trinity explained

[HAZARD]

On ‎1‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 4:34 AM, mevosper said:

The wind blowing here is likened to God "planting seeds" of his spirit (his power, might, knowledge, will, etc) where he wills. God determines where his spirit will be given and unto whom. But as the wind blows, who has been planted prior or who is next to be planted, we do not know. All we can do as disciples is to water.

This is also seen when Christ, after his resurrection, blows the comforter onto his disciples and told them "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22). Once Christ's work on the cross was complete and he appeared to them in his glorified body, the spirit of God was able to once again dwell with/in mankind. And it was first given to the disciples. This was their resurrection (the spirit quickens the mortal body).  

 

As the natural man hears the wind, so the man born again hears the voice of the Holy Spirit.

[FresnoJoe]

15 hours ago, HAZARD said:

As the natural man hears the wind,
so the man born again hears the voice of the Holy Spirit.

And He

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Romans 8:10-111

Lives Right Inside Of You

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 1/30/2016 at 1:52 PM, Willa said:

I think of it like an egg.  There is a shell, a white and a yoke.  They are one egg.  

Analogies like this, always break down. Why would we think otherwise? We are using the physical, to explain the spiritual, and the finite, to explain the infinite? It will always come up a bit short. 

In this case, the egg analogy we are seeing three part of something, that make up the whole. The shell is just one part of the egg, same for the white and the yolk.

In the case of the trinity, the Father is not part of God, He is fully God, same with the Son and the Spirit. There is one God. There are three persons, the Father, who is God, the Son, who is God, and the Spirit, who is God. Each is God, they are not each 1/3 God.

Part of where we go wrong, is assuming two things, the first, is assuming that there is a way to explain it that it will become clear. Secondly it is foolish of us too assume that with our imperfect and limited minds, can understand something, that is so outside of our experience, can be compared with things in our experience, that are of an entirely different nature.

In reality, I doubt that the Trinity, is meant to be understood. There are myriads of things in our lives, that we do not understand. I do not understand chemistry, higher mathematics, nuclear physics, etc, but I accept that these things exist as they do, whether or not I understand them. People tend to think, that the Trinity does not make sense, therefore it cannot be true. How foolish do we have to be, to think that our failure to understand something, makes it true or not?

So, rather than explain, or try to explain how the Trinity can be true, or how it works or whatever, something that we are not able to do, I think the proper approach is to recognize that the Bible teaches that there is one God, and that there are three persons, each being God, and that the three persons are that one God. We need not understand how it works, we only need to understand what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches. 

Our choice is then, to decide whether the accept the Bible as true, or reject it as false. Of course we could say parts of it are true, and parts of it are not true. We can also, deny that the Bible teaches certain things, any time we come across an idea that we cannot understand, or do not like, but all of that is another topic. So . . . 

I think the thing to do is to understand that concept, what it is that we mean by the trinity, and either accept it or not, but realize that it need not be understood, to be accepted. Here is a common way of illustrating the concept:

Now, after all of that, I would offer another failed analogy, similar to the egg analogy, but a little better, hopefully, it is self explanitory:

 

 

[mevosper]

There is a lot of imagery of nature within the Bible. I try to picture the spirit of God growing in me like a seed planted by him. It takes time to sprout. Is tender while young. Grows to maturity by watering (reading the word, fellowshipping with believers, being open about our faith). As it grows it bears fruit.

This is the Spirit of God. This right now gets the majority of the watering from hearing the word. I prefer King James... This is also our sun. This is the light of God. This is what Christ came to die for, and be raised again. Our (man's) fleshly body no longer is just buried in hell. There is the Spirit of God that quickens the dead. This is the Spirit of God. 

[JohnD]

I love the argument that the trinity does not exist because it was not invented until 325 CE. LOL

That's like saying the three spatial dimensions does not exist because it was only recently discovered in all human history.

The scriptural canon was not complete for overall comparative study until the 4th century CE.

 

[JohnD]

What clouds the clear teaching of the trinity (the triune nature of the one God) is oftentimes terminology and the examples people try to use to depict this compound unity.

Also misapplied scriptures clouds the clear teaching of the trinity in the Bible. The most frequent misapplication is in attributing to the Father of Jesus passages that actually refer to Jesus himself (preincarnate). God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are in the Old Testament (obviously) but the majority of the time it is the preincarnate Jesus (God the Word) who is the LORD / Yahweh. 

YHVH being the divine name which applies to all three (Matthew 28:19). Think of it as a surname.

God the Word is the lone Creator of all things created in the beginning (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:13-16, Isaiah 44:24). This is the one who became Jesus (John 1:14, Philippians 2:5-11). 

God the Father (1 John 1:1-2) and God the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:1-2) were present of course. But God the Word acted alone / by himself (Isaiah 44:24).

The only thing God the Father created is the body of Jesus (John 1:14, Hebrews 10:5, Hebrews 1:5). 

God the Holy Spirit placed the Holy Embryo into the womb of the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:20). He is the author of the Bible (2 Peter 1:20-21) and the giver of truth (John 16:13) sent by both God the Father (John 14:26) and God the Son (John 15:26) into the world (proving he is neither God the Father or God the Son since he is sent by both).

Be careful of three-in-one comparisons. Even 1x1x1=1 is actually modalism (use your finger to demonstrate holing up the same finger three times). Eggs, the tri-point of water, etc. all fail. The best model if you must use one is a family of three. Same nature, distinct yet one. How many Gods are there? One. When Adam and Eve and Cain were the only humans on earth... how many families were there? One. One human race. Simple logic and simple math.  

 

[Willa]

I like your peanut analogy.   Simple minds like simple illustrations.  Try explaining it all to the average grade school kid.  The triangle thing works for me but not for everyone.  A good teacher can start with the simplest illustration and work toward the complex.  I had a college A&P teacher break down a DNA chain to choo choo trains for those of us who were slow to grasp.  It worked.  She is one of the most gifted teachers I have had.  

On Tuesday, March 08, 2016 at 10:15 AM, Omegaman 3.0 said:

Ananolgies like this, always break down. Why would we think otherwise? We are using the physical, to explain the spiritual, and the finite, to explain the infinite? It will always come up a bit short. 

In this case, the egg analogy we are seeing three part of something, that make up the whole. The shell is just one part of the egg, same for the white and the yolk.

In the case of the trinity, the Father is not part of God, He is fully God, same with the Son and the Spirit. There is one God. There are three persons, the Father, who is God, the Son, who is God, and the Spirit, who is God. Each is God, they are not each 1/3 God.

Part of where we go wrong, is assuming two things, the first, is assuming that there is a way to explain it that it will become clear. Secondly it is foolish of us too assume that with our imperfect and limited minds, can understand something, that is so outside of our experience, can be compared with things in our experience, that are of an entirely different nature.

In reality, I doubt that the Trinity, is meant to be understood. There are myriads of things in our lives, that we do not understand. I do not understand chemistry, higher mathematics, nuclear physics, etc, but I accept that these things exist as they do, whether or not I understand them. People tend to think, that the Trinity does not make sense, therefore it cannot be true. How foolish do we have to be, to think that our failure to understand something, makes it true or not?

So, rather than explain, or try to explain how the Trinity can be true, or how it works or whatever, something that we are not able to do, I think the proper approach is to recognize that the Bible teaches that there is one God, and that there are three persons, each being God, and that the three persons are that one God. We need not understand how it works, we only need to understand what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches. 

Our choice is then, to decide whether the accept the Bible as true, or reject it as false. Of course we could say parts of it are true, and parts of it are not true. We can also, deny that the Bible teaches certain things, any time we come across an idea that we cannot understand, or do not like, but all of that is another topic. So . . . 

I think the thing to do is to understand that concept, what it is that we mean by the trinity, and either accept it or not, but realize that it need not be understood, to be accepted. Here is a common way of illustrating the concept:

Now, after all of that, I would offer another failed analogy, similar to the egg analogy, but a little better, hopefully, it is self explanitory:

 

 

[JohnD]

gettin' hungry.

[RustyAngeL]

On 3/9/2016 at 10:15 AM, Omegaman 3.0 said:

Analogies like this, always break down. Why would we think otherwise? We are using the physical, to explain the spiritual, and the finite, to explain the infinite? It will always come up a bit short. 

In this case, the egg analogy we are seeing three part of something, that make up the whole. The shell is just one part of the egg, same for the white and the yolk.

In the case of the trinity, the Father is not part of God, He is fully God, same with the Son and the Spirit. There is one God. There are three persons, the Father, who is God, the Son, who is God, and the Spirit, who is God. Each is God, they are not each 1/3 God.

Part of where we go wrong, is assuming two things, the first, is assuming that there is a way to explain it that it will become clear. Secondly it is foolish of us too assume that with our imperfect and limited minds, can understand something, that is so outside of our experience, can be compared with things in our experience, that are of an entirely different nature.

In reality, I doubt that the Trinity, is meant to be understood. There are myriads of things in our lives, that we do not understand. I do not understand chemistry, higher mathematics, nuclear physics, etc, but I accept that these things exist as they do, whether or not I understand them. People tend to think, that the Trinity does not make sense, therefore it cannot be true. How foolish do we have to be, to think that our failure to understand something, makes it true or not?

So, rather than explain, or try to explain how the Trinity can be true, or how it works or whatever, something that we are not able to do, I think the proper approach is to recognize that the Bible teaches that there is one God, and that there are three persons, each being God, and that the three persons are that one God. We need not understand how it works, we only need to understand what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches. 

Our choice is then, to decide whether the accept the Bible as true, or reject it as false. Of course we could say parts of it are true, and parts of it are not true. We can also, deny that the Bible teaches certain things, any time we come across an idea that we cannot understand, or do not like, but all of that is another topic. So . . . 

I think the thing to do is to understand that concept, what it is that we mean by the trinity, and either accept it or not, but realize that it need not be understood, to be accepted. Here is a common way of illustrating the concept:

Now, after all of that, I would offer another failed analogy, similar to the egg analogy, but a little better, hopefully, it is self explanitory:

 

This is great!

[Guest Robert]

2 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

I find your list of "fathers" too modern, too far removed from the original Apostles and from Jesus Christ Himself. It is my understanding that later than Justinian do not qualify as Church Fathers. Of course Augustine is called "Saint" in many circles, but he's not my type. BTW, what about Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Surely he belongs on such a luminous list...

I suppose Polycarp, Justin Martyr and ignatius of Antioch were out sick when the list of "church fathers" was being drawn up....