JESUS CHRIST IS GOD (part 2)
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The Trinity consists of three consubstantial (same substance, nature, or essence) Persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. “The One true God eternally exists in Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are one God, co-equal and co-eternal, having precisely the same nature and attributes, and worthy of precisely the same worship, confidence, and obedience. The person credited with first employing the words ‘Trinity’, ‘persons’ and ‘substance’ to convey the idea of the Father, Son and Spirit being ‘one in essence—but not one person’, i.e., three Persons but one substance, was Tertullian (c. 155/160-220A.D.). He wrote: ‘…the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete (Holy Spirit), produces three coherent Persons, Who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are, one in essence, not one Person, as Jesus said, 'I and My Father are one' (Jn. 10:30 cf. Jn. 17:22), in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number’.” It must be noted that though Tertullian is credited with being the first to use the term trinity, this in no way suggests that all he taught about the Trinity was correct. In fact, Tertullian eventually joined a cult known as Montanism which taught a single-person trinity, and later split from it to form his own increasingly erroneous group. Some Scriptures which show the Tri-Unity of God are: “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: And lo a voice from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16,17 cf. Mk. 1:9-11; Lk. 3:21,22; Jn. 1:32-34); “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matt. 28:19,20); “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord” (Mk. 12:29); “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14); “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:14); “For there are Three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these Three are One” (1 Jn. 5:7). “The Word of God teaches that God is an uncreated, eternal omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being consisting of three uncreated, coeternal, coequal, co-omnipotent, co-omniscient, co-omnipresent and distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are one in essence, yet three in Person – one God. God is One in Essence—Three in Person. What is meant when the Trinity is spoken of is that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. They are not three gods but only one God. The Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Son or the Father, but each is God individually and yet they are together the one true God of the Bible.” This is not a triad of Gods, but rather a Tri-Unity.
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“The word ‘Godhead’”, found in Acts 17:29; Romans 1:20 and Colossians 2:9, “is a term used in reference to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as Three Divine Persons in one God. In each of the three verses, a slightly different Greek word is used, but the definition of each is the same: ‘Deity or ‘Divine nature’. The word Godhead is used to refer to God’s essential nature. In Acts 17, Paul is speaking on Mars Hill to the philosophers of Athens. As he argues against idolatry, Paul says, ‘Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device’ (Acts 17:29). Here, the word ‘Godhead’ is the translation of the Greek theion, a word used by the Greeks to denote ‘God’ in general, with no reference to a particular Deity. Paul, speaking to Greeks, used the term in reference to the only true God. In Romans 1, Paul begins to make the case that all humanity stands guilty before God. In verse 20 he says, ‘For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse’ (Rom. 1:20). Here, Godhead is theiotés. Paul’s argument is that all of creation virtually shouts the existence of God; we can ‘clearly’ see God’s eternal power, as well as His ‘Godhead’ in what He has made. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork’ (Psa. 19:1). The natural world makes manifest the Divine nature of God. Colossians 2:9 is one of the clearest statements of the Deity of Christ anywhere in the Bible: ‘In Him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’. The word for ‘Godhead’ here is theotés.” By the word ‘fulness’ is meant, ‘…the fulness of the Divine nature, of all the perfections of Deity, such as eternity, immensity, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, necessary and self existence, and every other; for if any one perfection was wanting, the fulness, much less all the fulness of the Godhead, would not be in Him. According to this verse, Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. He embodies all ‘the fulness’ of God.” “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth…And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh…Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (Jn. 1:14; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Jn. 4:2). “The fact that Jesus Christ is God incarnate aligns perfectly with Colossians 1:19, ‘For it pleased the Father that in Him [Jesus] should all fullness dwell’. Because the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, Jesus could rightly claim: ‘I and My Father are One’ (Jn. 10:30). Because the fullness of God’s Divine essence is present in the Son of God, Jesus could say to Philip, ‘…he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father…’ (Jn. 14:9). In summary, the Godhead is the essence of the Divine Being; the Godhead is the one and only Deity. Jesus, the incarnate Godhead, entered the world and revealed exactly Who God is: ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared (Greek: ‘unfolds’) Him’ (Jn. 1:18 cf. Heb. 1:3).” The true and only God is a Godhead, a Triune God, a Tri-Unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Man has forged many arguments in opposition to the Trinity, the main one being that the Trinity is, far from a biblical reality, a mere fantasy born in the mind of pagan man, and is, therefore, merely an empty concept borrowed from the illusions of paganism. This argument insists that the entire concept of the Trinity is no different to what heathen and pagan man has believed and taught, and what the world had known for thousands of years prior to Christianity. Many have lambasted the teaching of the Trinity, referring to it as blasphemy of the highest order, based on their accepting the mistaken belief that the very concept of a trinity is pagan in its origin. Some of those groups, which claim to be Bible-based—but are opposed to the Trinity concept—are: Mormons, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’, ‘Christian’ Science, Armstrongism, Christadelphians, Oneness Pentecostals, Unification Church, Unity School of Christianity, Scientology, Unitarianism, and there are many others. In order to understand their protests against the doctrine, we shall now take a closer look at what each of these particular groups teach. Mormonism, “…founded by Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1830, teaches that God has a physical, flesh and bones, eternal, perfect body. Men have the potential to become gods as well. Jesus is God's literal son, a separate being from God the Father and the ‘elder brother’ of men. The Holy Spirit is also a separate being from God the Father and God the Son. The Holy Spirit is regarded as an impersonal power or spirit being. These three separate beings are ‘one’ only in their purpose, and they make up the Godhead.” Mormonism is "Tritheistic, it teaches the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three separate deities, not three separate Persons”.
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Before we look at the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their beliefs concerning the Trinity, it is important to take some time out to focus our attention upon the actual name ‘Jehovah’. The name ‘Jehovah’, though often translated as such, is not in the original texts of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. What IS found are the letters YHWH. “The most obvious proof that Jehovah's Witnesses spell YHWH wrong as ‘Jehovah’ is the fact that the letter ‘J’ does not even exist in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. Further, even the English language did not have a letter ‘J’ before about 1500 AD. For example, the very first edition of the KJV printed in 1611 AD, contained no ‘J’. Not even one! Instead the letter ‘I’ is used for Jew, Jesus, Joshua, Joanna, John and the person pronoun ‘I’. Instead these words were written in 1611 AD as, Iew, Iesus, Ioshua, Ioanna, Iohn. In a stunning admission, Jehovah's Witnesses tell us that the reason they continue to use ‘Jehovah’ instead of the correct spelling Yahweh, is to be pleasing to man, not God…the New World Translation actually adds the word ‘Jehovah’ in the New Testament 237 times where it is never found in the original Greek and Hebrew texts. So the hard cold fact is that the New World Translation of the JW organization adds ‘Jehovah’ into the New Testament 237 times, where there is absolutely no ancient manuscript evidence of ANY kind to support it. Despite much study and debate, it is still not universally agreed upon how the Hebrew name for God YHWH was pronounced. Some prefer ‘Yahweh’ (YAH-way); others prefer ‘Yehowah’, ‘Yahuweh’, or ‘Yahawah’; still others argue (unreasonably) for ‘Jehovah’. The vast majority of Jewish and Christian biblical scholars and linguists do not believe ‘Jehovah’ to be the proper pronunciation of YHWH. Again, there was no true J sound in ancient Hebrew. Even the Hebrew letter vav, which is transliterated as the W in YHWH is said to have originally had a pronunciation closer to W than the V of Jehovah. Jehovah is essentially a Germanic pronunciation of the Latinized transliteration of the Hebrew YHWH. It is the letters, YHWH, of the Tetragrammaton (Hebrew name of God transliterated in four letters), Latinized into JHVH, with vowels inserted. ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Yehowah’ is far more likely to be the correct pronunciation.
“In the Scriptures, the name of God is most significant and understandably so. It is inconceivable to think of spiritual matters without a proper designation for the Supreme Deity. Thus the most common name for the Deity is ‘God’, a translation of the original ‘Elohim’. One of the titles for God is ‘Lord’, a translation of ‘Adonai’. There is yet another name which is particularly assigned to God as His special or proper name, that is, the four letters YHWH (see Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah 42:8), this name is not pronounced by the Jews, except during prayer and Torah study, because of reverence for the great sacredness of the Divine name. Therefore, it has been consistently translated ‘Lord’. The only exception to this translation of YHWH is when it occurs in immediate proximity to the word ‘Lord’, that is, Adonai. In that case it is regularly translated God in order to avoid confusion. It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no complete certainty attaches to this pronunciation. Again, we know that ‘Jehovah’ cannot be the name of God since neither Hebrew, Greek, or Latin even have a letter ‘J’ and the English language did not have the letter J before about 1500 AD. The name Jesus, John, Joanna, Jew all started in the Greek with the letter ‘I’, not J. ‘Jehovah’ was popularized by a Roman Catholic monk who lived in the 12th century AD. In fact ‘Jehovah’ was never used before this! The form ‘Jehovah’ results from reading the consonants of the Tetragrammaton with the vowels of the surrogate word Adonai. The dissemination of this form is usually traced to Petrus Galatinus, confessor to Pope Leo X, who in 1518 A.D. transliterated the four Hebrew letters with the Latin letters jhvh together with the vowels of Adonai, producing the artificial form ‘Jehovah’. (This confused usage may, however, have begun as early as 1100 A.D.. While the hybrid form ‘Jehovah’ has met much resistance, and is universally regarded as an ungrammatical aberration, as well as a grammatical impossibility by some, it nonetheless passed from Latin into English and other European languages and has been hallowed by usage in hymns and the Americana Standard Version; it is used only four times in the King James Bible (see Ex. 6:3; Psa. 83:18; Isa. 12:2; 26:4), and not at all in the Revised Standard Version.
“The New World Translation adds ‘Jehovah’ into the New Testament 237 times, where there is absolutely no ancient manuscript evidence of any kind to support it. Even the Watchtower Society itself admits this to be true! ‘No ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God's name in full’ (The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever, Watchtower booklet).While the Hebrew Old Testament does contain YHWH many times, the Greek New Testament, NEVER uses the name of God YHWH. (The name) ‘Jehovah is never found in the New Testament, but was added by the Watchtower Society to support their false doctrine’. The Greek New Testament NEVER uses the word ‘Jehovah’ (YHWH). In answer to this, Jehovah's Witnesses actually teach that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and that this original Hebrew copy of Matthew (the one written by Matthew's own hand) did contain YHWH. Problem is, no one has EVER found ANY evidence of a Hebrew Matthew original, and this still doesn't explain why the New World Translation adds ‘Jehovah’ in the Letters which Paul wrote.” “The reason YHWH does not appear in the New Testament is that the New Testament was written in Greek. YHWH is a Hebrew word for God. The Greek word for God is Theos, not YHWH. Of course, Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek in His everyday speech. Apparently, even in speaking Aramaic, Jesus did not refer to God as YHWH in His everyday communication with His disciples or the crowds. The most common word Jesus used for God was presumably the Aramaic word for Father, which is abba. Similarly, the word Allah does not appear in English versions of the Bible. The reason is that Allah is an Arabic word for God. When the Bible is translated into Arabic, the word Allah is used. It would appear that the issue of what actual word is used for God is not a major issue to God. We do not say Theos, even though that is the name for God in the New Testament because for those who speak English, Theos is not a word. God is our word for the Deity. The fact is that Jesus did not use the word YHWH for His Father. If He ever did, it is not found in the New Testament. Besides that, the writers of the New Testament did not use the word. Paul, Peter, James and so forth, writing in Greek, used terms such as the Greek words for Lord, God, Father and so forth, but not YHWH. It is worth bearing in mind that the Jews in the time of Jesus did not use the word YHWH in their speech either. They had a seemingly superstitious idea about using the word YHWH to the point that when the word appeared in the Hebrew Bible, they would substitute another word, as they felt it was not acceptable for a human being to utter aloud the word YHWH.”
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Now let us resume our study of some of the groups which deny the Trinity: “Jehovah’s Witnesses was founded by Charles Taze Russell in 1879. He was succeeded by Joseph F. Rutherford in 1917. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God is one person, Jehovah. They teach Jesus was Jehovah's first creation, that Jesus is not God nor part of the Godhead. He is higher than the angels but inferior to God. Jehovah used Jesus to create the rest of the universe. Before Jesus came to earth he was known as the archangel Michael. The Holy Spirit is an impersonal force from Jehovah, but not God. Christian Science was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. Christian Scientists believe the trinity is life, truth, and love. As an impersonal principle, God is the only thing that truly exists. Everything else (matter) is an illusion. Jesus, though not God, is the Son of God. He was the promised Messiah but was not a Deity. The Holy Spirit is divine science in the teachings of Christian Science. Armstrongism, or the Church of God, Global Church of God, United Church of God, was founded by Herbert W. Armstrong in 1934. Traditional Armstrongism denies a Trinity, defining God as ‘a family of individuals’. Original teachings say Jesus did not have a physical resurrection and the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. Christadelphians, founded by Dr. John Thomas in 1864, believe God is one indivisible unity, not three distinct persons existing in one God. They deny the Divinity of Jesus, believing He is fully human and separate from God. They do not believe the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, but simply a force—the ‘unseen power’ from God. Oneness Pentecostals was founded by Frank Ewart in 1913.Oneness Pentecostals believe that there is one God and God is one. Throughout time God manifested Himself in three ways or ‘forms’ (not persons), as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Oneness Pentecostals teach that the Deity of the Son is not distinct in person from the Deity of the Father. Oneness Pentecostals take issue with the Trinity doctrine chiefly for its use of the term ‘person’. They believe God cannot be three distinct persons, but only one being who has revealed himself in three different modes. It is important to note that Oneness Pentecostals do affirm the Deity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, but also teach that the Son is not eternal.” If Jesus is not eternal He must be a created being. My question is, How can a created being possibly be God Who can only be an eternal Being? “The Unification Church, founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1954, believe that God is positive and negative, male and female. The universe is God's body, made by him. Jesus was not God, but a man. He did not experience a physical resurrection. In fact, his mission on earth failed and will be fulfilled through Sun Myung Moon, who is greater than Jesus. The Holy Spirit is feminine in nature. ‘She’ collaborates with Jesus in the spirit realm to draw people to Sun Myung Moon.” Mr. Moon died in 2012.
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“The Unity School of Christianity was founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889. Similar to Christian Science, Unity adherents believe God is an unseen, impersonal principle, not a person. God is a force within everyone and everything. Jesus was only a man, not the Christ. He simply realized his spiritual identity as the Christ by practicing his potential for perfection. This is something all men can achieve. Jesus did not resurrect from the dead, but rather, he reincarnated. The Holy Spirit is the active expression of God's law. Only the spirit part of us is real, matter is not real. Scientology was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology defines God as Dynamic Infinity. Jesus is not God, Savior, or Creator, nor does He have control of supernatural powers. He is usually overlooked in Dianetics. The Holy Spirit is absent from this belief system as well. Men are ‘thetan’ — immortal, spiritual beings with limitless capabilities and powers, though often they are unaware of this potential. Scientology teaches men how to achieve ‘higher states of awareness and ability’ through practicing Dianetics.” All such anti-scriptural teachings by these groups, some of which claim to be the proper representation of true Christianity, provide clear evidence of the singular lack of credibility of such groups as being the harbingers of truth. They maintain an obstinate, unwarranted and “consistent testimony against” the Bible’s doctrine of the Trinity. They are all perversions of Christianity, for they deny the Triune God of the Gospel, and, therefore, the essence, character and very nature of the only true God. Some other groups which also deny the Trinity of God are: Dawn Bible Students, Living Church of God, Members Church of God International, Unitarian Universalist Christians, The Way International, The Church of God International, the United Church of God. Significantly, none of the above organizations hold to the Gospel of Jesus Christ which states that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and that the only Righteousness/Obedience which saves is that of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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The fact that many pagan religions the world over have believed in a ‘trinity’ is a sufficiently convenient ‘proof’ for anti-trinitarians to latch onto, who believe that the “origin of the conception of a trinity is entirely pagan”, and, therefore, that there is no truth at all to a real Christian Trinity being of Divine origin, and thus any authenticity to the Deity of Jesus Christ. Anti-trinitarians believe that the teaching of a Trinity, brought in by outside forces and influences, is nothing but an alien infiltration of Christianity. Some say that the Father alone is God, while others, like the Jesus only Movement, or Oneness Pentecostals, refer to Jesus the Son as the only one Who is God. Their erroneous claim is “Jesus is the Father and Jesus is the Spirit. There is one God who reveals Himself in different ‘modes’”. One will never be able to understand the truth by listening to those who do not know what it is. Those who cannot see through the lies, nor recognize the unfactual and unscriptural declarations of the lost are themselves as lost as lost can be. Blind leaders along with their blind followers all fall into the same ditch (see Matt. 15:14). Such people are misinformed, and uninformed, and, as long as they remain blinded to the Gospel of God, submerged in an ocean of ignorance, they shall be counted among those who will eternally perish. Those to whom the Gospel of God is hid, cannot see it as the true and only Gospel of the only Living God, and are, therefore, lost: “…if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost” (2 Cor. 4:3). Though we can never fully understand, or perfectly comprehend the Trinity, its truth is inescapable for it is evinced in the eternal Word of Almighty God. Importantly, “We need to gather our understanding of the Trinity from the Bible itself, and not from a detractor’s caricature or misunderstanding of it.” In these last days there is a profusion of misinformation supplied by those with a definite agenda driven by a concerted and biased effort to ‘expose’ the Trinity concept as pagan, and thus do away with the doctrine of the Deity of Jesus the Messiah of God. Many are quick to welcome such disinformation because it fits exactly with their preconceived ideas and preferred choice of ‘truth’.
To gain a proper and accurate understanding of the Christian Trinity, we first need to take a closer look at the contrasting terms ‘trinity’ and ‘triad’. “By definition the Trinity doctrine teaches that there is only one God. The Trinity refers to ‘the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Three Persons. The word ‘trinity’ of course, is formed from the words ‘tri’ and ‘unity’, and describes ‘the state of being threefold’. In other words, to believe in the Trinity means to believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are essentially, and eternally, one God. Nevertheless, there are those who falsely assert that the Trinity is really teaching three separate gods. They claim it is either impossible for God to exist in three persons, and/or that the Trinity is really borrowed from pagan three-god figures.” What exactly the foolish notion that anything could be impossible for an ALMIGHTY God is based on is a mystery that can never be solved other than to say that the carnal mind cannot discern the things of God. More on this later. This ‘understanding’, or I should say MIS-understanding of God, is produced by minds which simply do not know God, and, therefore, cannot have the proper, Scripturally based, concept of God. “Many add that a person is by necessity an individual being. Therefore, they conclude, that the Trinity really teaches three gods. The problem with this criticism is that it denies the very nature of the doctrine. First of all, Trinitarianism by definition denies that there is more than one God. It is clearly monotheistic—one God—in spite of what the critics (falsely) claim. Second, there is a word used to describe a unity of three separate gods. It is the word ‘triad’. A TRIAD IS NOT A TRINITY. A triad is three separate gods—as in Mormonism. A Trinity is one God in three Persons (not three gods in one person). A triad is polytheistic—the worship of, or belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. A Trinity is monotheistic: the belief in and worship of only ONE God. Third, there is no logical reason to deny the possibility that three Persons can exist in one God. Critics may not like it, but it is not a logical impossibility. God is infinitely complex, and we cannot understand His vastness nor simply claim He can't exist in three Persons. Instead, we should look at the Bible to see what it says about God and see if the Trinity is taught. In Isaiah 1:18, God reasons with His followers: ‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord…’ To be sure, there are numerous places in Scripture where God calls us to use our minds (see Matt. 22:37; Rom. 12:2). While God places a value on human reason, however, there are also numerous places in Scripture which indicate that God is beyond our understanding. For example, in Isaiah 55:9 God declares, ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’. So WHILE GOD NEVER GOES AGAINST OUR REASON, HE DOES GO BEYOND OUR REASON. There is a big difference between a contradiction and that which extends beyond full human comprehension. The Trinity is not a contradiction. We can apprehend the Trinity without needing to fully comprehend it just as we do with many of God’s attributes (such as infinitude.) Let us be honest enough to follow all of the Scriptures where they lead rather than forcing human limitations on how God defines Himself.
“Theologians admit that the word ‘person’ is not the perfect word to use when referring to the Trinity because it carries with it the idea of individuals who are different beings. This is what we are familiar with; and this is one of the problems with using the term ‘person’ when describing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But this is what we must use when we see that when the Bible speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each are called God, each speak, and each have a will. They exhibit attributes of personhood. In describing what we observe, we are forced to use words that we are familiar with. ‘Person’ is just such a word. But it does not necessitate here that each person is an individual being. And fourth, trinities are known and accepted by people as observed in nature. By analogy we see that creation itself is Trinitarian. Time is past, present, and future. There are not three times. Each part of the whole of time is by nature time, yet there are not three times but one. Likewise, space is height, width, and depth. Matter is solid, liquid, and gas.” God is Father, Son and Spirit. Not three Gods, but one God. Man is made up of spirit, soul and body. The human arm consists of hand, forearm and upper arm. The leg is made up of foot, lower leg and upper leg. The whole body itself is made up of head, torso and legs. A full day consists of three parts: morning, afternoon, and night, etc. “Any color of light can be formed from the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Light that appears as white, the purest of all, does not exist by itself but is the equal combination of red, green and blue light, and is a manifestation of three colors in one. The space of our universe has three dimensions. You cannot define a point in space without using three dimensions, and yet that point is one. The atom defines the most basic unit of every chemical element in the universe. The word ‘atom’ comes from the Greek word for ‘indivisible’, yet while it represents the purest essence of one element, the atom has three facets, with the positively charged proton and neutral neutron at its core, and the negatively charged electron outside the core that balances its electric charge and interacts with other elements. There are three physical forces known to control all interactions in matter: gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear. The Unified Field Theory seeks to identify one set of laws that describes all these forces as different manifestations of one force. Life on Earth inhabits three domains, the sea, the land and the air. As the Trinity doctrine maintains, each of the Persons of the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is distinct, yet they are all each, by nature, God. With time, for example, the past is distinct from the present, which is distinct from the future. Each is simultaneous. Yet, they are not three 'times,' but one. That is, they all share the same nature: time. With space, height is distinct from width, which is distinct from depth, which is distinct from height. Yet, they are not three 'spaces,' but one. That is, they all share the same nature: space. With matter, solid is not the same as liquid, which is not the same as gas, which is not the same as solid. Yet, they are not three 'matters,' but one. That is, they all share the same nature: matter. Note that there are three sets of threes. In other words, there is a trinity of trinities. If we were to look at the universe and notice these qualities within it, it is quite reasonable to conclude that these are the fingerprints of the Triune God upon His creation. Not only is this simply an observation but also it is a good source for an analogy of the Trinity. The Bible says that God's invisible attributes are made known in creation: “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). When the critics of Trinitarianism say it really teaches three gods, they demonstrate their lack of understanding of the doctrine, and they either purposefully or mistakenly confuse it with something it is not. Trinitarianism denies and opposes the idea that there is more than one God. It is by definition—monotheistic.”
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All the nations of the ancient world included a trinity, or more precisely a ‘triad’, in their religious teachings. This, for many, discounts any legitimacy in anyone’s attempting to use the term ‘trinity’ in describing the only true God, the God of Christianity. They believe that because pagan triads, which they mistakenly refer to as ‘trinities’, existed long before such a teaching was ‘attached’ to Christianity, then it must, therefore, be a concept steeped in paganism and superstition, and, therefore, could not be something which originates with the true God. Sumeria, Babylonia, India, Greece, Egypt as well as many other nations all held to a belief in a triad of gods. “…the triangle was adopted by all the ancient nations as a symbol of the Deity…Three was considered among all the pagan nations as the chief of the mystical numbers, because, as Aristotle remarked, it contains within itself a beginning, a middle, and an end. Hence we find it designating some of the attributes of almost all the pagan gods. These pagan religions had what we call ‘trinities’, however, on closer examination they are not the same in concept or substance as the Christian doctrine of a Triune God.” Here we see the first clue which draws a distinctive line of demarcation between pagan trinities (triads), and the true Trinity as taught by the Word of God. The aim of counterfeiters is to make their item look and feel exactly like the genuine. Though most counterfeits look like the genuine article, it is only when a closer inspection of the details is conducted—by those who know what to look for—that the differences which eternally separate the true from the false are distinguished and revealed. Similarity does not mean ‘identicality’. A counterfeit may appear to be one thing, but expert scrutineering reveals its flaws and imperfections which proves it to be something completely different to what the untrained eye believes it to be. Though one may, at times, be able to see the complete picture, unless all the facts are revealed, and properly understood, the picture will either not make sense, or a perverted concept of its true meaning is all one will be left with. Every counterfeit $50 note bears the number 50, but this does not automatically make it legal currency, nor oblige anyone to accept it as such. So too, simply because pagan gods were often grouped into threes, does not qualify any of them as proper trinities, nor does this in any way lend any credibility to their fallaciously being linked to the true Trinity. The telling difference is that any trinities of paganism were always referred to as three gods, not one God as three Persons.
There are many counterfeits out there, but only one original. Be it a 20, 50 or 100 dollar note, no counterfeit can ever qualify as the one true and genuine item which the counterfeit is formed and designed to emulate. There are many, many triads, but only one Trinity. There are many groupings of three gods, but there is only one God Who is three Persons. Truths ignorantly attached to a lie do not make the lie legitimately admissible as truth. Clean clothes do not make an unwashed body clean. A lie is a perversion of truth. Truths do not come from lies, but lies are a distortion of truth, a mismanagement of truth, a misrepresentation of truth. Lies are the instruments, the heart and soul, of misdirection. “Without knowing the truth about a situation, one can make certain assumptions about it based on what is observed. Instead of basing our understanding of people and events on what we observe and what we know for a fact, we often prefer to make judgments based on our emotions, beliefs, expectations and wishes. We too easily confuse these psychological mechanisms with reality, and the assumptions that spring from them become the basis of our own version of ‘reality’, even though it’s not actually real. We don’t recognize just how much our inner world is coloring the way we see and understand our outer world, and how it distorts things for us. When making assumptions becomes a habit, we are less and less grounded in reality and more and more prone to creating problems for ourselves and others. So, how do we stop making so many assumptions and start basing our understanding of people and the world on more tangible facts? We simply pause as we’re jumping to our conclusions and ask ourselves, ‘How do I know this?’ If the answer to that question is anything other than ‘I learned it through observing the evidence or through obtaining factual information’, then we’re at risk of making an incorrect assumption. If we just stop and do our own fact-checking before deciding that we know something, we’ll avoid the trap of false assumptions and most likely prevent a lot of unnecessary difficulties for ourselves and others.”
Though a counterfeit note looks to all intents and purposes—particularly to the untrained eye—as the genuine item, it is the details present within the counterfeit which identify and define it as counterfeit. All lies contain within them the toxic seed that ultimately destroys them. If one knows little to nothing about the details concerning the look and feel of the genuine, it will be nigh on impossible to distinguish the genuine from a sophisticated counterfeit, and thus, all that will ensue is conflict with those who know what they are talking about. You may see some differences, but how does one know which is the counterfeit and which is the genuine if one does not intimately know what the genuine is in the first place. To those who do know the genuine, who have been trained, schooled in what to look for—how to differentiate the true from the counterfeit—the matter is promptly dealt with accurately because of knowledge: the knowledge, or awareness, of what the genuine is, which in turn equips the person with the ability to know what to look for in order to determine the validity and veracity of the object in question. True Christianity does not embrace the counterfeit god of Islam, or the gods of any other monotheistic religion, simply because those religions say there is one God and that God is One. The overlooked factor in all this is that who non-Christian, monotheistic religions says God is, is in reality not God at all. For instance, Islam teaches that Jesus Christ is not God, therefore their denial of the Deity of Jesus constitutes a rejection of the true God. It is the doctrinal details of what is taught about the One God—in particular the way God saves as revealed in the Gospel of salvation—and the fact that God is One which make all the difference, and separates truth from fiction, and all false gods from the only true God.
It is also vitally important to point out the much overlooked fact that many pagan religions did not merely have a ‘trinity’, or a triad of gods, but also “In collecting data on ancient paganism and idolatry, there are examples of ‘Twinities: 2 gods’ ‘Trinities: 3 gods’ ‘Quadites: 4 gods’ and ‘Quintities: 5 gods’ etc. Heavily biased anti-Trinitarians search through the thousands of pagan gods of history and look for any theme of three, while ignoring all the themes of 2,4, and 5 gods. The pagan concept of a trinity was predominantly encapsulated with a Father, and Mother, giving birth to a Son. They were three major Gods with many minor gods as well. Importantly, the pagan ‘trinities’ were always comprised of three ‘Gods’ not one.” This qualifies the ‘three gods’ of paganism as triads and not trinities, and completely disqualifies any claim that the Christian Trinity is in any way a concept derived, or borrowed, from Paganism. A triad of gods is the antithesis of God as a Trinity. The three gods theory is the best concept of God that can be conceived in the mind of lost men. The revelation that God is one God in three Persons is a blessing bestowed by God to His elect people. A triad is a ‘group of three’ or ‘three gods’, rather than a Trinity which is “the teaching of one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each is distinct from the other, but each is Divine and of One nature and substance. They are all one God, not three gods.” The three gods concept goes completely against the monotheism of Christianity. This is why there can be no connection whatsoever between the Christian Trinity and pagan triads. More on this later. “The Greek triad of Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, the Hindu triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Egyptian triad of Osirus, Horus, and Isis, the Babylonian triads of Nimrod, Tammuz, and Simerimas, or Shamas, Sin, and Ishtar, and the Roman triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus BEAR NO RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER TO THE BIBLICAL TRINITY.” The only connection being the number three. However, since there is no other resemblance, or similarity between the pagan triads and the Christian Trinity, it stands to reason that the fact pagan triads only resemble each other shows they can only be a counterfeit—a lost man’s understanding—of the genuine Trinity of the Godhead.
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“Prior to Christianity, no religion ever believed in a single Deity consisting of three persons. Detractors sometimes say that the Osirus-Isis-Horus family of ancient Egyptian mythology was a ‘model’ for the Christian Trinity. Yet this is clearly a triad of distinct pagan deities, not a trinity in the Christian sense. The Egyptians never considered them to be three persons in one God, but as two separate gods and a goddess - among numerous other divinities such as Hathor, Ptah, Neith, Set, Nut, Geb, and Basht, to name a few. The highest deity in their pantheon was the sun god Ra, so they didn't even consider the Osirus-Isis-Horus triad to be supreme among the gods!” “The Hindus, Greeks, and Romans had a three-god triad, but those did not come close to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Those cultures and religions had a three-god concept, but the members of their divine triads were not co-equal and co-eternal. Neither did they share the same nature and essence. They also did not have a perfect unity among them. In fact, the opposite was true. These religions may be called tritheistic, or, more accurately, polytheistic, but not Trinitarian. They did not have one God of three Persons, nor even three gods. Rather they had scores of gods of different strengths in constant conflict. All pagan triads are separate not united as the one God, and almost unanimously had a mother involved as in a heavenly family. This was really tritheism. Tritheism is the teaching that the Godhead is really three separate beings forming three separate gods. This erring view is often misplaced by the cults for the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is but one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is, by definition, monotheistic. That is, it is a doctrine that affirms that there is only one God in all the universe.”
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Three separate gods is not the same teaching as one God in three Persons. It is a completely different teaching, a perversion, a lie, a distortion of an eternal truth. To associate the Christian Trinity with pagan triads, simply because both involve the number 3, is at best simplistic, juvenile and self-serving. To then have some who knowingly attempt to cram the three gods concept into Christianity and try to convince others that the Christian Trinity came from the pagan triad is utterly shameful. The false teaching of three separate gods has nothing to do with the Biblical doctrine of one God as three Persons, so how pray tell can that which is totally unlike something come from that something! This would be like trying to convince someone that carrots find their origin in apples! If A is not B, then how could B have ever come from A? How can a perversion ever be identical to the genuine? A perversion is a perversion precisely because it is not the genuine. Perversions only find symmetry with other perversions. The truth is unique and stands alone. Perversion is a distortion of truth. Truth is not a correction of any perversion, for the truth is eternal—truth has always preceded error, or perversion—and stands independent of anything which misrepresents it. Truth is not reactive. Perversion is always either a negative reaction against a truth, or is brought into existence because of sheer ignorance. “Next to sheer ignorance comes doubt, which, in its widest sense, would include all the states intermediate between ignorance and certitude.” The Lord Jesus is the truth: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life…” (Jn. 14:6). The Lord Jesus also says: “And ye shall KNOW the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32). “What will make us free? KNOWING THE TRUTH!, never ignorance of the truth.” It is knowledge of the truth and not ignorance of the truth which makes a man free. What does knowledge and belief of the truth free us from? The ignorance which causes people to accept as truth that which is anything but truth! Truth does not react to a lie, for the truth has always been. Lies evolve from misunderstanding, misrepresentation, ignorance of, or bias against, truth. The truth is the truth and nothing else. The only link between the two teachings of the Trinity and triads is that the worldly concept of three gods is a perversion of the eternal Trinity of the one and only true God. As accounts of the Great Flood abound in pagan tradition, so too, particles of truth concerning the Trinity are apparent in most cultures and religions. The three gods concept of paganism is merely lost man’s perverted representation of the eternal Trinity of one God in three Persons. The concept of one God in three Persons does not make sense in a lost man’s mind, the concept of three gods does. Those who claim that the concept of “three distinct persons in one God is a rational impossibility” fail to realise that it is only a rational impossibility to those who function in accord with their irrational, carnal minds. The concept of an aeroplane is totally irrational to the mind of some lost tribesmen, but this can, in no way, do away with the fact that planes do exist and indeed fly. Those who do not have understanding, who do not comprehend because of a lack of knowledge, do not realise that their ‘logic’ is without the vital element of fact-based, accurate, comprehension. The ‘logic’ of the ignorant is, and can only ever be, nothing but erroneous.