The Surprising Origins of the Trinity Doctrine

Is God a Trinity? ^ | Various | Various

[editor-surveyor]

The post that you had responded to was not written to you, so how can you assume that I was addressing your issue?

You seem to lose the thread of things.

[count-your-change]

Let’s take this a bite at a time....Jesus calls himslf God? Where?

[editor-surveyor]

>> “And they are equally clear that Jesus chooses to do what pleases the Father.” <<

.
Absolutely.

The Father is the director of all things. John Chapter 6 makes that abundantly clear. It is the Father that chose us and calls us. It is the Father that gave us to the Son.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Jesus calls himslf God? Where?” <<

.
Every time he had a dispute with the Pharisees he said that he was God.

[Natural Law]

"The only NT author that was even capable of writing any other language was Paul..."

The Apostle Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, was a native of Antioch in Syria, a Greek speaking region. His writings were in Greek.

Peace be with you

[count-your-change]

Then it should be easy for you to give an examp;e, just one vs.?

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Whether absurd or not in your view is not decisive so we’ll move on to whether using terms, (father,son, holy spirit are not names), together makes them equal.
No more than using Abraham,Isaac and Jacob together makes all three equal.”

---

Last I checked, no one is baptizing in the name of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They ARE baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and it IS absurd to place two created beings in equal authority with God, if that were teh case. Since you didn’t comment on the other scriptures, then you must not be able to dispute them.

“The angels instructed Mary and Joseph to name their firstborn Jesus not Emmanuel and Jesus was never referred to by that name. Evidently Matt. 1:23 means something other than people would use Emmanuel as a proper name for Jesus.”

---

Mat 1:22-23 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, (23) Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

ALL of the preceding events fulfill the scripture wherein He is called “God with us.” Thus, it is more than His name, but the very details of His conception which fulfill the prophecy.

The Messiah in scripture has many names, which He fulfills utterly by being who He says He is.

Isa_9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his NAME shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Yes, and that was in Hebrew”

---

I’m pretty sure I asked you VERY specifically to prove that the scriptures I SPECIFICALLY cited were false. And now, equally without evidence, you are asserting that the entire New Testament was written in Hebrew.

Can you please stop with these pointless diversions and answer the challenge directly?

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Let’s take this a bite at a time....Jesus calls himslf God? Where?”

---

From the same post I pinged to you twice in a row:

God Speaking in the Old Testament:
Isa_41:4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

Isa_44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Jesus Christ speaking in the new:

Rev_1:17 ... Fear not; I am the first and the last:

Rev_22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Rev_1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Are you going to waste my time and ask for more?

[Cronos]

e-s "they believed that Torah and Tanach were scripture and that to add to them was forbidden."

Where did you get that? The Jews never had a fixed canon until the council of Jamnia in 90 AD.

Don't quote the last verses of the Book of Apocalypse -- they refer to that book only, namely the book of the Apocalypse of St. John

[count-your-change]

“ALL of the preceding events fulfill the scripture wherein He is called “God with us.” Thus, it is more than His name, but the very details of His conception which fulfill the prophecy.”

There is nothing there equating Emmanuel with being part of a triune God.

“Isa_9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his NAME shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

And what do any of these names have to do with the trinity? With Jesus being equal to his Father?

[Cronos]

It was forbidden to add on to the first books of Moses by man

It was forbidden to amend/add notes in the books, no injunct against adding books.

[Cronos]

Without the belief in the Trinity, one can only reach a number of other conclusions:

1. Jesus was not God. He was some kind of lesser god or demiurge (Jehovah's Witnesses)
2. Jesus was not God. He was a man who became God (Mormons)
3. Jesus was not God. He was a man who was possessed by God (Gnostics)
4. Jesus and the Father were the same, so Jesus was not man, so His sacrifice was not real as this was a spirit on the cross, a phantom (latter part is Moslem, former part is Unitarian or Oneness Pentecostal or UCG)

[Natural Law]

"Let’s take this a bite at a time....Jesus calls himslf God? Where?"

John 10:39

[Natural Law]

That was John10:30

[OneWingedShark]

>> “And they are equally clear that Jesus chooses to do what pleases the Father.”
>
> Absolutely.
>
> The Father is the director of all things. John Chapter 6 makes that abundantly clear. It is the Father that chose us and calls us. It is the Father that gave us to the Son.

This is true, and this touches on something that is, perhaps, troubling to explain to/for certain people: free-will. The New Testament makes it clear that there's a "giftness" there ("it is a gift of God", "to as many as receive", etc). The reason that people think this is a gotcha is that we, being bound to time, cannot understand at all timelessness -- this is what God is, being unbound to time, (this also confounds causality [i.e. the childish "who created God?"]).

Moreover, as CS Lewis observed, love that is not freely given is not love at all. If it is not a choice to love God, the it is impossible to fulfill the greatest commandment because the greatest command, at that point, becomes nonsense.

I certainly don't understand how both predestination and free-will work at the same time, but they both seem to; and to embrace an exclusionary view of one is to fundamentally alter your view of God. [A god that condemns people who have no choice in their conduct wouldn't be called 'just', nor would a god that did not command human life's details be called omnipotent.]

[OneWingedShark]

>> “Also, you are abusing the term polytheist.”
>
> belief in or worship of more than one god. — poly·the·ist

As mentioned earlier this thread - Michael Heiser’s Godhead in the Old Testament [Jewish Trinity]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geaydst6d-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGKZq8vUWXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qRYMLBAUE0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RavGM8l2KbI

[Campion]

All of the people who selected the canon of your New testament professed the Trinity through the Nicene Creed.

[count-your-change]

What it appears you're attempting to show is that the Son IS the Father. For example you write:

“God Speaking in the Old Testament:
Isa_41:4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.”

Where this verse uses “LORD” is where YHWH appeared, i.e., “the Father”, not Jesus. YHWH is not Jesus, The Father is not the Son in any trinitarian doctrine I've ever heard of. Have you?

That's why I don't respond to much of what you say, it simply has nothing to do with the subject.

[MHGinTN]

The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doing

The following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:

God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.

The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.

The Bible relates scenes which defy the simplistic notions we use for assumptive science. We'll get to that 'assumptive' notion shortly, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble as He is inside the bubble.

Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.

But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.

Here's an address to 'assumptive science limitations': Now, when one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.

God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.

The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by 'the work He is doing'.

With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.