Questions:
So, I’m thinking about my faith, and I really can’t get over the hurdle of believing the issue of the Trilogy, where God is in heaven sacrificing his son – but God and Jesus are the same entity-
The thing is the Big Bang takes as much faith to believe as does God, and if the infinite universe is beyond my comprehension, I’m guessing its creator would be too.
My question is can I believe in the existence of God/Jesus and just throw up my hands to the rest of it? Basically, I can accept the Bible as a book of truths illustrated by stories, but not necessarily always a literal record of events.
Reply:
I believe in the first sentence, he meant to say Trinity. Let’s start with what we know of the Trinity. First, the word Trinity is not used in the Bible, but the term has been coined to define what God has revealed about Himself in Scripture. Clearly God has defined Himself as existing in 3 Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For example, the earliest text to support God being more than One Person is found in Genesis when He said, Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness”:
Genesis 1:26a Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
I have heard attempts to describe the Trinity, such as, just as the sun has three distinct properties, heat, light, and radiation, so does God have three distinct Persons. I think this falls far short of getting our mind around God existing in Three Persons but it can help a little bit. The reality is, we are limited in our understanding of many things, why would it be any different for the Creator of the Universe. I know Quantum Physics is a “thing”, but I don’t understand any of it. Someone might say, “yea, but you could learn”. That’s true, if I have the ability given to me by God, but could a six-year-old? My point is people use very skewed logic when it comes to the Trinity. They think, “well, since I cannot get my mind around it, or understand it, it can’t be true.”
In this case, it doesn’t sound like he is arguing the Trinity; He is arguing how could a Father send His Son to die a brutal death. I can relate to what he is saying, after all, if I am being honest, I wouldn’t want my son to sprain his ankle for you or anyone else, let alone be completely brutalized and hung on a cross. This reality should not cause me to doubt it happened, our push me to discard it as silly, it should blow my mind that God The Father would love me so much that He sent His Son to die for me!
Or maybe his confusion is, how can God do this if they are the same. The answer to this is simply, They are two distinctly different Persons. Just as the Scriptures speak of the Holy Spirit coming to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and Judgment – the Son was sent to satisfy the Wrath of God. In addition, Jesus says after His Resurrection (paraphrase), “It is good that I go back to the Father, since if I don’t, I can’t send the Holy Spirit” – which is another example of the Trinity being distinctly different.
Just because we can’t understand it fully, doesn’t mean it is any less true. For example, we learn at some point that 2+1=a and are told to find “a”; maybe in 3rd grade, but we would scratch our head in confusion if that same teacher put 14a X 9b = 51 and told us to find “a” and “b”. At 20 years old we can figure that out without paper, but at 8 most of us would be very confused. The point is, faithfully men have diligently studied the Scriptures for a lifetime and have not understood God fully. So, he is correct, to understand God fully is beyond his comprehension, as for the rest of us. But that does not mean we cannot understand God in part, and gain more and more understanding as we diligently seek Him. God is pleased to reveal more knowledge as we diligently seek Him. God is not threatened or offended by the skeptic because when a man diligently seeks the Truth, he will find it.
As for the last question – this is the biggie!!! To believe God/Jesus exists does not qualify you for anything; after all the demons believe and tremble. Why do they tremble? Because there is no redemption for them. They rebelled against God along with the head of the rebellion (Lucifer/Satan/the Devil) and were cast out of Heaven with no hope or opportunity to be forgiven. The demons hate us so much because we are created in God’s image and they hate God, in addition, they know we have a Savior, a redeemer, and they do not. They want to keep you from receiving the redemption that only comes through Christ.
What one must believe to be saved is the Gospel. In a nutshell, that is, you must understand and fully believe that you have sinned against God and deserve hell, an eternal place of punishment because that is the consequence of sin. God cannot “wink” at sin and forget it because ALL sin must be punished. That is what Jesus did; He lived a perfect life, was hung on a Roman Cross where your sin was placed on Him and God the Father CRUSHED His Son under His Wrath so that whoever trusts in Jesus’ finished work/sacrifice on the Cross will be cleansed of their sin; it is a legal transaction, you are imputed with the perfect righteousness of Christ, and He took your sin upon Himself and paid the sin debt you deserve. There is nothing you can do to earn or deserve salvation or forgiveness, all you can do is through yourself upon the Mercy of God and trust in Jesus alone to do just as He promised, redeem, and reconcile you, and give your Eternal Life. Evidence of having done this is seeing the Holy Spirit at work in your life, I have written a post on this here if you would like to read it: Evidence I Truly Believe
God has never asked anyone to trust in One He hasn’t first shown to have Authority, I have also written a post on this that is linked here – I STRONGLY RECCOOMED THIS READ: High Wire Walker
The Bible is God’s Word, you receive it in its entirety or not at all. He has protected His Word, men have died and continue to die today for translating it and distributing it. He has proved it is His Word by Prophesy, and Archeological evidence – to think that we have the authority to accept or reject pieces of it because we either don’t understand or like what it says is arrogant and insulating to God.
I will leave you with this: Man can find fine sounded arguments to support any world view they prefer to have, but it all comes down to, who do you trust for your information. For me, I trust God’s Word, not the opinion of man.
If your friend would like to dig in deeper I would be happy to do so via email, text, or in person.
God Bless!
