We’ve got a great patch that we wear on our cuts – we call it, quite simply, our “31″ patch. What it signifies is CrossWind’s uncompromising adherence to the doctrine of the Trinity: that is, there are three unique and distinctive Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Who are each True God of True God, and yet there is only one True and Living God. You got it – THREE in ONE!
Speaking theologically, there are three terms used to describe what the Trinity is all about. The first is Co-essentiality – i.e., each Person of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)is True God of True God (they are, in their very essence, each genuine God). The second is Co-eternality – i.e., each Person of the Trinity has neither beginning nor end (one of the perfections of God’s existence is His eternality [nothing or no one but God is like this]). And, the third is Co-equality – i.e., each Person of the Trinity is neither superior to nor inferior to any other Person of the Trinity (each Person has a unique and distinctive purpose in His existence but such uniqueness and distinctiveness does not make one greater than nor lesser than another).
Now the Trinity is a real bugaboo with a whole bunch of folks. In fact, it is not only the cardinal (i.e., chief, main, central, key, primary, preeminent) doctrine of the Christian faith (hey, to disbelieve in it is to disbelieve in biblical Christianity), but, as one theologian once said, every heresy that has ever arisen in the Christian faith can trace its roots back to an erroneous view of the Trinity. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!!! That’s some smoke!
But how ëbout the real problem with the Trinity? Well, the great difficulty arises over Jesus Christ and His Deity – that is, His GODness. Is Jesus Christ True GOD of True GOD?Or, is He jus’as some say: “Yes, He may be the Son of GOD, and as such the Savior, Redeemer, and Lord (why, He even died on the cross for sin and was “resurrected” from the dead), but as far as Jesus Christ being GOD, well, as the old expression goes, ëNo way, Jose!’”? In fact, that’s the problem with all non-Christians -Jesus may, indeed, be a great guy, but He’s not GOD.
Truth be told, there’s a lot of stuff in the Scriptures that helps us acknowledge Jesus’ Deity. The testimonies surrounding this grand truth – His names, honors, attributes, and works that can ONLY be credited to GOD – all give evidence of His GODness. But is there something more that we can find? Is there some Scripture in which Jesus Himself claims to be GOD? WOW!!! Wouldn’t that be terrific – yeah, some texts in the Biblewhere Jesus says that He is God?!?!?
So, can we find some biblical text or texts in which Jesus Himself actually makes that claim? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm??? Well, before we go there, let’s go back and examine that “Jesus is a really good guy thing.” Can that really be true if He claims to be God (which, I admit, we have yet to prove via the Scriptures)? Consider it logically (thanks, C. S. Lewis, for this illustration):
- if Jesus claimed to be GOD but was not, then He was a liar; this means that He was NOT a good guy (it’s kinda hard imagining the Son of God as being deceitful, don’t you think? But, hey, that’s what you’ve got if His words aren’t truthful!);
- if Jesus claimed to be GOD but was not, then He was a lunatic; this means that He was NOT even sane (man, Jesus must be as mad as a hatter, as crazy as a loon, jus’ plain, ol’ out of His mind to think that He is God! C’mon, give me a break!!!);
- but, if Jesus claimed to be GOD and truly is a good and sane guy, well, then He must be exactly who He says He is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, where can we find Jesus telling us that He is true GOD of true GOD?Well, to get there we gotta firsthead over tothe Old Testament – yeah,back to that passage where GOD makes His most Holy Name known to man, Exodus 3:14. As GOD addresses Moses on Mount Sinai, He says:
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, “I AM” has sent me to you.’”
There, the most holy name of GOD is pronouncedYHWH. It is the Hebrew word that defied the Israelites use of it. It literally means “I AM, I AM.” Theologians refer to it as the “tetragrammaton” which means “four letters.” Suppose for a moment that Jesus referred to Himself as YHWH; what would that mean for us in proving His Deity as well as convincing others of this truth???
So, does Jesus ever call Himself YHWH? Well, one problem that we need to overcome is that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew while the New Testament was written in Greek. But is there an Old Testament version in Greek? Yes, and it’s called the Septuagint (from the Latin meaning “seventy”). You’ll see it abbreviated as LXX. In this Greek version of the Old Testament, the word for YHWH is ego eimi.
So, next we need to see if Jesus ever refers to Himself in this way. Hey, great news!!! Look up the following passages: John 4:26; 6:35; 8:23; 8:58; 9:5; 10:7; 10:14; 11:25; 13:13; 14:6; 15:1; and Revelation 1:8, and you’ll be encouraged! Let’s see, “I AM. . .”: “the Messiah,” “The Bread of life,” “from above,” “before Abraham was born,” “the Light of the world,” “the Door,” “the Good Shepherd,” “the Resurrection and the Life,” “Teacher and Lord,” “the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” “the true Vine,” and “the Alpha and the Omega.”
Do you see in each of those passages the words “I am?” Well, that’s the Greek ego eimi, and it is literally translated “I AM, I AM.” It is a first person personal pronoun and a present tense verb of being with a first person personal pronoun ending! Do you see what’s going on here? Maybe not? Well, simply stated, Jesus is claiming to be YHWH, The Great I AM – yeah, God of True God!!!
(One quick note about the above-mentioned texts. If you check out John 8:58, you see that in the succeeding verse, the Jews sought to kill Jesus. Why? After all, He simply said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” Well, they knew what He was claiming – that He was stating His equality with God; thus, He needed to be killed for blasphemy. Even the Jews of Jesus’ day knew He couldn’t be jus’ a good guy – He was either a liar of extraordinary means or an idiotor He was as He claimed to be!!! That oughtta settle the previous logic problem.)
Hey, Jesus Christ is GOD! Co-essential, Co-eternal, and Co-equal with God the Father and God the Spirit. Not only does Scripture attest to that truth, but Jesus Himself says so! And, as we have also said, it is the true distinctive of the Christian faith–without it there is no Christianity; without believing it, we are not Christians!
So, CrossWind has its “31″ patch – a patch we wear telling the whole world of our belief in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity!!!
(Some might think that CrossWind’s “31″ patch is actually a reversal of the “13″patch that some outlaw clubs use – perhaps, in the same vein as our upside-down “F T W” patch. Nope, no way! Rather, it is genuinely an expression of the doctrine of the Trinity – that is, THREE unique and distinctive Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - Who constitute the ONE True and Living GOD!
Check out our patches’ page, “So, Wha’zup wi’da’ Patch, Dude?”, to review all the meanings for CrossWind’s patches.)
Copyright @ 2009 CrossWind Ministry
