How about a musical chord? Three notes. One chord.

Becka.

You are on the right track on two points. 1) we don’t have it all figured out and 2) that the members of the trinity are very close even in person. It is often called the “perichoresis”. It means “to dance around”. It was articulated best by the capidocian Fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries. It speaks of the mutual indwellin of the persons of the Godhead. The Father is in the Son, Son in the Father, etc. look it up. It is very helpful.

Haha! Thanks for the welcome! I didn’t know you’d answer me so quickly. I don’t claim to have it all figured out, and even now I waffle between the oneness theory and the Trinity because I simply don’t “know”. None of us really do understand the essence of it.

However, even if Yeshua ISN’T Yahweh incarnate (or at least the Father, since the Son IS God), then I think the Trinity would be much more tightly knit than we understand it. Saying there are “three persons” brings to mind there are three separate personalities in Heaven. But even the prophets, when they saw God’s throne, only saw ONE throne. Therefore, if the Trinity exists, they really are ONE, perhaps able to separate, but forever woven together.

See, I believe Heaven will be a very personal place. My prayer life with God is intensely personal, therefore, I believe we will have public worship in God’s Temple, but also personal fellowship with Christ as His Bride. If Christ is able to appear to each of us personally in Heaven, most likely through His omniscience, then perhaps He is able to also separate Himself as such for the incarnation.

Just thinking about it twists my brain into a pretzel! And you’re right, I don’t think we will fully understand it by any stretch until we’re before Him ourselves.

God Bless,
~~Becka

Well a parable is not a true story. Christ’s incarnation was a historical event. But certainly his life is an example of submission to the Father.

But you are right that they are all YHWH. In the Old Testament we have many hints to a plurality in the Godhead but it is not explicitly revealed until the New Testament. Notice for example that God said “let US make man in OUR image”. Both plural pronouns. However whe God does make man it say “he” made man in his image. There we have both unity and plurality represented.

In other words, Christ’s very LIFE was a parable of sorts, for those who had ears to hear. Calling Himself the “Son” was giving us a model for submission to God the Father while at the same time appearing as “separate and apart” from the Father, for those who did NOT have an ear to hear.

Everything He did, whether praying or thanking the Father was a lesson for US, as to how WE should pray or thank the Father. Even going off to be by Himself with God. If Christ was Yahweh incarnate, He would need to teach not only by words, but also by deeds and example. So people claiming, “Then Who’d He pray to?” don’t really have a leg to stand on in that regard.

Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was a lesson in submission to God’s will, no matter the cost. (As a side note, none of the Apostles were awake when Christ prayed to God with sweat as blood, so I’ve always wondered when did they get that knowledge of what Christ prayed for? Did Christ tell them after the resurrection? Did they just know by the Spirit?)

But this Scripture tells me that Christ’s life itself might have also been a parable regarding the Father/Son relationship (emphasis mine):

John 16:25-27:
25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. ***The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.*** 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and ***I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.***

~~Becka

Becky,

I am so very pleased that you are thinking so hard about this very important issue.

The one thing to keep in mind as you prayerfully think about this is that the father is not the son, and the spirit is not the son. And the son is not the father. Yet they are all God. Otherwise who is Christ praying to in the Garden the night before his crucifixion? Who does the Son say he is going to send in the upper room. Certainly not himself. He does not have multiple personality disorder! When Jesus says that the Father loves him he is not saying that he loves himself. So it is important that we keep the distinction of person in place as well as the unity in the essence of the Godhead.

Again, what a wonderful thing you are doing in praying that you can know Him more. God bless you!

Here’s what I’ve learned from my own studies about the Trinity. I’ve been praying for God to reveal His nature to me — if it can even be understood. I want to know Him as the Apostles knew Him.

Yes, Christ was Jewish, and until that point, Yahweh was known as ONE God. We know God never changes. Therefore, the “Son” was nothing new to God. It seems the Bible’s focus “changes” from Father to Son in the NT. But God never changes… Therefore, if God reaches men through Yeshua the Son, He’s always done it that way — the burning bush, the pillar of fire, wrestling with Jacob, in the fiery furnace — ALL Yeshua.

Now, throughout the OT, you have verse after verse proclaiming Yahweh as the Good Shepherd. The Holy One of Israel. The Savior and there is none beside Him. Unto us a son is born, and His name shall be everlasting Father, Mighty God… When Christ is revealed at the incarnation, HE is now attributed as the Good Shepherd – who lays down His life for His sheep. HE is now referred to as the Holy One of Israel and the Savior of the world. By Christ’s own mouth, He and the Father are One, and if you’ve seen Him, you’ve seen the Father.

Therefore, “Yahweh” cannot just be the Father, Yahweh must also be the Son, since by John the Apostle’s words in John 1, CHRIST was Creator, as without Him, not anything was made that has been made. Paul expounds that everything is made by Him and for Him, and THROUGH Him everything holds together.

Also, the name “Yeshua” was a common name in ancient Israel, so why should THAT name be above all names? It isn’t. The name given above all names is YAHWEH. Therefore, if all power is given to the Son and the Son is the Creator, the Savior, the Holy One, and given the name above every other name (even the Father’s?) then it doesn’t make SENSE to me that the Father would sit back in the shadows while the Son inherits the Kingdom — UNLESS the Son IS the Father and simply CALLED the Son (the only begotten of the Father) during His incarnation.

It is my opinion that the Spirit is God’s omniscient love, power, and knowledge – His invisible qualities that indwells us. Therefore, this makes more sense to me as to how God could be “ONE” and yet appear as three.

If there are three persons or essences to God, then He would be like a braid, three strands forever entwined, never unraveling. This would fit the model that they are always fully the braid, but three parts of the braid; never separate, always woven together.

~~Becka

Jesus, clearly, was Jewish. An honest reading of the Old Testament will slowly force you to see that the Trinitarian God you worship is something new. Christians ought to take the Reformation back beyond the manipulations of Athanasius and the political bishops of the fourth century, to discover and revive the beliefs of the earliest Christians. God is One. PEACE.

When God created man in His own image and likeness, I think He was pulling from His trinity model of existence.
The Father seems often times to be the “brains of the operation”
Jesus is the executor of the plan
The Holy Spirit is the life/power source of it.

When God created us, He gave us
A soul (brains)
A body (what we use to execute our plans)
A spirit (life source)

I may be wrong entirely, but I haven’t found reason to believe otherwise just yet. What do you think?

Some form of modalism seems to me the sole way of reconciling monotheism with the assertion that Jesus is the incarnation of God the Son. To go beyond thinking of one God revealing himself in three aspects (modalism, or some form of it) to try to say anything about the ontological substance of God seems unwarranted both Scripturally and intellectually.