Posted on 02/05/2017 3:05:14 PM PST by metmom
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Though there is only one God, He exists in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
God is one, but He exists in three distinct Persons. We call this the Trinity, a contraction of “tri-unity,” meaning “three in one.” The word Trinity doesn’t appear in the Bible, but God’s existence as three Persons in one God is clear from Scripture.
Old Testament evidence of God’s plurality can be found in the very first verse: “In the beginning God . . .” (Gen. 1:1). The Hebrew word used for God is Elohim, which is a plural noun. Isaiah 42:1 speaks of the Messiah: “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” The Messiah says in Isaiah 48:16, “The Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”
The New Testament is more explicit about God’s triune nature. After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit of God descended upon Him as a dove, and the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17). The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are together in the same scene.
Jesus says, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17). Paul closes 2 Corinthians by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (13:14). Peter declares that believers are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2).
So God is one, but God is three. This is a profound mystery that no human illustration can adequately describe and no scientific explanation can prove. The Trinity is something we have to take on faith, because God has taught it in Scripture.
Suggestions for Prayer
Praise God that He is so far above our finite understanding, yet has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
For Further Study
Read John 14—16.
What does Jesus teach about His relationship with the Father and the Spirit? What do you learn here about the different functions or ministries of each member of the Trinity?
Okay, will you also refuse to say who you think Jesus is? Lots of flowery words and a fair amount of confusion, but why not come out and say who or what you believe about Jesus? Is He God incarnate? Is he just a man who started thinking he was God and who got killed before he could change his mind? Is he a mere man who rose to the top of what a human could reach as chosen by God? Is he an example of the human epitome of goodness for an example to follow, but still just a man? I mean, c’mon, guys, why so hesitant to just come right out and say what you believe about the person Jesus Christ? Is he just a man or is he the God/man promised from the start?
http://stan.tillotson.com/NR-4Seasons/NR4S-1971.htm
Pay extra attention to the third image (Summer).
So. Much. Love.
You are too crafty by half.
Who is Jesus?
A.) just a normal man
B.) a man who was exalted to godhood
C.) a man who people thought was God but who never said he was
D.) the Son of God who is the incarnation of the one, true, Almighty God
I think someone is afraid to say what he really believes. It’s really a simple answer, isn’t it?
Ben Elohim Chayim
Sigh.
One of the saddest things is to see the names of HaShem misused and abused, a Chillul HaShem.
Those who wish to proclaim some knowledge or closeness to HaShem by misusing and/or using the wrong names at the wrong times, not having the faintest clue when or even if to use them, are just LOST.
And of course if they knew anything, it immediately puts the 3-in-1 man lie to rest. Why DOES HaShem have so many names?...
‘you shall have no other gods before me’ - if people don’t understand THAT - simple meaning, no mysticism, they will never understand the one true God, instead trying to ‘prove’ their way around that with subsequent unholy texts.
~1300 years before Christianity existed, ONE God existed. That God still exists and he’s still ONE.
If three ‘anything’ is your god, you’re not connecting with the ONE God.
It really is that simple.
This is a major tenet of the Christian faith and the proof for it entails ALL of holy Scripture - the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms as well as the Divinely-inspired writings of the followers of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that God (Hashem) is the one, true, ONLY God, the creator and sustainer of the universe. We also believe that Jesus is the Messiah foretold of in those sacred Jewish Scriptures and that He is the incarnation of Almighty God (Immanuel - which is God with us). Jesus’ name means Yahweh is our Salvation.
Nobody is forcing you to accept this faith - or to even come onto this thread and give your opinion. The Trinity is and can be defended by Scripture, by the historical traditions of the earliest believers and confirmed as the truth in the hearts of those seeking to KNOW God - who is a rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him. That is what this thread was intended to do.
Have a good night.
You could use a session learning about dimensional variability. It was Jesus (God with us) Who taught the simplest Physics lesson to His closest disciple (see John 14); it was Jesus Who proclaimed that if you have seen Him, you have seen the Father; it was Jesus Who assured them that when He left, He would send the Paraclete. Do you believe Jesus IS GOD with us?
Who is Jesus?
A.) just a normal man
B.) a man who was exalted to godhood
C.) a man who people thought was God but who never said he was
D.) the Son of God who is the incarnation of the one, true, Almighty God
I've already written much and told you. There is plenty to accept or reject. Yet you come in with your questions, and your answers, and then insist that I sit down and take your test to satisfy your lack of knowledge. And when I don't comply with your dictats, I am called evasive.
It doesn't work that way, not with sincere inquiry, anyway. This pattern of questioning, however, is well-documented all over the Gospel accounts, as well as the responses of the questioners when they didn't get their way.
History repeats, and the irony is sailing right over head. Gotta be some "common people" lurkers reading the exchange here, and hearing my posts gladly. Because, after all, who is the Christ? Who's son is he? David's, of course.
Character is king. Is it not written, that the blind cried out, "Son of David, have mercy on us."?
Now if David called him lord, how then is he is son? The experts couldn't answer that. Ah, but then some even better experts came along to answer that he's God himself, but of course that logic falls on its face because then he is not Joseph's son and hence not David's son. Which then demands an even more complicated doctrinal web be spun off of supposed genealogical loopholes through the mother. On and on and on... no wonder normal people stay away. Where's Susan Powter to holler, "Stop the Insanity!"
So speaking of David's son, the one whose identity I am refusing to describe, or such is the claim..
The little boy with his dog (as I linked above) is the quintessential simple country boy full of innocence, adventure, and love. When his beloved animal appears to be sick, he's right on that: bundling her up, tucking her in, and giving her medicine. It's his nature.
Cut over to the scene of Jesus in the Temple, aged twelve. What was he doing? Surprising the men there because he knew sooo much, and also that he listened to them intently, and asked a whole bunch of questions! He was a buff. Like some kids are fascinated with fire trucks, or computers, or a sports team or whatever. They become little sponges, desiring to know every detail. For this boy, it was the Temple.
The parents head home from Jerusalem and realize that he's missing. They search all over town, eventually locating him (after three days!), in the Temple. His response:
Luke 2
49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
Where else would the quintessential son of David have been? That it took them three days to track him down was not his fault. No search was needed; all they had to do was go to the Temple. If they "knew" he was a god-man with God as his "real" father, as the doctrines state, they would have understood perfectly. Father, meaning David, as in where to find the boy with David's heart. Where David's heart is.
Solomon:
1 Kings
14 And the king turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel: (and all the congregation of Israel stood;)
15 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which spake with his mouth unto David my father, and hath with his hand fulfilled it, saying,
16 Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house, that my name might be therein; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.
17 And it was in the heart of David my father to build an house for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
18 And the LORD said unto David my father, Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart.
19 Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house; but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name.
20 And the LORD hath performed his word that he spake, and I am risen up in the room of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built an house for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
The carpenter's son is the builder's son. That's what they do. Build stuff. Or they rebuild, repair, and restore. The family business. The messages that get lost over a capital F.
The Temple of the body of Christ is truly in need of a major restoration project. It needs to be torn back down to the foundation and restored via proper health care and nutrition.
Where's the Messiah and what's he doing? Going about his father's business, but who's looking there.
Matthew 13
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Are you a Mormon?
A and D! The bible says he is. Paul says he was tested in all points as any human is. Yet he is also God in flesh who existed with the Father before the founding of the world!! Hallelujah...what a Saviour! He is the Christ come in the Flesh he is that Word made flesh that dwelt amongst us! Hallelujah...what a Savior!
The Trinity is and can be defended by Scripture, by the historical traditions of the earliest believers and confirmed as the truth in the hearts of those seeking to KNOW God
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very incorrect.
1) Tanach explicitly and repeatedly details the UNITY of HaShem.
2) The trinity is MAN MADE doctrine and came very late in the game.
3) The earliest Christian believers reacted violently to MAN’S creation of the trinity.
4) You can’t simultaneously have Unity and Three, regardless of how it’s diced; that doesn’t past the laugh test, which is why, ultimately, the trinity has to be described as a ‘mystery’.
5) Judaism and Islam are MONOtheistic, Christianity definitely not, as the article title states: “God is Three.”
Precisely.
Paraphrasing 2 Peter 3: "some things are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."
Jesus is called the Son over 200 times throughout the N.T. The Father is referred to as distinct from the Son over 200 times.
And just one of a great many holes in the Trinity concept is when Christ says:
Matt. 24:36 No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
My personal feelings are there is more to this God thing than we understand. I don't see the quandary, many evidently do, of Christ's claim to be the Son of the Living God, with all the powers of the Father vested in Him.
I also fail to see why Jew or Gentile find it so impossible to accept this simple explanation. It was prophesied and written about when it came to pass.
For over two thousand years, who He was has been hotly contested and fought over with the lives and souls of many lost and destroyed - the commandment to love one another completely ignored in the process.
The utter ignorance, stupidity, and arrogance of man knows no bounds. I have a strong suspicion endless arguing and name calling here isn't going to bind it either. :)
I want you to get off your high horse and think for a moment: could a being who has only length and width existence in spacetime 'see' a being who has length width and height in spacetime? Partly, the 2D being could sense where the 3D being intersects the 2D realm, but the 2D being could not see the 'height' part of the 3D being.
In your calculus, is GOD the Father Almighty greater than all the dimensions of spacetime? JESUS taught His closest disciples that GOD can be seen where He intersects their spacetime AS JESUS.
So, there you have at least TWO parameters of THE ONE GOD, God the Father Almighty (Whom Phillip asked to be shown) and Jesus, God with us. All the disciples could see of the great Being, GOD, is where HE intersects their spacetime reality AS JESUS.
I really like how Donald Trump conducts his business. By merely going about his day Making America Great Again, he's ripping apart the Establishment passively by exposing the cracks. Not one stone left upon the other.
People look around and say, "He's done so much in a day, a week... what have the entrenched pols been doing all these many years?" Not anything constructive. At best they've been dead weight hanging about and dragging everybody down.
Signs of the times have been shoved in everyone's faces, even literally with scoreboard signs with the times ticking down on them. Everything is being flipped over openly.
Talk about parables becoming literal meanings. Real estate developer President Donald John Trump is baptizing with water -- draining the swamp as it were, and flushing out the system. Restoring the desolate places with a new vision, a new blueprint. Clearing the way. Making the paths straight, because Truth with a capital T is coming up from the foundation of the earth. It's his business. His name (renown). It's his logo. Just. Dang.
Time is short. Do they still make Jiffy Pop?
Yes, and we have far larger fish to fry!
Good stuff MHGinTN...
God has major three works that He did/does- certainly a trinity of sorts:
-Work of Creation
-Work of Redemption
-Work of Convicting the World of Sin,Righteousness,Judgment
All 3 Works is the Work of One God.
Christianity, on a basic level, will say:
Creation- Father
Redemption- Son
Convicting the World- Holy Spirit
In one way, that is the way the one True God governmentally makes/made it happen.
That is a pattern He shows.
as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 3 Works of 1 God... 1 God, 3 Works.
His aleph bet having 22 letters shows this ‘trinity’ in a way that may not be readily seen yet, too.
But each of those 3 Works is a prophetic ‘week’ in His timekeeping.
Each of the Works began on the ‘1st Day of the Week’ and each Work is/was finished by God on the ‘6th Day’ of the Week. And each had a Sabbath rest after the Work was finished.
Creation- finished on the 7th Day (Genesis 2:2)
Redemption- finished on the 14th Day (Leviticus 23:5)
Convicting- will finish on the 21st Day (Leviticus 23:6)
all leading to the the 22nd Day, the 8th Day.the Sabbath. Wraps up the Work that God has been doing since the Beginning. In what could basically be described as 3 phases- all works of One God.
And For His Glory...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.