Vista Experience

The dictionary defines vista as a distant view seen through a passage.  I've come to realize my life has been punctuated by what I call vista experiences.  Perhaps it was inevitable having grown up in Colorado where vistas abound.  I recall, for example, sitting on a ridge looking out over South Park--a thousand square mile high-altitude plain northwest of Colorado Springs--how quickly I lost myself in its vastness.  Later, even though I hadn't physically moved an inch, I recovered myself far removed from where I had started. I had had a vista experience.

There is no guarantee natural vistas will engender vista experiences, though.  About eleven years ago my son and I climbed a 14150 ft peak in southwest Colorado.  Standing atop the world certainly took my breath away and I definitely felt the elation of accomplishment, but despite all that and the awesome spectacle of the panorama spread out about me in all directions, I didn't have a vista experience.

There are those who believe drugs will induce a vista experience.  Nonsense.  Timothy Leary's mantra of "turn on, tune in, drop out" has proven fatal to our society in terms of, among other things, escalated crime, broken homes, and yes, even slavery.  Artificial encounters such as one gets from drugs and alcohol always exact a price--always take something away from a person.  But true vista experiences always give the person something--at least when he's open to it--and usually what is imparted will include a liberation.

Now, some of you at this point might be thinking, "He's going to bring the discussion around to religious experiences."  Actually, not.  I have had very few of what might be called religious experiences in my fifty-two year walk with Christ, and none of them were vista experiences.  I should note, however, that God has always been beside me during my vista experiences.  Indeed, it is a look, a gesture, or word from Him that provides meaning to the experience.  You see, all genuine vista experiences have content; they must, because vista experiences effect a displacement--a movement either towards or away from something--such as I earlier described had happened in my South Park encounter.  And motion requires the input of content, be it wisdom, insight, vision, or what have you.  In fact, vista experiences involve a sudden focusing of some set of events, impressions, thoughts, and ideas intrinsic to the person that prior to that moment defied coalescence, like Darth Vader vainly trying to lock in on Luke Skywalker's x-wing.

Perhaps, instead, you are thinking, "Oh, wow, man, the dude's getting existential."  In a sense, I guess I am.  But vista experiences are not leaps into the darkness; they are not hopeless attempts at grasping for meaning that isn't really there.  Vista experiences are real precisely because they reveal real things about you.  During a vista experience something suddenly resonates deep within you.  Often times music, stories, and especially movies can become vista experiences; that's why you tend to gravitate back to them over and over again.  Others might hear or see the same thing yet go away indifferent or merely entertained; but it always seems to resonate powerfully with you. And you might not even know why.  The point is the resonance is real; meaning that has long eluded you has suddenly been brought to light; quite unexpectedly, you see a distant view of truth through a passage cut by a song, a prose, a poem, a motion-picture, a display of nature, or something else you would have never thought capable.  And it behooves you to understand the revelation because it is a key piece to the puzzle of who you truly are.

What I'm relating is the wonder of vista experiences, and the reason all of us will eventually encounter them.  I'm convinced vista experiences are those unexpected moments the Holy Spirit calls us.........................................."Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Follow Me

Recently, I finished reading the powerhouse biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by E. Metaxas.  This should be required reading for everyone, especially those who have forgotten or ignored the recent dark history of our planet.  The spiritual and physical lessons to be learned from Bonhoeffer's association with an once civilized society that turned barbaric are invaluable to us who live coincidental to a surprisingly similar world.  It would seem that most of humanity has forgotten or worse denied the horrors of only a mere seventy or so years ago.  But isn't that just like us?  We tend to remember only the pleasant moments in our pasts, and always to everyone's detriment; because lessons forsaken will need to be learned again.  The tragedy of this, of course, is the tuition always goes up.

The purpose of this post is not to extol the virtues of Metaxas' magnum opus, but to briefly comment on a frustration Bonhoeffer had expressed to his dear friend, Bethge:

"The more we have known of good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later literature becomes, sometimes almost to the point of making us sick.  Do you know a work of literature written in the last, say, fifteen years that you think has any lasting quality? I don't.  It is partly idle chatter, partly propaganda, partly self-pitying sentimentality, but there is no insight, no ideas, no charity, no substance and almost always the language is bad and constrained." [E. Metaxas, Bonhoeffer Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2010, p. 461.]

Hum.  I had to laugh because every generation, it seems, sees the contributions of the incoming generation as lackluster and in want of the quality, depth, and prestige of the past.  We tend to see the past as a kind of golden era, where if we could just go back, like returning to the idyllic River City, Iowa, life would be happier, more meaningful, less trite, less superficial, more sincere, and therefore much more secure.  I'm guilty of this with my own children, as I have for years decried what I see as a fatal decline of the arts--movies, literature, and especially music--in the hands of their incompetent practitioners (although, perhaps I'm not a good example because in my case I'm right, just ask my daughter).

Woody Allen deftly explores this phenomenon of the inviolable golden era in his recent film, Midnight in Paris.  Allen channels himself transparently through his main character who longs to be a part of the glory--and, yes, decadent--days of literature and art that burned brightly in the second decade, twentieth century Paris.  The hapless protagonist gets his wish and soon learns that there is no end to this romantic reactionism.  In the end, he realizes that we are meant to build on the achievements of our forebears and not be paralyzed by them.

We Christians--particularly American Christians--tend to assess the current sad state of affairs through rose-colored lenses of a past golden era.  We think if only our society returned to the clear principles established by our fore-fathers of morality, patriotism--the solid line connecting God and country--and clear black and white expectations demanded of everyone, we wouldn't experience the confusion, depravity, and chaos so evident today.

First of all, there has never been such an Eden in this or any country, either in recent or distant past--except the original Eden.  Sure, there may have been pockets of our society that experienced approximations of this perceived nirvana--rural homogeneous communities--but they did so by rigorously sweeping under the carpet everything that made them uncomfortable.  As with all denials of reality--both good and bad--all that did was create a dysfunction that has now come to roost.

And secondly, we will never effect positive change on the current world by trying to impose on it mores that have died along with the cultural contexts that made them relevant.  Our culture has changed from the past; it demands a fresh approach precisely because its context is out of touch with previous ones.  The present has its own unique context.

The only way we can help the present world is to continue to address the problem common to all the eons of diverse cultural contexts that came before, because the problem is fundamental to the human condition. And we must do this using the current context with all of its assumptions, perspectives, arts, sciences, and technologies.

The problem of all ages is humanity disenfranchised itself from God.  Today, because of the current cultural milieu, this problem may manifest itself it seemingly unheard of ways (I suspect if we really looked into even this we would discover we are mistaken), but the problem is the same as it has always been.  The solution is Jesus the Christ.

We will not lead people to Jesus by imposing past mores on them, but by introducing them to Him.  They should meet Him in our eyes and lives; they should see Him evidenced by our love practiced in holiness both between each other and everyone else.  Unfortunately, one attitude that hides Him is the all too prevalent notion that Jesus is all those things that seemingly comforted us in our past golden days; we have wrongly replaced an unqualified love for Him with a love for artifacts of Him.

Jesus calls us to follow Him.  The world contexts may change, but Jesus never does, nor does the kingdom He calls all of us into.  We will never lead others there or ourselves remain unless we follow Jesus. He will faithfully show us how to apply and demonstrate the eternal kingdom principles of love and holiness in the changing contexts of each new generation, so all who have and will listen will be gathered into His kingdom on that day when God is all and in all.

Do you accept this?  Don't answer until you hear what Jesus says about it:

As they were walking along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus said to another, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say goodbye to my family.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” [Luke 9:57-62][NET]

Science on Human Conflict

The May 18, 2012 edition of the  premiere scientific journal, Science, had a special section on human conflict.  I am still reading it--very interesting.  Of course, I immediately jumped to the paper on page 855 entitled, Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict, by S. Atran and J. Ginges.

Their opening thesis states that people will kill and die for the "moral conception they form of themselves, of 'who we are'".  Religion serves to galvanize peoples, especially during times of stress or pending death.  They point out that the belief systems typically override logic or conflicting evidence.

According to their sources religion may have evolved to enable groups to survive in environments of intense competition for resources etc.  Alternatively, religion may have arisen as a sort of byproduct of forces of natural selection, where a sort of angst (my word) is felt and responded to, even if not verifiable because it is "better safe than sorry."

Researchers now see that latter concept developing as part of cultural evolution rather than on a more individualistic level.  They say that evidence suggests that early humans who existed in small clusters didn't develop all-powerful/all-seeing concepts of deities.  Only when humans clustered in larger groups in response to competition did more sophisticated gods and rituals develop.  And the intensity and degree of sacrifice to these gods were proportional to the outside factors threatening the breakup of these communities.

A particularly interesting finding--and contrary to what is commonly asserted by the "New-Atheists"--only a minority of recorded wars can be attributed to religion.  They point out that religion has actually had a humanizing effect on human society.  They point out specifically that Christianity rose to power in the Roman empire because of its sacrifice in caring for the pagans during the several plagues that besot the empire.

It is this last point--now confirmed by secularists--that I wish to briefly consider here.  The early Christians clearly followed Jesus' mandate; they acted as the kingdom dwellers they were.  One thing this article does not say about this is not only did those Christians die along side the diseased pagans they lovingly cared for, but they were also persecuted by the pagans who saw the plagues as punishment from the Roman gods because the Christians stubbornly resisted worshiping them.  The Christians were not sacrificing themselves as a weapon against aggression or as a means of aggression against competitive forces (such as we see today with suicide bombers), but out of devotion to their risen Lord.  This is quite different from the evolutionary motivations suggested in the article.

We should be no different than our early Christian ancestors; nothing has changed; we remain a part of God's kingdom if we truly profess Jesus the Christ as Lord and King.  Yet, today, I see a neglect of the gospel by professing Christians.  I propose this has happened because many have forgotten that they are dwellers of God's kingdom that came into being at the death and resurrection of Christ, and have replaced it with a self-serving Christianity.  As a result they are turning to secular forces in the world to realize what they see as Christian goals.  Taking this tack, they are turning Christianity into another religious force we see described in the above-mentioned article--that is, they are making Christianity a means of protecting their community from other competing communities, instead of wooing other communities through acts of mercy and justice to join the kingdom of God.

The primary difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world is the modus operandi of always responding to evil with good, rather than with evil--to love our enemies instead of hating them.  The early Christians understood this and real justice (order) came to the unjust world because of their obedience to Jesus in this--at least for a time.  We would do well to repent from our current trajectory and return to the gospel of the kingdom of God so that the world can clearly see that God truly had entered the world and dwelled among us and ushered in His kingdom.

In God We Trust

The phrase--vision statement?-- dedication?--vow?--I employed to title this week's post is found on our currency.  Some in our society would like to see it go because they see religion as the opiate of  human culture, and therefore a hindrance to any possible move towards true peace and human perfection.  Others are fighting to keep it for the opposite reason that such homage will keep our country from straying and ultimately collapsing.  I wonder, though, how many of us really believe that simple vow.  I suspect if it were really fully embraced, the first group would be silenced--perhaps not convinced, but silenced--and the second group wouldn't fret about it because they would be too busy living what it claims, so its truth would be self-evident.

In the first letter bearing his name, the apostle John wrote a deceptively simple admonition (it's clear to me that John's writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit by virtue of the depth of truth to be discovered in its simple language):

"Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.  If a person continues to love the world, the love of the Father is not in that person.  Because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the obsessive longing of the eyes, and the self-confident pride of life, are not of the Father, but flow out of the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desire, but the one doing the will of God remains forever." [I John 2:15-17] [my translation]

Many who have read these verses take them as a mandate to isolate themselves from this world; thus many have lapsed into various forms of asceticism, thinking that in order to love God we must deny the physical and embrace only the spiritual.  This dualism of flesh=bad, spirit =good is pagan, or gnostic but definitely not Biblical, and definitely not John's intent; God is interested in the restoration of both the physical and spiritual worlds without the expense of one for the other; indeed, the restoration of one requires the restoration of the other--the physical and spiritual realms are inseparable in God's kingdom.  No, John is not teaching dualism here, but the central need for humans to trust God.

This is a political year, and with all that's coming down both in America and beyond, the political debate has never been more fierce (hyperbole, of course).  I cannot tell you how many people are putting their faith in the person who shall lead the nation, or that person's philosophical underpinnings--even those who profess the name of Christ--for the salvation of the country.  We find, then, in this great political arena our first example of love of the world which John was teaching against.

Certainly, we should utilize our constitutional rights to try to keep a light shining on a dark world; but we delude ourselves if we really believe truth will prevail through one person or that person's party.  Personally, I think it goes beyond delusion for most, and has degraded into a lethargy.  We would much prefer going about our business while someone else carries the moral banner for us.  This, too, is love of the world, because if we truly loved God, we would trust Him by tirelessly working for His kingdom in each of our spheres of influence--either small or large.  What would society look like if every professing Christian lived 'In God We Trust'?

Lately, I have spent a lot of time reading other people's blogs--particularly those from the big names of the Christian world.  Some of it has been enlightening and good food for faith; other parts have been down-right depressing.  The need to answer every question thrown at them like the gauntlet of old consume many on these blog threads.  Even though many of these folks would deny it, their peroccupation with these questions has caused them to drift away from the central truth of loving God first and has engaged them in an endless battle over words and minutia to the horrid yet expected outcome of not loving each other. The lie by which many operate is that we can convert the cynic by answering all of his intellectual complaints; but the cynic delights in keeping us prisoner to a never-ending treadmill of speculation; no matter how effectively we might answer a given question, another one is sure to come. As with all of us, the cynics need to meet Jesus; they need to trust Him, not their intellect.  And the first place they will meet Him will be us who profess His name, which means we place the purposes of His kingdom before everthing else.  If they see us putting our trust in reason, how can we expect them to do otherwise; for trusting in our own wisdom is to love the world.

Finally, trusting in our resources is also loving the world.  Yes, we need to be good stewards of our possessions because God has given them to us in order to bear fruit for His kingdom; this is what we should understand whenever we complete a prayer--particularly of thanksgiving--with 'in your name we pray'.  This should also inform us that our security is not in our wealth but in God alone.  Consequently, we should never hold onto material possessions too tightly, but trust God to keep us even should we give it all up.  Indeed, if every Christian trusted God in this way by distributing his/her wealth freely as the need arises, we would see less of a call from the world for a political system to force a socalism on society, and therefore risk all the pain of evil that inevitably comes at the heels of such centralized power because the latter doesn't trust God either.

Do not misunderstand me.  One of the core consequences of the fall of humankind is poverty; consequently, the first fruit God calls us to bear for His kingdom--all through the Bible, both the OT and the NT--is to right the disorder of poverty.  However, we will never bring order to poverty, or any other injustice wrought by the fall, through human institutions or philosophies--regardless--but only by acting from a pure trust in God alone.

When John tells us to not love the world, he means not to put our trust in the things of the world.  Instead of trusting in our politicians and human institutions, instead of trusting in human intellect and wisdom, instead of trusting in wealth in all its embodiments, we need to trust God first and last.  Otherwise, John tells us, the love of the Father is not in us--that is, we neither love God, nor is His love the state of our being: the power both guiding and motivating us.  You see, my dear readers, we cannot say we love God first unless we trust Him above all else; because the only way we truly love God is by obeying Him.

A Living Dead Tree

This post is a week late due to a family crisis.

Everyday this past week I took a long walk from the hospital to the downtown.  And on each occasion I passed over a small stream.  A large birch tree had been ripped from the ground and cast down over the slow moving water.  The lower quarter of its long trunk lay partially submerged; the remainder of its height curved upward above the water.  Remarkably, despite the fact the tree was as good as dead, its crown was luxuriant with green leaves.  The incongruity of the situation haunted me with each passing until I finally realized why.

Life is like that tree.  Life is fragile.  Even in its strongest incarnations, life will succumb to death--either sooner or later--eventually.  Yet life is also resilient.  Life tenaciously clings to life.  Like that odd tree, life often defies death, causing death to submit to life as the highest order.  And, of course, this is perfectly so;  God is the God of the living;  God created a universe for living, not dying.

That defiant tree also revealed to me what we--the human race--the sole creatures created in the image of God--had become.  We are a living dead, which perhaps explains our fascination with zombies and vampires.  At the beginning we rebelled against our creator and cut ourselves off from the source of life and entered death, which became for us both a physical mortality and a permanent spiritual death.  We think we are alive; but as with that felled tree, our current life is nothing but a caricature of the fulfilled life we were created for.  We believe our life--as short and tenuous as it is--proves us capable of living independent of our creator.  But all we are really experiencing is the afterglow of the incomprehensible power of creation--green leaves sprouting from branches long before blackened by death.

Then again, I found great hope in that paradoxical tree.  As with Aaron's rod that budded, that tree promised resurrection.  Despite the fact we all deserve death,  God loves us and wants us to live--not for only a short time, but forever--not tenuously, but truly.  God is telling us, "Look! I who breathed life into inanimate matter, will also breathe life into what is permanently dead."  It is just as John taught us:

"In Him was life, and life was the light of Humankind.  And the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome the light." [John 1:4-5][my translation]

When John speaks of darkness, he doesn't mean the absence of physical light but the all encompassing effects of death: the fatal lie of our conceit and the sin it engenders--the ever-burgeoning disorder we cause through our stubborn free-fall away from the light.

But God is overcoming this darkness.  Those green leaves of that dead tree promise that God will lift that tree up someday and plant it permanently in a ground that will nourish it forever.  God will lift us up and plant us in Christ, so that in Him we will live--both physically and spiritually--and live to the fullest.  Christ is the light that is shining in the darkness.  God has intervened on our behalf through His one and only and unique Son, Jesus the Christ.  All we need do is believe Him by accepting the life He is extending to us by grasping hold of Christ by trusting Him through obedient love:

"But all those who received Him [Jesus], He gave them authority to be children of God--to all those who are believing in His name." [John 1:12][my translation]

By taking on flesh and dwelling among us, God--consistent with His Love and Justice--both overcame death for us, and foreshadowed the intimate life we will have with Him forever in His kingdom.  Think about it; we can become the children of God--not mere creatures, but members of His eternal family.  And God has done this; God has accomplished what we could not accomplish for ourselves:

"[Children] not born on the basis of blood-lines, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but [children] who were born of God." [John 1:13][my translation]

Even though I felt the weight of death about me this past week, even though the transience of life saddened my soul, that living dead tree taught me that it is really death whose number is up; the God of the universe is the God of the living.  And death will not overcome life; indeed, life has already overcome death.  Today, kneel before the King Jesus and live.

Do Christians Worship Three Gods? Part 3

When I was but a wee lad, my dad and I would camp out in the backyard in the summertime.  The night lights of Denver couldn't dim the explosion of the milky way in the Colorado sky.  My father would comment on how glorious the universe was, and then tell me to ponder the fact that the space we were gazing up at, with its zillions of stars, went on and on without end.  My little brain tried to wrap itself around the idea until smoke began issuing out my ears.

I suspect the discussions these last couple of weeks on this site have affected you as the infinite universe did that young boy.  But aren't we glad?  After all, a god we can fully comprehend is no god at all.

This week we shall conclude our study of the Trinity (a blog on the Trinity would have to be in three parts, wouldn't it?) by asking the question, "Does the Trinity matter?"

God created us originally to be a kingdom with Him.  We were made in His image in order for us to be stewards of the created world, both by means of and for an intimate relationship with God;  God would dwell with us, and we would fulfill our created purpose as individuals united in the kingdom of God forever. We should see from this that God is not only infinite but personal.

The relational (personal) nature of God exists eternally.  We know God is also eternally autonomous or non-contingent Being--that is, His Being is totally self-existent: God doesn't depend on anything outside Himself for existence (please remember the limitations of language, here).  How then can God be both non-contingent and personal (relational)?  He is Triune Being.  The three persons of the Godhead--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--eternally exist in relationship of Love; for, God is love.

The Triune God revealed Himself in creation:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. God said, “Let there be light." And there was light! [Genesis 1:1-3][NET]

The Father created through the agency of the Holy Spirit by speaking through the Son (the Word).  The Apostle John reiterated this in the prologue of his gospel using the precise eloquence of the Greek language:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. [John 1:1] [NET]

The Greek word order for the last statement communicates the binitarian relationship of the Father and Son (Word) which is each are fully God yet distinct persons.  Despite this concise theological beauty of the Greek, some have chosen to translate it, "...and the Word was a god."  They did this because they believe the Son to be a created being, so they adjusted the scripture to fit their theology.

Arius of Alexandria, who lived at the beginning of the 4th century AD was the first to propose the idea of the created Son.  Indeed, his proposition sparked the convening of the council at Nicea in 325 AD to hammer out the orthodox dogma of the Trinity as ultimately codified in the Nicean creed of 381 AD.  The church rightly demurred at the idea of a created Son, and in the end declared it a heresy.

Once one relegates the Son to creature, one obliterates the Trinity, and consequently changes how God acted in creation and re-creation.  We've already covered creation.  By re-creation I mean our redemption--our salvation--as the key component in reclaiming all creation.  From the Trinitarian perspective, the Son is essentially involved in creation as John states in the very next verse of his prologue:

All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. [John 1:3][NET].

There is no room here for the Son to be merely a sort of insulation, or motivation, or template of creation, which is all he could be as a created being.  Similarly, the Son is essentially involved in our re-creation.  In ours and the creation's salvation a created Son could be nothing more than a role-model for us.  Despite all the hand-waving of the Arians and their descendants, a created Son is a limited and therefore changeable being, not god.  As such, he would have been powerless to create us or save us.

All humanity since the rebellion of Adam and Eve (or innocent humankind bearing God's image) has remained in death, which is separation from God.  As we humans have been groping around in the darkness of death, we have driven ourselves farther from the right order and Love inherent and requisite to God's kingdom (remember for us to function in the kingdom--to work out our created purposes--we need God to be the light for our eyes and the breath for our life: we need the intimate relationship with God).  This ever-broadening distance from God has left a trail of destruction both to our relationships and our environment; we have sinned both because of and for the hubris of believing ourselves capable of being god.  And being dead, we are powerless to resurrect ourselves--to return to our original relationship with God, who is the source and sustainer of life.  Therefore our death and sin is an infinite transgression; we either remain under God's wrath, or God has to do something about it; in the same way only an infinite god could create the universe out of nothing, only an infinite god can resurrect what is permanently dead.

But reduce the Son to creature and you are forced to methods for our salvation that either compromise God's character or impose on us the fallen creature what is impossible.  Thus, the Unitarians teach that God is omnipotent and can therefore simply forgive us without the death of His Son on the cross, and so everyone in the end will be saved, regardless.  They say this is love, but it isn't because love is a two-way street; love is a relationship.  Universal salvation would contradict love because we would remain totally passive.  Universalism would also repudiate God's holiness.  God said if we turned our back on Him we would die.  Not only is death total disorder, it is the just outcome of our sin.  For God to simply overlook our sin by making death a mere abstraction would be to contradict His holiness.

Therefore our only hope is that God somehow enter death to satisfy His holiness.  And this He did as a supreme act of love.  By taking on flesh as Jesus the Christ, God's only and unique Son, God died the death for us but being God was not overcome by it so that by clinging to the Son in faith we too shall overcome death.  Because God is Holy, Jesus had to die; because God is love, Jesus did die for us.

We see then, if we hold to a non-trinitarian perspective, we cling to a spurious hope for our salvation.  But our salvation is trinitarian; our hope is solely in the completed and faithful work of Jesus the Christ, the son of God.

But our salvation involves more than forgiveness; we need to be able to remain in God's kingdom, and this by loving God by obeying Him, and so loving others.  Such ability comes through an intimate relationship with God; He must teach us how to love in holiness.  The non-trinitarian perspective once again leaves us high and dry.  The Unitarianians, for example, teach, as a consequence of their theology, that Christ is nothing more than a role model for us to follow--an motivator to obey God.  The trinitarian perspective teaches us that God will fill us with His Holy Spirit so we both know what obedience looks like and are empowered to do it.  I might watch a prodigy violinist perform and be awestruck, but all the training and work on my part will never make me a prodigy violinist; I must be given the gift.  Love demands that I choose to accept the gift; love is completed in me by God when I return back to Him the love He first expressed to me.  Without the grace the comes to us through the indwelling of God's Spirit, we would remain shipwrecked outside of God's kingdom desperately trying to obey a bunch of rules; our hope would lay in our own abilities to walk in the holiness of God's love, which, of course, was the pipe dream of our rebellion.  We delude ourselves if we believe we are non-contingent beings; we need God to live and live to the fullest as dwellers with Him in His kingdom--the very reason He created us in the first place.

It is a triune God who created us, and who in more recent times entered history to save us from death.  Without appreciating the truth of the Trinity and looking on its truth, much like that boy back in Colorado did the universe, and standing on it in faith, we will remain trapped in death by our own fallibility and arrogance.  Jesus is king, because He lives!

Do Christians Worship Three Gods? Part 2

“Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 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 initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves.” [John 14:8-11][NET]

In this way Jesus responded to Philip’s request for Jesus to show them the Father that they could be content. Jesus equates Himself with the Father; yet Jesus is the Son.  Therefore, through this response to Philip, Jesus reveals the mystery of the Trinity to us.

As I explained last time, all we can understand about God is what He has revealed about Himself.  This revelation has come to us by His Word that took on flesh and dwelled among us--Jesus the Christ—God’s Son—and through the written word—the Holy Scripture—the Bible.

Is the above encounter with Philip the only time Jesus equated Himself with the Father, and therefore reveals the Trinity?  The answer is no.  We will examine several scenarios to support this.

Probably the main reason the Jewish leaders sought to kill Jesus was Jesus’ mostly veiled claims of His oneness with God.  For example, consider the account of Jesus healing the paralytic:

Just then some men showed up, carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and place him before Jesus. But since they found no way to carry him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down on the stretcher through the roof tiles right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Then the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, “Who is this man who is uttering blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their hostile thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you raising objections within yourselves?  Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralyzed man – “I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher and go home.” Immediately he stood up before them, picked up the stretcher he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.  [Luke 5:18-25][NET]

Jesus forgives the paralyzed man’s sins, something only God can do; the Pharisees were quite correct in their understanding of this.  For this reason the Pharisees cried foul in the most serious manner possible: “He blasphemes!”  Of course, any yahoo could come along and pronounce anyone forgiven; who would ever know if it was true or not?  Jesus addresses this by asking, “Which is easier, to say….”  Jesus’ claim of bearing the authority of God Himself, which I submit is tantamount to asserting Jesus’ divinity, was validated by the miracle He did.  Can you now see Philip nodding at the response of Jesus we started with? We should be nodding, too.  This situation should also tell us that Jesus is no mere prophet (more on this later).

It’s too important to miss, so I must digress for a wee moment and point out that the Father, by His son, through the power of the Holy Spirit was bringing about restoration—yes, re-creation—in the account of the paralytic.  You see, the forgiveness and healing, such as given the paralytic, that came through Christ weren’t parlor tricks, but real acts of justice in Love; because of His great love for us, and in the power of that Love, God brings order out of chaos, life back from death, and light into darkness.  He accomplishes this in part by His forgiveness and His healing balm made available through the faithfulness of His son.  And this would not be possible if Jesus were not perfectly God.

During the long confrontation between Jesus and some Jews who believed Jesus to be the Messiah but didn’t understand what that meant beyond political aspirations, Jesus would make a startling claim.  Let’s listen in….

Then the Judeans responded, “Now we know you’re possessed by a demon! Both Abraham and the prophets died, and yet you say, ‘If anyone obeys my teaching, he will never experience death.’ You aren’t greater than our father Abraham who died, are you? And the prophets died too! Who do you claim to be?” Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless. The one who glorifies me is my Father, about whom you people say, ‘He is our God.’ Yet you do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I obey his teaching. Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Judeans replied, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!” Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple area. [John 8: 52-59][NET]

Jesus, by calling Himself, I AM, equates Himself with God.  The Messiah (i.e., Christ) was never to be simply a human being set up by God to free Israel politically, but God, Himself, come in the flesh, to bring His eternal kingdom to all who acknowledge Jesus as King and follow Him by faith.  This was a huge stumbling block for the Jews.  Sadly, it remains a stumbling block for some Jews and non-Jews—even those professing religion.

In the account of the paralytic (above), Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man.  Indeed, the two most common terms spoken by Jesus the Christ during His ministry on earth were the Kingdom of God and the Son of Man.  One might think by the latter title Jesus meant His humanity.  In fact, Jesus is perfect Man.  But the name Son of Man refers to more than His humanity; it speaks to the fact of Jesus’ Divinity.  The name comes from the prophecy of the Messiah given to Daniel, and recorded in the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament:

I was watching in the night visions, “And with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” [Daniel 7: 13,14][NET]

Only God deserves the worship afforded the Son of Man, here.  By referring to Himself as the Son of Man, Jesus again asserts the fact of the distinction with inseparable union of the Father and Son of the Trinity—God who took on flesh to save His world.

Okay, perhaps we can concede from all the discussion thus far that Jesus reveals the binitarian relationship of the Father and Son within the Godhead—that is, each person—Father and Son—is fully God, and one God.  But does Jesus ever reveal the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity?

Jesus’ clearest declaration of the Trinity is found in His great commission to His disciples:

Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28: 18-20][NET]

In the Gospel of John 14: 15-31, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit and the purpose of His coming.  We can infer the Holy Spirit as a person from Jesus’ description; but we must look elsewhere for confirmation of this (more on this next week).

During another event where Jesus had cast out a demon, the Pharisee observers accused Jesus of doing this by the power of Satan.  Jesus’ response to them implies the perfect Trinity indwelling Christ:

Now when Jesus realized what they were thinking, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and no town or house divided against itself will stand. So if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. How else can someone enter a strong man’s house and steal his property, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can thoroughly plunder the house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. For this reason I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 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. [Matthew 12: 25-32][NET]

Now, scads of things can be learned from this account, but I would have us make three observations about the Holy Spirit: 1) He is equated with God because He is doing work only God can do, and receiving honor only due God (note also, the binding of Satan—the rendering him powerless—by the work of the Holy Spirit in casting out demons is all part and parcel of the justice I spoke of earlier in terms of forgiveness and healing, expressed here by Jesus holistically as God's kingdom purpose: “then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you.”); 2)  The Holy Spirit is seen as a separate person of the Trinity of the Son and the Father by the role the Holy Spirit takes in the overall redemption process; indeed, the church Fathers used the roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in creation and in salvation as one way of understanding the idea of persons (we’ll explore this more next week); and 3) it is by the agency of the Holy Spirit that Jesus casts out the demons.

The last point deserves a bit more explanation before finishing this post.  As I said earlier, Jesus is no mere prophet.  Other prophets did miraculous things, but only because God gave them the Holy Spirit temporarily to do them—that is, the Holy Spirit had been measured out to them.  But Jesus is perfect God.  John said,

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit sparingly. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things under his authority. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him. [John 3: 34,35][NET]

By “does not give the Spirit sparingly” John means, unlike a mere prophet, Christ has the Holy Spirit without measure.  We see this graphically illustrated when the woman who had been suffering from bleeding touched Jesus' cloak without Him seeing her, and power went out from him and healed her on the spot (see Mark 5: 25-34).

Therefore, it is God who touched the blind man’s eyes with Jesus’ hand and caused the man to see; God did it: the person of the Father willed it, the person of the Son spoke it, the person of the Holy Spirit effected it—God did it.  The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each fully God, and one God, took on flesh and dwelled among us as Jesus the Christ His one and only unique son.  And Jesus has revealed this to us by both His words and His miracles.

Reeling?  Join the club.  While we can never explain the Trinity, we can certainly appreciate it, and therefore fully trust God who loves us dearly.

Next week we will see if Scripture reveals the Trinity.  In the meantime, rest up.