"Are God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all one and the same?"

Yes and no.

The Bible attests that God is one. For example, [Deuteronomy 6:4] records Moses as telling the Israelites, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD," and Jesus quotes it when answering a scribe's question [Mark 12:29].

However, the New Testament recognizes each of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit as God. For example, [John 1:1], "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," identifies Jesus (the Word) as God. Moreover, several times it refers to the three together as if they were separate entities. For example, after Jesus was bapized by John, "and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" [Luke 3:21-22].

Reconciling these apparently contradictory views of God--that He is one and that He is three--posed a problem for the early Church, a problem for which many solutions were proposed. The solution finally adopted was the doctrine of the Trinity.

According to it, God is one Being of three Persons. The Son is God in such a way that he consitutes the whole undivided substance of God; thus, he is identical with, not just part of God. The Father and the Holy Spirit are God in the same way. Yet, the Son is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, allowing him to have personal relationships with them. Similarly, the Father and the Holy Spirit are distinct from the other persons.

Despite recognizing its mysterious nature, the vast majority of Christians still accept the doctrine of the Trinity as making the best sense of what God has revealed to us about Himself in the Bible. I agree with them. 

changed on Sunday, December 24, 2000 8:27:23 AM

Jesus cried out "Eli, eli lama sabachthani - My God, my god, where are You? because at that moment he was so full of sins that even God the Father can't bear to look at God the Son. As you probably would've known by now, God is a righteous and holy God, and He can't bear with sin. The son that He's begotten meaning that the son that came from Him (the Father) was at that time smeared with all sins of mankind. God being a holy God who can't stand sin, had to turn away from looking at His son.
Why did Jesus had to bear our sins at the cross, and why did He cry out? He bore our sins because He loves us and it's part of the redemption plan. It is also called the exchange at the cross. The holy life that He led was exchanged to us, He lost His perfect health so that we could receive His perfect health, He lost His holy life so that we could receive His holy life, He lost His anointing so that we could receive His anointing AND He lost His relationship with his Father (His Father turned away from Him, hence the crying out in search of His Father) so that we could have the relationship with the Father. When He cried out, it is indicative that He was under the most excruciating pain and awful experience. The only source of comfort and strength that He had is that He is able to feel and see His Father, and when God the Father had to turn His face away and severe the relationship that they had (because of the severity of the sins that Jesus was shouldering at the moment), Jesus must've felt panic?, lonely?, scared? the tremendous increase of the pain? We must remember that although Jesus was God, at that time He left His place at high Heaven and came down as a man, he took all the attributes and sensations of a man. He was able to feel what we feel. Imagine the humiliation, temptation and the pain. This explain the wavering expressed in [Mark 14:36]. But because of the love that He has for us, persevere He did and rise up He did to take the challenge of the cross in glorious style! [Mark 14:42].
I hope that this attempt to answer your question will make some of your doubts go and raise your faith. I had the questions that you are having now when I was a new Christian and luckily I did the right thing. I prayed and exercised my faith. I pray simple prayers like "God show me the concept of You that my feeble mind might understand". For you yourself have to do your prayers and exercise your faith and develop your relationship with Him. Any amount of explanation won't help if you don't do your part to develop a relationship with Him. 

changed on Tuesday, February 22, 2000 7:48:13 AM

My reply to your questions:
i. Are God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all one and the same,

Do you believe that you are body, soul and spirit? Do you believe that you consist of all three and yet you are one person? If you can believe that, why can you not believe that God is three in one?

ii. and if Jesus is God then how did God give his only begotten son,

They are three persons in one. Sometimes it is not easy to understand the things of God. Ask for God's grace and pray that He will open your eyes of understanding.

[1 Cor 2:11]
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

So, if you really want to know and understand these things, come to God and ask Him for His Spirit. Invite Jesus into your life and tell Him that I want to believe and to understand. Let Him open your eyes of understanding because certain things are spiritually discerned. It is very difficult to use the human mind to unlock the things of the kingdom of God.

To come into His kingdom, we have to be born again. Have you been born again, really born again and invited Jesus into your life to be your Lord and Saviour. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

iii. and why did Jesus on the cross cry out'My God,Why has thou forsaken me'

Do you know why? Jesus came to take back what the first man Adam has given away to the devil. And He has to come as a man to overcome sin, where Adam has not been able to overcome. Jesus not only overcame sin, He took the penalty of our sin so that we be saved from our sin.

He was stripped of everything He had on the cross to exchange for us our redemption. Do you realize that before He made that statement 'My God,Why has thou forsaken me', He called God 'my Father'. He only called God 'my God' when He was on the cross because for that moment on the cross, He became sin for us. He was separated from God because of our sin and He called God the way we called God, not as Father, but as God.

I believe for that one moment, when all our sins, our curses and our diseases were heaped on Jesus, God the Father had to turn His face away. He was rejected so that we can be accepted or reconciled to God and God will never reject us again. He took the punishment for our sins, so that we will be forgiven. Isaiah 53 has a good description of this and this was prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus came.

[Isaiah 53:3-10]
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 

changed on Monday, February 21, 2000 10:39:03 AM