When Jesus came in the flesh, He revealed the Father... In Jo. 1:18 says No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. Before that time God the Father was unknown to mankind in general.
Here Jesus reveals the Father, if the Holy Spirit was a 3rd individual in the Godhead, this was certainly the time to reveal him too...Dont you think?
Although the people didnt know who Jesus was when He came in the flesh, they knew Him in the O.T. as the I am who worked with Moses and as the God who led the children of Israel 40 years in the wilderness.
1Cor. 10 speaks to this. Verse,1Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloudand in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
In Jo.1 Starting in verse 1 we read...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. {this was another ideal time to tell us about this 3rd individual if it was true}
The greeting Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ... or something similar to this is used by Paul in Romans... 1st and 2nd Corinthians...Galatians...Ephesians...Philippians...Colossians...1st and 2nd Thessalonians...1st and 2nd Timothy...Titus...and Philemon. Similar greetings are given in James, 1st John, 2nd John...Jude...and Revelation. All of these can be found within the first 7 verses of these books.
These all seem to me like ideal times to have mentioned the 3rd member of a trinity if one existed, but nothing! You reckon they forgot?
In the 4th and 5th chapters of Rev. there is quite a description of The Throne Room in Heaven. In this description we see God on His throne, 24 elders on their thrones, 4 living creatures, and the Lamb, Jesus Christ receiving the prophecy of all prophecies. It seems every one of import was there at this most important event.
Everyone that is, except the Holy Spirit. Do those who teach the trinity think his invitation got lost in the Mail or something?
The Holy Spirit is Gods Power, not a third individual in the godhead.
There are two individuals in the godhead, God the Father and God the Son.
Notice this admission in the New Bible Dictionary: "The term 'Trinity' is not itself found in the Bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the close of the 2nd century, but received wide currency and formal elucidation [clarification] only in the 4th and 5th centuries" (1996, "Trinity," emphasis added).
The dictionary goes on to explain that "the formal doctrine of the Trinity was the result of several inadequate attempts to explain who and what the Christian God really is ... To deal with these problems the Church Fathers met in 325 at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity." However, it wasn't until 381, "at the Council of Constantinople, [that] the divinity of the Spirit was affirmed ..."
The Scriptures speak of the Holy Spirit in many ways that demonstrate that it is not a divine person. For example, the Holy Spirit is referred to as a gift (Acts 10:45; 1 Timothy 4:14). We are told that it can be quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19), that it can be poured out (Acts 2:17; 10:45), and that we are baptized with it (Matthew 3:11). It must be stirred up within us (2 Timothy 1:6), and it also renews us (Titus 3:5). These are certainly not attributes of a person.
This Spirit is also called "the holy Spirit of promise ... the guarantee of our inheritance ... the spirit of wisdom and revelation ..." (Ephesians 1:13-14, 17).
In contrast to God the Father and Jesus Christ, who are consistently compared to human beings in their form and shape, the Holy Spirit is just as consistently represented in a completely different manner. It is described as appearing as a dove (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32) and as "tongues of fire" (Acts 2:3). Jesus compared it with "living water" (John 7:37-39).
The Gospels record further evidence that the Holy Spirit is not a person. In Matthew 1:20, we read that Jesus was begotten by the Holy Spirit (Moffatt translation). Yet Christ continually prayed to and addressed the Father, not the Holy Spirit, as His father (Matthew 10:32, 33; 11:25-27; 12:50; 15:13; 16:17, 27; 18:10, 35). Never did He represent the Holy Spirit as His Father.
Nor did Jesus speak of the Holy Spirit as a third divine person; instead He only spoke of the relationship between Him and God the Father (Matthew 26:39; Mark 13:32; 15:34; John 5:18, 22; 8:16, 18; 10:30; 13:3; 17:11).
If the godhead were a Trinity, surely the apostle Paul would have understood and emphasized this in his teaching. Yet we find no such concept in his writings. Paul's standard greeting in his letters to churches, as well as individuals to whom he wrote, is, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." There is no mention of the Holy Spirit.
This same greeting, with only minor variations, appears in every epistle that bears Paul's name: Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; Colossians 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:2; 1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4; and Philemon 3. The Holy Spirit is always left out of these greetingsan unbelievable oversight if the Holy Spirit were indeed a person coequal with God and Jesus.
This is even more surprising when we consider that the churches to which Paul wrote had many gentile members from polytheistic backgrounds who had formerly worshiped numerous gods. Paul's epistles record no attempt on his part to explain the Trinity or Holy Spirit as a divine person equal with God the Father and Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul states clearly that "there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things ... and one Lord Jesus Christ ..." (1 Corinthians 8:6). He makes no mention of the Holy Spirit as a divine person.
The final book of the Bible (and the last to be written) describes "a new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1) wherein "the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them" (verse 3). Jesus Christ, "the Lamb," is also there (verse 22). The Holy Spirit, however, is conspicuously absentanother inconceivable oversight if this Spirit is the third person of a Trinity.
"God is Spirit" (John 4:24) and His Spirit is described by an angel as "the power of the Highest" (Luke 1:35). It is the same power we can receive directly from God.
Many other scriptures show this connection between the Holy Spirit and God's power. For example, Paul reminded Timothy that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). Other scriptures refer to the Holy Spirit as the power of God (Zechariah 4:6; Micah 3:8).
Luke 4:14 records that Jesus Christ began His ministry "in the power of the Spirit." Speaking of the Holy Spirit, which would be given to His followers after His death, Jesus told them, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you ..." (Acts 1:8).
Peter relates that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, [and Jesus] went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him" (Acts 10:38). The Holy Spirit is here associated with the power by which God was with Himthe power through which Jesus Christ performed mighty miracles during His earthly, physical ministry. The Holy Spirit is the very presence of God's power actively working in His servants (Psalm 51:11; 139:7).
Paul expresses his desire that church members would "abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit," in the same way that Jesus had worked through him "in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God" (Romans 15:13, 19).
This Spirit empowers Christians to live a life of growing and overcoming, of transforming their lives to become like Jesus Christ.
When the Holy Spirit is referred to by personal pronouns such as "he" or "himself" in the Scriptures, this does not prove the Holy Spirit is a person. The translators of the King James Version, influenced by their belief in the Holy Spirit as a third person in the Trinity, generally translated pronouns referring to the Holy Spirit as personal and masculine rather than neuter.
Translators of later English versions of the Bible, also operating from the premise of the Trinity, have gone a step further and most often translated all references to the Holy Spirit as masculine. Thus God's spirit is almost always incorrectly referred to with such personal pronouns as "he" or "him" in English Bible translations.
And that's the truth on that subject.
