[OBW]

I think that it is in an inquiry like this that we will discover the dogmas of the historical teachings of Christianity, both RCC and Protestant, to be incomplete. Many of us were seeing something of this in the last month of interplay with the BARM’s super-moderators.

Without going into the details, after reading the BARM statement on the Trinity over a year ago (written by abugian, I believe) I noticed that it was well written and consistent with most other such writings I have seen previously. But it was mostly dismissive of the verses that demonstrate the oneness and interplay of the Three that are One.

There is something mysterious about a “three” with one image. About a God from whom there is stated to be “one Spirit” (Ephesians) yet the references to the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of the Lord (in a discussion about the resurrected Christ).

For all my ranting about the errors of Lee, I remember him on more than one occasion referencing the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary’s statement to the effect that we must be careful in the use of the term “person” when describing the Trinity or risk the possibility of falling into the error of tritheism. (I wish someone could find that reference and verify that it was not out of context. Lee was great at taking things out of context.)

When you read the words of the BARM on the subject, you are impressed with a God of three persons that share an essence. They stand on the fence the separates Trinitarian from tritheist while holding onto a thin chord called “essence” to keep from falling onto the wrong side. My observation is that Lee mostly did just the opposite, using virtually all of his breath to describe the singular aspects of the One God, holding ever so loosely onto the belief that the event described at Jesus’ baptism was more than some parlor trick to give the illusion of three.

There is something mysterious about this God who is fully three and fully one. For any who say that those words are not in scripture, I agree. But neither are the words spoken by the “separate persons” crowd or those who would make God into a singular who transitioned his appearance over time. Each position is like a man describing a skyscraper from a singular vantage point. For each perspective, there is something different to see. While none are wrong, none are entirely correct because they can only see a part.

From the vantage point of God as three, it is well established that the second ─ the Son ─ “became flesh.” But seeing that One was also seeing the Father, not just seeing someone with a resemblance to the Father. That means that the very three/one dichotomy makes even this straightforward question somewhat ambiguous. I would say that the record is that the Son became flesh, but that all of the Godhead dwelt in Him. It is a subject upon which the correct answers would seem to be equivocation due to reality of those answers being outside of the understanding and experience of man. Our understanding is limited by the bounds of physics, biology, chemistry, time, and even philosophy and imagination because God is outside those constraints.