The Trinity Thread (To be a merged thread)

Originally Posted by Trapped

Well, I have to say it's one thing to admit we may not be able to be crystal clear on the nature of the TG, but it's another to see all the verses in the New Testament that talk about the Son and the Father in ways that are undeniably distinct one from the other and yet take one verse from the OT to undo all that.

"I am in the Father" - two things can't be in each other if they are each other.

"I am in the bosom of the Father" - pretty hard to be in your own bosom.

"I don't do my will but the will of Him who sent me" - they have different wills!

I could go on and on, but it would just be more of the same.

As for John 14:9.....well.....Jesus is the image of the invisible God. God is invisible, but Jesus is His image. So if you've seen Jesus, the image of God, you've seen God, because Jesus is His image.

As far as Isaiah 9:6 - this is not a question to challenge anyone, but a real question of curiosity. If the child in that verse "will be called...everlasting Father", then where do we see that fulfilled? Is there a record of Jesus being called "The Father" somewhere later on? I'm not aware of it, but it seems like if "the Son is the Father" is true, then this prophesy should be shown to be fulfilled somewhere.

ANY and ALL discussion on the Trinity of God MUST ALWAYS begin with the single premise that there is ONLY one (ONE) God. Otherwise, there is no point to the discussion.

If there is only ONE God, and that God is the Father, but Jesus is also God, then they are the same, unless Jesus is a second God.

Amen

[aron]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

ANY and ALL discussion on the Trinity of God MUST ALWAYS begin with the single premise that there is ONLY one (ONE) God. Otherwise, there is no point to the discussion.

If there is only ONE God, and that God is the Father, but Jesus is also God, then they are the same, unless Jesus is a second God.

Amen

And we MUST ALWAYS accept the same exact logic where Jesus said, "that they [unreg guest, aron, Ohio et al] will be one (ONE) even as we [Jesus and the Father] are one (ONE)". Which of course can mean ONLY that aron is Ohio and Ohio is unregistered guest. Because they are all one (ONE) even as Jesus and the Father are one (ONE). ~John 17:11(c)

Or do we abandon our logic when it is no longer convenient to our argument? What amazes me is 1) how quickly people abandon their own logic when it no longer serves them, and 2) how oblivious they are to their own inconsistency, even as they insist it MUST ALWAYS be applied to others. This it the same kind of self-serving 'logic' that Witness Lee brow-beat so many dear Christians into submission with.

"You MUST ALWAYS agree with me, even when I don't agree with myself. Otherwise, there is no point to the discussion"

Originally Posted by Unregistered

don't question it and just praise God for his wonderful ways!

Right - don't think, it only causes confusion. I remember that line. Just praise God.

But Jesus asked questions. "If the Christ is David's son, how then does he in spirit call him 'Lord', saying that the LORD said to my Lord, 'sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet'... if David calls him 'Lord', how can he be his son?"

Don't you think that God gave us minds for this reason, to examine, question, and say, "how", even if the answers are not always immediately forthcoming?

Questions can be helpful.

1. How can Witness Lee teach that women have no authority to teach in church, as he does, yet then he sells a book "God's Plan of Redemption" by a woman who had the "vision of the age" in the "three parts of man" before Watchman Nee?

2. How can Witness Lee be the Apostle of the Age when he lets his unspiritual sons feather their nests with the church members' money (Timothy) and prey upon Church women (Philip), which makes him unfit for eldership per Titus 1:6? How can one be unfit for local church eldership and be minister of the age?

3. How does 'The Bible and church history' show us one vision per age an ministry of the age, when Paul said that Peter was 'apostle to the circumcised and I (Paul) to the uncircumcised'? How can there be two apostles of the age? Paul said there was one Cornerstone (Christ) binding two walls together (gentile and Jew), yet Paul's gentile wall was the vision of the age and Peter's Jewish wall didn't count?

4. How come Witness Lee could teach that large sections of the Bible were "fallen human concepts" yet nobody could say that likewise Witness Lee's teachings were by and large "fallen human concepts" themselves? Are his writings a higher standard than scripture itself?

etc etc - there are lots of questions to be asked, here.

Originally Posted by aron

And we MUST ALWAYS accept the same exact logic where Jesus said, "that they [unreg guest, aron, Ohio et al] will be one (ONE) even as we [Jesus and the Father] are one (ONE)". Which of course can mean ONLY that aron is Ohio and Ohio is unregistered guest. Because they are all one (ONE) even as Jesus and the Father are one (ONE). ~John 17:11(c)

Or do we abandon our logic when it is no longer convenient to our argument? What amazes me is 1) how quickly people abandon their own logic when it no longer serves them, and 2) how oblivious they are to their own inconsistency, even as they insist it MUST ALWAYS be applied to others. This it the same kind of self-serving 'logic' that Witness Lee brow-beat so many dear Christians into submission with.

"You MUST ALWAYS agree with me, even when I don't agree with myself. Otherwise, there is no point to the discussion"
.

It's curious how Aron must always lash out at people who say others must always do this or that, or believe that or the other simply because Witness Lee must alwayed that the church must always believe him!

That notwithstanding, Musting Always is not Witness Lees invention as much as Aron's tirade would have us believe. No, not at all. And it is not always a bad thing in the way that Aron has demonized it.

The idea that I was introducing is not my own and I was simply re-echoing a principle that has been passed down in the Church through the centuries right from the early church fathers to the modern day: and that is, as Christians, there are certain irrefragable, irreducible, and nonderogable tenets that must be dogmatically held to no matter what the case. Again, this is not my idea (and neither was it Lee's)

What are these tenets? What are these articles of the faith? And are they founded firmly upon the revelation of the Word of God? Well, here goes:

[We] believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, GOD OF GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD, begotten, not made, being of the very substance of the Father, by whom all things were made, et cetera, et cetera...

To deny any of the above. To be in contention in particular with the points considering the nature of the Son of God as Aron so obviously is nothing less than to demean Christ, to rob Him of His Deity, and to make Him out to be just another fellow of the stock of Adam as fallen as us, and so whose blood is not precious at all, which herefore implies it cannot cleanse us of our sins.

Why then am I wasting my time and your time discussing the nature of the Trinity with you? What kind of christian are you? Are you really even a christian? And what agreement does Christ have with Belial? What fellowship does Light have with Darkness? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Aron, If we don't have a baseline, a ground of commonality, a MUST ALWAYS set of beliefs, then all the preceding questions in reference to you are legitimate questions.

And so I reiterate...

"In the beginning...
...was the Word...
..the Word was with God..
..the Word WAS God..
..And the Word became flesh..
..and dwelt among us...and we beheld His glory.." (Jn 1: 1,14)

And later on in the book (from a chapter you misdivided & misapplied)

"Jesus... lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee...And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the ONLY TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent...". (John 17: 1- 3)

I just don't see how anybody could read these verses and in putting them together still fail to come to the undeniable conclusion that Jesus is indeed the Father. This is the very mystery of godliness.

And I quote:

"And without controversy [beyond all contradiction] great is the mystery of godliness:
...God appeared in a body [was manifest in the flesh]...
...[and was] received up into glory". (1Timothy 3:16)

And just as a loving word of caution, we would all do really well to carefully consider just precisely what it was that John meant in his first epistle when he wrote:

"Who is a liar but he that denieth Jesus is the Christ. He is ANTICHRIST, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.".

What does it really mean to acknowledge that Jesus IS the Christ? Does it simply mean that Jesus second name is Christ like in Jones for Joshua Jones? I'm sure that even Aron doesn't accept that. Or does it only mean that we understand that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, a man, an anointed king, promised to the Jews in the Scriptures to save them, and indeed the whole world, from their sins. Of course, this is true.

But John expounds and elucidates this point further on in the epistle in the fourth chapter by declaring:
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ IS COME IN THE FLESH is of God: and every spirit that confesseth NOT that Jesus Christ IS COME IN THE FLESH is not of God, and this is that spirit of ANTICHRIST" (John 4: 2-3)

It seems clear that John equates acknowledging "that Jesus is the Christ" with "the spirit that confesseth that Jesus is come in the flesh". And as was laid out earlier on, the significance of Jesus 'coming in the flesh' is that it is the 'great mystery of godliness' that implies that the Father is the Son.

I don't want to push anything down anybody's throat, least of all Aron's, but I just think these verses taken together are worthy of some serious pondering, especially when considering whether or not the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son. No pressure.

Thank you for reading me.

FYI, aron, just to address your facetious comments on 'Oneness'. It is, of course, nonsensical to say that the scriptures imply that Ohio is aron and Aron is Ohio, and they are unregistered, etc, etc, But don't you know that when Jesus prays that they may be ONE, he means that they may be in ONE BODY. We are all members of His ONE body. And the hand is not the eye. And the foot is not the nose. They are all distinct. But they are ONE.
.

[UntoHim]

Hey Unregistered. If you are a registered member of the forum could you please sign in so we can know for sure that these "Unregistered" are coming from the same person?

If you are not a registered forum member, could you please take a minute and shoot an email to LocalChurchDiscussions@Gmail.Com requesting membership and be sure to include your desired Username.

Thanks in advanced.
-

[UntoHim]

Moderator Note: Let's keep the tone civil. Be passionate, but be patient. Be uncompromising, but be understanding.
-

[aron]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

But don't you know that when Jesus prays that they may be ONE, he means that they may be in ONE BODY. We are all members of His ONE body. And the hand is not the eye. And the foot is not the nose. They are all distinct. But they are ONE.

And Jesus is not the Father. But they are ONE. And I am not Jesus. But we are ONE. Etc.

We are all distinct. But we are ONE.

Notice how Jesus places us in the same position vis-à-vis himself as Lord and Christ, as the Father has placed him as the Only Begotten Son of God?

"As 'A' is to 'B', so 'B' is to 'C' " - so if A IS B, then B IS C. So if Jesus IS the Father then I also AM Jesus. But I am not Jesus. We are distinct. But we are ONE.

"Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." John 20:21. These are relations of equivalency. If Jesus is the Father and I have he same relation to Jesus as Jesus to the Father, then I am also Jesus, and also the Father. Which makes no sense to me, because I am a redeemed sinner. How can the Father be a redeemed sinner?

See also John 17:18 "As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world." As Jesus manifested the Father to the world, so also we manifest Jesus (or should). Yet we are distinct. Yet we are ONE.

John 15:10 " If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love"

We are in a relationship of subservience to Jesus - he is our Master and Lord, just as he was in relationship of subservience (keeping/obeying the Father's commandments) on earth. He was, as the Centurion said, "also a man under authority, with servants under him, who obeyed".

None of this seems too strange to me. Pretty straight-forward, fairly understandable to first-century readers unhampered by centuries of theological baggage.

And yes of course he is God, the VERY GOD. The Bible makes that CLEAR. Yet he is not the Father. Yet when we see him, we see the Father. When he speaks, the Father's very command comes through him.

Remember, the Angel said, "I Jesus have sent my angel". Yet the angel who said, "I Jesus" was not Jesus. Yet when the angel spoke, you heard Jesus. When agency works well, as it does in the kingdom of heaven, then the Sender and the Sent are ONE. Yet they are distinct. Like you said, it's a mystery. But there it is. ~John 22:16

And the Centurion spoke, and Caesar spoke through the Centurion. When the servants heard the Centurion, they heard Caesar. They obeyed the Centurion because when he spoke, Caesar spoke through him. But the Centurion was not Caesar. They were distinct, yet they were ONE. ~Matthew 8:9

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I just don't see how anybody could read these verses and in putting them together still fail to come to the undeniable conclusion that Jesus is indeed the Father.

I just don't see how anyone can read Jesus's own words in John 8:17-18 and fail to come to the undeniable conclusion that Jesus is indeed NOT the Father.

Even in your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am One who testifies about Myself, and the Father, who sent Me, also testifies about Me.”

Jesus explicitly states that He and His Father are two separate beings in the way "two men" would be considered in their law. Each bearing individual testimony concerning Himself. There is no way to conclude that Jesus IS the Father, or else it would not be testimony of two.

There is no normal manner in our human experience in which someone's son can be his own father. It is ludicrous to conclude that Jesus the Son IS the Father. It renders the father/son relationship as we know it meaningless in our human life and makes it a deceptive use to describe the Son and the Father if they are in fact each other.

[Boxjobox]

Untohim, am I now able to join in this discussion, or is it still reserved only for those who support the 4th century orthodoxy, and argue just about the degrees of trinitarianism?

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Boxjobox

Untohim, am I now able to join in this discussion, or is it still reserved only for those who support the 4th century orthodoxy, and argue just about the degrees of trinitarianism?

And am I able to bring over this post that I made on the modalism thread? No one commented on it, and it was the very last post, so I thought that surely I must have nailed it! (And I wondered why there wasn't much fanfare & acknowledgement that someone had finally gotten to the bottom of this grand *mystery*)

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

I had a realization during my not-so-quiet-time with the Lord this morning (there was singing, praising and shouting!). There's been two basic ideas about the nature of God on this thread: The traditional Trinity vs the Modalistic view. But what if both are right?!

There are many things in the Bible that different ones latch onto and say "this & this is so," to the exclusion of the scripturally-based ideas that others latch onto. The infamous case in point I always think of is the Calvinists and Armenians. One says it's all God's doing and things are completely about His predestination (Calvinists); the other group says it's really about man's free will (Armenians). Which one is right? My answer is both, because we can certainly find both aspects in scripture. Can we understand this? Not so well, because we are trying to grasp an infinite God here.

Likewise, we can quote many verses that support one view or the other regarding this thread's topic. So what came to me this morning, regarding the Trinity and Modalism, is that both are perhaps true. God became a Man, and then after doing the work and going through the necessary experiences (life, death, resurrection), then as The Spirit He can get into other men. However, during all of this, God the Father still exists eternally and the four gospels record the Son's interaction with His Father. Does this make perfect sense to us? Of course not - we can't grasp the infinite God (otherwise I don't think He would be God)!

Any way, that's what came to me - for what you may think it's worth . . .

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

So when Thomas saw the resurrected Christ, worshiping Him saying "My Lord and my God," … But this agent of God accepted his worship without hesitation.

Good point, and potentially valid objection. In the NT, Jesus is treated as the functional equivalent of GOD, the VERY GOD, as our unregistered friend put it so strongly, including veneration/worship. If anyone says, “Jesus is God”, I say “amen” since the NT supports that. But what I was objecting to was the “Jesus is the Father” statement. WL tried to paint it as, “Well, how many God’s are there?” as if one had to pick either “We worship two Gods” or “Jesus is the Father”. But that’s a false dichotomy, a crass attempt to manipulate us into his thought-swamp.

So, how to deal with worship by Thomas? Because Jesus is, functionally speaking, “God among us” and “God made flesh” - in the NT we see Jesus treated from a functional or operational perspective as God. Yet that does not entail “Jesus is the Father”. I'll give a prosaic example: the servants under the Roman Centurion treated him exactly as if he were his boss, Caesar (or whatever General stood in between them). The Centurion, as a “man under authority”, was functionally “one” with Caesar and could be treated as the operational equivalent of Caesar. Yet the Centurion was not Caesar. But does the servant say, "Well, if you were Caesar I'd obey."?

So, why worship Jesus and not an angel? Because Jesus is not “just another angel” or some intermediary between man and God. Both John in Revelation 22 and the author of Hebrews go out of their way to make this explicit. “But to which of the angels has he ever said, ‘You are my Son – this day I have begotten you?”. There are many mediating angels but only one Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Living God.

“There is one mediator between man and God – the man Jesus Christ.” From a functional perspective, as Sole Mediator, Jesus is God to us. Think how scandalous all this would have seemed to the Jews, in the gospels. They were looking for Messiah, but not like this! Even John Baptist didn’t get it – “Are you the Christ, or should we expect another?” John was looking for an Earthly Great Leader, the New Moses, but Jesus was the Heavenly Leader, the Final Moses, actually the Only Law-giver. Moses was merely type or shadow. Grace and reality itself came through Jesus Christ ~John 1:17

(On a related point, WL’s “one apostle per age” paradigm completely misses that Jesus is the Only True Apostle of the Age. WL proposed “Jesus as the Father” yet by then hypothesizing a series of Great Church Leaders WL lost that The Great Church Leader is Jesus alone. We are, all the rest of us, “small potatoes”. Paul was apostle to the uncircumcised, Peter to the circumcision, Jesus the Apostle to Humanity and Saviour of the World. Church History is not a series of Great Men. Church History is One Great Man, and his followers.)

Let me come at it from a different direction. On Patmos, John turned and saw the One on the throne. Then, in front of the Throne, was the Logos of God, walking among the lampstands. The two are distinct yet functionally equivalent. Because there's only one Logos, that One Logos is treated by his disciples as worthy of veneration, which no angel, no prophet, no Great Human Church Leader can receive. This may be scandalous to some but it's our faith. He has a name above every name, and we place Jesus' name next to God, treat him as God made flesh (including worship/veneration/adoration) yet this doesn’t mean he’s the Father any more than the Roman Centurion was Caesar. (Yet to the servants, they are one [ONE], and when you see the Centurion you see Caesar, operationally).

One final point. The angel Gabriel said, “I am Gabriel, and I stand before God. Because you didn’t listen to my voice, you will be silent.” ~Luke 1:19. Now, the reason that Gabriel could silence Zechariah the priest in the Holy of Holies is that Gabriel’s word is, functionally speaking, God’s word. When the angel speaks, God speaks. Yet Gabriel is not God. Yet as God’s envoy, his word should have been received as “from God”. Gabriel is clearly not just another un-named angel. Yet Jesus is so much higher than Gabriel, as Son of God, that there's no comparison, really. Gabriel is not worshipped, and Jesus is.

Of course all of this is the musings of a pilgrim on the path, not doctrine defined. I don’t say that people MUST ALWAYS think as I do. But now you know why I RESIST those who'd impose their thoughts the way I once let WL do with his.

There are many priests, prophets, even kings. There is one Logos, which makes him, from a functional or operational perspective, God to us. "I am the Way home to the Father. There is no other." High words which no angel can speak.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Trapped

John 8:17-18 Even in your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am One who testifies about Myself, and the Father, who sent Me, also testifies about Me.”

Jesus explicitly states that He and His Father are two separate beings in the way "two men" would be considered in their law. Each bearing individual testimony concerning Himself. There is no way to conclude that Jesus IS the Father, or else it would not be testimony of two.

There's no normal manner in our human experience in which someone's son can be his own father. It is ludicrous to conclude that Jesus the Son IS the Father. It renders the father/son relationship as we know it meaningless in our human life and makes it a deceptive use to describe the Son and the Father if they are in fact each other.

An aspect of agency – being sent, and sending others – is that if done well, one may easily conflate the Sent One with the Sender. “If you see me [the Sent Son] you see the [Sending] Father. When I [the sent Son] speak, the [Sending] Father speaks through me” etc. And we should stress here that agency is done well in the kingdom of God. The great scandal of the gospels was that a man, a human being on earth, claimed to represent the Creator in Heaven, in fact that earth-dwelling Son and Heavenly Father were operationally one. Remember that sin and disobedience had shut humankind apart from that Creator and had created a gap – “You are altogether born in sin”, a la John 9:34. Yet here was a man claiming absolute fealty and obedience: “I [Christ the Son] come to do Thy [Father] will, O God, behold in the scroll of the book it is written [law, prophets, psalms] concerning me.”

The Son on earth and the Father in heaven are distinct, yet they are One. The Sender in heaven gives command, and the Sent One comes to earth, and obeys without murmuring or delay. And Jesus extrapolates this to the disciples: "Just as I obeyed my Father's commands, so ye obey mine. Just as the Father sent me, so I send you" etc.

Some may question my “experience and enjoyment of Christ”, and even my person, but this is what I see being written. The Son comes forth from The Father, and does the Father’s will “on earth as it is done in heaven”, and then at the conclusion of the gospel, is raised to glory and seated at the Father’s right hand, far above all rule and authority and power, and every name which is named, both in this age and that which is to come. And we the disciples are expected to follow the pattern.

The NT writer says, “we see Jesus”, and “we” means both the writer and the readers, including you and I. We see Jesus. And “see” means now, today, not some point in the past. It’s an immediate and universal bequest to the believer, to see Jesus. Hebrews 2:9 says, “We see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels” – how can the Father be lower than the angels? If the Father is lower than the angels, then who’s running the show? No, rather, “He [the Sending Father] will give His angels charge concerning you [the Sent Son], to bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone”. It is the Son’s absolute obedience that brings the Father’s delight, and support.

“This is my Beloved Son, in whom I [the Sending Father] delight – you must hear him.”

Cf, Psalm 18:18 “the LORD was my support. 19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he [the Sending Father] delighted in me [the Obedient Son]. 20 The LORD has dealt with me [Jesus the Sent One] according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I am not guilty of turning from my God. 22 All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. 23 I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. 24 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, etc” The Son’s obedience brings the Father’s delight, and rescue from death. Peter went into this in detail at Pentecost in Acts 2, and Paul followed suit in Acts 13:33-41.

Back to the idea of conflating the Sent One with the Sender: the Sent One who does a good job becomes operationally equivalent to the Sender. They're distinct, not the same entity, yet they're functionally one. “No one has ever seen God, yet the Son has declared Him to us” – if the Son is the Father, the statement makes no sense. But if the Son, while distinct from the Father, is yet fully representational, then the statement makes perfect sense. Those who see the Sent Son see the Sending Father, because the Son fully declares the Father to us.

[Ohio]

So when Thomas saw the resurrected Christ, worshiping Him saying "My Lord and my God," he was actually only seeing an agent of God, obeying His commands. But this agent of God accepted his worship without hesitation.

Then when an obedient angel appears to John in his Revelation, and John falls down to worship him, why is he rebuked by the obedient angel, who was also acting as an agent of God?