Being Faithful to Scripture, the Incarnation, our Trinitarian God, and ourselves

When Jesus came to earth over 2000 years ago God chose to live through our perspective -- the crown jewel of evolutionary processes -- to share His perspective. It is not insignificant that the Apostle Paul had the clearest ideas of what the Incarnation actually meant. 2000 years later, and countless heresies later, we are still fumbling the meaning of God's Word in text (Scripture), in flesh (Jesus) and in Fellowship (what we call the Trinity):

1) Scripture. Peter Enns, who stresses the Incarnational view of Scripture, writes, "In fact, the very nature of “inspiration” means that God’s word must be fully clothed in the human speech of the time. Any other sort of Bible is actually inconceivable. When God speaks, he necessarily and willingly condescends to the human level. He did this with Jesus, and we should not be surprised if the Bible reflects the same divine pattern of communication."

This, to me, is the most reasonable light to view Scripture in. Many over the years have held this view, and it is one that beautifully pulls Paul's understanding of the human Jesus (especially outlined in Philippians) and the meaning of the Christmas and Easter miracles.

2) Incarnation and 3)Trinity. From the Oparadox http://theoparadox.blogspot.com/, Here is a reprint of pages 134 and 135 of A.A. Hodge's "Evangelical Theology: Lectures on Doctrine", grasping what the incarnation and the Trinity mean:

"There is one obvious respect in which the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ agree, and one in which they no less obviously differ. They agree in that both alike utterly transcend all experience, all analogy, and all adequate grasp of human reason. But they differ in that, while the mystery of the Trinity is that one Spirit should exist eternally as three distinct Persons, the mystery of the person of Christ is that two distinct spirits should for evermore constitute but one Person. If you give due attention to the difficulties involved in each of these divinely revealed doctrines, you would be able a priori to anticipate all possible heresies which have been evolved in the course of history. All truth is catholic [i.e. universal or comprehensive]; it embraces many elements, wide horizons, and therefore involves endless difficulties and apparent inconsistencies. The mind of man seeks for unity, and tends prematurely to force a unity in the sphere of his imperfect knowledge by sacrificing one element of the truth or other to the rest. This is eminently true of all rationalists. They are clear and logical at the expense of being superficial and half-orbed. Heresy . . . means an act of choice, and hence division, the picking and choosing a part, instead of comprehensively embracing the whole of the truth. Almost all heresies are partial truths - true in what they affirm, but false in what they deny." (pp. 190-191).

I hold a high view of Scripture, believe that the facts of Christmas and Easter are absolutely historically secure (the last 100 years of archaeology has sealed the deal, so to speak), believe in the reality of Hell and eternal existence of what we call "souls", and hold to the Doctrine of the Trinity (our daughter is named Trinity, after all). I feel like I take God at His Word, although I feel like we have been gifted more historical evidence that Christians in the past (again, because of revelations modern sciences have afforded us). Lastly, I feel that the most faithful understanding of God's communications to us (Father, Son and Spirit) is by having the reality of our smallness and our finiteness transcend our understanding of His Word, His World, His Spirit, and our Savior. This isn't liberalism -- this is rational humility. This isn't pluralism -- God calls all to His table.

But beyond these Spiritual things, a greater understanding of the way God has and does communicate and relate to us should change our understanding and perspective of how we view everything in our life experiences. For instance, If our understanding of Him speaking the universe into existence and breathing life into humans and other animals continues to change, then we should not only be okay with that, we should both expect it and embrace it. If our understanding of what Jesus' limited atonement means to others whom have lived since the first human with God's Imago Dei, then we should embrace it. If our understanding of the possibility or likelihood of life on other planets (or in other universes) continues to change, then we need to embrace this. If our understanding of Jesus' limited atonement changes for us as we live in our generation of post-modernism, and our understanding on how God is speaking to us -- and others -- changes, we need to embrace it. In other words, if we don't continuously keep our ears to the ground, we will never understand how God is speaking to us in our special time on Earth. Jesus insisted those whom put their hand on the plow could not look back. Why are we always looking back to be informed, instead of looking around?

We can never be faithful to Scripture, the Incarnation and God's Essence if we are not faithful to our minds , body and spirit. Allowing God's communication to us as humans in our past is both relevant and critical to informing us on how He is communicating with us now. It wasn't just folks around Egypt and Mesopotamia that were exercising their calls to God through creation myths, flood myths and Savior myths. It was people all over the globe, people from the start of man to now that could not, and can not, scratch the itch of a Creator and a Law that is etched into their hearts. God was calling man to Christ before us. We can always know that God is calling us through Christ, to Christ. And we should know that He will continue to call men to Christ when we are long gone from this planet. Jesus was unrecognizable to some Jews whom had the words of the Prophets at their fingertips. Why?

Well, we know self-pride and rebellion, which have kept most from God through history, is a reason. But the other reason was Christ was not whom many Jews expected, because Christ spoke to the Jews differently then the God who Created them and led them on their sojourn had. But it is of course God and Christ that is immutable. Of course, the Jews that did understand this started a revolution -- led by Peter and Paul -- that has served as the ultimate vessel back to God -- Christianity.

As we make our proverbial sojourn in this vessel back to God, we must not miss how God is talking to us differently today. When we reflect on our smallness, and allow echoes of God speak to us, inform us, and lead us, we will find the message of God may be the same since the story of the garden of Eden was passed on to the Jews, but we are in dire straits of missing it if we don't understand the language is much, much different.

Jesus Christ, the testable.

"Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, italics mine).

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 38:4).

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13).

A friend of mine received one of the most painstaking pieces of news a scientist could get this week. "Did you hear?" he asked as he came running over. "We got scooped!"

Getting "scooped" by another laboratory is bad news. Simply meaning, another group published their study before you got the chance to. For my friend, it means his ability to get a professorship is mitigated. It will probably take another year or two for him now. For scientists, funding and viability are at risk when you get scooped. It's awful.

But there is a silver lining to getting scooped. It means another laboratory, in a completely independent set of experiments, have produced very similar data to yours and have thus made similar conclusions. For other scientists not involved in that work, this bodes very well for the fidelity of the data. In other words, the data is probably true if two labs independently of each other have come to the same conclusions.

The truth of God's word makes it clear Jesus offers the same corroboration. Man's history has been full of faithful saints, showing the evidence of Jesus Christ through their changed hearts and lives. Taste and see. Come to me. Pursue me. Trust me.

There is something about the character of God -- and the character of humans -- that provokes God to only bring those to eternal rest with Him that have sought Him. God restrains from writing "I AM" in the sky for all to see. God restrains from removing lies from the lips of men, poverty from the hands of children, evil from the existence of the world. Whatever the reasons are, God still allows man to find Him if they desire. The whole existential purpose of the universe rests on this fact. It is only those that seek Him that will find Him.

And thus, Jesus Christ is testable. When we call on the name of the Lord, when we seek Him with all our hearts, He shows Himself. Forget Mathematics. Newtonian Physics. Darwinian Evolution. This is the ultimate law of the Universe.

And here we stand, on a planet in a universe that offers most of us just enough days to have the chance to seek Him if we choose. Moses sought God, and found Jesus Christ. David sought God, and found Jesus Christ. Ancient people, emerging as bipedalists from our ancestors, had the chance to find Jesus Christ and test Him. People today, with the full revelation of Jesus Christ present in every Western Hemisphere Hilton Hotel nightstand drawer, have the same chance to seek Christ and test Him.

There are two laboratories in the world that now can link a particular enzyme with a signaling receptor in human cells. This hypothesis has been tested, and found to be true. This is considered corroboration in the scientific realm.

There are millions upon millions of people that have sought God and found Him in the person of Jesus Christ, over the past couple hundred thousand years. This is corroboration in the Spiritual realm. God is forever faithful and immutable. He offers us the same chance always to test Jesus Christ. Matthew records Jesus promising "Ask and you shall receive." "Seek, and you shall find."

This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Creator of the Universe calls out to us and has provided us with the miracle of physical life, and the miracle of cause and effect. He is the first Cause, but He has given us all freedom to respond or to hide in selfishness and lust. To test Him, or to succumb to distraction and our survival of the fittest mind.

There is no more pathetic excuse than one we often hear as evangelists. Where is the proof? Why doesn't God just appear to me and then I will believe? How can i believe in a God who I cannot see, cannot communicate with, cannot test to see if He exists?

You, and I, can. Millions who will spend an eternity of joy with Jesus Christ have. Those who want to trade their selfishness with meaning and their aging and dying bodies with eternal vessels of hope and love, can do what man since the beginning could do. With an extension of the finger, we can touch the hole in Jesus' hand and be overwhelmed, speechless, seeing truth for once in our lives. And pull back and join St. Thomas, and the millions of humans that have re-discovered their identities, and discovered for the first time the purpose of life, in emphatic declaration of the truth of the Universe. "My Lord and My God"!

Will humans evolve further?

Like in every generation in the past 2000 years, we (including myself) have a fascination with echatological matters. Despite the numerous apocalyptical texts (with of course John's considered Biblical), and the numerous references Jesus Himself made, it is still Paul's understanding of the end times that is perhaps the most discussed. It is not uninteresting that Paul's letters include descriptions that have palpable tension within itself. Most theologians agree Paul drew on his understanding of end times from the Jewish texts he was familiar with as the outstanding Jew he was. However removed eschatology can seem to our everyday lives, Paul had to deal with early church communities who contained people who were literally quitting their jobs in anticipation of Jesus' imminent return.

Fast forward 2000 years later. A literal return of Jesus has still not occurred. If we try to ignore the path of self-destruction humans seem to be on, it is an interesting question whether so much time will pass that humans will literally evolve to a more sophisticated being, before the end of humanity.

I haven't fully grasped the theological implications that go along with this question, but this is a much less science-fiction question than what is often discussed now, that is, the theological implications if we find complex life on another planet.

My knee-jerk reaction is it doesn't really matter that much if we actually evolve further, but much more relevant is would evolution contain some sort of move to a higher love state than what humans are capable now? This would seem likely to me, since we would expect to evolve to be more Christ-like, more like God.

I would be interested to here from others on this topic, because it is a point that I think should be discussed more than it is now.