love of God Archives - Page 3 of 4

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. Below is a question that made me laugh, not because it was a silly question (there’s no such thing), but because of how impossible it was to answer!

The reader essentially asked me to define the Trinity…

I want to know more about the Trinity. Thank you.

Below is the answer I sent back to the reader. Feel free to help me out with a better explanation of the Trinity in the comment section below.

Whew!

Asking me to explain or define the Trinity is almost like asking me to define God! An impossible task!

There is so much to discuss and talk about regarding the Trinity, it is hard to know where to begin or exactly what you want to know about the Trinity. So let me do my best to briefly explain and define the Trinity, and also explain why the Trinity is essential and important for Christian doctrine.

Define the Trinity

First, the Trinity is best defined as “One God who exists in three persons.” There are not three Gods. There is only one God. But somehow, in ways beyond human comprehension, God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There is no good analogy in creation, but some have likened the Trinity to the three forms of water, ice, water, and steam, while others have equated it to the light and heat of the sun. My personal preference (though again, it is a bad analogy) is how we as humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. We are one person with three parts. Of course, God does not consist of parts. Each person of the Trinity is fully God.

It is difficult to understand, but this is primarily because we are not God.

Explaining the Trinity to mortal human beings is like trying to explain colors to a blind man or sound to a deaf person. It like trying to use words to explain speech to a dog. You can bark at the dog, but that doesn’t help, and you can speak to a dog with words, but he won’t understand what you’re saying and will never be able to speak for himself.

Believing in the Trinity

So if the Trinity is so difficult to understand, why is it important to believe? There are probably thousands of reasons why the Trinity is critical to Christian thought, but there are three of the most important reasons. (Yes, I chose three simply because I am writing about the Trinity.)

1. First, the Bible teaches us that God exists as a Trinity.

No, the word “trinity” is never used in the Bible, but there are passages all over the place which reveal that there are three persons in the Godhead who exist together as one God.

We know, for example, that God is one (Deut 6:4; 1 Tim 2:5; 1 Cor 8:6; etc.), and yet Jesus, who most perfectly revealed God to us (John 14:7; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3) often spoke of His Father and of sending the Holy Spirit (e.g., John 10; John 14-17). Even at the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus coming up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaking to Jesus from heaven (Matt 3:16-17).

There are numerous other passages, but the bottom line is that whether we understand it or not, the Bible teaches the reality of the Trinity (cf. Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2).

2. Second, the Trinity is important because it shows that God is relational and loving.

Christians believe that God does not change in His character or attributes. Yet think about what it would mean for God to not be a Trinity. If God did not exist as a Trinity, then prior to the creation of humans and prior to the creation of angels, God could not have lived in any form of loving relationship with anybody or anything.

Without the Trinity, God could not have lived for eternity in love or in relationship. The Trinity allows the loving and relational attributes of God to have eternally existed with God.

Other monotheistic religions which have no concept of the Trinity have great trouble explaining or understanding how God could be loving and relational. Why? Because for most of God’s existence, there was no one to love other than himself.

In fact, it could be argued that if there was no Trinity, there could have been no creation whatsoever. Why not? Because if the Trinity did not exist, then God would not be relational (because there was no one to relate to), and hence, there would be no reason for God to create anything with which to relate. The only way a non-relational God would decided to create being to love and take care of was if He recognized that without other beings in the universe, He was lacking or deficient in some way. But then, this makes God less than God!

A non-Trinitarian God could not and would not create, unless He decided to become relational and loving, in which case, He would be admitting some sort of imperfection in His being.

It is much better to believe what the Bible teaches, that God is loving and relational and as such, has always existed in a loving relationship within the Trinity. As a result of this loving relationship, God decided to create other beings with which to share the loving relationship He already experienced within the Godhead.

3. This then leads us to the third reason the Trinity is important: Christians love others because God is love.

Christianity is an outward, loving, relational-focused way of living. Part of this is because we believe in the Trinity. In Genesis we read that God created us in His own image. There is a wide range of ideas on what this means, but one thing that is certainly included in the truth of being created in God’s image is that we were created for community. Just as God had an eternal relationship within the Trinitarian Godhead, so also, humans are to live in relationships with God and with one another.

The love that each member of the Godhead shares with the other members of the Trinity was also shared with humans when we were created. We love because He first loved us.

If there was no Trinity and yet somehow, God inexplicably decided to create humans, then it would be logical to say that love and community was not an essential character of God, and therefore, need not be an essential part of our life either. If God did not eternally exist in a loving Trinity, then we would not need to exist in love either.

So again, without a belief in the Trinity, we lose a belief in a loving God, and therefore, lost any reason to believe that God wants us to love others. If we are to act like God and God has existed without showing love toward others for most of eternity, then there is little reason to live in loving ways toward others now, for love would not be an essential characteristic or attribute of God.

I could go on and on, but I hope that this answer helps briefly explain and define the Trinity and show why belief in the Trinity is essential to Christian belief and practice.

If you want to weigh in, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below because then others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

Why are there 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments?

By Jeremy Myers

80 Comments

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. The following question is about the years of silence in the Bible, not just the 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and New Testament, but also the other periods of silence that are between certain sections of Scripture.

Here is the question that was submitted about these years of silence in the Bible:

Why did God leave out hundreds of years of documentation between certain books of the Bible?

Below is my answer…

I sometimes think that when people ask this question, the “question behind the question” is “Why isn’t God speaking today?”

We all want God to speak into our lives, but it often seems that God is silent. So if we can figure out why God was “silent” in times past, maybe we can figure out why God is silent in our own life as well.

I am not saying you are asking this question, but some do…

So let me try to answer your question by framing it properly. The answer to your question about the years of silence in the Bible (and the question of why God seems silent today) is found by stepping back and looking at the wider picture.

When most people ask this question, they are primarily referring to the “400 years of silence” in between Malachi and Matthew. I will try to explain what was going on during those years, but really, the question of God’s so-called “years of silence” is much more complex.

For example, it is not just the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew where we have no books in the Bible. Other than a few chapters, we have almost no books in the Bible from the years between creation and the call of Abraham. While more liberal scholars believe this period of time lasted millions (or billions) of years, even the most the most conservative biblical scholars say that there was about 2000 years between Genesis 1 and Genesis 12. That’s a lot of time for only 11 chapters of biblical history.

Then, of course, there are the last 2000 years. Very few Christian groups believe that there have been additional books added to the Bible since the book of Revelation was written in the first century A.D. So even if the earth is only 6000 years old (a super conservative estimate), the Bible is missing roughly 4000 years worth of human history. If we are going to ask why there are 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew, we must also ask why there are at least 2000 years of silence before the events of Genesis 12, and another 2000 years of silence since the last word of the New Testament was written.

In other words, whatever we say about the 400 years of silence between the Testaments must also suggest an answer for the 4000+ years of silence in the rest of world history. The Bible doesn’t record much of anything that happened for the first 2000 (or more) years of human history as well as the most recent 2000 years of human history.

But the problem is even worse than that.

Even if we consider the 2000 years of history that are recorded in the Bible, these biblical records only cover the tiniest fraction of human events that took place during these two millennia. In other words, even though we have roughly 2000 years of biblical history in Scripture, these records only cover some of the events of some of the people who lived in a tiny, remote, relatively insignificant corner of the world.

Why, for example, does the Bible not record a single word of what was going on in Asia? Or North and South America? Or Australia? There were certainly important events going on in those places, right? God was at work in those other countries as well, was He not? Why then do we have no biblical records of what God was doing in these other places? Why is there nothing but years of silence regarding God’s work in the rest of the world?

Only by framing the question this way are we now in a position to answer it.

The question is not just about 400 years of silence in between Malachi and Matthew, but about the thousands of years of silence regarding almost everything that has happened in the world.

Obviously, God could not have recorded everything from every event in every place in the world and given it to us in the Bible.

So instead, we have to trust that God gave us what we needed to know in the Bible so that we can believe what He wants us to believe and do what He wants us to do.

So why did God leave out hundreds of years of documentation on the Bible? For the same reason He left out thousands of years and trillions of events from the rest of human history.

It is not that God wasn’t active in these other years (He was). It is not that nothing was God wasn’t speaking, or performing miracles, or answering prayers (He was). It is not that God was sleeping, was absent, was ignoring humanity, or was off playing a round of golf (He definitely wasn’t).

God is always active, is always speaking, is always involved, is always answering prayer, and is always working to accomplish His will in the world… even when He is not having people write about it. The things that God has recorded in Scripture are enough for us to go on. We need neither more nor less. What is written is what is needed to know and believe what God is like, what God is doing, and how we are to live and function in this world.

And this brings us back to the unasked “question behind the question.” As I indicated at the beginning of my answer, when people ask why there are 400 years of silence in the Bible, the unspoken question is sometimes, “Why does God seem silent in my life?”

But God’s apparent silence throughout most of history is not because God was absent or inactive, but simply because it takes eyes of faith to see where God is at work even when He doesn’t have someone write about it.

So also in our own lives.

Even if it seems your prayers seem bounce off the ceiling, even if you do not sense God’s presence, even if God feels absent and silent, the reality is the exact opposite. God is with you. God loves you. God hears your prayers, knows what you need, and is involved in your life. He is there and He is active.

It takes eyes of faith to see God’s hand at work in our lives, even when it seems God is absent or silent.

If you want to weigh in on this question, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below because then others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

Does Jesus Credit His Good Works to Our Account?

By Jeremy Myers

13 Comments

It is often taught that Jesus obeyed the law perfectly because we cannot. Then we are told that when we believe in Jesus for eternal life, He give us His righteousness. He has such an infinite supply of righteousness, that He can pour some of it into us so that we also become righteous.

We are told time and time again that by faith, the perfect righteousness of Jesus can be credited to our account.

I am certain that if you searched this blog, you would find that I have written something similar along these lines in numerous places in the past.

But I have recently begun to question the whole idea. There is just something about this “crediting to our account” that doesn’t sit well with me…

So please forgive me if I do a little theological rambling in this post. I am throwing this out there because I am wondering about it, and would like your input. I am not sharing what I believe… I am sharing what I think. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below!

The Ocean of Good Works from the Past

I recently taught Luke 3:7-14 again. In that passage, John the Baptist tells his Jewish audience to not say, “We have Abraham as our Father” (Luke 3:8). I taught that this was because of how the Jewish people understood themselves as the elect nation of God, as the chosen people of Israel. The idea was that God needed the people of Israel to accomplish His will in the world, and so God would never destroy the Hebrew people, because then He would be stuck.

I went on to argue that some branches of Judaism took this idea to an extreme, saying that some of the forefathers of Israel were such good people, that they had more “good works” than they needed, and so their good works could be credited to the account of later Hebrew people who came up short in personal righteousness. In other words, men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets had created this ocean of good works, or this storehouse of righteousness. And when any Jewish person sinned a little too much, God would cancel out that sin with a little bit of good works from the ocean of righteousness that came from the Israelite forefathers.

Some Christians today may scoff at this idea, but others might say, “Hey, that sounds eerily similar to what we believe and teach in our church!” In fact, one teaching among some Catholics have taught that certain Saints of the past have stored up such great masses of good works, that if we pray to them, or perform some sort of penance, then the Catholic church can “draw on” the good works of the saints of the past and credit them to certain people today.

This idea was one of the things that led Martin Luther to write his 95 Theses and nail them to the church door in Wittenburg. Certain Catholics were selling indulgences, whereby a person could donate a certain amount of money to the Catholic church, and in exchange, the church would credit some good works to that person to cover over their sin. This, of course, led to great abuse, and so Martin Luther wrote up his 95 Theses… and the rest is history.

Protestants continue to scoff at the idea that giving certain amount of money, or saying certain prayers can credit to our account the righteous good works of any person in the past…. except that…. this is pretty close to exactly what we believe about Jesus.

The Good Works of Jesus Credited to Our Account?

While I don’t know if it is ever stated exactly this way, it sometimes seems that we teach that Jesus kept the law perfectly so that as the only perfect person, He could credit His righteousness to our account.

Doesn’t this sound similar to what was discussed above? That there is this ocean of good works that is available for withdrawals by people who have the proper access codes?

If this view is correct, then it seems that the only real difference between the various theologies is in the source of the ocean of good works. In some theological ideas, the ocean of good works comes from great men and women of the past, either the Israelite forefathers or the Christian saints, whereas in common “Evangelical” theology, the source of good works is Jesus Himself.

If this is the way it is, I don’t really have too much of a problem with it. Everything is centered on Jesus Christ, and all we have comes through Him.

But I just got to wondering….

What if the real issue isn’t good works at all?

What if the primary goal of Jesus was not to store up for us an ocean of good works for us to draw upon, to fill up what is lacking in our holiness, but rather, to show us once and for all that it is not about good works at all?

What if the point of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection was not to give us the “correct” ocean of good works to draw upon, but rather, to show us that God isn’t concerned about our amount of good works?

Let me approach the question another way.

All around the world and throughout time, humankind has thought that God (or the gods) is angry with us. We think we need to appease him (or them) by doing good works. So, for example, a child dies from sickness, and we think, “God is punishing me for something. I probably didn’t thank him enough for the good harvest last year. I need to make God happy again. What can I do? Maybe if I give him my cow, he won’t take my other children or burn my house down.”

This is the basis of ALL religion. Religion is an attempt by humanity to make things right with God. We think God is angry at us for some sort of failure, and if we do something good or heroic or sacrificial, God will be happy with us again. We are not always sure what ticked him off, but the priests and clerics are happy to make suggestions, and the priests and clerics are also happy to make suggestions on what will get us back into God’s good graces (Usually this requires giving things to the priests, which they call “Giving to God.” But I digress…)

You see, one of the central teachings of all religions is this idea that we need a certain level of good works to keep God happy, and if we don’t maintain this level of good works, we either have to start doing better, or obtain the good works from someone else (who does good works for us). If we fail, well, God will squash us like a bug. (Unless we are really wicked and evil, then we seem to get rich, famous, and powerful. But again, I digress…)

If Jesus came to teach that we do actually need good works to get God to love us, then Jesus is actually supporting the central idea of human religion. But over and over and over, Jesus seems to teach the exact opposite. Time and time again, Jesus attacks religion as being contrary to God and actually leading people away from God, into deeper bondage and darkness.

When Jesus came along, it seems that His central message was this: “You have completely misunderstood God! He loves you just as you are! He loves sinners. He forgives sinners. He is gracious and merciful toward sinners. You don’t need more good works or better good works to get on God’s good side; you are already on God’s good side! And I’m here to prove it to you!”

Could it be that our primary problem is not a lack of good works, but simply a failure to truly understand God’s infinite love?

I think so.

The reason God doesn’t want us to sin any more is NOT because sin gets in the way of His love for us. It is not as if God is saying, “Darn! I really wanted to love you, but you just had that lustful thought, so now I am going to have to give you cancer. And if you keep it up, well, off to eternal suffering in hell with you! But I really wish you had been a better person so I could love you.”

I am sorry, but that view of God seems a bit…. sadistic. Doesn’t it?

I thin it was Anselm who said that God is so holy and takes sin so seriously, that if He told someone to turn right, and they turned left, God would be fully justified to send that disobedient person to hell for all eternity because they turned the wrong way.

Seriously?

Doesn’t this make God more like an egotistical, petulant bully who wants to get his own way no matter what, and when someone crosses him in the least little way, he is going to smack them down so hard they never think of doing it again?

It is no wonder that many people have trouble worshiping a God like this!

Thankfully, one of the reasons Jesus came was to show us that this is NOT what God is like! If Jesus is right, God is not a God of religion.

So…. I Don’t Need Good Works?

Ah…. now we are starting to ask the right questions. I firmly believe that if your theology does not lead you to ask this question, you have really bad theology. If you do not have a theology which causes people to say, “So…. I can just go sin all I want?” then your theology is not strong enough on grace, forgiveness, love, and mercy.

So here’s the thing about good works, grace, and God’s love.

Technically, yes, you can go sin all you want, and God will still love you. Sin and good works have nothing whatsoever to do with God’s love for us. He loves us infinitely and completely, no matter what. We don’t need more good works or better good works for God to love us.

But God does want us to stop sinning. It is true that God hates sin. But He doesn’t hate people. He doesn’t even hate sinners. He loves all people–even sinners.

The reason God (and Jesus) are concerned about sin, is not because sin will lessen God’s love for us. No, God is concerned about sin because He loves us! Sin, you see, has nothing to do with God’s love. Good works have nothing to do with getting back into God’s good graces.

No, the reason God hates sin is because of how much sin damages and harms His children. Sin hurts us! That is why He doesn’t want us to sin! That is why He warns us against sin and pleads with us to turn away from it.

Like any good parent, God love us so much that He does not want to see us get hurt, and nothing hurts us more than sin. Sin brings forth death. It leads to damaged relationships, broken lives, and ruined friendships. It leads to bankruptcy, addiction, and imprisonment. It can lead to bloodshed, horror, war, famine, pestilence, and disease. God loves us so much, He wants to deliver us from all these things, and one way He does this is by pleading with us to turn away from the path we are on, and walk with Him in a life of love, joy, and peace.

And the life of Jesus resembled what a life lived this way looks like. Jesus didn’t do what He did so that He could store up a big ocean of good works to make available to all people who believe in Him. No, Jesus did what He did to show us what God is truly like, and what humanity can also be truly like.

We don’t need more good works to make God love us, and if we have less good works, God will not love us less. The life and ministry of Jesus had nothing to do with His good works or our lack of them.

No, Jesus wanted to show us that God loves us completely, and that the reason God doesn’t want us to sin (especially not to sin religiously, which is how most Christians actually sin… but again, I digress), is because sin hurts us and as a loving Father, God does not want to see us get hurt.

So what do you think? Did Jesus create a big ocean of good works which believers can draw on? Or, as I have suggested above, maybe the life of Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with good works at all. Weigh in below!

Exegeting the Church Sign

By Jeremy Myers

5 Comments

Exegeting Scripture is the process of digging deep into the individual words and concepts of the Bible in a way that help us understand what Scripture meant to its original audience. Below is an example of exegeting a church sign.

Sadly, I fear the exegesis of this church sign may not be too far from the truth…

Does God Know What it is Like to Lose a Son?

By Jeremy Myers

6 Comments

A reader recently sent in the following questions about the death of Jesus as the Son of God and how it affected God the Father. Specifically, they wanted to know if God knew what it was like to lose a son. Here is the question:

I am a believer, but I am troubled by an atheist’s questions. I was talking to an atheist the other day, and he said that God doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a son because he knew all along that Jesus would rise in three days, so he only lost him for the weekend! He also questioned that if God is Jesus, why did he beg to be saved from the cross when he was in the garden? Also, shouldn’t Jesus already have known he would rise again in three days? Why did he ask God, “Why have you forsaken me?” Wouldn’t he know that he’s only going to be dead three days?

I began to answer these questions in a post about the existence of God by looking at the basic approach I use when answering questions from atheists (or anyone with whom I disagree about anything). Actually answering the questions (or attempting to do so) will require several posts. Here is the order I will answer these questions:

How to Answer Questions of Atheists
2 Traditional Explanations for How God knows what it is Like to Lose a Son (both of which I reject)
2 Ways God Knows What it is like to lose a Son
Why did Jesus say, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?”

So in this post, I will look at two traditional explanations for how God knows what it is like to lose a son, and I will also explain why I reject both explanations (which might also be why atheists and other people reject these explanations as well).

Does God Know What it is Like to Lose a Son? (Traditional Answers)

Sometimes this question is asked this way: “How could God know what it is like to lose a son if He knew Jesus was just going to rise from the dead three days later?” Or “How could the death of Jesus be a sacrifice for God if God knew that Jesus was just going to rise again from the dead?”

These are all very good questions, which are not so easily answered! Nevertheless, there are two popular answers I have heard which attempt to explain how God knows what it is like to lose a son.

1. Christians Know Their Children Will Rise Too

It is sometimes suggested that God knew Jesus would rise from the dead just as all Christian parents know that their dead children will rise from the dead.

This, I believe, is a weak answer.

God knew with absolute certainty that the death of Jesus would end in the resurrection of Jesus; but not all parents have this same certainty. Not even all Christian parents have this certainty.

Furthermore, even when parents know they will be reunited with lost loved ones in the future, Jesus was only in the grave for three days, while parents who lose a son or daughter have to wait the rest of their life.

While nobody wants to lose a son or daughter (or any family member for that matter), the pain of it would be significantly lessened, it seems, if we knew that we would receive our lost loved ones back within three days, and they would be fully healthy and whole and would never suffer or die again.

So when viewed from this perspective, the claim that God knows what it is like to lose a son seems rather hollow, does it not?

2. God lives in an Eternal Now

The second way some people try to explain how God knows what it is like to lose a son is through the view that God exists outside of time, that God is timeless. If this is true, rather than experiencing a sequence of events (as we do), God experiences all events as an eternal now. It is argued then, that the crushing, heart-wrenching pain of watching a child die, and the sense of deep loss that lingers afterwards for days, months, and even years in the hearts of parents, is the pain that God experiences for an eternity over the death of His Son.

Though I was taught in Bible college and Seminary that God is timeless, that He exists outside of time in a constant, eternal now, I don’t believe it. There are numerous reasons why, which I won’t get into here. I believe that God is relational and is capable of reacting to our needs and prayers in a way that would not be possible if He were outside of time.

But even if this view is true, it still doesn’t allow God to experience what it is like to lose a son. For even if He eternally experiences the crushing sorrow of losing a child, He also eternally experiences the joy of being with His Son for eternity, and the even more thrilling experience of His Son rising from the dead. Neither of these eternal experiences can be shared by humans, and so even in this view, God does not know what it is like to lose a son in the same way that humans do.

So where do we go from here?

In a future post, I will look at the two reasons I think God does know what it is like to lose a son, and in so doing, will see that God may actually know better than we what it is like. Interested to hear more? Check back tomorrow. (Edit: The links are listed above).

What do you think of the two explanations above? Are you aware of any other explanations that Christians sometimes give for whether or not God knows what it is like to lose a son? Weigh in by sharing below!

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I’ll define the Trinity… If you define God

Define the Trinity

Believing in the Trinity

Why are there 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments?

Does Jesus Credit His Good Works to Our Account?

The Ocean of Good Works from the Past

The Good Works of Jesus Credited to Our Account?

What if the real issue isn’t good works at all?

So…. I Don’t Need Good Works?

Exegeting the Church Sign

Does God Know What it is Like to Lose a Son?

Does God Know What it is Like to Lose a Son? (Traditional Answers)

1. Christians Know Their Children Will Rise Too

2. God lives in an Eternal Now

The cross of Jesus is CENTRAL to everything!

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