God is One In Person and In Essence

[AngelicMan]

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, came into the world to subdue the hells and to glorify His Human. Without this no mortal could have been saved, and those are saved who believe in Him.
 
The expression 'in universal terms' is used because this is a universal point of faith, and a universal point of faith must be contained in all its particulars.

It is a universal point of faith that God is one in essence and in person, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ.

 It is a universal point of faith that no mortal could have been saved, if the Almighty God had not come into the world.

It is a universal point of faith that He came into the world to take hell away from men, and He did this by fighting against hell and winning victories over it.

 In this way He subdued it and reduced it to order, and made it subject to His command.

 It is a universal point of faith that He came into the world to glorify the Human which He assumed in the world, that is, to unite it with the originating Divinity.

By this means He keeps hell for ever in order and subject to His command.

Since this could only be achieved by means of temptations experienced in His Human, even to the most extreme, His passion on the cross, He underwent this. These are the universal matters of faith concerning the Lord.
 
It is a universal point of faith on the part of man to believe in the Lord, who is Almighty Father in the Human, for this belief links him to the Lord, and this is the way to salvation.

 Believing in Him means having confidence that He is the Saviour; and since only those who lead good lives can have such confidence, this too is meant by believing in Him. The Lord says this in John's gospel:
 
This is the will of the Father, that everyone who believes in the Son should have everlasting life. John 6:40.
 
and elsewhere:
 
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. He who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him. John 3:36. This means those who believe God Almighty became Man and that His Human is the Son of God have eternal life. The Father is not one person and the Son another, They are one Person, as the soul and body of a man makes one person, therefore the soul and body of Jesus Christ make one God.

Harry
 

[GodsWordisTruth]

God is one in person and in essence = heresy.

In the unity of the Godhead there are three persons (personae), of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost."
To speak of three eternal persons in this sense is to recognize relationships among the Three that transcend manifestations in history. That is, each person is a self-aware subject who relates to each of the other two as "another." In our finite world, we are used to encountering only finite beings, and every person we meet is an entity separate from all other persons. However, God is not finite, so it may be that as an infinite being He exists as three distinguishable persons, while remaining one indivisible essence.


The Trinity Revealed in the Resurrection
1. Acts 10 : 39-40 — God raised Christ from the dead.
2. 1 Thessalonians 1 : 10 — God the Father raised the Son from the dead.
3. Romans 8 : 11 — God the Spirit raised the Son from the dead.
4. John 2 : 19-22 — God the Son raised Himself from the dead.
The Trinity Revealed in the Creation

1. The Father: Isaiah 64:8.
2. The Son: Colossians 1:15-17.
3. The Holy Spirit: Job 33:4.

At the baptism of Christ, all three Persons were manifested.

[lightsavour]

 Gods word is truth,

 Colossians 2:8 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."
                  9 "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

 So beware what you call heresy. The Lord Jesus Christ was perfectly man, but he was also perfectly God. That is the only reason he was "the able sacrifice" for souls. The souls he created, he died for.

 Revelation 21:22 " And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."

  This is a divine separation of God the Father (or Almighty), and God the Son (or Lamb). The perfect names are separated only by  "and the" which is lower case, which deems each as singular upon the throne.

  Remember also...
 Revelation 7:15 " Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
                  16 " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
                   17 " For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

 1. The Lord Jesus is said to express the fulness (not a light word) of the Godhead bodily. Therefore he is God manifest in the flesh.
2. God the Almighty, the Holy Spirt and the Lamb are separated in heaven as soul, spirit and body of a man are separated. However, as all are part of one like Harry said, the Lamb(our saviour) is the flesh (however in heaven it will be without blood) that will walk among us.

 To say the Lord Jesus was simply listening and obeying would not do. For the angels obeyed God but could not be used as a sacrifice. The Lord Jesus was perfectly God, and yet perfectly man. That is why he is the perfect sacrifice. Be sure not to take anything away from his perfection, for you will limit the salvation you have become a partaker of.

 God bless you all.

[GodsWordisTruth]

Triune God

Each person is a self-aware subject who relates to each of the other two as "another."

All Persons of the Godhead are fully God.

Hebrews 1 : 1, 2, 8 — God the Father calls the Son, "God."
8. Acts 5 : 3-4 --Peter calls the Holy Spirit, "God."
9. John 6 : 27 --Jesus calls the Father, "God."

All three were manifested at the same time at the Son's baptism. Jesus didn't make His voice come from Heaven saying "This is my beloved Son..." That was His Father speaking.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are personally distinct from one another.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are able to:

(A) Send or be sent by one another (John 3:17, 10:36, 14:23-26, 15:26, 16:7).

(B) Speak to each other (John 17:1-26, Romans 8:26-27, Hebrews 1:7-8) and about each other (Matthew 17:5, Mark 1:11, John 8:13-18).

(C) The Father and Son love and honor each other (John 3:35, 5:20, 14:31).

The Trinity doctrine -- that there is one God in three Persons -- summarizes these biblical truths without adding or subtracting anything from them.

God bless you as study His word and grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

[lightsavour]

 Godswordistruth, sorry I had already replied to this and pressed sent on friday... seems it has not turned up.

 I wanted to say that I agree fully with what you have said. I must have simply misunderstood your words and you mine as I tried to clarify in my post. Thank you for taking the time to come back and clear that up for me. I believe we each stressed a different part of the whole, which is understandable as we cant fully understand God. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and yet fully man, and it must confuse even the most learned to some degree. I wanted to be sure all were clear that the Lord Jesus was completely God. You wanted all to know that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were each singular in they're expression... as well as being one as God.

 Thank you again, and may God bless your diligence and faithfulness to his word.
God bless.

[AngelicMan]

To All,
There are two groups of saying in the Gospels that seem to conflict with each other.
Here are some examples of the first group:

Jesus said: "I am come from God" (John 8:42).

 "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what he seeth the Father do". (John 5:19)

 Simon Peter said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16)

At the Lord's baptism a voice from heaven was heard to say: "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." ("Matt. 3:17)

The Lord also said: "My Father is greater than I." (John 14:28), and "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." (John 14:6).

 On the cross Jesus said: "Father, forgive them ..." (Luke 23:34), and "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46)

Also, after the resurrection, the Lord said to the disciples, "Teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father , and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt. 28:19)

 In this last passage, not only does it seem that the Father and the Son are distinct, but also that there is yet a third Divine Person or Being, the Holy Spirit.

If we were to consult only such passages as these, and ignore all the others that seem to conflict with them, we might come to the conclusion that God is in three Persons.

This is extremely puzzling to anyone of a reflective turn of mind, because his common sense tells him that there simply cannot be three Divine Persons, or three Divine Beings because this is the same as saying that there can be three Infinities of three Gods. The task of uniting three distinct Divinities into one God is a forlornly hopeless task.

Moreover, the second thing to be noted is that while it has usually been taken for granted that in these passages the terms "Father" and "Son" always refer to people, this is not necessarily the case. Do we not say in common speech, "The wish is father to the thought?" And in the Word we find a similar usage: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)



Harry

[SonofAslan]

Harry,

I want to respond to this last post of yours, but I’m afraid it will come across as harsh and condescending when that is not my intent. I am simply very tactless. So I ask your forgiveness in advance for any offense my response might arouse.

First, that God should be conformable to “common sense” is itself foreign to common sense. God is infinite, as you acknowledged. Therefore, to admit that He is ungraspable by our finite human minds  is not only NOT a weakness but an absolute necessity. So that He seems “irrational” is both necessary and to be expected. I myself prefer the term “transrational” to indicate that God transcends rationality.

Second,  “common sense” might declare what you have stated, but some of the greatest thinkers in the history of thought have declared exactly the opposite. The notion that there is one “God” and yet three “hypostases” of this God is not even unique to Christianity. It is one of the great philosophical themes to arise out of Platonism. I would suggest a thorough reading of Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist. Reading him as a primary source may be rather dry and dense, so if you prefer find a good book on Neo-Platonic thought and read that. You will find that there is a significant philosophical school in which God is supremely One, and yet 3 distinct “hypostases”. Now Neo-Platonism is NOT Christianity, and has some ideas which are definitively opposed to Christian thought. These have even been anathematized by the Church. It is also true that there is confusion in both Plotinus and other Neo-Platonists regarding the status of the 3 “hypostases” in relation to the One. But this is to be expected, after all, the notion of something being radically One and yet including multiplicity within Itself  goes against “common sense”.

As I said, Neo-Platonism is NOT Christianity, and Plotinus, the father of Neo-Platonism, was NOT a Christian. In fact, he wrote a treatise against Christianity (he lived ca. 180 AD). Another thinker, who was a Christian and who is also considered by many to be a joint father of Neo-Platonism (since he was definitely a Neo-Platonist and was a contemporary of Plotinus), is Origen. You can read his works and get a rational explanation of this theme too, but one must keep in mind that Origen was anathematized precisely for going too far in his rationalistic understanding. He also is confusing regarding whether the Son and the Father have the same ontological status, as in some passages he seems to subordinate the Son to the Father and  in others he clearly makes them equal. I’m not offering these thinkers as paradigms of Christian thought. I’m just offering them as examples of people who have, in fact, thought exactly what you claim goes against “common sense”. That it forces one to make contradictory statements is understandable, since one is talking about things which transcend all rationality. How do you describe that which can’t be described? This is why almost any attempt to clearly define God in rational terms will fall into heresy. God transcends our ability to understand. He is infinite, why shouldn’t He?

[lightsavour]

 However, as you eluded to SonofAslan, we dont even need philosophical writers to ease our confusion. If we accept what God has written as truth, then we will have taken much that we cant understand and put faith to it. God honours faith much more than our simple understanding of worldly explanations. God will honour faith with a divine understanding of his being that fills our own lives with an understanding of our own body, soul and spirit. As God has given us a three part existence to better understand his will in our lives.

 God bless.

[AngelicMan]

However, as you eluded to SonofAslan, we dont even need philosophical writers to ease our confusion. If we accept what God has written as truth, then we will have taken much that we cant understand and put faith to it. God honours faith much more than our simple understanding of worldly explanations. God will honour faith with a divine understanding of his being that fills our own lives with an understanding of our own body, soul and spirit. As God has given us a three part existence to better understand his will in our lives.

 God bless.

Why is it so hard to understand that God doesn't need to be three persons. One God is the Creator, Redeem and Regenerator.

 The only reason Christians today believe in the three Divine persons is because they were taught from childhood to believe something that is false.

This doctrine of three Divine persons has been false since the Council of Nicea in the year 325 AD. The doctrine of three Divine persons from eternity was accepted at that Council and thereby turned the church into a theater furnished with painted hangings, wherein the actors were representing new plays.

http://newearth.org/frontier

Harry[/b]

[Nostalghia]

One of my favourite saints is Saint Nicholas, who was a Bishop at the time of the First Ecumenical Concil.  During the council of Nicaea he walked up to Father Arius and slapped him in the face.  Upon seeing this, the other Bishops were shocked, this had never been done (and hasnt since) and they immediately de-frocked hi.  During the night- Jesus appeared to them all, telling them that St. Nicholas was right.  

Anyone stating that the doctrine of the Trinity was made up during the Council has not read the Church Fathers.  Try the epistles of St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus.  Thank the Lord for the Church, who defended the Body of Christ against this heresy that lives even today.  


 I believe in one God,
 the Father Almighty,
 maker of heaven and earth,
 and of all things visible and invisible;

 And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
 the Only-Begotten Son of God,
 begotten of the Father before all ages,
 Light of Light, true God of true God
 begotten, not created,
 of one essence with the Father;
 through whom all things were made;
 
 For us men and for our salvation
   He came down from heaven,
 and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
   and the Virgin Mary,
   and became man;
 
 He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
 he suffered and was buried;
 and the third day he rose again
   according to the Scriptures,
 and ascended into heaven,
 and is seated on the right hand of the Father;
 and he shall come again, with glory,
   to judge both the living and the dead;
 whose kingdom shall have no end.

 And I believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord, and Giver of Live,
 who proceedeth from the Father;
 who with the Father and the Son together
   is worshipped and glorified;
 who spoke through the Prophets.
  In one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
 I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
 and I await the resurrection of the dead,
    and the life of the world to come. AMEN.


Defend Christ against this blatant Arianism.

[AngelicMan]

BEFORE THE WORLD WAS CREATED THE TRINITY OF GOD WAS NOT.
 
What rational mind, when it hears that before the creation of the world there were three Divine Persons, called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does not say within itself while thinking of them, "What is meant by a Son born from God the Father from eternity?

 How could He be born? What is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God the Father through the Son from eternity?How could He proceed and become God by Himself?

How could a person beget a person from eternity? and both produce a person? Is not a person a person?
How can three Persons, of which each is God, be conjoined into one God, otherwise than into one person? And yet this is contrary to theology, and this to that. How can the Divinity be divided into three Persons, and yet not into three Gods, when yet each Person is God?

How can the Divine essence, which is one, the same, and indivisible, fall into number, hence be either divided or multiplied?

 How can three Divine Persons be together and take counsel together in a non-extense of space, such as was before the world was created?

 How, from Jehovah God, who is One, and thence Sole, Infinite, Immense, Eternal, and Omnipotent, could there be produced three equals to Himself?

 How can a Trinity of Persons be conceived of in the Unity of God, and the Unity of God in a Trinity of Persons?

Besides the idea of plurality destroys the idea of unity, and vice versa. Perhaps it would have been possible for the Greeks and Romans also to unite all their gods into one, which were many, by identity only of essence."

The rational mind, in revolving and reflecting upon a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity, might also consider of what use was it that a Son was born, and that the Holy Spirit went forth from the Father through the Son before the world was created?

Was there a use for three to consult how the universe should be created? And that three should create it? When yet the universe was created by the one God?

 Neither was there occasion that the Son should redeem, when yet redemption was effected after the world was created, in the fulness of time.

That the Holy Spirit should sanctify, because as yet there was no man to be sanctified. Therefore if there were those uses in God's idea, still they were not [realized] before the creation of the world, but after it actually existed; from which it follows, that the Trinity from eternity was not a real Trinity, but ideal, and still more so is a Trinity of Persons.

 Who in the church, while reading the Athanasian Creed, is able to understand this? That it is of the Christian verity, that each Person by Himself is God, and yet that it is not lawful by the Catholic religion to account them three Gods?

 Is not religion thus to him something other than truth? and that in truth three Persons are three Gods, but that from religion they are one God?
 
A trinity of Persons in the Divinity before the world was created, did not come into the mind of any one from the time of Adam down to the advent of the Lord, as is clear from the Word of the Old Testament, and from histories concerning the religion of the ancients. Neither did it come into the mind of the Apostles, as is evident from their writings in the Word.

Neither did it come into the mind of any one in the Apostolic Church, which was before the Council of Nice, as appears from the Apostles' Creed, in which no Son from eternity is mentioned, but a Son born from the Virgin Mary.

A Trinity of Persons from eternity is not only above reason, but opposed to it. It is against reason that three Persons created the universe; that there were three Persons, and each one God, and not three Gods but one, and then three Persons and not one Person.

 Will not the New Church about to come call this age of the old church benighted or barbarous, when they worshiped three Gods? Similarly irrational are those things which are derived from that Trinity.

A Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity was first taught by the Nicene Council, as appears from the two Creeds, the Nicene and the Athanasian. And afterwards it was received by the churches as the principal dogma, and as the head of the doctrines, after that time even to the present day.

There were two reasons why that Trinity was given forth by the Council of Nice; the first was, that they knew not how otherwise to dissipate the scandals of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Lord; the other, because they did not understand what is written by the evangelist John (Chap. 1. 1, 2, 10, 14; 16. 28; 17. 5). How these things are to be understood may be seen above.

The Divinity before the world was created as believed according to the Nicene Council and the churches after that, to consist of three Persons each of which was God, and that from the first Person was born a second, and from these two went forth a third, is not only above the understanding, but contrary to it, and the faith of a paradox, which is opposed to the rational understanding.

 It is a faith in which there is not anything of the church, but a persuasion of the false, such as obtains with those who are insane in religious matters.

 But still it is not here said of those who do not see [these things to be] contradictory and contrary to the Sacred Scripture and yet believe them, that they are insane in religious matters; thus it is not said of the Council of Nice, nor of the churches derived from it after that time, because they did not see.

Harry
 
 

[AngelicMan]

 By Swedenborg:
 The Divine Esse is at once Esse [Being] in itself and Existere [Manifestation] in itself. Jehovah God is Esse in itself, because He is the I Am, the Only, and the First, from eternity to eternity, the source of everything that is, without whom it could not be.

In this way and not otherwise He is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega.

From myself: Jehovah God again saided the same thing in Revelation,"I am the First and the Last." God has many names, Jehovah and Jesus is one of them, and each of them have a different meanings.

From Swedenborg:
It cannot be said that His Esse is from Itself, because the expression from itself implies something prior, and therefore time; and time is not applicable to the Infinite, which is called infinite from eternity.

It also implies another God who is God in Himself, thus it implies God from God, or that God formed Himself; in which case He would neither be uncreate nor infinite. For He would  have made Himself finite, either from Himself or from another.

From the fact that God is Esse in itself it follows that He is Love in itself, Wisdom in itself, and Life in itself, and that He is the Itself, the source of all things, to which each thing must have relation in order to be anything.

 That God is God because He is Life in itself is evident from the Lord's words in John (5:26) and in Isaiah:
I am Jehovah that maketh all things; that spreadeth forth the heavens alone that stretcheth forth the earth by Myself (44:21)
and that He alone is God, and beside Him there is no God (Isa. 45:14, 15, 21, 22; Hos. 13:4).

God is not only Esse [Being] in itself, but also Existere [Manifestation] in itself, because Esse without Existere is nothing, equally so Existere unless it is from Esse.

Therefore where the one is the other must needs be. The same is true of substance and form. Unless a substance is also a form nothing can be predicated of it, and for the reason that having no quality it is in itself nothing.

The terms esse and existere are here used, and not essence and existence, because a distinction must be made between esse and essence, and between existere and existence, like that between the prior and the posterior, the prior being more universal than the posterior.

To the Divine Esse infinity and eternity are applicable,while to the Divine Essence and Existence, Divine love and wisdom are applicable, and through these two omnipotence and omnipresence, which will be considered in their order.

Harry
 

[SonofAslan]

Sedenborg?? You're actually going to quote HIM in a Christian forum!!!!! Ok, whatever. He hsa absolutely NO credibility, and certainly not as a Christian. He's a spiritualist. No different from those mediums yuo see at state fairs. And he started his own religion. If you want to be swedenborgian, then go ahead. But he's nothing but a pre-cursor to the current new-age philosophy.

As for there being no Trinity before the world was, sorry you're wrong. Before the world was, there indeed WAS a Trinity. Who do you think God was speaking to when He said "Let US make man in OUR image."?

Sorry. Deny it all you want. Reject what Scripture says all you want. Reject what Jesus said all you want. The Truth remains exactly what it is. The TRUTH! And it is far from irrational, as I have already demonstrated. Non-Christian philosophers came up with the same sorts of ideas, and they weren't influenced by Niceae or anything else.

READ my young man, READ.
















Ok, READ BETTER books.

[Nostalghia]

Angelicman:

By what authority do you interpret the Scriptures in such convoluting ways?  
Do you mean to convince us that the founder of your Sect was led by the Holy Spirit to reach such heterodox conclusions?  
Is there any Apostolic Authority which gave you the right to interpret them such ways?
Was there a council convened like in Acts, and like the 7 Ecumenical Councils to make such blatant heterodox claims?  Did not the Lord say that"...when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13)  Why was the early Church then led into non-truth.

“..And on this rock will I build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her” (Matt 16:18b)

Did the gates of Hell prevail against His Church when they reaffirmed the Doctrine of the Trinity?

“And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1:22,23)

Why then did the Church fall away from the Truth?

Why did the Church, which is the "...pillar and ground of truth" (1Tim 3:15) make an Ecumencial desicion that is heretical? Do you accept the authority given to the Church by God?  What about the first Council in Acts?

Are we not the Body of Christ? Did he lead us into darkenss for 2000 years, awaiting a man in the 20th century to make up his own interpretation, so we can be *finally* rescued from this heresy?

Why did your church prophecy the Rapture twice, and both times it did not occur?  Is God changing his mind?

Why gives your church the authority to make such a sick mosaic of verses, and to distort the truth of Christ?

DO NOT send me more of your interpretations of Scriptures, answer by what Authority are you speaking, THEN you may make your scriptural claims.  Not first.

Thanks!!!  Humbly and in the name of Christ, our King of Kings, our Lord of Lords! (1 Timothy 6:15)

[SonofAslan]

Angelicman,

Give me a break. Oh yeah, these people who ahd been taught by the apostles really didn't know what "The Word WAS God" meant. If you're a JW, then I've spoken with people from your church and seen your bible. You guys know absolutely NOTHING about Greek. Strange isn't it? How all the people in the country that actually read and write the langauage Scripture was written in have no problem understanding that a) there is ONE God, and b) that "the Word was God" means Jesus IS God, so when He talks about his Father as someone distinct,then this can ONLY result in a Trinitarian understanding of God.

Ansd I direct you once again. READ!! Thias idea is so far from opposing reason that some of teh greatest philosophers in the history of teh world came up with amazingly similar understandings of "god" and they weren't even Christian or Jewish.

Stop parroting quotes from some source you refuse to cite. Do somr research. There are GOBS of Fathers who taught that Jesus and God are one from the times of teh apostles themselves.

There is no way around it. If you admit taht Jesus is divine, then either you have multiple gods or a Trinity. Because at the same time Jesus was divine down here on earth, the voice of the divine Father was speaking from heaven. So eitehr Jesus ISN'T divine (your quotes say otehrwise) or else you have a Trinity. Make up your mind.

Please, before you go calling a concept irrational. Read some to make sure that's the case. Find out what it means for something infinite to be rational. In other words READ WHAT I TOLD YOU TO READ!!! Lord have mercy. I feel like I need to be de-frocked, and I'm not even frocked. St Nicholass, interceed for me!!!