The Triune God

The living God who created the world and all that is in it has graciously chosen to reveal Himself to mankind.  Though all humanity created in His image was separated from God due to sin, the almighty God donned human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to seek and save the lost.  Jesus shed His blood on Calvary and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures, and He provided the required price of atonement that satisfies divine justice so sinners could be pardoned and cleansed forever as saints.  By the power of the Gospel the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to us, and we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

As a student of God's word, I relish theology--the study of God.  One thing I have observed is how theological studies that focus on various views, interpretations and doctrinal differences can unwittingly obfuscate what is plainly revealed in the Bible.  Many people have suffered spiritual shipwreck by peering into these subjects because they lost sight of Jesus in their pursuit of understanding and theological mastery.  What they did not understand caused them to drift from what they once knew--or at least what they thought they knew.  The Scripture goes deeper than humans can possibly understand, and even people filled with the Holy Spirit cannot know everything that can be known about God.  Yet God has revealed enough about Himself to go far beyond satisfying our curiosity, for He has provided access in His presence forever through a relationship with Jesus by grace through faith.

Because God is not like anything He has created, it can be difficult or impossible to draw an adequate parallel that does justice to the divine reality.  Things we find challenging to explain in detail because it is beyond us are plainly shown in Scripture.  Take the triune nature of the Godhead, for instance.  It is impossible for our natural minds to comprehend how the one true God is revealed in three Persons:  God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit.  There are sects and cults that debate if Trinity is true because they cannot make sense of it.  For any who have such doubts--despite ample evidence of this doctrine being found throughout the Bible--God illustrated this wonderfully for everyone.  Luke 3:21-22 says, "When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. ²² And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."

 After Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan river, He prayed and heaven was opened:  the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and landed on Him, and the voice of God the Father audibly said, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."  We might struggle to understand the intricacies of the triune Godhead, yet here we see all three distinct Persons united as God--each coexistent for eternity and sharing the same divine nature in One.  Whenever we run aground on a subject we do not understand fully, the child of God can return to what we do know and are convinced of by Scripture.  Like little chicks run to the shelter of the mother hen when there is danger, we can retreat to the safety and security of God's word that is true and does not change.

After Jesus miraculously healed a man who was born blind, he was grilled by Pharisees, learned Jewish scholars and rulers held in high esteem.  They asserted Jesus was a sinner and therefore not the Christ.  John 9:25 reads, "He answered and said, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see."  The Pharisees probed repeatedly how the man received his sight.  They could not believe the man was healed because they could not understand how Jesus did such a thing.  How could washing mud from eyes bring sight to a man born blind?  The irony in this passage is those who believed they saw clearly spiritually were exposed as blind, yet the man who knew Jesus healed him had more spiritual insight because he knew one thing--he was once blind and know he could now see--and put his faith in Jesus.  The previously blind man would have been schooled in a theological debate with questions and words he could not even comprehend, but simple faith in Jesus resulted in spiritual understanding greater than Pharisees.