Genesis 1:3 tells us that God created light. As with any artistic work, it’s only natural that the work would show something about the artist. 1st. John 1:5 tells us, “God is light.” At the very least this means that God is like light. Many verses can be found throughout the Bible to support the idea that God is a trinity. “Elohim,” is a plural noun and the Hebrew word for God. In Genesis 1:26, Elohim says, “Let us make man in our image …”
“The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, these three are one.” Those words are omitted from 1st. John 5:7 in most modern Bible translations, but I believe they belong there. Those words help make sense of the surrounding passage, and the “style” of the writing is like that of John.
Light is also a trinity. If red, green, and blue lights are focused into a single area, they combine to form white light, “these three are one.” We see colors the way we do because of light. Objects appear to be certain colors because some wavelengths of light are absorbed while others are reflected to our eyes. An object that reflects no light appears black, and if it reflects all wavelengths, it is white.
The primary colors are, red, green, and blue, and from these all other colors can be formed. In televisions, different combinations of red, green, and blue appear as all colors. Earthy pigments (paint) however, mix differently from light waves, and primary pigments can vary. If you combine the primary paint pigments, you end up with black. Light is a form of energy. “God is a Spirit.” Spirit may be some form of living energy.
You can’t say that you don’t believe in invisible things. Look up at the moon on a clear night. There are many things invisible to your eyes. You don’t see the air that you breathe, or the forces holding the moon in orbit. The Bible says the earth also hangs upon nothing. (Job 26:7) The Bible also says that everything is made of things that are invisible. (Hebrews 11:3) You don’t see the moon’s atomic structure.
You see the light reflected from the surface to your eyes, but you do not see the beam of light travelling from the sun to the moon. We can’t see the thing that makes matter visible to the eye. Light is invisible to us except when the rays strike our eyes directly. I’ve read that if all light radiating from the sun and stars in all directions were visible, we would be blinded.
A friend of mine says he was such a bright child that his father called him son. The connection between the words “son” and “sun” goes back to the early chapters of Genesis. The word “Morah,” the Hebrew expression for the lights of the sun and moon in Genesis 1:16, contains ideograms, or word syllabics, (see my page “the Messiah”) that connect with many prophecies about the Son of God. (John 8:12) Jesus is “the light of the world.” Malachi 4:2 (the Sun of righteousness) is an Old Testament prophecy that foretells the appearing of the Son of God.
Your take on the Trinity is the normal acceptable ‘churchy’ explanation we have heard all of our lives by preachers who simply relate what they have been told by their professors in Seminary or Bible College.
The Genesis 1 reference “us” you quote could mean two or three or twelve. The number is not mentioned but you jump to the conclusion of three. Why? According to John 1 God, that is, Elohim, was talking to His Son, Jesus, through Whom everything was made.
In your reference to 1 John 5:7 you submit that the “three” should be “The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Actually the “three” are the spirit, the water and the blood, according to the Concordant Literal New Testament.
For the sake of this discussion, (and I’m assuming you invite discussion or why else would you blog publicly) to the best of my knowledge, although I’m willing to be corrected, the Bible never instructs its readers to worship the spirit, even though we sometimes sing some songs to that effect. That concept alone should make us leery of insisting that the spirit is equal with Elohim or Jesus, simply to satisfy our equal “Trinity” theory.
Without taking anything away from Him, there is no question about Him being our Savior, yet Jesus never considered equality with Elohim something to reach for. He called Him His Father and suggested we could call Him our Father, too.
But their representative on earth, their spirit, is just that, their representative, neither equal to God the Father or to His Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
I think that is Scriptural. But, I’d appreciate your comments in these regards.
May the Lord bless and keep you!
I do invite discussion, and I appreciate honesty. I think we can get much farther that way. I often don’t have much time for discussion, and have to put it off a bit.
You’ve brought up some things, I would love to talk about but right now, I don’t have time for anything. I’ll pray, and try later.
God bless you.
Certainly! I’ll check in from time to time.
wellwateredgarden,
I haven’t yet had time to get into this properly. I believe there is enough scripture to support the doctrine of the “Trinity,” and will offer some scriptures as soon as I can. I do not believe that the doctrine can be so well defined that it can be made into a “test of faith.” I’m aware that some, in the past, who have held this doctrine have physically persecuted those who rejected it.
I cannot understand how someone could persecute others because of something like this. That actually sickens me. To me, that is greater evidence of a heart not right toward God, than rejecting a doctrine that isn’t more clearly defined.
Thanks for commenting. I’ll try to get back to this soon.
True, Elohim is a plural noun, but keep in mind the “majestic plural”. For example, the Hebrew “behemot” is the plural form of “behemah”; Job 40:15 (RSV) – “Behold, Be’hemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox.” – Behemoth is a plural noun, but is modified by the singular verb “yokhal” (he eats). Behemoth is a mighty entity, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is only one entity.
Even the Quran uses this type of grammatical structure when it refers to their god Allah (Quran 6:112, 10:87, 15:23, 15:26, 20:77, 32:21, 32:24, 25:50, 47:31, 56:57, 78:40); Allah refers to himself as “We”, but no Muslim in his right mind would ever say “Allah is more than one” and neither would any Jew do the same to YHWH. I can show you many instances in the Tanakh where this type of nuance is used.
As for 1 John 5:7, that text was added to Scripture around the 15th century. Daniel B. Wallace, the leading scholar in the study of New Testament greek texts, documents that there are only 8 manuscripts which contain the Johannine Comma. Four of them were written in the margins and the other four were added into the text later:
http://www.csntm.org/tcnotes/archive/TheCommaJohanneumInAnOverlookedManuscript
I’ve been researching this topic extensively for the last 2 years and have come to the Biblical Unitarian (not UU) point of view. I used to be a hardcore Trinitarian, but I found that in order for me to prove my point, I had to first assume my argument to be true and then argue from it (which is circular reasoning). I’d be glad to discuss this topic in more detail (if you’d like), because believe me, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface.
Oops! I forgot to check “Notify me of follow-up comments” 😐
YAHnitarian,
I had hoped for a little time to answer your comment, but it’s probably going to be a couple of days. Thanks for your comment.
That’s fine, take your time 🙂
YAHnitarian,
If you assume that “Elohim” is used only as a majestic plural, and leave it out of the discussion, much evidence remains that it is proper to refer to Jesus as “God.” The same thing is true of the Spirit of God. Isaiah 48:16 says, “…the Lord God, and his Spirit hath sent me.” Why make this verse sound plural?
Hebrews 1:8 says,”but to the Son he says, Your throne O God, will last forever…” That is quoting Psalm 45:6-7, as being a prophecy concerning Jesus. If God calls Jesus “God,” then I’m not going to be afraid to call him God. In Luke 3:22, when Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came down to him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father was heard coming from heaven. There are the three, together as one.
I’m out of time for today, but one more thing. The primary reason that the accusers of Jesus wanted him dead was because Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and identified himself as the Messiah. Jesus claimed to have the authority to forgive sins, and as one of his critics questioned, ” Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
I don’t believe that the doctrine of the Trinity should be made into a test of faith, but we must believe in Jesus.
Have you read Psalm 45:6-7?
“Your divine throne endures for ever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore GOD, YOUR GOD (emphasis mine), has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows;”
I agree, this is a prophetic passage about Messiah, but you cannot be THE Almighty if you have a God. And well, Y’shua (Jesus) has a God according to Psalm 45:7 and other texts (Micah 5:4, John 20:17, Romans 15:6, 2 Corinthians 1:3; 11:31, Ephesians 1:3; 4:6, 1 Peter 1:3, Revelation 3:12).
I don’t think you realize just how flexible the Hebrew words “elohim” and “el” really are. Moses was called elohim (Exodus 7:1), Abraham was called elohim (Genesis 23:6), judges are called “el” (Psalm 82:1), Messiah is called “el” (Isaiah 9:6), etc. EL means “mighty one” and Elohim means “Mighty One(s)” depending on whether or not the verb modifying it is singular or plural.
As for the argument that “only God can forgive sins”, you have to assume that the Pharisees were correct in order to make that argument. The problem is though, that the Pharisees almost never understood Jesus. They accused him of things he never said and took his words too literally. And yes, I can give numerous examples to back up my claim if need be.
Y’shua himself said to his disciples in John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”; he GAVE them the authority to do so just as YHWH his Father had given Y’shua the authority to forgive sin (Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:10, Luke 5:24); the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sin.
Also, you mentioned the “I and the Father are one” argument. Did you read the previous verse? John 10:29 “My Father, who has given them to me, IS GREATER THAN ALL (emphasis mine), and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” – So is or is not Jesus’ Father (YHWH) greater than all? And does that not include Jesus himself? According to Jesus, in his prayer to YHWH in John 17:11 and verses 21-23, we (believers) are to be “one” with Jesus just as Jesus is “one” with his Father. So are we to assume that we become Jesus and Jesus becomes us? Or are we UNITED in purpose? Think about it, it’s not complicated.
I’m not disagreeing with you. I believe Y’shua is EL, he’s just not the Most High God, YHWH.
YAHnitarian,
I’m very short on time, but have you noticed in Ezekiel 1:26, that “upon the throne was…the appearance of a man.” Verses 27-28 describe this “man” just as the Revelation describes Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Philippians 2:6, says that Jesus existed, “in the form of God,” and didn’t think it was stealing anything from God to be “equal with God.” Jesus made himself nothing by taking upon himself the form of a servant.”
It is in this context that Jesus speaks as he does in John 10:29. I believe The Father and the Son are more than simply united in purpose, though they are indeed always united. I believe it is as if one being could become three in order to accomplish the one purpose. I have sometimes wished there were three or more of me.
Now you’re grasping for straws.
Here, let me use your own argumentation with John 1:1. You’re assuming that the “word” is a pre-existent Jesus, right? And of course we know “God” (ho theos) is the Father. So if that’s the case then let’s plug in some words and re-read the passage via your logic:
“In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with the Father, and the Son was the Father.”
OR
“In the beginning was the 2nd Person of the Trinity, and the 2nd Person of the Trinity was with the 1st Person of the Trinity, and the 2nd Person of the Trinity was the 1st Person of the Trinity”
So as you can see, by your logic, John 1:1 can only prove Modalism to be true, not the Trinity. Not to mention, verse 14 says that the word BECAME flesh — that flesh DIED! YHWH cannot die, that’s a well-attested fact of Scripture.
As for the “in the form of” argument: the Greek word used there is ‘morphe’, which means “external appearance”; it’s not the inward intrinsic nature, it’s the image / likeness of something. The ACTUAL text says that Jesus did NOT regard equality as a thing to be grasped. The KJV’s reading of the text is wrong.
And let’s say that the text reads the way you’re reading it, if Jesus “emptied himself” [assuming that Jesus was a “pre-existent 2nd member of the Trinity” before his birth], then he CHANGED. Let me repeat that: IF Jesus was once glorified, made himself nothing, & then was “restored back to the fullness of God” (as you Trinitarians would put it), then Jesus CHANGED. The problem is, YHWH cannot change. You can’t go from being the Most High God to suddenly NOT being the Most High God; it’s impossible, the universe would collapse on itself.
Please, do us both a favor and whenever you feel the need to make a vague argument like “in the form of God”, first take the time to go to a concordance or lexicon and look up the definition of the keywords from which your argument hinges on.
I don’t care if you’re rushed for time, don’t use that as an excuse to be sloppy in your research. If it takes you a day, 2 days, or even a week to respond to me, take the time; don’t rush it. I’m not interested in instant responses. I’m simply trying to get you to think more in depth about what you’re arguing and so far all you’ve done is try to wriggle out of my objections via technicality and assumption.
I may not be a scholar, but I’ve heard just about every argument that can be made whether for, or against the trinity. So you might say, I know what your argument is before you even make it.
Love the dialog, all of it simply confirms my belief that religion in general and christianity in particular is just made up baloney.
Never trust an all knowing deity that can’t get his message across.. I think that’s going to be my new rule #1!
Clearly, christianity is polytheism that at some point wanted to differentiate itself by becoming monotheistic via shoehorn!
YAHnitarian,
God could die if he became flesh, and yet remain on the throne all the while. If I had the same ability as God, I could send my body to work for me in a few minutes, and my spirit could stay here, and answer you much more fully. My soul could go on vacation or something.
As to “equality with God,” The TNIV translation of Philippians 2:6 says that Jesus, “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage…” Verse seven begins with, “rather, he made himself nothing.” Most translations read as if equality with God was something he left behind for a time, for our sake. I would not see becoming human for a time as a change in God, if that were his plan the whole time.
I appreciate your comments, and a dialog can draw you into a deeper, and hopefully a more clear level of reasoning.
Define “God” for me. What are ‘its’ main attributes; what makes someone “God” according to your view. I can tell that you and I are not on the same page, so let’s do some clarifying here before you move onto another tangent.
If by “God” you mean YHWH, the Most High God, the God of Jesus, then no he CANNOT die (Deuteronomy 32:39-40, 33:27; Psalm 102:26-27; 1 Timothy 1:17, 6:16).
For one you’re assuming that a human being can be the Most High God (which is false) and that the “soul” is an immaterial substance like a ghost (which it’s not) AND that there is a plurality within YHWH (which there’s not). So if you could prove any of the above points without using fallacious reasoning, that’d be nice.
“As to “equality with God,” The TNIV translation of Philippians 2:6 says…”
– You’re only using the TNIV because it’s rendering of the text supports your presupposition. I really don’t care what the TNIV says about Philippians 2, besides the TNIV is a HORRID translation! What does the Aramaic or Greek text say? That’s what I’m more concerned about.
Not to mention, context alone will show you that the “considered it not robbery” rendering is incorrect.
Jesus is the 2nd Adam, is he not? What was Adam’s sin? He sought equality with God, as the serpent said, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and YOU WILL BE LIKE GOD (emphasis mine), knowing good and evil” and in verse 22, YHWH cast Adam out”… lest he PUT FORTH HIS HAND AND TAKE (emphasis mine) also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”.
One last point while we’re still on Philippians 2, verse 9 says that “God (‘o theos’, The Father) has exalted him…” — my point is, Jesus cannot be The Almighty; because The Almighty God of the universe cannot be exalted. Keep in mind, the very definition of “almighty” is to be the highest authority, meaning there’s no authority above you.
The Almighty does NOT receive power, or glory, or honor, or exaltation from anyone — he is the source of it all.
The ol AH,
None of us understand everything that could be known about anything. The Bible says it is as if “…we see through a glass darkly.” We can’t reach Heaven by knowledge though; we could be like 2nd. Timothy 3:7 says, “forever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
That is the deception that remains from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. We can keep on craving more and more knowledge, but at some point we must either trust God or not. We cannot be saved by knowledge, but only by what Jesus did on the cross for us.
YAHnitarian and I disagree on some particulars, but if we trust in what Jesus did for us, we’ll be alright in the end. God’s Spirit leads us into truth, but we don’t get it all at one time.
I don’t have time to go into it, but the Bible speaks of Jesus on the cross as being a sign, a message from God. In that message God is telling us how desperately he loves us. It is a message that can cut through all the red tape of knowledge, and disagreement over details.
God is attempting to get his message across, on a cross. It makes perfect sense, but we can’t see that until we are ready to trust it. It’s like stepping through a doorway; you can’t see much that’s on the other side until you step through.
Would have been much more efficient for “God” to have simply said “Trust Jesus, Go to heaven”, instead of all the extra verbage that has lead to so much death and fighting.
If I were to assume that God* is real, then I would need to assume that he’s truly an idiot who has a history of failed projects, resulting in the deaths and eternal suffering of billions.
The excuses for not being able to “get” the whole truth while here on earth, sound like not very good excuses for someone to make for their deity who seems to have real issues with communications. Which I find telling, considering most christians believe this all knowing, all powerful supernatural being lives inside of them.
Alas, like most deity based religions, I guess it’s much easier to simply point the finger at yourself instead of placing the blame where it would really need to go, were the deity real..
*I do not assume that any God is real.
The ol AH,
Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. In that instruction, God was asking man to trust him, even if nothing else were said, which there probably was. Now, an infinitely huge database has grown from the Tree of Knowledge, and is growing faster all the time.
Man receives all sorts of false and corrupt information from that database. It keeps us from understanding other people as well as God. Many times people do not understand one another even when they’re speaking the same language.
People hear what they want to hear, and can always find a reason for what they want to do. If we seek God with an unbiased mind, the Bible teaches that he will find us. Have you never had someone misunderstand you, no matter how you tried to say something? Misunderstanding can sometimes be totally one-sided.
YAHnitarian #2,
I’ve been planning a post on “equality with God.” You are certainly right about Adam’s grasping for that. There are many things (love for one) that can never be “taken” but only received as a gift.
I’ll comment further a bit later.
Good luck with that, cause for every “equality” verse you can muster up, I’ve got 10 subordination passages on queue.
YAHnitarian #2,
When Jesus was transfigured in Matthew 17:5, the voice that came from the Father instructed Peter, James, and John to “hear” Jesus. In John 17:5, Jesus spoke of the glory that he had with the Father “before the world was.” Jesus told Philip in John 14:9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father…”
I don’t believe it is taking anything away from God to think of the Father and the Son as being one, for Jesus is the revelation of God.