Featured Do our systems of thought teach that Jesus is really the One True God?

We all agree that Jesus is God, but at the same time it seems that we sometimes deal with Jesus as divorced from God. Sometimes it appears that we substitute “the Father” for “God” (both in the Old Testament testimony about God and the New Testament work of God). What I am looking at is a dichotomy and what I am wondering is whether it is forced or natural to the biblical text.

In Romans Paul looks back and explains that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. Often it seems some would change the passage to read the wrath of the Father. Does Jesus have this same wrath?

Paul also speaks of the day of wrath and God’s righteous judgment being exercised on the wicked. Is this Jesus’ judgment?

John speaks of God’s wrath being poured full strength into the cup of his anger. Is this cup of anger descriptive of Jesus?

Habakkuk appeals to God’s nature by saying he has eyes that “are too pure to look on evil”. Does Jesus have eyes that “are too pure to look on evil”?

Conversely, is what we know of Jesus’ nature true of God? Is it true of the Father’s nature?

 

I agree.

 

But the nature is the same. It is God's wrath we would face (Jesus' wrath), correct?

 

Before the cross didn't Jesus explain that the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son? Or is that wrong?

If God has to have his wrath appeased, why wouldn't Jesus also have to have someone appease his wrath? Is Jesus less God...or did he set aside his righteousness?

 

No. I am not. I am speaking of God's nature. If God has to have his wrath appeased based on his holiness then Jesus (if Jesus is God) would also have his wrath appeased.

A role is different. Jesus set aside glory but this does not make him ontologically different from God. His nature is the same.

 

Do you believe it is correct to look at the Son on the cross and see the Father? Or do you believe it more accurate to see the Son bearing our sins and the Father forsaking him?

Do you believe that we can form an accurate picture of God without that picture be of Christ?

Do you believe that all pictures and ideas of God except those centered in Christ are false?

 

I agree that we have to be careful not to play “good cop - bad cop” (and this has been done in the past).

When we look at the intersection between God and man in the Old Testament I believe we are looking at activities of God’s Word (i.e., the Word….or Son….pre-incarnate).

The reason I believe this are several.

First (and perhaps foremost) Creation was created through and for the Word. Through the Word nothing exists. Nothing has being. The world was created by and for Jesus.

Second, we learn in the New Testament that one can only know the Father through the Son. This is not that the Son is somehow a mode to get to the Father but rather that the Son is an “exact representation of the Father” and that in him the fullness of God dwells bodily. I believe that there is an immutability of God. The God of the Old Testament is the exact same God revealed in Christ.

Third, I believe that in Christ we have the complete revelation of God Himself. There is nothing that can be known of God that is not revealed in Christ. When we see Jesus we see all there is to see of God. We are, however, limited by our human condition. We cannot know all there is to know of God, but that does not mean all that can be known has not been revealed.

So when I read God described in the Old Testament I can be assured that this is descriptive of the Son. In Exodus I believe that it was God who we see in the Logos that is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. And I believe it is God who is revealed in the Word who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

I do not see the passage as speaking about the Father any more than about the Son in that action (in that interaction with Moses).

Where we may disagree is that I do not believe that Scripture presents Jesus as having the same kind of wrath, love, etc. as God (or as the Father), but instead that the exact wrath, love, etc. spoken of in scripture belongs to Christ.

To use your illustration, I don’t believe we are looking at two “cops” but One God. I see Moses as speaking of the God who is revealed in Christ.

(Sorry for the length, and I hope it helps understand my position).