Theology: Foundations of Theology for Grace Communion International
The word “theology” comes from two Greek words, theos and logia — meaning “God” and “words.” As Christians, we are involved in “God talk” or “God study,” trying to know God as well as we can. Theology is the study of God and what God is doing. It should be based on what God tells us about himself in Scripture.
Many people don’t want to study theology, or even think about it. But everyone has some ideas about what God is like. Everyone has a theology, whether they admit it or not. A person’s theology is their beliefs about God — who he is, how he relates to humanity, and how we relate to him.
Some people think that God is an angry judge; others believe that he is like a grandfather who means well but can’t do much. Others see him as a supernatural servant who will give us everything we want. Some people think of God as far off and unknowable; others think of him as a good buddy. Some people think God never changes his mind; others think that he is always changing in response to what people ask him to do.
The Bible forces us to think about theology. When Paul tells us in Romans 5 that Adam brought condemnation on everyone, and that Jesus brought justification for everyone, then we have to think about what those words mean. What do they say about Jesus and our salvation? Here’s another example: When Jesus says, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father,” we need to think about what that means — and that’s theology.
But we don’t create a theology just according to what sounds good to us. We are not the authority — God is. If he didn’t reveal himself to us, then we wouldn’t know anything for sure about him. But he has revealed himself to us — in two ways: in Jesus and in Scripture. Scripture should be our foundation for theological thought.
A more formal study of theology, like this course, can help us put all our various doctrines or beliefs or teachings together. Are they consistent with one another, or do they contradict one another?
Jesus is the lens through which we read the Bible
Theology needs to come from what God says about himself in Scripture, and the best way for us to see what God is like is to look at his Son, Jesus Christ. “Whoever has seen me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Jesus, God revealed himself to humanity. We learn about Jesus through Scripture, and this picture of Jesus then helps us understand what we read in the rest of the Bible.
We don’t just want to learn a list of facts about God — we want to know God in a personal way — like one person knows another and has interactions with another. We know God not just by hearing about him, but as we actually put our trust in him and do what he wants us to do.
As we do this, the Holy Spirit helps us think about what God tells us about himself. Since Jesus came to reveal the Father, and the Father is just like Jesus, our theology needs to be Christ-centered. That’s the right starting place for our journey of growing in the grace and knowledge of God.
Our theology helps organize our beliefs, holds them together, and says which doctrines are the most important. Our history caused us to be aware of the need to base everything on Scripture, and it helped us focus on our need for grace. The writings of Thomas and James Torrance and Karl Barth, and those who learned from them, were especially helpful because of their focus on the biblical revelation of God through Jesus Christ.
We have a Christ-centered, Trinitarian theology. Everything we read in Scripture needs to be connected with the biblical teaching that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, that he and the Father with the Spirit are one God. Jesus shows us a God who is love, compassion, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and goodness.
The Father loved humanity so much that he sent his Son to save the world. It’s not like Jesus was working behind his Father’s back — no, it’s just the opposite: the Father was working in and through Jesus. The Father is just as eager to save humanity as Jesus is. We are his creations, and he doesn’t want to let us go to ruin.
When God came in human flesh, he was able to do what other humans had not been able to do. As the perfect human, Jesus gave God perfect worship and a perfect sacrifice, and God accepted this worship that was offered on behalf of the human race. Just as in Adam we are all condemned, so also in Christ we are all welcomed into the love and fellowship of the Trinity (Romans 5:12-21).
As we study Jesus, we see God and his relationship with us. We learn of God’s love for humanity, and how much he wants us to be in his family. God wants to share life with us because he is a God of love — a God who gives, a God who shares.
Trinitarian theology is based on what God reveals about himself in and through Jesus. Human life and death find their meaning only in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. By having a relationship with Jesus, we have a relationship with the Triune God; it is a friendship and fellowship. Because Christ has done everything needed for our salvation, all that remains for us is to repent and trust in him as our Lord and Savior.
Life in God’s kingdom, in his family, is a life of faith in Jesus. People who don’t yet believe are not living a kingdom life; they are not living in the joy of friendship with the Father, Son and Spirit. People enter the life of the kingdom only after repentance (turning to God) and faith in Jesus Christ. “This is eternal life,” Jesus said in a prayer to the Father, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). There is no salvation without faith in Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that Jesus’ death on the cross affects the entire universe – “through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). God wants everyone to accept the grace he gives to us in Jesus, but he does not force anyone to accept it.
God can do whatever he wants
Ancient Greek philosophers thought that since God is perfect, he cannot change, because if he ever changed, then that would mean that he wasn’t perfect before the change. So they thought of God as an “unmoved mover” who made everything happen, but who could never change. This kind of God would never dirty himself by getting involved with people and their problems. God was far off, watching, but not personally involved.
The Bible teaches that God is not like that. God is not limited by what humans think a “proper” god ought to do. If God wants the eternal Word to become a human being, then he does it. The God of the Bible is free to become a Creator, and free to create human beings who could go astray. God can even become one of those human beings in order to rescue us.
In this theology, it is not our logic that is in charge — God is the one in charge. We want to understand God not the way that we might imagine him to be, but rather the way that he tells us about himself through the Bible in Jesus Christ.
Many people have defined theology as “faith seeking understanding.” We believe, and now we want to understand as much as we can about the God in whom we believe. It’s like we’ve fallen in love with someone, and we want to find out as much as we can about that person. Theology starts with faith, and it looks to God to provide direction on what we think.
No theology is perfect. The question is whether we are trying to follow what the Bible tells us about God and how God relates to humanity. Of all major approaches, we believe that Trinitarian theology follows most faithfully and carefully what God reveals. We will always be trying to learn more, to see things more clearly, more completely, to understand the Bible better.
Theology also includes the task of trying to tell other people about God, showing how the triune God is the answer to their questions about love, life, joy and sorrow. Just as the Bible was written to tell ancient peoples about God in a way that they would understand, we try to put those same truths into language that people have today. Different cultures have different ways of thinking, have different questions about life, and different ideas about what makes sense. We cannot change the truth about God, but we can change the way we talk about it.
Perfect love casts out fear
Many people today, even believers, are afraid of God – afraid of what he thinks of them. They worry that they’re not measuring up, that they’re not doing enough, that their sins have cut them off from God’s love.
- If we start our beliefs about God with righteousness and judgment, then we are going to read our own ideas of judgment into our relationship with God, and we’ll be afraid.
- If we start with our own ideas of love, then we might think that he loves us only when we are doing everything he wants.
But if we start with Jesus, who died for us even when we were his enemies, then we have a better picture of who God really is, and a better picture of love, holiness and judgment. We will have truth that sets us free from guilt and anxiety.
The righteousness we need is given to us by Jesus. He has already put us in good standing with God, so we are freed from ourselves and our sinfulness to trust in him. A good, biblically rooted theology will always start with and remain centered in Christ, because God chooses to be God in Jesus. If we let the Bible form our theology, we look to Jesus to understand who God is. In Jesus we meet God as God really is, the way God has revealed himself to be, as the God who is for us, because we are connected to Jesus, his Son.
The Father loves us no matter how bad we’ve been. He sent Jesus not out of anger or a need to punish someone, but out of his never-failing love and his desire to live with us forever. The love we see in Jesus is the love of the Father, because the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father and they are one (John 14:10). When we know Jesus Christ, we know God the Father, too.
In Jesus, God reveals himself as our Creator, Judge, and Savior. He pays for our sins out of his own account. We can trust him instead of being afraid of him.
Jesus is also the perfect human. Because of him, we can trust in him and obey him. We don’t have to rely on our own obedience and faith – we rely on his. When we see how good he is, then it is a joy to obey him. That takes our minds off ourselves and we trust in Jesus.
In Jesus, we see:
- God can be with us and for us in all his love and power, and
- We can be with God and for God, knowing that he is on our side and wants us to succeed.
Christian life is a response to God’s grace. It is letting God’s grace work in us, change us, and shine through us. Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). His grace works in us, and as we are united to Christ in faith, we have a new life. We live in a new way — a way that is being transformed by Christ living in us.
We are not working our way into God’s love, or trying to obey Jesus so he will give us eternal life. No, in grace God has already said that we are his children. God says to us, “You belong to me. Now, I want you to live a new way, a better way, a way that gives meaning and purpose to life. I urge you to enjoy the life of love — the way that has worked for all eternity. I invite you to the banquet, to the party, to the never-ending fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
All our doctrines are viewed through Jesus Christ, who is both God and human. Since he created us, he could represent us to the Father. He made himself one of us so we would know the Father’s great love for us. The Father accepts us as one of the family because we are with Jesus, God’s eternal Son.
Our theology is built on the good news, the Bible teaching that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who gave himself and now lives for our salvation.
Additional reading
Theologians whose work has been of special help to us in understanding and articulating a sound, Bible-based theology would include Karl Barth, Thomas and James Torrance, Michael Jinkins, Ray Anderson, Colin Gunton, Gary Deddo, C. Baxter Kruger, Donald Bloesch, and others. The writings of C.S. Lewis have also been valuable.
Although it is not necessary to agree with every single statement in any particular book, we are able to recommend a number of books on theology that we believe provide a sound and faithful reflection of biblical doctrine. These would include such books as:
- Invitation to Theology, by Michael Jinkins
- The Mediation of Christ, by Thomas Torrance
- Dogmatics in Outline, by Karl Barth
- Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace, by James Torrance
- The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, by Thomas Torrance
- The Trinitarian Faith, by Thomas Torrance
- Theology, Death and Dying, by Ray Anderson
- Judas and Jesus: Amazing Grace for the Wounded Soul, by Ray Anderson
- On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius
- The Christian Foundations Series, by Donald Bloesch
- The One, the Three, and the Many, by Colin Gunton
- Across All Worlds, by C. Baxter Kruger
- The Great Dance, by C. Baxter Kruger
- The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, edited by Elmer Colyer
- How To Read Thomas F. Torrance, by Elmer Colyer
- The Humanity of God, by Karl Barth
- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
This is not a complete list, but it’s a good start. Most pastors will find Michael Jinkins’ Invitation to Theology especially helpful as a one-volume, easy-to-read, basic theology text.
We also have more than 120 video interviews with Trinitarian theologians. For these interviews, and many more, visit our videos section: You’re Included – Videos
Author: This article is an edited transcript of a video, Foundations of Theology, produced in March 2007. Edited 2026.
