When I was gone the week of April 21, I was attending (and helping to run) the annual Congress on the Lutheran Confessions. The title and theme was “Who is God” in light of the Lutheran Confessions. That may seem like a strange theme but it is very appropriate for out times. From the pope on down to some officials in our own Synod have declared that there is only on God but He manifests himself in different ways to different people. This is called “syncretism”. A result of syncretism is “unionism”, that is worshipping or praying with people of other religions.
So asking the question, “Who is God?” is something we should ask ourselves and each other regularly. You know the answer but that confession must be in our minds and hearts and on our lips. The only true God, indeed, the only God, is the LORD, the holy, blessed Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The most important emphasis of the conference I attended was exactly what Jesus says in John 14 and repeats elsewhere in His teaching. The only way, in which anyone can know the one, true God is through Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Anyone who claims to believe in God without Jesus Christ believes in a false god. In addition we can only know the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ because it is through Him that the Father bestows upon us His Spirit. All revelation of the Triune God comes only through the Son. And this is eternal life that we may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
There can be blending of religions such as evolutions and Christianity or Islam and Christianity or Civil religion and Christianity. In short, the Trinity has no equals and may not be compromised through syncretism, unionism or blending with other gods. Those Christians who have discontinued confessing any of the historical creeds (and there are many) soon deteriorate into nothing more than worship of self and things, pure idolatry. On the other hand, those who worship a Jesus without His cross do not worship the LORD. You can’t have a Jesus who is only friend or implementer or teacher of morality. Sometimes Jesus has been reduced to “love”. And while God is love He is made manifest to us only through the crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ. When God is worshiped as “love” then there is no acknowledgment of sin and consequently no need of a redeemer from sin.
So you can see that asking the question, “Who is God?” is very important in its answer. The little child who answers that question with “Jesus” is more correct than they can realize for when we know Jesus of the Scriptures we then know the Lord, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. May God continue to bless us in this confession of Him to the world.
In Christ,
Pastor Brege
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