
sacrifice to take away our sins. (First Letter of John
4:9–10).
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him. (Gospel of John 3:16–17).
Long ago, at many times and
in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he
appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created
the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God
and the exact imprint of
his nature, and he
upholds the universe by the word of his power. After
making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of
the Majesty on high (Heb 1:1–3).
In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the
beginning with God. 3 All things were made
through him, and without him was not anything made that was
made…and the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us (Gospel of John 1:1–3, 14).
For God has done what the
law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned
sin in the flesh (Letter to the Romans 8:3).
The saying is trustworthy and
deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the
foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an
example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only
God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (First
Letter to Timothy 1:15–17).
Again, these are very strong and very clear
statements in Scripture: The third Agent within the Godhead is
known as the Son, the Word, the Image of God, the Expression of
God’s nature. This Agent was sent from heaven to earth, in the
form of a human, to show us what God was like, to reveal to us the
love of the Father, and to solve the problem of our separation
from God due to our moral failures.
These are not just a couple of verses which
could have been invented and added deceptively to the New
Testament by the later church—they are woven deep into the New
Testament and form the very backbone of the power of Jesus’
ministry.
Just as the old Jewish temple of stone and wood
could have God fully present inside somehow, so too could the
human nature of Jesus have God fully present inside it. This does
not mean that God the Father was not in heaven after the
Incarnation, nor does it mean that the Son of God was not still
present in heaven in the Godhead. Limitations of time and space do
not apply to God! The Godhead is never divided and the three
Agents or Persons are never detached from one another. They are
all eternal parts or centers within the one and only God.
In fact, this inseparable union of
Father-in-heaven and Son-on-earth can be seen in a couple of
sayings of Jesus during His time on earth:
Jesus said to them, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees
the Father doing. For whatever the Father does,
that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves
the Son and shows him
all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these
will he show him, so that you may marvel. (Gospel of John
5:19–20).
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge,
and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the
will of him who sent me.
(Gospel of John 5:30).
Jesus said to him, “I am the
way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me. 7 If
you had known me, you would have known my Father also.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip
said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is
enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you
so long, and you still
do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do
you not believe that I
am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I
say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father
who dwells in me does his works. (Gospel of John 14:6–10).
So, the scriptures compel us to believe that
God the Son/Son of God has always been a divine person in the
Godhead--even when He was sent by the Father to earth, in the life
of Christ Jesus.
Element 4: These three Agents are distinct from
each other, interact with each other, and yet are often
portrayed as identical or as working together as one in each
of their actions.
Here we will let the Scriptures demonstrate
that these three Agents are distinct from one
another in the Godhead, that they interact with one
another as separate persons, but they are still one God and are
often portrayed as identical.
Some of this we have already seen earlier, so I
will mostly give a summary here.
The
Father is distinct from the Son and the two Persons interact.
·
This is obvious from the
passages we have seen which talk about the Father sending the Son,
the Son obeying the Father, and the Son revealing the Father.
·
We can also note that the
Son prays to the Father (many times in the gospels) and that the
Father honors the son, for example in Matthew 17.5: He was still speaking when,
behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the
cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased; listen to him.”
The
Father is distinct from the Spirit and the two Persons interact.
·
This can also be seen from
the times the Father sends the Spirit, and from the Spirit knowing
the mind of the Lord in depth.
·
We can also note that the
Spirit prays to the Father, as in Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit
helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as
we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts
knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The
Spirit is distinct from the Son and the two Persons interact.
·
The Son sends the Spirit
from the Father (once the Son ascended to heaven) and the Spirit
bears witness to the Son: But
when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear
witness about me. (Jn 15:26).
·
The Spirit glorifies the
Son: He will glorify me,
for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All
that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take
what is mine and declare it to you. (Jn 16:14–15).
·
Speaking against the Son is
different from speaking against the Spirit: And whoever speaks a word
against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks
against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age
or in the age to come.
(Mt 12:32).
·
They are co-workers in
making us right with God: But
you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with
God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Spirit of our God. (1
Co 6:11) and God
planned long ago to choose you by making you his holy people,
which is the Spirit’s work. God wanted you to obey him and to be
made clean by the blood of the death of Jesus Christ. (1 Pe
1:2)
·
The Son gave His life as a
sacrifice to God through the Spirit: Just think how much more the
blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so
that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the
eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect
sacrifice for our sins.
(Heb 9:14).
Now, if all we had were these verses about
distinction and interaction, we might be tempted to say that there
were 3 Gods—but we cannot. The bible clearly teaches that there is
only One God, but the three divine Agents within this God are
joined together, inseparable, and are even inside one another (eg,
the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son). And since
they are part of the one God, everything God does involves all
three persons working together.
But this
unity is still so complete that the Bible even uses some of
their names interchangeably within the same passage.
Consider these examples:
The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the
Father (this should be obvious)
Beware of men, for they will
deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues,
18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for
my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you
are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say
will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who
speak, but the Spirit of
your Father speaking through you. (Mt 10:17–20).
Compared with:
And when they bring you
before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not
be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you
should say, 12 for the
Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you
ought to say.” (Lk
12:11–12).
But the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God is also
called the Spirit of the Son, Spirit of Jesus, and Spirit of
Christ, even in reference
to the time before the birth of Jesus Christ:
Romans 8.9: You, however, are controlled
not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in
you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he
does not belong to Christ.
Gal 4.6: Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,
Father."
Phil 1.19: for I know that through your
prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to
me will turn out for my deliverance.
1 Peter 1.10: Concerning this salvation,
the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours
searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person
or time the Spirit of
Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the
sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. (1 Pe
1:10–11).
The Holy Spirit, the Son Christ Jesus, and God
the Father are mentioned together in the same passages as equals
or co-workers:
And they (the Apostle Paul
and companions) went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia,
having been forbidden by
the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when
they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia,
but the Spirit of Jesus
did not allow them. 8 So, passing by Mysia, they went
down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the
night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and
saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when
Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into
Macedonia, concluding that
God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Ac 16:6–10).
Jesus came and told his
disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on
earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I
have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even
to the end of the age.”
(Mt 28:18–20; notice how the Risen Jesus refers to the
three Persons as having one singular name).
For by the power of the
eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself
to God as a perfect
sacrifice for our sins.
(Heb 9:14).
For through him we both have access to the Father by
one Spirit. (Letter to the Ephesians 2.18)
Jesus said that God the Father was living
inside Him, and that His works upon the earth were actually the
works of the Father —and His apostles learned this truth from Him:
The words I speak are not my
own, but my Father who
lives in me does his work through me. (Gospel of John
14:10).
For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God
reconciled everything to himself… For in Christ lives all the
fullness of God in a human body (Letter to the
Colossians 1:19–20 and 2:9).
God was in Christ,
reconciling the world to Himself (Second Letter to the
Corinthians 5.19)
To see Jesus in the Scriptures and to learn of
His heart from how He works in our lives, is to see the Father:
Philip said, “Lord, show us
the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus replied,
“Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still
don’t know who I am? Anyone
who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking
me to show him to you? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in
the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my
own, but my Father who
lives in me does his work through me. 11 Just believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. (Jn
14:8–11).
And Jesus cried out and said,
“Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent
me. 45 And whoever
sees me sees him who sent me. (Jn 12:44–45).
If you had known me, you would
have known my Father
also (Jn 14:7).
For God, who said, “Let light
shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ. (2 Co 4:6).
In these last days he has
spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all
things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the
glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature… (Heb 1:2–3).
To glorify Christ is to glorify God the Father,
and the Father—who will not share His glory with another (Isaiah
48.11) seeks to glorify the divine Son. They are in union and
inseparable—The Glory of God is the Glory of Christ, and the Glory
of Christ is the Glory of God:
My glory I will not give to
another…my glory I give to no other (Isaiah 48.11; 42.8)
Jesus answered, “If I glorify
myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say,
‘He is our God.’ (Jn 8:54).
Now a certain man was ill,
Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So
the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is
ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does
not lead to death. It is
for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified
through it.” (Jn
11:1–4).
When he had gone out, Jesus
said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in
him. 32 If God is
glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and
glorify him at once. (Jn 13:31–32).
And now, Father, glorify me
in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
(Jn 17:5).
The Son of God –as a Person within the One
Godhead—is said to do every action in creation that the whole
Godhead is also said to do. Compare these statements about the
Creator and the creation:
Oh, the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable
are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN
THE MIND OF THE LORD,
OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT
IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him
and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. (Ro 11:33–36). Notice
that to God is attributed the FROM, the THROUGH, and the TO of
creation)
Therefore, as to the eating
of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real
existence,” and that “there
is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be
so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many
“gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we
exist. (1 Co
8:4–6; Notice that to God the Father is attributed the FROM and
FOR, and to Christ is attributed the THROUGH of creation)
For by him (Christ) all things were created,
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. (Col
1:16; Notice that to Christ is attributed the THROUGH and FOR of
creation).
Long ago, at many times and
in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he
appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he
created the world. (Heb
1:1–2; Notice that God created the world THROUGH Christ).
One writer expressed this unity in this way:
“Instead, to
affirm that that there is one God means that there is only one,
unique, and incomparable divine being, on a different plane of
existence from everything that is not God. …
Consider, now, the "three" in God. To say that there are three
"Persons" in the Trinity excludes, for instance, the option that
there are twelve, the number of Olympians in the Greek pantheon.
It excludes also the option that there is only one. But it
does not say that, instead of there being either twelve or one
distinct and separate individual essences in God, there are
exactly three such individual essences, for, in fact, there are no individual
essences
in God.
Instead, to say that there are three "Persons" in God
means only that there are three eternal, inseparable, and
interpenetrating agencies; in each, the other two are
present, and in each, the single divine essence is present.
Numbers don't work the
same way with regard to God that they do with regard to
created realities. And if we try to make them work in the same
way, we gravely distort our conception of God. That's as true
of "one" and it is of "three." And it's as true for
Muslims as it is for Christians.” [WR:AACR, 142]
And other in this way:
“The
second way to think how the divine "Persons" are tied together is
their mutual indwelling
or, in technical terminology, perichoresis. Again, as
Augustine put it, "they are always in each other" and never
"alone." One divine "Person" is what it is, not
simply in virtue of being distinct from others, but in virtue
of the presence of the other two "Persons" in it. The Father and the Spirit
are always "in" the Son; to be the "Son" is to be indwelled by
the Father and the Spirit.” [WR:AACR, 137]
This means that:
·
When we ask the Father to
meet some need of ours, the entire Godhead hears and will answer.
·
When we ask the Risen Son
of God to help us with some human weakness, the entire Godhead
hears and will support us, and the Father is glorified when the
Son answers the prayer (Gospel of John 14.13-14: Whatever you ask in my name,
this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If
you ask me anything in my name, I will do it).
·
When we ask the Holy Spirit
to teach us more about the treasures of Christ’s character—as the
image and revealer of the Father—the entire Godhead hears and will
guide us.
·
When we speak the name of
God in worship or thanksgiving or witness, we are speaking of the
three wonderful divine Persons within the one and only God.
·
When we speak of God as a
“He” we are referring to the 3 Persons united into 1 Person—God is
not a ‘They’ but a ‘He’. There may be three “He” persons in God,
but the combination of the three is still one ‘He’—because each
‘He’ dwells within each other ‘He’ inside the Trinity.
There are distinctions between the Persons of
the Godhead, but the closest we can come to a precise theological
statement might be one by the theologian Heppe:
"Accordingly the three
persons are equal to each other (1) so far as each of them has the
same nature of God as each of the other two; (2) so far as each of
them possesses the same divine majesty as each of the other two,
so that the Father holds no advantage over the other two persons;
and (3) so far as each of the three persons exists in the nature
of each of the other two. On the other hand the three persons are
distinct in name; in the order of their being, in the mode of
their action, in their external effects; which indeed proceed from
the entire Trinity, in which nevertheless the separate persons are
active in a different way; and finally in the special attributes
which belong to each person."
But there is so much in even this statement
that is unclear…
This is a God boundless in depth, infinite in
robustness, filled with love and purity, and eager to reach into
our lives with forgiveness, intimacy, new life, joy, and help for
the present and the future.
This is a God who revealed Himself as this
complex being. He is a composite unity, filled with richness and
abundance and love between the individuals within the divine
nature. He is a relative unity, and not an absolute unity. He did
not reveal to us HOW He could contain three persons and still be
only One God, and we probably would not understand Him if He tried
to explain it. But He did reveal it to us in His scriptures, and
it is clear enough in those words to know that it is true.
We know that it is true, but not how it can be
true. But this is not just a problem with the Trinity—it applies
to many, many truths about God.
·
We know that God exists,
but we do not know how He can exist
·
We know that God can have
relationships with creatures in time, but we do not know how an
eternal God can have such.
·
We know that God can feel
anger or delight or pride or compassion, but we do not know how He
could experience the change that seems to accompany emotions.
·
We know that God can know
His own future actions in time, but we do not know how He could
know these and still be free.
·
We know that God has no
cause for His existence, but we do not know how this could even be
possible.
God does not explain everything to us—but He
expects us to listen, accept, and live by what He has revealed:
There are some things the
LORD our God has kept secret, but there are some things he has
let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever… (Dt 29:29).
God
gives us true knowledge of Himself in Scripture
God created human language so His revelation to
us in human language is trustworthy. Even if we do not understand
how a statement could be true, we can know enough about what the
words mean for God to impart knowledge about Himself, His
character, and His will to us adequately.
Christian theologians have admitted this since
Christ came to earth, and so theological explanations of the
Trinity all admit that our knowledge is completely
true but not truly complete! Consider some of their
statements:
“Much of the
confusion about the Trinity is terminological; it concerns
the words we use to describe God, who is in many ways beyond
words and beyond thought. The problems with the terms
"begetting" and "Son"—which suggest that God might have a carnal
offspring—to which I referred earlier, are two examples.
"Person" is another.
Christians
use the term "Person" to describe the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit. This is a very different use of "person" than
in our ordinary language. By "persons" we ordinarily mean
individuals who are separate, but related to other individuals; in al-Razi's
terminology, human persons are "self-subsisting essences."
No such separation is conceivable in the one God! Divine "Persons" are not like
human persons, only magnified to superhuman proportions.
To avoid confusion over precisely that issue, many theologians
counsel against the use of the word "Person" to refer to one of
the three in God. We might be able to put it this way.
Christian tradition uses the word "Person" not because
it expresses exactly what Christians believe, but because
there is no word more adequate to speak of the three in God.
So we use the word, knowing we must mentally adjust its
meaning when it refers to God.
A Muslim
critic might respond: "Those are just the kinds of difficulties
you get yourself into when you affirm the Trinity; then you have
to use words like 'begetting,' 'Son,' and 'Person,' but can't
use them properly like everybody else does." But now it may be
my turn to suggest that this would be a false victory, for our difficulties
in speaking of God would not go away if God were not the Holy
Trinity. All words we use of God—such as "sustainer"
and "master" or "gracious" and "merciful" (Al Fatihah,
1:1—4)—are inadequate. Why? Augustine explains: "Because
the total transcendence of the godhead quite surpasses the
capacity of ordinary speech.” The words paint a picture
or tell a story, so to speak, but the picture or the story is
always more dissimilar than it is similar to who God truly is.
God is uncreated and infinite. Therefore God is inexpressible,
beyond our concepts, beyond our language. The talk of "Persons"
captures something important about God, but is inadequate to
express the full reality, because God transcends the notion of
"person," as we have seen. The same is true of "essence,"
"goodness," "love"—all to varying degrees correct and true
when referring to God, but all also deeply inadequate. The
very reality of God is such that God always remains inconceivable, a mystery
that can never be properly named or puzzled out. And yet
we speak of God—guided by God's self-revelation. We have true knowledge of God,
but we are capable of understanding much better what the divine
Mystery is not than what that Mystery is. Important
strands in all three Abrahamic faiths agree on this.”
[WR:AACR,139f]
“As in all theology, we
are on a knife edge, or, we might say, a narrow path with
precipices on each side. On one side, we deny the unity of
God, and make it appear that there are three gods; on the
other, we cause the distinctions of the three to disappear
into some underlying undifferentiated deity. On the whole,
our Western tradition has tended to the latter, so to stress
the unity of God’s action that it becomes difficult to do
justice to its diversity.” [Gunton, C. E. (2003).
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit : Essays toward a fully
trinitarian theology (79). London; New York: T & T Clark.]
“While the term
trinity is not a biblical expression, the doctrine of the
Trinity is biblical. It
is totally a product of revelation that man’s reason could
never discover. The doctrine is to be believed because the
inspired Scriptures teach it. It is one of the most
profound and difficult mysteries in the Word of God. Although
the truth of the Trinity lies outside the capacity of our minds
to fully comprehend and explain, the doctrine is clearly taught in the Bible. God is
unique in this respect. There is nothing in nature that
perfectly illustrates this aspect of God’s being.”
[Benson, C. H. (2004). The one true God : Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Biblical essentials series (12–13). Wheaton, Ill.:
Crossway Books.
“TRINITY:
Theological term used to define God as an undivided unity
expressed in the threefold nature of God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As a distinctive Christian doctrine, the Trinity is
considered as a divine mystery beyond human comprehension to
be reflected upon only through scriptural revelation. The
Trinity is a biblical concept that expresses the dynamic
character of God, not a Greek idea pressed into Scripture from
philosophical or religious speculation. While the term “trinity”
does not appear in Scripture, the trinitarian structure
appears throughout the NT to affirm that God Himself is
manifested through Jesus Christ by means of the Spirit.
A proper biblical view of the Trinity balances
the concepts of unity and distinctiveness. Two errors that appear in
the history of the consideration of the doctrine are tritheism
and unitarianism. In tritheism error is made in emphasizing the
distinctiveness of the Godhead to the point that the Trinity is
seen as three separate Gods, or a Christian polytheism. On the
other hand, unitarianism excludes the concept of distinctiveness
while focusing solely on the aspect of God the Father. In this
way Christ and the Holy Spirit are placed in lower categories
and made less than divine. Both errors compromise the
effectiveness and contribution of the activity of God in
redemptive history. [Brand, C., Draper, C., England, A.,
Bond, S., Clendenen, E. R., Butler, T. C., & Latta, B. (2003).
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1625–1627). Nashville, TN:
Holman Bible Publishers.
“The doctrine of the
Trinity is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity which
distinguishes it from all other views of God. Christians are
monotheists like Jews and Muslims. We believe that there is only
one true God. Yet unlike Judaism and Islam, Christians believe
that there is a differentiation within the Godhead. The one true
God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. These are not three gods. Christians are not polytheists
who believe in many gods. This
is, admittedly, difficult to understand. Yet Christians have not
come to believe in the Trinity because of abstract philosophical
reasoning about the nature of God; it was because of the truth
about God as he is revealed in the New Testament that the
truth of the Trinity was accepted by the church. ” [“God the Son”,
John H. Fish III, Emmaus Journal Volume 12. 2003. Dubuque, IA:
Emmaus Bible College.]
The scriptures teach us that God can be truly
known through His revelation:
Thus says the LORD: “Let not
the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast
in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
24 but let him who
boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and
righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
declares the LORD.” (Je
9:23–24).
The God of the Bible spoke into history to tell
us of our purpose, our natures, our problems, and of His desire
and ability to bring virtue and healing to our lives. He offered
us immortality and true life – not just existence.
In hope of eternal life, which
God, who never lies, promised
before the ages began (Letter to Titus 1.2)
For God saved us and called
us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it,
but because that was his plan from before the beginning of
time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. And now he has
made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior.
He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life
and immortality through the Good News. (2 Ti 1:9–10).
But this immortal and robust eternal life comes
by knowing God:
After Jesus said these
things, he looked toward heaven and prayed, “Father, the time
has come. Give glory to your Son so that the Son can give glory
to you. 2 You gave the Son power over all people so that
the Son could give
eternal life to all those you gave him. 3 And this is eternal life: that people know
you, the only true God, and that they know Jesus Christ,
the One you sent. (Jn
17:1–3).
God the Father can be known, and He can be
known through knowing Christ—His own self-expression and image in
history.
Indeed, the promises of God in the Old
Testament specifically point to knowing God. Two of these promises
focus on the coming of Messiah Jesus.
In Isaiah 11, the Messiah is prophesized to
make the knowledge of God universal:
There shall come forth a
shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall
bear fruit. And the Spirit of the
LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of
knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall
be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide
disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall
judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the
earth… They shall
not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be
full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for
the peoples—of him shall
the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be
glorious.
One commentator said this:
“In these verses the
character and work of the “Branch” are described. The Spirit of
the LORD will rest on Him, that is, the Holy Spirit would empower
Him (at Jesus’ baptism, Matt. 3:16-17) for His work which would be
characterized by wisdom... understanding... counsel... power...
knowledge, and the fear of the LORD. The attributes of the Holy
Spirit would characterize the Messiah. Because of His
wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge He is the Wonderful
Counselor (Isa. 9:6)… He is characterized by the fear of the LORD
and has delight in it (11:3) just as His people should have. To
fear God is to respond to Him in awe, trust, obedience, and
worship. (Interestingly all three persons of the Trinity are
suggested in vv. 1-2.) The Messiah constantly seeks to do what God
the Father wants Him to do. This contrasted with the religious
leaders in Isaiah’s day who were unconcerned about following God’s
Word…. The reason such tranquility is possible is that all the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the LORD (Isa. 11:9; cf. Jer. 31:34;
Hab. 2:14). This means more than people knowing intellectually
about the Lord. The idea is that people everywhere will live
according to God’s principles and Word. … The Messiah, the Root of
Jesse, will be a means of rallying for the nations (cf. v.
12; Zech. 14:9, 16). Jesus Himself made the same point that many people from
outside Israel will have a part in God’s kingdom (Luke
13:29). God had promised Abraham
that through his line all
peoples on the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).
[Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary.
(1983-). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the
scriptures (Is 11:1–10). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.]
And in Jeremiah 31, God promises a New Covenant
with Israel—which Jesus inaugurated by His death on the Cross and
which also has benefits for all nations:
But this is the covenant
which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,”
declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their
heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall
be My people. “They
will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his
brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me,
from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares
the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I
will remember no more.”
And commentators point out that this is
accomplished by the giving of the Holy Spirit by the Father and by
the Risen Christ:
“The result of the new
covenant is to be the
universal knowledge of God. The Mosaic law required the
people to teach the law to their children (e.g., Deut 6:4–9;
11:19). … Having the law written on one’s heart is not so much a
matter of immediate knowledge as transformed attitudes and
behavior (22:16). The
result is said to be not just the knowledge of the law but the
knowledge of the Lord, i.e., a relationship with the Lord of the
covenant by faith, the goal of all the earlier covenants. ”
[Huey, F. (2001). Vol. 16: Jeremiah, Lamentations (electronic
ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (285–286).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.]
“The new covenant (cf.
Jer 31:31–34) carried with it assurance
of forgiveness through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross
and the inner work of the Holy Spirit in motivating us and
enabling us to fulfill our covenantal responsibility.” [Leifeld,
W. L. (1984). Luke. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor's
Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke (F. E. Gaebelein,
Ed.) (1027). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.]
What God has told us in Scripture about His
nature and His life, is to be accepted and trusted as honest and
accurate statements from Him. He never tells us about how His
nature could be such, and it is presumptuous, foolish, and
dangerous for us to speculate on this.
There is not a whisper in the Bible, the Quran,
or the Hadith about God being some kind of featureless,
homogenous, unknowable and undifferentiated substance—without
attributes or characteristics or internal relations. It is only
the philosophers and theologians that say such about our glorious
and grand God.
The traditional Muslim position (of the Ashari
Sunni tradition) is that God does have attributes—in some
sense—and therefore—in some sense—is a relative unity, and not the
absolute unity that some modern Muslim teachers assert.
“The orthodox
Christian defense of the reality of the second and third persons
of the Trinity consisted in rejecting the Philonic conception of
the absolute unity of God and by maintaining that the unity of
God is only a relative kind of unity, a conception of unity
which does not exclude from God, who is one, the composition of
three elements which from eternity existed together and were
never separated. So also the orthodox Muslim defense of
the reality of attributes, as it was ultimately given
expression by Ghazali, reduces itself to an insistence upon
a relative conception of the unity of God, which does not
exclude its being internally composed of real attributes
which existed together from eternity and were never
separated. …And so, the views of the orthodox
Muslims and the Mu'tazilites on the problem of attributes, as
well as the arguments employed by them, correspond exactly to
the views of orthodox Christians and the heretical Sabellians on
the question of the persons of the Word and the Holy Spirit in
the Trinity. The issue between the Attributists and the
Antiattributists was thus clearly defined. It was an issue
whether the unity of God was absolute or only relative. To the Attributists the
unity of God was a relative unity, and hence they assumed in
God the existence from eternity of real attributes. To
the Antiattributists the unity of God was an absolute unity, and
hence the terms attributed to God were mere names.” [WR:POK,
137-140]
“Now, as we have seen,
when the Attributists were confronted by the Mu'tazilites with
this argument, they downrightly
denied that the unity of God includes internal unity in the
sense of absolute simplicity, maintaining that the unity of
God, according to their own conception of it, does not exclude
from Him a plurality of
parts which from eternity have been united with each other
and with the essence of God. [WR:POK, 171-173]
“In his
criticism of Abu Hashim, Ash'ari
repeats the argument already raised by the Mu'tazilites against
the theory of modes, namely, that it is contrary to the Law of
Excluded Middle. His argument, as reported by Shahrastani, reads
as follows: "The
assumption of an attribute which can be described neither by
existence nor by nonexistence is the assumption of something
which is in the middle between existence and nonexistence,
between affirmation and negation, but this is something
absurd." … With the elimination of these two alternative
possibilities, Ash'ari
is left with the third possibility, namely, the old orthodox
conception of attributes as being real things subsisting in
God from eternity.” [WR:POK, 204f]
“Moreover, it
was the same kind of arguments that were used in Christianity
both for and against the reality or eternity of the second and
third persons of the Trinity that were used also in Islam both
for and against the reality of attributes and the uncreatedness
of the Koran. [WR:POK, 312f]
And the early Muslim theologians faced the same
problems as their Christian counterparts in trying to understand
the relationship of God’s nature to aspects of His nature (for
example, His attributes and His internal Agents).
“In the past, as in
the present, it was the more rationally minded Muslims who
undertook systematic refutations of Christian doctrine, the same
Muslims whose rationalism sometimes caused them to fall foul of
Islamic orthodoxy, as in the case of the Mu'tazila. The Greek philosophical
tools which were employed against Christianity could be a
two-edged sword, and gave cause for concern when applied to
Islamic thought. An example of this is the use of Greek
philosophical categories to refute the Trinity, which had
implications for the
question of God's attributes in Islam; it was not always easy to
uphold the distinction between the latter and the Christian
hypostases. ” [WR:MACF2F, 138f]
“This conflict
is connected with the refusal of some theologians and the Muslim
philosophers who were strongly influenced by Greek philosophy to
give positive attributes to God. Al-Kindi, for example, the
first Muslim philosopher, was not willing to confirm certain
qualities in God for fear of violating His unity, since
attributes mean adding to God different qualities, which would
show Him in different and changing states, from being
known to creating, hearing, seeing, punishing and so on.
However, Muslim theologians including the Mu'tazilites
follow the Qur'an, in considering that God has positive
attributes and can be described. Although the Qur'an
predicates to God many human attributes such as those
mentioned above, it declares that "nothing is like unto Him."
This divine transcendence made many theologians question
and reflect on the manner in which the divine essential
attribute can be related to God's essence while retaining His
transcendence. Again, the difficulty here is how it is
possible for God to know or to be able without possessing
knowledge or ability? For if He has knowledge and ability then
they must be eternal like Him. Muslim theologians discussed all
the possibilities: are these qualities eternal notions which
have always existed with God? This would mean that God is not
the first eternal. Or are they part of His essence? This would
mean that since God is (a unitary) One, then all His attributes
must be dissolved into one quality. Or are these qualities neither in God
nor independent of His essence? But this is in a way absurd.
[WR:GAHIIT, 43]
“However, this kind of rigid
monotheism is not entirely consistent with some of Islam's
own distinctions. As we will see in more detail later,
Muslim scholars, following through consistently on certain
teachings in the Qur'an, have made distinctions that would
allow for some kind of distinctions within God's unity.
For example, they believe the Qur'an is the eternal speech of
God, existing in the Mind of God from all eternity…
[WR:AI,135]
The criticisms which early Muslim theologians
raised against the Christians applied equally to them:
“The arguments used against
the doctrine [of the Trinity] by these and other Muslims reflect
a sense of incomprehensibility. … Abu 'Isa demonstrates at
great length whatever way the doctrine is expressed, the attempt
to identify three entities with one leads to confusion and
incoherence. The fundamental problem which each polemicist
differently raises is that since in any description of the
doctrine more than one divine entity is listed, some form of
plurality is entailed and the simple unity is obliterated. So the
insistent claim made by the Christians that God is one becomes
meaningless.
Yet
this problem of unity and multiplicity was not peculiar to
Christianity in the period we are discussing. Within Islamic
thinking itself, the problem of how systematically to set down
the teachings of the Qur'an about God produced difficulties
that, to many minds, itself affected the strict oneness of
God's being in a way that parallels the issues concerned with
the Trinity.
The matter of the
divine attributes is very old in Islam. Some scholars think that
it may, in fact, have been raised through discussions with
Christians. It arises from the problem of how to categorise the
descriptions of God given by revelation and reason, whether these
refer accurately to God's actual being or are human approximations
of an unknowable divinity. At the beginning of the ninth century
the debate was conducted mainly among thinkers associated with the
Mu'tazill principles of divine unity and justice for whom
the strict oneness of God and the complete distinction between him
and other beings were crucial matters of belief. And they were
reluctant to refer to God in any way that appeared to suggest
otherwise.
But this was the nub
of the problem. According to the generally agreed perception at
this time, the descriptions that could pertinently be made of a
being were understood to refer to attributes that qualified the
being itself. For example, if a being could be called living it
was qualified by the attribute of life, and if it could be called
seeing it was qualified by the attribute of sight. The attribute
itself qualified the being as a whole, and in that respect was
said to be of or in the being. This relationship between
description and attribute was expressed according to the
grammatical logic which was generally accepted at this time by
paraphrasing a statement such as "he is living” as “he has
life," the two statements being regarded as equivalent. Thus,
within the structure of this thinking to describe a being in any
way was the same as saying that the being possessed attributes
which were real and in some way additional to the being in its own
actuality.
In applying these
ideas to God, obvious problems arose. For if he possessed
attributes which were both real and distinct from his being, he
could not be the dense unity upon which the Mu'tazills insisted….
The other side of the debate was equally problematic, since those
who maintained the reality of the attributes were confronted with
the difficulty of explaining how God was one in any meaningful
sense. … But the resulting problem is that since the attributes
are not identical with God's essence but rather of it Ibn Kullab cannot easily
explain how the being of God is a simple unity.
The repercussions of
this debate continued within Islam for many centuries and
increased in complexity and sophistication. As we can see,
however, even at this early stage it was accepted
by leading theologians that any meaningful description of God
logically involved the existence of attributes that were
intrinsic to God, whether these were defined in
negative terms, as by Abu al-Hudhayl, or positively, as by Ibn
Kullab.” [WR:IIOC, 86-88]
And apart from terminology, they end up very
similar!
In the problem
of attributes, as we have noted, while Islam had taken over from
Christianity the conception of the existence of real persons or
hypostases in God, which it transformed into attributes, it
constantly insisted, in opposition to Christianity, that they
are not God. This was the fundamental distinction between the
Christian Trinity and the Muslim attributes. In the course of
time, however, among certain Muslims, who were regarded as
orthodox, this difference between the Christian Trinity and
the Muslim attributes was somewhat blurred. We gather this from
the following statement
in Ibn Hazm: "To one of the Ash'arites I said: Since you
say that coexistent with God are fifteen attributes, all of them
other than He and all of them eternal, why do you find fault
with the Christians when they say that God is 'the third of
three'? He said to me: We find fault with the Christians only
because they assume that there coexist with God only two things
and do not assume that there coexist with Him a greater number
of things. Indeed,
one of the Ash'arites has already told me that the name 'God,'
that is, our use of the term 'God,' is a word which applies to
the essence of the Creator and the totality of His attributes,
and not to His essence without His attributes.”
From these answers
of the followers of the Ash'arite teachings, we may gather that
somehow within this orthodox group there were some who forgot
that the original opposition to the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity was on the ground of the application of the term "God"
to the second and third persons. Quite oblivious of this
fundamental opposition, they were willing to apply the term
"God" as a common appellation of God and His attributes,
which is only an adoption of the Christian view that the term
"God" is to be used as a common appellation of the Father and
the two other persons, though, I imagine, these Ash'arites
would still balk at calling each individual attribute "God."
The emphasis that the term "God" is
not to be applied to the essence alone without the
attributes and the statement that the difference between
their belief and that of the Christians consists only in the
fact that the Muslim attributes are more numerous than the
Christian persons indicate that in all other respects their
attributes assume the character of the Christian persons.” [WR:POK,
312-315]
Muslim theologians and philosophers worked very
hard to avoid admitting that there were some kinds of distinctions
within God, putting forth theoretical terms like “modes” and
“states”, internal and external attributes, attributes of essence
and attributes of description, and so on. But no real solution
ever appeared. The God who is all-knowing and compassionate and
creative simply cannot be some kind of featureless, homogenous,
unknowable and undifferentiated substance—without attributes or
characteristics or internal relations. We must submit to God’s
revelation, not our philosophical or theological commitments. Let
God be God! Let God speak His word and let us listen!
Why
would God reveal such a complex truth to us?
We have already seen that God describes Himself
as incomparable, yet knowable.
We have seen that we are compelled by Scripture
to affirm that:
1. There
is only One God.
2. There
are three Persons or Agents or Individuals within this One God.
3. This
three-in-one divine Being is beyond comparison—nothing in our
experience is like His being.
We use the word “Person” or “Agent” or
“Individual” or “Agency” or “Operation” to label these internal
centers of consciousness (who called themselves as Father, Son,
and Spirit in the Scriptures), because we do not have any better words. Because
these Persons are described in revelation using terms like love,
anger, speaking, knowing, deciding and so on, words like
‘attributes’ or ‘states’ seem too flat or limited. We are
constrained by our understanding and by our language, but the
doctrine is still one which God wishes us to know in its basic meaning.
“A definition of the Trinity
is not easy to construct. Some are done by stating several
propositions. Others err
on the side either of oneness or threeness. One of the best
is Warfield’s: “There is one only and true God, but in the unity
of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the
same in substance but distinct in subsistence.” The
word “Persons” might be misleading as if there were three
individuals in the Godhead, but what other word would suffice?
The word “substance” might be too materialistic; some would prefer
to use the word “essence.” Many will not know the meaning of
subsistence, but a dictionary can remedy that (“necessary
existence”). … Positively, the definition clearly asserts both
oneness and threeness and is careful to maintain the equality and
eternality of the Three. Even
if the word “person” is not the best, it does guard against
modalism, and, of course, the phrase “the same in substance” (or
perhaps better, essence) protects against tritheism. The
whole undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the
three persons. [Ryrie, C. C. (1999). Basic theology : A popular
systemic guide to understanding biblical truth (61). Chicago,
Ill.: Moody Press.]
This God is absolutely unique. All other
concepts of God are either polytheist or singular units.
Ancient Christian writers, such as Abū Rū’iṭah
al-Takrītī (c. 775-835 AD), can point this out in dialogue with
Muslim theologians of the time:
“When a religion finds
that it describes God by the attribute "nothing is like Him", then
it [truly] worships of Him and knows Him. And if a religion
discovers it describes God with anthropomorphism and comparison
with creatures, then ignorance of Him is its perpetual goal. Each
of those professing the unity of God, with the exception of the
Christians, do not hesitate to describe Him as one, single, and
numberable. … What do you say about one human being, and one
king? Is not each one of them a single [individual] ? Which
comparison is more important than what you describe? As for
the Christians, they reject any comparison [of creatures] and
likeness with [God] when they describe Him as three hypostaseis
(persons/minds) and one ousia (being/entity). .. . But
when it is found that He is three hypostaseis and
one ousia, then His description is above every
comparison and likeness [with creatures], because it is not
possible that a single ousia [having] three hypostaseis,
which is identical in all of its essences, exists in creation.
[WR:DTPT,197ff]
A more modern Christian theologian could
express this uniqueness this way:
“The unity of God is
unique. It is the only unity of the kind. An individual man
is one; and any individual creature or thing is one. But there are
others like it, each of which is likewise numerically one. God is not merely one, but
the only one; not merely unus (one), but unicus (unique). He
is not one of a species or one in contrast with another of the
same kind. God is one God and the only God. The notion of the
unique must be associated with that of unity in the instance of
the Supreme Being.
God
is not a unit, but a unity. A unit, like a stone or a stick,
is marked by mere singleness. It admits no interior
distinctions and is incapable
of that inherent trinality which is necessary to self-knowledge
and self-consciousness. Mere singleness is incompatible with
society, and therefore incompatible with divine communion and
blessedness. God is blessed only as he is self-knowing and
self-communing. A subject
without an object could not experience either love or joy. Love
and joy are social. They imply more than a single person.
The scriptural
doctrine of divine plenitude favors distinctions in divine
essence. Fullness of
being implies variety of existence. A finite unit has no
plurality or manifoldness. It is destitute of modes of
subsistence. Meagerness and barrenness mark a unit;
opulence and fruitfulness mark a unity. This
plērōma or plenitude of divine essence is spoken of in the
following: “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19) and
“the fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Owen (in his work
Doctrine of the Trinity
Vindicated) remarks that “it may be true that in one essence
there can be but one person, when the essence is finite and
limited, but not when the essence is infinite.” [Shedd, W. G. T.,
& Gomes, A. W. (2003). Dogmatic theology (3rd ed.) (222).
Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub.]
God revealed this to us for our good—it has
practical value to our lives, beyond simply knowing truth. It
shows us how great our God is, how complete He is in Himself, how
sufficient His work of redemption is for us, and how sure we can
be of His love for us!
One writer listed some of the practical
benefits of this:
1. It allows for eternal love.
Love was before creation, yet love needs an object. Love is always
flowing among the persons of the trinity.
2. Only God can reveal God.
By God the Father sending God the Son, God could be made manifest.
3. Only God can atone for sin.
This is accomplished through the incarnation of God the Son.
4. It is hard to conceive of
personality existing without society. The persons of the
Godhead relate one to another in perfect harmony, a perfect
society.
[Thiessen, H. C.,
& Doerksen, V. D. (1979). Lectures in systematic theology
(98–99). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company.]
One illustration that is commonly used of the
Trinity expresses an intense beauty in the relationships within
the Godhead:
“God is Love” (1 John
4:16), and love involves three elements: A lover, a beloved, and
a spirit of love. These three are one. One advantage of this
example is that it has a personal dimension, in that love is
something only a person does. [Geisler, N. L. (2003).
Systematic theology, volume two: God, creation (294). Minneapolis,
MN: Bethany House Publishers.]
For me personally—and I would hope you would
find this too, friend—the major reason might be to encourage
us to trust Him, because He is constantly praying
for me.
I know from scripture that I can go to God with
my needs, my fears, my pains, my thanks—and that I have access to
Him because Jesus solved my sin problem by His sacrificial death.
But I also know from the verses above that:
·
God the Holy Spirit prays
to the Father for me, about things I do NOT know to pray for: Likewise the Spirit helps us
in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings
too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the
mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints
according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26)
·
God the Son intercedes for
me constantly, about things necessary to my salvation (whether I
know what those needs are or not!): Now there have been many of
those [Old Testament] priests, since death prevented them from
continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a
permanent priesthood. Therefore
he is able to save completely those who come to God through
him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Heb 7:23–25).
I appreciate it when people intercede with God
on my behalf—I frequently ask others to pray for me—but to know
that God Himself, within Himself, prays for me—including for the
unseen and unknown needs of my life and my spirit—I am encouraged
to trust Him. I am encouraged to thank Him. I am encouraged to
honor Him in my little human life. I am overwhelmed by the
completeness of His care.
Secondly, I am encouraged
to trust Him because the work required to ensure my
salvation and eternal life with Him was all done by Him!
If you look at this simple list of Scripture
truths, you can see what I mean:
·
The Son chose to come to
earth as a human
·
The Father who loved Him
from eternity to eternity sent Him, because of love for us humans
·
The Holy Spirit
miraculously created this unique Jesus inside the womb of Mary.
·
The Son –now in human form
and yet still also having His divine nature—depended upon the Holy
Spirit to live his human life in perfect obedience and submission
to the Father.
·
During his life on earth,
the Son promised that every person who believed His claims and
trusted in His work as savior would be exempt from the Final
Judgment and be given eternal life by the Father.
·
Before His sacrifice on the
Cross for us, Jesus promised that He and the Father would send a
down-payment of eternal life to believers, in the person of the
Holy Spirit.
And now you Gentiles
have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And
when you believed in
Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit,
whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s
guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised
and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this
so we would praise and glorify him. (Eph 1:13–14)
For while we are in this tent
[the human body], we
groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed
but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may
be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us
for this very purpose is God,
who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is
to come. (2 Co 5:1–5).
·
He also promised that this
Holy Spirit would reveal more about God the Son and God the Father
as part of the Spirit’s ministry.
·
Jesus then offered himself
up through the Holy Spirit on the Cross as a substitute sacrifice
for us law-breakers. He took the punishment that we deserve from
the Father upon Himself, and suffered in our place.
·
The Father accepted the
Son’s sacrifice, raised Him from the dead, and exalted Him to
heaven.
·
The Holy Spirit was then
sent by the Father and the Son to live inside believers, and to
begin growing, from within, the experience of Eternal
Life—including internal joy, love, peace, and intimacy with God.
At the Resurrection, this indwelling Holy Spirit will completely
renew our human bodies into immortal bodies.
·
This same Holy Spirit
enables humans to share the message of God’s offer of eternal life
with other people—like you and me.
·
His offer of eternal life
is based upon His own works—not ours. Righteousness and Peace with
God are a gift from him—not something we work for. The triune God
did all the work—out of His love—and we can enjoy His gift freely
and be forever confident in
His love:
But now God has shown us a
way to be made right
with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as
was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.
22 We are made right
with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is
true for everyone who
believes, no matter who we are.
23 For everyone has
sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are
righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when
he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the
sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus
sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This
sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and
did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he
was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this
present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for
he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be
right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. 27 Can
we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by
God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law.
It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by
obeying the law. 29 After all, is God the God of the
Jews only? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he
is. 30 There is only one God, and he makes
people right with himself only by faith, whether they are
Jews or Gentiles. (Romans 3:21–30).
Once we, too, were foolish
and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts
and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we
hated each other. 4 But—“When God our Savior revealed his
kindness and love, 5 he
saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but
because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a
new birth and new life
through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out
the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.
7 Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will
inherit eternal life.” (Letter
to Titus 3:3–7).
I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save
yourselves; it was a gift
from God. 9 It was not the result of your own efforts, so
you cannot brag about it. (Eph
2:8–9).
I no longer count on my own
righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through
faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right
with himself depends on faith. (Php 3:9).
Conclusion
There are so many questions that could be asked
here, and so many arguments that can be raised, and so much more
data that could be examined, but none of these would change the
basic reality: that God has revealed Himself in the scriptures
from the time of the Creation through the time of Christ’s
apostles and companions as being a composite unity.
There are distinctions between the persons, but
even these distinctions are for our good—otherwise, the Holy
Spirit could not pray for us and the Son could not offer a perfect
substitute for us to the Father.
But debates about the internal workings of our
great God have sabotaged many beautiful lives and created
significant discord in both Christian and Muslim theology.
In Christian theology, the debates about this
in the early centuries of the church were often impure—they were
tainted by political ambitions and by social pressures. Sometimes
they stopped arguing and admitted the reality of mystery, but
sometimes they did not.
And the same is true for the internal Muslim
debates. One writer (Nader El-Bizri), discussing the internal
Muslim arguments over essence and attributes, said this:
“Although the question concerning God's
essence and attributes has primarily remained a classical
madrasa problem that has been peripheral to modern
reformist deliberations, it nevertheless confronts us with exacting
metaphysical riddles. Attempts to advance a definite
thesis in this regard are likely to be part of a call for a
conversion to one doctrine or another. The atmosphere is one of ideological
indoctrination preoccupied with historicity rather than
a commitment to the uncanny realities of this question.
This should, as a
minimum, be replaced with
a restraint in taking conclusive positions, and by resisting
intellective haste, given that the doctrinal unfolding of this
question did not always maintain,
with purity, the indeterminacy, indecision, openness and
submission that befit a genuine experience of the holy.”
[WR:CCCIT, 137f, Nader El-Bizri, “God: essence and
attributes”]
I would hope, friend, that you would let God be
God, and let His unchangeable Word speak wisdom, comfort,
forgiveness, and wonder into your open heart. May you find this
free gift of eternal life from the glorious God, and may you
experience the blessings, ministries, and companionship with the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
In the words of the Apostle Paul (Romans 16.27)
All
glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever.
Amen.
Warmly,
Glenn Miller, Dec 2011