Eclectic Christian

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 11, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

Why is it so important that we believe that Jesus is God? Does it make a difference? The answer comes when we look at what it means to have our sins forgiven. This is I believe the most important article in the whole series.

The Forgiveness of Sins

Twice in the Bible Jesus makes the direct claim to forgive sins.

Luke 7:48 (NIV) – Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Mark 2:5-7 (NIV) – “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Why did the Jews believe that only God can forgive sins? It can be explained like this: A sin is an offense which is committed against God. An offense can only be forgiven by the person against whom it is committed. Therefore a sin can only be forgiven by God. since sinning is the action which sparates us from God (Romans 3:23), and God is the only one who can forgive sins, we must conclude that it can only take an action of God to bridge this gulf between each one of us and God. If it was some mere man or angel who was crucified what would that prove? It would show that God was unjust, making a third party suffer for a two party transaction. But God is not unjust and thus we must conclude that God took human form, to die, and to bridge the gap between human beings and himself.
Read the rest of this entry »

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 10, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In Judaism, someone’s name carries much more significance than it does in Western thought. For example an introduction to Judaism tells us that:

In Jewish thought, a name is not merely an arbitrary designation, a random combination of sounds. The name conveys the nature and essence of the thing named. It represents the history and reputation of the being named.

This is not as strange or unfamiliar a concept as it may seem at first glance. In English, we often refer to a person’s reputation as his “good name.” When a company is sold, one thing that may be sold is the company’s “good will,” that is, the right to use the company’s name. The Hebrew concept of a name is very similar to these ideas.

An example of this usage occurs in Ex. 3:13-22: Moses asks God what His “name” is. Moses is not asking “what should I call you;” rather, he is asking “who are you; what are you like; what have you done.” That is clear from God’s response. God replies that He is eternal, that He is the God of our ancestors, that He has seen our affliction and will redeem us from bondage…

Because a name represents the reputation of the thing named, a name should be treated with the same respect as the thing’s reputation. For this reason, God’s Names, in all of their forms, are treated with enormous respect and reverence in Judaism.

We should then understand that what the Bible says about the name of Jesus is something that we should pay very close attention to, as it is something that the audience of the day would have paid very close attention to as well. Let us first look at what Paul had to say:

Philippians 2:9 (NIV) – “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.”

What is the highest place, and what is the name above every name? If it is the place of God and the name of God, does this mean that God the Father is restoring to Christ to the equality that he had with the Father before the incarnation? This seems to be the case as the equality we see in verse 9 parallels the equality we see in verse 6. The idea that Christ has received God name is in fact stated by Christ himself.

John 17:11 (NIV) – “…Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you have me – so that they may be one as we are one.”

As discussed earlier, this concept of Christ sharing God’s name is not merely a symbolic thing, but one that shows that Christ has God’s attributes, his eternity and his power.

As discussed in a previous post that is why it is at the name of Jesus that every knee will bow and tongue confess, just as it will bow and confess to God.

There is another very significant scripture that speaks of God’s name being shared by both Father and Son which we should not overlook.

Matthew 28:29 (NIV) – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Notice how the verse uses “name” and not “names”. Matthew, writing primarily to a Jewish audience, would have been the one most likely to realize the significance of what Jesus was saying. If the original quotation was about three completely different beings, he would have said either “the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” or “the name of the Father and the name of the Son and the name of the Holy Spirit.” The fact that neither of the these two options were chosen, was not as a result of bad grammar, but that Matthew recognized that Christ was referring to one name of one being revealed in three persons. The name above every name is God (in Hebrew Yahweh or Jehovah), and this name is shared by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus Christianity talks of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, not three distinct entities, but one!

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 9, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

Bruce Cockburn, called Creation Dream “a sort of vision of Christ singing the universe into being – dawn before the parting of the waters.” It is a beautiful song, and I love the fact that Bruce emphasizes Christ’s role in creation. This is an emphasis that we find repeated in a number of places in the the New Testament.

Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV) – For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

The Apostle John says something very similar:

John 1:3 (NIV) – Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

I think that the John 1 text is an interesting one to help us understand the Colossians passage a little more. Remember from previous posts that John is talking here about the relationship between “The Word” and “God”. When John says that all things were made “through” Christ and the “nothing was made” without him, he seems to be referring to Christ as the instrument of creation rather than the source. While I do not want to stray too far into a modalistic sort of argument, I see the God the Father saying “let there be light”, and his “Word”, God the Son, going forth and fulfilling those commands. That is how creation is both “through” him and “by” him as we see in these two passage. This also helps us understand how these passages fit with the Old Testament:

Genesis 1:1 (NIV) – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

The Colossians passage tells us a little bit more about the reason for creation. Not only were all things created by Christ, but all things were created “for him”. It is a pretty sobering thought when you think about the meaning of life, and you realize that the reason why any of us were created, the reason why anything was created was for Christ. Whatever our purpose on this planet it needs to focused on what Christ wants to do! He is our very reason for being.

The prophet Isaiah words things a little differently:

Isaiah 43:3a,6b,7
3 For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…
6 …Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”

Colossians says that we are created by and for Christ. Isaiah says that we are created by and for God. The only way to reconcile these passages is if Christ is indeed God, and as God the Son participated in the creation event. This is what Paul asserts in the book of Romans:

Romans 9:5 (NIV) – …From them [the people of Israel] is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

“Christ, who is God over all.” What a wonderful understanding they had of Christ in the early church. And look at how well it fits with the other phrases we have looked at today.

“Through him all things were made.”
“Without him nothing was made that has been made.”
“He is before all things”
“In him all things hold together.”
“For by him all things were created;”
“All things were created by him and for him.”

Can there be any doubt that the Bible fully communicates that Jesus Christ is Creator God?

As usual your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 8, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

Previously, we had looked at how Christ is confessed as God, and that every knee will bow to Christ, just as every knee will bow to God.

Bowing the knee is an act of worship, and we should note that in scripture it is something that God reserves for himself.

Exodus 34:14 (NIV) – Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

In the book of Daniel we see Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to worship a false god even upon threat of death.

Daniel 3:18 (NIV) – … we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

In Acts 10, Peter refuses Cornelius’ worship. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”

Jesus himself says that worship should only be given to God.

Matthew 4:8-10 (NIV) – Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Yes Jesus is consistently given worship and he freely accepts that worship throughout the Gospels:

Matthew 2:11 (NIV) – On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him…

Matthew 14:33 (NIV) – Then those who wer in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you ar the Son of God.”

Matthew 28:9 (NIV) – Suddenly, Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

Matthew 28:17 (NIV) – When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Luke 24:52 (NIV) – Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

John 9:38 (NIV) – Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

When Christ accepts the worship which is given to him, he is accepting worship which is due to God alone. As God the Son, he is worthy of that worship, as is expressed by God himself.

Hebrews 1:6 (NIV) – And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angel’s worship him.”

God is willing to share his worship with no one else, and yet willingly shares it with his Son. This is yet another reason why we consider Jesus to be God, because as God the Son, he is worthy of worship.

That is why we can sing alongside of Tim Hughes:

Light of the world,
You step down into darkness.
Opened my eyes let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore you
Hope of a life spent with you.

And here I am to worship,
Here I am to bow down,
Here I am to say that you’re my God,
You’re altogether lovely,
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me.

Let us not forget that Christ is worthy of our worship.

As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 7, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In my previous post, I looked at John 1:1 and how Jesus, as the Word of God, was equated with God, and had all the attributes and qualities of God. This is a difficult verse to discuss with a Jehovah’s Witness as I found out in conversations a number of years ago. “The word God is not accompanied by a definite article”, he protested, “so you must understand that Jesus is being called a God, and not The Lord God Almighty”.

This view is invalid for two reasons:

• It does not conform to the Greek grammar that we discussed in Part 6
• It puts a secondary lessor god next to the Almighty God, something which is quite unacceptable to God as we discussed in Part 1.

I continued my conversation with the Jehovah’s Witness. “So you believe”, I said, “that when the Greek word for God is accompanied by a definite article it refers to the Lord God Almighty, but when it is not accompanied by a definite article it refers to a lessor God?”

“That is correct”, he affirmed.

So I asked him to turn to another passage where God is referred to using the definite article.

John 20:28-29 (NIV) – Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.”

What was Thomas asked to believe? If we look at the entire chapter, we find that Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead. When he faced the risen Jesus, he finally realized who he was facing. He believed, not only that Jesus had risen from the dead, but he believed that Jesus was God. Jesus did not condemn Thomas for this statement, but instead pronounced a blessing on those who had no seen him, but believed as well.

My Jehovah’s Witness friend did not have a response. What we have shown here wasn’t answerable by one of the list of “pat answers” that he had been programmed to respond with.

While he never got to the point where he was willing to beleive as Thomas did, the Apostle Paul teaches us, that ultimately everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV) – Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Notice how the verse says that at the name of Jesus “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess”. Paul is equating Jesus and God here in a way that none of contemporaries would miss. Note the words of God himself in Isaiah 45 says:

“Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.

By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

Paul knew from this Old Testament scripture that all would bow in worship and confess God. My drawing the parallel with this scripture, Paul is doing nothing less but proclaiming Jesus to be God. Paul also knew that if all bow in worship and confess that Jesus is Lord, this brings glory to the Father, as the Old Testament scripture would be fufilled when Jesus is worshiped as God.

In our next post we will be looking at how Jesus is worthy of worship, and in a future post we will discuss the significance of the phrase “name above every name.”

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 6, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In our previous post we introduce Jesus Christ as the Word of God. John 1:1 makes a very powerful statement about the Word of God, he says, “The Word was God.”

Now this I think is probably my most difficult post to write in this series. I entitled my series “Reflections…” because they are my thoughts on the subject. In giving my thoughts on the subject, I wanted to prompt your thoughts on the subject as well. Sometimes though, when you get a statement as powerful as “The Word was God”, it is difficult not to dive to deeply into the intricacies that exist, especially when there has been considerable debate around the meaning of the term. I will try however to make it an enjoyable rather than mind numbing read.

The phrase “The Word was God”, when read in the Greek language, has a few interesting parts to it, especially considering its brevity.

• There are dual subjects, otherwise known as nominatives in the phrase, “The Word” and “God”.
• There is an equating verb, “was”.
• The word order in Greek is reversed from that in our English Bibles, so that the term for God appears before the term for “The Word”. It should be noted however that word order in Greek is of secondary importance, so that while it might aid our understanding of the meaning of this text, we should be careful not to base a theology upon word order.
• Only “Word” is accompanied by the definite article “The”, “God” is not accompanies by the definite article. Greek has no indefinite article “A”. Lack of a definite article, will often result in the understanding of an implied English “A”.  This however is not the case here because…
• Greek grammatical studies have shown that when two subjects are joined by an equating verb and the one subject has a definite article associated with it, then the second subject either has an implied definite article (Colwell’s rule) or is to be understood qualitatively (Harner’s analysis).

Now if your eyes haven’t glazed over and you would like to read more about about the Greek intricacies related to John 1:1, and why some of the other understandings of this verse are lacking in validity then here is one of the many web resources available on the topic. If your eyes have glazed over, then let me gently bring you back with a plain English explanation.

The best ways to understand John 1:1 is that either John is directly equating Jesus with God, or John is saying that Jesus has all the attributes and qualities of God.  As Daniel Wallace states:

He shared the essence of the Father, though they differed in person.  The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father. - Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 269

All the attributes and qualities of God. This fits so well with what we have learned from the previous scripture passages that we considered, where we read that Christ was “in very nature God”, the “image of the invisible God”, and “the exact representation of [God's] being”.

Notice the interesting parallel we have with John 1:14. “The Word became flesh”. We see the movement here of the Word, having the attributes and qualities of God, taking on the attributes and qualities of a human being. It is a movement echoed in Philippians 2, from being “in very nature God”, to “taking the very nature of a servant.”

By looking again at the quotation by Daniel Wallace we can see how the Word can be both with God and yet be God at the same time. For the the Word, while having the essence of God, is also understood to be distinct from the Father. This again fits very nicely with the diagram of the Trinity that we introduced in an earlier post which showed that while Jesus is God, Jesus is not the father.

“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  It is amazing how much meaning can be packed into such a short phrase.  What a wonderful concept.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 5, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In Parts 3 and 4 we looked at how Jesus was called both the Image of God and the Brightness of God’s Glory. We want to continue with the Hebrews 1:3 passage and look at the next phrase:

Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

We will get into the phrase “sustaining all things” in a future post. We want to first look at the word “word”, and see how else this is used in scripture. Our minds are immediately drawn to probably the most famous passage dealing with the deity of Christ, John Chapter One”

John 1:1, 14, 15, 29, 30 (NIV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the on and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of who I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”… The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look the Lamb of God, who takes saway the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”

I used a longer section of the passage here than is normally quoted, just so that it is perfectly clear that the one who is identified as the Word of God in verse 1, is positively identified as Jesus through the connections in verses 14, 15, 29, and 30.

This same Jesus then, in verse 1 is said to be both with God, and to be God himself.

Three questions naturally spring from these statements:

1. What do we understand by this phrase “The Word”?
2. What exactly do we mean when we say that the Word was God?
3. How can you be with God, and be God at the same time?

We will look at the first of these three questions in this post, and will tackle the others in the next posting.

Many years ago, I was given a booklet by some Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to my door. It was called “The Trinity.” In it was a section on what the Church Fathers believed. Among other Church Fathers, they quoted Tertullian, one of the most prolific writers of the early church. According to the booklet, Tertullian had written:

For before all things God was alone—being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself.

What my visitors did not know is that I had recently read Tertullian’s works, and knew that they were only giving a partial picture. I asked them to come back on another day, and in the mean time, started to read through Tertullian and the other Fathers to find out where their quotations had come from. (They had supplied no source references.)

I found what they had written in Tertullian’s text “Against Praxeus”, Chapter Five (written circa 208 A.D. when Tertullian was about 63).

For before all things God was alone—being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call λόγος, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God;

I love this comment from Tertullian. In one fell swoop he does a number of things:

1. Helps us counters the J.W. claim that the Deity of Christ was a concept introduced by Constantine during the Christian Council at Niceae in the forth century.
2. Helps us show that the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were intentionally misleading their followers, by only giving a short section of a text which has a completely different meaning when a larger text is taken in concept. (When my visitors came back I had them read directly the various passages from the church fathers. I made it clear that they had been intentionally deceived. By the looks on their faces, I knew that they knew it too.)
3. Perhaps most importantly he shows that the concept of “The Word”, goes far beyond, God’s spoken commands, but extends right into the very thought of God.

As God’s logos, Christ’s intertwining with God, extends down to his very thoughts. But Christ is more than God’s thoughts, he is God’s thoughts expressed and acted upon. In this sense he is “The Word” of God, acting as God’s spoken agent in the world. Future posts will discuss what this means for both our creation and salvation.

In our next post however we will discuss how “The Word” is both with God and is God.

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 4, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In our last post we we looked at how Christ was the image of God, using the analogy of light from a star. We also touched on how he was the brightness or radiance of God’s glory.

Hebrews 1:3a (NIV) – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…

Hebrews 1:3a (KJV) Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…

Brightness and Glory. Glory and Brightness. They really go hand in hand. It seems like you can’t have one without the other. You certainly can’t have brightness without having a source of that light. Can you have glory without brightness? From our human perspective you would think that if you were to take brightness away from glory, what you would be left with would be no longer glorious. But it is always difficult to use human terms to describe an infinite God, and in this case, God doesn’t seem to work that way.

As Philippians 2:7 says, Christ voluntarily “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant”. Yet nowhere in scripture does it imply that the glory of the Father is somehow reduced or compromised by Jesus taking human form. Jesus makes it clear in John 17:5 that the Father is still the source of glory and that as God the Son, he expected to share in that glory again.

John 17:5 (NIV) – And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

As the brightness of God’s glory, Jesus certainly shared in God’s glory in a way that no one else could. It was a glory that Christ had with God even before the world began, and shared again after his death and resurrection. Consider this next verse:

Isaiah 42:8 (NIV) – I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

God is not willing to share his glory with another! Yet, as we have seen, he shared it with Christ, the brilliance of his glory, before the world began! This is only possible if Christ is God.

As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 3, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

Have you ever considered what happens when you look at a star? We don’t actually see the star itself, but the light that in generated by that star. Not only that, but the light from the closest visible star (other than the Sun) takes over four years to reach our eyes. So, you are not actually seeing the star as it exists today, but as it existed when that light wave was sent from the star at least four years ago. And of course our eyes can only process the visible part of the entire light spectrum, infrared and ultraviolet rays are invisible to us.

Similar things can be said of God. John writes that “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” – John 1:18″ Jesus himself said, “And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form.” – John 5:37. He also stated “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” – John 14:9.

How is it that seeing Jesus is like seeing God? Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God”. One of my favorite passages, Hebrews 1, states:

Hebrews 1:3a (NIV) – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…

While the meaning doesn’t change, I like the wording of the King James Version.

Hebrews 1:3a (KJV) Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…

Getting back to the star imagery, the light from a distant star forms an image on the retina, and helps us learn more about the star. Similarly, Christ as the brightness or radiance of God’s glory gives us an image or exact representation of an invisible God. The best way that we can understand what God is like is by looking at the Person of the Son. He is that part of God that we can see and experience directly.

I believe also that an “exact representation” goes beyond mere image but to the very essence of who God is. Philippians 2:6 stated that Jesus was “in very nature God”. He has within him the all the qualities and attributes that make God who he is. (More on this in our next post.)

Think back to our triangle diagram and imagine that the only part of the diagram that you can see is the part that says “Son”. While we no longer are able to experience Christ face to face, we have much to learn from those who were his contemporaries and wrote about their experiences with him. As a result, we are able to know much more about what the rest of the picture is like, through our learning about the Son.

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

The image of the invisible God.

The radiance of God’s glory.

The exact representation of [God's] being.

God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

In very nature God.

Very powerful words, leaving us no doubt as to the nature and character of Jesus Christ.

As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

 
 
 
 
(Note to readers here: The star is used as an analogy here. Any analogy when taken to far will eventually break down. Here I am comparing a visible star to an invisible God so right away we see that the analogy can only be taken so far.)

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

[Updated with Comments from Joshua Hearne]

This is Part 2, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

We want to continue by discussing what we do not mean when we say that Jesus Christ is God.

We do not mean that Jesus is the Father. The New Testament is very clear to distinguish between God as he is revealed as Father, and God as he is revealed as Son.

Although it is very difficult to use a two dimensional diagram to describe what God is like, this diagram may help.  Although we say that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, it is clear that we do distinguish between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Writers in the early church compared God to a river.  Each stage of a river is different, from where it may start as a spring bubbling out of the ground, through the meandering in may experience through the countryside, to  the delta it forms as it empties itself into the ocean.  We would not try to say that the start of the river is indentical to the end of the river, and yet we would say that each part of it is the river.

If a guide takes me to the head of the Amazon river, he would say “that’s the Amazon river.”  When he takes me to the middle of the Amazon river,  he would say, “that’s the Amazon river.”  When he takes me to where the Amazon river empties into the ocean, he would say, “that’s the Amazon river.”  Each part of the river is called the river, and yet each part of the river makes up the river as a whole.

That being said, every analogy of the Trinity will break down if stretched too far. This is simply as a result of not being able to describe the infinite with finite language.

As Joshua Hearne, a co-author of Eclectic Christian notes in the comments:

The problem with the river image is that a particular section of the river is not simultaneously source and delta. We must be careful not to slip into modalism and assert that each of the three coequal persons of the trinity are one God serving/manifesting in three different roles. This is a similar theological problem to what we end up with when we look at “forms of water” or “the egg.”

I agree that you can’t limit the Trinity to the roles that are played within the Trinity. Each of the three persons of the Trinity have different roles to play, but their interdependence is so much greater than the roles they play. The river analogy breaks down when you consider that a river can have many sources. Take away one source, and you still have a river. A river may, or may not have a delta. Not having a delta does not detract from the fact that it is a river.

The same can not be said for the Trinity. I believe that there is an interdependence in the Trinity that is not properly captured in the river analogy. I wanted to conclude my series looking at the interdependence of the persons of the Trinity, but I will try and change around my original posting plan so that I look at it first and use it a framework on which many of the other posts will hang.

It is very difficult (if not outright wrong) to put God into a box. It is impossible to describe the infinite in finite terms. So understand that I am not trying to delineate the edges of the box, rather it is my attempt to say, “Here is what we do know about the deity of Christ. Please understand that our knowledge is imperfect, and our understanding of the topic is imperfect, but we present it as best we can so as to improve your knowledge and understanding.”

So, keep these illustrations and analogies in mind.  When we come to some of the more difficult explanations, they may be of help.

Do these illustrations help you?  I am very much interested in your feedback, and your comments are always welcome.