{"id":5260,"date":"2026-03-02T11:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5260"},"modified":"2026-03-02T11:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:50:29","slug":"his-only-son-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/his-only-son-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"His Only Son Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.<\/em>
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Kids ask great questions.\u00a0
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A young student named Emma asked her social studies teacher, Mr. Johnson, \u201cHow do you think Noah stored enough food to feed all those animals on the ark?\u201d
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Mr. Johnson sighed and said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t Sunday School, Emma.\u00a0We\u2019re not here to talk about questions like that.\u00a0Besides, most people agree that if there ever was somebody like Noah, he didn\u2019t actually build a giant boat and fill it with animals to escape a flood.\u201d
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\u201cWell,\u201d said Emma timidly, \u201cI guess I can ask him myself when I get to heaven.\u201d\u00a0\u201cReally?\u201d said Mr. Johnson, rolling his eyes.\u00a0\u201cSo, what if Noah ended up in hell?\u201d\u00a0

Emma answered, \u201cThen you <\/em>can ask him.\u201d
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So, what\u2019s a question that you always had when you were a kid, but never got around to asking?\u00a0
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How about one of these:\u00a0

If God created the universe, what came before God? And how exactly is it possible that God has always existed?\u00a0And what would motivate God to create something in the first place?\u00a0Did he feel lonely and unfulfilled and in desperate need of companionship?\u00a0Was God so neurotic that he had to create a race of beings who would bow down before him every day just so he could hear somebody tell him he was great?
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The Bible makes it clear that God didn\u2019t invent human beings because he was lonely or depressed or needed someone to boost his divine self-esteem.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Instead, humans entered the picture so we could be invited into something that has always existed \u2013 the ceaseless reality of love, joy, and communication that is central to God\u2019s own identity.\u00a0
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From before the beginning of time, God has known what can only be described as a never-ending, joy-filled, self-giving experience of love.\u00a0What we\u2019re talking about is the essence of the Trinity.\u00a0God exists as a society \u2013 as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.\u00a0
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The most obvious feature of the Apostles\u2019 Creed is its Trinitarian structure. The Father, Son, and Spirit each headline one of its three main sections.
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Here we should pause to acknowledge that not everyone in the Jesus Movement over the years has been a fan of the Trinity. It\u2019s true that there are no biblical \u201cprooftexts\u201d \u2013 verses that declare, in no uncertain terms, that God is three-in-one.
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But it\u2019s also true that during the three centuries that followed the time of Jesus, the Church\u2019s sharpest minds were steered relentlessly toward the classic formulation of the Trinity that was ultimately expressed in the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325).
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Since that time, Christianity\u2019s three major ecclesiastical groups \u2013 Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox \u2013 have each regarded the Trinity as a core doctrine.
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By affirming Jesus as God\u2019s Son \u2013 and not just a prophet, inspired teacher, or moral example \u2013 the Apostles\u2019 Creed is clearly aligned with the notion that Jesus is divine.
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So how could God become a human being, but still be God? That\u2019s a question that routinely occurs to both kids and adults.
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What Scripture affirms is that God the Son became a real human being at a real place at a real time in a real family. The most celebrated biblical description of this is found in John 1:14:\u00a0\u201cThe Word became flesh\u00a0and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory,\u00a0the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace\u00a0and truth.\u201d
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The English words \u201cmade his dwelling\u201d are a translation of the single Greek word eskenosen<\/em>, which literally means \u201cpitched tent.\u201d In the person of Jesus, God came into our encampment. He pitched his tent right next to ours. He sat around the same campfire (so to speak), breathed the same air, and shared the same daily chatter about the weather, the flocks, and which family down the way just welcomed a new baby.
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In other words, he became one of us.
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Jesus\u2019 extraordinary and evident humanity<\/em> is clearly one of the reasons that so many of his followers have struggled to affirm his divinity<\/em>.


But isn\u2019t the whole idea of Trinity a blatant contradiction?\u00a0How can God be both three and one?\u00a0
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Theologians have been careful to point out that God is singular<\/em> in one category (essence \u2013 there is only one God) but plural<\/em> in another category (personhood \u2013 God is tri-personal by nature).\u00a0Such a description is neither a contradiction nor a violation of the principles of logic.\u00a0
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Nevertheless, it is certainly a paradox<\/em> (something that at first glance seems<\/em> to be contradictory) and a mystery<\/em> (a profound truth that we can\u2019t comprehend on this side of heaven). No picture (like the stained-glass window above) will ever lead us to say, \u201cOh, so that\u2019s what God looks like.\u201d
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According to the church\u2019s best thinking after centuries of ruminating on Scripture, what we can affirm is that God\u2019s Son and God\u2019s Spirit are both fully divine. They are not \u201cdifferent ways of thinking about God\u201d or each one-third of the godhead.
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We pray to<\/u><\/strong> the Father, through<\/u><\/strong> the Son, by<\/u><\/strong> the Spirit \u2013 and in every regard find ourselves in the presence of God.
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So, what might it be like to be amongst the three persons of the Trinity?\u00a0

Early in church history, theologians coined the word perichoresis<\/em>.\u00a0To modern ears, that might sound a bit like a serious skin disease.\u00a0Perichoresis<\/em> turns out to be a mashup of the Greek words peri <\/em>(\u201caround\u201d) and choreo<\/em> (\u201cto come or go\u201d).\u00a0It suggests something that is going around and around and around.\u00a0The word \u201cchoreography\u201d springs from the same family of words.\u00a0
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When you think of the Trinity, think of an eternal, joyful dance of God, with Father, Son, and Spirit forever taking delight in each other.\u00a0

And every one of us has been offered a ticket to the ball.
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Perichoresis<\/em> has proven to be a way to help us describe, at least in part, what we know to be indescribable \u2013 the internal dynamic of God\u2019s own self.
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The late philosopher Dallas Willard said it well: \u201cGod\u2019s aim in human history is the creation of an inclusive community of loving persons, with himself included as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.\u201d\u00a0

No artist could ever depict such a reality. Nor can we always answer every child\u2019s sincere questions about God.

But we can still be inspired by the thought of an exuberant divine dance as the representation of deep, lasting joy.\u00a0
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A joy that \u2013 by God\u2019s grace \u2013 we, as his adopted children, will one day share.

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.\u00a0Kids ask great questions.\u00a0\u00a0A young student named Emma asked her social studies teacher, Mr. Johnson, \u201cHow do you think Noah stored enough food to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1080,492],"class_list":["post-5260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostles-creed","tag-trinity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5262,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions\/5262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}