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There is One God and One God only. The Bible and the Christian faith teach that God manifests Himself in three distinct persons with three distinct roles, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit. Three persons but One and the same God. This is a mystery and is really beyond our human capacity to explain this mystery. Throughout the study of Scripture, you can see the roles of these three persons of God unfold.

When God created humans, He established boundaries or rules for us. All of God’s commandments are good for us and are beneficial for our relationship with Him and our relationship with others.¹ When the first humans, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God’s command to them, sin entered the world.² From that point on sin was part of every human that ever lived on this earth, except Jesus, but we will get to Him in a moment. The penalty for sin is death—physical and spiritual. Spiritual death is separation from God.³

God had a temporary remedy for sin and that was the sacrifice of animals for sin.⁴ The blood of these animals did not take away sin, but only covered the sin so we could have a relationship with Him after sinning. God also had a permanent plan to take away sin even before the first human was created. You see He knew that given free will, humans would at some point choose to rebel against Him, yet He created us anyway—what a loving God!⁵

A little over 2,000 years ago, God became a human in the person of His Son, Jesus. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by a human, born to a virgin named Mary, whose husband was Joseph. Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem when His mother and earthly dad went to register for a required census.⁶ Jesus—and this is a mystery, hard to comprehend—was fully God and fully human. When we study His life, we see the perfect image of what God is like and the perfect image of what we were created to be before the first sin was committed.⁷

Jesus lived out His life with all the struggles, trials and temptations that we deal with, and even beyond what we have ever had to face. Unlike the rest of all who ever lived on this earth, He never sinned. He was tempted in all the ways we are tempted, but never gave in to one of them. He always did the will of His heavenly Father.⁸ Jesus gave us many wonderful teachings, and His teachings were the greatest this world has ever known. He reached out to people in every walk of life. He had a heart for people who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.⁹ He touched lepers and cleansed them, gave sight to the blind, made the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, the lame to walk and the dead to rise. He drove out demons and restored people spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally.¹⁰ He did everything well!¹¹

There were certain groups of the Jewish faith who opposed Jesus because their pride and human traditions blinded them to the kingdom of God and the Son of God who lived among them. They hated His teachings because they were of God and contradicted their man-made traditions that had crept into the Jewish faith over many years. They tried to trap Jesus in His words by asking Him difficult questions, but His responses baffled, amazed and silenced them.¹² He asked them questions they were unable to answer.¹³ Their hatred and jealousy of Jesus grew until they came up with a plot to kill Him.¹⁴ One of the members of Jesus’ twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot, agreed to betray Him into their hands.¹⁵

On the night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to a garden called Gethsemane where He asked some of His disciples to keep watch while He prayed, but instead they fell asleep. Jesus prayed three times, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Sweating drops of His blood under the stress of the situation, Jesus fully committed Himself to the road of suffering that lay before Him.¹⁶

A large crowd armed with swords and clubs came to the garden along with Judas, His betrayer, and Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested and taken away. They blindfolded Him, mocked and insulted Him, spat on Him, slapped Him and beat Him with their fists.¹⁷ The next morning, they took Him before the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin, where they brought false charges and false witnesses against Him, falsely condemning Him of blasphemy because Jesus rightly claimed to be the Son of God.¹⁸

The guards of the Sanhedrin bound Jesus and took Him before the land’s governor, Pontius Pilate.¹⁹ The crowd coerced Pilate into having Jesus severely flogged (take time to look up what took place in a flogging) and sentenced to be crucified.²⁰ He was handed over to the Roman soldiers who placed a crown of thorns on His head, removed His clothes and placed a purple robe on Him. They paid Him false worship, mocked and ridiculed Him, spat on Him and struck Him on the head over and over again with a staff.²¹

When the soldiers were finished with Him, they removed the robe and put His clothes back on Him, led Him to a place called Golgotha, where they nailed His hands and feet to a cross between two thieves who were also crucified with Him that day.²² Jesus shed His blameless, spotless, sinless blood for the forgiveness of all the sins of the world—past present and future—which God the Father placed on Him.²³ He faced absolute hell on our behalf—the absence of the presence of God, which is our punishment.²⁴ After six hours of this horrific torture along with all He had undergone beforehand, the Lord Jesus cried out, “It is finished,” gave up His Spirit and breathed His last,²⁵ and the doorway into the presence of God was opened for eternity to all who trust in Him as their Savior.²⁶

Jesus was placed dead in a tomb for three days and on the third day He rose from the dead. He appeared first to some women, to some disciples and to two on the road to a village called Emmaus.²⁷ During the next 40 days Jesus appeared to His brother, James, to over five hundred at one time, to all the apostles except Judas²⁸ and to those gathered for His ascension at Bethany.²⁹ After forty days, when it was time for Jesus to return to His Father in Heaven, He left us with these words: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”³⁰ He ascended to the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, to judge the living and the dead and to pray for believers at all times.³¹

A week later, God sent the Holy Spirit³² to indwell believers, convict us of sin³³ and pray for us when we know not what to pray.³⁴ The Holy Spirit comforts us,³⁵ counsels us³⁶ and sanctifies us and purifies us from all unrighteousness.³⁷ He gives us spiritual gifts and empowers us to use them to be disciples and make disciples of Jesus Christ.³⁸

The question we must all answer when confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Will I place my faith in Jesus and what He accomplished through His sinless life, suffering, death and resurrection, or will I reject the greatest gift of love ever given? Your answer will determine where you will spend eternity after your life is completed on this earth.

¹ Genesis 2:16-17; Exodus 20:1-17

² Genesis 3:6-11

³ Genesis 2:17, 3:23; Romans 6:23

⁴ Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 4:1-7

⁵ Titus 1:2

⁶ Matthew 1:18-23; Luke 1:26-35

⁷ Colossians 1:15-20; Hebrews 2:10,17

⁸ Hebrews 4:14-15

⁹ Matthew 9:36

¹⁰ Luke 5:13, 24-25, 7:14-15, 8:26-35, 18:35-43; Mark 7:31-35

¹¹ Mark 7:37

¹² Luke 20:20-26

¹³ Luke 20:3-8

¹⁴ Matthew 26:3-4

¹⁵ Mark 14:10

¹⁶ Luke 22-39-46

¹⁷ Luke 22:63-65

¹⁸ Luke 22:66-71; Matthew 26:59-68

¹⁹ Matthew 27:1-2

²⁰ Mark 15:15

²¹ Mark 15:16-19

²² Mark 15:20-28

²³ Colossians 1:19-20; John 1:29

²⁴ Mark 15:33-34

²⁵ John 19:30; Luke 23:46

²⁶ Mark 15:38; Hebrews 10:19

²⁷ Mark 15:45-16:8; Luke 23:50-24:35

²⁸ 1 Corinthians 15:7

²⁹ Luke 24:50

³⁰ Matthew 28:18-20

³¹ 2 Timothy 4:1; Matthew 26:64; Luke 22:69; Hebrews 7:25

³² Acts 2:1-13

³³ John 16:7-8

³⁴ Romans 8:26

³⁵ John 14:16,18,27

³⁶ John 14:26

³⁷ 2 Thessalonians 2:13

³⁸ Ephesians 4:7-8

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