Maybe you’ve been thinking you want to follow Jesus and become a Christian, but just aren’t sure how to take that step. You think you might know what it means to follow Jesus, but it’d be good to get some clarity and direction – what’s next?

Or maybe you’ve never thought about following Jesus…until now. But something has got you interested, you don’t know what exactly, but you want to know – who is this Jesus person your Christian friends at school or uni call ‘Lord and Christ’? What does that – Lord and Christ – even mean?

separated by sin

In my previous article ‘A guide for LQBTQ Christian teens‘, I talked about how much God loves each one of us. He loved the world so much that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). You could be thinking, ‘sure, that’s nice, but what does it mean ‘sinners’? I haven’t done anything wrong‘.

Sin is not necessarily a hot button topic in our world today. You’re more likely to be encouraged to ‘live your truth‘ than told ‘you are a sinner in need of forgiveness‘. If we do stop to think about sin, we probably tend to view it as really bad things, like murder or hating on someone or lying. Most of us would probably think of ourselves as pretty good people, but the truth is, when compared alongside a completely holy God, we all fall far short of His standard of ‘good’.

Sin is not just about specific actions; it also refers to a broken relationship with God and a tendency to stray from His holiness. The reality is that you are separated from God because of your sin, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. 

The Bible describes our situation as being like slaves. Although humans were created to rule over this world and all the creatures that live in it wisely and well, as God’s image-bearers, we gave that up in the Garden of Eden to give our allegiance to someone other than God. We allowed ourselves to be mastered by sin and so became its slaves (2 Peter 2:19). 

No doubt this resonates with your own life experiences. Even when you’ve wanted to do the right thing or tell the truth, we often don’t make the right choice in the moment. You’ve probably done things or made decisions that you now regret but it seemed impossible at the time to choose differently.

But the good news is that God didn’t want to leave humanity in a state of brokenness and separation from him. He wanted to fix up the issue of sin, to make a way for us to be forgiven for our mistakes, and to show us the way to live in right relationship with Him.

He sent Jesus to save us, to redirect our lives towards His good and abundant way of living, and to help us see that our true reality, who we really are, is one beloved of God, intended for glory and greatness.

Lord + Christ

God sent His Son Jesus into the world “not to condemn its people but to save them! Everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.” (John 3:16-17, CEV).

Being saved involves having faith in Jesus. So the logical next question is, who is Jesus? Who is this person that I would put my faith in him? What does it even mean to put my faith in Jesus? Great questions!

The best place to start* to learn about who Jesus was is in the New Testament with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The gospels provide an account of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and are foundational texts for understanding His ministry and message. In them, you’ll read many amazing stories of what Jesus did, the miracles he performed, who he said he was, the reason why he came, and, finally, the almost unbelievable account of his resurrection from the dead, which validated Jesus’ divine identity and his claim to be the Son of God.

The gospel of John comments that “these [things about Jesus] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.“

(If you haven’t read the gospels for yourself, why not take some time over the next few weeks to read through what they say about Jesus…)

The book of Romans, written by the Apostle Paul, says that “this is the very message about faith we preach: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

He’s telling us that having faith in Jesus means believing that Jesus is the one that God sent to save us from our sins (Christ or Messiah, means ‘anointed one’ (Isaiah 61:1), that Jesus is Lord and therefore has rightful authority over our life,  and that he really is the Son of God, as proven by his resurrection from the dead. 

The gospels therefore offer both an invitation and a challenge. Do you accept that you need forgiveness, that you are separated from being in right relationship with God? Do you believe Jesus is the one sent into the world to offer that forgiveness and restore you to God? Do you believe that his claim to be the Son of God is true and that he really did rise again from the dead? Do you believe he is Lord of all, just as capable now, as then, of commanding the winds and waves, and will you trust him with the direction of your life?

If the answer is yes to all of these, then this is what it means to follow Jesus! This is what it means to be a Christian. 

disciples not decisions

Every Christian’s life starts at a certain point, with a decision, but that one decision alone is not enough. Following Jesus is a life marked by discipleship, which is really just the process of learning to be like Jesus more and more each day. That’s a topic I intend to talk more about in a later article.

But following Jesus does start with having faith: confessing that Jesus is Lord, and believing that God raised him from the dead.

So if this is you, if you find yourself fully convinced about who Jesus is and what he came to do, and that he truly was the Son of God, whom God raised to life again, the Bible says that as soon as you realise this, you should declare your faith publicly by being baptised – fully immersed in water.

Baptism is God’s arrangement for a person to gain a clean conscience based on their faith in the work of Jesus Christ. I’ll be talking a bit more about that in my next article in this series (Letters To My Kids) so look out for that soon, but if you’d like to chat about baptism in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you! 

Let me know your thoughts on this topic (you can message me publicly or privately here or on my socials), or any questions you’d like answers to on this topic (or anything else) in upcoming articles!

“And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised, and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” – Acts 22:16

* the gospels aren’t the only place we read about Jesus. Both the Old Testament and New Testament have a great deal to say about Jesus and who he was! In fact, the promise of Jesus is found in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. Here are 55 Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, covering his birth, ministry, death and resurrection, and role in the church.

Truth #1: ‘before’

“In the beginning, the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.“

In the beginning, there was nothing. A vast, endless emptiness. Deep, restless waters, devoid of life, and overshadowed by a darkness as complete and as final as death itself.

It is over this dim, watery world that the Spirit of God hovered, waiting, moving; poised to begin the work of creation. And it is into this dark world that God said. “let there be light”.

This is, of course, how Genesis begins its narrative concerning the creation of the natural world (Genesis 1:1-2). But it’s also an apt description of the spiritual reality into which we are all born. 

Whether we know it or not, whether we are aware or not, each one of us is part of a creation that was made for a purpose – to walk with and be in relationship with God. Humans were made to be with God, to reflect His character, to glorify him and steward His good creation. And for a time, we did walk in close companionship with God, delighting in His presence. 

But that relationship was severed by disobedience and our spiritual connection was lost. 

We were cast out of Eden, banished from proximity to the tree of life, into a land whose ground was cursed and whose wages were death. We were exiled to live under the rule of another, one to whom we had given over our allegience – the prince of this world. His is a dominion of darkness, a realm characterised by sin, evil, and separation from God. 

Every single human is born into this dominion. As one author puts it, it is our misfortune not our crime. It is not our fault, it is simply our reality. And God has been working hard since that first day of exile to save us, to bring us back, to rescue us from the emptiness into which we’re now all born. 

This is the first truth we must come to terms with. We are born into a dying world, a temporal, fallen world that will one day pass away along with everything that’s in it, ruler and subject alike. We are helpless and hopeless, separated from our true purpose and disconnected from a life-giving relationship with God.  

This is our ‘before’.

Truth #2: ‘After’

God, who is rich in loving kindness, mercy, generosity and, above all, love, did not leave us to our fate. Hovering over the spiritual darkness of our world, He spoke words of life: ‘let there be light’ (John 1: 1-14).

Into the darkness, failure, chaos, and ruin of humanity, light shone, a good and healing light which the darkness of this dominion can never extinguish. This is the true light that shines ever more, even unto the perfect day, when all things will be made new (Proverbs 4:18, Revelation 21:5). 

That light is Jesus, full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and to all who believe him and accept him, he gives the right to become children of God – to be born again.

He has come into this dark world to rescue us, to draw us to the Father, to bring us home. He invites every person to follow Him as His disciple, living according to His teachings and sharing His love with others. This invitation is a call to transformation and purpose, and an imperative to acknowledge that he is Lord and Christ, surrendering to his rule (John 10:27, Romans 10:9-10). When we accept his invitation, this is our moment of rescue, an existential exchange of his life for ours, a purchase of our freedom by his blood. 

This is our ‘after’, a second great truth: We are bought with a price, and our lives will never be the same again.

Born Again: Come As You Are, Don’t Stay As You Are

In John 3:3 and 5, Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again of water and Spirit.”

To be born again, then, is part of the great rescue God enacts on our behalf. But what does it mean, in real terms, to be born again? What does our life look like ‘after’?

Paul the Apostle says that we will live ‘as children of light’, throwing off our old sinful nature and former way of life and, instead, let the Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes (Ephesians 5:22-24). Like a fine garment purchased specifically for us, we are to put on our new nature, created to be like God, truly holy and righteous.

The letter to the Ephesians (Chapter 4) then continues on, listing out more ‘befores’ and ‘afters’—a laying down of old ways and a putting on of new habits and choices.

Stop telling lies; instead, be truth-tellers. If you’re a thief, quit stealing; use your hands for good, honest work. Watch what you say; use your word for life, not death. Exchange your bitterness, anger, and harsh words for kindness, forgiveness, and a posture of tenderheartedness.

Don’t allow sexual immorality, impurity or greed to be present in your life. Be holy. Don’t take part in obscene stories or coarse jokes. Have speech seasoned with love and grace. Don’t have anything to do with the worthless deeds of evil or darkness, instead, expose them.  For once you were full of darkness but now you have light from the Lord. (Ephesians 4: 3-14)

“Come as you are”, Jesus said. “Come all you who are weary and heavy burdened. Come and lay those burdens down”.

Come as you are…but don’t stay as you are. “Take my yoke upon you, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

The call to Christian life – the ‘after’ – is a call to holiness. But that holiness is a work of God’s grace as the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to live a life pleasing to God. New Testament holiness is a joyous privilege, not a heavy burden and duty, and it is a burden which Christ carries alongside us. New Testament holiness is a mark of real life, the one that Jesus rose again to give us. It’s Jesus living in and through us.” | Lance Ralston

To be born again means that everything in our life changes, although not necessarily all at once. Becoming a Christian (a Christ-follower) marks the beginning of a lifelong process of transformation, called sanctification, through which believers grow to reflect the character of Christ. It is the start of a journey, not the end.

But is a journey that takes place in the glorious light of the kingdom of God, which will, one day, fill all of heaven and earth. We no longer belong to the world which is passing away, the old dominion of darkness, but instead now belong to God, in restored relationship, as we were always intended.

“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” | John 3:18-21

Christmas is a unique time of year.

Traditionally, it’s seen as a season of joy, hope, celebration, and family—a chance for many to unwind and find rest as the year draws to a close.

Yet, for others, the story is different. Christmas can be a lonely and isolating season, marked by fractured relationships, the pain of missing loved ones, or financial pressures that overshadow the festivities. It can feel less like a time of rest and more like a whirlwind of exhaustion and unmet expectations.

For many, Christmas is a complex mix of emotions—hopeful yet heavy, joyful yet sorrowful, warm and welcoming but also marked by loneliness and discouragement. It’s a time that holds both the brightest lights and the deepest shadows, depending on where one stands.

It seems to me that all these emotions are deeply rooted in the true Christmas story—a story far removed from the sanitised, child-friendly version we often share. Yes, Christmas is a time of hope and celebration as we mark the birth of Jesus Christ. But it’s also a season for introspection and solemnity as we reflect on why Jesus came and the profound purpose of His arrival. 

Christians are often accused of being overly focused on sin—and it’s true that we sometimes tend to emphasise sin more than the grace that forgives those sins. But sin, and humanity’s separation from God, are central to the Christmas story.

Without sin, there would be no need for redemption or reconciliation with God. Without sin, there would have been no need for Jesus Christ to come “to save his people” (Matthew 1:21). Without sin, Jesus would not have had to die. At the heart of the Christmas narrative lies a profound hopelessness—a darkness that calls us to pause and reflect.

Jesus | The Hope Of The World

Before there was a baby in a manger, there was a crisis in a garden—a catastrophic severing of humanity’s relationship with God. It was a moment that cast a long shadow of darkness over the world and which set the scene for the arrival, many centuries later, of a Saviour. Jesus came as the light that would pierce the darkness, bringing hope and redemption to a world in desperate need of reconciliation with God.

One of my favourite chapters in the Bible is the opening of the Gospel of John. John begins his account of Jesus Christ’s origins with words that echo the first chapter of Genesis. He reflects on the darkness present in the beginning—a world without form and void—and reveals how light entered that darkness. That light, John tells us, is Jesus, through whom God’s unfailing love and faithfulness has come to humanity. It is through him alone that God has been fully revealed to us.

“Comfort, comfort my people,” the prophet Isaiah would write, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned. Yes, the LORD has punished her twice over for all her sins.” Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!” | Isaiah 40:1-3

It’s Definitely Good News

“Keep it positive,” my daughter urged when I mentioned I was writing about the deeper, darker side of Christmas. “Not everything has to be a negative.” And I do understand her point. Christmas, with its twinkling lights, joyful songs, and festive feasts, is a season meant for happiness and celebration.

Do we really want to turn our thoughts to more solemn, existential realities? Do children really need to understand why Jesus came into the world? Some might say it feels like ‘raining on the parade’ or being a bit of a party pooper during such a joyful season.

But I think the answer should be yes. 

Reflecting on the deeper meaning of Christmas doesn’t take away from the celebration—it adds depth and significance. The joy and festivities are wonderful, but they become even more meaningful when we understand the “why” behind them: Jesus came into the world because of God’s immense love, to bring light into darkness and offer hope and reconciliation. Christmas is definitely good news, but its true significance shines brightest when we understand just how broken things were before it.

For children, this truth doesn’t need to feel heavy or complex. Instead, it can be shared as a simple, hope-filled message—that Jesus is the ultimate gift, given to bring peace, love, and joy to the world. Far from lessening the joy of the season, this understanding can make Christmas even more special.

God-With-Us

Christmas celebrates the gift of grace found in Jesus, a gift that came at a great cost. While the festivities—lights, songs, and feasts—bring joy, they are merely the wrappings around this profound truth: Jesus Christ is the ultimate gift, the hope of the world, fulfilling God’s mission to redeem humanity.

John tells us that the light that was in the beginning, the Word Himself, would step in the very creation He had made in order to save and redeem it. In his human body, the war against sin and death would be waged and won.

His name would be Emmanuel, that is, God-With-Us, and he would save us from our sins.

“What gift of grace is Jesus, my Redeemer,
There is no more for Heaven now to give,
He is my joy, my righteousness, and freedom,
My steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace” | City Alight

As we celebrate Christmas, we can embrace both the joy and the meaning of the season. The twinkling lights, festive songs, and shared meals remind us of the happiness this time of year brings. But it’s also an opportunity to reflect on the deeper story—the arrival of Jesus, the true light of the world, who stepped into our darkness to bring grace, redemption, and reconciliation.

At its heart, the Christmas story contains both joy and sorrow, loss and restoration, light and darkness. Christmas is about this extraordinary gift—freely given—and a hope that continues to shine brightly today.

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“You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honour.” | James 3:18, MSG

Loving the church can be hard.. Frankly, at times, she can seem like a big, fat disappointment.

Infighting. Divisions. The failure of leaders and the apathy of congregants. The assimilation to culture. A preoccupation with prestige and power. Intolerance. Liberality.

Sometimes the church is hard to love.

“It is clear that the church regularly breaks our hearts, disappoints, and even damages us. Both history and our current headlines reveal a church that can be a deeply flawed, sinful, and unhealthy institution, marred by acts of injustice, corruption, abuse, misogyny, and oppression. The contemporary [American] church is wrecked with bickering and division, celebrity worship and unaccountable leaders, false and shallow teaching, and a Christian industrial complex formed around greed and vanity.” | Tish Harrison, A Church Called Tov

Negative experiences often lead people to ‘give up on church’. They decide they will ‘follow Jesus’ but reject the church. Their solution: to walk an individual and untroubled path, to become a solitary lighthouse bravely resisting the wild seas alone.

And I get it. I do.

It’s an unsettling reality that many people who’ve left the church and moved away from Christian community have suffered real disappointment and hurt at the hands of the church. For many, their view of the church has been (justifiably) tarnished by their negative experiences within it.

People can be very wounded by the church, unfortunately, because it’s made up of imperfect people who often mess up.

But here’s the rub.

We are the church.

All of us, together, collectively, communally.

There’s not ourselves and then, over there, the church. There’s not me, in my own personal little faith bubble, and then, over there, the raging, incompetent screw-up of a church that I, personally, have no connection to (and neither do I want to).

There aren’t some Christians who just love doing church and other Christians who, well, it’s just really not their thing.

‘An individual Christian does not a church make.’

We are the church

Christianity is, by definition, collective, and communal. There is no church, without all of us.

Too often we separate out Jesus and ‘the church’ in our minds as if they’re two different identities. We say we love Jesus but we’re less enthusiastic about his people.

But the church is Jesus’ body. Loving Jesus means loving the church too. It’s part of him and he’s part of it. He died for the church, for his people, and it’s in his death and resurrection that we are brought together in community.

Jesus said that he would build his church, purchased with his own blood, and of which he is the chief cornerstone (Matthew 16:18, Acts 2:28, Ephesians 2:20). His language is organic, inclusive, and corporate. He is in the house-building business and we are each his individual stones, selected and fitted together, according to his good pleasure (1 Peter 2:5).

We therefore can’t say we love Jesus but we hate his people/body… it’s simply incongruous.

Loving the church isn’t an optional extra to our life of faith. It’s an intrinsic part of it, with all its joy, pain, and disappointment. She is us and we are her.

3 Reasons To Love The Church:

1. Because Jesus Asked Us To (And Because He Loves Her)

Jesus brings real people, diverse and divided in life, into common union together, into relationship, into the messy, untidy reality that is the church, not because they are worthy, but because Jesus died for them and that is enough.

It’s around the Passover table, over the first Christian communion, and right before Jesus was betrayed, sentenced to death, and then crucified, that he gives his disciples a new commandment to live by once he is gone.

“…love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” | John 13:34-35, ESV

By loving one another as he has loved us, all the world will know that we are his disciples. The world will see your love for each other and know, without even having to ask, that you are followers of the king.

Love isn’t always easy, but it is the more excellent way. And it’s the way that Jesus has asked us to take.

First, we were loved, now we love.

Sure, we will have to work at it at times (and 1 Corinthians 13 is full of pastoral advice on how to go about this) but, quite simply, loving each other – loving the church – is what Jesus has asked us to do.

He loves her and he wants us to love her too.

2. Because The Church Is The Hope Of The World (Despite Her Flaws)

Around that communion table, Jesus could see the seeds of the church – his church – that was soon to be born. His small band of followers represented the expansive and diverse family that God would build through him, for the glory of His name and in pursuit of His purpose.

“You are my ambassadors”, Jesus had told them, “and behold, I am with you, even until the end of time.” (Matthew 28:20).

From the dark soil of an empty tomb, the seeds of Jesus’ church sprang forth, bringing new life and hope.

The church – full of saved sinners – is the place that tells of God’s goodness and faithfulness, and His enduring love for humanity.

The church is the place that speaks hope, shining the light of the gospel into a dark world.

The church is the place where broken and damaged people find healing and redemption, basking in the warmth of God’s radical grace.

The church is the heart of God’s kingdom mission, spilling over into the world and showing that a different way is possible: life that gives life, in abundance.

We love the church because, despite her flaws, she is the hope of the world, the place where people finally come home.

3. Because We Were Made For God’s Community

We were made for community and we grow and are nurtured in community. (Yes, we are wounded in community but it’s also in community that we heal. “Healing might not come from the community where the wounding took place, but community is needed for healing nonetheless.” | Rich Villodas)

It was in the very beginning that God said, ‘let us make humanity in our image and after our likeness.” To be with God and to be like God, together: this is what we were made for and the purpose of human existence. This is why we all feel that deep longing to belong, why we continually search for meaning in the mundane. God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

We aren’t really ‘Christian’ in its fullest sense unless we’re doing life together within the God-community we were created for. Otherwise, we’re just like a random toe or finger, disconnected from a body and essentially useless (1 Corinthians 12:12-27) (in this analogy, that is; please don’t read that to be saying ‘you are useless’!).

The Apostle Paul has this to say about the body of Christ: “A body is made up of many parts, and each of them has its own use. That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5, CEV)

Each one of us, brought together, makes up the body and, as Ephesians 5:29 comments, “None of us hate our own bodies. We provide for them and take good care of them, just as Christ does for the church.”

This is what we were made for! Relationship with God and relationship with His people. Church people are kingdom people, living in a fellowship under King Jesus, with lives that are “connected to things before the creation of the world and extending far into eternity.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

We love the church because she is the community of God.

Finally…

Sometimes the church can feel hard to love. Sometimes we rub up against people who don’t exactly show Jesus as we think he ought to be seen. Sometimes we are those people.

But for those who have been disillusioned by the church, please know that she is full of people who really are the real deal; people who love Jesus, love his people, and are working every day in his kingdom mission with sincerity and authenticity. I know, because I’ve met them!

So, don’t give up hope in the church, in finding your place in it, and in loving her, despite her flaws.

She is us.

We are the church.

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This article was first published 16 November 2022

Inarguably, it’s the end of any story that’s the most important part.

While the beginning of a tale gives context and setting, and the middle gives the story its shape and drama, it’s the ending that provides meaning and gives resolution to the narrative. It’s the ending that makes sense of everything, that allows all the intersecting threads of drama, intrigue, risk, loss, joy, and homecoming to find their place and purpose within the story and, particularly, in its overarching conclusion.

Humanity’s story; an ongoing tale of love and war, victory and defeat, joy and tragedy, has not yet reached its conclusion, but, surprisingly, its ending has already been written.

While scientists and philosophers have had much to offer to the conversation about our origins and humanity’s remarkable traverse through history, with all of our astonishing achievements, they have little to offer on the subject of where we might all be going or how our story finishes. When it comes to science, we are left largely in the dark about the questions that matter the most.

What are we here for?

What is the purpose of life?

Where will we end up?

Life’s Most Profound Questions

It’s to the Bible alone that we can turn for answers to life’s most profound questions. It has much to say about not just how we supposedly got here and why, but also how humanity’s story will reach its epic conclusion.

The Bible is the living, Spirit-breathed Word of God, the written revelation of what God has been doing in the past, what He is still doing right now, and what he has intended for the future of humanity.

The Word of God is like a vast tapestry, its main theme interwoven with many sub-plots and side stories that run like golden threads through an intricate design. Each of these threads complements the complete telling of God’s story and confirm again and again to us the way in which God views the world, the people who inhabit it, and how important each one of us are to Him.

Far from being just black text on white pages; this book unveils the purpose, intentionality, and creative action of the Eternal One; breathed out, captured by way of quill and scroll by the faithful scribes who heard ‘the voice of God’, recording the Eternal’s story for all to read.

What we also learn about God’s story is that the master storyteller hasn’t been absent or detached from His story, but fully present and, in fact, His full, enveloping presence, His close and intimate dwelling with humanity was actually the point of the story all along. What began in a garden, where God once walked with us, will find its epic conclusion in a ‘new creation’, in a restored and regenerated earth where God at last dwells with His people.

The end of our story will actually be our new beginning. The conclusion of our story doesn’t end with us going to be with God; but with God coming to earth, returning, at last, to be with us.

God’s story has a conclusion, an ending, a moment when all the loose strings are neatly tied up and we’ll sit back, with a sigh of satisfaction at a tale well told and an ending more glorious than we could ever have imagined.

The Purpose Of God

Much of scripture is given to expressing the heart of the Creator and what His hopes and dreams were for this place we call Earth, along with us, its inhabitants, as His intended image-bearers.

“Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” | Genesis 1:26, CSB “Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the LORD.” | Number 14:28, ESV “And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” | Isaiah 40:5, ESV “On that day the LORD will become King over all the earth – the LORD alone and His name alone.” | Zechariah 14:9, ESV “And blessed be His glorious name forever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen, and Amen.” | Psalm 72:19, ESV

It was always the purpose of the Eternal to fill this good earth with His glorious presence, as deep and as expansive ‘as the waters cover the sea’. Despite human failure and many, many detours in this story, God has declared that His purpose will not be thwarted. He will accomplish what He intended for His creation, even to His own personal cost, as it turns out.

“I declare the end from the beginning and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.'” | Isaiah 46:10, ESV

The Kingdom Of God

This glorious and absolute rule and reign of the wise and faithful king is what the New Testament terms the ‘kingdom of God’.

The gospel is the good news that in Jesus, who is both saviour and king, God is saving, rescuing, atoning, justifying, ruling, and reconciling people for the glory of His name and in pursuit of His purpose.

What many people think of as ‘the gospel’ – being ‘saved’ – is actually only just one aspect of a much larger story, the full gospel (‘good news’) story of God’s will and purpose for the earth and how humanity is part of that.

“To grasp the significance of the message of the kingdom in the ministry of Jesus, we can also resort to statistical analysis. The term basileia (kingdom) occurs 162 times in the New Testament and 121 of those are in the Synoptic Gospels where the preaching of Jesus is recorded. The formula “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven” occurs 104 times in the Gospels. This message is not only the inaugural message of Jesus and the focus of His great Sermon on the Mount, it is his final message. “After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). The gospel of the kingdom includes the necessity of salvation since the very message begins with the call for repentance, but it goes beyond the call to salvation and includes the demand for kingdom-focused living. It insists that we are saved for a purpose.” – SBC Life

The kingdom of God is more than social justice or personal salvation. ‘The kingdom of God’ is the promise of God from the beginning to fill the earth with His glory, essentially, all of Himself, and to rule justly in the hearts and lives of all of humanity. It also includes the promise of total reconciliation with humanity; only made possible in Jesus (Ephesians 1:11-12, 1 Timothy 1:16-17, 2 Timothy 4:18, 1 Peter 4:11, Romans 11:36, Revelation 1:16).

Heaven + Earth

God didn’t just create humanity with purpose, He also created the earth with purpose. He cares deeply about what happens to this place we call home and all that He intended it to be.

A critical and essential reality of the kingdom of God includes its physicality. ‘The kingdom’ is not just an individual, spiritual, Christian experience but a literal reality that will be fully expressed and outworked on the earth.

Interestingly, intrinsic in the idea of ‘kingdom’ are the following five things: King + Rule + Realm + Law + Land. You can read more about these different aspects in the articles. ‘The People Of The Kingdom’ and ‘The Kingdom | Now, But Not Yet‘. However, the particular focus in this article is the reality of ‘land’ or physicality. This reality, when compared against many different passages in the Bible informs our understanding of what, or more specifically, where, this physical reality is intended to be.

Contrary to what many people may think, going to heaven is not a Christian’s final ending or God’s promise. Resurrection and life – heaven’s own eternal life – on a regenerated and restored earth, is the hope for every person of the kingdom.

Earth is the place where God’s will is to be done (where His kingdom will be fully revealed) in the same way as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10), earth is the intended inheritance of those who have been faithful, (Psalm 37:11, Matthew 5:5), earth is the place where peace and safety will finally reign supreme (Isaiah 2:4, Ezekiel 34:25) and where righteousness will take up residence (2 Peter 3:13), and earth is where all creation will finally be set free from its bondage and brought into the glorious freedom that God always intended for it (Romans 8:21).

Earth is the place where the curse of Eden will finally and completely be overthrown and God will return and take up residence amongst His people. Our long exile will be over.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” Revelation 21:3, BSB

“As N.T Wright and other New Testament scholars have shown, it’s important to understand that kingdom terminology refers not to some faraway paradise filled with disembodied souls, but rather to the will and reign of God, unleashed into the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.” (Rachel Held Evans). N T Wright puts it this way: “Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.”

The life of heaven – the “life and light of mankind” came to earth in the person of Jesus, shining brightly and giving hope in a damaged and disordered world. In Jesus, we can see the intention of God all along for His creation. In Jesus, all the fullness of God’s glory was displayed in human form and we can see the kind of life God has intended for us.

What God began in the resurrection of Jesus is what He intends to do for all of creation; to regenerate, to restore, and to fully dwell with His creation in all His glory.

The earth, renewed with heaven’s own life, is the epic conclusion to the story, and the final pages close with this promise: “The angel showed me a river that was crystal clear, and its waters gave life. The river came from the throne where God and the Lamb were seated. Then it flowed down the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river are trees that grow a different kind of fruit each month of the year. The fruit gives life, and the leaves are used as medicine to heal the nations.

God’s curse will no longer be on the people of that city. He and the Lamb will be seated there on their thrones, and its people will worship God and will see Him face to face. God’s name will be written on the foreheads of the people. Never again will night appear, and no one who lives there will ever need a lamp or the sun. The Lord God will be their light, and they will rule forever.” (Revelation 22:1-5, CEV)

“One day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee will bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God’s new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities.” | N T Wright

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What happens after the end? Well, the short answer is we don’t know. We’re told so much in the Bible about God’s purpose, His original intention for creation, and the lengths to which He has gone to get that story back on track. (Although, side-note, was it really ever truly off-track….?). We’re also told how this particular story will conclude.

But what comes after? As it is written, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The great Christian author, C S Lewis, puts it this way: “All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” (The Last Battle)

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This article was first published August 2021

There was a time, not so long ago, when my world was very dark. Have you ever stood outside, on a moonless night, with the thick, velvety air pressed all around you and the inky black sky above, and realised that you could see precisely nothing? That’s the kind of dark I mean.

Of course, I had all the feels as well; sadness, disorientation, confusion, an underlying sense of panic, but, primarily, the overwhelming sense was one of complete obscurity. I couldn’t see through the impenetrable blackness all around me, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.

I had never been in a place like that before. It wasn’t until a long time afterward that I was able to be thankful for such a darkness, but right in the middle, I longed for light, for the path to be made clear, for God to give me a sign.

GIDEON’S FLEECE

A story kept coming to me during this time—one about a man named Gideon from the Old Testament, whom God raised up as a mighty hero and rescuer of Israel (Judges 6-8). The Israelites had been harried for seven long years under the hand of the Midianites (who were related to Israel through their common ancestor, Abraham).

The angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon one day while he was secretly threshing wheat, so as to hide the grain from the marauding Midianites. 

The angel told Gideon, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you.” 

Gideon wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t so much that he doubted God, but rather he doubted God would use him. He wanted proof.

He asked God for a sign. He would put a woollen fleece out overnight on the threshing floor and if the fleece was wet with dew in the morning and the ground around it was dry, he would know for sure that God was with him and would help him rescue Israel.

The following morning, Gideon awoke to find a wet fleece on a dry floor. In fact, it was so wet that he was able to wring it out into a bowl, filling it to the brim. Convincing, yes?

Not quite enough for Gideon. Maybe it wasn’t God’s doing, just some strange quirk of overnight temperatures and precipitation and such.

He asked for a second sign, imploring God not to lose patience with him. He would put the fleece out again, but this time he asked that the fleece be dry in the morning while the ground all around would be wet.

Amazingly, that’s exactly what happened. And that’s where the story also ends, at least in relation to the signs. 

Gideon does go on to march against the Midianites, winning a decisive battle and freeing the Israelites from their control. The book of Judges, which chronicles these events, tells us that the Midianites never recovered from that day onward. The people of Israel were so impressed with Gideon’s bravery and leadership, that they tried to make him king, but he refused, 

We’re told nothing, however, about Gideon’s thoughts or feelings after receiving the second sign, only that he went confidently into battle soon after, clearly believing God to be with him.

I had always taken this story to mean: ‘ask God for a sign and the way will be made clear.’ And so, as I entered my dark night of the soul (although I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time), I repeatedly asked God for a sign. Not so specifically as, ‘make this or that happen’, but more like ‘show me which way to go.’ Metaphorically speaking, I was laying out my fleece each night, looking for a change; either a wet fleece and dry ground, or a dry fleece and wet ground. I didn’t much mind which one it was, I just wanted some indication of God’s presence, showing me which direction to take.

Like Gideon, I wanted to be brave but I didn’t want to make a decision without knowing for sure that God was with me in it. 

Bafflingly, it felt like God remained silent. I couldn’t understand it, I felt like I desperately needed a sign, I was actively looking for a sign – and yet my world remained dark. 

THE SIGN WAS  THE SIGN

I kept wondering about the story of Gideon and the message I thought the story communicated – ask God to show you, and then go that way – yet I couldn’t understand why God wasn’t coming through for me.

And then, suddenly, it hit me. The sign was the sign.

The story of Gideon wasn’t so much about direction but about trust. God already knew the way and could see the future mapped out, even if Gideon couldn’t. And Gideon didn’t need to be able to see that future to trust that God was already in it and that He had already gone before him. He just had to believe.

God had proven to Gideon He was able to do both things in relation to the fleece, and that, in fact, nothing was impossible with God. 

This was the God who had led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red Sea on dry ground. This was the God who had spoken to Moses from the depths of a burning bush which had not been consumed. This was the God who had called faithful Abraham out of the wealthy and prosperous civilisation of Ur to come to a place that only God knew, to a place that would become his home.

The sign was the sign – God can do anything. He already had my future mapped out, I just had to trust Him with it and step out. 

I needed to make a decision. 

STEPPING OUT IN FAITH

I’d like to be able to say that I then stepped out boldly and unafraid into a darkness that seemed all-encompassing. In reality, however, the fact that I couldn’t see where I was about to place my first step was terrifying.

Although deeply unhappy with where I was, I was also really scared to leave the place of no-decision. At least it was safe. At least it was known. At least I didn’t have to wrestle with all the doubts and fears that come when trying to make a decision – will it be the right one, will my family be ok, what if this changes everything…?

I was really scared to say ‘yes’ to God, without a single clue as to where He would take me. But I finally understood that the lesson of the story of Gideon wasn’t about waiting for the perfect sign before stepping out, but rather stepping out in faith, believing God had gone before me—and then watching God go to work.

They say that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but feeling the fear and doing it anyway (although the definition of stupidity is much the same which is why life can get complicated at times).

I noticed, almost immediately the moment I stepped out, a small glimmer of light. Things shifted in my world, doors began opening, new relationships began to flourish, and the darkness began to edge away. Like someone who has been deep underground, I felt my eyes adjusting to the light, my skin soaking in the warmth of the sun. 

“Sometimes when we’re in a really dark place, it can feel like we’ve been buried, but we’ve actually been planted.” – Christine Caine

I discovered that what had felt like a sentence of death was really a season of dormancy. I was like a seed, waiting for the right kind of conditions to grow. And, strangely enough, the truth is that most seeds germinate best in dark conditions. 

The darkness wasn’t an unhappy accident of fate, but a determined season of God. Things needed to die in the darkness in order to be reborn again in the light. 

THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

Even now, still thinking about that time, I become still and quiet, deep within my soul. It’s a difficult period to contemplate, a time of profound pain for me. 

The dark night of the soul is, as Inayat Khan writes, a total annihilation of all that you had believed in and thought that you were. Yet as Joseph Campbell states, “the dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.“

I’ve recently been reading ‘Confronting Christianity’ by Rebecca McLaughlin, who tackles the topic of suffering in Chapter 11 of her book. This chapter perhaps wouldn’t have resonated with me back then as it does now; I would venture to say that I had, generally speaking, suffered very little in my life up until that point. 

Rebecca offers a biblical framework around our concept and experience of suffering, sharing the story of two sisters, Mary and Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died (John 11:1-26). When Jesus finally arrives at their house, Lazarus has been dead for four days and both sisters are grief-stricken. We wonder that Jesus, who could have come sooner, didn’t, and instead chose to stay away. Yet even when Jesus does come, he does not fix Martha’s problem but instead invites her into a deeper, more profound realisation…

“Jesus looks her [Martha] in the eye and says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” As you stand here in your desperate grief, your greatest need is not to have your brother back again. It’s to have me.

This statement is yet more shocking than Jesus’ failure to come in the first place. Far from being the “good moral teacher who never claimed to be God” of modern mythology, Jesus here claims not that he is offering good guidelines for life, but that he himself is life: life in the face of suffering, life in the face of death.

Jesus’ power over death is absolute. I believe it is the only hope we have in the face of our inevitable end. But what fascinates me about this story is how little focus there is on Lazarus himself. Rather, the narrative draws our gaze to profound questions…In this strange stretching of the story, we get a glimpse of the whole biblical framework for suffering. The space between Lazarus’ death and Jesus’ calling of him out of the tomb is the space in which Martha sees Jesus for who he really is: her very life.” |  Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, pages 199-202

OUT THE OTHER SIDE

The dark night of the soul is the place where we confront the reality of death, natural or spiritual, perhaps for the first time. It’s the collapse of everything we thought we knew and understood, a painful shedding of possibly our identity, relationships, career, habits, or belief systems that had allowed us to construct some meaning to our lives.

It is often a time of existential crisis as we wrestle with our identity, our sense of self, and the purpose and meaning of life.

Yet it’s also the place where we confront Life, the true Life of the world, maybe, too, truly for the first time. “Our suffering is an entry point to relationship, a relationship formed through suffering as much as through joy. If, as Jesus claims, the goal of our existence is relationship with him, finding him in our suffering is the point.” (Rebecca McLaughlin)

As C S Lewis, British writer, literary scholar, and Anglician lay theologian, who experienced overwhelming grief at the loss of his wife, commented,  “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” 

I wasn’t necessarily a better Christian walking out the other side of that dark tunnel. I wasn’t necessarily wiser, braver, or more certain of my next steps. The pain I experienced didn’t suddenly evaporate like mist in the bright light of day, and I wasn’t instantly fixed.

And yet, somehow, I had changed. When I emerged, finally, I did so with a deeper recognition of where I needed to be putting my trust, a better understanding of what is truly of value, and a resolution to allow the painful experience to shape me into a better person moving forward.

And I can still recall the moment in the middle of that dark night of the soul when I suddenly understood the call of God to mean that I must step forward into the darkness. And that, as I took that first step, light began to spill in through the darkness, illuminating my path, and I discovered that the One I was following had been there all along. 

If you’re an orthodox Christian, already familiar with the doctrine of the Trinity, you might like to head somewhere else right now. This article will probably be, as they say, preaching to the converted.

But if that’s not you, and the idea of the Trinity is new, challenging, confronting, downright heretical, or, as far as you’re concerned, completely unbiblical…just hear me out.

I grew up being told all these things about the Trinity. I can confidently say now that not only do I believe I was misinformed about what the doctrine endeavours to articulate, I was also misinformed about the historical background and context of this doctrine, what the early church taught regarding the nature of Jesus, and what scripture itself teaches.

Several things resulted in a massive shift in my perspective, understanding, and belief of this doctrine, which I’d like to share in this article and which I hope will be helpful to anyone wrestling with this topic. It’s not necessarily everyone’s conversation of choice, but it’s come up several times with different individuals in the past few months, and so now seemed like the right time to share some thoughts on this one.

The Context Of The Council Of Nicea

In the spring of 325AD, a council of Christian bishops convened in the city of Nicaea (now known as the town of İznik, in modern-day Turkey). They met to deliberate over a theological dispute that had arisen concerning the nature of Jesus, his origins, and his relationship to God the Father.

Known as the Arian controversy – named for the presbyter and priest (Arius) to whom the controversy is attributed – the gathering was not so much an argument about whether Jesus was God, but rather, a dispute over whether Jesus was eternal; and therefore without beginning, or whether he had been created before time and was therefore subordinate to the Father.

This is an important distinction: the Council was not arguing over whether ‘Jesus was God‘ (God the Son), as I had always been taught. This was a dispute over whether he had always existed (and was therefore of the same substance as the Father) or whether he had been begotten/created (and was therefore similar but not the same as God the Father).

“Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made before time by God the Father; therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time.“

This was an ontological argument. Who was Jesus before he was Jesus, did he always exist before time or was he created before time? Was the Son equal with the Father or subordinate? Was he the same as or different from the Father?

What Did The Early Church Teach?

The reason the Arian theology was so controversial is because it was a change to the status quo. The early church taught and believed in the divinity of the Son, and that his nature was the same essence and substance as God the Father. They believed that Jesus, as the Word of God, was eternal, was from God Himself, and therefore was of the same substance as God.

“According to its [Arianism’s] opponents, especially the bishop St. Athanasius, Arius’ teaching reduced the Son to a demigod, reintroduced polytheism (since worship of the Son was not abandoned), and undermined the Christian concept of redemption, since only he who was truly God could be deemed to have reconciled humanity to the Godhead.” | Britannica

We have not just the writings of well-known apostles like Paul and Peter and John, but also those who came after them – extra-biblical sources – who taught about Christ as the Word of God, the virgin birth, and the incarnation. Names such as Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria, Polycarp, and Ireneaus, many of whom were contemporaries and disciples of the apostles, wrote and taught extensively on this subject. You can read, for example, Ignatius’ letter to the Ephesians (written some time between 107–110 CE) here.

It is an egregious misrepresentation to say that the divinity of Christ was invented in the fourth century; what is actually true is that the accepted understanding of the nature of Christ was being challenged. The intention of the Council of Nicene was, therefore, to define, in written form, what the church already believed and taught regarding Jesus, binding Christendom together in unity across different traditions and practices.

The Nicene Creed used the same three-fold structure as the more simple and earlier creeds, such as the Apostles’ Creed, which had touched very little on this topic, and, because of this particular controversy, went into more depth and detail in relation to Christology – that is, the nature and origin of Jesus Christ.

Is ‘Trinity’ In The Bible?

The early church fathers taught and believed in the divinity of Jesus, his existence before time, and his incarnation as the Word-Made-Flesh. But perhaps they had deviated significantly in doctrine in the first few years of the church’s existence?

This is often one of the criticisms leveled at the Trinity from those who reject it, a two-fold dismissal if you like; firstly, that the word ‘trinity’ isn’t mentioned in the Bible and, secondly, that its ‘official introduction’ in the fourth century (a claim shown to be a misrepresentation, at best) was ‘the great apostasy’ the church had been warned about (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3).

It’s suggested that as early as AD98, only a generation on from the incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), the church had veered wildly off-course and into heresy, even with the Holy Spirit as guide and teacher, the very recent reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the powerful witness of those who had walked with him, many of whom were still alive.

Honestly? I find that extremely unlikely.

I trust not only the teaching of the apostles themselves, who were radically transformed by their experience of the resurrection, but also the work of the Holy Spirit, active and powerful, in growing the church and supporting the new believers in their faith. It just doesn’t seem credible to me that something so important, so vital, so life-changing could be corrupted and derailed so early on.

Certainly, the church began to face challenges as time went on, particularly as the apostolic age drew to a close. It experienced great periods of persecution, followed finally by a shift in fortune in the form of open favour from Rome’s pagan Emperor, Constantine, the emperor of the Nicene Creed. Yet it was during the early years of persecution and struggle that we find the orthodox doctrines being taught and written about, not formulated later under, as is sometimes asserted, pagan influences.

You can research any of the early church fathers and their teaching for yourself. Ignatius, for example, an early Christian writer and later Patriarch of Antioch, wrote many letters which serve as examples of early Christian theology. He, along with Polycarp, another apostolic father, are traditionally held to be disciples of John of the Revelation, and demonstrated their ‘trinitarian’ consciousness in their writings.

Just as the word ‘omnipotence’ isn’t found in the Bible, and yet we understand the concept of God’s supremacy and power to be taught throughout scripture, so, too, you won’t find the word ‘trinity’, and yet the concept of One God, revealed to us in three distinct persons, completely unified with each other, can be found throughout the New Testament.

Here are several biblical passages which teach this concept regarding the Christology of Jesus. Take some time to read through them for yourself: John 1:1–5, John 1:1–5, John 5:17–18; John 10:33–38,  Hebrews 1:1–4, Colossians 1:18-20, Colossians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Philippians 2:6-11, John 17:5, 2 Corinthians 8:9, John 8:58.

While the word ‘trinity’ is not explicitly used in the New Testament letters and epistles, the concept of the trinity was certainly expressed by biblical authors and was the understanding of the early church, as can be seen by the extensive writings of the early church fathers. It was this understanding that the Nicene Creed attempted to articulate and document in 325AD.

God Is ‘One’ So The Trinity – ‘Three Gods’ – Can’t Be Right. Can It?

One of the huge misconceptions that non-Trinitarians hold to is the belief that the doctrine of the Trinity teaches there are three gods. In reality, the Trinitarian doctrine actually affirms biblical monotheism and rejects the heresy of ‘three gods’ (polytheism). 

The Bible teaches that God is One, but not in the numerical sense that is often used by non-Trinitarians. God is One in the sense that there is no other. He, alone, is the singular God in all the universe. 

The ancient Jewish prayer – known as the Shema – recites this truth “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And as for you, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength“.

The meaning of this famous prayer is that the people of Israel were to learn to listen and love God fully, above all else, with all their hearts. The Shema wasn’t making a statement about God’s essence but rather His preeminence. It wasn’t intended to function as a negation of the idea of the Trinity but as a statement of allegiance to the only true God, particularly relevant for a people who had been steeped in polytheism for generations.

“This prayer has been one of the most influential traditions in Jewish history, functioning both as the Jewish pledge of allegiance and a hymn of praise.” | The Bible Project

Interestingly, Jesus quotes the Shema on two occasions in the synoptic gospels, in Matthews 22 and Mark 12. In Matthew, he follows up immediately with questions about the origins and paternity of the Messiah, the Messiah’s relationship to the great king of Israel, David, and the title given to the Messiah of ‘Lord’; an interesting progression of thought from Jesus, and one which had the effect of reducing his audience to silence.

Isn’t The Trinity Doctrine ‘Catholic’?

If, by ‘catholic’, you mean ‘universal’, then yes. For the first fifteen hundred years of the church’s history, there was only one, ‘universal’ church and early creeds will often refer to the church in this way. The church’s official position in relation to the nature of Christ had been documented in the Nicene Creed in 325AD and it remains the official, orthodox, (accepted) doctrinal position.

However, I suspect what  is actually being asked is, “isn’t the Trinity doctrine part of the Roman Catholic Church?” (ie ‘a Catholic thing’) and the short answer is no. The Trinity isn’t only specific to the Roman Catholic Church. All three branches of Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism) subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity.

Even after the Protestant Reformation swept through Europe, beginning with the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses to the castle church in Wittenberg, the resultant split between the Catholic Church and its Protestant offspring largely revolved around the idea that people should be independent in their relationship with God, taking personal responsibility for their faith and referring directly to the Bible for guidance, instead of priests or popes. The Reformation rejected the doctrine of papal supremacy, among other things, and arrived at different views on ecclesiastical polity, apostolic succession, and the nature of salvation, however disagreement on the Trinity was not one of the areas of argument.

That being said, there are a few exceptions; some further religious movements arose out of the Protestant movement which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; these branches of Christianity are known as ‘Unitarian’ but are Socinian rather than Arian in theology.

What Does It Mean To Be God?

The Bible gives us many descriptions of Who and What ‘God’ is, endeavouring to help us understand the concept of God, as best we can, from our limited human experience.

The Bible teaches that God is the Creator of all things, the source of all life, sovereign over all, powerful, and perfect. Without beginning and without end, He is eternal, holy, clothed in light, glorious as the sun. Yet He is also tender, loving, forgiving, as compassionate as any mother to her children, and as protective as any father defending His family.

We are created in His image, bearing many of His attributes, yet because of the fall, bound by mortality and constrained by sin. The fall in Eden resulted in brokenness in our relationship with God, creating an impenetrable barrier that we couldn’t cross (Exodus 33:18-23). As the popular worship song, ‘Jesus, My Living Hope’ laments, “How great the chasm that lay between us, how high the mountain I could not climb.“

Until Jesus came, no one had ever seen God face to face. Yet as Timothy writes (1 Timothy 3:16), the invisible God was made visible in Jesus, “this is, without question, the great mystery of our faith; God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.“

If we could not come to God (and we couldn’t – see below: ‘God Does The Saving’), then God would come to us.

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” | John 1:14

John, writer of the fourth gospel, offers a more insightful perspective, opening with the otherwordly prologue regarding Jesus and his origins; specifically, the identification of Jesus as the Word, who was with God and was God in the beginning.

Through Jesus, he says, all things have been brought into being; he is the light and life of humanity, who became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory – face-to-face at last – as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

God came to us, wrapped in the perishable, temporary covering of flesh and bone, the full intensity and glory hidden within Jesus. We have a hint of what that glory was like in Luke 9:29-32, where the veil was lifted momentarily and his appearance was altered, an event the Bible calls ‘the transfiguration’.

Jesus himself declared that only he could reveal God fully, in his words, “no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt 11:27b) and that “the person who has seen him [Jesus] has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9).

The gospel of John offers more: seven ‘signs’ culminating in the resurrection of Lazarus (proof of Jesus’ power over even death itself), and seven ‘I am’ discourses, culminating in the declaration by Thomas concerning Jesus as “my Lord and my God”. The first instance, in John 8:58, leaves no doubt that Jesus’ claimed to be God incarnate, because the Jews were infuriated by his reply and took up stones to kill him.

“John’s “high Christology” depicts Jesus as divine and preexistent, defends him against Jewish claims that he was “making himself equal to God”, and talks openly about his divine role and echoing Yahweh’s “I Am that I Am” with seven “I Am” declarations of his own.” | Stephen L Harris, Understanding the Bible

Jesus was fully God; the invisible God made visible in a way that we could draw near to, touch, walk with, and eat with. Yet Jesus didn’t count his equality with God as something to be held onto, but rather something to be set down, for our sakes, and did so ‘by becoming a man like other men’ (Philippians 2:7-9, Weymouth NT).

Nothing Is Impossible With God

Those who reject the doctrine of the Trinity often do so on the basis that it’s impossible; how could God become human or how could God die? And who was ‘left in heaven’ if God came to earth? (yet another misunderstanding about who was sent and who was the sender: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.”)

Yet we also accept many other impossibilities in scripture: that life can be created from nothing, that sickness can be completely healed, that water and wind can be controlled, that time can be stopped, that water can be turned into wine, that bread and fish can be multiplied, that death itself can be overcome and vanquished. 

Nothing, literally, nothing is impossible with God and if we learn anything from scripture, it’s that we should be ready to entertain any possibility and expect any outcome. Though we might not always understand how something could be possible, that shouldn’t stop us from believing that it could. Our cry should always be, ‘Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief.’

God is Spirit. He is not limited by shape, force, boundaries or time. The same, however, cannot be said of humanity. We are limited; by time, by physicality, by mortality, by sin. There are things we simply cannot do.  

What shifted in my perspective in this particular area was the realisation that without the doctrine of the Trinity, the concept of redemption becomes humanly impossible.

While Jesus had to be truly human – atonement was required on behalf of humanity and only a human could make this restitution (and I’ve written about Jesus’ humanity elsewhere) – if he had been only human, it would have been impossible for him to have overcome sin.

Limited in the same way that we are, even with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, he couldn’t have lived a perfect, sinless life and, therefore, successfully ‘made atonement’ for sin, or have overthrown the greatest enemy, death itself.

This was the entire point of the giving of the Old Covenant; it was intended that humanity should realise through their failure to keep the Law, despite even the best of intentions, their complete inability to atone for or redeem themselves and restore their relationship with God.

Humanity was in an awful bind, a catch-22 situation of epic proportions: atonement must be made by a human…but no human perfect enough or powerful enough existed to make such an atonement. That is the very definition of humanly impossible.

“But behold“, God says, “I will make a way in the desert. I am about to do something new. Prepare the way of the Lord…” While impossible with humanity, nothing was impossible with God.

The Word Who was in the beginning, Who called life into being, Who is the source of life and light of humanity stepped in the very creation He had made in order to save and redeem it. The Word – truly God – became human, He became the representative of us all and in his human body, the war against sin and death would be waged and won.

What was impossible for us became possible with God. Jesus Christ – truly human and truly God; the One and Only Begotten Son of the Father had come to save the world and reconcile us back to God.

God Does The Saving

It seems to me that once you start paying attention, you realise the Bible is telling the same story over and over again, but just in different ways, and it can perhaps be summarised in one simple sentence: “God Does The Saving.”

“Praise the Lord, who carries our burdens day after day; he is the God who saves us. Our God is a God who saves; he is the Lord, our Lord, who rescues us from death.” | Psalm 68:19-20

At every turn, humanity’s inability to overthrow the curse of Eden is demonstrated, as chapter after chapter of the Bible lays out the moral bankruptcy of the human race. Humans were unable to wage war against sin and win, or to overthrow death. The separation that had resulted from the fall in Eden couldn’t be healed just by human power, it needed divine intervention. 

It would be God, and it was always going to be God, who would do the saving.

I think this raises another significant point, and one which is worth spending some time on: the difference between a grace-framed salvation theology and a works-framed salvation theology.

Grace tells us that God saves because of Who He is, not because of who we are. We are saved by grace through faith – and this is not of ourselves – it is a gift of God. Human endeavour played no part in the work of saving or redeeming humanity back to God. (Ephesians 2:4-10). And this ‘work of saving’ took place long before we ever turned to God, even, as Romans comments, “while we were still sinners.“

Jesus showed us the kind of human we were intended to be, and the kind of holy life we were purposed for, an exact representation of the divine. He didn’t achieve this through grit, sheer willpower, or determined asceticism, but because he was also truly God. Nothing of his life should convince us that we can ever be like him, by our own resolve, strength, or determination or that by doing good we are contributing to our salvation.

Even the most steadfast, committed, faithful Christian does not add anything to the victory won by Jesus and it is only the work of Christ-in-us that we are able to become more like God (our works, however, do prove our faith is real – and I’ve written more about that here).

Irenaeus, an early church father, puts it like this: ”For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”

I think the problem with making Jesus human and only human is that we are making the work of salvation a human endeavour. We are in danger of seeing Jesus’ life as a model for good behaviour (that will somehow make us right with God), and we are framing our Christian life as an exercise of our own determination and willpower which will enable us to overcome. Unspoken but implicit in this theology is the idea that “if you try hard enough, you too can overcome like Jesus”. 

But it is only in Christ that we are more than conquerors; we are graciously invited into his victory, and it is only because, in Christ, who was divine, God raising us up to partake in the divine nature (theosis) becomes possible.

In Conclusion (And Not To Be Considered Exhaustive!)

If you’ve been wrestling with this topic, the best place to start is always, of course, with scripture. And the best way to start is by asking questions. 

I would suggest you take some time to read through the New Testament letters and gospels and notice what the writers are telling you about Jesus. If the idea of ‘the Trinity’ is new or challenging for you, simply set that aside for now; you’re not seeking to prove or disprove the doctrine, only to hear what scripture has to say. Begin the exercise with a willing mind, an open heart, and a prayer for God to reveal Himself. 

Read about church history, particularly the first 300 years, for yourself, and seek out the writings of the early church fathers (pre-Nicene era). Is the language used or are the concepts described by them compatible with scripture? Or do they introduce ideas thoroughly at odds with the Bible?

Familiarise yourself with the background and context of the Council of Nicea. What was the reason they gathered? Does this reshape your understanding of the creed and provide better explanation to the language used within it? Are the conclusions of the Council (irrespective of their ‘wordiness’) consistent with your journey through scripture and history?

Consider the reason for Jesus’ coming: why was he sent and what did he accomplish? Jesus himself told us when only just a young boy that “he must be about His Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). What was “this business”? Of particular relevance to these questions is Jesus’ discourse in John 8:12-58.

Don’t try to arrive at a resolution or conclusion in a single moment and allow yourself the freedom to acknowledge that there are things you may not know or understand now, or ever. Our hope rests not in our complete comprehension but in our posture of trust in the One who saves.

And finally, I would respectfully encourage you to consider this: our theology – what we think about God – is important. How can we begin to know and understand ourselves and our place in this expansive creation if we have no sense of the One who made us and the purpose for which we’ve been made?

However, a robust and living theology will spring from understanding and experiencing who God is and what He has done for us, in Jesus, not simply by giving agreement to a statement or creed of ‘theological beliefs’. 

To know God is to know Jesus, whom He sent (John 17:3), and, therefore, the true starting point of our theology as Christians is looking to Jesus and, fundamentally, to God, in Jesus, crucified. It is in this that we see the extent to which God was prepared to go in order to rescue and redeem us.

Although deeply theologicial in its language, I believe the Trinity doctrine boldly endeavours to affirm and clarify this reality, underscoring the deep committment of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit to rescuing, redeeming and restoring creation.