Question:
I am greatly interested to understand the Godhead. I understand from scriptures that God (the father) raised Jesus from the dead yet Jesus in John 2:19 said 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up'. How do we interpret this saying, and still believe that Jesus is a separate God from God the father?
Answer:
The Father and the Son are not separate. In John 10, Jesus said, "I and My Father are one". The doctrine of the Trinity is not that Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit are three separate individuals. The Bible says that God has raised Him from the dead. Jesus said "I have the power to lay down My life and I have the power to take it up again". These two agree. Jesus is fully God. Colossians 2:9 says that in Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 1 Timothy 3 says:
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.
You can't separate Jesus from God; you can't separate the Father from God;
you can't separate the Holy Spirit from God. Jesus is fully God but He is not
the Father. The Father is fully God but He is not the Son.
People struggle with understanding the Trinity because people struggle to
understand God. You will never fully understand God. The only people who fully
understand their god are those who worship false gods. We can understand certain
attributes of God and we can look at the things that God has revealed about
Himself, but that does not mean that your finite mind will every grasp the
concept of an infinite God. Jesus said, "I and My Father are One". This is
similar to God's proclamation in Isaiah 44: 6 " Thus says the LORD, the King of
Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last;
Besides Me there is no God.
The LORD and his Redeemer said, " I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me
there is no God." In the Old Testament, God declared that He is Jehovah and
sends Jehovah our Redeemer while also maintaining that He alone is the only God.
In the New Testament, Jesus fulfilled this and is able to make the same
declaration. "I lay down My life; I have the power to take it up again" and
follows this by saying, God has raised Him from the dead. The same distinction
and unity claimed in the New Testament is no different than the distinction and
unity God described about Himself in the Old Testament. The Old Testament saints
probably struggled more with these passages than we do today.
The issue is not whether we fully understand or can fully grasp what God has
said. The issue is accepting what God has said by faith in spite of our human
intellectual limitations. God is not a man nor is there anything in creation
that can be compared to Him. Therefore we have nothing within our realm of
understanding to measure against God - nor is there anything anywhere that can
be measured against God. Because of this, we can't expect to look at our world
to understand the Trinity. We can only get a clouded glimpse from scripture,
believe what God has said, and wait for eternity. Even then we will never fully
know God, but we will at least see with our eyes what was taken by faith now.
Eddie Snipes
Exchanged Life Outreach
http://www.exchangedlife.com
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