Question: Hello,

I am a strong believer in the Trinity (the Triune nature of God), but I still have a hard time understanding how God can remain a Trinity and yet Jesus be resurrected in bodily form even to this day. How can we say then that there are not "two" separate God beings?

Diane

Answer: Dear Diane,

As you know, the Godhead is triune – Father, Son and Holy Spirit and have existed eternally. One of the persons of the Godhead, the Son, was slain from the foundation of the world – and it was in God’s plan that the eternal Son would become human in order to save us.

The incarnation of Jesus, as stated in many passages of the New Testament simply says this – God, in the person of Jesus, voluntarily added humanity to his divinity. He never stopped being God – for this is impossible by definition. But he became something that he had not been – a human. John 1 and Phil. 1 are passages that are central, but there are many others.

He took a human body – and that body was real. The Christian church believes, by the earliest creeds that were formulated, primarily to combat heresy, that Jesus was "very man and very God" – that is, he was 100% God and 100% human – neither his humanity nor his divinity were diminished in order that he could be the other.

The body of Christ was killed (not the divinity of God the Son, obviously, for God cannot die, by definition). The human body was buried, and the human body was resurrected – in several places in the New Testament Jesus said that he would resurrect this body – other places it says God would and did – same thing, for Jesus was and is God.

The body was resurrected – and 1 Cor. 15 says that such a resurrection is our hope – that we too will be given glorified bodies. Jesus today has a glorified body – the same body he had while on this earth, the same body that was on the cross, and the same body that was in the tomb. As the eternal Son, he does not "need" this body – but as the firstfruit of many others who will follow him, having their bodies glorified, he has this body – a glorified body, and it will be with this body that he will return.

Short answer – BIG question – hope this can be of some help.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht