The Triunity Report

Theology

The Love and Justice of God

• Death seems so horrible. Why would a God of love make us go through such an experience?
• How can a loving God send people to Hell?
• If God is so loving and powerful, why is there evil and suffering in the world?
• What about those who have never seen a Bible or have never met a believer in God? Part 1
• What about those who have never seen a Bible or have never met a believer in God? Part 2

The Nature of God

• Who created God?
• Isn't it unfair that Jesus spoke in parables?

The Holy Spirit

• What does it mean to be Baptized in the Spirit?

The Trinity

• How can three persons make-up one God?

For more information about these and other related subjects, click here.

Death seems so horrible. Why would a God of love make us go through such an experience?

Radio Spot

Let's consider what the Bible tells us about this difficult subject. Back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned, God took steps to bar their access to the tree of life, which, had they eaten of it, would have kept them alive physically forever. By introducing the death of their bodies, God was working out His plan for our benefit and He was limiting the spread of man's evil.

Long life spans work for the advantage of the wicked, not the righteous. The days before the Flood when people lived hundreds of years bear witness to this fact. Murder and evil of every kind apparently became wholesale.

Each of us can fully trust God with the timing of our own death and the death of those we know and love. Scripture reveals that God chooses the day of our death according to what's eternally best for us. If we're His, it's to maximize our eternal reward, and if not, it's to minimize our torment in hell.

For a complete copy of Dr. Ross's paper God's Mercy in Death, click here.

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write:

How can a loving God send people to Hell?

Radio Spot

Perhaps the most difficult doctrine in the Bible to reconcile is the willingness of a loving God to condemn people to eternal torment in hell for refusing to submit to His authority. That God would punish to such an incredible degree seems utterly contrary to our notion of love.

First, we need to understand that God does not force Himself on anyone. Those individuals who end up in hell are those who clearly and deliberately pushed aside the influence of God's Spirit during their lifetime. In accord with their persistent choice, God withdrew His Spirit.

The prophet Jeremiah warns us that without the restraint of God's Spirit, the human heart will express unimaginable evil. Therefore, to keep the inhabitants of hell from making things worse there, God imposes torment.

John, in Revelation, points out that for those who have done much evil on earth and are capable of wreaking more atrocity upon their fellows in hell, God imposes more torment. Upon those who have lived a seemingly decent life, God imposes less torment.

God expresses His love to those in hell by giving each one just enough torment to keep hell from becoming a worse place than it must be already, without the presence of Him in whom all goodness and love reside.

If God is so loving and powerful, why is there evil and suffering in the world?

Radio Spot

If God is so loving and powerful, why is there evil and suffering in the world? Have you ever been asked this question? Some of the greatest minds of our time, including Albert Einstein, have wrestled with this one and come up short. But, there is an answer, a sensible one.

It is found in the Bible, particularly in the first three and the last three chapters of the Bible. We need to understand first of all that man was without sin when God created him. If God had forcibly prevented man from sinning, man's will would not be free. And without free choice, man is merely a puppet. Such a thing as love or courage or any other virtue would be impossible.

Therefore, God risked the introduction of evil because he had a higher ultimate goal in mind. His ultimate goal is revealed in Revelation 20, 21, and 22 -- to develop human beings with their free will intact yet with no possibility of ever falling again into sin and its dreadful results. The rest of the Bible reveals that evil and suffering are essential in achieving this amazing transformation.

For a complete copy of Dr. Ross's paper Evil and Suffering in Light of God's Love and Power, click here.

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write:

What about those who have never seen a Bible or have never met a believer in God? Part 1

Radio Spot

Is it possible for everyone to know that God exists? What about those who have never seen a Bible or have never met a believer in God? How can they know? The oldest book in the Bible, the book of Job, tells us how.

Job had no scriptures, no support from the religion of his time and culture, and his closest friends disagreed with his ideas about their Creator. In arguing with his friends Job appealed to the evidence he saw in nature.

• First, he noted that the existence of creatures demands the existence of a personal Creator.
• Second, he reminded his friends that the marvels of the creation require a Creator who is awesomely powerful and wise.
• Third, he reasoned that the Creator's provision for His creatures proves the Creator's love.
• Fourth, he saw that man's conscience, namely the code of right and wrong written on every person's heart, reveals that the Creator is just and demands perfection.
• Fifth, we all fall hopelessly short of that perfection in keeping His standard.
• Sixth, God is so clearly loving, powerful, and wise that He must have provided a means of rescue.
• Seventh, if we trust our lives totally and only to the Rescuer who must be God, Himself, we will be saved.

This in a nutshell is the message of the Bible, a message available to all through an honest, humble-hearted examination and consideration of the facts of nature.

What about those who have never seen a Bible or have never met a believer in God? Part 2

Radio Spot

What happens to people who have never heard about Christ? If Jesus is the only way to eternal life what chance do they have? How could God judge them? Have you ever been asked these questions and wished you had a really good answer? There is one, and it's not complicated: it is that everyone has heard the gospel.

Romans 1 declares that God's character and nature can be "understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." But, exactly how is the gospel revealed to us through the creation?

• Honest humble- hearted examination of the world of nature is sufficient to convince us that there must be a Creator, and that the Creator is awesomely powerful, wise, loving, and just.
• Our experience convinces us that we fall hopelessly short of the Creator's perfect standard.
• Therefore, a Creator who is so obviously loving, powerful, and wise would have made a way to rescue us. If we trust our lives totally and only to Him, to His Divine Rescuer, we will be saved.

A good example of someone who discovered the gospel as he considered the creation is Job. Take a look at chapters 7 to 19 in the book of Job.

Who created God?

Radio Spot

If God created us, who created God? Children and teens pose no other question about God more often than this one. However, this question presumes that God is restricted to one dimension of time, just as we ar e.

Recently, however, astronomers demonstrated that our universe of matter, energy, space, and time had a beginning. This means that time was created, Of all the so-called "holy" books of the religions of the world, the Bible stands alone in teaching this doctrine. It is stated clearly in Titus 1:2 and in II Timothy 1:9.

The Bible declares that the grace of God we now experience was in effect before the beginning of time. In other words, God operates in two or more dimensions of time. Thus, we would not expect God to have a beginning in our dimension of time.

Everything in this universe is one dimensional in time, and therefore must have a beginning and be created. But, God, transcending our single dimension of time, has no beginning or ending and is not created.

Isn't it unfair that Jesus spoke in parables?

Radio Spot

Why did Jesus speak in parables? His reply to that question in Mark 4:12 is that "they may be ever hearing but never understanding, otherwise they might turn and be forgiven." This seems disturbingly unfair.

A closer look at the passage, however, shows that He was commenting on people's spiritual condition, not expressing a wish to see them condemned. An overview of the whole Bible reveals a consistent pattern in God's style of communication with man.

God addresses an audience with plain direct teaching in all those situations where the listeners have the humility to receive it directly. For those audiences so caught up in pride and self-justification as to resist His direct teaching, God uses parables. And, then, there are those audiences whose level of rebellion will not allow them even to hear a parable. In such cases, God's tool is an object lesson. Finally, there are those audiences incapable of any degree of humility or repentance. Since such people are bent on infecting others with their extreme evil, God ultimately removes them.

God's desire is that none should perish, but that everyone come to repentance, says the Bible repeatedly. Therefore, God has developed communication tools specific to each audience and their needs.

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write:

What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Radio Spot

I've heard Christians talk about something called "the Baptism in the Holy Spirit." In fact, it seems to be a controversial subject among Christians. What's it all about?

First, many seem to be ignorant of the importance of following certain basic rules for interpreting the Bible. One rule is to take a close look at the original words and their meaning. The Greek word for "baptize" refers to immersing or placing something or someone completely into something else.

According to the book of I Corinthians, the Spirit of God places each person who gives his life to Jesus Christ into an eternal community of fellow believers called the body of Christ. That is the baptism which the Holy Spirit performs. The way He does it is to come inside, to reside permanently within, that person who gives himself to Christ. The coming within and placing within are simultaneous. They are one and the same event, described from two different perspectives. They are not separated in time.

Some people assume that they are separate events because of the stories in Acts when this gift of the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit first was given. But those stories are explained in both the Old Testament and other parts of the New Testament as a special set of one-time only events

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write:

What is the Holy Spirit?

Radio Spot

I hear Christians talk so much about the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit and is it really all that important?

First, the Holy Spirit is a member of the God head. As His title indicates, He exists as a spirit. His relationship with man is predominantly one of revealing truth, testifying of Jesus Christ, convicting man of sin, revealing coming judgment, and urging man to reconcile with God.

To the believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit also gives understanding of the Bible, assurance, hope, comfort, power to minister, and power to grow more and more like Jesus in character. Though all true believers in God are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they are not always filled, that is, directed and empowered, by the Holy Spirit.

This filling is renewed when we practice a process of confessing to God our imperfections, and we offer ourselves in some deeper way to God as instruments of righteousness. We are renewed when we receive new gifts from God, and believe that we have received these gifts of righteousness. We are renewed in expressing gratefulness to God for what He has provided.

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write:

How can three persons make-up one God?

Radio Spot

Perhaps you are among the many individuals who have stumbled over the fact that the Trinity just does not seem to make sense. How can one person be two persons and three persons all at the same time?

Actually, they can't if we're dealing with only four dimensions --length, width, height, and time. During the last eight years, astronomers have proved that the universe and everything in it is indeed confined to just these four dimensions.

However, astronomers have also proved that the universe had a beginning, thus a Beginner, One who transcends these four dimensions. In fact, recent discoveries reveal the necessity of at least ten dimensions of reality for the Creator.

With one exception, all the holy books of the religions of the world describe God and His dealings with man from the perspective of only four dimensions. The exception is the Bible. The Bible alone speaks of extra dimensions of time and of space. In these extra dimensions the Trinity is entirely possible.

To contact Reasons To Believe, send us an email or write: