Transcript
Ben Fallon: “How is God God's Son?” This is a question from my five-year-old son, Paul, the other night as we were getting ready for bed. I said, “What do you mean, buddy?” And he said, “Well, if Jesus is God and Jesus is God's Son, doesn't that mean that God is God's Son?” So, Paul, “How would you have answered that question and what parenting advice do you have for moms and dads who have budding little theologians at home?”
Paul Tripp: You know, I love this question because if you're a Christian parent, one of the things that you long to do is to have your children begin early to understand God's truth and have a life that's shaped by an understanding of God's truth. So, Christian parents, are always having theological conversations with their children and how do you communicate the magnificent theology of Scripture to young children?
And the first thing that comes to mind for me is you have to understand that teaching your children truth is a process and not an event. This means you have this moment's conversation, knowing you're going to have hundreds of conversations that follow it in the weeks and months and years to come. You see, your child's understanding will grow with their mental maturation, with their life experience, and with spiritual awareness. And so, you go as far as you can go today, knowing that there will still be questions that need to be answered, but the child isn't going away and you're not going away, and you'll have many more opportunities to have that conversation.
Now, here's the deal with the Trinity. The Bible doesn't give us a simple explanation of the Trinity. Nowhere! In fact, even though the Bible presents God as one God and three distinct persons, not functions, persons, there's not a single passage in Scripture that declares this truth about God. You can't go to a certain book, a certain chapter, a certain verse, and there the Trinity is carefully explained. The thing I want to caution parents with is most of the physical illustrations or word pictures, used to explain the Trinity, fall short or end up creating greater confusion. And here's the bottom line, ultimately, we believe the doctrine of the Trinity because God's word teaches it. We don't believe because it makes sense to us, we could explain it, or we can understand it.
Ultimately, for example, it's hard for me to understand how I am completely responsible for my actions, my choices make a difference, and yet God is sovereign and has determined everything ahead of time. How do those two things work together? I'm not sure I can describe that to you, but I know, for a fact, the Bible teaches both.
So, what do we say about the Trinity? Well, God is the perfect, loving, unified community. The Trinity is the model for all Christian relationships. In fact, in John 17, Jesus prays that we as believers would “be one as he is with the Father.” What does that mean? Well, creation and salvation are the work of God. That is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in perfect and complete, unified, divine cooperation. For example, our salvation. God the Father saves, God the Son saves, and God the Spirit saves. What does this mean?
Well, God the Father ordains the ‘what and who’ of salvation, that is rules over the world and the affairs of people and nations in order to accomplish his redeeming plan. That's wonderful! God the Son accomplishes salvation, submits to the will of Father, humbles himself, becomes a servant even to death, lives a perfectly righteous life, dies on the cross, rises again, conquering sin and death. And the Spirit applies the saving grace of the Son, regeneration, illumination, conviction, and empowerment. Now, seriously, “How are you going to explain that to a five-year-old?” I can give you the answer. “You're not!” That child does not have the capacity to understand the magnificent, glorious, expansive mystery I've just communicated to you. There's no way. And so, you're always communicating truth in the context of the limits of this child.
Now, let me encourage you, guess who determined those limits? The very God that you're trying to explain has chosen that children would have limited understanding. So where does that leave us when we're dealing with these huge theological concepts? It's just a life of “Declare, explain as much as you can; declare, explain as much as you can; declare, explain as much as you can,” and you trust the ultimate divine teacher to give understanding to your child.
The cold, dead, sinful heart is incapable of understanding truth. Not just five-year-olds, but fifty-year-olds, apart from the illumining grace of the Holy Spirit. That's your hope as a parent, that you're never in the room just with your five-year-old. You're in the room with your five-year-old and God Himself, His Spirit working in the heart of that little one. And as that child grows, their questions will deepen, their understanding will grow, and you can have more extensive conversations. God determined their limits. It's God who opens the heart. You're not in this teaching game by yourself. As you have conversation after conversation after conversation, God himself, not you, God himself will create understanding and belief.
And so, “Chill out!” Just talk about truth with your kids and understand that every time you do, you give God an opportunity, the Holy Spirit an opportunity, to breathe life into the heart of that child, to give that child understanding. Just be an instrument in the hands of God and have conversation after conversation. Remember the process. Look down the years that are to come and know you're going to have hundreds of conversations. You don't have to create understanding in this one moment–let God do His work.
BF: Paul, while I have you on the topic, I have another question about the Trinity, this time from Deanna–she's not five, she didn't disclose her age, but she's an adult. And she asks, “My question is, would you say, and does Scripture say, that God, the first person of the Trinity, died when Jesus died on the cross?
PT: I just have to say, I love all these questions. They're such good questions and they speak into massive confusion. I was sitting with somebody just a few days ago that I know is a mature Christian, and they talked about God dying on the cross. And I wanted to be respectful, and I didn't want to engage this person in a big, lengthy debate, but it brought to mind this question. This question is important because it gets to the heart of the nature of Jesus. And the whole hope of the gospel balances on the two natures of Jesus, what does that mean?
It means as the incarnate Messiah, Jesus is fully God and fully man. In the beginning of the Gospel of John, John records the divine identity of Jesus, the divine power of Jesus, the divine knowledge of Jesus, but also the fact that Jesus got hungry, he was thirsty, he grew weary, he felt real pain, he bled real blood. So, this question really takes us to this issue of the two natures of Jesus, and the two natures of Jesus particularly on the cross. So, I'll give the direct answer and explain it. No! No! No! God did not die on the cross, and it's easy to explain why. I can explain why in just a few words–only created things can die! How many words is that? Five words. Only created things can die; flowers die, animals die, people die because they are finite creatures. But God cannot die. God cannot die because guess what? God was never born.
God always was, always is, and always will be. God has no past. He has no present. He has no future. God has no hopes and dreams, no regrets. God exists in the ‘eternal now.’ God has no birth, no childhood, no teen years, no young adult, no adult, no middle age, no old man lifespan. None of that applies to God. God exists outside of the limits of creation as Creator. He is the eternal one.
So, think about this. The death of God, in roughly 33 A.D., would have meant the death of everything that exists. If God had died on the cross, creation would have died because it's God who holds everything together. It's God who constantly gives life to creation. It's God who rules creation in infinite power. Creation lives in constant dependency on the Creator. So, if God had died, it all would have ended. So, No! Here's the end of this rant; God didn't die on the cross; that's theologically impossible! It's irrational! It's against everything that Scripture teaches.
The fully human Messiah died in our place as the perfect spotless lamb for our eternal salvation. It's very, very important, as you think of the cross and Jesus on the cross, that you remember his two natures. It's impossible for God to die!
BF: Thanks, Paul. I'd like to recommend Paul's book on doctrine, it's called, Do You Believe? 12 Historic Doctrines to Change Your Everyday Life. Now, Paul doesn't cover the doctrine of the Trinity extensively in the book, but there are many helpful explanations and more importantly, applications of how what you believe should change the way you live right here, right now. You can learn more at paultripp.com/doctrine.
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