Tag: systematic theology

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godhead Meditations study

Knowing that God is A Plurality

From the earliest chapters in Scripture, God refers to Himself in a unique way.

  • God’s single name is written in the plural form. (Gen 1:1)
  • God refers to Himself saying, “Let US make man in our own image” (Gen 1:26) then the text proceeds to say that God made man in His own (singular) image (Gen 1:27).
  • God commissions Isaiah saying, “Whom will I send? who will go for US?”! (Isaiah 6:8)
  • The Lord’s anointed says He is in the beginning with God, and that He and God’s Spirit are sent by the Lord God (Isaiah 48:16)

God is, in the cases listed above acting of His own power and authority and referring to Himself at the same time as ONE and MORE-THAN-ONE. Unlike Allah, the one God of the Muslims, the Living God knows what it is to be in a relationship! Yes, he’s the only God, there is none beside him, but He is not a lonely god.

Of course, this wasn’t very clear in the Old Testament. God’s self-revelation wasn’t made crystal clear until later. For now, we can come to terms with this truth.  In our loneliest and darkest moments, we can take comfort in the fact that God, making us part of His family, does not start a relationship but rahter brings us into a truly unique and eternal relationship.

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godhead Meditations

Knowing that God is the Only God

We might wrongly say that “It is impossible to know God.” Though we can’t understand the infinite depths and breadth of who God is, God does make Himself known. In so doing we can say with David, “how precious are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps 139:17). One way He makes this clear is by showing His uniqueness. This is what God says in Scripture:

  •  “I am the Lord, there is no other; beside me there is no God!” (Isaiah 45:5-6) God negates the existence of all gods. Whatever beings that may or may not be out there, they are not gods.
  • “The Lord your God is one” (Deut 6:4-5). God underlines the fact that he is in fact one of a kind. This was an incredible statement to say in a culture that was full of so-called gods. The is only one God and it is the Lord, the God of Israel.
  • “the demons know God is one and they tremble!” (James 2:19). These powerful beings, who might try to parade as gods, know the truth: they don’t stand a chance against the actual and only God!

This self-disclosure from God should comfort and strengthen us. There is no being throughout the galaxies that can ever come close to matching who God is—and He deigns to make Himself known to us and call us His!

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godhead Meditations

God Makes Himself Known

We can’t know God if he didn’t first reveal himself to humanity. Even in nature, we only know about God because “God has shown it” to us (Rom 1:19). Further, because of sin, we humans have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Rom 1:18, 21, 25) which means that we twist God’s self-revelation even in nature. We need God to reveal Himself.

Jesus says no one knows the Father except the Son. Jesus, both being God and being sinless, had unhindered and total understanding of the infinite God. Jesus continues to say that in addition to the son, there are also those “to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matt 11:27).

Don’t be mistaken. Jesus is not saying that Christian Jane can know the Father, but Christian Tony won’t. Jesus is not saying that he implants thoughts to make us know the Father. Jesus makes the Father known through Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16–17 proves helpful saying that God reveals perfectly, sufficiently, and usefully from Scripture.

We may never fully know the infinite, unsearchable, and unattainable depths of God (Psalms 145:3; Psalm 139: 6, 17). What can be known of God is because the Son (who is the Word) makes the Father known through the Holy Spirit (who knows the mind of God) by moving people to write (2 Pet 1:21).

This week, get to know what God says about Himself by interacting with Scripture.

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godhead Meditations

Knowing that God Exists

Scripture tells us that everyone, even unbelievers, knows that God exists. The Bible says that although people “knew God” they refused to give Him thanks (Rom 1:21) and traded the truth about God for a lie (Rom 1:25). Sadly, this is how people can foolishly say that God doesn’t exist (Psalm 14:1).

We Christians, on the other hand, know that God exists. The Psalmist writes “God: as the deer pants when it is thirsty for water, so my soul longs for you?( Psalm 42:1). This should be true  for all Christians. Do you long for God? Do you live your life as if you truly believe God exists?

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godhead Meditations

Knowing God

Imagine someone saying that they know your dad and talking about all of the good times they had. The problem is that this person describes your dad with the wrong ethnicity, wrong facial description, wrong body type, the wrong job, and the wrong character. You would rightly conclude that whatever good times this person has had, it is not with your dad.

Good news: God makes Himself known in Scripture! The universal church has learned and been speaking about him in the same way for two-thousand years!

Now, that doesn’t mean all of us know, but it means that information is available for those in a relationship with God. Not by your feelings but by what God has said in Scripture.

Three verses are important here:

  • Jeremiah 9:23-24 says that anyone’s single crowning hope and boast is that they understand and know God.
  • says that the Scripture was given for this very purpose. God revealed Himself so that we are ready to work.
  • 1 Timothy 3:15 says that the universal church, not you as an individual, are the pillar of truth. So what we know about God is defended by the universal church as a whole over these thousands of years.

Do you know God as He is? Are your beliefs in accord with Scripture and what the church has held onto for two thousand years? As a member of the “pillar of truth”, how can you grow in the knowledge of Him?