1Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This introduction, a powerful testimony of the deity of Christ, is often overlooked in theological studies. The very fact that Jesus Christ is put in the same sentence as God would be the ultimate and absolute heresy if He were not fully divine in the same sense that God is divine. Jesus is put on the same level as “God our Father” and is called “the Lord”—twice! God has no equal:
“You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord… “so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me.” (Is. 43:10, see also Is.44:6, 45:5, 18, 22, 46:9, 47:10)
“I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.” (Is. 42:8)
One cannot speak of any individual in the same way as the Creator God of the universe and still maintain monotheism (belief in one and only one God).
This enters us into Trinitarian belief, that Jesus as the Son of God (1 Thess. 1:9–10) is a different “person” than “God the Father,” yet both are equally God. Some charge that this defies reason. How can two be one (or three be one, when we include God the Spirit)? Such objections raise human reasoning above God (see Isaiah 55:9). It is entirely sensible there would be things about God that we just cannot fully understand, because we are finite creatures with limited intelligence. This is further seen in the reality of God intersecting the created world in the form of a man (Phil. 2:5–11). How can any human reason comprehend the Creator becoming so intimately involved in His creation?
Trinitarian belief does not hold that one God exists as three gods, or that one person exists as three persons. Rather, one God exists in three persons. This has been the understanding from the first century, as reflected in the canonical texts of the NT. It was enunciated in the fourth-century Nicene Creed:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made….”
I believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. All glory to You!
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