In the Nicene Creed we read:
● We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible.
● We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father; through him, all things were made.
Before I expound on this it is important to know who I am addressing. Well, first of all, I must address myself. I am not immune to any of this and every one of us, including myself, is off to some degree in the process of sanctification. There have been many instances in my walk with the Lord where I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart and made the Lord smaller in the process. Thankfully the Lord will have none of it. Having said that, it also isn’t that there are individual people I’m secretly referencing although my memory holds many conversations. Its not even errant churches that I’m speaking of, although I easily could. It is more of a composite of the stark contrast between the several years I spent worshiping and studying the Tanakh-Old Testament, and Brit Chadasha-New Testament with Jews who follow Yeshua as their promised Messiah compared with many conversations over the last twenty-five years within Christian circles, across denominations including laymen and women, elders, deacons, pastors, missionaries, and seminary professors. It is pervasive that our belief of this oneness is out of balance. This imbalance can be found in Christian thought, Christian dialogue, Christian theology, Christian sermons, Christian books, Christian music, Christian seminaries, etc. So I suppose I’m writing to everyone in the Modern Western Church, including myself. Also, nothing I am writing is groundbreaking. There is nothing new under the sun. If anything it is an echo of the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was very concerned about discipleship being neglected. I also think of the Apostle Paul’s words about desiring to feed believers the strong meat of scripture and not just milk.
The Nicene Creed and the canon of scripture teach that God is one. The God of Israel is a triune God consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is so familiar to us that we can easily stop seeing it in its entirety. This is largely because over time we have consistently chosen a polar end of Biblical paradoxes choosing the end which is most comfortable and palatable on the surface. We think we must be able to categorize and explain everything. Think about that for a second. The scriptures themselves warn us to not be wise in our own eyes and to lean not upon our own understanding. The scriptures also teach us: “There are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) It is pure hubris to believe that we can master divinity. I think in our time we must see that Jesus is not the kinder version of the God of the Tanakh. Jesus and the Father are one. This oneness means that while some profound changes were ushered in by the New Covenant, the God of the Tanakh did not change. There is a subtle shift in perception that has occurred over time. Subtle shifts over the arch of much time can make a large interval between points. Large intervals like this can be very dangerous. Think of a large ship adjusting course slightly and sailing from one continent to another. At first the adjustment may seem insignificant, but following the adjusted course will land the vessel far from the original and intended destination. Think of the small seemingly harmless foxes who urinate on the vines almost invisibly destroying them over time in Solomon’s writing: “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.” (Song of Solomon 2:15)
I. God is one:
Most if not all seasoned Christians if asked, would give the correct theological answer to the question: Are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit one God? So what am I stammering on about then? We have become experts in taking information into our brains and regurgitating it but relationally this oneness often is void in application and in our lives as a result. We have an easy time accepting that the God of the Tanakh is fully represented in the person of Jesus, and this is certainly true; hallelujah! However, this isn't a train of thought allowed only to travel in one direction: Old Testament God to Jesus. It is also Jesus to Old Testament God. This is how we hold many necessary paradoxes in balance such as the fact that our God is love (1 John 4:7-21), and our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). Consistently choosing to emphasize one end of several biblical paradoxes creates an unbiblical version of Jesus. This leads to many believers speaking and living as if Jesus and Avinu Melkeinu-Our Father (Isaiah ben Amoz 63:16), Our King (Isaiah ben Amoz 33:22) of the Old Testament are not truly one. This blinds us to the fact that the paradox of the Lord’s grace and his righteous judgment is found throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. We make much of the grace of God and little of his righteous judgment. This leads us to assume a casual posture toward our sin, smothering our fear of the Lord even though the fear of the Lord is found throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. We make much of Jesus’ extending mercy and grace to us and little of his scourging us in love. We like the forgiving Jesus but look away from him as he makes a whip of cords driving people out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. We ignore him as he pours out the coins of the money changers and overturns their tables. We make much of Jesus’ opening the way to salvation but ignore his destroying unbelievers. (Jude 1:5 ESV) We often make much of our ability through Jesus to: “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) God's people, on the other hand, are described in the New Testament as those who are "living in the fear of the Lord." (Acts 9:31)
The risen and ascended Christ poured out his Spirit upon his church, and, as we have seen from Isaiah's prophecy, the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Yet we often choose the easy end of these paradoxes. We say things like, “Every time we talk about Gods’ wrath we must talk about it in the context of his love.” I agree but we never hear any among us say, “Every time we talk about God’s love we must talk about it in the context of God’s wrath.” Now I’m not suggesting we swing to the opposite polar end and play Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God on a loop or begin preaching fire and brimstone like the street preachers we all loathe to hear. However, there is something to be said to stand and speak truth in love from the middle, shining the light on both ends of the paradoxes given to us. After all, Jesus is the eschatological judge who will say to some, “ I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:23) Jesus is also the one who said, “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear the One who, after you have been killed, has the authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5) The fear of the Lord is directly connected to our magnification of him in our lives. When we magnify the the Lord until all else shrinks down we have zero fear. So when we fear the Lord we are our most at peace. It is a peace that can be had in the midst of turmoil, grief, and pain. It is to be near to Him and when one draws near all else pales in comparison in our hearts which he fills to overflowing with peace and love, or in other words he fills our hearts to overflowing with Himself.
Many Christians believe that the God of the Bible would never send painful trials, temporal afflictions, or any suffering to them as a means of sanctification or discipline. I’ve heard many say something like, “A loving God would never do that to me.” We make little of the refiner’s fire (1 Peter 1:7) and this is the byproduct of a secular humanist age where we believe God must meet our moral standards, our minuscule definitions of love, justice, goodness, etc. We have become selective on which scriptures we accept even though Paul the Apostle wrote: “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) We are out of balance and warped because we constantly choose to preach and teach the easy end of the Biblical paradoxes that run through the Old Testament and the New Testament. We have public leaders like Andy Stanley in 2018 suggesting that Christian leaders consider un-hitching their ministries from the Old Testament. I suppose part of this is because we think people will be offended by its content. Now I know Andy’s idea received pushback, but still we’ve largely traded the fear of the Lord for the fear of man. I also see how we desire to feel as though we understand God and his methods, which is ridiculous. Trillions of years from now we will still be learning new things about the Immortal One who has no beginning or end. We can relationally, even intimately know the Ancient of Days, however, he will always be beyond our ability to understand and grasp in his entirety. This is good news though because if it weren't so we’d eventually run out of new revelation. He’d be larger than us yet finite, not who he claims to be (Psalm 29:10) (1Timothy 1:17), and well, we’d eventually be so bored we would despair. Eternity is a long time for nothing new. Not to mention having to sit forever in the reality that he lied about Himself. All too often we’ve traded a strong sovereign God for a weak one, the Lion of Judah for a sweet house cat. Even the conversion of Paul the Apostle (who wrote roughly half the New Testament) was one where he fell off his horse due to piercing light and was blinded for days. Paul went on as a church planter and missionary while being kidnapped (Acts 21:27), beaten (Acts 21:30-31; 23:3), threatened (Acts 22:22; 27:42), arrested many times (Acts 21:33; 22:24, 31; 23:35; 28:16), accused in lawsuits (Acts 21:34; 22:30; 24:1-2; 25:2, 7; 28:4), interrogated (Acts 25:24-27), ridiculed (Acts 26:24), ignored (Acts 27:11), shipwrecked (Acts 27:41) and bitten by a viper (Acts 28:3). Tradition says that Paul is eventually executed for his work, although this is not recounted anywhere in the Bible. Paul, knowing the Tanakh, attributes his sufferings as events where God is an active agent. “The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me,” (Acts 20:23) Choosing one end of a biblical paradox would be to rob oneself of the strong meat of scripture that gave Paul the endurance to suffer faithfully. Learning much of our God and how to delight in Him by way of magnification is a primary way to endure. How often do we use any of the hundreds of beautiful and meaningful names and titles of God found in scripture other than simply referring to him as either Jesus, Christ, Lord, or God? This problem has slowly grown over time. By the mid-2nd century CE, the church was dominated by leaders without any ethnic or communal ties to Israel or Judaism. The leaders were Gentile converts educated within the various schools of philosophy. In hindsight, they were named "the Church Fathers" for their contributions to Christianity, the most prolific writers being: Justin Martyr (Rome, 100-165 CE), Bishop Irenaeus (Lyon, 130-202 CE), and Bishop Tertullian (Carthage, 155-220 CE). However, the foundation of Judaism remained vitally important for the 2nd-century Church. The new Christian proclamations had to remain connected to the older ones. The Church Fathers continued to use the Tanakh for their explanations of Christianity. However, the movement to distance Jesus from the God of the Tanakh is also woven into time. Here is just one example: The oldest manuscript of Jude/Thaddeus 1:5 that we have is P72 dated to the 3rd/4th century, possibly one hundred years earlier than the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. P72 contains the rather strange reading-God Christ which faithful translations use the name Jesus.
“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”(Jude1:5ESV)
This is a direct quote from the ESV Study Bible:
“Jesus, then judged and destroyed those in Israel who escaped from Egypt but failed to keep trusting in God, and therefore they did not reach the Promised Land.” (Jude/Thaddeus 1:5) Instead of the name “Jesus,” some Greek manuscripts have ho Kyrios, “the Lord,” and some English translations follow that reading. Most of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts have lesous (“Jesus”).”
It is inscrutable to distance Jesus from his own words about himself as the God of the Old Testament. The God of Abraham revealed Himself to Moses with the statement, “I AM.” “Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them? ”God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14).
Jesus made seven I Am statements in the gospel of John communicating clearly that he and the Old Testament God are one:
1. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
2. “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12).
3. “I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:7-9).
4. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep…I am the good shepherd; and I know my sheep, and am known by My own.” (John 10:11, 14).
5. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25).
6. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
7. “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser… I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1-5).
The God of the Tanakh has not changed by sending His Son. The power of sin and death over his people has. This would be a good place to segway into what Jesus changed and what he did not.
II. What Jesus did and did not change:
The writers of the Old Testament would agree that it would be contrary to itself to appropriate Old Testament laws after the Messiah has come as though he had yet to come. Jesus does bring profound changes for humans. However, the God of the Old Testament is Jesus and he has never and will never change. There is no variability in him. Here are the ways Jesus brought change:
1. Christ died for believers’ sins, putting a permanent end to the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.” (Hebrews 7:27) Hallelujah! Jesus’ offering of his own blood removes the eternal power of death and sin from his people.
2. The new covenant in Jesus’ blood is poured out for all nations and peoples of the earth. (Luke 22:20) This is why the original twelve Jewish apostles were told to: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
3. Jesus teaches pre-Old Testament Mosaic law returning to God’s original plan in creation. He teaches that the law in some areas was a temporary compromise with man’s sin, “but in the beginning, it was not so.” For example, with the laws of divorce, he says the law permitting divorce was owing to “your hardness of heart.” (Mark 10:5) He then reaches back to Genesis 2:24 teaching that God made man and woman one flesh, that no one should separate this union (Mark 10:4–6).
4. Our posture towards the Mosaic law is altered. A critical portion of scripture amplifying this is Romans 7:4–6: “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another.” However, this doesn’t mean that commandments are nullified in the Christian’s walk because we also have 1 Corinthians 7:19: “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.” We also read: 1 John 5:3: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” It is complex but there are a few New Testament lenses to see the existing laws of God through. The first is love: Matthew 22:37–40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The second is sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel. 1 Timothy 1:8: “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” Then it gives a list of commandments and concludes, “and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:10). The third is to to reference what is rooted in the order of nature as God created it?
In all that Jesus changed it is important to see that nothing about God’s character or his person changed at all. Jesus is the God of the Old Testament as much as he is the God of the New Testament. In Revelations 13:8 we see that the crucifixion of Jesus was planned before the creation of Earth. “and all who dwell on Earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”
Our propensity to try and minimize God stems from a combination of our fallen human nature desiring to make God smaller and more manageable for the comfort of leaning on our own understanding, (Proverbs 3:5) and the ability (falsely) to fit him into the finite grid through which we see the world. This is the opposite of magnification; a path opposite to faith and trust. We can see this clearly in Matthew chapter five as Jesus famously preaches the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus continually says, “you have heard it said.” In other words, your earthly teachers have interpreted Torah in a way that makes God smaller by making God’s law softer and easier to follow. Jesus clearly did not say as he had many times before, “as it is written,” when he quoted Torah. After saying, “you have heard it said,” he blows up the small box of the earthly teachers by saying, “but I say unto you.” He then goes on to apply the law to the human heart, magnifying God and using the law as it was meant to be used: to show that God’s holiness can never be attained by man as seen in the impossibility of perfectly keeping the Mosaic law. This inclination of making the God of Israel smaller is also the result of pulling away from the teachings of the Old Testament. Many Christians are functionally illiterate when it comes to the Tanakh/Old Testament. This isn't surprising as the teaching emphasis has been on Yeshua/Jesus as the Logos and Telos; which is great! However, we are out of balance. While there is no doubt that the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood is new and improved; Jesus is not the new and improved God or the kinder version of the Old Testament God. Jesus is the Logos and the Telos, but Jesus himself said: “I and the Father are one.”(John 10:30) Rather surprisingly Jesus also said,” You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28) Now, the fact that the Son took on human flesh and made himself subservient to the Father’s will in no way denies the deity of the Son, nor does it diminish his essential equality with the Father. The “greatness” spoken of in this verse, then, relates to the role, not to the essence. Our King of glory, the LORD of hosts, Jesus in his wisdom, left us no viable biblical path to treat him as a newer, kinder version of the God of the Tanakh. This truth has many implications that are far-reaching and broad in scope to the discipleship of those who seek to follow him. The ways this one God deals with his people have not changed. He is allowed to send into our temporal lives the gift of temporal pain and suffering to refine us, to humble, deepen, and grow our faith in his love and his power.
We have an easier time accepting that the God of the Tanakh is fully represented in the person of Jesus. This is certainly true; Hallelujah! However, this isn't a train of thought only allowed to move in one direction: Old Testament God to Jesus. It is also Jesus to Old Testament God. This is how we hold many necessary paradoxes in balance such as the fact that our God is love (1 John 4:7-21), and our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). In fact, my writing is nothing new as many New Testament passages teach us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God of the Tanakh (Colossians 1:15). There are difficult passages full of very strong words, especially coming from the Prince of Peace as outlined by Isaiah ben Amoz: “For to us a child is born, to us, a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6) It is also difficult to digest scripture penned by one of Jesus’ chosen twelve apostles like Thaddeus/Jude who pens in the New Testament: “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Or Jesus saying: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) This is a good segue. I want anyone who is reading this to know that my motive in writing it is not to paint Jesus as tyrannical or unloving; quite the contrary. I simply want to point out that our conception of his love and power is anemic. Also, I will continue to write about the human impulse to make the God of Israel smaller. We can do this without being cognizant of it. If the verse about Jesus, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace destroying unbelievers makes you want to recoil then you are not alone. Please continue to read as the result of holding both ends of biblical paradoxes and digesting the strong meat of scripture is what aids us in enduring the wilderness.
III. The spiritual danger of all milk-no meat
There is a reason the Apostle Paul wrote about his desire to feed Christians the strong meat of scripture and not just milk; in a word, it was for maturity. Milk will not be enough to sustain us in the wilderness that is present or the one that is coming. The wilderness is where we learn to be honest. We will need the strong meat of biblical teaching to endure individually and collectively. Our falsely one-sided views of God’s oneness and the false idea of God having variability leads us to consistently choose one end of biblical paradoxes to the exclusion of the interrelated element losing the unity of opposites that hold us in balance. If we do not allow God the room to use pain for our sanctification or correction then no wonder there will be a great falling away when many peoples’ expectations are dashed to pieces in tribulation. Yahweh is not our genie. We have enjoyed much ease in the West and this has become a false comfort. God declares war on anything in his disciples’ lives that becomes a hindrance to the intimacy he desires. He loves us too much to share us with another god. In his kindness and in his time he will continue to remove from us our false comforts including a false image of himself that we have made. This is the nature of El Qanna which means “the Lord is jealous.” This is another name God gives himself in Exodus 20:5, 34:14, and in Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9, 6:15 and this name describes an aspect of God’s love for his people: "For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is El Qanna, is a jealous God." Jealousy can be constructive, as Paul notes to the church in Corinth: “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy...” (2 Corinthians 11.2). Throughout the Old Testament God often likens himself to Israel's husband, wanting all their love and obedience for himself. In the Old Testament context, idolatry is defined as spiritual adultery. This same illustration is used in the New Testament as well, the church being the bride of Christ. This makes this particular name of God relevant to Jews and Christians alike.
The safe God we understand is nothing more than a vending machine for grace that will vanish in our tribulations. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about grace as such: “Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.” Our selective treatment of scripture leads many to hold a theologia gloriae-theology of glory instead of a theologia crucis-theology of the cross. While we will rule and reign, sharing in the glorification of Christ, it is not until he returns and we see him face to face. The selfish and impatient application of theologia gloriae can be seen in the infamous protest at the United States capital on January 6, 2021. Now I realize that the danger level of this protest is debated. However, protesters carried images of Jesus’ face, images of Jesus wearing a Make America Great Again baseball cap, while large crucifixes were set up. People came armed and with a variety of weapons: assault rifles, pistols, stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats, zip-tie handcuffs, and flagpoles wielded as clubs. Our view of Jesus being a vending machine of never-ending grace and self-esteem without the other end of the paradox of who Jesus is has also produced the rotten fruit of rampant self-absorbed hyperindividualism. We have largely rejected God-esteem for self-esteem. Exchanging the cross for self-help and psychological means. In turn we say what a loving God would and wouldn’t do. We tell God what expectations and definitions he must meet. The self has become the main form of reality.
What shall we do then? Well, I do not have the solution per se. I would offer what I see in the Bible which simply put is: repent, pray and return. I believe the appropriate response is the plea found in Lamentations 5:21 - “Turn us back to you Yahweh, and let us come back; renew our days as of old.”