Jesus came into the world to announce the Father - that is to make Him known. He simply declares the fact that people who do not trust in His oneness with the Father are blind to the reality of God the Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus does not withhold knowledge of the Father as some think. We rely on a perfect, holy mediator between us and a holy God. Yet, this verse establishes that only through the Son can people come to know the Father. They excoriate us for insisting that Jesus represents the only way to salvation or to communion with God. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Some critics of the Christian faith point to these words of Jesus and cry foul. Jesus expounds upon this unity and its role in salvation in John 14:6 when He says, “ I am the way and the truth and the life. 17).Ĭhrist Incarnate and the Work of Salvation Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.”( The Creed of Athanasius in Concordia: The Lutheran Confession, A Readers Edition of the Book of Concord, p. The Athanasian Creed testifies to this doctrine of the Trinity, “ And in this Trinity none is before or after another none is greater or less than another but the whole three persons are coeternal with each other and coequal so that in all things…the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshiped. However, the Trinity exists as indivisible, with all Three Persons equal. We, like Philip, tend to think of the Trinity as a hierarchy, with the Father as the greatest, then the Son and then the Spirit. It was to correct such a notion that it was said, He that sees me, sees the Father also” (Augustine, The Tractates on the Gospel of John, loc. “ For it was with the idea, as if the Father were somehow better than the Son, that Philip had the desire to know the Father: and so he did not even know the Son, because believing that he was inferior to another. Philip misses the point of Jesus’ words, of His equality within the Godhead. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves” ( John 14:9-11). How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. When Philip presses Jesus to “ show us the Father and it is enough for us” ( John 14:8), Jesus chides him, “ Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Jesus attests to this unity unequivocally when he proclaims, “I and the Father are one” ( John 10:30). The harmony in which the Three Persons exists cannot be grasped in human terms. However, when we do so, we deny the nature of God as revealed in Scripture and venture far from the truth. We want to categorize and to manage the Trinity according to human schemes. We attempt to arrange the three persons within the Godhead, assigning greater importance to the role or work of one person over the other. We apply logic and attempt to divide the indivisible. Speculating about the Oneness of God twists human reason into knots. Thomas Oden writes, “ God’s unity is not a unity of separable parts but of distinguishable persons” ( Systematic Theology, Volume One: The Living God 215). Christians worship the Three Persons as One God and the One God as Three Persons. The mystery of the Trinity proves impossible for the finite human mind to fully fathom. That the Holy Spirit is very God, equal with the Father and the Son” ( On the Trinity, Loc 562). All things are not from the Father alone, but also from the Son. Not only the Father but the Trinity is affirmed to be immortal. Augustine characterized this unity using the term “substance,” “ That the Son is Very God of the same substance with the Father. We cannot describe this union in concrete terms. They think and act in perfect harmony without separation. They move in perfect accord in thought, will, work, and purpose. Let’s try to imagine how close the Trinity is: There’s no time or space between or among them. We cannot discuss the two without acknowledging the third person. Before we examine how the Son relates to the Father, we must consider the doctrine of the Trinity, the Three Persons of the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. Since Scripture does not separate the Father and Son from the Spirit, we must tread carefully. The Nature of the Trinity and Our Veiled Understanding
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