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Kathy said:

..... I feel misunderstood, as to what you believe is what I am about. I posting this regarding the Trinity... what I'm coming up with, since words are what we have.

Kathy,

I've been reading some of your questions and comments on the topic of the Trinity and come away quite purplexed by your method of hermanuetics. Actually some of what you've written has little relevance to the topic which makes it confusing for us who read your thoughts to try to understand what you are really talking about. Perhaps you will find these theological notes in my New Geneva Study Bible helpful.


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One and Three: The Trinity

The Old Testament constantly insists that there is only one God, the self-revealed Creator, who must be worshiped and loved exclusively. (Deuteronomy 6:4,5; Isaiah 44:6 - 45:25). The New Testament agrees, (Mark 12:29-30; I Corinthians 8:4; Ephesians 4:6; I Timothy 2:5), but speaks of three personal agents, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together to bring about salvation (Romans 8; Ephesians 1:3-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 1 Peter 1:2). The historic formulation of the Trinity (from the Latin word trinitas, meaning "threeness") is not an attempt to explain it; that would be beyond us. It does provide a boundary and safeguard for our thoughts about the mystery, which confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind can know. It is not easy; but it is true.

The doctrine springs from the historical facts of redemption recorded and explained in the New Testament. Jesus prayed to the Father and taught His disciples to do the same. Yet He convinced them that He was personally divine. Belief in His diviity and in the rightness of offering Him worship and prayers is basic to New Testament faith (John 20:28-31; cf. 1:1-18; Acts 7:59; Romans 9:5; 10:9-13; 2 Corinthians 12:7-9; Philippians 2:5-6; Colossians 1:15-17; 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-12; I Peter 3:15). Jesus promised to send "another Helper" or "Paraclete" (from the Greek). A "Paraclete" is an advocate, helper. ally, and supporter (John 14:26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15). The promised Helper was the Holy Spirit, who came at Pentecost to fulfill His ministry. From the start He was recognized as the third divine Person; to lie to Him, said Peter not long after Pentecost, is to lie to God (Acts 5:3-4).

Christ prescribed baptism "in the name (singular: one God, one name) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" - three Persons who are the one God whom Christians commit themselves (Matt. 28:19). So we meet the three Persons in the account of Jesus' own baptism: the Father acknowledged the Son, and the Spirit showed His presence in the Son's life and ministry (Mark 9:9-11). The blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14 is trinitarian, as is the prayer for grace and peace from the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ in Rev. 1;4-5. John includes the Spirit between the Father and the Son only because he teaches that the Spirit is divine in the very same sense as are the Father and the Son. These are some of the more stiking examples of trinitarian teaching in the New Testament. Though the technical language of later theology is not found there, the trinitarian faith and thinking are present in all its pages. In this sense the Trinity is a biblical doctrine.

Basically the doctrine is that the unity of the one God is complex. The three personal "substances" (as they are called) are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness, each being "I" in relation to two who are "You" and each having the full divine essence of God, the specific existence that belongs to God alone. God is not one person who plays three seperate roles; this is the error called "modalism." Nor are there three gods who only seem to be one because they always act together; this is trithism." The theologian B. B. Warfield put it simply: "when we have said these three things, then--that there is but one God, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is each God, a distinct person - we have enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness." This summarizes what was revealed through the words and works of Jesus, and is the reality underlying the salvation of the New Testament.

Practically speaking, the doctrine of the Trinity requires us to give equal honor to each of the three Persons in the unity of the one God. More over, knowing the doctrine establishes personal faith no less that it enriches a healthy sense of unity with other Christians.

"Trinity" is a term that is not found in the Bible but a word used to describe what is apparent about God in the Scriptures. The Bible clearly speaks of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit...and also clearly presents that there is only one God. Thus the term: "Tri" meaning three, and "Unity" meaning one, Tri+Unity = Trinity. It is a way of acknowledging what the Bible reveals to us about God, that God is yet three "Persons" who have the same essence of deity.

God the Son (Jesus) is fully, completely God. God the Father is fully, completely God. And God the Holy Spirit is fully, completely God. Yet there is only one God.


Wes