Childlike Faith

This is my first attempt to reflect on my experience of belief. I want to try, as far as I can, to avoid discussing theological concepts or models of belief. Reflecting simply on what I have experienced as a believer. In this first post I recall growing up believing in God.

For introducing me to belief in God I must thank my parents. And also the Methodist church I attended for much of my childhood. Even though my parents were not very religious, Christianity was cultural and an expected part of growing up. When I say they were not religious I don’t mean to imply that they were atheists either, but simply secular through lack of engagement with their own beliefs.

We attended a Methodist church for no other reason than that my parents viewed it as an English equivalent to my Father’s N.G. (Dutch Reformed) denomination in which we were baptized as babies. As far as Sunday school is concerned, the thing that stands out most vividly in my imagination is worship, especially a song called “Jehovah Jirah” and another called “Love the Lord your God”. I can remember enjoying these and other songs, and sang many of them outside of the Sunday school setting – which is strange given my complete inaptitude for all other forms of music.

At home, my mom sometimes read bible stories to us and at night, I will forever remember the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer. How, as a young boy, I pictured my soul leave my body as I lay down to sleep – hopeful that it had made its’ way to God. And that should anything happen to me while I lay there in my bed, at least my soul was safe in God’s hands.

I also remember the need, sometimes, to pray that prayer, and later the Lord’s Prayer, over and over again. These repetitions arose from concerns that I had become distracted, and had allowed the prayer to be completed on autopilot. This of course seemed problematic since perhaps auto-pilot prayer didn’t have the same power as self-navigated prayer. If this was true then perhaps God hadn’t heard that He needed to “keep my soul”, or “forgive my trespasses”, or “deliver me from evil”. Thankfully I never let the autopilot continue once I had noticed it, and usually I was satisfied that the prayer following the discovery was done with sufficient devotion and care to reach the ears of God.

To this day this habit continues and will often manifest as repeated grace during the first bite of the meal, as I move the focalized prayer at the table to my heart, and there reiterate my gratitude for God’s provision. Likewise, the Lord’s prayer is still at times susceptible to autopilot transmissions, and still I feel the need to bring my focus back to the prayer and repeat whatever was spoken without intention. These early struggles are also discernible in my need to sometimes overemphasize my intention, or meaning, in prayer – in case God misunderstood me and thinks I’ve communicated something unacceptable.

I remember the first time I was hurt by “the church” or rather by members of it. It was the usual bullying that many of us experience at various times when we are young. My experiences unfortunately connected to those who were part of the body of Christ – but also just little boys like myself. And though I no longer connect the hurt to the church, the bullying itself has left deep scars.

I also remember my first unanswered prayer. Oh, there may have been others before this. But this one was different. This was something very personal and something very painful and I wanted deeply for God to change it. I prayed and prayed and prayed, waking each day to find the prayer unanswered. I have no idea how long it went on for or when I finally realized God wasn’t going to answer the prayer. It was an unspoken prayer and nobody knew that I was praying besides me and God. I also have no idea what I thought of God because of this but I do remember the pain of living daily with a reality that I deeply desired to escape and finding no God to take the pain away.

Until I was 16 my outlook on life was narrow and finite. I believed everything I had been taught and had no reason, nor any desire, to believe differently. That was until I read a newspaper report linking God to a part of the brain. Innocently my eyes had fallen onto one of the headlines of the open newspaper lying on the dining-room table. It read something like, ‘Scientists discover God linked to part of the Brain’. In an instant my world changed. Suddenly my clear and solid vision became blurry and unstable. For the first time that I can remember, I had encountered something I had no tools to engage. My childlike faith was never taught about the supposed conflict between science and religion. I had grown up believing that both were true, along with history, geography and everything else. This brief moment would launch me into adolescence in a way that left the rest of puberty looking quiet tame in comparison. In many ways it was the death of my childlike faith.

Existential Christianity

So what may have appeared obvious to others for a long time has become clearer to me recently.

In essence much of my struggle has been between various groups who claim Christianity contains external truths that must be believed and defended. Over on the other side of the road we have various groups who consider Christianity to be a more existential, esoteric or spiritual reality that cannot be tied down to concrete dogmas, doctrines, rituals and practices.

While I’ve been going round in circles trying to figure out which brand of Christianity is historically accurate, they’ve been trying to tell me that none of them are.

And you know what…I just might agree with them.

My heart is burdened

My heart is burdened.

I know Your love, Your grace, Your patience, Your kindness, Your mercy…

I see all these people around me, so few of them know You, and even those who do seem to be getting themselves into strange places that put their relationship with You in danger.

I find it so hard to judge, but also so easy. But the easiness always gives way to distress and doubt and struggle.

How can so few be chosen, how can Your love not reach them, especially those who carry your name and share Your love with others…I’m confused!

More Reflections on Christology

I wrote this as a reply to my friend Chris on his blog, Scarecrows in the Melon Patch. I’m posting it here because it expands on my thoughts from my previous post, clarifies some of my thinking and provides links to some sites that give much more detail than I can include here:

I completely agree with you that to go the route of purposefully rejecting clear biblical revelation is akin to spiritual suicide. I have no confidence in any secular, philosophical or mythological approach to the scriptures or their full revelation of God.

All that I am suggesting is that maybe (and I only say maybe because I’m still grappling with a lot of this) our understanding of Jesus could benefit from a reevaluation of who and what the messiah was and is. Our understanding of Jesus affects our understanding of the gospel & the nature of God and any misunderstanding of one effects all three. The position I am explaining is called Biblical Unitarianism or Christian Monotheism (This should not be confused with Universal Unitarianism – which teaches that everybody will be saved).

Biblical Unitarians believe in the full inerrancy of the scriptures and the need to maintain a strict biblical faith, which includes a belief in One God YHWH, His messiah Jesus, and our need for salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection. So I am not advocating an evolutionary approach or any other non-biblical model.

What I am saying is that by starting with the premise that Jesus is God we automatically read that understanding into the biblical text. For the last 2 or 3 months I have been listening to audio readings of the New Testament. When I started I decided to approach each section with an open mind, listening for a clear indication that Jesus was God, without reading my own assumptions into the passages. What I found consistently was that Jesus always refers back to the Father alone as God and so does Paul (even in Romans 1-3) and the other N.T writers.

There were a small handful of texts that I had to listen to a few times over as my mind automatically reverted to the old paradigm. After listening again and sometimes checking the Greek text and doing a little background study I am yet to find any conclusive evidence that Jesus is YHWH.

There are some passages (like John 1) that may suggest (though other interpretations can be suggested) Jesus pre-existed before being born. Even if this is true it doesn’t necessarily make him YHWH. It is well documented that Jews considered those aspect of reality, like the law, the messiah and the election of Israel to have existed “eternally” in the mind of God. In addition the bible also says that John the Baptist was sent from God and Jesus asks rhetorically whether John’s Baptism was from heaven or from men – neither of these mean that John or his baptism pre-existed in heaven before John was born.

In response to Jesus’ use of ἐγὼ εἰμι and the desire of the Jews to stone him I can say the following. I relooked at each case in which the texts describe the Pharisees, scribes, chief priests, lawyers, Sadducees and Jews wanting to kill, seize, or stone Jesus. I also looked at Jesus’ use of the aforementioned phrase. There is no significant connection between the use of the phrase and the attempts on his life. It is often used and usually translated as a self description without causing the Jews to attack him. Instead the attacks usually occur after another form of provocation which I will highlight hereafter. It is also clear that all translations are not equal; a short sampling will show what I mean:

In John 8:24 Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah and uses the term ἐγὼ εἰμι to identify himself as such. The ESV translates correctly and those that follow exhibit progressively more bias:

• “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” – English Standard Version (©2001)
• “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am [the one I claim to be], you will indeed die in your sins.” – New International Version (©1984)
• “That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I Am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins.” – New Living Translation (©2007)
• “That is why I told you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” International Standard Version (©2008)

Later in John 8:58 (still part of the same conversation in which the term is used three times and usually translated correctly twice), the majority of translations make no attempt to indicate that Jesus is still referring to himself as the Messiah and instead the reader is left with no other option but to think Jesus is referring to himself as I AM.

It is also interesting to note that in the Greek LXX the focus of God’s self-revelation in Exodus is not even really on the “I am” but on what follows ego eimi ho on, translated as, “I am The One Who Is.” (Ex. 3:14 NETS). As such Jesus’ use of the first part of the statement without the next is nowhere near the divine name of Exodus. The truth is that the messiah existed, whether physically or potentially in the mind of God way before Abraham was ever born. Therefore Abraham placed his hope in the coming of the messiah as did every other faithful God follower throughout the ages.

With regard to the Jews constant accusation of blasphemy, similar accusations are made numerous times throughout the bible (falsely and correctly) and not once is it used to indicate that the person is claiming to be God.

Rather, in every one of the accounts where they do try to kill or capture Jesus, he has done two key things. 1) He has openly denounced the religious leaders (and those who follow them) for their false spiritual system – going so far as to claim that they are the children of Satan. As such he is claiming that their so-called worship of YHWH is in fact false. 2) He also affirms his Divine appointment as Messiah, claiming direct authority from God in everything he says and does.

So in effect Jesus is saying: “I condemn you and because I have direct appointment and authority from God in all that I do – God condemns you.”

It is this outright condemnation of their entire false system (which the Pharisees, Sadducees and the like rule and propagate) that outrages them and creates in them the desire to kill Jesus. They accuse him of being possessed and he tells them that he represents God. They accuse him of blasphemy (dishonoring God) and he counters by telling them that they themselves are committing the unpardonable sin by declaring the work of God’s Holy Spirit to be the work of Satan – again condemning them.

They accuse him of blasphemy, not because he is claiming to be YHWH, but because the religious elite and those who follow them are claiming to represent YHWH and instead Jesus is telling everybody that they represent the devil.

During his trial they finally find two witnesses to accuse him of saying he will destroy the physical temple and rebuild it in 3 days – which they considered blasphemy (again being interpreted as dishonoring God – not claiming divinity). When he reaffirms that He makes those claims (though not their interpretation of the claims) as the Messiah and that they will see his power manifested when He is Seated at the Right hand of God they consider this enough evidence to have him killed.

As to Jesus not correcting their interpretation of his claims to deity, I think he does. In the first part of John 10 Jesus asserts his appointment by God as the only way to attain salvation. At the same time he denounces the religious elite as hired-hands who have forsaken the sheep. Additionally he affirms that this teaching and his authority come directly from the Father.

The next part of the chapter sees Jesus again denouncing the false spirituality rampant amongst the Jews and reasserting his right to judge by declaring that He and the Father are united in their mission – he and the Father are one. I don’t think this necessarily means they are one God – though this is usually the way we read it because of our preconceived ideas. [He later prays that his followers would be one with him and the Father in exactly the same way that he and the Father are One but we don’t take that to mean the Trinity will be growing in number].

When the Jews pick up stones to kill Jesus they say that he is claiming to be “a god”. Our English translations translate it “God” but this isn’t correct. Whenever the New Testament speaks about YHWH they use the Greek τὸν θεός (The God). Whenever they speak of gods (sometimes of men and also of heavenly beings) they simply use θεός (in its’ various forms), which is the case in John 10:33 and elsewhere.

This is clear from Jesus’ reply in which he says being called a god is no big deal since the scriptures themselves call men gods (but not The God). Jesus says he is the Son of God because he has been sanctified and sent into the world by the Father. He proves this by doing the works of the Father and shows that they are united in their mission.

(John 10:31-39)

31The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. 32Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” 33The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” [a god]
34Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’? 35″If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37″If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” 39Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.

To conclude all of the above I would say that I’m still not convinced that the Messiah had to be YHWH. I’m open to him being YHWH but apart from always believing him to be I’m not finding the actual biblical evidence. I also re-examined messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Not one of these prophecies indicate that the messiah would also be YHWH. Rather, if anything, they assert that the messiah would be a human being.

It was Greek philosophy that deemed it necessary for Jesus to be God in order to save us. But the bible itself never says this. Jesus substitutionary death is based on his obedience to God and his sinless life – not on his being divine. If I am incorrect on this it shouldn’t be too difficult to show that his divinity was a prerequisite for his ability to save – but I am yet to find this expressed in the text. Rather, I find that just as “by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” AND “There is one God and one mediator between God and men – the man Christ Jesus (emphasis mine from 1 Cor 15:21 and 1 Tim 2:5).

The last point to deal with is perhaps the reason we struggle more than anything with an alternative to the accepted understanding of Jesus. You allude to it when you say, “if it’s one giant colossal conspiracy cooked up by the… great Christian thinkers throughout history through whom Christianity has been ‘crafted’.” How do we deal with such a potential compromise of the biblical message without becoming cynical or disillusioned?

I suppose in a way it shouldn’t really surprise us. Protestants have long asserted that the early church went off track almost immediately after the death of the Apostles. My struggle to accept this fact is what drew me to Eastern Orthodoxy since I found it hard to believe that the church could apostatize so early in its’ history. But we already affirm this through our choice to disregard countless decisions of the historical church.

Consider for example that in addition to affirming the deity of Christ the Nicene council also promulgated 20 other doctrines for the entire church. The subsequent councils also promulgated volumes more. Yet we are convinced that most of these laws and doctrines are baseless and unbiblical but continue to stand by the decisions of these councils on matters of the Godhead. It seems to me that if we believe they were wrong about all these other matters they may have been just as wrong on such weighty issues as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – As Paul said, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

So Who is Jesus?

While Jesus has been a central figure in my thoughts lately, this struggle is far from new. In fact I can clearly recall struggling with the concept of the Trinity even after I rejected traditional Christianity as a teenager of 16 or 17. You may wonder how it was that I struggled with the Trinity if I had rejected traditional Christianity. Thankfully I still continued to read the Bible. I didn’t understand it theologically and approached it with various biases. But I still found myself confronted with a being called God, with a man named Jesus and with “something” called the Holy Spirit.

At the time I was immersing myself in a spiritualized drug culture. I practiced the use of various narcotic substances as gateways to the spiritual realm – to direct contact with God and with divine revelation. The consequences were dire and I steadily began losing touch with reality.

I fully accepted that God was real and that there was only One God. You may be surprised to learn that I gleaned this truth, not from Judaism or Christianity but, from (seemingly polytheistic) Hinduism. With an entrenched belief in One God it was very difficult for me to understand Christianity’s claim that Jesus was God.

Of course Hinduism’s influence left me thoroughly pantheistic in my theology and I could therefore accept Jesus as an individual keenly aware of his own internal divinity. Perhaps the leading figure of some kind of sorcerer’s coven (there were 13 of them after all) which demonstrated their obvious connection to God through various healings and other miracles. I could not however accept him as the One and Only True God – not in a way that was radically different from my, or anyone else’s, ability to realize divine consciousness. After all, there was only One God, the God to whom Jesus prayed and from whom he received his power and purpose. To accept that Jesus was this same One God seemed illogical.

As a result of my drug use and steady decline into insanity I finally had a serious breakdown. Thanks be to God the experience left me much saner, rejecting drugs and eastern metaphysics, accepting salvation through Jesus Christ and returning to traditional Christianity. At the time I just took it for granted that the doctrine of the Trinity explained as much as we could know about God the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. I was happy simply trying to build relationship with God on the basis of my repentance and forgiveness in Jesus.

When I first encountered the Jesus of the Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses I brushed him off without much consideration. I knew there were alternatives to the Christian religion and even alternative understandings of the Bible. I had already had about as much as my mind could handle of alternate views of the truth and I wasn’t really interested in disappearing down the rabbit-hole again. But I didn’t remain in that state for very long.

I’m a born researcher, I love reading and I have a deep desire to know! While I’m not sure how skilled I am as a teacher, I certainly have a passion for sharing what I learn with those around me. I think this was one of the main factors contributing to my desire to become a pastor. I had always believed that religious truth was more important than anything else and having now found the truth (or so I thought) I should spend my life sharing it with others. Bible College was a real eye opener.

During my time at college I realized just how muddy the waters of Christianity really are. Suddenly I wasn’t quite sure exactly what the truth was anymore. I, along with a few friends, found that our understanding of Christianity didn’t always line up with the mainstream. I found myself easily able to follow the arguments of different schools of thought and enter into their paradigms so as to understand what they believed and why. It often seemed that both sides of a conflict had really valid reasons for upholding their views and no easy way to determine who was right and who was wrong.

I clearly remember the first time, post-conversion, that I hit a major crisis regarding Jesus. I had taken a break from my studies and Nicky and I had decided to spend some time teaching English in Thailand while reflecting on our walk with God. While there I encountered the teachings of various messianic Christian groups. These groups held numerous positions contrary to the established views of traditional Christianity on topics such as, The Law, Grace and Works, the Sabbath, Jesus and God.

For the first time I actively engaged with Christians who held a radically different understanding of Jesus and the Father. The interaction was fueled by the fact that these Christians were acknowledging problems in the common teachings of Christianity that I had already noticed when I read my Bible. At the time the interaction left me feeling seriously unsettled and upset. I discussed some of the problems with friends and through their explanations and recommendations I brought an end to my inquiry and placed a few band-aids over the unresolved issues.

Recently however, in the Great Circle of Life, these band-aids have popped off again and without the unsettling and despair created by my first encounter with the subject I find myself once again struggling with the same issues. Central to this whole issue is the person of Jesus.

A number of weeks ago my friend Chris made the comment that he believes that “no matter what people have said about the canonization of the Bible, it is the one collection of ‘dissident’ books that cuts through the illusion and speaks plainly into our human reality.” I happen to think that to a large degree he is correct – However…

Issues of Translation and Interpretation (T&I) still stand. It was on the basis of the life of Jesus and the Apostles Interpretation of that life together with their interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures that they were able to preach Jesus as the Messiah. It was also issues of T&I that caused the separation of the Messianic community from the rest of Judaism, giving it its’ own identity. Later issues of T&I saw the newly established Way developing into Roman Catholicism. Very soon issues of T&I gave birth to Oriental Orthodoxy and later saw the division of the Roman West from the Orthodox East. It was issues of T&I that gave rise to the Protestant Reformation and these same issues have continued to birth new denominations, sects and cults right up to this very day.

The issue isn’t only related to how we as Christians, Bible students and pastors interpret scripture – it goes right to the root of Biblical translation itself. The reason I still agree with Chris though is that the core message of the Bible is clear –

There is One God who created the entire universe. He made mankind in His own Image and Likeness. Mankind fell away from God through sin and continues in this state. God established a plan to reconnect relationally with humanity. That plan was communicated prophetically to Adam and Eve from the very outset and as God’s direct reply to their sin and the corruption of Satan. The plan was then set into motion through various individuals and especially through the nation of Israel. It culminated in the birth of Jesus as the long prophesied Messiah who was conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The result was a New Adam – a perfect man without sin. Unlike the first Adam the second Adam did not succumb to the temptations and deceits of the devil. His pure and untainted blood provided the sacrifice necessary to destroy sin and death. By accepting his sacrifice on our behalf we are covered by his holy blood and receive God’s Spirit to empower us to live holy and righteous lives. The Bible goes on to give guidance on what it means to live holy and righteous before God.

So what is my issue? My issue is this: Is Jesus God?

The source of my concern is two-fold. One is related to the Bible itself (hence my rant about interpretation) and the other is related to the documented history of pre-Nicene Christianity.

Every traditional Christian after the Nicene Council of 325 was forced by threat of excommunication, exile or death to believe that Jesus was God. It is usually asserted, without much research, that the council simply confirmed and dogmatized the historical and apostolic teachings about Jesus. It is very easy to simply believe this since all traditional Christians have been Trinitarian for at least the last 1700 years. But does that make it true? Did the council really just write down what was already preached by the majority of Christians from the time of the Apostles? I would argue that the theory isn’t as solid as it sounds.

Of course my queries would never have taken me to the history of the early church if I hadn’t already found in the Bible issues that seemed incompatible with the authorized view of the Trinity. I don’t understand how something that appears to be central to the theology of later Christianity needs to be gleaned from hints and suggestions rather than from plain and obvious statements.

On top of the fact that the Trinity, if it appears at all, is veiled and hidden (why?), the Biblical text gives numerous examples that appear to contradict the Trinity. While no clear Trinitarian theology can be found in the Bible the constant admonition that the Father alone is God is clear to anybody reading the text:

• “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
• “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:” (Mark 12:29)
• “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
• “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” (1Corinthians 8:5-6)
• “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1Timothy 2:5)
• “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you. If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
• “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)
• “Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” (John 20:17)
• “He who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall never go out of it: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will also write upon him my new name.” (Revelation 3:12)
• “But he (Stephen), being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56)
• “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15)
• “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:12-28)
• “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, [one] like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.” (Daniel 7:13)

From these and other texts it becomes clear that:

• Jesus prays to God. (John 17:1-3)
• Jesus has faith in God. (Hebrews 2:17,18, Hebrews  3:2)
• Jesus is a servant of God. (Acts 3:13)
• Jesus does not know things God knows. (Mark 13:32, Revelation 1:1)
• Jesus worships God. (John 4:22)
• Jesus has one who is God to him. (Revelation 3:12)
• Jesus is in subjection to God. (1 Corinthians 5:28)
• Jesus’ head is God. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
• Jesus has reverent submission, fear, of God. (Hebrews 5:7)
• Jesus is given lordship by God. (Acts 2:36)
• Jesus is exalted by God. (Acts 5:31)
• Jesus is made high priest by God. (Hebrews 5:10)
• Jesus is given authority by God. (Philippians 2:9)
• Jesus is given kingship by God. (Luke 1:32,33)
• Jesus is given judgment by God. (Acts 10:42)
• God raised [Jesus] from the dead”. (Acts 2:24, Romans 10.9, 1 Cor 15:15)
• Jesus is at the right hand of God. (Mark 16:19, Luke 22:69, Acts 2:33, Romans 8:34)
• Jesus is the one human mediator between the one God and man. (1 Tim 2:5)
• God put everything, except Himself, under Jesus. (1 Cor 15:24-28)
• Jesus did not think being “equal with God” should be grasped at. (Philippians 2:6)

Given the overwhelming evidence in contradiction to the authorized theology – of three eternal, divine, co-equal beings of one substance – the Trinity begins to seem a later development.

When you add this internal Biblical evidence to the historical evidence a clearer picture begins to emerge. The Jews were Monotheistic and while clearly understanding that God would save them through the Messiah, they never concluded that the Messiah would be God. Therefore the internal evidence of the Bible upholds this Jewish emphasis.

However, after the time of the apostles the church began to lose its’ Jewish mindset as the gospel went out to the gentile nations. The Son of God as Lord over All was originally a Jewish understanding of their perfect human Messiah given Lordship overall all of creation as the first fruits of the New Creation – but later through the influence of Greek philosophy we see this understanding abandoned in favor of God the Son as part of a Binatarian and then a Trinitarian Godhead.

The writings of the early church seem to show a gradual development in the theology of God. At first the Father is God and Jesus is Lord. But through such apologists as Justin Martyr we see the development of the Logos Christology (which Hellenizes the Jewish description of the Word/Plan/Mind of God in John 1:1 into a pre-existent Logos) in which Jesus is either a second God, a lesser God, a divine being of an angelic kind, or the personification of the Reason or Mind of God. These positions are known variously as Subordinationism, Binatarianism, Arianism, Adoptionism and other similar concepts. At this stage the Holy Spirit receives very little, if any, attention.

Later, especially at Alexandria Modalism becomes dominant and in other areas evidence of pure Trinitarianism becomes evident. Finally at the Nicene Council Binatarianism is codified and Trinitarianism becomes the upcoming and dominant Theology.

Naturally, without substantial Biblical evidence to support the new Trinitarian Theology, scribes began altering the text (Evidence of Trinitarian Corruptions of the Biblical Text). These corruptions are now widely acknowledged by almost all Trinitarian scholars. In addition to these corruptions a number of the writings of other early church fathers were corrupted, some of these corruptions are still used to try to support an earlier dating for Trinitarian theology.

So…where does this all leave me? Simple put it leaves me wondering whether the Trinity really is the original understanding and teaching about the Christian God.

Personally I have no desire to make Jesus anything other than God. It is what I’ve believed for the last 10 years and considering whether or not it is true is certainly no trivial matter.

That said, I want to make it clear that even if Jesus isn’t God in the same way that the Father is God it doesn’t mean that he suddenly becomes unimportant. The Bible may not teach a clear Divinity for Jesus but it does show him to be the pinnacle of human history and the means of salvation for all mankind. In addition, whether or not the Holy Spirit is a separate person from the Father or simply the Power and Energy of God in no way eliminates our need and reliance on the Power and Indwelling of the Spirit for daily Christian living.

In conclusion – these are my reflections given my current struggles and the information I’m dealing with at the moment. Who knows what I’ll learn tomorrow or the next day or a month or year from now. I’m really interested in dialoging with people on this one, so if any of this creates any sort of reaction in you lets chat. Perhaps you’ve got some insight that could help me understand all of this better.

One last thing – this study of Biblical Unitarianism (the belief in One God, the Father) has highlighted a couple of other interesting subjects for me that I may blog about in the months to come. Like the erroneous teachings about going to heaven when you die – nobody has! And the forgotten facts about Jesus’ central message concerning the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth (as in heaven) in the prophesied millennium.

The Autobiography of Belief

I’ve just come to the end of a 4 week holiday. I thought I’d have some time to write during the time off, but I was wrong. Between mountain-biking, long walks, swimming, movies and plenty of fun and games, the time simply flew by. I haven’t had such a good break in years and my whole family and I enjoyed every minute.

Now, while I didn’t have any time to write, I did have a lot of time to think and reflect on some of the content that has been floating around inside of me.

And so I kick of this week, not with any specific topic, but rather with a reflection on belief and how it affects everything I/we write, think and speak about.

I found an old Frederick Buechner book at a second-hand book store a while ago. At the time I was already reading a number of other books and so lent it to a friend. Well, I got it back last week and had time this week to start reading it. I absolutely loved what he wrote on the opening pages. It went (something) like this, “a person’s theology, rather than being a study of objective truth, is more often an autobiographical account of the person to whom that theology belongs”.

In other words – our theologies are not so much shaped by the prophetic revelations of God as they are by our own experiences. Now, I know that many people will consider this an attack or insult. If our theology isn’t objective truth then all of a sudden our entire faith system begins to feel quite unstable. But for me this thought of Buechner’s was actually quite freeing.

What if Luther’s reformation had less to do with Luther having a direct line to the Holy Spirit and far more to do with the person that Luther himself was and the experiences that he had during the course of his life? What if my Catholic friend’s experience of God through Catholicism has less to do with the truth of Catholicism than it has to do with my friend’s life and experiences? Is my Charismatic friend a Charismatic because God told him to be or is he one because his life and experiences led him to believe/feel that it was the best place to find God.

Do I speak in tongues because I have the gift from the Holy Spirit or because I believe I have the gift? Is Jesus God because he is God, or has my life and experience led me to believe He is? Is the contemporary church getting it all wrong because they really are, or is it simply my experience of church that leads me to believe the whole church is heading for the scrap-yard? Is the world heading for apocalyptic oblivion or do I only think it is because of my own beliefs and experiences? I just don’t know! I could go on and on.

What I do know is that we all place a heck of a lot of faith in all our various beliefs and it is steadily occurring to me that whether we want to admit it or not faith is all we really have to defend most of those beliefs.

And let me make it clear that I’m not even talking about having faith in God. We have faith every single day in a hundred different things, some of them related to God and some of them not. Quite often we defend those beliefs with Bible verses, or claims of Spirit guidance or some other Intuition of the heart. Sometimes we go to great lengths to set out logical explanations for our view – writing papers, theses or books.

But I think I agree with Buechner – what we believe says more about us than it does about the truth.

Now this doesn’t necessarily resolve anything for me and I still have plenty of questions. Like what IS the Holy Spirit saying to me if he’s not helping me with my Theology? But I’ll leave those other questions for another day and another post.

I’ll end with a strange reflection on my star-sign. Since becoming a Christian I’ve tried hard to keep my distance from occult practices that I was involved with before committing my life to Jesus. And while I never gave much thought to astrology, even in my pre-Christian days, I always refused to acknowledge my star-sign after becoming a Christian. But yesterday as I was reflecting on some things, struggling with them and weighing both sides of the arguments I suddenly realized, I’m a Libra.

Now anyone even vaguely familiar with astrology will know that the sign of Libra is the balance or scales. And even though I’ve disavowed any ties to astrology and the like, I found it rather interesting that throughout my teenage and adult life I have spent a great deal of time weighing things. Where others have often chosen their path and followed it without looking back I have often stood at the cross-roads, holding various options in hand, considering, reflecting, weighing! Of course I’m not suggesting that this means astrology is true, but I found it rather coincidental none the less.

Even this blog is an example of my struggles between two, often opposing, forces bearing down on me from both sides. I think next time I’ll be tackling the Jesus issue…I’ve been weighing it for a while now.

Holding On – Letting Go

My friend Sean has a blog about his encounter with and recovery from some of the negative elements in institutional Christianity. I recently wrote a blog post as a guest blogger for his blog. Writing that post was part of the motivation that got me started on my own blog. Here is the link to the post on my friends blog.