r/god

John 1:1, 14
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

I've been thinking about how I might treat with the objections of the Islamists who I might meet at our "family table" during this upcoming Kairos 4 day weekend event (K13). Not searching for a debate win, that's not the environment we establish during our events. Rather to generate and then facilitate a thought experiment. The end goal being to leave a seed of truth planted in his mind that the Holy Spirit can then nurture and inspire in time.

This is a process that must be carried out carefully and thoughtfully. Not only because we're holding this thought experiment in a prison and making these assertions to a people with a proven track of violence and criminal activities, but also because our approach is always Christ-like, always full of grace. This isn't to say without conviction or without holding firmly to the sovereignty of the triune God. We always advocate for Christ never allowing our tolerance to make excuses for Christ's sovereignty as the One true God.

The goal is to find common ground when we can and challenge the thinkers to look further than their dogma currently allows.

This is how I've approached the pagan who worships the creature not the Creator. Challenge the decision to follow a created being when the obvious better covenant would be between the creature and his Creator directly, not dependent upon other outside forces or subordinates. In this same way I'd approach the Islamists objection. I'd start a thought experiment around his presumptions. Like their primary objection which has to do with the idea of the Trinity.

The primary objection. To the Islamist, oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. If that rule is true, the Eternal Son is impossible, and you should reject Him. If that rule is too small, the objection falls by itself, and he is left holding a greater God than the one his dogma currently allows.

So we should start there, where he is already right.

He does not want a created rival beside God.

Neither do I.

That is common ground.

He already fears a second god. I tell him I fear that too. Then I'd ask him to look at what his own rule does next.

If God can only speak through a created messenger, then the man is still depending on a subordinate. A prophet is not God. A book carried by a prophet is not God. The word he trusts to bring him near is, on his own terms, a creature standing between the creature and the Creator.

So, the question is not whether God is one. The question is whether the one God is lonely, and whether He must send a servant because He cannot come Himself.

We both already refuse a second god (Mark 12:29), but what sort of oneness are we following and defending?

If oneness means God has no eternal Word, then He must speak through someone He made, and you are trusting a creature to do what only the Creator can do. But if the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), then the Son is not a rival and not a child taken from a wife. He is God come near. Distinct, as a word is distinct from the one who speaks it. Not divided, and not a second eternal.

Now that we've asked these questions we can build upon that thought. If the word of God is the Son and the word of God is God, then the Son is God in the flesh. And His cross is where that one God bore our guilt. Where that word of God spoke about forgiveness of sin. Where the Messiah suffered and died to bear that sin in our place. And where the eternal word, the eternal Son sent by the eternal Father to testify to the truth, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, was slain as the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. But even more importantly the Word, the eternal Son, did not only speak about forgiveness there. He finished it there.

So here's the ultimate truth for us to consider:

If that Word became flesh, God did not shout His pardon from a distance through a created messenger, He instead sent His only begotten Son, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, and slain as the perfect sacrifice. The Messiah suffering in our place. On the cross, where that one God bore our guilt, and where the eternal Word of God finished the work of forgiveness.

I'm asking you to look further into the testimony of truth than your current rule can go. To consider a God who can come. A God who can bear sin. And a God who does not leave you in the hands of a subordinate.

Why do I believe this to be Jesus the Christ?

First because he said it of Himself.

Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58).

They picked up stones for that sentence. Yet he did not take it back. He had already said the Son gives life to whom He will, and that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (John 5:21, 23).

Next because His resurrection seals the deal. He said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it, and John tells us He meant His own flesh and blood body (John 2:19–21). He said no one took His life from Him. He laid it down, and He had authority to take it up again (John 10:17–18). That for me is pivotal. He's explaining to us, His creatures, that He holds the authority given to Him by The Father, the power of life and death.

Then the tomb was empty. And He stood among them.

As the apostle Paul says, He was declared the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

A created messenger stays in the grave. This one did not.

I understand that this triune God idea is something difficult to make sense of. It's not unlike how in science and specifically regarding gravity and light, what was once thought to be fixed in Newton's laws later developed into Einstein's theory of relativity. It turned out that light can be bent, acted upon even though it does not have mass. So the laws of the universe didn't apply perfectly. There were variations that needed to be understood in a larger less narrow context.

See, it's not that Newton’s law was false inside its frame. It was just too small a frame for the light ray to be observed for what was really happening.

I know the triune God is hard to hold. So was the path of light, once. Newton’s frame was sure of itself. What has no mass goes straight, and gravity is only for weighty things. Then the light ray was measured past the sun, and it bent. Light has no resting mass, and yet still it was not outside the influence of the gravitational field.

Newton’s law was not false inside its frame. The frame was too small for the ray to be seen as it is. I am not saying Einstein proves the Son of God. I am saying you already know what it is to trust a rule that cannot completely cover the thing right in front of you.

The rule says Oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. Look further. The Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Distinct, and not a second source. Not a second god.

Amen? 🙏🏼