Cheryl Schatz

Hi Craig,
Thanks for your patience. Our office/studio addition has turned my life upside down right now and likely will stay that way until it is finished.

Your questions are good questions and deserve to be answered.

I may have misunderstood, but someone I think mentioned a bible college lecturer who believed that “God” generally refers to the “Trinity”.
I was wondering this same question about John1:1. How could “the Word” be “with” the Trinity.

When the Bible says “God” we can take that as all of God using the context to set up any limitations. For example if you daughter (if you have one) is “with” the family this evening, we would understand that she is alongside them in fellowship this evening. Yet your daughter is also “family” but the statement is not meant to be taken as if she is “with” herself. We understand that family means all the family and “with” means she is with all excluding herself. Thus John 1:1 with the Word being with God means that He is alongside and in fellowship with the persons who are God excluding Himself since one person is not “with” Himself. So in John 1:1 we would not usually say that the Word is with the Trinity, but that the Word is with God with God here meaning the Father and the Holy Spirit thus showing Him equal in relationship. The context limits the application to two persons as God. The second part of John 1:1 where the Word is said to be God, this part is anarthrous which means that it is without the definite article. This grammar structure shows that the essence of what makes God to be God (His power, His knowledge, etc) is what Jesus has. It does not mean that He is the same person as the Father or the Holy Spirit but He is the same essence and is the same Being as God.

Also in John 4:24 when Jesus says “God is spirit”- Jesus is God and He has a body.

While we can say the Word is God, when we say Jesus is God we need to make clear that He isn’t just God. He is the God-man. When the Word became man, God did not change. God overtook the flesh in indwelling and becoming one of us. So while Jesus the God-man became tired, the essence of who God is does not become tired. It was the flesh alone, not His Spirit that was hungry, tired and was bruised and broken.

I think that the general rule is that the term “God” means all of God unless there is something in the context that would limit the persons. For example if we look at John 20:28 where Thomas calls Jesus “the Lord of me” and “the God of me”, Thomas recognizes that Jesus is in essence the very being of God – so that he can claim that Jesus is his God. But Thomas is not saying that Jesus is the person of the Father or the person of the Holy Spirit. But the term is important because it is the reason for his worship of Jesus as God. All of who God is, is in Jesus who was standing there in the flesh.

John 20:28 (NAS) Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

How I would describe this would be to say that Jesus is the “being” of God – the “essence” of God. The Father is also the “being” and “essence” of God, as well as the Holy Spirit is also the “being” and “essence” of God. Thomas would be describing the nature of God rather than how many persons are God. Thomas was not saying that Jesus is the Trinity, but that He has the very nature of God, the being of God, residing in His flesh as the God-man.

I think that most other references to God would be the entire persons of God and His entire nature.

I hope this helps a little.