You Opinions on the Trinity???

[Mishelly]

I was reading carm.org and I think I know how to answer:

" As a man, Jesus needed to pray. When He was praying he was not praying to Himself, but to God the Father.

They are not three gods, but one God. Each is a separate person, yet each of them is, in essence, divine in nature.

A close analogy of the Trinity can be found by looking at the concept of time. Time is past, present, and future. There are three "aspects" or "parts" of time. This does not mean that there are three "times," but only one. Each is separate, in a sense, yet each shares the same nature, or essence. In a similar way, the Trinity is three separate persons who share the same nature."

 

[Marcia]

Thank you, me being hard headed and still not quite sure on how to answer my friend. I tell her "It Just Is" does not work :smilewinkgrin:

When she comes back with, "If they are one Godhead then why pray to yourself?"

How do I answer that?

Is she asking about how Jesus prays to himself when he prays to the Father in the NT? The way he does that is that he is not praying to himself! God the Father and Jesus the Son are two distinct (though not separate) beings in the Godhead.

I read once in a pamphlet written by a Jewish man who became a Christian that he understood the Trinity when he saw that the Hebrew word for "one" as in "God is one" is the word used also for one cluster of grapes. It is one cluster but has several grapes. This is not an exact analogy - because it is not a Godhead with 3 Gods - but it helped him. He said that "one" in this case did not mean single in the sense of alone. Don't know if that helps.

Glad the carm site helped. I think they have scriptures there that maybe you can show your friend so that she sees it in the Bible.

 

[BobRyan]

What are your Opinions on the Trinity?? Many say One God doing different things GOD the father, GOD the son and GOD the holy Spirit and others say that the each one ( Father, Son and Holy Spirit ) has his own Identity. What are your views on this?

God in three person blessed Trinity

 

[annsni]

Remember in Genesis, God said "Let US make man in OUR image"........ Who was He talking to?

Ann

 

[Mishelly]

Is she asking about how Jesus prays to himself when he prays to the Father in the NT? The way he does that is that he is not praying to himself! God the Father and Jesus the Son are two distinct (though not separate) beings in the Godhead.

I read once in a pamphlet written by a Jewish man who became a Christian that he understood the Trinity when he saw that the Hebrew word for "one" as in "God is one" is the word used also for one cluster of grapes. It is one cluster but has several grapes. This is not an exact analogy - because it is not a Godhead with 3 Gods - but it helped him. He said that "one" in this case did not mean single in the sense of alone. Don't know if that helps.

Glad the carm site helped. I think they have scriptures there that maybe you can show your friend so that she sees it in the Bible.

It does help, I am from Central NY, my front yard and back yard were vineyards

Honestly, I think my friend tries to find topics that are hard to comprehend, she claims she is a Postive Athiest :tear:

 

[webdog]

Webdog, this is actually the kind of analogy used for modalism: One God with 3 roles. That's not the Trinity.

The Trinity is 3 co-eternal co-equal Persons in the one Godhead. God is one but that does not mean one being. Although there is no totally accurate analogy for this, and it's somewhat beyond our understanding, I don't think it's so difficult that we can't desribe it to a certain extent, and denying it is a heresy.

"roles" wasn't the best word to use. I agree with you that The Trinity is three distinct Persons...all God. That is just one analogy that I remember that describes the three in one.

 

[Brother Bob]

Sometimes we as humans try to put everything about God into our own understanding when in fact, "who hath known the mind of God and who hath been His councelor". There are some things we look through a glass darkly in this life and that is just how it is. They are one but yet they are three. We don't even know what we will look like in Heaven and the same is to try and completely understand the Trinity. I am just glad all three are there, for we need a Comforter, we need and advocate and we need God. I liked what Mishelly said about time, past, present and future. Sound like a good way to put it to me. peace

 

[J. Jump]

Granted not everyone likes this analogy, but it's always worked for me and I apologize up front if it has already been stated, but the Trinity was explained to me as a pie.

If you have a cherry pie and cut it into three equal pieces you still have a cherry pie in three pieces. It's all one pie just cut in three pieces.

Works for me, I don't know about anyone else

 

[Melanie]

I believe in the Trinity, I was flabbergasted to discover so called Christian groups who do not believe this.....flabbergasted because I held that this is a tenet of Christian belief.....wrong AGAIN!

 

[BobRyan]

Christians are greatly divided on the issue of Baptism but not so much on the issue of the Trinity. Yet baptism is explicit and mentioned often in the NT - and the word Trinity - not once!

So how is it that a clear and explicit doctrine is much disputed and yet a much more subtle truth like the Trinity - much harder to define and read into any one text - is so easily accepted?

Could it be that it is because the Trinity is one of the Bible truths that the RCC did NOT obliterate? Without the need to correct that teaching - there is much less division.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

Karl Barth explained it best to me, That we CONFESS God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that we BELIEVE in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that there is NO bridge between belief and unbelief but CONFESSION and FAITH.

'God' would be a useless concept, had He not been a living, loving, saving, personal almighty, and ONLY God and Saviour. That's why I believe in Jesus Christ - not in Him too, but in Him, AS I believe in the Father and in the Holy Spirit.

If not a mystery, Faith in God, would not have existed.

 

[Eric B]

I've heard it said that the Trinity is one what with 3 who's (Norman Geisler says this).

I thought that was from James White. That's who Hank Hanegraaf quotes it from (the Forgotten Trinity). Hard to imagine confusing those two with each other (I must associate them too much with their Calvinism/Arminian debate)!

Anyway, that is a very bad phrase, because then it denies that there is any personal unity in God. "God" as a unified whole, is a what (a THING) only containing "who's"! Then:

God is one but that does not mean one being

"Being" would more correspond to the concept of the whole Godhead, so three beings would almost suggest three Gods.
All of this actually would be very compatible with Armstrong's "God Family" concept: God is one family (what), containing more than one "being" (who). We're better off just saying "one who three who's"; "one being, three Persons", rather than trying to rationalize it like that, then claiming "mystery".
http://members.aol.com/etb700/triune.html

 

[Marcia]

Eric, I think it's Norman Geisler who says that, but I could be wrong. Naturally, that is not his complete statement on the Trinity, nor is it mine. I was just trying to explain using that along with other statements.

All explanations and analogies will fail in some way when describing the Trinity. I know Geisler says this: We can apprehend the Trinity even if we don't comprehend it.

I certainly do not support the Armstrong family view!

You have to be really careful that the description does not sound like 3 Gods nor that it sounds like modalism. It's a fine line sometimes.

 

[JFox1]

I thought that was from James White. That's who Hank Hanegraaf quotes it from (the Forgotten Trinity). Hard to imagine confusing those two with each other (I must associate them too much with their Calvinism/Arminian debate)!

Anyway, that is a very bad phrase, because then it denies that there is any personal unity in God. "God" as a unified whole, is a what (a THING) only containing "who's"! Then:
"Being" would more correspond to the concept of the whole Godhead, so three beings would almost suggest three Gods.
All of this actually would be very compatible with Armstrong's "God Family" concept: God is one family (what), containing more than one "being" (who). We're better off just saying "one who three who's"; "one being, three Persons", rather than trying to rationalize it like that, then claiming "mystery".
http://members.aol.com/etb700/triune.html

Please do not get me started on Herbert Armstrong! AUUUUUUGH!

 

[EdSutton]

Please do not get me started on Herbert Armstrong! AUUUUUUGH!

"Just write me at Box 111, Pasade...!"

:laugh::laugh::applause::laugh:

Ed

 

[JFox1]

"Just write me at Box 111, Pasade...!"

:laugh::laugh::applause::laugh:

Ed

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

 

[D28guy]

Marcia,
You said...

Whether anyone claims to understand it or not should not keep us from recognizing that denial of the Trinity is against the Bible. One can show the Trinity from many passages in the Bible.

I am somewhat shocked at the responses here - it's as though Christians don't think the Trinity is important or that it's okay to be Oneness (denial of the Trinity)."

Well, for me its that I believe to lift a certain Trinitarian *articulation* of the Godhead, and to use that as a standard to judge whether someone is a christian or not, is to make judgments based on tradition rather then scripture.

Here is what I mean. Here is a standard articulation of the Trinity...

"Trinity" is a term used to denote the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of the persons is distinct from the other, yet identical in essence. In other words, each is fully divine in nature, but each is not the totality of the Trinity. Each has a will, loves, and says "I", and "You" when speaking. The Father is not the same person as the Son who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit who is not the same person as the Father. Each is divine, yet there are not three gods, but one God. There are three individual subsistences, or persons. The word "subsistence" means something that has a real existence. The word "person" denotes individuality and self awareness. The Trinity is three of these, though the latter term has become the dominant one used to describe the individual aspects of God known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Personally, I say "amen!" to all of that. I personally believe that the concept that men have called "the Trinity" is the best articulation we have as to the nature of God.

However, what I just posted there...from the CARM website...is not a passage of scripture. And there is nowhere in the scriptures where any extended explanation of the Godhead is given in concise and detailed form like that. And I know of no place where we are instructed by God to use anything like statement up there to "draw a line in the sand" with regarding others, to determine if they are christian or not.

And keep in mind, God does not shrink back from giving us "line in the sand" type of information to use for that purpose.

God has said, regarding Christ...

"Most assuredly, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins"

And...

"He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him"

And...

"And this is the trestimony: That God has given us eternal life. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the son does not have the life"

And...

"Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God"

And...

"He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Son of God"

And regarding the necessity of the Spiritual new birth...

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I say unto you 'you must be born again'."

And....

"By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because has given us of His Spirit"

Regarding the true saving gospel, justification through faith alone...

"knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified."

And...

"For it is by grace that you are saved, through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast

And...

"For as many as are under a curse, for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who deos not continue in all things which are written in the law, to do them." But that no one is justified by the law is evident, for "The just shall live by faith", Yet the law is not of faith, but "the man who does them shall live by them", Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law"

I could go on and on of course. I'm not trying to present an exhaustive list, I'm just making the point that God gives us in the scriptures truth that is so important that he clearly presents it...and He clearly speaks of the eternal consequences of rejecting it.

In other words, God makes clear that we can and should draw a "line in the sand" regarding certain issues. But I see nowhere in the scriptures where the "Trinitarian" articulation of the triune nature of God is clearly given, with the clear intention being to use as a "line in the sand" issue.

I acknowledge that the triune nature of God is alluded to many many times. Such as when Christ said...

"Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know, and testify what We have seen. And Our witness is true"

...but I'm just not comfortable drawing a "line in the sand" over something that is just a tradition (although true, imo) and not an admonition clearly given to us by God via "sola scriptura"

Hence, I certainly "draw a line in the sand" regarding the Jehovahs Witnesses, because of the clear admonition regarding denying Christs divinity. But I do not "draw a line in the sand" regarding the Oneness Pentecostals, since they clearly acknowledge the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

They just believe that Gods triune nature works itself out in a different way than we do. I think we are right and they are wrong, but I do not disfellowship with them over it, since I do not have clear "sola scriptura" instruction to do that.

God bless,

Mike

 

[Revmitchell]

The Holy Spirit is my Father's Spirit and not some third person in the God head!

[Moderator's Note: You may not post links to anti-Trinitarian sites.] :thumbs:

It is human reasoning to say that the Holy Ghost is the Father of Jesus Christ, but does not line up with scripture. The Holy Ghost did not create Christ therefore you logic is flawed.

 

[Revmitchell]

It has been said that any analogy of God falls short of reality and I believe this is so. The best analogy I have heard is the egg.

The egg has three parts. The shell, the yoke, and the white. All three have their own specific uses. the shell is used in craft making and in compost piles. The yoke gets used independently in cooking as does the white.

Yet as a whole it is still just one egg. With even three individual essence we do not refer to it as eggs plural but one egg.

 

[webdog]

The Holy Spirit is my Father's Spirit and not some third person in the God head!

[Moderator's Note: You may not post links to anti-Trinitarian sites.]:thumbs:

Are you oneness?