Blasphemy????

[lolaboo]

Ok some of you will know I am trying to deal with conflict with the nature of Jesus - at this moment in time I really need to get your opinions on one analogy that keeps coming into my head.

Is it ok for me to see it as Good Cop/Bad Cop???

Jesus and God being one and the same, with them being 2 sides of the same coin??? Jesus the Good Cop/God the other.

( I know there are actually 3 including Spirit but my brain doesn't seem to have a problem with that!!!)

I would so appreciate your comments on this as its something I keep coming back to.

Thank you dear people

[9Marksfan]

Ok some of you will know I am trying to deal with conflict with the nature of Jesus - at this moment in time I really need to get your opinions on one analogy that keeps coming into my head.

Is it ok for me to see it as Good Cop/Bad Cop???

Thanks for asking the question, lolaboo - it is easy to think of it that way but, to be fank, it's not OK. The reason is that, while Jesus is full of grace and truth, so is God the Father! And while God is the judge of all the Earth, it is Jesus who will judge the living and the dead too! That's because they are ONE. I know this is VERY hard to understand, but please don't think that they are in any way in conflict. The Father SENT the Son, and Jesus CHOSE to come to Earth willingly. It pleased the Father to send Jesus to die on the cross, because He (the Father) wanted to reconcile us back to Himself - Father, Son and Holy Spirit all agreed in this wonderful plan of salvation!

Jesus and God being one and the same, with them being 2 sides of the same coin??? Jesus the Good Cop/God the other.

No - please don't think of that analogy - it's really not helpful - there's nothing "bad cop" about God! Perhaps it's better to think of Jesus as the gracious and merciful Saviour for this day of grace - but the One who will be the just Judge at the end of the age - does that help? God the Father in fact takes exactly the same approach as His Son - or, rather, vice versa!

(I know there are actually 3 including Spirit but my brain doesn't seem to have a problem with that!!!)

That's good!

I would so appreciate your comments on this as its something I keep coming back to.

Thank you dear people

It's great that you are wrestling with this, lolaboo - keep seeking God's wisdom from the Holy Spirit and keep looking up the passages we're giving you - all we need to k now about God is in the Bible! Don't rely on your own understanding. Try reading Heb 1:3 and Col 1:15-18.

Blessings.

Nigel

[tango]

Ok some of you will know I am trying to deal with conflict with the nature of Jesus - at this moment in time I really need to get your opinions on one analogy that keeps coming into my head.

Is it ok for me to see it as Good Cop/Bad Cop???

Jesus and God being one and the same, with them being 2 sides of the same coin??? Jesus the Good Cop/God the other.

( I know there are actually 3 including Spirit but my brain doesn't seem to have a problem with that!!!)

I would so appreciate your comments on this as its something I keep coming back to.

Thank you dear people

I don't really think the Good Cop / Bad Cop analogy is going to help you at all.

God the Father sent the Son to atone for our sins - John 3:16 tells us "For God so loved the world...", then Jesus freely chose to die a hideous death so that we didn't have to. Both are showing the kind of love I can only imagine.

Then the Holy Spirit is the new Counselor, which Jesus sent to us:

Joh 14:26 (NIV) But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Again we see God looking out for us, helping us.


Instead of thinking of God as a good cop or a bad cop, think of God as being entirely just. God cannot abide sin, so when we sin we put a kind of barrier between us and God. In the Old Testament people had all sorts of rituals they had to follow to cleanse themselves and be forgiven, but because of Jesus' sacrifice we don't need to do that any more. So where we deserve to be punished, Jesus took the punishment on our behalf.

[markinro]

Ok some of you will know I am trying to deal with conflict with the nature of Jesus - at this moment in time I really need to get your opinions on one analogy that keeps coming into my head.

Is it ok for me to see it as Good Cop/Bad Cop???

Jesus and God being one and the same, with them being 2 sides of the same coin??? Jesus the Good Cop/God the other.

( I know there are actually 3 including Spirit but my brain doesn't seem to have a problem with that!!!)

I would so appreciate your comments on this as its something I keep coming back to.

Thank you dear people

Jesus said "If you have seen me, you have the Father" so there are no two sides of a coin. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are 3-in-1. Two sides of a coin are often used to describe opposing forces. Jesus does the fathers will - there is no opposition. Curious - where did you get the coin analogy ?

[lolaboo]

Again, I am blessed to have you wonderful people helping me, thank you.

More suggested reading - thats excellent, I am going to go back through my posts and write down all the suggestions to make sure I dont miss any out.

I dont really know where the coin analogy came from, except that I am a very visual learner and do struggle with abstract concepts. So it helps me to try to assimilate things with something that is tangible to me, without in anyway meaning to trivialise such important matters. With me and learning, I find that if i get "stuck" with something, I find it almost impossible to "put it on the back burner and come back to it later and move on". I have a real need to clear things up as they occur, this is even happening in my Spanish lessons, infact I have left the group i was studying with because I had so many questions that i felt i was taking up too much of the teachers time!!!

I remember having horse jumping lessons in England many years ago, I asked my instructor why she put the "take off pole" both before and after the jump?? She said, dont worry about it, the horse knows what its for!!! Didn't exactly infuse me with confidence! I didn't understand it, therefore, I didn't like it!!!!

[tt1106]

Lol......alot of people struggle with this. Many people view the OT as a story of God's wrath. Smiting people right and left. turning people into pillars of salt, etc. Then Jesus come sin and boom, it's all love and grace and everything else.
The truth remains that the OT is the beginning of the story of god's love affair with humanity. Loved us enough to create us. Loved the Isrealites enough to give them millions of second chances.
Loved them enough to offer them salvation from destruction.
Loved them enough to send his son.
Read Psalms. It is a love affair with his people. I picture God asking, "Is it too much to love me back?"
God's nature doesn't change, nor does his interaction with his creation change.



-Blessings

[tango]

Following on the idea of the Old Testament also showing God's love for us, take a look at the first few chapters of Hosea. It shows what God asked one of his prophets to do.

Firstly he took a wife who was a harlot. Without getting too graphic here, our prophet took himself a wife that most of the men in the area would have been more than a little familiar with. That in itself would have been pretty humiliating for him.

But things get worse, as Gomer (his wife) is unfaithful to him. She ends up being sold, and Hosea goes to buy her back. Can you imagine the sniggers as this man pushed through the crowd to claim his wife, who had obviously been offered for sale to the highest bidder? Can you imagine the humiliation Hosea must have felt - not only did everybody know exactly who he was married to but now she had been unfaithful to him, and he was buying her back.

Yet that is exactly what Jesus did for us. God has always been faithful to us, and we have responded with unfaithfulness time after time after time. Yet instead of simply walking away from us and leaving us to our fate (what would you have done, had you been in Hosea's position?) he bought us back at a huge price.

That price, of course, was sending Jesus to die so we didn't have to. If that doesn't show love I don't know what does!

[Gulah Papyrus]

Again, I am blessed to have you wonderful people helping me, thank you.

More suggested reading - thats excellent, I am going to go back through my posts and write down all the suggestions to make sure I dont miss any out.

I dont really know where the coin analogy came from, except that I am a very visual learner and do struggle with abstract concepts. So it helps me to try to assimilate things with something that is tangible to me, without in anyway meaning to trivialise such important matters. With me and learning, I find that if i get "stuck" with something, I find it almost impossible to "put it on the back burner and come back to it later and move on". I have a real need to clear things up as they occur, this is even happening in my Spanish lessons, infact I have left the group i was studying with because I had so many questions that i felt i was taking up too much of the teachers time!!!

I remember having horse jumping lessons in England many years ago, I asked my instructor why she put the "take off pole" both before and after the jump?? She said, dont worry about it, the horse knows what its for!!! Didn't exactly infuse me with confidence! I didn't understand it, therefore, I didn't like it!!!!

All Trinitarian analogies fall short in one aspect or another, but the one I like the best has God as the sun, or the fire, Jesus Christ as the light, and The Holy Spirit as the heat. But to seperate the characteristics of the three is wrong...Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of God dwells bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.(Colossians 2:8-10)

Again, the 'sun' analogy is not without it's flaws, but so far it's my favorite.

If you're taking suggested reading, I'd like to point you in the direction of Can Man Live Without God by Ravi Zacharias and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis...and of course The Bible by God.


Edit by tango: Since lolaboo has now come to Jesus I'm closing the thread to concentrate on those still seeking