This is a quick follow-up post to my last post. After having blogged on the difference between worshipping Jesus and God, I went to church on Sunday and came across the exact topic.
It had nothing to do with the sermon itself. Since, after moving the service from 10am to 9am, half of us are still asleep, the young lady that leads the worship session was trying to motivate the crowd. She started getting people to shout and praise God, to get our blood pumping. So in the middle of this, she yelled out, “Who do we worship?” We sheepishly yelled, “God”. Next, she yelled and “What’s his name?” Here I just got confused, I started thinking about all the names I know, Jehovah, Yaweh, Emmanuel, the Prince of Peace. And then my rambling mind went off on the Indiana Jones tangent, and I started thinking to myself, “But in Latin Jehovah begins with an I”. And then I almost laughed out loud in church.
I digress. The point is that she shouted out, “Jesus”. That was the furthest name from my mind. I would never have guessed it. Here was an example of where Jesus was directly representive of God, as if they were interchangeable. Although, as my last post mentioned, I’ve seen people worship Jesus as if he was God, I had never heard of Jesus used in this way.
Of course, I completely disagreed with her, but as my wife clarified later, Christianity, as most of the world understands it, is not really about God, it’s about Jesus and the Bible. Just like Judaism is about Abraham (I think) and the Torah, and Islam is about Mohammed and the Koran. I always found it confusing as to why these three religions disagreed so much since they were all following the same God. Now it all makes sense. These religions really have not much to do with God.
Convergenism 
BismillaharRahmanirRahim
as-salaamu ‘alaikum. Kido how are you? This is a good observation,
-Saifuddin
Kido –
I’m glad you’ve started writing again; I was going into withdrawal!
This whole Jesus vs. God bit is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as well. I’ve always held the belief (maybe secretly) that it was all about God in the end. I do believe that Jesus is God as well; but from what I’ve read in the Bible he is named as our co-heir. In other words, we’ve almost been placed on an equal playing field in someways. While he is the door, and the arbitrator of a new agreement between God and man, in the end this moves me to direct my worship towards God.
Where I hit a problem with your interpretation of John 3:16 is in reading the surrounding passages. Jesus describes himself as the snake lifted up in the desert, alluding to that story in the OT where the Israelites needed to believe in the power of a brass snake in order to heal themselves of a plague. He also says that belief in him is essential, after 3:16, saying that one cannot believe in God while refusing his son.
I have issues with this 🙂 My belief is that, if people following Hinduisn, Islam or whatever else are moving towards the same values the God of the bible teaches (love, generosity, service) why would they be disqualified? Especially if their one stumbling point is Jesus?
I’m starting to believe that there is much more to salvation than just the values one believes in, or entrance requirements to heaven.
In short, I don’t really have a final decision on this in place in my head either. Or many things relating to God for that matter. But I do disagree with treating the two as the same. God, the creator, the father, the end-all is very different than, although entertwined with Jesus. He has to be. And yes, I think many Christians have lost sight of that.
I will let Scripture speak for itself:
“The Word was God” (John 1:1)
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
“He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15)
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:19)
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:3)
So we can conclude:
To know Jesus is to know God:
“You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (John 8:19)
To honor Jesus is to honor God
To dishonor Jesus is to dishonor God
“Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” (John 5:23)
To love Jesus is to love God.
To reject Jesus is to reject God.
“But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.” (John 5:42,43).
May God open your eyes from your spiritual blindness: “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4)