Extras: There's a God You Need to Know

Woodrow Kroll: First of all, the word trinity does not occur in the Bible [but] the concept of the Trinity occurs in the Bible. It's easy for people to be critical of the Christian religion saying we are polytheist, that we have more than one god; they have only one god. As I understand who God is, there is only one God, but He manifests Himself different ways; in fact, in these three different Persons.

And what you have is you have passages of Scripture in which Jesus clearly is God, and you have passages of Scripture in which the Holy Spirit clearly is God, and you have passages of Scripture in which God the Father clearly is God. And you could argue, "Well, those are separate and distinct passages of Scripture. And then you have the whole plethora of passages of Scripture are in the same verse and all three of them are God.

So if I were to explain to you the Trinity, and over the years, lots of people will send me stories and will say, "This is how to explain the Trinity." An egg with a yolk, steam, ice, water . . . you know, there's something flawed about every one of those. And I'm glad there is, because if I could understand the Trinity it wouldn't be nearly as glorious to me. What I do know is this: Jesus did things only God could do. The Holy Spirit did things only God could do. The Holy Father did things only God could do. I don't see them as three separate Gods; I see them as the one God acting out of three different personalities.

Woodrow Kroll: Well, let me just start by saying Yes, you will die some day, assuming that things stay as they are. It's appointed unto man once to die. And that means women too; not as quickly as men but that means women too. (Laughter)

It is also true that you must also face a judgment in your future. The good news is, as a believer, that judgment is not a judicial process. The judicial process for your judgment occurred at Calvary when Jesus judiciously, legally took your place and your guilt and paid the penalty for your guilt. Therefore, there is now no condemnation, no judgment, to those who are in Christ Jesus (see Romans 8:1). But your life of service to the Lord still needs to be judged. That's the Judgment Seat of Christ that I talk about frequently on the radio.

If you're dead, your body will be raised. You will appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ. And at that point, you will have the opportunity to interact with the Lord Jesus about what He finds acceptable or not acceptable in your life. That's judgment but it's not condemnation. The problem is in the English language, every time you say "judgment," you think condemnation. Judgment more is discernment than condemnation. I judge my right hand from my left hand. That is that I discern this is my right hand and I discern this is my left hand. I don't say my left is better than my right or my right is better than my left. They're different. That's what the judgment is. It's the discernment of what is good and what is not good in our lives.

Woodrow Kroll: Right, and they could not enter, only the priest could get into where they could actually see this veil anyway. And for that reason, some have believed that it was the first veil that tore and not the second veil, the first veil being a smaller veil entering the Holy Place, and the second being the large veil entering the Holy of Holies.

It really doesn't have much impact though if it's the first veil. I think it really needs to be the tearing of the second veil which keeps you out of the Holy of Holies.

How would they know about that? They would know about that because the priests would be in the Holy Place and could see the veil. Now how long does it take you to spread news throughout a city that the one thing that kept every body out of the holiest place of God was not gone? Probably a few seconds. I mean, this must have spread through the city like wildfire. They not only have this darkness that they have to contend with; now the news comes to them that the holy veil has been torn in half. They can't explain that. They don't know what that means theologically. All they know is what keeps you out of the Holy Place is no longer there.

Tami: So it was actually then a physical thing that at least the priest could see.

Woodrow Kroll: Sure, and the priests would have to let every body else know that they can see it.

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, that comes from Ephesians and elsewhere where it makes reference to what Jesus was doing those three nights in the grave. Actually, the Creed says, "descended into hell." The word there is Hades. It means "the place of the dead."

And you're right; there's a lot of discussion about this. Let me start out by saying, "I don't know." Ah, but then again, nobody else does either. If you want me to speculate, I'm happy to do that but this is one of those things that the Bible doesn't say, "Thus saith the Lord," so I don't know either.

But apparently what He means was this person was going to be at a place where he would remain until the first resurrection. And that place Jesus called paradise. I said yesterday it's a Persian word that means "a beautiful garden." The same word would have been used for the Garden of Eden. So it's Edenic at least. But he would not be in purgatory and he would not be in the lake of fire, because in the Book of Revelation, it talks about death and hell or death and Hades giving up their dead, the place where they have been held all these years to be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment and to be cast into the lake of fire where the devil and the false prophet already are.

So wherever he is, and whatever that paradise is, it is not everlasting hell and it is not eternal heaven and it is not a place where your sins are purged. It is a place where you wait until your judgment occurs. What it looks like, where it is--in fact most of the things I've already said--all speculation.

Woodrow Kroll: Right. Obviously, the Bible would not record such events because its understanding of history just doesn't go that far. And remember that this is maybe A.D. 30, 31, 32, 33--somewhere in there. Within four decades, this entire city is destroyed and this temple is destroyed with it. What they did to the veil, we have to rely on the writings of extrabiblical information. Again, it becomes speculation to us. It would be hard to conceive of the Jewish people not trying to do something to repair that veil. Maybe God permitted them to do it. Maybe He prevented them from doing it so the writer of Hebrews could make his point more specifically.

Woodrow Kroll: Number one is sometimes all the book learning and filling your head with facts gets in the way of common sense. My advice is to read the Word. Ask the Spirit of God to help you understand it. That's what He does. Don't ever put yourself down because you don't have all that learning. I've spent a lot of years in education and I have a lot of people I appreciate deeply and I have others and I just scratch my head and wonder why they were there. While education is a very valuable tool, the Holy Spirit of God is the tool for our understanding of God's Word.

Secondly, let's remember that what Jesus did at Calvary was to fulfill all the functions of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. So He didn't just fulfill the laver, but He also fulfilled the showbread. Everything that was in there, Jesus was the perfect end for all of that. So when He says He's the end of Law, when He says He's the end of sacrifices, He means He has fulfilled all those sacrifices. He didn't just chop them off and say, "Forget all those!" He said, "I will be your laver. I will be your showbread. I will be the Holy One to you. I will be to you all you need to please God. Now that means to us then that we need to see Jesus as the complete package; not a portion of the package, not an answer to a few questions--but as the answer to life's ultimate questions. And while we may apply these things, and that's perfectly legitimate, while we may have a spiritual interpretation to things, and I think that is perfectly legitimate, let's remember that the whole point of the Book of Hebrews is to say, "Jesus did it for us--everything the Old Testament of the Law required a priest to do."

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, it is absolutely necessary that we come to grips with our sin in order to be saved. Most people however don't have a big problem with that because they know they are sinners. I mean, it's not an issue to convince us of that; it's an issue to convince us that our sins can be forgiven. And it can't be forgiven by sweeping it under the carpet. The Book of Proverbs say if we do not come to grips with our sin, we will not prosper. Sin has to be dealt with. The light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ shines on our sin. The Word of God shines on our sin. The Spirit of God shines on our sin and it illuminates it and we can't just let it be the way it is. But sin is probably not the best place to start if you want to win someone to the Lord. The best place to start, I think, is by helping them to see that God has provided everything that they need. That's the stumbling block for a lot of people. "I know I'm a sinner but how could God possibly save me?"

Well, you're right--you are a sinner. But God is bigger than your sin and God's grace is stronger than your sin and essentially all we have to do is get them to understand that there is a person sitting at the well next to them that is not just the Messiah. He's the only Savior they will ever have. And that's why I always tell people the best way to witness is to just tell your story. Tell people what the Lord has done for you. No one can argue with your story. And it's always a story of God's grace in your life.

Woodrow Kroll: That can be done. In this case, Jesus was alone with this woman. There are other cases where His witnessing efforts (and the apostle Paul and Peter and others) were to a larger group and sometimes to a group of two or three. Again, when you talk to a dozen people or you talk to one person, the issue is not how many of them there are; the issue is how many saviors are there for them. And if you keep coming back to the one Savior, the world has many religions but has only one Savior, this person may ask a question and this person may ask a question and this person may have a comment, but your job is simply to tell the story. And the Spirit's job is to convict them of their sin and bring them to salvation. It's easier, I'll grant you, it's easier when it's one-on-one. But it's not impossible if there are three or four of them because you simply have the same message for all of them that you would have for one person.

Woodrow Kroll:I think the issue that always resonates in my heart is this: I don't have to make you who I am in order for you to be saved. First of all, I can't make you who I am. I can't make women into men. I can't make Asians into Caucasians. I can't make tall people into me. I can't make me into them. I've tried and it doesn't work. (Laughter) But what I can do is this: I can tell you that it doesn't matter who you are. You don't have to make Jesus anything because He's already provided for you everything that you need. And the whole concept that while there may be a variety of religions, it's not the religion that brings you a relationship with God. It's the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us, that opens the opportunity for us to become children of the heavenly Father. And that does not take a transformation in culture. It does not take a transformation in gender. It does not take a transformation in personality types. It takes a transformation in your mind and heart that brings about eternal life. And that can happen to whoever you are, wherever you are, when the Spirit of God comes into your life and convicts you of sin and brings you to a Savior. And there is only one and His name is Jesus.