AboutJoe Norman Expertise I can answer questions regarding acceptable worship, organization of the church, or any apsect of the Christian life. I am the son of a preacher and have studied the Bible from cover to cover since I was 12 years old. I am strong in my research skills and do not follow teachings of men. Many will label me as conservative and some might label me as liberal, but I just seek to be biblical. I understand proper exegesis and hermeneutics and apply them. My desire is to share my knowledge of God's Word with others. Please always keep in mind that none of us who are listed as experts here are divinely inspired and therefore it is possible to get incorrect answers from any one of us. Study the Scriptures and decide for yourself if what is taught is true.
Experience I am the 4th generation in my family to be a faithful member of the church of Christ. I was raised by a preacher and have studied the Bible everyday since I was twelve. I am 44 yrs old now. I am not a "scholar", but I am very familiar with the scriptures.
Organizations member of the church of Christ, served as a Deacon for a few years at LakeShore church of Christ in Waco, Tx. I currently live in the North Dallas area and worship with the Lewisville church of Christ.
Question Teach me about trinity because Im getting Confused
Answer Hi Aldo,
The topic of the Trinity is a difficult one to understand. Our minds are limited and some things are beyond us to ever fully understand. The word "trinity" is never found in the scriptures either. Yet, there are numerous passages that indicate that God is made up of three persons. The doctrine of the Trinity answers questions, but there will aways be aspects of God beyond our ability to comprehend.
The fundamental statement of God's unity is found in Deuteronomy 6:4.
"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Jehovah."
Whatever conclusions we reach about the nature of God, we must leave this passage in tact. There is only one God; there are not three gods. There is not a multiplicity of gods; there is only one. This is essential not only to Judaism, but to Christianity as well. When Jesus was asked what is the first commandment in the law, He said (quoting Dt.6:4,5): "The first is, Hear O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength" (Mark 12:29, 30). There is one God and man shall love him with all his being. That is the first commandment - recognizing that God is one and that He is the only object worthy of our utmost devotion.
"Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well" (James 2:19). It is true, according to the book of James, that there were people who rested on this basic principle alone. It is not enough to rest on this alone, but it is primary that a person recognize the fact that there is one God. There is one God and not three.
In Romans 3:30, Paul is showing that there is one plan of salvation for all people. And on what does he rest this conclusion? On the fact that there is one God. There is not one plan of salvation for the Jews and another for the gentile. And why not? Because God is one. He will justify the Jew by faith and will justify the gentile in the same way, by the same faith. The fact that there is one God is essential to Christianity, and the unity of God is taught not only in the Old Testament but in the New Testament as well.
Now that we have seen the importance of God's unity, the second point we should consider is this: what is the nature of God's unity? Is it monolithic? Monolithic is from two Greek words: monos and lithos. Monos means "one" and lithos means "stone". A monolith is one big stone; it is undifferentiated; it is the same through and through. Monolithic means "without any differences". Is God's unity monolithic, or is it complex? Is God's unity more like the unity of a living organism, like a unified body of people, or is His unity a simplistic, monolithic unity?
We find help in understanding a unity which permits diversity within itself from Jesus' prayer that all believers might be "one" (John 17:20-23). What will be the nature of their oneness? Will it be monolithic? It cannot be; it will be a unity in which there are many constituent elements. There will be one in many in this kind of unity. "That they all may be one," Jesus prayed, "even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,...that the world may believe that thou didst send me." Now Jesus is saying that the unity of God and himself is to be the model of the unity of his disciples.
What is the nature of the unity of his disciples? "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and al the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ" (I Cor.12:12. In this sentence "Christ" is a metonomy for the church). The unity of the church is a complex unity; it is a unity composed of many elements. We are using this passage simply as an illustration of complex unity. Of course, God's unity is more profoundly complex than ours, but complex it is. His unity is like that of a living organism, or of a great work of art, literature, or music. There is one God, one Divine Being, but there is diversity within his oneness. God is a triad; there are three persons. This language causes us some difficulty. When we think of three persons, we tend to think of three separate beings but we must resist this tendency. Three separate beings (or gods) is not what the language is intended to convey, and more importantly, that is not the reality which lies behind the language.
God's unity is like the unity of an atom-a unity in diversity. The ancient Greeks believed the atom was indivisible. That is what the word atom means. Atomos, as Democritus called it, means something that cannot be "cut" or divided any further. That conception of the atom illustrates a very simplistic kind of unity. Democritus thought of the atom as being a kind of little pellet, a very small piece of matter of which all things are made. And the atom, he thought, could not be divided any further. We have learned that that view is incorrect; the atom can be divided and is extremely complex. The smallest thing in God's creation reflects unity in diversity. Always there has been the philosophical question, How can we account for unity in diversity? For diversity in unity? The Christian has an answer to this. The answer is found in the will of the creating God, whose own nature reflects diversity within unity.
Now, it is an exciting thing this unity in diversity in God is reflected in God's creation. I remember how excited I was when I first looked into a microscope at a section of a leaf and realized that a leaf does not possess a simplistic unity. I found that the leaf was not stationary, that it has elements (chloroplasts) in it which were in motion. It was complex beyond my previous imagining.
The complexity of God's nature should not surprise us. All reality, including our own nature, is exceedingly complex. We should expect the nature of God, who is ultimate reality, to be far more complex that his creation. When we learn for the first time that God is not one person but three-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-we are learning, not that there are three gods when we thought there was one, but only that God is much bigger that we had imagined. This fact about God-that he is one and yet exists forever in the three-fold personal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-is what is meant by the doctrine of the Trinity.
It is clear that there is a hierarchy within the triune God.
The Father has authority over the Son and it seems the Son has authority over the Holy Spirit.
Here are some scriptures for your consideration.
The Father sent the Son into the world in John 17.
Also look to the simple and moving words of John 3:16.
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." The distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is shown conclusively in the one statement of John 14:16.
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." There is, then, a distinction in person and mission between the Father, Son, and Spirit, and that, in addition to God's unity, is what the doctrine of the Trinity maintains.
Now consider John 1:1. "In the beginning, was the Word." As we continue to read John chapter one, we see that "the Word became flesh" (v.14) It is a peculiarity of John the Apostle that he refers to Jesus Christ as the Word (John 1:1, 14; I John 1:1; Rev.19:13).
He means to convey the idea that Christ is the revelation of God the Father. A word is an audible or visible revelation of an invisible idea. God, like an unseen idea, is Himself invisible (John 1:18; I Tim.1:17); what He is like becomes evident in Christ. John therefore calls him the Word. The one we know as the revelation of God, the Word of God, already existed in the beginning (of creation). Rather, he says that when God began the work of creation, the Word existed already. He is eternal.
"And the Word was with God". The word "with" implies communion, the association of persons. As literally as this can be translated, it is "the Word was face to face with God", "he was toward God" (pros ton theon). The Word existed in the beginning, and he was enjoying intimate communication with God. There is unity, and there is real diversity.
"And the Word was God". He possessed all the fullness of Godhood (Col.2:9). He was not a lesser god; he was God. All the attributes and qualities which God the Father possessed, he possessed. He was truly God, and yet he was different in his person from God the Father. So, what we have is truly one God, but we do not have a simplistic unity. What we have is the doctrine of the Trinity: that God is a triad, that God is one God indeed, but his unity is a complex unity, a unity that exists in diversity. If it is true that God exists in three persons, then John 1:1 is intelligible.
"And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5). This prayer of Jesus has to be understood in the light of John 1:1. In the beginning, God the Son was with God the Father, enjoying intimate communion with him, and now he is about to return. He prays for a return to the glory he had before the world was created. In John 17:24 there is this great, significant, and exciting statement: "Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world." Before God created other beings, did he feel isolated and lonely? There was a time when God alone existed. Everything is created except God; only God is eternal. There is a spiritual which says that when God alone existed, he was lonely and he said, "I'm going to make me a world, because I am lonely." Is it true that God was lonely? If you do not believe in the Trinity, you have a problem. You have a God who is finite from the start, because you ave a God who needed creation. You have a God who needed to create someone he could love and with whom he could communicate. The answer is the Trinity, the Christian doctrine of God. God did not need to create; he was not lonely. There was the Trinity. God had someone to love, and He had someone with whom he could communicate. Titus 1:2 speaks of "eternal life, which God...promised before times eternal." To whom did he promise it? Not to men-we did not exist. The promise made "before times eternal" implies that there was communication among the persons of the Trinity.
Now consider Romans 8:26,27.
Rom.8:26, 27
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The Holy Spirit is revealed in personal relationship with God in the above passage and it is clear that the Holy Spirit is not simply God at work in the world. Also consider Matt.28:19 and 2 Cor.13:14. It is unthinkable that the Trinity should be composed of God the Father, God, the Son, and a creature.
The fact that the Father and the Spirit are not one person, but two distinct persons, is shown in the fact that the Spirit makes intercession to the Father and the Father knows the mind of the Spirit (Rom.8:27,28). As to the Son, the Spirit is said to be "another Comforter" (John 14:16). "Another" specifically affirms that the Son and the Spirit are distinguishable. They are different, not in nature, but in their persons.
Sometimes we are asked, is it not true that the doctrine of the Trinity creates grave intellectual problems? The answer is no, the Trinity answers problems; it does not create them. As we have seen, it is the answer to the question: did God need to create? Do we really have a finite God who needs the creation? No, God did not need to create, because he was profoundly personal as the tri-personal God. He was not lonely. There was already love and communication before the foundation of the world. That is an exciting concept; it means that personality is at the heart of the universe. Personality has not come into being accidentally; but go back into eternity and you will find love and communication in the triune God forever. And it is this infinite God who is Creator. That is the tremendous doctrine of the being of the infinite God which is presented in Scripture.
I do apologize for the length of my answer. This is a complex topic and I believe God is too complex for man to fully comprehend. The Father is over the Son in authority and the Son is over the Holy Spirit in authority. Each person of the triune God has a separate purpose and role. We worship God the Father, seek to follow the example of God the Son, and are comforted and guided by the Holy Spirit both through the Word and in our prayers.
There is much more I could present, but my time is limited and I am sure this is much more to read than you probably wanted from me. If you have any further questions, please let me know.
