A Mousetrap God?

I’ve only tried to play Mousetrap a couple of times that I can remember. The TV commercials made it seem like a non-stop romp of fun, complete with traps and families bonding with laughter. In reality it was a punishingly intricate and overly complicated game. I have since thought I might like to try it again, then remembered how difficult the thing was to set up and gave up before I started.

Some things that are difficult to do or understand aren’t worth the effort. You follow the maze where it leads and you find that the complicatedness of the process could have been simplified to a large degree without losing anything, or you finish the complex task, look around, and think, “Is that it? Is this really the payoff?”

Other hard or complex things we do lead to great rewards.

Consider these words from AW Tozer: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” The work we do to seek to understand the realities of God’s greatness and unfathomable attributes is worth every complex logical consideration, every moment of pondering His transcendence, every instance of looking up words that have previously escaped our understanding.

It seems like sometimes the Biblical authors go out of their way to complicate God. Like why in the world is it necessary to think that God could be the One-in-Three blessed Trinity? What does it add to our experience of who He is? Does it really matter?

I’ll talk about some of the practical reasons the Trinitarian understanding of God is important next time, but here are some of the reasons we affirm “3 distinct persons in 1 divine essence”:

• The Bible teaches that Father, Son, and Spirit were essential in the creation of the Universe. Genesis 1, John 1
• The Bible uses plural terms to affirm that “God is one”. Deuteronomy 6:4
• The Bible affirms that God is One, yet multiple characters do things only God can do, and are present at the same place at the same time in multiple instances.

Think about God as a 3D figure interacting with a 2D plane. As 2D characters, we are only able to see a limited view of the fullness of God, and what we can see is often confusing and difficult to comprehend, because we're incapable of seeing beyond our plane.

And that’s a good thing.

A god I can understand is not a god I want to worship. A god who makes sense to me or acts like I would is not much of a god.

But we worship God beyond our comprehension who makes Himself known to us. The transcendent God, Creator of the Universe, is close by, worthy of worship, and drawing us into relationship with Himself.

And that’s where we’ll pick up next time!