For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Everyone knows John 3:16 right? But do we all understand what it means that Jesus is God's "only begotten Son"? How many of us even truly understand what 'begotten' means?In his famous novel Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains it very simply. To 'beget' is to end up with a being like yourself, while to 'make' or 'create' is to end up with something very different from yourself. God created the heavens and the earth, something quite different then Himself. A mother begets a child, which is a human. In the same way, Jesus is God's begotten Son and therefore divine.
I think that in the current Christian culture we overemphasize the trinity without really backing it up with Scripture. I do not believe the doctrine of the trinity to be incorrect, but I do believe Christians should look into it themselves by reading the Word. Instead of having these ideas about one God and three persons shoved at us to the point where we are making Scripture fit this idea, it would be better to read the Bible and then look to theology for the overarching ideas. In fact, this is exactly how theology was written anyway (by studying Scripture first and then writing doctrine which combines all Scripture on certain topics). We should understand God's revealed Word first and foremost and then only use written doctrine as a tool to better remember how everything fits together.
Recently, I have been trying to better understand the trinity through Scripture instead of through doctrine. After reading Lewis' way of explaining begotten, it really pushed my thinking about who Jesus is.
When we think of Jesus, it is hard to understand that He is all God and all man. We do not understand how He can be omnipresent and yet also in one body. I think the blame for this lack of understanding is a lack of paying attention to Scripture. The answer lies right in the verse we have memorized since we were children and also throughout the gospels.
God is God. He is. There is none like Him. Then, he beget a Son. What would it look like for the all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing God to have a son? In addition, what would it look like for Him to have a son that is also in the flesh because of a human mother? Well, it would look like Jesus, who is a created human who will live as any other human for the rest of eternity. I believe this means He will always have a physical body (maybe I will expand on that another day). Also, He was begotten by God, which makes Him God.
Jesus will continue being Jesus in a body. When people think about this, many might say it seems there are two Gods in existence. However, this is just not so. It is against the very nature of God to be 'split' because He is already everywhere and it is not possible for another being to exist that is as powerful as God because then He would not be all-powerful. In addition, the nature of Jesus which is divine exactly replicates God because the Son of Man is God, not a new God. Jesus is merely a part of God which has been placed with human flesh in order to show His love towards us.
Though this is not exhaustive into the nature of Jesus in the least (He is not only the Son of God, but the spoken Word of God), I hope it gives insight into how He relates in the trinity. In addition, it should encourage any readers to begin their studies in Scripture before moving on to what man thinks through theology or commentary.
P.S. Recently, I read Heaven is For Real and I also recommended it under my 'Books to Read' tab. Along with it, I would recommend reading Revelation. From the book I learned that many people have good reason to believe a little girl drew an accurate depiction of Jesus, which is on the right. I am in sincere awe because I did not believe it was possible for anyone to know what Jesus looks like (at least on this side of life). He is greater than my little belief I guess. I must also admit that I am slightly skeptical about the reliability of this book about a boy who visits heaven and this picture drawn by a girl who has visions, but I also have no reason to believe God did not reveal Himself to these children. Our God is great and powerful, after all.
