Continued from last weeks article

This week we will pick up where we left off with whether or not Jesus and the Holy spirit are God, and with the concept of the Trinity. Again, the current Jewish view of this would seem contrary but the concept was believed and discussed anciently and there was much agreement on this matter, although not readily discussed today. Certainly, the writers of the New Testament believed it and taught it without much opposition, so that tells you many of those who heard their teachings weren’t totally unaware of the concept.

All three are divine, unique persons , coeternal, coequal in essence (being). God has chosen to reveal this doctrine carefully and gradually. It is a guarded revelation due to our human limitations to understand it. Wrong ideas have produced many heresies that actually threatened the Faith in the past. God has given us many examples of this concept that we still have trouble understanding, and if we don’t fully understand the picture, we will truly struggle when confronted with the reality. For example, look at the mind. It is made up of conscience, will, emotion, intellect and so on. Psychiatric and psychological schools of thought have confronted the human mind and walk away dumfounded over the complexities, and yet we think we have the Creator of that mind figured out? Look at nature, the tree has the root, trunk and branches, the egg has the whites, yolk and shell. Light is one and yet it can be broken down to many colors, some of its essence we can’t even see with the human eye. Time is one yet distinct (past, present, future), space has length, breadth, height and so on. And the atom, well, we haven’t even explored all of that yet. Look at the cell and you will see the Lord giving us a glimpse of His essence. Even the names of God give us a clue. Elohim is masculine plural, used in a collective sense. YHVH is singular but is used for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The names Father (Deut 32.6), Son (Rom 8.14) and Holy Spirit (John 3) represent the individual roles each have to make it easy for us to understand the relationship and functions they have. These roles are not meant to be pushed beyond the clear, intended purposes in which they were given to us. For example, the “Son” does not mean subordinate to in essence to the Father. The Spirit is not a force or wind. The Father speaks of a position of authority, the disciplinarian, the teacher, provider and so on. The Son speaks of the mediator and servant, the Holy Spirit as the helper, comforter.

So, in conclusion, the concept of the Trinity, the three divine “persons” of the Godhead is a biblical concept clearly taught within the pages of Scripture. We should not go beyond the boundaries given in God’s description of Himself, but I hope this brief overview gives you a better understanding of this.