Matthew 24:36
King James Bible
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Interesting comment. This pretty much blows the idea of a “ Trinity” out of the water, in that this explicitly states that God is not Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit. They are separate entities.
Separate yet equal. Not for us to know at this time how the Holy Trinity works.
People see it in different ways.
Matthew 28:19 is often used as the basis for the Trinity. (just for the thread)
Matthew 28:19 KJV
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”
When Jesus says he is one with the Father, and one with the Holy Ghost, me means spiritually. But they are separate things, which is why they have separate names. Just like I can agree with someone but not physically be that person. My interpretation.
“This pretty much blows the idea of a ‘Trinity’ out of the water, in that this explicitly states that God is not Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit. They are separate entities.”
Sounds like you are unfamiliar with the doctrine of the Trinity. A quick search of the web can address the specifics:
The doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one but three coeternal consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit—as “one God in three Divine Persons”.
So, you would be correct to assume that such passages indicate that Jesus (the Son), God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are not the same Person. You would be incorrect to assume that any of these three are not God.
There is one God who we can know or experience as three distinct persons. And traditional Christian doctrine is that there are three (no more, and no less) persons of the Godhead who are coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial.
Coequal means each person is fully God. For example, Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is not a demigod who is only partially God. Coequal is not a statement of their authority, as the Son is fully submitted to the authority of the Father. However, God the Father has given all authority to the Son. So with respect to us and all of creation, all persons of the Godhead exercise the same full authority over the creation.
Consubstantial means they are of the same substance and essence. It speaks of what early Church theologians described as the hypostatic union of God the Father and God the Son.
However, the most important factor I think is to examine the claims of scripture that Jesus alone is the only human who can rightfully receive worship as God. To worship any other human being is idolatry.
The Trinity represents to us how an infinite God has chosen to reveal Himself to finite man in a way that makes Him comprehendible and relatable. And though there are aspects of God which are too great to experience as mortal humans (if a man could see God the Father, that man would immediately die), and there are aspects of God that we can not experience with our five natural senses (God is Spirit), God has revealed Himself to us by taking human form and entering this world not merely in the form of a person, but undergoing the entire gamut of natural processes such as conception and birth in order to be fully human in the person of Christ.
Christ Jesus, having become a man, never ceased from being a man. He is the Divine Man who is now presently in Heaven. This is one of the most astounding claims of the Bible. Jesus, having been raised from the dead, and His physical body receiving the perfection and incorruptibility that goes with this resurrected body, ascended to Heaven physically and bodily, and set down to the right hand of God the Father.
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There is no “Trinity,” biblically speaking, but you are right, the common interpretation of Matthew 24:36 is ignorant, and foolish, since he does command us to “watch,” and states that only to those that “will not watch” will he come as a thief.