God the Holy Spirit and Redeemer

1. God as Redeemer

Jesus Christ is Lord. For us to know this, two things must occur. First, Jesus Christ must objectively confront us. Secondly, we must subjectively acknowledge his lordship. In the New Testament, most people objectively confronted by Jesus Christ did not subjectively recognize him as Lord. The people who did were brought to him by the Father (John 6:65). They were empowered by the Son (John 1:12-13). It was and remains the Holy Spirit who enables us to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Only this presence of God’s Spirit within us makes us capable of opening up to God’s revelation. God becomes present to us, then, not just objectively from outside us but also subjectively from inside us. He not only comes from outside of us to encounter us but also from inside of us to encounter himself.

God the Father and Creator

The apostles testify that Jesus Christ is Lord. But Jesus Christ understands himself as the one sent by God the Father to represent and manifest his lordship. Contrary to all others who claim control or to be in control, God the Father alone is truly Lord because he alone is free over the power of death. God the Father exists as Creator because he alone initiates our existence, he alone sustains us in life at every moment, and he alone decides at what moment to carry us through death to eternal life.

The Triunity of God

One critical affirmation of Scripture is that God is one. The name of the one God revealed in Scripture is Yahweh or Lord. God's divinity or nature is this lordship. There is only one God, and God alone is truly Lord, because only God is absolutely free in relation to all else.

God in His Revelation

Because Scripture witnesses to God’s revelation of himself, it confronts us with three related questions: (1) Who is this God who reveals himself? (2) How does God reveal himself? (3) What impact does God’s act of revelation have on the person involved? Consistent with Scripture, the Church’s answer to these questions has been the doctrine of the Trinity.