| Author | Message | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 1143 Registered: 3-2009 |
The Trinity
The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. 1. If the three persons of the Trinity are one and inseparable, would this mean that God would overshadow Mary and implant Himself in Mary’s uterus? All three persons? If it was only one person, where were the other inseparable two persons? 2. If Jesus went through a gestation period as any other human, does that mean that God started as one cell, then two cells, then four, etc.? 3. If the above is true, who was running the universe when God was not even a fetus yet? Of course the above question presupposes that God/Jesus or God/human are/is also inseparable. Hec | ||
| Helovesme2 Registered user Username: Helovesme2 Post Number: 2460 Registered: 8-2004  |
It also assumes that God is primarily and/or fundamentally dependent on physical substance to exist. | ||
| Yenc Registered user Username: Yenc Post Number: 192 Registered: 6-2008 |
The Trinity is one entity in three Persons. The only Person of the Godhead who has human flesh is the one we call Jesus, born of a woman. When He was on earth, He prayed to the One who was still in heaven, calling that part His "Father." And the third part is the Holy Spirit, which appeared, briefly visible, as a dove at Jesus' baptism, while the Father's voice spoke from heaven. (That's the only instace I can think of where each one appeared separately and all at the same time.) In my own mind, I can see an analogy, imperfect as analogies always are but helpful sometimes to facilitate understanding of difficult concepts, with the concept of the US federal government. We have one government, but three branches: the Executive branch, the Legislative branch, and the Judicial branch; each has different duties, descriptions, and functions, but together they make a whole--the Government.) As I said, it's not a perfect analogy, but it is useful. Jesus took on human flesh in the "incarnation," bringing "God" to live in visible form on earth, yet He didn't lose any of His spiritual characteristics, either; He sometimes did things only a "spirit" could do: walk through locked doors, etc. I don't understand it well either. | ||
| Michaelsavedbygrace Registered user Username: Michaelsavedbygrace Post Number: 5 Registered: 7-2010 |
The Bible teaches a MONOTHEISTIC God, and yet presents Himself as Three Persons. Trinity is the only viable solution. All three persons are equally Jehovah (Which means "self existent, eternal") All three persons are all equally Eternal (Have always existed) All three have their own distinct "WILL" (Jesus said "not my will but Thine be done," the Holy Spirit gives gifts to the church as "He wills") All three have distinct personality and individuality, yet they work in perfect harmony with one another. There never was a time that all three did not exist as individual persons. "I am God and I change not." We must remember that each has their own WILL and that this makes them individual's distinct from the other two. Yet at the same time God is a MONOTHEISTIC God. There is only ONE TRUE GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Christians do NOT worship a polytheistic set of God's. Christians do not have multiple plural God's. Some have attempted to maintain all the Bible truths listed above and yet separate themselves from the "Trinity." They in fact teach Tritheism, which denies that God is Monotheistic, but rather is actually THREE GOD'S. The Bible teaches that there is ONE TRUE GOD that has eternally manifested Himself as three distinct persons. Christians call this "Trinity." The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have their own separate "will's" and personalities. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father, and is distinct from the Son. Yet God is MONOTHEISTIC "one true God." | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 11418 Registered: 12-2003  |
Israel's shema, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" is eternally true. There's really no good way to explain this...they are one in substance and purpose, but they have different roles. Moreover, we cannot separate them, even though they have different roles. I'm not even going to say each Person of the Trinity has a separate "will". That doesn't mean each isn't a distinct person, but the will of God is the will of God. Even the gifts of the Spirit are from the entire Trinity:
Or ponder this inseparable reality of the Trinity in our receiving the gift of the gospel:
Or this, from Ephesians 3:14-19:
Notice that this prayer talks about believers having the Holy Spirit in the inner man—in other words, indwelling us. It also talks about Christ dwelling in our hearts and our knowing the"beyond understanding" love of Christ, and finally of our being "filled up to all the fullness of God." Al three members of the Trinity are indwelling and filling us in this prayer. We can't separate them! And in the next chapter, Paul speaks of the purpose of the offices of pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist, and prophet that God gives the church. The people who fill these offices are given by God
In Ephesians 2:19 Paul speaks of us being filled up to the "fullness of God", and in 4:13, he speaks of us attaining to maturity which derives from the "fullness of Christ". We cannot separate Jesus from the Father and the Spirit because of his incarnate body. God is spirit (John 4:24), and God cannot be separated from Himself. God Himself, who is spirit, tok on full humanity, but He did not stop being spirit, and that spirit was not separated from the spirit of the Father or of the Holy Spirit. I can't explain this, but we have to see that God is God, and God was still spirit in Jesus. In Him all things still held together (Col 1:17), even while He was on earth and during His death. This fact of Jesus being still God, who is spirit, is how and why his human incarnate identity was unfallen and sinless. His own human spirit was born alive, not dead, because God who is spirit was in Him from conception. He didn't have to be born again. His humanity had to deal with temptation and physical life; His humanity had to pray to the Father—just as we pray to the Father even after we are born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But these things don't mean that Jesus is separate from God. God is One being expressed in three Persons. This mystery is not explained to us...but it is true. The Trinity functions as one God, and all three Persons have roles in every single detail of our salvation. They are one in will and purpose and substance and power—but the Trinity is not "modal". God is One—but He is also three Persons. When Jesus hung on the cross, his humanity was separated from the Father. He experienced the full load of sin and separation from His Father—yet God as spirit was still there holding the universe together. But Jesus the man suffered. Again, a mystery...but we have to see that this hypostatic union of God and man is true whether or not we can understand it. God is One, and He is a Trinity. This fact is what makes the gods of other religions false. the Muslim god is not a trinity; neither is the god of Judaism today. Having rejected the Messiah, they are honoring a law the meaning of which was realized in Jesus. They are serving, as Paul said in Galatians, "elemental spirits" which are no gods at all. Colleen | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3267 Registered: 10-2004  |
I feel I must mention here that in Adventism we were taught a false, counterfeit "Trinity," which the SDA leaders themselves admit is not the historical, orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity (see my webpage here.) For a thorough, detailed analysis of the differences between the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and Adventism's pseudo-Trinity, see the main page of my website here: http://www.cultorchristian.com/ Jeremy | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 11455 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thank you, Jeremy--that is a very important point. I am so grateful to you for your persistent and deep study of this topic. You are the one who first made me realize how "off" my perception of the Trinity was. A few years ago when this subject really burgeoned on this forum, I remember one afternoon a long-time former whom I'm known for quite a long time called me from another state. She has been attending solid Bible-teaching churches for the past 15 or 20 years, at least. This person reads the forum but never posts. She said to me with a sort of amazed realization in her voice, "I've been reading the Trinity threads, and I realize that I never believed in the real Trinity. I believed in tritheism!" It was a memorable talk because I had also been realizing the same thing. Richard and I had been comparing notes and had realized that we really had been taught to understand God as three separate beings although we had been taught to call them "the Trinity". But it wasn't the biblical Trinity. I never saw the three Persons as all having ALL the essential attributes of God equally. So thank you, Jeremy, for doing this research and sharing it, causing us to look at our assumptions. Colleen |
