All trinitarians...stay the course...unitarianism is nothing more than the propagation of neo-arianism. Biblical Unitarianism? A misnomer is you ask me :-?

Matt, have you repented and recanted yet?

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Kerrigan Skelly

Nile said

The "Trinity" is the belief that Three is One and One is Three.....yet....Three are not One and One is not Three.

Trinity:
n 1: the cardinal number that is the sum of one and one and one
[syn: three, 3, III, trio, threesome, tierce,
leash, troika, triad, trine, ternary, ternion,
triplet, tercet, terzetto, trey, deuce-ace]
2: the union of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, three persons, in one "Godhead"

Trinity:

A GROUP OF THREE INDIVIDUALS: three, threesome, triad, trine, trio, triple, triumvirate, triune, triunity, troika



Trinity was put forth in the fourth century as follows: "...we worship one God in the trinity, and Trinity in Unity...for there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost is all one... they are not three gods, but one God... the whole three persons are co-eternal and co-equal...he therefore that will be saved must thus think of the trinity..." (excerpts from the Athanasian creed). The blood of many was shed for refusing to believe that RC doctrine.....even Calvin had his hand in the death of Michael Servatus for not bowing to that creed. :-(


In the Scriptures we read: (a small sampling)



** "Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD (YHWH) he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." Deuteronomy 4:39.
** "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3
**" Ye are my witnesses, saith YHWH, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I , am YHWH; and beside me there is no savior." Isaiah 43:10-11.
** "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am YHWH, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:6

Amen


:-(

A Brief Definition of the Trinity


by James White



I know that one of the most oft-repeated questions I have dealt with is, "How does one explain, or even understand, the doctrine of the Trinity?" Indeed, few topics are made such a football by various groups that, normally, claim to be the "only" real religion, and who prey upon Christians as "convert fodder." Be that as it may, when the Christian is faced with a question regarding the Trinity, how might it best be explained?

For me, I know that simplifying the doctrine to its most basic elements has been very important and very useful. When we reduce the discussion to the three clear Biblical teachings that underlie the Trinity, we can move our discussion from the abstract to the concrete Biblical data, and can help those involved in false religions to recognize which of the Biblical teachings it is denying.

We must first remember that very few have a good idea of what the Trinity is in the first place - hence, accuracy in definition will be very important. The doctrine of the Trinity is simply that there is one eternal being of God - indivisible, infinite. This one being of God is shared by three co-equal, co-eternal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

It is necessary here to distinguish between the terms "being" and "person." It would be a contradiction, obviously, to say that there are three beings within one being, or three persons within one person. So what is the difference? We clearly recognize the difference between being and person every day. We recognize what something is, yet we also recognize individuals within a classification. For example, we speak of the "being" of man---human being. A rock has "being"---the being of a rock, as does a cat, a dog, etc. Yet, we also know that there are personal attributes as well. That is, we recognize both "what" and "who" when we talk about a person.

The Bible tells us there are three classifications of personal beings---God, man, and angels. What is personality? The ability to have emotion, will, to express oneself. Rocks cannot speak. Cats cannot think of themselves over against others, and, say, work for the common good of "cat kind." Hence, we are saying that there is one eternal, infinite being of God, shared fully and completely by three persons, Father, Son and Spirit. One what, three who's.

NOTE: We are not saying that the Father is the Son, or the Son the Spirit, or the Spirit the Father. It is very common for people to misunderstand the doctrine as to mean that we are saying Jesus is the Father. The doctrine of the Trinity does not in any way say this!

The three Biblical doctrines that flow directly into the river that is the Trinity are as follows:

1) There is one and only one God, eternal, immutable.

2) There are three eternal Persons described in Scripture - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. These Persons are never identified with one another - that is, they are carefully differentiated as Persons.

3) The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, are identified as being fully deity---that is, the Bible teaches the Deity of Christ and the Deity of the Holy Spirit.




The three sides of the triangle represent the three Biblical doctrines, as labeled. When one denies any of these three teachings, the other two sides point to the result. Hence, if one denies that there are Three Persons, one is left with the two sides of Full Equality and One God, resulting in the "Oneness" teaching of the United Pentecostal Church and others. If one denies Fully Equality, one is left with Three Persons and One God, resulting in "subordinationism" as seen in Jehovah's Witnesses, the Way International, etc. (though to be perfectly accurate the Witnesses deny all three of the sides in some way---they deny Full Equality (i.e., Jesus is Michael the Archangel), Three Persons (the Holy Spirit is an impersonal, active "force" like electricity) and One God (they say Jesus is "a god"---a lesser divinity than Yahweh; hence they are in reality not monotheists but henotheists). And, if one denies One God, one is left with polytheism, the belief in many gods, as seen clearly in the Mormon Church, the most polytheistic religion I have encountered.

Hopefully these brief thoughts will be of help to you as you "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I will post one last time to say that I have been asked not to post any more on this thread, which I see no reason to go against. Be at peace with all men as much as it is up to you.

Anyone who wants to talk can message me.

Nile

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Matthew Miskiewicz

Brother, think rather that the admonishen is one of giving all this a season of rest. Sometimes the greatest thing we can do is to purposefuly distract ourselves from certain penchants that have arrested our thinking.

Perhaps prayer as a item to dig down into the depths of ...

Just a thought brother.

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Mike Balog

Greetings all :)

The Historic Translation of John 1:3-4, is an important consideration here, as the trinitarian stance relies heavily upon these verses, as they define John 1:1.

Tyndale's translation of John 1:3-4 reads, "All things were made by [b]it[/b], and without [b]it[/b], was made nothing that was made. In [b]it[/b] was life, and the life was the light of men." As you can see, Tyndale used [b]"it"[/b] instead of "him." (Uncapitalised) What this tells us is that Tyndale did not read Messiah into the "logos" or "word" of verse 1 and he was not influenced by the Latin Vulgate or Wycliffe. Tyndale had access to Greek text of Erasmus which Wycliffe did not have. (Wycliffe relied on the latin Vulgate of Jerome).

Let's look at the possible Greek meanings of the term logos. The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines among the various meanings the following:

Motive
mental faculty
Reasoning
Intent
Thought
Divine Expression

Strongs 3056: (logos/word) reads:
1) of speech

a) a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea

b) what someone has said

1) a word

2) the sayings of God

3) decree, mandate or order

4) of the moral precepts given by God

5) Old Testament prophecy given by the prophets

6) what is declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a maxim

c) discourse

1) the act of speaking, speech

2) the faculty of speech, skill and practice in speaking

3) a kind or style of speaking

4) a continuous speaking discourse - instruction

d) doctrine, teaching

e) anything reported in speech; a narration, narrative

f) matter under discussion, thing spoken of, affair, a matter in dispute, case, suit at law

g) the thing spoken of or talked about; event, deed

2) its use as respect to the MIND alone

a) reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating

b) account, i.e. regard, consideration

c) account, i.e. reckoning, score

d) account, i.e. answer or explanation in reference to judgment

e) relation, i.e. with whom as judge we stand in relation

1) reason would

f) reason, cause, ground

Strong's then goes on to give a Doctrinal interpretation of the word:

3) In John, denotes the essential Word of God, Jesus Christ, the personal wisdom and power in union with God, his minister in creation and government of the universe, the cause of all the world's life both physical and ethical, which for the procurement of man's salvation put on human nature in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the second person in the Godhead, and shone forth conspicuously from His words and deeds.

Note: A Greek philosopher named Heraclitus first used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe.


thus John 1:1-3 could be read:
In the beginning was the Divine plan/motive/thought, and the Divine plan/motive/thought was with God, and the Divine plan/motive/thought was God. The same (Plan) was in the beginning with God. All things were made by it and without it was not any thing made that was made.

As we can see in this link http://assemblyoftrueisrael.com/Documents/historic_John1.htm ; The "logos" (word) of John 1:1 is defined as 'speech, oral expression, reasoning, spoken word (including thought)' summarized as 'The oral expression, or Logic' pertaining to YAHWEH. The history of the translation of the verse is documented there.

Peace

In the three Greek New Testaments I have (Byzantine by Robinson and Pierpont, Wescott-Hort, and TR), the word is "auton" which is the masculine form of the third person reflexive pronoun. The proper translation is "him(self)". I don't have Tyndale's Bible or commentary, so I can't comment except that "it" is not correct here. Besides, I'm not sure where you are going this considering Tyndale was a trinitarian and would call what you are teaching heresy.

Furthermore, lexicons can only take you so far. You can't look at all the possible uses of a word and just pick the one you like and force it on the text to fit your theology. You have to look at how it is USED in context. John clearly uses "Logos" as a name, here and elsewhere. And more than one person has posted several quotes from early fathers showing that in the earliest history we have of the scriptures being used, "Logos" was understood to be the preincarnate Christ.

Re: the Greek of John 1

Luther said "the lack of the article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism"

You are preaching Arianism, and another thread we had going a few weeks ago was preaching Sabellianism. Both are heresies that both postdate trinitarian thought and were rejected as heresies shortly after they surfaced (no, not by the RCC...it did not even exist yet).

May I recommend the following website, one of the most thorough treatments on the deity of Christ as understood by NT writers and believers. It was in response to JW's (Arians) teaching that YHWH was omitted from the NT early on in an attempt to "hijack the truth" that they teach.

www.tetragrammaton.org

But be careful...you may just come to believe that Christ really is who He said He was :-D

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Denver McDaniel