The Trinity

Because the concept of the Three-One God is so beyond what our limited minds can conceive many of the words we use we should considered as borrowed and imperfect expressions to then undiscribe God. For example "persons" as in "three persons" we should consider just our limited human language trying to explain something exceedingly mysterious. The word "persons" has its limitations and if pressed too far will lead to ideas which may not represent all that the Bible reveals about God.In similar manner "seperate" as in "seperate soul" also has its limitations as an expression to discribe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I would prefer to say that the Three are distinct but never seperated and never seperate. One lives within the Other. Where One lives the other is expressed.Though our language has its problems to discribe God's Being, we can enjoy and experience God. Our experience of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as God is not dependent on our ability to explain the Trinity or comprehend fully the Trinity. When asked too tough questions about the Trinity we have to learn to just say "We don't know." Though we don't know HOW something could we can still richly enjoy God and live in His presence. I don't know. I know sometimes the Bible says "Let Us" in relation to God speaking. And in John we see Jesus saying "And We will come and make an abode with him".So we see "Us" and "We" in relation to God. Yet there are many "I[s]" in relation to God. I find that the greatest peace and blessing comes from just receiving these utterances of the Bible and saying "Amen" with praise and faith in all that God has spoken. What God is always connected to what God does. We read that the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Spirit is eternal. So God is triune from eternity. Yet the unfolding of His operation shows that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each related to an important step or stage of His work within and upon man.So I would say that the answer to your question is both. He IS simply that way. And He must choose to be that way in order to carry out His eternal purpose with man. My answer to you is Yes and Yes. I said above that there are passages which indicate that Each of the Triune God is eternal - always was and always will be.Yes we also have passages which show that the Word became flesh. And we see that the last Adam became a life giving Spirit. This is God in a process of becomming. The incarnation of Christ as a man is revealed as God becoming a man. And Christ becoming a life giving Spirit is a process of One of the Triune God becoming Another. There is no denying it.This should make sense because God was not a man and became a man. And then the man that He became became in a form in which He could enter into us to be our spiritual life - "the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)All the expressions about Christ being in the believers, living in the Christians, or being with or inside the disciples is based upon the fact that in resurrection the man Jesus became a life giving Spirit. He brought what He incarnated into into the eternal Spirit.In some circles of Christian theology we refer to this as the essential Trinity and the economical Trinity. One simple place in the New Testament which conveys this is John 16:15. In speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit Jesus says:"All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you."All that the Father has is embodied in the Son. What is the Father's is the Son's. And the Holy Spirit will then take what is of the Father which is the Son's and declare it to the disciples. The Father is the source. The Son is the course. And the Holy Spirit is the flow and the transmission.The Father is the source of the divine and eternal life. The Son is the embodiment and expressed manifestation of the eternal and divine life. And the Holy Spirit is the flow and the impartation of the divine and eternal life to man that man.The Trinity is for the impartation of God's being into man that God and man might be united together - He as the unique Godhead and man as the corporate container and expression of this one entity - the New Jerusalem. This is the Trinity for God's dominion and expression and man's enjoyment and salvation.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Doesn't Job 38 say that the sons of God (angels in this instance) rejoiced at God's laying the foundation of the earth? That would imply that they were in existence when God was making the earth."Where were you [the man Job] when I laid the foundation of the earth? .... Onto what were its bases sunk, Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (See Job 38:4-7)The 24 elders in Revelation chapter 4 and 5 and elsewhere in Revelation, I believe are the elders of the creation. Their initial appearance in chapter 4 is definitely in connection to God being the Creator of all things. "Elders" indicates that they have been around the longest. In a nutshell the 24 elders are the elders of God's creation. Taken along with Job 38 above this argues for them being created before man.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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1.) You are assuming that "sons of God" refers to angels. That's a whole other topic.
=================================That is exactly right that I am assuming "sons of God" in Job refers to angels. And with good reason. I am assuming therefore that the assumption is valid.=================================
2.) Job 38 is full of figurative language. Do you want to take the earth's "corner stone" literally too?
=================================Again I agree that there is a lot of figurative language in the book of Job. That fact does not lead me to believe that "sons of God" does not refer to angelic beings in Job.====================================
3.) Whether or not angels predate man is a minor nitpick. It has little or no bearing on the topic.
===================================When you want to write something perhaps not valid that is a minor point, give us a heads up so we won't bother nit picking your wrong statements.We'll just worry about debunking your topic related blunders.

Let's just say that as the Bible refers to "Lord of lords" and "King of kings" and "Song of songs" we may also assume there is a Savior of saviors.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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That sounds about right. And , in my opinion , calling something a 'mystery' is admiting it doesn't make any sense what so ever, but we will tell people that anyway.
=================================================Don't you think that even our own human life is somewhat a mystery to us?When I saw my first child born, I couldn't shake the sensation that it was a great and wonderful mystery - the birth of a child.If human life is somewhat of a mystery, the divine and uncreated life of God probably should have some amount of mystery associated with Him also.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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Christians seem, on the one hand, to have forgotten the truth this political reality and on the other hand ascribe all that myth to their chosen Jewish Icon: Jesus. King Jesus, that is; with all the power, glory and despotic tyranny which that implies.
=======================================Sounds like you want it both ways.Which is it? We've forgotten the political reality or we remember and assign it to Jesus ???Want to make up your mind which criticism your more fond of ?

I wrote a reply to this. Then I lost it in a technical problem. I started to re-write it but then thought that it was hard for me to relate it to the Topic of Trinity.Maybe you could show me how this Savior matter effects the Topic of Trinity.Anyway, king of kings carries the meaning of king par excellence. And superlative king. Song of songs is the same. It is not necessarily a song made up of all songs. Neither is Lord of lords necessarily a lord over all lords but a lord superlative above all lords.And if you cannot detect the qualitative difference between the saving of say, Samson or Gideon and that of Christ, I think your comparison is faulty.Lastly, individual salvation fits into the salvation on a wider scale. I'm not sure if you're saying that Christ only represents an individual's Savior.Clearly with the Messiah you get both in the Bible. In His larger saving of the world and of Israel fits our own personal and individual salvation.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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Hi jaywill. Welcome back. I see you've been gone long enough to forget how to do proper quotes.
==================Hi Ringo. It will come back to me.==================
As I recall, SK was arguing against the concept of the "Trinity". Since God said in Genesis 1, "Let us make man", some have said that God was speaking to His alter egos, the Son and the Holy Spirit. SK disgreed, suggesting that God was, in fact, talking to the angels whom - according to SK - "we all know were created before man".I simply asked if we do, in fact, all "know" that. Your Job reference may or may not be a valid answer to that question.
========================I see. Thanks.Let Us Create man ... ?The man has become as one of Us ...?Let Us go down and there confuse ....?Who will I send. Who will go for Us ...?Someone thinks God is speaking to the angels in all these biblical references?I don't think so. Its tempting. But I don't really think so.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Don't you understand?The highest symbol of submission to authority becomes the highest authority.

And if your imagined understanding of incarnation in this way is inadaquate, you are willing to change it ?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Your assumption of all that incarnation means is inadaquate. So this amounts to something like a strawman argument.However, even if it were a representation of incarnation Christ would still be much superior to David.Consult with Uriah, Bethsheba, and the prophet Nathan for details.That is unless such "possession" and giving of divine instructions has nothing to do with character and morality. But this would contradict David's own many psalms about the nature of a king set up by God.

I get the thrust of your argument to be that there should be no reason why the nonbiblical phrase "Savior of saviors" should be applied to Jesus Christ.But regardless of which way we interpret the Hebrew phrase "the Something of somethings" Jesus, such a phrase of "Savior of saviors" would be appropriate to Jesus.Now if timing is your problem and you do not yet see all of His saving work completed, this may be just your unbelief and unappreciation derived from your lack of faith.Moses came as a leader and savior to Egypt. However, his first attempts to miraculously impress Pharoah resulted in Pharoah encreasing the people's hardship. Pharoah thought they were too idle and made them go gather their own straw. The Israelites became extremely skeptical about what kind of savior and leader this Moses was anyway.On other occasions they sought to stone Moses and return to Egypt which they ironically refered to as the land of milk and honey! Their unbelief and rebellion greatly hampered their concept of Moses being a divinely sent savior. Eventually, God did vindicate Moses.So I think your reluctance to acknowledge Christ as a Savior of saviors is enfluenced by the fact that His work is still in the process of being consummated. I believe what God has said concerning Christ and that He is still moving towards the consummation of His salvific work in some important aspects.So some of the Jews threw up their hands and said "Some savior this Moses is!" when their labors were made harder by Pharoah.And some people like you look at the state of the Israel still surrounded by enemies and say "Savior of saviors my foot. No way I'll call Jesus that." That is your murmuring and unbelief speaking.I can testify to you that knowing Jesus Christ in His form as the Holy Spirit has absolutely been a salvation to millions of us. And I don't simply mean as a hope to escape eternal judgment. I mean I know thousands today whose daily lives are effected by the power of Christ's indwelling presence to absolutely SAVE them from the fallen Adamic sinful nature.If you have no experience with this saving of Jesus many do. And we have found that He is indeed the only Person who truly can do an inside out job of saving a man or women from many things which plague us from the fall of man.Could your reluctance to ascribe Savior of saviors to Jesus be a reflection of your own failure to appropriate His salvation work in your life? The kind of Bible a person has, many times reflects the kind of person reading it."As face answers to face in water, so the mind of a man reflects the man." (Somewhere in Proverbs)Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

What Jesus spoke about accountability to an eternal God at a final judgment was not reserved just for those who were heckeling Him in the audience. These warnings were to all people.When I compare the life of Joseph with that of Jesus I see a definite typology. For a season Joseph's brothers who betrayed him did not reckonize the one who they betrayed into slavery was not an ascended ruler. He alone was able to rescue them from famine and starvation. But Joseph concealed his identity for a season and administered some corrective disciplining lessons on his brothers.At the appriate time he revealed his true identity to them. He showed them that all that they had done to him in their jealousy and persecution God had ordained to happen for their latter salvation.I think we are in a period of history in which the identity of the Jewish Messiah is concealed from Israel for a period. They are learning some many lessons at the moment. This temporary time of Christ's concealment does not make Him less their ultimate savior from their enemies.The story is not over yet. God works out His plans over the world over a long period of time to our senses. For my part I rest assured that Jesus is the Savior not only of man's eternal well being but of the nation of Israel. He is working out His plans.The reformation of the very nation of Israel in 1948 caused prophecy students to sit up and take great interest. We counted this as the leaves growing tender and an indication that the summer was near - according to the parable of Jesus.I'm sorry if you are still possessed with doubt. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The first disciples were Jews and were concerned about the matter that you speak of. We see this exchange in the beginning of Acts:"So the ones who came together asked Him, saying, Lord, are You at this time restoring the kingdom of Israel?

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But He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set by His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:7,8)Now the gospel life is conditioned on our cooperation. Down through the centries some have desired to go along with God's plan of grace and some have decided just to have their "ticket" to be saved. You know also that Jesus taught about the different results of the kingdom seed sown into the hearts of men. Some withered, some were choked by anxieties, some bore fruit 30, 60, 100 fold.Through the centries the remnant of overcoming disciples has collected more and more in paradise. At His second coming these overcomers who cooperated with New Testament grace will be rewarded to reign with Christ in His millennial kingdom.So this intervening time in which our patience is waiting while we spread the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, also serves to amass for the Lord Jesus the co-kings who will assist in His securing the planet.Don't be discouraged. Don't be impatient. Believe in Christ Jesus. Obey the gospel. In due time you will see everything fulfilled above what you could ask or think.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I'll respond in full latter today.We are presently on our way to enjoy the Trinity. See you latter.
But the birth of my child is very analogous to the economical move of the Triune God. I will demonstrate that shortly.Secondly, you are too hard on many of the ancient brothers who developed the trinitarian doctrine in defense of wrong attacks against the Person of Christ. And these attacks were the initiation of such the trinitarian creeds. They caused a reaction.And it is important to realize that these attacks against the nature of the Person of Christ came not from just one angle, but from every angle.In a sense the trinitarian doctrine was like the covered wagons forming a circle for defense.Now I really must go. But I think we can have some good conversation on the matter latter. Your tone seems agreable though disagreeing.jwEdited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.