Thursday, September 19, 2019

Commentary on Statements of Faith: God (Part 1 of 2)

        We believe in one eternal God who exists in three persons. And those three persons are equal. Not only the theology, but even the grammar is difficult. Outsiders consider us to be tritheistic because we say "the Father is...", "the Son is...", and "the Holy Spirit is...", but then we stay in the singular, combine the three Persons and say "God is..." In fact, the Hebrew word for God is "Elohim"--- a plural word with a singular verb. There was even a counsel in the Godhead--- "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness." Gen.1:26.

        We are way beyond "common sense" here. In fact, we are into a kind of sense that we doubt man could ever have thought of. For instance, "God is Love"--- an absolute statement like this would be impossible for a "one-person" god. At least two and probably three persons seem necessary for absolute love to exist.

        To go further, the details of God's actions in salvation are amazing. For instance, our sins against God are so immense that only an infinite God could deal with them all, either by punishing us or by punishing an infinite substitute and, therefore, a Second Person in the Deity.

        All this has endless ramifications in the Christian's understanding of God. For instance, the Father did not suffer (physically) and die, because He is Spirit. It was His eternal Son Jesus who suffered and died. The Athanasian Creed is rightly talking basic Christianity when it says, "we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance." Statements of faith rightly put an understanding of God and the Trinity first on their list.

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