Thinking Theologically
About Knowing God
Life with the Triune God
the Bible gives us confidence that God reveals himself to us
For this reason, based on the authority of the Bible we can actually make statements about God that are:
- True
- Accurate and coherent
- Have amazing implications for our lives
Watch the following video as Nikolas explains how trusting what God says about himself leads to a vision for life that is profound and meaningful.
^ Shortcode ^
The Christian gospel reveals that God initiates and humanity responds to this revelation
The good news is that God shows himself to be a personal God who wants a relationship with people. This means that learning more about God leads to a deeper love of God. As Nikolas says in the video, “Good lovers are students of the things or people that they love.”
ACOP Core Belief
"We believe in One True Living God, revealed in the Bible as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is the source of life and being. He reveals himself relationally to be holy, good, loving and faithful. He is transcendent—above and other than creation--yet also immanent—active and present to his creation. God lacks nothing and is, in himself, a perfect community of self-giving love. ACOP denies both tritheism, “a distorted belief in three different Gods” and modalism, a trinitarian heresy that does not view the Father, Son and Spirit as ‘persons in relation’ but merely as three modes of the one divine person of God. We affirm the historic Christian confession of the Trinity."
Test Yourself
Answer
Talk it Through
-
1.3 – Reflections on the Trinity
Respond in paragraph format to the following questions:
- How does the doctrine of the trinity reveal God’s love to us?
- If God has relationship and community within himself, how important is it that we as his followers engage in loving relationship with the people around us?
-
5 Replies
-
The fact that God has made himself available to us in so many ways speaks for itself. God cares about and loves as so much that he has made it so that every fiber of our being has a way to connect with him. In the Father, we have a figure who has adopted us into his family and given us everything that would be given to his own children. In the Son, we are given the perfect example of what it is to love God and follow him on a human level. In the Spirit, we have the promise of things to come and just a tiny taste of what being with God for eternity will be like. There is so much more to this, but this is the best I can do to summarize my thoughts on it.
It’s incredibly important that we engage in loving relationships with those around us. It’s a huge part of our call as Christians. Ephesians 5:1 tells us that we are to be imitators of God. If God is living in perfect relationship, then we need to strive for that as well. The best part is that we’re not just left to figure it out for ourselves! Paul gives us a lot of good tips on how to do it following those statements in Ephesians. We aren’t only supposed to do it, but we’re also given an idea of what it looks like.
-
Brian, it was wonderful how you reflect on the way that each person of the trinity gives us different avenues to know God. It reminds me of the quote: “Jesus is God spelling Himself out in a language that people can understand.”
-
Good summary, Brian. I think your descriptions would be a good way to explore/explain the doctrine of the Trinity, especially with new believers or youth/young adults.
-
-
1. God loves us, because he is love. God is the triune God, 3 in 1 – Father, Son & Holy Spirit. To experience love, there needs to be someone to love. God, in the beginning and time of creation was love because all 3 were there in unity together. Unity is a togetherness and joining together, love. God is our Creator of all, including emotions. For us to experience love, is from God the Father.
2. We are the hands of feet of Jesus. For people to experience and to hear about Gods true love, we need to show it to others. It is very important. We need to do life together with others. God is love, he is community within the trinity and it’s naturally in our DNA. We need to live out community and love one another.
-
The doctrine of the Trinity creates the ultimate connection to God. As a Christ follower, It goes back to the fall when Sin entered the world. When sin entered separation happened. Because of that separation we could no longer connect with God on the full level he intended. But because God is triune, he had plans to restore that connection because of his love for us. God sent Jesus his son to die on the cross, so that the Holy Spirit could come & live in us. Because of the trinity our connection with God has been restored. We ask Jesus into our heart, The Holy Spirit enters our life, and that is how we can create our own relationship with God. God restoring our connection to him after we fail(ed) through the Trinity is the greatest act of love.
<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”> Because God is Triune we can see him through Jesus and feel him through the Holy Spirit. If our lives fully align with God and what we can see through Jesus in the Bible then it is a greatest goal to engage in loving </font>relationships<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”> with the people around us. It is through us that people can see the goodness of God. </font>
Log in to reply.