Trinity Doctrines

[Nessie]

I believe in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost but I don't use the term trinity. It makes it seem as if we're saying there are three gods as opposed to the One who has revealed Himself in three ways. That said, here's stuff from the Bible and historical documents that might help you better understand the godhead:

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." I Timothy 3:16
He could be in all these places at once fulfilling all these roles because He is omnipresent. This doesn't mean there are three Gods, it means God fulfills three roles.

I've had a literal trinitarian tell me once that she believed when she got to heaven she would see three gods--Jesus sitting next to the Father and the Holy Ghost kinda just flying around. If it's true they are three entities, then how does a literal trinitarian translate this verse:
Matthew 1:18- "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost."
If there really are three different entities, this verse nullifies that "The Father" is really the father of Jesus because the Bible says the Holy Ghost came upon Mary. So either the Bible contradicts itself--which It doesn't--or we can determine that One God is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut 6:4)--compare this to Saul's conversion in Acts where Saul, a Jew, believing only in the Father at this point, says, "Lord, who art thou?" to which God the Father replies, "I am Jesus who thou persecutest."

Also consider all the baptisms in the Bible that the disciples did. Every person they baptized was in Jesus Name. Why? Because when Jesus walked the earth He said to baptize in "The name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". So imagine you are God. Do you want people to be baptized in the name of the Brother, Son, and McDonald's employee, or do you want people to use your name? There is ONE God, and His name is Jesus Christ.

Consider Revelation 1:7-8. "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Okay, so Jesus is coming back--we know it's Jesus because He was the one pierced--and yet the Bible says He is the Beginning and End. The I Am. Hmmm... wasn't that what God the Father told Moses to refer to Him as when speaking to the Israelites? So wait, if Jesus isn't God, then by taking the I Am title in Rev... is He not taking God the Father's name? Well, something here tells me that Jesus is God. "God was manifest in the flesh." Zechariah 14:9 "And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one."

"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." I John 5:7 John 10:30- "I and my Father are one."

There are so many other verses concerning the Godhead. If you have a cross-reference Bible, looking up these verses will lead to more.

Now, concerning those who are talking about when the term trinity began to be used and by whom, here's some history.

The roots of literal trinitarianism (honestly believing that there are three gods instead of one)--go back to Egypt where they believed in multiple gods. The first time that someone ever publicly stated that is mentioned in history is a man named Tertullian, who wrote "Against Praxeas". In this writing Tertullian agrees that the majority of the church still believed as the church of Acts and the apostles, that there is One God. However, Tertullian wrote that each the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were individual entities. He also stated that the Father was above the Son... but we know this not true because the Bible says that Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Jesus knew He was God manifest in the flesh. Another man named Hippolytus tried to claim that the Father was above Jesus and denied the verses that Jesus was God manifest in flesh.

By the fourth century, when the Council of Nicea met, just about anyone believing in One God in the Godhead (just like the apostles) was considered a heretic. The Council of Nicea wasn't really a bunch of men getting together to purposely distort the Godhead. They met originally to attempt to retort arianism, which is the belief that Jesus was just a man. They couldn't come to an agreeance on the Godhead, however, and decided on the doctrine of the trinity, because it seemed easier to say there are three different people instead of trying to understand that God is omnipresent and can actually be in three places at once.

There's a lot to the history of how the churches began to follow the trinitarian doctrine, but if one studies the original church in the book of Acts, the trinity was not even fathomable as a possibilty. The apostles and believers knew there was one God.

So to answer your question, yes, the Father Son and Holy Ghost do exist. However, they are One God, not three. I do not use the term trinity because I don't want people to think I literally believe that there are three Gods. There is One God. That is what the Bible says and that is what I believe.

 

[imperfectchristian]

Why do you believe in the Trinity?

Well lets see if I can retrace. I believed in God (I was raised in a quasi oneness pentecostal type church), but never really thought much about it on a deep level.

When I got saved, it had nothing to do with three in one or one in three, I was overcome by a great effection and later on I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in my sleep. It was a transformation.

I remember being at church camp one year (the only year I ever went) and being overcome by the sense of the love of the Father giving His son. People always talked about how much Jesus loved us, but it just hit me how much the Father loved us and I wept profusely down on my knees thanking the Father for his great love.


I think in a trinitarian concept because when I read the Bible I see three different people. The Father, Jesus and the holy Spirit. To say they are all the same person seems silly and overcomplicated. The fact that they are all three God in essence is easy to accept for me, not because I am intellectually able to reason it to be so, but because I have experienced each one of them in their uniqueness.

 

[JAS4Yeshua]

There are verses, most of which have been named previously, that lead to why I believe in the Trinity. Although, to be honest, I am far from having a true grasp on it. It is one of those areas where I have faith.

 

[BereanTodd]

More than one person in here has expressed an opinion of basically modalism, and that absolutely can not be the case unless you either deny the innerancy of the Scripture, or the deity of Christ. Christ clearly claimed, on more than one occaision, that He and the Father constituted two distinct witnesses. If modalism is true, then the Father and Son are one witness not two, and Jesus bore false witness. On that grounds alone there must be a duality of God. I of course believe that the deity and personhood of the Holy Spirit is also fairly clearly asserted in the Bible.

I hold the traditional, orthodox view - three persons in one being, three in distinction, one in essence. I think our problem is that we struggle to understand the not-understandable. We think that our finite minds should be able to box up the infinate Creator of all. Me? I take God at His revealed word in the Scriptures - which clearly teach that there is but one God; that Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God; and that there are eternal distinctions in the three.

 

[He put me back together]

Yahweh is plural.

Twiggy are you sure you're not confusing Yahweh with Elohim?

*BRACE FOR RAMBLE!*

HPMBT's understanding, up for correction:

Yahweh, by definiton, can only be singular. There is no plural form. If there was, then the word wouldn't mean what it means. By definition, there can only be one Yahweh.

Elohim, on the other hand, is in a form that I think is confusing to westerners. For us, we have two forms of a word: singular and plural. Singular means there is one, plural more than one. But for Scriptural Hebrew, the form that we would call "plural" serves two functions: that of being more than one, and that of fulness.

The phrase "Yahweh Elohim" is only applicable to the latter, because the former would make about as much sense as saying "I have one puppies" in English. For a Hebrew, this is completely clear (although Babylonian mysticism still succeeded exchanging the beauty of His Name into something mystical and superstitious). For westerners trying to understand the Hebrews, it is a bit alien.

Yahweh is our Elohim, not because He is two, or one, or 5,000...He is Elohim, because He is the totality of our might. Consider Exodus 20:5:

"...for I, Yahweh your Elohim am a jealous El."

Again, would we say "Spot, my puppies, is a very hungry puppy?" No. Yahweh is saying "I, Yahweh (the singular, self-existent One beside Whom there is no other), the totality of all might, am a jealous Mighty One.

So, I don't think that the language of the Hebrews can be used to support trinity doctrine. Indeed, if there was a co-creator in Genesis, that would give more support to the doctrine of, say, the JW's, rather than the deity of Christ. But Genesis 2:7 explicitly states that Yahweh Elohim, and Yahweh Elohim alone, formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Therefore, since the NT states that without Christ nothing was made that was made, either Christ is Yahweh, or the NT stands against its own foundation.

Anyway, that's a linguistic tid-bit. When it comes to this trinity business you guys just take it as you may.

 

[imperfectchristian]

Twiggy are you sure you're not confusing Yahweh with Elohim?

Yes I was...however I went back and deleted that post. Thanks for the correction though.

 

[imperfectchristian]

Let me complicate this for all the trinitarians here.

Isaiah 9:6


6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

 

[BereanTodd]

Let me complicate this for all the trinitarians here.

Isaiah 9:6


6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

What complication is there? That He is the everlasting Father? He is in that He and the Father are one. I would think FAR more worrying would be the problem that if there is no trinity, as I explained above, then Jesus is a liar who bore false witness and thus could not atone for our sins.

 

[He put me back together]

Yes I was...however I went back and deleted that post. Thanks for the correction though.

The one sentence was the sum of anything you might call "correction."

The rest was me pouncing on an opportunity to run through Hebraic semantics AND comment on the topic without commenting on the topic

 

[New_Wineskin]

Why do you believe in the Trinity? It's concept is rather sketchy in scripture.

Exactly - it is a tradition and was a tradition first =- later people have tried to make the Scriptures fit as best they could . Their best efforts in all of these years still come up vague .

 

[He put me back together]

What complication is there? That He is the everlasting Father? He is in that He and the Father are one. I would think FAR more worrying would be the problem that if there is no trinity, as I explained above, then Jesus is a liar who bore false witness and thus could not atone for our sins.

Is there a way that Jesus isn't the Father?

 

[BereanTodd]

Is there a way that Jesus isn't the Father?

Well it is clear that the Father is the head of Christ (can one be the head of oneself?) and more importantly, as I said, Jesus Himself testified on multiple occaisions that He and the Father constituted mutliple witnesses. If there are not eternal distinctions in Father and Son then Jesus bore falso witness; in bearing false witness He sinned, in sinning He could not atone for us.

How also, could the Son of Man (i.e. Christ) sit beside the Father (see Daniel 7) or assend to the "right hand of the Father" (see the NT). We could go on all day, but the distinctions in Father and Son are quite clear and abundantly present. I will grant that there is less material dealing with the HS, but I still think that He also can clearly be seen to be both divine and eternally distinct.

 

[BenAdam]

Todd,

Who, in your opinion, is espousing Modalism?

 

[BereanTodd]

ydouxist (post 4) and Nessie (post 22) both seem to put forth very modalist views. Heputmebacktogether and New_wineskin here seem to be denying the trinity.

 

[BenAdam]

ydouxist (post 4) and Nessie (post 22) both seem to put forth very modalist views. Heputmebacktogether and New_wineskin here seem to be denying the trinity.

I agree about Nessie. I don't see HPMBT or NW denying the trinity. In fact NW goes a step further in mentioning that in Revelation it states that God has Seven Spirits.

 

[He put me back together]

ydouxist (post 4) and Nessie (post 22) both seem to put forth very modalist views. Heputmebacktogether and New_wineskin here seem to be denying the trinity.

I deny any doctrine that says that Yahweh is not One. Because this is foundational to Scripture, and because the notion that Yahweh is two or three or four is a logical absurdity. If the trinity says that Yahweh is 3 and not One, then I am indeed against it, and it is against not only the foundation of all of Scripture, but against the very definition of His Name. But not every one who claims himself to be "trinitarian," whether he is correctly labelling himself or not, believes this is true.

The participation that I have made in this thread is one of fairness. Whether one is trinitarian or not, he must acknowledge the fact that there is no plurality in the phrase "Yahweh Elohim." If there was, tri-unity would not accurately describe the phrase. For that matter, neither would polytheism. Nonsense would describe the phrase.

 

[BereanTodd]

And a non-trinitarian Jesus is one who is either not divine (blasphemy) or a lieing, sinning man who can not atone for sin.

 

[New_Wineskin]

ydouxist (post 4) and Nessie (post 22) both seem to put forth very modalist views. Heputmebacktogether and New_wineskin here seem to be denying the trinity.

That would depend on one's definition - and there are many . We both agree with the creed which many claim began as a statement of trinity .

You yourself wrote that it wasn't a salvation issue - meaning not important in the least .

 

[imperfectchristian]

What complication is there? That He is the everlasting Father? He is in that He and the Father are one. I would think FAR more worrying would be the problem that if there is no trinity, as I explained above, then Jesus is a liar who bore false witness and thus could not atone for our sins.

So you are saying it is OK to call Jesus Everlasting Father?

 

[BereanTodd]

So you are saying it is OK to call Jesus Everlasting Father?

Is that not a title that Scriptures give to Him? Who am I to argue with God's word?