Among the many hang ups for people to become Christians is the Doctrine of Trinity. There are many theologians that will argue that the word trinity never appears in the New Testament. The theologians are correct, however references to The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit abound in Old and New Testaments. In Genesis it says "We created the heavens and Earth." (Genesis 1:1, note: many modern translations have replaced we with God). For those who fear this may be a change by Catholic priests, lets look at the Hebrew Word that is used for we. It is Elohim, a name of God that originally was plural tell a Rabbi changed it to be singular. The examples of the Trinity in the New Testament are numerous. Christ when praying to his Father (Abba) says, "Father, make them (my followers) one as you and I are one." (John 17:21). Christ in Gethsemane even says to the Father, "Let your will, not my will be done." (Luke 22:42). Jesus then says to the Sanhedrin that "From now on you shall see The Son of Man will be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and come on the clouds of heaven." (Matthew 26:64). When Jesus is telling to Nicodemius about being Born Again, he says "The wind blows wherever it pleases, you hear its sound, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes, so it is when the Spirit enters you and you are born again." (John 3:8).
Jesus mentions the Holy Spirit when he says, "When the Advocate (The Holy Spirit) comes, whom I will send to you from the Father--The Spirit of Truth (The Holy Spirit) who goes out from the Father- He will testify about me" (John 15:26). Jesus is saying clearly that The Holy Spirit is from and one with the Father, and because we have John 17:21 we know The Father and the Son are one. Therefore we have proof in those two passages alone that The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are one. If the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and guides unbelievers to the Son, and the Father and the Son are one, then the Holy Spirit is one with both the Father and Son.
The evidence for the entire Trinity is right there in the Scriptures, but the dispute is more over how can God be One God but three separate beings? Unlike the theologians who have labored to explain The Trinity via water, light, and analogies of co-joined triplets, I will say I have no idea. The truth, I am convinced that the Trinitarian God, The Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are God because I cannot explain Him. With all the deities of Hinduism, the one god of Islam, and all the other religions you can explain their deity or deities easily. These false gods have characteristics of humans and their followers can explain how they operate. If you can explain God, then you are his equal! The fact that I cannot tell someone how the Trinity works beyond Scripture and some logic is proof that he is God. Let me explain it like this. If we are the Creation, we have limitations. Just a like computer only has what is programed into it to know and find information, we likewise were programed by the Creator with only so much. Only by communing with the Trinity can we get updates and upgrades to our software (soul and spirit).
Let me use another example. A dog or cat can be quite smart, the internet is full of astonishingly bright animals on display. However, animals cannot fully comprehend us as humans. They know we are omnipotent because we can destroy them all if we want, they know we have the power and the brains to corner them. It is the same with God, we are like a dog or animal in comparison to the Creator. He is limitless knowledge, power, love, peace, justice, and so forth. In all these things we are limited. We can only know so much, exert so much power until we get frail, love so much, be peaceful for so long, be just occasionally, and etc. We are not equals to the Almighty and so it is sheer folly for us to put The Trinity on trial and judge Him and try to explain what we do not understand and what we are incapable of understanding! Even among our own kind, humans do not fully understand each other. We hide things from one another. I can have the closest companion, and that companion will not be able to know my full heart and every thought or understand every action. If we cannot expect this of each other, why do we expect that we can understand everything about God?!
In an intellectual age we have lost the joy of mystery. In matters of religion and politics we want a fine science and no mysteries. But in the opposite we love to watch films and read stories about adventures who are lost in the mystery and do not know their fate or what will become of them until the end of their journey. The Poet Wordsworth said, "we murder to dissect." (The Tables Turned). We want to know how the frog works and explain it as a scholar, but to do this we kill the frog and thus cannot learn anything from the frog naturally because it is dead. We are doing the same to God! We are murdering God to try and explain him, when we should be experiencing Him!
The doctrine of the Trinity is not a trifle. We must believe in The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit: One God but three persons. It may not make sense to us, but that is where faith must come in. If we choose to go mainstream and accept non-Trinitarianism, we fall from the Truth. We are told to believe, not explain everything about the Lord. God is family, even He who is almighty, omnipresent, omniscience, and omnipotent is a family. The reason we seek companionship and to be with others in a family is because God is a family: Father, Son, and Spirit. God is One and Three, not a heresy of Father being the greatest, Son being second best, and Spirit third. In a true family there is no greatest and least, there is a unity so transcendent that each member is equal and yet unique.
It is Trinitarianism that separates Christians from all other religions. If we just talk in terms of the generic word God, people are accommodating and kind, but as soon as you say that God is The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that Jesus is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only way to the Father," people quickly become argumentative and unkind. You see the Truth is rarely treated with civility. When people are told the truth they do not usually respond with joy, rather they act offended and vindictive. Do not hide the truth about God under a bushel because you fear people will dislike you. Speak up and tell the world that God is not a pantheon of thousands or millions of gods, he is not just one judgmental deity with an axe to grind, or
esoteric enlightenment. God is The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
Comments
Post a Comment