The Trinity

harko

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What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?
 
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HTacianas

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What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?

I like Philo of Alexandria's description of the Divine Triad.

Philo had it that the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant was an image of God. The cherubim to the left and right were God's creative and regent powers, and that God the Father sat on the mercy seat between them. To the uninitiated mind they appear as three, but to the initiated mind they are one.

Both John and Paul use the same language as Philo in describing the incarnation of the Word, but Philo was not Christian. He was a Jew. I do not know if John and Paul were familiar with the writings of Philo or if they drew from the same source independently.
 
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Jonaitis

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I use One in Three Persons when it is understood, but in agreement with Barth, it does sound like we are saying three personalities (with individual self-consciousnesses), and so I try to avoid using that terminology often. One divine substance with three subsisting, with their particular personal properties (begot, beget, proceed) and works in creation/redemption (incarnation, indwelling, etc). They are the same ontologically, but differ economically. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father; but they are all the same divine being in the unity of essence.
 
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harko

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One God in three modes of being (not person) has always helped. I use One in Three Persons when it is understood, but in agreement with Barth, it does sound like we are saying three personalities (with individual self-consciousnesses), and so I try to avoid using that terminology often. One divine substance with three subsisting under, with their particular personal properties (begot, beget, proceed) and works in creation/redemption (incarnation, indwelling, etc). They are the same ontologically, but differ economically.[/QUOTEQUOTE

Being separate would be modalism type thinking .
 
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Presbyterian Continuist

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What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?
I just accept it the way it is because the Bible says it.

When I first received Christ as a 19 year old, I didn't understand anything about the Christian faith at all. I just knew that the Bible told me I needed to receive Christ as my Saviour, so I did. If I waited until I understood the ins and outs of the faith I would probably have never received Christ at all, because there is still a lot, at 71 years of age, (52 years later) that I don't understand.
 
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harko

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I just accept it the way it is because the Bible says it.

When I first received Christ as a 19 year old, I didn't understand anything about the Christian faith at all. I just knew that the Bible told me I needed to receive Christ as my Saviour, so I did. If I waited until I understood the ins and outs of the faith I would probably have never received Christ at all, because there is still a lot, at 71 years of age, (52 years later) that I don't understand.
Thanks for that ! I suppose all the questioning of things that we will never truly understand just keeps us further apart from God.
 
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Dave G.

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Yes, I just accept it as well but I believe I also have seen it working in my life over the last 40 years of having come to Jesus. Let's put it this way, we probably aren't even going to come close to a full understanding in this life, just accept it and let them do their jobs. With a little study you can at least understand how they interact with us. In the next life we will know more.
 
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Presbyterian Continuist

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Thanks for that ! I suppose all the questioning of things that we will never truly understand just keeps us further apart from God.
The Scripture says that the Holy Spirit within us will teach us all things, so, I guess that if you want further understanding concerning the nature and character of God, all you have to do is ask. "If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and He will give liberally and will not think any less of you for asking" (James 1:5). "Everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6).
 
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yeshuasavedme

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What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?
YHWH is the eternally self existing One Living Spirit, who exists as a closed multiplicity of three Persons. Each Person is called YHWH in the Scripture.
To make it easily understood, all created spirits of each kind are one kind, fleshed out in the particular bodies the kind was created to have, and multiplying it's persons by the seed created in the first male of the kind. You and I are persons multiplied in the created Adam spirit, and there are many multiplied billions of us, but we are one Adam, as to spirit, and manifested as male and female persons.

The second Person in the One Living YHWH Spirit has put on a new creation human being flesh body, so as to be our Kinsman Redeemer by the once for all Atonement....
He will always wear that human being flesh garment (Isaiah 59 and Revelation 19), and is the Firstborn Son of God as to His New Creation brother to Adam flesh, but YHWH in the second Person named "God the Word" as to His eternal, uncreated Living Spirit.
 
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mister rogers

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With what the scripture says. The Bible is clear that God is one. It also is impossible to read through the New Testament and see there is a threeness about Him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which Jesus revealed more fully. So there is a oneness and threeness: a tri-unity. How it can be is not ultimately our responsibility to know. God is totally other than us, his finite creation. We simply trust His Word. Something that stands out is how the three interact and speak to each other, which displays that each have distinct personalities from each other (John 16 on the Holy Spirit stands out to me). Also, there are statements about Jesus being with His Father from eternity (John 1:1-3, 14-18; 17:5). Two other passages that stand out to me that have an obvious triune pattern are Eph. 2:18 and II Cor. 13:14.
 
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1213

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... How it can be is not ultimately our responsibility to know. God is totally other than us, ....

But is that correct? Bible tells we should be like Jesus, one with God, if we are disciples of Jesus.

I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
John 17:11

that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
John 17:21

I believe that being one with God means we have same will.
 
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ViaCrucis

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St. Augustine's On the Trinity describes how love requires three things: One that loves, one that is loved, and the love itself. Remove one of these elements and it's no longer love. Love finds its purpose in another, it moves outward from one to another; if one only loves themselves then it is not truly love.

St. John writes, "God is love". Is this love which God is a selfish love, He loves only Himself? If this were the case then it's not really love; and if God only began to love once He created the universe, then He isn't love but rather has learned to love. But here with the Trinity we have the God who loves: For the Father loves His Son, and the Son loves His Father, and the Holy Spirit is the bonds of love shown forth from Father to Son and Son to Father; and so there is always the one who loves, the one who is loved, and the love itself in the Trinity. And so when God sends forth His Son, born of a woman, and sends forth His Spirit, even the Spirit of His Son to dwell in our hearts to cry forth "Abba! Father!" we find God stretching forth this eternal love outward to embrace us, and to bring us into the love of the Trinity. We have received adoption as sons and daughters, being united to Christ, having the indwelling of the Spirit, and therefore can call God our Father. And so the eternal, uncreated love of God comes forth, drawing us into it--that love which God has always had, as it moves between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without beginning and without end.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ChetSinger

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What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?
Heh, I don't get through this one; I have no hope that I'm going to understand the nature of the Creator of the universe. I simply appreciate that God has revealed to us as much as He has, and just admire who He is.
 
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mister rogers

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But is that correct? Bible tells we should be like Jesus, one with God, if we are disciples of Jesus.

I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
John 17:11

that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
John 17:21

I believe that being one with God means we have same will.
Well yes, in that respect we can be one with God through Christ: we are united in fellowship with Him and conformed more and more to His will.
 
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TrevorL

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Greetings harko,
What is your belief of the trinity that helps you understand the 3 in 1 concept of God.
The Father is not the son , The Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, Yet all are one God.
How do you with our limited human knowledge of God get through this one?
I have not been able to understand or accept the Trinity. I believe that the OT reveals that there is One God, Yahweh, and in the NT this one God is also revealed as God the Father. The NT also reveals that Jesus is the Son of God.

Kind regards
Trevor
 
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