Brother,

Anyone who says they understand the Trinity is deluding themselves. If you’re having difficulty digesting it, consider yourself in good company!

I don’t necessarily have anything to add to the previous comment (i.e. 3 who’s 1 what), but your basic question seems to be “Is Jesus God?” It would be tempting (and so Baptist of me) to just give you a bunch of proof texts and expect that to seal the deal. The fact of the matter is any clown with a concordance and a study Bible can find the verses that support Jesus’ Divinity (all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form, etc). Let me instead tell you that after thinking about this question at length for 10 years, I keep coming back to the same answers:

Yes, Jesus is God.

Yes, this is very hard to accept.

Yes, I could be wrong, in which case my soul could be in jeopardy because I worship a man instead of the God of “pure” monotheism (YAWEH).

The problem for me is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get away from this Jesus – he’s everywhere! Human history was split in two at his coming (BC and AD). The calendar on my desk says “2009”, which begs the question “2009 years from what?” Even our secular State government (in Northern New England – nowhere near the Bible Belt) occasionally issues proclamations dated in the “Year of Our Lord, 200_”. Who is “Our Lord”, anyway?

Then there is the problem of the people that surround me. I know a lot of very different people: some old, some young, some conservative, some liberal, some professional, some working class (you get the picture). But virtually to a man, the ones that I most deeply respect would, if you had the opportunity to ask them face to face, tell you that Jesus is “God in a body”. Either Jesus really is God, or I am surrounded by lunatics!

Finally, I have to bring it down to the bottom line. I have asked myself whether I would worship God if Jesus did not exist, and the answer is no. I first became a Christian, not because I sought the Prime Mover or the Uncaused Cause of the philosophers, but because I was drawn in by stories about Jesus. This man from first century Palestine was (and is) incredibly attractive to me. By turns gentle and harsh, holy and earthy, he turned water into wine, healed the sick, raised the dead, enabled the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Oh yeah – there’s also the small matter of an empty grave. Questions of higher criticism aside, either Jesus is God, or Christianity is the greatest swindle of all time.

I am always glad to see a new Christian (and people in general) asking questions about Jesus. There is no question you can ask that will offend him. If you continue to seek with an open heart, I know you will find the truth. Remember that Jesus himself said that “whoever seeks, finds.”