From: E.C.
To: The Path of Truth
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 11:54 PM
Subject: My likely bad questions and misconceived notions.
Hello and greetings in Christ our Lord and savior! I happened upon your website today as I was researching Francis Chan. I honestly don’t know much about the man. In any case I spent a number of hours reading numerous things on your site and I find myself both delighted and also perplexed.
You don’t believe in the Trinity? I must confess it is one of the hardest things ever to try and explain to anyone and I see why you would rather just call it blasphemy…but I wonder if maybe it’s just miscommunication on mans part to properly explain the person of God. We see Him in scripture clearly as “God the Father, God the Son ,and God the Holy Spirit” yet we also know according to scripture that God is ONE…Jesus said “My Father and I are one”…yet He also said know one comes to the Father but through me…giving a clear picture of distinct separation. Also the Bible says that Jesus intercedes for us…does He intercede on our behalf to Himself? In the Shema or Deuteronomy we see the Lord is One…but then in John we see Jesus as the Word becoming flesh. He is the Word, the creating force in Genesis…but we see a clear picture of all three when He is baptized, Jesus the Son, God the father speaking from heaven and the Dove descending as the Holy Spirit.
I believe that God is one and three..all the same. God is Jesus, Jesus is God, God is the Holy spirit, the Holy Spirit is God…etc…but I also think He Himself made them each distinct so that we might better get to know Him…come to a better understanding of His character.
I always imagine it (and it may sound silly) but as if God were an apple…LOL I know…hold on and let me explain! 🙂 Okay so God is the complete apple…but if you cut the apple open then you see the flesh..Jesus, you see the seed which is the Holy Spirit and the skin which holds it all together…Father God!? That may have been the most ridiculous and childish thing you’ve ever heard…sorry…but like I said…it’s complicated and most likely completely wrong….just my pitiful attempt to even begin to understand the vastness of that which is my Creator.
You don’t believe in hell? I don’t know what to say to this. For a long time before I surrendered my life to God (in as much as I can do anything to save myself) one of the biggest arguments against God and His people that I had was this very thing…I would often say “How can sending your creation to burn in hell for all eternity be good or loving…also how can that be a fair punishment for them not placing their faith or trust in You?” Honestly this is still something I struggle with. I have heard it explained a few times one of which is that the Bible describes hell in a couple different ways…one of those being simply the absence of God…it is then assumed that when someone is given the choice to acknowledge Jesus as Lord or not to…that if they choose the latter then hell is simply a continuation of that which they chose in life…they refused to walk in His presence in life He refuses to be in their presence thereafter. (We know God is in fact everywhere…and that there is no place we can go to escape Him…but He can choose to withhold Himself from us.) Then the other idea of the lake of fire, the pit of despair where their will be weeping and gnashing of teeth…I shutter at the mere thought of anyone spending even a moment in that place, yet I know that many will be there, Jesus says so several times.
You don’t believe that God gave man free will? Did we have free will to start and then Adam and Eve ruined it by choosing “freely” to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? I mean I know that Eve was “deceived” but Adam ate by choice.
I know that faith is a gift from God but I also believed to some degree that we ourselves had to seek to know Him? I also know that He does not desire that any would be lost…so then do you believe that in God’s perfect timing all mankind will be saved? If God is the only one who can save us than how are we to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?
Please understand that I mean no disrespect and that I am in earnest when I tell you that I sincerely and wholehearted desire to know my savior more deeply…to walk with Him and love Him as completely as is humanly possible and I want with all my heart to obey Him and follow Him in everything that I do, think, and say. I do not believe that God’s word is contradictory. I trust that if their is something in it that I do not understand the fault is likely in me…
I thank you for your time and patience.
With love in Him,
E.C.
From: Paul Cohen and Victor Hafichuk
To: E.C.
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2016 7:39 AM
Subject: Re: My likely bad questions and misconceived notions.
“I believe that God is one and three..all the same. God is Jesus, Jesus is God, God is the Holy spirit, the Holy Spirit is God…etc…but I also think He Himself made them each distinct so that we might better get to know Him.”
Who are you referring to by “He” – the God you say made each God distinct? Is it this God spoken of in the Scriptures?
“All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3 KJV).
“For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17 MKJV).
So if God creates all things by His Son, Who created the Son? The Son always was God.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 MKJV).
“To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 1:25 ESV).
You’re right, though, E.C. – your attempts to explain and understand God are completely wrong, and much worse than pitiful, they’re arrogant. The finite carnal creature presuming to explain his Omnipotent and Sovereign Creator. Can flesh master the Spirit?
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9 MKJV).
You’re right that we don’t “believe in hell,” that is, according to man’s definition as a final and irrevocable place of torment after physical life. That definition is a complete alteration and perversion of what the Scriptures actually teach. Read:
The State and Fate of Hell
The Great Promise of the Lake of Fire and the Second Death
The True, Scriptural Meanings of “Forever,” “Everlasting,” and “Hell”
Above all, E.C., seek the Lord for His will and the faith to walk in it. Your knowledge is taking you in the opposite direction. Only those who obey the Lord will know Him and understand the things hidden from your eyes.
“But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes” (1 Corinthians 8:3).
Paul and Victor
www.ThePathofTruth.com
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