A Schizophrenic God?

I grew up with a belief that I now think may border on, if not be, outright heresy. My view of God was skewed at best and totally anti-biblical at worst. The issue revolved around the character of the Godhead. Somehow I developed a mentality that left me seeing God the Father as an angry God whose justice and holiness were screaming for my destruction. He hated sin and since that happened to be the thing I did best, I was in big trouble. I was indeed a sinner in the hand of an angry God. I basically felt like He had one last nerve and I was about to get on it. I envisioned God the Father as watching me carefully, scrutinizing everything I did and not happy about what He saw most of the time.

Then there was Jesus. In my mind, He loved me and didn't want to see me get the brunt of God's anger. That's why He came to earth - to live perfectly and then go to the cross to take the beating that would have been mine. On the one hand, I had always been taught that God loved me and that was why He sent Jesus. On the other, I believed that God callously stood there and watched His own Son die an agonizing death that should have been mine. Somehow it didn't add up to me. God loves Jesus. God loves me. So He torments Jesus so He won't have to torment me???? Umm...so does He love me more than He loved Jesus? Is He schizophrenic with some kind of split personality? I knew I'd been told that He loved me but it didn't make sense. Something's not right here...but after awhile you just learn not to question.

I realize now that the weakness in my understanding came fairly close to what's called a tritheistic heresy. Tritheism teaches that there are three distinct Gods who form a triad. It focuses on the "three" but ignores the "three in one" aspect of the Trinity.

Here's the bottom line: The whole Trinity feel and have always felt the same about you and me. It's not a good-cop/bad-cop scenario in heaven where Jesus keeps God the Father calmed down about us by constantly reminding Him of the scars on His hands. The work on the cross was the work of the entire Trinity - not just the Son.

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" wrote the Apostle Paul. He wasn't sitting up in heaven, disconnected from the work of the cross. The incarnation of Emmanuel is the eternal reminder of "God with us." Within the humanity of God the Son, the divine love of God the Father was shown by the power of God the Spirit. Like many aspects of Deity, it is a mystery to man how it could all fit together. The point is that we don't have a divided Trinity in which One is constantly on edge about our behavior while the Other keeps Him calmed down.

The Father, Son and Spirit adore you. He lives in you and is with you in every circumstance of life. Divine life is being played out through our humanity every day - in our work, our homes, our play. The Triune God of all things loves you passionately. There's no danger of anger toward you. It's all good because He is all good.

For years, this viewpoint would have made me nervous and filled me with a myriad of "Yeah, but what about ...." questions. I still have unanswered questions today, but one thing I don't question is that we are loved -- more loved than we could ever imagine and nothing or nobody can ever change that.