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Listen to this post:
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Yesterday’s post was true and important, but too technical for many. In this post, I make many of the same points while avoiding technicalities.
Trinitarian traditions correctly teach people to distinguish and not confuse together the Father and the Son.
But they also, unfortunately, teach them to distinguish between God and the Father, as the former is, but the latter isn’t triune.
Thus, when they encounter New Testament differences between God and Jesus, they say “Ah yes, this is just a difference between the Father and Jesus – but not between God and Jesus. Everyone knows that Jesus is God, right?”
But this is demonstrable confusion.
Imagine that you’re helping a kid to read Genesis, and she doesn’t realize that Abraham and Abram are not supposed to be two men, but are rather the same man. She reads that Abram “believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6), then she asks “I know that Abram trusted in God. But did Abraham trust in God?”
You would explain to her that Abram just is Abraham; whatever is true of Abram has to be true of Abraham and vice-versa. In other words, “Abram” and “Abraham” are just two names for the same guy. In keeping our inventory of Bible characters, we don’t need two entries here, but one. So since we know that Abram trusted God, we also know that Abraham trusted God.
Now go back to the New Testament. The Father is not one character and God is another; rather, God just is the Father, and vice-versa. Normally, the terms “God” and “the Father” are used interchangeably. (e.g. John 6:46; John 10:36; John 13:3) While the word “God” can, rarely, be used for other beings, generally the word “God” is used to refer to the same one as is referred to by the words “the Father.” So whatever is true of the Father is true of God, and whatever is true of God is true of the Father. They’re no more two characters than are Abram and Abraham!
This simple insight shows why it is pure confusion to say “Sure, the differences show that the Son isn’t the Father, but that doesn’t mean the Son isn’t God.” No, the differences show both, because the Father and God are one and the same. For instance, the Son died, but the Father didn’t. So, the Son isn’t the Father and the Father isn’t the Son. But here’s another pair of differences: the Son died, and God didn’t die. So, the Son isn’t God – that is, isn’t numerically the same thing as God. Whatever is true of the Father is true of God and vice-versa; they’re the same character!
But is the Son “divine”? Maybe in some sense of being “divine” where this doesn’t imply being God himself. That’s another discussion.
The point is this: since in the New Testament God just is the Father and vice-versa, whatever is true on one must be true of the other. And we have abundant evidence that the Son is not the Father, namely, their many differences! But these differences are also between the Son and God. It’s just as obviously a confusion to run together Jesus and God as it is to run together Jesus and the Father.
