Fundamentals.
Fundamentals. Fundamentals.
Sports, art, music, martial
arts, education, whatever. No matter
what the discipline a successful practitioner must understand and rehearse the
fundamentals.
That goes for theology, too.
And even if you’re not
clergy, or a seminary student, or anything with a title in your church, if
you’re a Christian then you practice
theology. You live according to
the doctrines of the Bible, or at least you try to. Right?
Well, practitioners need to
rehearse fundamentals--- or they’ll get their butts kicked by opponents who do.
All of that stuff I just
said: that’s why we’re studying the
basic doctrines and documents of our church.
For Methodist (CME’s in particular) those documents are The 25 Articles of Religion, the Affirmation of Faith (also known as the Apostles’ Creed), The General Rules of the United Societies, and the Social Creed of the CME Church.
Over the next weeks and
months I’ll be blogging from these Bible studies.
Fundamentals.
So, here’s Article #1.
Article I - Of Faith
in the Holy Trinity
There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power,
wisdom, and good; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and
invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Trinity. Tri-unity. One God in 3 persons. Not 3 gods.
Not God appearing in 3 forms.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit each themselves and all One.
Does that sound weird?
Well, you know what? You’re
weird.
Seriously. You’re weird
like the concept of the Trinity is weird.
So am I.
You, and I, and every human being in history are made in the image
of God---God who speaks of Himself as singular and PLURAL.
Then God said, “Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over
the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps
on the earth.” (Genesis
1:26, ESV)
And what does it mean to be in the image of God? Does it mean that we all have God’s cheekbones?
Nah.
It means that you, and I, and every human being formed and future are
created in imitation of the fundamental nature of God.
for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some
of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (Acts 17:28)
So if you want a good idea/ image of how the Trinity works, just
look at yourself.
You have a MIND. More
importantly, you are your mind.
Mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore,
I am.” The unique collection of ideas,
memories, and intellectual processes
that make up your mind are what make you----- YOU.
You also have a BODY. And,
your body is YOU. Your fingerprints, your DNA, the pattern of veins in your
eyeballs, even the collection of bacteria in your gut are all unique to your
self. Nobody has a body exactly like
your body. That’s all you.
And---- you have a SOUL. In
fact, you are a soul. The you that goes
to Heaven (or not) when you die is your soul (Spirit, if you prefer). You
are a unique, transcendent spiritual manifestation on this plane of reality.
An old saying (older than C.S. Lewis by the way) goes, “You don’t
have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
The truth is that you have a soul, and a body, and a mind. And, you are a soul, and a body, and a
mind. You and I are little trinities.
Like THE Trinity, the 3 persons of me can act independently
without being separate. And they/ I can
act together as a single, indivisible whole.
Weird, huh?
Yeah, well we take after our Father.
Now, let’s be clear. It’s
not that God the Trinity is like us.
It’s that we are kinda like God the Trinity.
The semi-independence of your mind, your body, and your soul is a
greatly diminished reflection of the uniqueness of God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
The absolute unity of my mind, body, and spirit as one human being
is a pale, low-level reproduction of the unity of God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
The Father rules, decides, and wills. Your mind is made in His image.
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom
come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. (Luke 11: 2)
For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father
who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. (John
12:49)
The Son, aka the Word made flesh, acts out the Father’s will. He creates, builds, and shows Himself visibly
to us. In His image, my physical body
acts out the thoughts and decisions of my mind.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing
was made that was made. (John 1: 1-3)
My body is the face (literally) of my mind, just like Jesus “ is
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:
15)
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily (Colossians 2: 9)
I and the Father are one. (John 10: 30)
God the Holy Spirit, aka the Holy Ghost, is exactly what His name
implies. He is the Spirit of God. In that sense, “God is Spirit, and
those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4: 24)
God has the Holy Spirit and God is the Holy Spirit.
Now the Lord is the
Spirit, and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3: 17).
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of
the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the
Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2: 11)
Like Him, your Creator made you with a spirit/ soul.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living being. (Genesis 2: 7)
You and I are weirdly trinitarian, because we are made in the
image of God who is the perfect Trinity.
In our imperfectness, body, mind, and spirit don’t always agree or
work harmoniously. Sometimes the spirit is willing when the flesh
is weak.
Sometimes my human mind is torn between listening to my body and
listening to my spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on
the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things
of the Spirit. (Romans 8: 5)
But I’m a copy flawed by sin.
God is the real deal, the original, the perfect prototypical
three-in-one.
God is Trinity.
And that is weirdly cool.
Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II
is pastor of Miles
Chapel CME Church (5220
Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the
Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development for the
National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
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