My Blog/jyojyo

It was mentioned in Chapter 14 that, “God is manifested as
an undivided unity in a threefold nature of God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit being of equal substance and are tangible wherefore are
called persons.” We have to define the words applied here to obtain clarity of
the terms used.

 

Being
equal in substance here means being of the same essence and not of being of a
physical matter. It can be conceptualized having essential significance. The
Godhead being tangible does not limit its nature as can be touched or felt by
touch. The word tangible here means being definite or precise in purpose
wherein you can specify its nature; and you can relate it likely to your own.

 

Lastly,
“being tangible wherefore are called persons”, means they being of definite
fashion whether visible or intelligible, are classified like the pronouns, as
of the three classes of them in grammar. In the baptism of Jesus, the Father
was indicated as the speaker (the first person) with Him saying “my” beloved
Son; the Son was disclosed as the subject spoken to (the second person, ‘you’
or as in ‘this’); while the Holy Spirit (falling as the third person, ‘he’ or
‘it’ though this was not indicated) was symbolized as the subject spoken
somehow attached and is identified to the Godhead being apparent or visible to
John the Baptist

 

It
is revealed in the Old Testament that the word for God is “Elohim” or ‘persons’
(plural) and is different from “El” or ‘person’ (singular) though God in a
threefold nature is considered as one thus forming the Trinity in an undivided
unity. This explanation reiterates that God being Triune though the Holy ‘One’
is beyond human comprehension and is therefore classified as “a mystery”.

 

According
to a fellow man of God in one of the other Trinitarian churches, “The Trinity
is a biblical concept that expresses the dynamic character of God, not just a
Greek idea pressed into Scripture from Philosophical or Religious speculation.
He further elaborates that while the term Trinity does not appear in the
Scripture, the Trinitarian structure appears throughout the New Testament to
affirm that God Himself is manifested through Jesus Christ by means of the
Spirit.

 

In
the documentation compiled through a certain Jerry M. Henry, it says that two
errors appear in history while considering the Trinitarian doctrine. These were
‘Tri-theism (Three-gods)’ and ‘Unitarianism’. In Tri-theism, the error is made
by emphasizing the distinctiveness of the Godhead to the point that the Trinity
is seen as three separate Gods, or ‘Christian Polytheism’. On the other hand,
Unitarianism excludes the concept of distinctiveness while focusing solely on
the aspect of God the Father. In this way, Christ and the Holy Spirit are
placed in lower categories and made less than divine. Both errors compromise
the effectiveness and contribution of the activity of God in redemptive
history.

 

Somehow
in the magazine ‘Know the Truth’, a catholic publication, in its banner
statement in an article ‘TRINITY’ IN THE BIBLE, it says that those who deny the
Divinity of Jesus are compelled to deny the Divine nature of the Holy Spirit.
For them, “The Trinity of God” is beyond human understanding. So they deny it.
They just forget the fact that God, who created man, can never be a slave of
human intelligence. Furthermore, they consider the Holy Spirit as an angel or
one of the seven spirits before the throne of God, this doctrine being
erroneous as opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic ‘Trinitarians’.

 

We
can find in Genesis 1:26 the following passage: Then God said: “Let Us
make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” In the succeeding
verse, it says, “God created man in His image; in the divine image, He
created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:27).” Thus,
herein, the likeness of God is plural as He creates both the male
and the female human beings, Adam and Eve. To Fr. Paul Kaiparambadan, as Adam
and Eve shared one flesh, the Father and the Son shares also in one substance.
Adam and Eve were one spirit, just like Father and Son shares one Spirit
(Malachi 2:15). Thus, the whole creation becomes the ‘image’ reflection, or
mirroring of the manifold life of Divine nature of Trinity.

 

Likewise,
the Lord who came down to see the tower of Babel said, “If now, while they are
one people, all speaking in the same language, they have started to do this,
nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do.” Then he
further conveyed, “Let Us then go down and there confuse their language,
so that one will not understand what another says (Genesis 11:5-7),”

 

Anti-Trinitarians
said that the above occurrence of the name of God in the Old Testament being in
plural form was possible because he was talking with the angels and cherubim
surrounding him. But the above passages clearly testifies that the Triune God
is in threefold nature consisting of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, and
they converse together even before angels, seraphim and cherubim are created. A
great example of God that is plural being in singular form was that occurrence
when Jesus called his Father in singular form while he was about to die on the
cross. He had these words while on the cross, “El, El, lema sabachtani,”
meaning, “My Lord, my Lord, why had you forsaken me.”

 

God
as a single individual “El”, with him defined as Love, is invalid, and
without the experience of ‘love’ if there is an absence of the one whom he
loves in the person of the Son. Their deeds were made manifest through the Holy
Spirit with the Bible saying that the Holy Spirit exists with God in the
passage, “Now the Lord has sent me and His Spirit.”

 

Let
us implore the name of the Triune God in our prayers.

 

 

-Jyotisman
Nearu Upendra

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Religious. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.