Why I am a Trinitarian

[Timothy]

Cool.

I look forward to reading your insights bronto.

[Biscuit]

Here are parts of an Email where a pastor and I have been "debating" this topic.

[Biscuit]

I left something out. I found the following on a pamplet that a pastor gave me. I see no author, so have the horse sense to chew up the hay and spit out the sticks:

Matthew 28:19-20 is questioned by reputable scholars as the authentic formula for baptism. Every example in Acts shows that the candidate is immersed into the single name Jesus--not a trinitarian formula.

A trinity or triad of deities is found in almost all pagan religions and likely sprang from an attempt to please pagan converts.

Matthew 28:19-20 commands immersing into "the name" (singular). The Jerusalem Bible. a Catholic publication, admits the verse is spurious and had likely crept into the text from liturgical usage. This same finding is expressed in "World Religions",  "The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics",  "New Schaff Herzog Religious Encyclopedia", "Hastings Dictionary of the Bible", and other sources.    :T:

[brontosaurus]

Okay, people I will do my best...

[brontosaurus]

The trinity doctrine gives us a definition of semantics to satisfy the question in our minds of "How can three be one?"  That is fine.  But it paints no picture for us to truly see how God works, nor does it answer all those other haunting questions that come up as we read scripture after scripture that reveal all sorts of other dimensions to the reality.  There is a deeper truth to fully grasping this that can change the way you see how you ought to love yourself, your own children, your ability to manipulate the spirit realm, and many other things.

Okay.  Here begins:

Jesus is God's arm.

"Who has believed our message and to whom has the ARM of the LORD been revealed? ...He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering." -Isaiah 53:1,3

"Surely the ARM of the LORD is not too short to save,

nor his ear too dull to hear..." -Isaiah 59:1

"He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so HIS OWN ARM worked salvation for him..." -Isaiah 59:16

God reached his arm down to earth to rescue us.  Just as you can reach your arm down to the floor and make your two fingers "walk" on the floor, in a similar (though probably much more mysterious) way, He made his arm walk among us for a time.  He knew no sin, and we were under the authority of sin, so he had to experience sin to to rescue us from it's power.  He made his own arm to suffer the pain that we might not see the wrath we deserve.  And for a time, his arm was "cut off"

"After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be CUT OFF and will have nothing." -Daniel 9:26

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!" -Matthew 27:46

But after his suffering was complete, God retracted his arm back to Himself.

"After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at THE RIGHT HAND of God." -Mark 16:19

So Jesus is as the very ARM of God.

Jesus is God's WORD.

"In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God.  And the Word was God." -John 1:1

Jesus is God's SON

"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. -John 20:31

What do these three descriptions of Jesus all have in common: Arm, Word, Son?

Answer: they are all EXTENSIONS of God.  

God REACHES down to earth.

God SPEAKS forth His word.

God SENDS his son.

Jesus is the overflow of God's heart.  

"For out of the overflow of the heart, a man speaks."

Like a son, he goes OUT where his Father sends Him, to do the work of His father.

He is the Sent one, the messenger, the arm, the extension of God to man, the message of the Most High to His beloved, the divine part of God that is the connection to making US a part of God...  He is where God is acting.  Every time God communicates, acts, works, etc. that action is Jesus.

"He is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn over all creation,  

for by him all things were created

Things in heaven and on earth,

visible and invisible,

whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;

All things were created by him and for him.  

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.  

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead...

For God was pleased... through him, to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

-Colossians 1:15-20

Want me to talk now about the Holy Spirit?  That will take a whole other exposition...

[CWJ]

bronto...your post was good....not to the point of "bragging" and calling others foolish, false.

I don't think what you've posted, although very in line with scripture, is so very profound.(solving the mystery)

We can all read verses and gain some partial insight to God's character, and become closer to Him.

I just don't see where you have solved the mystery of Godliness.

My angle is how can we, mere mortals, define with 100% understanding (mentally) a spiritual God and Creator and Saviour of the universe?

I say it's nonsense to say anyone can know in full God's being while in this flesh.

Yes seek Him,....but know that...."Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;  and His GREATNESS is UNSEARCHABLE "    Psalms 145:3

How can we...limited in being(for now), fully know the One who is unlimited in being?

I look forward to more of your insights.

[BlindSeeker]

Nicely said Carl.

Peace.

[brontosaurus]

I do not disagree that we will never know the fullness of God or everything He is, I said that in my post.  But the verse you used is a worship verse: it's point is to try to paint a picture of the limitlessness of God, that we may fall on our faces and worship Him - NOT a verse to disuade us from trying to seek out His mysteries.  

God delights in revealing Himself to those who seek Him, and He will show more and more and more as we seek and pray for more and more...

What I was specifically criticizing are those who use verses like the one you did as a cop-out: "Since we will never know, we should just accept how much we do know, and leave it at that..."  This is the mentality I find, whenever I talk about the "trinity" - "Well, this is my understanding, and the rest is too difficult for human minds to comprehend, so don't worry about it." - that is the attitude I find false and foolish, and contrary to how God wants us to be.  

There is much more insight into this study that I haven't given yet, I just wanted to see some reactions first - plus, I needed a break 'cause it takes some effort to try to put it all together in a way that doesn't misrepresent it...

[BlindSeeker]

God delights in revealing Himself to those who seek Him, and He will show more and more and more as we seek and pray for more and more...

I absolutely agree!

What I was specifically criticizing are those who use verses like the one you did as a cop-out: "Since we will never know, we should just accept how much we do know, and leave it at that..."

[martyr]

I'm looking forward to it also.