Podcast: 1 John: Jesus is not the Father

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No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.
-1 John 2:23-24

I came up with the title of this podcast about a week ago, when I was about to record the episode entitled “Jesus is God.” I’ve been letting this title bounce about in my head for a while, and I’m honestly curious about how people are going to take it.

Typically, I think, Christians are aware that Jesus is God. We believe in the Trinity, even if we cannot explain it. I think that if you ask the average people in church on Sunday morning, they will tell you that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit make up the Trinity. They are God. Jehovah’s Witnesses and other cults will deny this, which is one reason we need to study the doctrine carefully. I think it’s important to do episodes like “Jesus is God” even when most Christians would say that so that we know what we believe and why, and we can answer the objections of others.

But while we say we accept the Trinity, I think most Christians really believe in a form of modalism, which is the belief that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are really the same person taking on different roles. Basically, these titles are like masks they wear and nothing more. We don’t really see them as being separate persons who have separate roles.

No, I didn’t say they were different gods. There is only one God. The Bible is very clear on that. And that God is the Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit. But we can also see in the Bible that the three persons of the Trinity are separate.

This is tough, I know. It’s not something we can fully understand in this life. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll fully understand it in Heaven either, because if we understood the nature of God fully, there would be nothing to separate Creator and creature. So even in the new Heaven and the new Earth, I don’t think we’ll fully understand the nature of God. But especially in this life, we have a tough time with this one.

I think the best analogy I’ve heard explains the Trinity in terms of a good marriage. A married couple is made up of two people, of course, but in a good marriage there is a unity of thought and purpose that is incredible. The Bible says that the two become one, and we can see that in a good marriage. Two people – one flesh.

The Godhead is what they are, but they are three persons. One what – three whos. So there is one God, undivided and unified, and God is made up of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who are separate persons.

That is why John in this section says things like, “Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.” He does not say “Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also because they are the same person.” He is very deliberate in his language here.

Let’s look at a couple of passages where we see the Son as distinct from the Father. We looked in the last episode how Jesus is God already, so please take a listen if you have not heard it. I’m going on the assumption that we agree that Jesus is God before making the distinction between Jesus and the Father.

Jesus tells us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9). Now, if Jesus is the Father, then this is a little strange. He would be saying, in essence, “As I love myself, so I loved you.” But that’s not what He’s saying at all.

In Matthew 11:27, He says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Again, is He talking about Himself in the third person here? This passage would make no sense at all if the Father and Son are the same person.

At Jesus’ baptism, we actually see all three members of the Trinity distinctly. “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

Jesus was not throwing His voice here. He did not cause His Spirit to leave Him and then come back down. We see them here distinctly and as three separate persons.

So you’re probably wondering why this matters. It actually matters a great deal, because misunderstanding the doctrine of the Trinity actually leads all sorts of strange ideas about salvation. If you deny that Jesus was God, then you can’t have a perfect and complete sacrifice. A man cannot carry the sins of the world on his shoulders, and neither can an angel. If you deny that they are one God, then you end up with polytheism, which the Bible rejects. If you deny that they are separate persons, then you loss the power of God’s love in the sending of His only begotten Son.

Here’s the truth of the matter in salvation. God the Father has chosen us before the foundation of the world to be redeemed, despite our unworthiness. In sin we have earned death, but He has chosen us to be drawn to Himself.

But justice requires someone to pay the price for our sins, and so God the Son came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died in our place upon a Roman Cross. He rose three days, thus insuring that we too will rise from the dead.

God the Spirit now regenerates our hearts to accept the message of the Gospel. In our sin, we are in rebellion against God, but by the Spirit’s work, our hearts are turned toward Him by convicting us of our sins and giving us faith.

Without the Father, none of us would be drawn. Without the Son, the punishment for our sins would not be paid, and justice would not be satisfied. Without the Spirit, we would continue in our rebellion, never being given the gift of faith. Without the work of each person of the Trinity, we would be lost in our sins.

Our prayers also reflect the three members of the Trinity. We pray to the Father, through the Son, and by the power of the Spirit.

God is worthy of worship, as is each member of the Godhead. One God in three Persons – that is the truth revealed in the Bible. It strikes me as a truth very much worth our time, our efforts to understand, and our praise.