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If that is the case, would you say whether a person truly understands the concept of trinity would not be essential for salvation, nor should it be a criteria for whether the person is considered to be a Christian?The reason why God has not bothered to explain His three Person nature, is that He doesn't have to. Why should He? Does the Potter has to justify Himself to the clay?
no where in ot can you find god or any prophet saying father son holy spirit or that god is 3 persons but 1 god.
Ok, I decline to reply as it's off topic. Have a nice evening.Jesus knew he could never fit the expectations of a Jewish Messiah, however he allowed the Father to untangle the mess between the expectations of the Jews and the reality of who Jesus really was and still is. He allowed his followers to see him as the expected deliverer even though he was in fact very different. Judaism has NO concept, belief, theology or doctrine of God having a divine Son in heaven. Jesus, the Son of God, do not fulfill the expectations of the Messiah, he left! And in leaving he left his followers in that age with the speculation that he would soon return. He didn't.
I have always found the modern English word "person" to be problematic to be used to describe a member of the trinity. It is as if saying Father, Son and the Spirit are three separate people who are different individuals that have different personalities and have their own likes and dislikes, which we know that is not true biblically.Keep in mind that we are not talking about three individuals when we say "persons." We normally use the word to mean different, separate, beings, but that is not the meaning in Trinitarian theology or in the Nicene Creed.
So wrong....Jesus knew he could never fit the expectations of a Jewish Messiah, however he allowed the Father to untangle the mess between the expectations of the Jews and the reality of who Jesus really was and still is. He allowed his followers to see him as the expected deliverer even though he was in fact very different. Judaism has NO concept, belief, theology or doctrine of God having a divine Son in heaven. Jesus, the Son of God, do not fulfill the expectations of the Messiah, he left! And in leaving he left his followers in that age with the speculation that he would soon return. He didn't.
YES! GOOD ! It is written that YHVH is NOT a person, "not a man, that HE could/should lie" . This came up a while back.I have always found the modern English word "person" to be problematic
Does that mean that the Trinitarian experience is wrong? No, I don’t think it means that, but it does mean that the Trinitarian language, which we use as we to seek to relate the Trinitarian experience is simply irrelevant.
~~~ John Spong
All those human doctrines are just human attempts to understand the nature of God. All you need to know and understand is the scriptural descriptions of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
We find a further hint of the Trinity in Genesis 1.
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth" (Genesis 1:26).
The phrase "let us" again gives the idea of plurality. The word "us" cannot refer to angels because angels do not create.
Therefore, in the first chapter of the Bible we have a hint of the Trinity with the plural title Elohim used with a singular verb and God speaking and saying, "Let us."
John Spong character, that you quote has been quoted as saying to the Late Dr Walter Martin, that he does not regard the words of Jesus as the final authority in all matters.
This is John Spong
View attachment 222971
What Spong does to the authority of Jesus and the written word is what is deemed as a Liberal Higher Criticism of the Word of God and his Christ.
Spong relates truth to his experience, even at the very cost of dismissing the authority of Jesus.
Here is a link that talks about this character.
What’s Wrong With Bishop Spong? - CMI Mobile
This is what Spong leads his experience to make him believe.....
The religion of evolutionary scientism
Spong jettisons belief in God as the supernatural lawgiver. He sees this belief arising when ‘men and women, groping for the power to express what they found in him [God], discovered the inadequacy of language, so they lapsed into myth and poetry’ (THL p. 184). He argues that this belief should be rejected in favour of the light of truth which he thinks is the monopoly of objective science.
Spong labels the view that ethics, especially sexual ethics, can be derived from the Bible as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘pre-modern’, whereas he claims his new framework is ‘modern’ and ‘scientific’. He says:
I am amazed that given the knowledge revolution of the last 600 years, anyone could still regard the Bible as the dictated word of God, inerrant and eternal (BW p. 3).
In Spong’s world, the findings of objective science continually chip away at our ‘pre-modern’ moral reference, the Bible. For instance, science supposedly has proven that we must change our beliefs about homosexuality:
Contemporary research has today uncovered new facts that are producing a rising conviction that homosexuality — is a healthy, natural and affirming form of human sexuality. (LS p. 71)
Science, Spong believes, is a neutral sifter and accumulator of facts which produces conclusions based on observation and is untarnished by prejudice. Belief in a literal Bible is primitive and produces such ‘mistakes’ as beliefs in Christ’s bodily resurrection and virginal conception, and the idea that homosexual acts are sinful. But now, thanks to science, we have the facts. We know that Jesus neither rose from the grave nor was He born of a virgin, and that homosexual acts are just as valid as heterosexual acts.
The religion of consensus of experiential subjectivity is what is deemed authority of truth, over and above the authority of Jesus Christ and scripture. Truly it is a form of progressive liberal godliness that totally denies the authority of God. (2 Timothy 3:5)
Not at all for the Ekklesia is YHVH hindered by anything man or men have done or could have done.They didn't know any better, but because the preist class ( men dressed up in costumes) claimed that their writings were Gods writings, growth in understanding via revelation has been stunted.
This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
I don't think that it is essential for salvation to be able to understand the full nature and character of God. If that was so, He would have made it abundantly clear to us. The New Testament puts the requirements for salvation very clearly - believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, believe that He rose from the dead, and be baptised to give public affirmation to your belief. The nature and character of God comes by revelation to those who believe, and He shows just enough to understand that He is a loving, joyful, peaceable, gentle and kind Person who is not willing that any should perish but that all may come to repentance. What saddens Him is that not all will believe on Jesus and come to repentance.If that is the case, would you say whether a person truly understands the concept of trinity would not be essential for salvation, nor should it be a criteria for whether the person is considered to be a Christian?
For years I was adamantly opposed to the Trinity. I remember one week visiting a Christian church and they sang the hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy" ...with the words God in three persons, blessed trinity. Afterwards, I said to my husband, '"the sermon was pretty good and the people were friendly, but how can anyone believe anything as nonsensical as the trinity?" Well, two weeks later I came to understand my need for a Savior and trusted Jesus for salvation and eternal life. It was as if my understanding was completely opened because from that point on the trinity made perfect sense. For one thing I believe in One God who is complete within Himself, yet God is LOVE and relational. So who has God expressed love to and lived in relationship with from all eternity past before creation, if not between the three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
no where in ot can you find god or any prophet saying father son holy spirit or that god is 3 persons but 1 god.
This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
Three persons, One God headThis is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
It's about events that have occurred in the far past that have been recorded in the OT. Have you wondered how supposedly monotheistic Jews in the first century could do this John 20:28, without the NT and not having the doctrine of the trinity? There are reasons for it, they are found in the OT. They did not need the doctrine of the trinity to explain it. Here's the explanation for it given by one of those scholars who uses everyday plain english to get the point across:This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God
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