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Author Topic: Questions intended only to expand mind and theology
John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by Brother Paul: Just for more thought (also I apologize for my former lengthiness, I will keep it down or submit longer posts in sections)

In the Athanasian Creed we hear what it was that those who belonged to this new universal faith believed

that we worship the one God (yachid...numerically one) as three persons (echad...a unity of pluralities) and the three as one

the point is we must not confuse the order to gain the correct trinitarian understanding...God is only and numerically one God

The Father is God, the Son is God and the Spirit is God, only there are not three Gods but only one

The one God therefore IS the Father and it is that same God which IS the Son and the same one and only God IS the Holy Spirit

This is not modalism because one doesa not precede the other, neither is one for one dispensation and the next for another and the next for another...He always was, is and ever will be the one and only God

This God (the only true and living God) is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit

The Father is the Lord (YHVH)
The Son is the Lord (YHVH)
The Spirit is the Lord (YHVH)

but there is not three YHVH's only one

So Athanasius and the early Church bid us to keep the order correct in our understanding

The One God as three and the three in their Unity

Unfortunately, Athanasius also introduced the concept of the prefix Co- C0-eternals, C0-saviors etc., which later led to deviation from the very understanding he was emphasizing we should keep, such that many reversed the order and were/are taught to worship the three as one and the one as three which is backwards in reverential emphasis

Now this is just an opinion so it is not meant to divide in any way...let us therefore in love through the Spirit maintain our unity in Christ.

Love brother Paul

YHVH is like a surname. Yes. I concur / agree / amen and pass the offering plate.

Creeds... in so much as they agree with scripture... sure why not? But they are not authoritative.

RAMBAM tried to sneak yakid into the shma... to distance Judaism from Christianity...

naughty naughty

Anyway... thanks for shortening the posts, Bro!

I believe we are all saying the same thing... it's just many of us might not have thought all the way through what it is we are saying...

There is only one God. We agree on the three who are the one God as the scripture teaches are Father Son and Spirit.

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John Hale
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The Father is height
The Son is length
The Spirit is depth

The Father is not the Son nor the Spirit (Holy Ghost)...

The Son is not the Father or the Spirit

The Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

The Father is in ultimate authority and is the sole creator of the body of the incarnate Son. John 14:28, John 1:14 / Hebrews 10:5-7

The Son is the Savior and the sole creator of all things created. John 1:1-3 John 1:14

The Spirit is the witness to Christ, the testifier of truth (written and incarnate) and is the one who solely inspired the prophets (writing and non-writing). John 16:13, 2 Peter 1:20-21

The Spirit is also the one who indwells us as the earnest (seal) for salvation.

The distinctions within the Godhead go to individuality of the three who are the one God.

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Carol Swenson
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Brother Paul [thumbsup2]

quote:
The one God therefore IS the Father and it is that same God which IS the Son and the same one and only God IS the Holy Spirit

This is not modalism because one doesa not precede the other, neither is one for one dispensation and the next for another and the next for another...He always was, is and ever will be the one and only God

This God (the only true and living God) is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit

The Father is the Lord (YHVH)
The Son is the Lord (YHVH)
The Spirit is the Lord (YHVH)

but there is not three YHVH's only one


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Brother Paul
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Just for more thought (also I apologize for my former lengthiness, I will keep it down or submit longer posts in sections)

In the Athanasian Creed we hear what it was that those who belonged to this new universal faith believed

that we worship the one God (yachid...numerically one) as three persons (echad...a unity of pluralities) and the three as one

the point is we must not confuse the order to gain the correct trinitarian understanding...God is only and numerically one God

The Father is God, the Son is God and the Spirit is God, only there are not three Gods but only one

The one God therefore IS the Father and it is that same God which IS the Son and the same one and only God IS the Holy Spirit

This is not modalism because one doesa not precede the other, neither is one for one dispensation and the next for another and the next for another...He always was, is and ever will be the one and only God

This God (the only true and living God) is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit

The Father is the Lord (YHVH)
The Son is the Lord (YHVH)
The Spirit is the Lord (YHVH)

but there is not three YHVH's only one

So Athanasius and the early Church bid us to keep the order correct in our understanding

The One God as three and the three in their Unity

Unfortunately, Athanasius also introduced the concept of the prefix Co- C0-eternals, C0-saviors etc., which later led to deviation from the very understanding he was emphasizing we should keep, such that many reversed the order and were/are taught to worship the three as one and the one as three which is backwards in reverential emphasis

Now this is just an opinion so it is not meant to divide in any way...let us therefore in love through the Spirit maintain our unity in Christ.

Love brother Paul

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Carol Swenson
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Hi John

We're probably saying the same thing, but the words are getting it all confused.

quote:
Modalism?

What have I written that sacks of the 1st Century Sabellian heresy? :scratching head:

No one said you wrote anything of that type.

quote:
Tri-theism, once again, is three Gods plain and simple. The cluster of clause in your statement is a contrivance of some theologian I suspect. The only definition of tritheism is that there is three Gods or polytheism.

My statement says tritheism means three gods! In a cluster, or a group, (like a family).

quote:
All four are the one family. Each is 100% family but each is not another family. I think of spatial dimensions as an example. Height, depth, length. All are 100% spatial dimension all are everywhere at the same time and in fact without all three there cannot be space. There is one universe of space. Not three one of height one of depth one of length...

That is what your post is saying I am saying about God and calling it tritheism. It's not.

Okay, but that's what it sounded like.

quote:
We have no problem understanding this kind of compound unity with the concept of a family. And btw, we realize that the family itself is not a "he" but the persons in the family have personhood.

This is your statement. It sounds to me like you're saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three members of one Family (God).

Using your analogy, I would say that:

God is height, depth, and length.

Jesus Christ is height, depth, and length.

The Holy Spirit is height, depth, and length.

Co-eternal and Coequal in every way. Elohim. Three and One at the same time.

Can we understand how God has always existed without a beginning? No. Can we understand how God created everything out of nothing? No. Can we understand the Holy Trinity? No. We cannot put God into a box. We know only what little He has revealed to us so far.

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Robert E. Barger
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To the new believer God has chosen to reveal Himself as God the Father, Jesus His Son that took on a human body and the Holy Ghost, given to Jesus at baptism, and to all them that repent and are baptized in Jesus name. As we grow, we see God, and Jesus in a differant way, we see God as Love, we see Jesus as the Words God spoke to create all things, and the anointing. God is explained by His Word, and in God's Word God has placed "All Power". When the Gospel is preached The Holy Ghost brings Power to the Word Of God being preached causing "supernatural things to happen when "mixed with faith". The Father Love, The Son, The Word of God, and the anionting, the Holy Ghost "ARE ONE"!

--------------------
Romans|11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all
things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

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John Hale
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Modalism?

What have I written that sacks of the 1st Century Sabellian heresy? :scratching head:

Tri-theism, once again, is three Gods plain and simple. The cluster of clause in your statement is a contrivance of some theologian I suspect. The only definition of tritheism is that there is three Gods or polytheism.

Going back to my Adam's family example...

All four are the one family. Each is 100% family but each is not another family. I think of spatial dimensions as an example. Height, depth, length. All are 100% spatial dimension all are everywhere at the same time and in fact without all three there cannot be space. There is one universe of space. Not three one of height one of depth one of length...

That is what your post is saying I am saying about God and calling it tritheism. It's not.

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John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by John Hale:
quote:
Originally posted by Carol Swenson:
[qb]
quote:
We have no problem understanding this kind of compound unity with the concept of a family. And btw, we realize that the family itself is not a "he" but the persons in the family have personhood.

John, that sounds like tritheism.
No. Tritheism is three Gods. There is only one God. Monotheism. It is the definition of what that one God is that confuses folks... because they make the predetermination that God is a person or that God is one person per God and there is no indication in scripture of this.

Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel... the one and only family on earth or the universe as far as we know.

There is one family. Four folks who are the one family is not four families. The family can be spoken for by one of its members (even as if it were a person)... in Star Wars' last installment Chancellor Palpatine declared "I am the Senate!"

The triunity of God is easy to understand if we accept it for what it is and do the math correctly.

quote:





GOD IS ONE AND THREE

“This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” ISAIAH 44:6


The Old Testament constantly insists that there is only one God, the self-revealed Creator, who must be worshiped and loved exclusively (Deut. 6:4-5; Isa. 44:6-45:25). The New Testament agrees (Mark 12:29-30; 1 Cor. 8:4; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5) but speaks of three personal agents, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together in the manner of a team to bring about salvation (Rom. 8; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 1 Pet. 1:2). The historic formulation of the Trinity (derived from the Latin word trinitas, meaning “threeness”) seeks to circumscribe and safeguard this mystery (not explain it; that is beyond us), and it confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind has ever been asked to handle. It is not easy; but it is true.

The doctrine springs from the facts that the New Testament historians report, and from the revelatory teaching that, humanly speaking, grew out of these facts. Jesus, who prayed to his Father and taught his disciples to do the same, convinced them that he was personally divine, and belief in his divinity and in the rightness of offering him worship and prayer is basic to New Testament faith (John 20:28-31; cf. 1:18; Acts 7:59; Rom. 9:5; 10:9-13; 2 Cor. 12:7-9; Phil. 2:5-6; Col. 1:15-17; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-12; 1 Pet. 3:15). Jesus promised to send another Paraclete (he himself having been the first one), and Paraclete signifies a many-sided personal ministry as counselor, advocate, helper, comforter, ally, supporter (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15). This other Paraclete, who came at Pentecost to fulfill this promised ministry, was the Holy Spirit, recognized from the start as a third divine person: to lie to him, said Peter not long after Pentecost, is to lie to God (Acts 5:3-4).

So Christ prescribed baptism “in the name (singular: one God, one name) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—the three persons who are the one God to 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 1:9-11). So we read the trinitarian blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, and the prayer for grace and peace from the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:4-5 (would John have put the Spirit between the Father and the Son if he had not regarded the Spirit as divine in the same sense as they are?). These are some of the more striking examples of the trinitarian outlook and emphasis of the New Testament. Though the technical language of historic trinitarianism is not found there, trinitarian faith and thinking are present throughout its pages, and in that sense the Trinity must be acknowledged as a biblical doctrine: an eternal truth about God which, though never explicit in the Old Testament, is plain and clear in the New.

The basic assertion of this doctrine is that the unity of the one God is complex. The three personal “subsistences” (as they are called) are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness, each being “I” in relation to two who are “you” and each partaking of the full divine essence (the “stuff” of deity, if we may dare to call it that) along with the other two. They are not three roles played by one person (that is modalism), nor are they three gods in a cluster (that is tritheism); the one God (“he”) is also, and equally, “they,” and “they” are always together and always cooperating, with the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both, which is his will also. This is the truth about God that was revealed through the words and works of Jesus, and that undergirds the reality of salvation as the New Testament sets it forth.

The practical importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention, and give equal honor, to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us. That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel, which, as Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus shows, cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God’s plan of grace (John 3:1-15; note especially vv. 3, 5-8, 13-15, and John’s expository comments, which NIV renders as part of the conversation itself, vv. 16-21). All non-Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false, and will naturally tend to pull Christian lives out of shape.

(Concise Theology)



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John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by Carol Swenson:
quote:
We have no problem understanding this kind of compound unity with the concept of a family. And btw, we realize that the family itself is not a "he" but the persons in the family have personhood.

John, that sounds like tritheism.
No. Tritheism is three Gods. There is only one God. Monotheism. It is the definition of what that one God is that confuses folks... because they make the predetermination that God is a person or that God is one person per God and there is no indication in scripture of this.

Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel... the one and only family on earth or the universe as far as we know.

There is one family. Four folks who are the one family is not four families. The family can be spoken for by one of its members (even as if it were a person)... in Star Wars' last installment Chancellor Palpatine declared "I am the Senate!"

The triunity of God is easy to understand if we accept it for what it is and do the math correctly.

quote:





GOD IS ONE AND THREE

“This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” ISAIAH 44:6


The Old Testament constantly insists that there is only one God, the self-revealed Creator, who must be worshiped and loved exclusively (Deut. 6:4-5; Isa. 44:6-45:25). The New Testament agrees (Mark 12:29-30; 1 Cor. 8:4; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5) but speaks of three personal agents, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together in the manner of a team to bring about salvation (Rom. 8; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 1 Pet. 1:2). The historic formulation of the Trinity (derived from the Latin word trinitas, meaning “threeness”) seeks to circumscribe and safeguard this mystery (not explain it; that is beyond us), and it confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind has ever been asked to handle. It is not easy; but it is true.

The doctrine springs from the facts that the New Testament historians report, and from the revelatory teaching that, humanly speaking, grew out of these facts. Jesus, who prayed to his Father and taught his disciples to do the same, convinced them that he was personally divine, and belief in his divinity and in the rightness of offering him worship and prayer is basic to New Testament faith (John 20:28-31; cf. 1:18; Acts 7:59; Rom. 9:5; 10:9-13; 2 Cor. 12:7-9; Phil. 2:5-6; Col. 1:15-17; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-12; 1 Pet. 3:15). Jesus promised to send another Paraclete (he himself having been the first one), and Paraclete signifies a many-sided personal ministry as counselor, advocate, helper, comforter, ally, supporter (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15). This other Paraclete, who came at Pentecost to fulfill this promised ministry, was the Holy Spirit, recognized from the start as a third divine person: to lie to him, said Peter not long after Pentecost, is to lie to God (Acts 5:3-4).

So Christ prescribed baptism “in the name (singular: one God, one name) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—the three persons who are the one God to 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 1:9-11). So we read the trinitarian blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, and the prayer for grace and peace from the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:4-5 (would John have put the Spirit between the Father and the Son if he had not regarded the Spirit as divine in the same sense as they are?). These are some of the more striking examples of the trinitarian outlook and emphasis of the New Testament. Though the technical language of historic trinitarianism is not found there, trinitarian faith and thinking are present throughout its pages, and in that sense the Trinity must be acknowledged as a biblical doctrine: an eternal truth about God which, though never explicit in the Old Testament, is plain and clear in the New.

The basic assertion of this doctrine is that the unity of the one God is complex. The three personal “subsistences” (as they are called) are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness, each being “I” in relation to two who are “you” and each partaking of the full divine essence (the “stuff” of deity, if we may dare to call it that) along with the other two. They are not three roles played by one person (that is modalism), nor are they three gods in a cluster (that is tritheism); the one God (“he”) is also, and equally, “they,” and “they” are always together and always cooperating, with the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both, which is his will also. This is the truth about God that was revealed through the words and works of Jesus, and that undergirds the reality of salvation as the New Testament sets it forth.

The practical importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention, and give equal honor, to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us. That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel, which, as Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus shows, cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God’s plan of grace (John 3:1-15; note especially vv. 3, 5-8, 13-15, and John’s expository comments, which NIV renders as part of the conversation itself, vv. 16-21). All non-Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false, and will naturally tend to pull Christian lives out of shape.

(Concise Theology)


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Carol Swenson
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quote:
We have no problem understanding this kind of compound unity with the concept of a family. And btw, we realize that the family itself is not a "he" but the persons in the family have personhood.

John, that sounds like tritheism.


GOD IS ONE AND THREE

“This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” ISAIAH 44:6


The Old Testament constantly insists that there is only one God, the self-revealed Creator, who must be worshiped and loved exclusively (Deut. 6:4-5; Isa. 44:6-45:25). The New Testament agrees (Mark 12:29-30; 1 Cor. 8:4; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5) but speaks of three personal agents, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together in the manner of a team to bring about salvation (Rom. 8; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 1 Pet. 1:2). The historic formulation of the Trinity (derived from the Latin word trinitas, meaning “threeness”) seeks to circumscribe and safeguard this mystery (not explain it; that is beyond us), and it confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind has ever been asked to handle. It is not easy; but it is true.

The doctrine springs from the facts that the New Testament historians report, and from the revelatory teaching that, humanly speaking, grew out of these facts. Jesus, who prayed to his Father and taught his disciples to do the same, convinced them that he was personally divine, and belief in his divinity and in the rightness of offering him worship and prayer is basic to New Testament faith (John 20:28-31; cf. 1:18; Acts 7:59; Rom. 9:5; 10:9-13; 2 Cor. 12:7-9; Phil. 2:5-6; Col. 1:15-17; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-12; 1 Pet. 3:15). Jesus promised to send another Paraclete (he himself having been the first one), and Paraclete signifies a many-sided personal ministry as counselor, advocate, helper, comforter, ally, supporter (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15). This other Paraclete, who came at Pentecost to fulfill this promised ministry, was the Holy Spirit, recognized from the start as a third divine person: to lie to him, said Peter not long after Pentecost, is to lie to God (Acts 5:3-4).

So Christ prescribed baptism “in the name (singular: one God, one name) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—the three persons who are the one God to 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 1:9-11). So we read the trinitarian blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, and the prayer for grace and peace from the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:4-5 (would John have put the Spirit between the Father and the Son if he had not regarded the Spirit as divine in the same sense as they are?). These are some of the more striking examples of the trinitarian outlook and emphasis of the New Testament. Though the technical language of historic trinitarianism is not found there, trinitarian faith and thinking are present throughout its pages, and in that sense the Trinity must be acknowledged as a biblical doctrine: an eternal truth about God which, though never explicit in the Old Testament, is plain and clear in the New.

The basic assertion of this doctrine is that the unity of the one God is complex. The three personal “subsistences” (as they are called) are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness, each being “I” in relation to two who are “you” and each partaking of the full divine essence (the “stuff” of deity, if we may dare to call it that) along with the other two. They are not three roles played by one person (that is modalism), nor are they three gods in a cluster (that is tritheism); the one God (“he”) is also, and equally, “they,” and “they” are always together and always cooperating, with the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both, which is his will also. This is the truth about God that was revealed through the words and works of Jesus, and that undergirds the reality of salvation as the New Testament sets it forth.

The practical importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention, and give equal honor, to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us. That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel, which, as Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus shows, cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God’s plan of grace (John 3:1-15; note especially vv. 3, 5-8, 13-15, and John’s expository comments, which NIV renders as part of the conversation itself, vv. 16-21). All non-Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false, and will naturally tend to pull Christian lives out of shape.

(Concise Theology)

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John Hale
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btw, I say (he) and (him) and (himself) because there are three persons who are the one God and rather than say "it" (meaning the Godhead) or "they" (which can be confused with polytheism) and there is a traditional rendering of the Godhead as "he" even though this confuses the minds of those trying to get their head around a fairly simple concept (simple, once the traditions and suppositions are excluded).

This is biblical trinitarian theology. The one God consists of three individuals who are the one God by nature.

We have no problem understanding this kind of compound unity with the concept of a family. And btw, we realize that the family itself is not a "he" but the persons in the family have personhood.

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John Hale
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Ok...

It is interesting to note the limitations of God... all of which are self imposed.

For example:

... from the time God created anything to exist besides (himself), (he) was no longer the only thing in existence.

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John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by Brother Paul:
Pauly, could you break this down in chunks? Maybe about 5 pages or so and with paragraph breaks?

Sorry I just can't read the computer screen like a thick book... my bad... [Frown]

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John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by TB125:
Another example of trinitarian or threefold existence of a single entity can be seen in the fact that one individual person can be recognized as a son, a father, and a husband or a daughter, mother, and a wife while still being seen as one individual. The different identifying terms being used to denote different relationships and roles of the single individual. This makes sense to me.

Welllllll.... not really...

Not to be argumentative... just striving for accuracy here...

We have to be careful of the examples we use to try to explain the Trinity or grasp the concept of it. Modalism (three modes of one person) is what most popular examples of the Trinity actually are. And Modalism is not biblical.

One of the most popular was "the Trinity is not 1 + 1 + 1 but 1 X 1 X 1... = 1." Used by no less than the late D. James Kennedy (who was a Trinitarian theologian). But this is modalism because it's the same "1" expressed 3 times.

It's like holding up your finger three times. The Trinity is rather three distinct fingers... yet one hand.

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Brother Paul
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In Genesis 1:26, the Creator, the Elohim, said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness...”, and from that point on, throughout the Scriptures, mankind is revealed as male and female. However each is one unique triune being comprised of body, soul, and spirit! By Elohim breathing a human spirit (neshamah, literally, “the breath of life“) into this tabernacle of clay, mankind became living souls. Each soul has in intellect, a will and emotions. This makes sense since we were created in His image, but has YHVH left this signature of His Tri-Unity elsewhere? Let us see…
Biblically, the “psyche” or “soul” is the central part of humanity through which we communicate with our world, and through which our world influences who we are, and what we do. We sometimes call the soul "me" or “I“. A soul is comprised of a will, the intellect, and our emotions (it is triune). At different times, under different circumstances, we humans each tend to follow either the lead of the spirit, or the lead of the flesh. One of these aspects of man causes the soul to aspire toward higher order, more ethereal ethical things, while the other pulls us toward a lower order attending to the more temporal, and carnal things!
The Bible teaches us that what the LORD considers sin is the transgression of His Laws (1 John 3:4). The payment due for sin (the relative consequence, like disobeying mom and running out in the street and getting hit by a bus) is death (Romans 6:23). Only not the physical separation of the soul from the body, but rather a spiritual death. Our spirit must now die what the Scriptures call “the second death”. If nothing happens to spare us from this heinous self inflicted end, this second death is a state of eternal separation from the Lord. In the Bible, all death is a matter of separation and never a complete annihilation. Once the spirit nature is as dead to us, our sensitivity being dulled because of sin, we tend all the more to follow the prompting of our baser impulses almost exclusively. The Bible refers to this lower nature as the “self” or the “old man.” When in this state, we find it totally reasonable to believe we should be our own lord. We believe “I”, the self, is capable of overcoming all the world’s evils. We give thought to God only as some distant or mythical deity. This is because the base or carnal man is almost exclusively concerned with self, and makes decisions and chooses to act only in relation to however the self is effected. That goes for our individual self and then extends outward toward our collective self (the association, or neighborhood, or institution, or country). In psychology, this state of being would be what is referred to as “self-centered” the extreme of which we would call “selfish”. Most people today fall into this category even without realizing it. Their actions and decisions almost always are made in relation to how it effects “self” and so are they interpretations or spins they place on the actions and choices of others that may affect them. Many of the conclusions we reach are a matter of rationalization and self-justification. We actually spend time in our imaginations defending our choices. This is because until they are born a second time, of God’s Spirit (John 3:3-8; Acts 2:38), we are soulish (psychokoi) and thus without the continued influence of the Spirit from above (pneumatikoi).
When one is born of the Spirit of God we are a new creature. Our old self life still lingers as long as we suffer our not yet glorified flesh but a new you is born inside that now strives to have dominion. It shares and partakes of the divine nature. When this happens, our soul’s higher nature is naturally awakened. This new being, a new nature, suddenly resides in this tabernacle of flesh and a sort of inward war begins and a tendency occurs where the soul habitually focused in the flesh (feelings, appetites, pride, vanity, etc.,) still attends to earthly things, while the new spirit man within tends to keep pulling us toward higher things. Once again, like when we were children, we aspired to be good, we strove to be other-oriented. As we practice, forgiveness for those we love becomes easier and easier, and the Lord’s reality as a living being in touch with us is suddenly believable. Sometimes we may even willingly give of ourselves for the sake of another, or better still for God, in ways that are not really “natural” to man. However, it is precisely these thinking, feeling, and reflective elements of the human composition that define us as sentient! Therefore when born of the Spirit, His Spirit comes and dwells within us, a new “I” is born and God begins to work His will through us, and our sensitivity to spiritual things is slowly but surely increased. Naturally it takes time to learn to walk and talk and many mistakes are made along the way but the guiding loving interaction of our new Parent assures us we will learn. For some the renewal seems almost immediate and for others it takes a lifetime. But rest assured, as Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Now when we are first made a new creature “in Christ Jesus” we are little spirit babies…we still want our own way, fear pain, and dread the idea of death. We do not know how to rightly walk with our Father, we do not yet know all He would want us to learn, and we are not absolutely sure of His will for us. But if time is spent with Him in prayer and worship, and we listen to and attend to His word, we become more and more familiar with his will for our lives, and more and more see the benefit of following that way rather than our own. We come to know His voice, and we appreciate His loving care and protection more. In effect we mature in the Spirit just as we did in the flesh of our previous adamic life. Eventually, if we are diligent, we achieve the goal Paul describes in Romans 6 and we learn to reckon ourselves dead to our old sin nature. We likewise practice sowing to the Spirit and know from experience that if we keep on sowing and water with worship, prayer, and study, in due season, we will reap. For the Spirit truly bears fruit on the believer but as with any fruit, they must be sown and cultivated in faith. Do not fret but be assured, the Lord will give the increase if you grow not weary in your well doing. Knowing that whatsoever you sow that you shall also reap, take a short break and get your Bible and look up Galatians 5:22 and 23 and see what these fruit are. Then beginning today, when ever you catch yourself, sow the seed of these fruit into your life. Plant seeds in your heart and mind toward these ends. Do not give up…there are always a couple that are difficult for each unique individual child of God. But grow not weary and in due season you will reap (Galatians 6:6-10).
Throughout the Scriptures, the Elohim in who’s image we are made, also displays each of these aspects of soul, proving Himself also to be a personal and sentient being, though I am sure there is no comparison qualitatively or quantitatively. From what we see and hear in the Scriptures regarding His interaction with mankind, it can be said that our Lord has a mind, an intellect, and yes, even emotions, though His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways higher than our ways. He cherishes and encourages relationship with His children just as we do with ours. He even disciplines those whom He loves. In fact this parental aspect of our existence is a feature we have inherited from Him. God leads, teaches, makes judgments, communicates rules, assigns chores and roles and duties, can be lied to, gets angry, sad, and grieved, and so on. The only difference is, He does not sin.
In His plan for mankind from "The beginning" (Bereshith), the family, God’s first human institution, was comprised of a husband, a wife, and their subsequent offspring, and this triune structure of the family then becomes the nuclear unit from which all of human society and culture is formed, whether tribe/clan, city/state, or nation. All human society is thus dependent on this arrangement. No other plan will be blessed because the Lord knows this maximizes blessing for mankind. He does not say that some within other arrangements (some by choice, others by circumstance or culture) will not be happy or loved, only that these are not in His plan to optimize the number of souls to be saved. His plan is one husband, one wife, for life, with offspring and no other arrangement satisfies this last hopeful expectation (which is also later defined as a blessing and a gift of God). In fact the Command to “be fruitful and multiply” is Elohim’s first blessing declared to this creation. Imagine…sex…a blessing from God. Go figure! But in fact it is precisely that. Now primarily it may be how we propagate the species but the whole council of God reveals it is for our joy and meets a particular need and so on. In some sense it is even a tool against Satan. Perversions of God’s plan of sexuality is sin to Him and always leads to brokenness of some kind, anger or resentments, hatred, murders, social as well as physical diseases, and more.
Do you feel blessed by your children and their children? Does it lift up your soul when they love you unconditionally? It should, children are a gift from God. He takes their lives very seriously. We can learn a lot from the love of a child. The Lord pronounces a curse upon all who harm them in any way. He says that any one who harms one of these little ones…it would have been better for them if they had had a millstone tied around their necks and had been thrown into the middle of the sea. Why? Because one day they will be judged by Him….woe unto them in that day! Amen? Amen. His judgment is always just and good. It is perfect! So if you are one who has hurt one of His little ones (even adults newly born of His Spirit) then repent in dust and ashes and do it quickly because today could be your last and it is given unto man once to die…and then…the judgment!
Where God is first one, and yet three, we followers of Y’shua (Jesus) worship this one God in His three-ness, numerically one (yachid) in substance and in nature, and the tri-Unity in its oneness (eched), each of the persons being eternally distinct. Likewise we, the family of God on earth, are more than one as one. But even more surprisingly, and scientifically verifiable, and as you will see, the entire Universe reflects this triune principle. There indeed is a oneness behind the multiplicity from whence it all sprang forth.
The first word used for God in Genesis 1:1 is “Elohim”. As previously stated, it is a plural in the Hebrew, and yet is used for the one and only God as Creator! It is the plural of the word “Eloah”, being a more proper description appropriate for the one God. Yet through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Lord preferred to give us this clue to His eternal nature and God-head right here in the very first sentence, of the very first book, the One is described in terms of plurality. This is still a curiosity to many Rabbis and Torah observant Jews. If it were not according to His intent, for His good reasons that we may or may not comprehend, it could have been confusing, but God is not the author of confusion. He was not making it arcane, He was revealing something. Therefore as the pages of Scripture unfold through the ages, the meaning for this becomes clearer and clearer.
In other places in the Scripture, the very same word is used as a plural referring to individuals and groups of angels, judges, kings, etc., i.e., certain groups of people or Institutions who are in positions that God created after making the family. These little ‘g’ gods, or “elohim”, are people or angels who’s positions were given power and authority over others by the true God as part of His originally intended system of orderliness from before the fall.
Now unlike in these human examples, whenever this pluralized title is used for God our Creator, it is always associated with singular male oriented pronouns! The maleness being culturally normative to the people and their language, for we know that the Lord is above and beyond gender. In fact to “make” man in His image He had to make male and female.
Following the example quoted above from Genesis 1:26, in verse 27, after Elohim just gets through using the pronouns “us“ and “our“ in a personal sense, the word of God follows definitively with, “So Elohim (a plural), created man (mankind, a plural) in His (singular) own image, in the image (singular) of Elohim (plural) created He (singular) him, (singular generic), male and female (plural) created He (singular) them (plural).“ (parenthesis mine)
Confused? Don’t be! This makes perfectly good sense if the one (yachid) God is also echad (a Unity of pluralities, or persons). For both Hebrew words can mean “one”, the first word being a unique numerical one, and the second a more corporate form of the word one, like a “gestalt” a term referring to a whole that is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
This same association between the how God is only one, and yet a plurality, is outlined in the Sh’ma. The “Sh’ma Yisrael“ which as previously stated is the fundamental axiom of all Jewish monotheism, and comes from the Book of Deuteronomy in chapter 6, which is one of Y’shua’s most oft quoted books. The Sh’ma says, “Hear, o’Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one“.
Literally it reveals this exact same truth about Elohim that Genesis 1:26 reveals, only in a different way. Basically it is saying that YHVH (singular), the Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (the triune patriarchate), is the Elohim (a plural), the Creator (single), and that our one LORD (singular), is one in the sense of a unified plurality, which in the Hebrew is “echad“, or literally “a Unity”! So literally it saying that the yachid God is also echad.
Not that there is more than one God, but that the one God is three eternally distinct persons, i.e., the Father, who the Scriptures say is the Lord; the Son, who the Scriptures also say is the Lord; and the Holy Spirit, who according to the Scriptures is also the Lord; yet, there is only one YHVH (LORD) and not three separate Lords.
Many of the ancient Rabbis knew this! The renowned Rabbi Simeon commenting on Deuteronomy 6:4 asks, “Why is there a need of mentioning the Name of God three times in this verse?” Then he answers his own query for us when he says, “The first Lord is the Father above. The second is the stem of Jesse, the Messiah Who is to come from the family of Jesse through David. And the third is the Way below (meaning the Holy Spirit Who comes and shows us the way on earth) and these three are one.” (parenthesis mine)
Rabbi Nassi, considered a sage by most Rabbinical Scholars, writing on Rosh HaShannah says, “…the three-fold sound of the ram’s horn which is sounded on Rosh HaShannah is an emblem of the three-fold nature of God.”
What? These are Rabbis of renowned! What are they doing confirming the Trinity? You see the Jewish people actually knew and believed in the Tri-Unity or Trinity, even though they cannot admit it, but their own sages must attest to what the Scriptures actually teach, and this is what they teach.
Through out the Scriptures, we find a number of subject/object dialogues defining roles and functions between these eternal personages, who are one in essence, power, substance, and nature. This Scriptural reality is what we Christians have come to call “the Trinity“, which is admittedly a totally inadequate human attempt to describe the LORD’s revealed tri-une quality, but I assure you the understanding of this was present and being debated already in ancient pre-Christian Judaism, but no one would dare utter it knowing that ultimately there is only the One and Only! The traditions of the ecclesiastical leaders in Judaism taught that to speak otherwise, under the Law, would have been a blasphemy punishable by death.
Though the word “trinity” never literally appears in scripture, the scripture makes it clear from the beginning, that the Father, the Word, and the Spirit are all the one God, and He is the God, who’s Holy Name is constructed of three Hebrew characters, one being doubled, representing the dual nature of the Son, who tells Moses, His servant, who's name is also composed of three letters, that His name is Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, a threefold name, and refers to Himself as a plural again in both Genesis 3:22 and 11:7.
In Genesis 19:24 we see that YHVH, (the Targumim call this YHVH “the Word“ or the Memra in the Hebrew/Aramaic), here on earth in the form of a man, is sitting in the tent of Abraham breaking bread, and this YHVH sends forth the two angels that are with Him (who also came in the forms of men), to rain fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, from YHVH who is in heaven! What? Are there two YHVH’s? God forbid! Yet one manifest on earth sends the angels and an apparent other rains down the fire and brimstone. All throughout the Torah we see this truth of this Unity of the Godhead revealed, but people just don’t look with eyes to see and ears to hear, they are too caught up in the world or in whatever they have been taught is true (often void of evidence or proof).
In Exodus 3, as pointed out earlier, the Angel of the Lord, calls Himself “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”, from amidst the burning bush, thus He is also YHVH Himself manifest (the Word), and then Moses goes forth filled with the Spirit of God! But wait it doesn’t stop here!
One can see just from this small non-exhaustive presentation thus far, that the Tri-Unity of the one and only God is absolutely a Scripturally based pre-Christian notion, which was conveyed to the ancient Jewish people in the Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets. Notice this triune arrangement of the Tanakh as well? Think about it…the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets...this threeness thing is clearly one of His signatures you know.
He has made many things after this fashion, even the whole of Creation. Does not King David say that the heavens declare His handiwork? And St. Paul, that even His eternal power and Godhead are made known in the things that are made? To that I say, Yeah and Amen! Let me give you an example from what science has discovered.
Ever wonder why is the Universe what it is? What is its structure? What is the universal equation? Does the composition actually indicate the nature of its cause? And what about our Earth, which itself is core, mantle, and crust, does it not also reflect this universal qualitative nature of things? The very crust upon which we live moves in three ways causing the three major landforms, mountains, valleys, and flatlands and provides our very life sustaining geography canopied in an atmosphere that is three layers thick.
Science has determined that the first and most basic aspect of the Universe is Space, without which there would be no physical universe. We define space in three dimensions: length; breadth; and height. These three are “absolute” and “necessary” for there to be the phenomena we call “space” and without them space could not be known. The one phenomena called space is defined by these three qualities for a reason. Read on!
No one of these three are either of the others, but they help us understand the presence of the others, and together they are one. Take away either one and the other two enter into the perceptually abstract. The example most often used to show this is that if there was no height, then breadth and length would become what is referred to as “a plane surface.” We can only imagine a 2-dimensional universe. It simply does not make sense. Therefore, such a phenomena is non-sense if we are talking about our universe! It could not exist for us so that we could perceive it if we lived within it for we would also be two dimensional and there would be no shape to perceive as separate from ourselves. The real Created universe does exist, but such a thing as this hypothetical 2-dimensional one can only be imagined, because it cannot exist and still be defined as being composed of space.
For either one aspect of this One in its three-ness to have real meaning and purpose, they must be a unity, yet height is not depth, nor width, nor is width, height, and so on. Each one depends on the others to fully be expressed and made to have significant meaning and purpose. They are physically an interdependent oneness or unity just as God is one spiritually. The essential numerically one Universe or Creation precedes and emanates forth this quality of three-ness. Is this not also like unto Light, which essentially is one phenomena but is expressed in it’s three primary colors from which all other color possibilities arise? Yes, exactly like light!
Now besides Space, there is also a second primary quality of the Universe we call “matter.” Matter is that which fills and embodies space, and gives meaningful and purposeful material form to all the phenomena of the physical universe. According to modern chemistry and physics, matter, energy and motion are all one (E=MC2). In other words Einstein discovered that energy is present because of mass being multiplied by the square of the velocity. This is a secondary revelation that today’s physicists derive from the depth of realization provided by the math of this scientific hero and genius. It is not simply that this is what energy actually is, but rather how we measure it’s reality. Essentially energy is matter and vice versa, and it is measured by nature of there being motion or velocity. Velocity is a result or manifestation of the present amount of energy working in or on matter. Motion is a quality of matter that reveals the real presence of energy or force at work. Thus motion is an equally necessary quality of the matter/energy tri-eclectic universal equation, complete with all the infinite variations and complexities of motion into which the principle of motion differentiates itself. Because of this tri-unity we have all the recognizable phenomena that we can know of with our finite senses. All of them, whether light, heat, sound, geometry, color, substance, distance, difference, etc., are all an expression of this tri-unity! Wow! What an awesome God we serve, hallelujah!
This three-ness quality of matter beyond its obvious structural tri-unity cannot actually be divided other than in the imagination. Motionless matter is energy-less matter. Such a thing is a logical absurdity to Chemistry and Physics. Energy must be present. If not kinetically, then it is there in potentia. Likewise, if there were no mass, what would the energy work upon, and what could we perceive (of course if this could be, then there would be no “we” to perceive or not perceive). See how absurd this becomes? If there were no energy, how would matter exhibit motion (inner or outer)? This is the reality of matter from the most basic atomic level to that which we perceive most grossly.
Therefore it is apparent that without recognizing the interdependent tri-une quality of matter, the very science of it becomes nonsensical! Whether we realize it or not, all three are being recognized from the energy in which it is essentially based, to the phenomena of it being perceived.
One aspect, in reality, cannot be divorced from the others, only in theory for the purposes of our investigation and more refined definition. Energy is the cause of the motion of the mass. The mass which is in continuous flux demonstrates the energy. The motion is the indicator of the energy of the mass. The energy has to be moving something (or in something) to be perceived. Motion is the energy in the mass being moved, expressed. Can any two characteristics therefore exist without the others? Of course not, this would be totally absurd. It is one absolute unity not more or less, and exists in all three forms. Energy can no more produce activity without mass, than motion can exist void of it, and motion cannot be perceived without something being moved. Motion is therefore, because of mass and energy. Energy is, because of motion and mass. And mass is, because of motion and energy. The three are one…absolutely! The one is three…absolutely! So we can see His signature of the one being expressed as threeness in the phenomena called matter as well as in the one we call space.
Now there is a third essential quality of the Lord’s Created Universe and that is Time. Time is also expressed as a three-ness, i.e., past, present, and future! Again, it is an absolute tri-unity. The one phenomena is manifest in it’s three-ness. Each aspect interdependent and non-divorceable (pardon the invention of a word) from the other, save in the realm of imagination for the purposes of definition, division, and distinction as a frame of reference for our finite minds. No one of these three can exist without the other two and still be time (chronos). Imagine if there were no past, then there could not be a present, and since the future is dependent on the motions of the now (what is happening and producing effect), makes time intimately related to space and matter as discussed above. If there were no “now” there could be no “then”, ie., no future! These distinctions are relative descriptions divided comparatively only for our finite intellectual capacity to comprehend. Since time is a function or dimension of the universe, and the universe had a definite beginning (which science has only recently proven beyond doubt), then before the universe, there had to be a state of non-time, and so this essential timelessness (which we call “the Eternal”) will also be there when the universe ceases to be (for all “things” that have a beginning also have an ending). That being which does not move from before through now to then, which is without beginning and/or ending, is described by the word symbol “eternal”, thus the eternal precedes and antecedes the temporal. Time (chronos) is/was born out of the timelessness and will dissolve back into it and all that will be will be eternal now. In the eternal, wherein is the potential for all we call time (past, present, and future), all three are as one “now.”
Truly and honestly however, consider that if time did not exist up until now and that now, I mentioned then has already passed, then time has ceased to exist, which of course it hasn’t because thanks to our wonderful Creator, time that we experience is past, present, and future simultaneously and will continue until as Peter prophesied so exquisitely “the elements melt as with a fervent heat.”
Therefore, our present is the future to another past, and the past to as yet another future. If there is no present then time has never existed and we would not be discussing this here. If there is no future then time must stop right “NOW”! Do you see how absurd this becomes? So time is one phenomena or quality of Creation, and the past, present, and future are three things that time is, and time is likewise the third qualitative element of the one Universe, along with space and matter. Time is, not does! The conceptual symbols of past, present, and future, are merely the symbolic way that our catagorizing perceptual ability makes the absolute unity of the phenomena relative and comprehensible to our finite minds. For the finite mind to grasp the eternal essential nature of all this could be maddening for many, so the miraculous brain we possess was created to be able to instantaneously classify our experience into parts in order to maintain our ego’s integrity and wholeness.
In the Creation, time is conserved because there is always all of time, and no part of it is actually ever lost, save in the imaginations of men, neither is it expended into non-existence so long as the universe still is, and even then it merely transforms back into its essential timelessness or eternal state of reality, the continuous now. The eternal is the essential state or quality of the temporal reality. For the sake of our finite egos being able to comprehend this, the eternal is both predecessor and antecessor. Finally time as we experience it temporally is alterable (or at least the perception of it) by location and speed. Time passes differently 600 meters below the surface of a planet than it does 600 meters above the same planet.
So there you have it. All these three essential aspects of the one Universe, i.e., space, matter, and time, are each themselves a oneness which is tri-une in nature, and taken together in our perception of reality, these three together are likewise one phenomena in unity. This is one universal equation, expressed in three-ness for the purposes of comprehension within the phenomena called the human psyche (soul). Is the Universe then merely bearing witness to a yet greater revelation of God’s essential reality? Of course it is. Just like the Scriptures said!
You see, not so contrary to common knowledge, and as I have pointed out already, ancient Jewish Rabbi’s also often wrestled with this idea, albeit uncomfortably. In the Midrash Rabbah Genesis, regarding this very point, we hear Rabbi Samuel Bar Hanman, speaking on the alleged authority of Rabbi Jonathan ben Uzziel, the writer of the 1st century Targum Jonathan. In it he tells the following story:

“At the time when Moses wrote...Moses said, 'Master of the Universe, why do you give an excuse here to the sectarians'? God answered him and said, 'You write, and whoever wants to err, let him err'!“

In Rabbinical circles there are certain Quabalistic works respected as “Talmud Torah“. They are considered “the Oral Law,” one of which is called The Zohar. These teachings are attributed to the traditions and teachings of a renowned 1rst century Rabbi named Simeon who appears to also dialogue in the Talmud, but allegedly these ancient Jewish traditions were not placed into written form until the 13th century, by a Spanish Jewish Scholar, named Moses De’Leon. Many see them as merely unreliable mystical traditions of historic interest only, but it reflects the illumination of certain circles within the Rabbinic debate. Zoharic references are found throughout the Talmud proper, and to this day The Zohar is held in high esteem among Orthodox and Hasidic Rabbis.
Though the Zohar is more or less rejected by Christians, and by no one considered cannon, as Rabbinical commentary it is still worthy of historical study, because Zohar is considered by them to be Talmud Torah, or part of the Oral Tradition we should at least hear what it has to say and then measure it according to the word.
Now I know we Christians as the followers of Rabbi Y’shua, who happens to be ha’Moschiach, are advised to not adhere to anything outside the word of God for our authority, but it is of historic interest regarding this tradition that we speak of this here. In volumes II.43 and III.288 the Zohar makes comment regarding the mystery of the word YHVH. It says,

“The Ancient Holy One is revealed in three heads, which are united into one, and that Head is three exalted! The Ancient One is described as being three...how three can be one, can only be known by revelation of the Spirit.“

Imagine those early Apostles of Messiah Y’shua, being brought up under a strict Pharisaic type of Judaism filled with their strict legalistic interpretive traditions, and then suddenly having their minds opened to the God of Abraham revealing Himself in three distinct persona? The realization that Messiah is actually “the Memra” (Logos/Word) spoken of by the Targumim, and that He is the Son of the Most High, must have had a very powerful import on those that came to believe! I mean to come to the realization of it…not just a mere imagining that it was so, but to know it firsthand and personally.
In many of our English Translations of Proverbs 22:20, King Solomon has YHVH saying, “Have I not written you excellent things in counsels and knowledge?“ Well the word that is interpreted “excellent“ here, is also the word for “threefold“. Having inspired many, one Rabbi, at the time his name escapes me, felt it important to ask himself, “has Ha’Shem revealed Himself in threefold things, in counsels and knowledge“? And his conclusion was astounding. When reviewing the Torah and the Prophets from this perspective he came to the conclusion that indeed He had. Here are some to ponder:

a) Man = body, soul, and spirit

b) Soul = will, intellect, and emotion

c) Family = husband, wife, and offspring

d) Government = Rulers, Prophets, and Priests

e) the Patriarchs = Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

f) the Tabernacle = Outer Court, the Holy place, the Holy of Holies

g) the Tanakh = Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets

h) the Mishnah = Talmud, Halakot, Haggadot

i) the Name of God = Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh

j) the Name, the YHVH = three letters

k) the word Torah = three letters

l) the name of Moses = three letters

m) the tribe of Levi = three letters

n) Moses has two assistants, Aaron and Miriam, and so on

The tri-unity of so many things is so significant in our world today, that there is actually a Tri-cyclopedia which touches almost every area of man’s knowledge and is growing daily. This causes a dilemma for some and others throw it off as absurdity and foolishness. Well be that as it may, each of us has to decide for ourselves whether or not we are going to believe what the word says and the word says the one God is also three and that His eternal Godhead as well as His power is declared in the things He has made! He indeed has revealed Himself in the things that are made in many more ways than this. Now either we are going to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen rightly dividing the word of truth, or else, why bother pretending! Is He who is called the Word of God, the Lord Himself, or history’s best liar? And are we going to be believers or make-believers? Which are you? Is He the Lord? Where did you learn of Him? Why do you believe?
Maimonides, another Jewish scholar of renowned, was so upset by the difficulty that the idea that God being echad posed (in the light of the Y’shua events), that in his 13 articles of faith, he actually changed all that in the Scriptures would have been “echad“ (indicating this tri-Unity), with the word “yachid“ (to emphasize God’s numerical oneness) save in article 2.
The problem is, and I say this with great respect for this amazing scholar whom I know loved God, that taking away from or adding to God’s word, was always strictly forbidden throughout the Scriptures as well as in the firmly established traditions of Judaism and early Christianity. It was considered abominable to the ethics of most all the ancient Rabbi’s and Sages of merit and literally considered sacrilege to the early church fathers. Maimonides’ over concern here caused him, in my opinion, to disrespect the plenary rendering of the word. This becomes very apparent in this instance, even though put forth from a motive of sincerity, and I am sure from devotion within his understanding.
Nonetheless this is a clear violation of the very rules that Torah hermeneutics dictate, and is in violation of the clear instructions of the Scriptures themselves (from where those hermeneutics developed). He obviously was willing to circumvent God’s commanding us not to add to or take away from His word, and not to waver to the right or the left, and thus altering or compromising the revealed truth while trying in his heart to preserve what he believed was the true intent. Or did he? Did Maimonides do this for the sake of objective theology, or did he do it to avoid the obvious conclusion that maybe the Christian understanding was not that far off? Not to speak of the fact that his intentional negation of this point is a very loud Rabbinical testimony to the doctrine’s actual presence in God’s Torah! Perhaps it would have been better to argue from the text as it was, or to simply ignore it all together as most had done!
Well at any rate, no matter how pure or sincere he considered his intent to be, he nonetheless acted on his human tendency to display his theological bias, and thus fell short of the Glory of God. I pray the Lord forgave him. Aren’t we all guilty of this at one point or another? Yes, of course we are! Thanks be to the Most Holy YHVH for His merciful grace in His Holy Son Jesus who is the Christ!
The Jewish Rabbi’s are not the only ones who struggled with this illumination. The earliest Christian scholars were not without their own disputes as to what all this exactly means, some clearly behaving as Maimonides did. The most common disputes among the early Christians arose in three camps: the subordinationalists; the Modalists; and the Trinitarians.
The first school of thought, the “subordinationalist“ camp, saw the Son as a Christed man subordinated to the Father who alone was YHVH. The classic example of subordinationalism became what is called the Arian Heresy (that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father). The Son, in Arianism (not to be confused with Arminianismm or Aryanism), becomes a sort of secondarily created god, in violation of so many scriptural references that I could not even name them all here, but let me do say that God Himself has said that He does not share His glory with another, and YHVH Himself tells us elsewhere that there was “no god formed“ before Him, and further that “no god shall be formed after“ Him. Enough said about that! For an entire thorough refutation of the Arian heresy in our time, see the late Dr. Walter Martin’s Book, The Kingdom of the Cults, (Bethany Publishing House, 1965, and 1985, “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Publications“, Pg. 38-125) which can be obtained through the Christian Research Institute over the World Wide Web, or from any reputable local Christian Book distributor.
A second school of thought that arose, was that attributed to a Bishop named Sebellius. This doctrine, now known as Modalism, explained the Godhead as the One God who came to us in three different and progressive modes of being. The problem is that its modern version on the one hand, sees salvation as Baptism, only by one of them of course, and in the physically uttered name of “the Lord Jesus Christ”, followed by the resounding evidence of “speaking in tongues, as the Spirit gives utterance“.
More importantly perhaps is its major error. Modern Sebellians like the United Pentecostal Church (not to be confused with mainstream Pentecostal Churches like the Assemblies of God) teach that Jesus is the Father, Jesus is the Son, and Jesus is the Holy Spirit, while the Scriptures teach YHVH is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and only the Son became incarnate as the person of Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary. The book of Hebrews teaches that the Son is higher than angels, while it also teaches that Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, the seeming two-ness being only one person, fully Divine and fully human! God the Son, the Word of God, is the Eternal. Even when manifest He was always God, and was one with the Father, and the Holy Spirit since the beginning. His comings and goings have been from old, even from everlasting (Micah 5:2). Only the aspect of the person of Jesus which was flesh and blood was a little lower than the angels…in His essential being He was still the very Creator of Angels.
His comings have culminated in this particular “coming one”, who became the Son of Man. He was to suffer and be killed. He was raised from the dead, and will come yet again, this time in the clouds, to judge the nations (Daniel 7). He will judge the living and the dead. However, the Son is not the Father. Being “God with us” however, He is the fullness of Deity dwelling bodily (Colossians 2:9), for the Father is in Him and He in the Father (John 17) thus they are echad (one). Who can truly fathom such a thing, yet this is what the word teaches? Those to whom the Father has revealed it, accept it! To all others it is foolishness (1 Corinthians 2:14).
By the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., the clear majority of Bishops eventually adopted the description of God’s tri-unity and called it “The Trinity”. But even within this third more accurate camp, some eventually went a little too far. For example, the introduction of the prefix “co-“ introduced by Athanasius and carried out extremely in defining the Unity as separate persona led to further confusion. In and of itself the prefix co- may not seem so bad, except that eventually it led many to see God as three separate beings, merely being corporately united, not unlike the unholy tri-theistic trinities of ancient Babylon. But as the Athanasian so creed correctly emphasizes, we are to worship the One God in His tri(-u)nity, and His triune nature as a Unity. This is the correct order then...the One as three, and then the three in their oneness and not the other way around. The full text of the Creed that bares Athanasius’ name, emphasizes a warning that we should not confuse this order. He states clearly there is only one God who is the only one Lord. After each triune exposition he emphasizes the fact that he is describing “One God not three“, “One Lord not three“, etc.! But the evolution of ideas humanly associated with the prefix “co-“, which first officially appears here in this creed, nearly three hundred years after the Apostles, has in some senses seemingly pulled the parts of the Unity apart, and placed their separateness of role and function, ahead of His essential oneness for many of the less educated, non-discipled, believers and even some of today’s Priests and alleged Bishops (I say alleged because they cannot have the Spirit bearing witness). This incorrect understanding has led many to place the three-ness (His echad-ness) of the Godhead, before the fact that He is only one being (yachid), of one undivided nature and substance. Is this easy to grasp? Not in any way. It is quite difficult but we are talking about an Eternal and Divine Being.
This error has also led to even more abominable distortions such as the idea of there being co-saviors, a co-redemptrix, and other co-things ever more abominable such as God has never taught through His word or passed on through either Prophets or Apostles! You see, if He is the true and living God, which He is, we can know these things even if you do not! We knowing Him can say without doubt that one thing is true and another false regarding the essential Doctrines of the faith because the Spirit bears witness with our spirit through the word and this is further verified through the immediate recipients, i.e., the Apostles, and then through their immediate students as well. As we all may know, power and authority corrupt men. Over 100’s of years the essentials of the body as defined by Christ and given to the apostles become distorted and enforced by the men who by then have accumulated more than merely ecclesiastical power. By the mid fourth century the adulterous affair between Church and State had already begun. The Church of the west tended to abuse that power through the next 1,000 plus years of History.
So YHVH is the Lord Most High. He can be one in substance and nature, yet the fullness of the Godhead bodily in the person of our crucified Messiah, and then prove Himself to be so, by the resurrection from the dead, without ever surrendering His omnipresent singular Majesty! He can humble Himself to become a little incarnate infant in the womb of a poor Virgin from an obscure town in Galilee, and yet remain the omnipresent Master of the Universe simultaneously. He can be the one and only God and still be the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit, because He is God.
Now the LORD’s salvation, i.e., Y’shua, by His finished work, is the only Way into the Kingdom of God! The payment due for your sin is the shedding of blood unto death. You could not offer a pure sacrifice because you are tainted. Only a Lamb without Blemish was sufficient according to this immutable Law. Y’shua then, is God’s answer to all the petitions, oblations, sacrifices, and attempts at appeasement, of all the world’s people throughout all time. However, the terms God has established for appropriating this gift is that you must be born of His Spirit and placed into Messiah (John 3:3-8; Acts 2:38) in order to be reconciled with the Father. If that has not occurred, though you may be a good person as people go, you still have an unresolved sin debt and will die in your sins if you do not repent. To repent (metaneo in the Greek) means to change one’s mind. Now of course this change of mind eventually manifests changes in behaviors as well however it is by this change that you enter in. The Scripture in Acts 2:38 says “Repent and be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” These are the keys to the Kingdom. Without this change of heart and mind you cannot be baptized into His shem (except as an empty ritual) and only through this avenue will you receive eternal life. This is how the blood is applied to your sin account. Once applied it is as if the account is stamped once and for all “PID IN FULL!” But until then there is a running balance due and payment terms are set…payment terms are “the second death”, i.e., condemnation in Hell. I can hear many saying right now “I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that! My god would never do that!” Well if this is you, then it is I who feels sorry for you. Though it would be nice from a finite human sense if your god were the God it is not. This God is the God and the one revealed by the Jesus you claim is your Lord and the one you swear allegiance to and claim to believe in every time you repeat the Creed. In Mark 16’s post resurrection statement Jesus tells the disciples. “Whosoever believes (pisteuos - trusts in, relies on, and cleaves to) and is baptized shall be saved, but whosoever does not believe (pisteuo) IS CONDEMNED! So if you have an argument with this your argument is with Him. If you are opposed to someone, you are opposed to Jesus Christ. If you are against someone, you are against Christ. Praise be to God that no sin is so great that it can not be forgiven.
Is my theology THE correct theology? God forbid! Was Calvin’s? or Augustine’s? God forbid! We are all but human. That is why I rest on the un-evolved carefully preserved word of God. History and archaeology have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible has fewer variants than any other book of antiquity. The reliability if the text is statistically inhuman. As Article VI of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer” so correctly states, “The Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of anyone, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” Likewise true is that whatsoever is read therein and proved thereby is what is necessary and is to be considered an article of Faith.
This additional perspective can be shown to also be the true apostolic teaching by a quick review of the words of the earliest Church fathers of the first and early second centuries who themselves were taught by either the apostles or by their immediate students (all local churches agreed then whether in Ephesus, Antioch, Jerusalem, Carthage, etc.,). In Against Heresies 3.1.1, Bishop Irenaeus said, "We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith."
An entire century later, Cyril of Jerusalem is still giving the same message as Irenaeus of Lyons (France). In His Catechetical Lectures, Cyril tells us, “This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasoning, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures.
But take thou and hold that faith only as a learner and in profession, which is by the Church delivered to thee, and is established from all Scripture. For since all cannot read the Scripture, but some as being unlearned, others by business, are hindered from the knowledge of them; in order that the soul may not perish for lack of instruction, in the Articles which are few we comprehend the whole doctrine of Faith...And for the present, commit to memory the Faith, merely listening to the words; and expect at the fitting season the proof of each of its parts from the Divine Scriptures. For the Articles of the Faith were not composed at the good pleasure of men: but the most important points chosen from all Scriptures, make up the one teaching of the Faith. And, as the mustard seed in a little grain contains many branches, thus also this Faith, in a few words, hath enfolded in its bosom the whole knowledge of godliness contained both in the Old and New Testaments.”
Yes all of the earliest Church fathers who were taught by the Apostles or their immediate students relied solely on the Holy Scriptures, the same words we now read and enjoy and glean so much hope from, to prove that what they were declaring was truly the word breathed of God (theopneustos-graphae) and those passed on from Christ Himself. This is so true that today’s Scholars now know that by the time of Constantine, almost the entire New Testament could be reconstructed from their Scriptural quotations alone. The amount of variance being less than a couple of percent is in human. Irenaeus quotes the Scriptures well over 2500 times...Clement of Alexandria around 2500…Origen 18,000…Tertullian approximately 7200 and this is just four of the early teachers and Bishops. The care these men and women attended to so that little if any variance would enter in, demonstrates the high regard with which they considered these particular sets of writing sacred and provided by the Spirit of God.
Religions, theologies, and denominational ritualisms are all moot at the foot of the cross! In fact, denominations themselves are moot! Christianity is not Churchianity. Both Jesus and Paul warn against the schism of denominationalism. But as men gained power further and further away from the source these divisions and factions were unavoidable. But there is one thing that up until the recent descent into apostasy that remained consistent, and that was the word of God. In Gethsemane when Jesus prays for our sanctification He prays “Sanctify them Father by the truth, your word is truth.” That is first and foremost Messiah the living Word who is the way, the truth, and the life. Then it also refers to those words which had been previously written in what we call the Tanakh and then of course His own words which He was declaringf to the world through His chosen Apostles.
You see, it is all about relationship not religion. Do we really trust in and believe Jesus? It is all about a Who, not a what. Is He or is He not the Messiah, Son of the living God and thus our Sovereign? It is all about a person, not about some institution. You are not saved because you go to a church. Neither is your Church “the true Church”. The true Church are all those who truly faithe whatever denomination they are in, and in each of those there are many unbelievers and make-believers. One is not of Paul, and another of Peter, as would claim! If they are then they may not be of Christ. Be of Christ and do not consider the rest something to be obtained or to boast of, for your boasting is in vain. Who ever builds a house builds it in vain. The Lord builds this House!
Redemption from enslavement to the beguilement of Satan’s adversarial self-lordship, and salvation from the wrath of a Holy God angry at our willingness to sin, is the benefit of this Christ having come and lived the perfect life for us, and then having paid the debt due for our sin (Isaiah 53; Romans 6:23) by His own blood. This IS the Way. We did nothing to deserve this (Titus 3:3-8). Y’shua the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him. Coming to the Father, i.e., reconciliation with God, is thus the goal. Therefore, genuine Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship through Him, and Y’shua is the provision of God for healing the rift. He is the only doorway to the reconciliation of that relationship. The Bible tells us that God has placed a measure of faith in every person, therefore “it is not of yourself, it is a gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8,9). What you do with that gift is important. You do not choose God for even the faith to believe comes from Him. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and it will only grow if the Spirit is present in ones life. So when you were born there was this hope of good but you willfully sinned and in God’s eyes that soul was now spiritually dead…but some of us were born of God and now our faith grows stronger and stronger as we grow in Him. But accepting Christ is nothing…the miracle is in Him accepting any of us. But He loves us and gave Himself for us. Such is the agape’ love growing in each of us who faithe.
Ponder now, if you will…what are your thoughts on this matter of the yachid God (One and only), also being echad (a Unity)? Do not by any means take my word for these things. Go to the word and prayerfully consider some of the passages we have indicated throughout this work and see for yourself if that is not what is there. Then go somewhere apart and pray. Pray that the Lord of Hosts will open the truth to you as to what these mysteries imply. Write down the thoughts that follow your prayer time as you further contemplate, and three or four days later ponder them again? Then pray again. Seek out what others say about this! Check out their references and sources not excluding those provided here! Read the ideas of others, but above all test all things according to the word. For as all the articles of faith of all the orthodox denominations proclaim, the word of God is the final authority in all matters of faith and doctrine. Then pray some more! Be glad and rejoice as God unfolds to you the truth, because He will, I assure you. And then pray again! Never be so vain as to think wherever you are in this unfolding understanding, or no matter what has been illumined unto you by the Holy Spirit, or what ever you have discovered by your diligent digging, never...no, not ever think it is an end, in and of itself, or that your illumination is the final word on the subject, for the day will come when all will be raised, some to everlasting shame and torment, others to everlasting joy and life eternal in the presence of God.
Last of all remember, God is bigger than all of the boxes humankind can construct in their finite attempts to grasp His Infinitude, including this feeble attempt you have just considered. Life in Ha’Moschiach, who is called the Christ, may begin as a moment in time, but it is first and foremost transformation and then temporally a process, a personal experience. It is also a diligent quest that the LORD has supplied in response to all the sincere seeking of humankind through all time. But above all it grace plain and simple. It is His undeserved and unmerited favor and nothing additional. All of Him and nothing of us until we are born into His family. For some this is when we are but babes but for most it is much later, but whenever it is the most important event of anyone’s life. Without it you have no hope in this world or that life to come.
Now go forth and engage this great adventure with thankful expectancy! Engage it beginning today! When we perish from this world, or when He comes back (which ever comes first), the door is closed, and it is then too late to enter therein. He who was made Messiah, the Ark of our safety, is coming again soon! Do not be left out, please? Neither let your children perish in their sins! Time is running out! Speak with them about Him and what He has done. Let them know how He has been there for you and what He has done….in the name of the Lord I pray this.
Unto all who believe God, rejoice always! Rejoice in the understanding, and in the lack of understanding, for He is God who promised, and He does not lie! He will not leave you comfortless. The Father sent Him, with His Spirit, into the world, and into our hearts, that the children of faith may join Him in the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity. Who can fathom such things? Surely this is marvelous in our eyes! Amen.

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TB125
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Another example of trinitarian or threefold existence of a single entity can be seen in the fact that one individual person can be recognized as a son, a father, and a husband or a daughter, mother, and a wife while still being seen as one individual. The different identifying terms being used to denote different relationships and roles of the single individual. This makes sense to me.

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Bob

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John Hale
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quote:
Originally posted by Eduardo Grequi:
The Trinity if you will did present itself on the day of Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptiste. Father to his Son, " This is my Son in who I am well pleased". And Jesus was rising out of the waters the Spirit came down like a dove.

Amen.
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Eduardo Grequi
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The Trinity if you will did present itself on the day of Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptiste. Father to his Son, " This is my Son in who I am well pleased". And Jesus was rising out of the waters the Spirit came down like a dove.
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John Hale
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I hear people parrot the Hanegraaff shpeel "we can apprehend the Trinity but we cannot fully comprehend it..." close their minds at that point and tell others they simply have to believe it's true.

The Trinity is easy to comprehend if we try to, and if we stop imposing upon it preconceived ideas.

What makes a family?

It is a unity of plurality of persons... relatives. We "get it" about the compound plurality that is the family unit... we aren't stuck on how three people can be one family because the logical and the math formula are accepted without imposing upon it such preconceived notions like "one person per family" the way people think there is only one person per God.

The personification of God (it's so obvious to say as to sound absurd) is in the persons within the Godhead... not the Godhead itself. Using my example again... would we think of a family as an entity itself? a corporation? our nature is another example... is our nature a person?

God is the nature of the three in the Godhead. Each one is by nature God and in the unity of that nature. But the nature is not a fourth person nor is it a central person from which the three persons stem.

We get so tangled up in the limitations of our thought processes and the imperfection of human communication that we confuse a very simple category.

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John Hale
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The trinity doctrine is sound because it comes from scripture application (meaning the word Trinity or three in one do not appear directly but the fact remains there are three who are the one God).

Is God a being or rather are the persons who are the one God?

To make my question more clear I will use it in a more familiar setting:

Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were for a time the only family on earth. Was the family a being or entity? Or were the persons who are the one family?

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