Volume 1 Number 2 – Series: Studies in Fundamental Beliefs
Dear Readers,
It has been encouraging with the first issue of SALT to have feedback from readers. It has also been encouraging to have so many articles sent to be published. Some have stated that we have not set publishing dates. We have done this to be flexible. We intend to publish four issues a year and these are to coincide with the seasons. As we are all volunteer workers on this project sometimes our workload becomes heavy. So if it is not published on a specific day but within the periods of spring, summer, autumn and winter, it gives us, the publishers, and you the authors, time to be on time. However, so that you have some boundaries, try to have articles in by January-April-July-October. Also write articles within the 2 page size, as we have received some good material but just too large for the magazine. We would also ask that you try to keep your subject to the last issue subjects or the next issue subjects as we have received articles that we may only be able to publish later as they were not relevant to the present studies.
We are a people who are varied in our beliefs but are able to grow together as does a garden with the many varieties of flowers and shrubs. In all our growth it is the Holy Bible with the Holy Spirit as our guide and teacher which brings us all to a knowledge of truth. God is searching for a people who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. The two are inseparable. Let us as a people try to worship our God in Spirit and in Truth. I see this magazine as another channel of SDB's to help one another in our search for Truth.
Since becoming a Christian in 1987 and making a covenant with God and my local Seventh Day Baptist Church in Auckland my wife and I have met many wonderful Christians in the Seventh Day Baptist world family. My whole understanding of what we stand for is The Holy Bible and to whom it points - Jesus Christ. SALT is a magazine that is not aimed at Seminary debate but at what the Bible says and how this has impacted on people.
May our God continue to bless us with a love of Truth.
Pastor Ian Ingoe
President's Piece
An Introduction to the Problem of God
Yes, as strange as it may seem the Christian concept of God is a problem.
It is not just a theological dilemma. It is an obstruction to the evangelisation
of both Jew and Muslim who share our traditional Hebrew roots. The problem
is that the revelation of God given through Moses was basically monotheistic
(i.e. belief in one God). That one God is portrayed in the Old Testament
Scriptures as a single personal being.
(Isa 43:10-11 NKJV) "You are My witnesses," says the LORD, "And
My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand
that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after
Me. {11} I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior.
Isa 44:6 NKJV) "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.
(Isa 44:8 NKJV) Do not fear, nor be afraid; Have I not told you from that
time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me?
Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.'"
According to the Scriptures, when Jesus Christ was born, lived, died and
rose from the dead he was declared to be the Son of God. Just before his
birth an angel told Mary, (Luke 1:35) "The Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore,
also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. At
his baptism the voice from heaven announced, (Mat 3:17) "This is
My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then on the mount of
the Transfiguration the voice again said (Mat 17:5) "This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" And the message of the
Apostles was principally that they proclaimed as witnesses that Jesus
Christ was the Son of God.
(Acts 9:19-20) “... Then Saul spent some days with the disciples
at Damascus. {20} Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues,
that He is the Son of God.” The grounds of Paul's belief is stated
in his letter to the Romans, chapter 1 verse 4, “and declared to
be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead.” That Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ
and the Son of God is the explicit teaching of the New Testament.
Paul's theology made some significant contributions to our understanding
of what it means to be the 'Son of God'. On Paul's theology of God, Donald
Guthrie writes, “Indeed he maintains his monotheism (Gal 3:20; 1
Cor 8:4,6; cf. 1 Tim 2:5) …. On the other side God's unity is understood
in a way that makes room for the place of Jesus Christ as the “form”
(Phil 2:6) or the “image” (2 Cor 4:4-6; Col 1:15) …”
1
Note Paul's definitive statement on the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God.
(Col 1:15-20 NKJV) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
over all creation. {16} For by Him all things were created that are in
heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through
Him and for Him. {17} And He is before all things, and in Him all things
consist. {18} And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
{19} For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
{20} and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things
on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His
cross.
Paul boldly assigns to the pre-existent Christ the role of Creator; a
work that had previously identified the God of Israel. In 1 Cor 10:4,
he equates Christ with “that spiritual Rock” that followed the
Children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings. However, Paul never
collapses Father and Son into a single identity.
(1 Cor 8:6) “yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are
all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are
all things, and through whom we live.”
(Gal 3:20) “Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God
is one.”
(1 Tim 2:5) “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and
men, the Man Christ Jesus,”
The writer of Hebrews expressed the relationship in these words,
(Heb 1:1-6) God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time
past to the fathers by the prophets, {2} has in these last days spoken
to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom
also He made the worlds; {3} who being the brightness of His glory and
the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word
of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the
right hand of the Majesty on high, {4} having become so much better than
the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than
they. {5} For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My
Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him
a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? {6} But when He again brings
the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God
worship Him."
The Gospel of John goes further than the epistles of Paul in melding the
Father and Son together in a concept of one Godhead. John writes,
(John 1:1-3) In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word
(logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was God. {2}
He was in the beginning with God. {3} All things were made through Him,
and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Understanding how it works out that the logos was with God
and also was God is difficult to say the least. In verse 14 John
goes on to explain that, “… the Word (logos) became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Theological Solutions
It was against the background of these Scriptures that controversies
arose in the third and fourth centuries. The Greeks entertained the popular
Hellenistic concept that matter is inherently evil. Hence it was difficult
for them and for the Gnostics to accept that a pure and righteous God
could be the Creator of matter. The prominent heretic Marcion (2nd
century) had already promoted a discontinuity between the God of the Jews
(as per OT Scriptures) and the God of Christianity, the Father, whom Jesus
came to reveal. What arose at that time out of the confrontation between
biblical religion and Greek philosophy was a number of theories of the
Godhead. Sabellianism, (3rd century) for example, fully accepted
Christ as God and explained the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three
consecutive manifestations of the one divine being. Arius (4th
century) held that as the Son was begotten of the Father he must have
had a beginning of existence. In Arianism Jesus Christ is never exalted
to the status of equality with God but remains the Son of God.
Political Influences
After a period of bitter persecution, when church leaders from all
over the Roman Empire met together by order of the Emperor Constantine
at the Council of Nicea 325AD, it was evident that there was significant
doctrinal diversity on the issue of the Godhead. Constantine insisted
on uniformity of doctrine and practice and as a result the Council was
directed to formulate a statement of its official dogma. Arius and his
followers lost the debate; hence the result was a creedal statement that
negated all the major tenets of Arianism. This position of opposition
to the distinctives of Arianism formed the basis upon which the concept
of a Trinity developed in the ensuing centuries.
Modern Theology
Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Christendom's most eminent theologians
(The Cappadocian Fathers, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin etc.) to explain
its technicalities, the doctrine of the trinity remains an unresolvable
and unexplainable mystery. It is unexplainable because it attempts to
accept two mutually exclusive premises. That God is both one and three.
A basic problem is that there are at least two major factors in play:
the unity versus the plurality of God, and the concept of Christ as God
or of Christ as a created being. The resultant theological theories fall
into at least four categories - as illustrated in the diagram below…….
David Hill B.Min.(Th) B.Th
Bro. David Hill is President of the Australasian Conference of Seventh
Day Baptists and member of the Auckland SDB Church.
1. D. Guthrie and R.P Martin, 'God' in Dictionary of Paul and his
Letters. Edited by Gerald Hawthorne et. al. Downers Grove, Illinois-
Intervarsity Press, 1993.