Divinity of Christ and the Trinity.

[Terry]

This probably sounds heretical but just try to answer me please. 

So I was wondering about it, I've always been raised Roman Catholic and taught that Jesus is both man and God and that Him, God, and the Spirit where one, but now I'm not necessarily a Roman Catholic and this topic came up somewhere and I can't find any quotes supporting it (I may not be looking hard enough), while there are parts that are against it. 

For one, Jesus said that His works are accomplished through God, and if He where God would this make sense? 

Also once He went to town to heal people and He started feeling sick and faint and didn't have enough power, wouldn't this mean that He wasn't all powerful? 

And for the Trinity part, the Bible says that you can say anything you want about Jesus as long as you don't say anything about the Holy Spirit, but if they where the same how would this be possible? 

Also throughout the Acts and letters the apostles always referred to Him as a separate entity from God. 

So I'm just a little confused, any help is appreciated! 

[Paul Graves]

The word 'Trinity' isn't in the bible anywhere. The bible is very clear that there's just one God, who created everything, is eternal, is in charge of everything etc etc

"I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God" Isaiah 44v6


But there turn up a number of bible verses where it seems like Jesus is actually being talked about or described like he is God.

Here's two of them:

John 20:27 Thomas calls Jesus "My Lord and my God" (and there's no account of Jesus arguing with him!)

John 1 starts with "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God" and a little later on says "the word became flesh and dwelt among us" so 'the word' is the man Jesus, and he is God

There are similar bible verses which you can google if you want to. The end result is that the guys in the new testament seemed to understand that Jesus was in some way the same as God, even though Jesus was a man walking around and talking and eating with them, and God in heaven was something utterly different. Very bizarre but there you go.

And the same thing happens with some bible verses on the Holy Spirit

eg 2 Corinthians 3:17 "the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"


At the end of Matthew's gospel Jesus tells his friends "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" so all three of these are pulled together at the start of our Christian life.


These bible verses are brought together into the idea of the Trinity
- God is three persons
- Each person is fully God
- There is only one God


In some ways is makes sense - Jesus and the Holy Spirit really must be divine to do some of the things they did. But then again they are clearly different to God. I wish the bible writers had explained themselves more clearly so I didn't get so confused by some of these things! But there was some stuff they just took for granted!


Note that not everyone who enjoys reading the bible believes in the idea of the trinity, and there are lots of websites claiming the trinity is some sort of conspiracy or something. But it's an idea that is usually accepted by all the normal catholic and protestant churches.


Feel free to post any follow up questions and we'll all see if we can be off help!

[Terry]

Thank you, I'm still a bit confused but thanks!

[E_Lewis]

The way St.Patrick explained the trinity to the pagans of Ireland, was with a clover. Just as a clover has 3 leaves, but is still one clover, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different forms God takes, but still are one, full God.

So, much like a clover has three parts, God has three forms, but they are still one thing.

It's not really clear to me either, but no one can completely understand God I geuss. especially not at the average ages of people on this site.

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

The divinity of Christ (fully God and fully man) and the concept of the trinity are often recognized as the most confusing and hard to understand concepts in Christianity.

We usually say that God the father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are separate beings or persons, with different roles, but are one God. We do not say that they are "a God", but use God as the title. Occasionally we refer to them as the God, such as, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

For all of their actions, we say that they do them together. Their actions "proceed" from God the Father, through Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit. They each have different roles in this action. Similarly, they never "disagree" in their action, which makes it more difficult to distinguish them and easier to understand how they are the same God.

Christ very clearly claimed to be God and you can find a ton of sites with verses where he claims his deity all over the Internet. I list one there which seems decent. Not all of the verses show him explicitly claiming to be God. I actually like this method better, because he shows that in all ways, down to the last detail, he is God. He did not leave those details as a mystery.

As for the story of Jesus "lacking power," I think you are referring to Mark 6:1-6, where Jesus visits his hometown of Nazareth. Mark 6:1-6 says, "Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown; and His disciples followed Him.
When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands?"
"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?" And they took offense at Him.
Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household."
And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching."

Sometimes when questioning God's power, they ask whether God can do anything, such as creating a rock that is too big for him to lift. We counter that we do not say that God can do anything, but that the only limit on what he can do is that he must act consistently with his character. In that sense, God cannot lie, cheat, steal, or sin. With respect to Mark 6:1-6, it seems that the reason that he could not do many miracles there was not a lack of power, but a lack of faith on the part of the people. By that, I mean that Jesus used his miracles as a means of teaching and also for rewarding faith.

For an example, see Luke 17:11-19, "Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"
When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

Jesus used the miracle to demonstrate his deity to the lepers. The one who came back to thank Jesus was recognized for his faith. We see this pattern of people being healed, not just to heal their physical ailments, but also to bring about faith in God. If the people would not be willing to demonstrate their faith in God even with a miracle, then it seems like it was against his character to perform one for them.

Similarly, Jesus rebuked the pharisees with a similar situation in Matthew 16:4, ""An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah." And He left them and went away."

Jesus had performed plenty of signs for other people, including fulfilling all the required prophecies. He had even performed many of his miracles in front of the pharisees in order to correct them on their doctrines of the Sabbath. Their only reason for asking for a sign in this passage was to use it as evidence against Jesus as they were already decided in their faith.


Similarly, here are some arguments for the deity of the Holy Spirit, from John Piper and Arthur Pink.


As for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, I think that you are referring to Matthew 16:31-32, "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."

In other words, while we should not speak against Christ, it will be forgiven. Oddly enough, he says that speaking against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, which seems to contradict other Bible verses.

I don't know much about this at all, except that my teachers have avoided it and cautioned me against trying to derive anything important from it. There just aren't many supporting passages for us to figure out what he meant. One attempt to try is this article, Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit—The “Unpardonable Sin”

[Katie]

Jesus was God, but He had to become a man in order to save us. He was a sinless man, though he did suffer as any human man would. For this reason he intercedes for us to God. If he didn't fully understand the vulnerability of himself being human, than he couldn't have done what he did. But that's just a shortanswer. Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and God the Father is God. They are one, yet He is three. If He were easy to understand, He would not be God :D

[E_Lewis]

Some people see Christianity as polytheistic because we pray to the father and the son and speak of the father and the son usually seperately as if they are different beings all together.

What do you guys think of that idea?

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

We think of them as the same God because they act in unison. None of them act alone and none of them act against each other.

If nothing else, it would make the first of the ten commandments much more confusing.

[E_Lewis]

Well, Jesus said that the Father will not judge, but the Son will be in charge of judgment on the last day, so they're sort of acting separately there.

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

We say that they have different roles.  So, while the father might not "judge", he would decree that the son judge, or something like that.  The Holy Spirit would have a role in there too.

[Evan Kirkwood Lake]

A way of thinking about the 'trinity' is this.

It's an egg. Where some people describe the 'trinity' as Water (which is seperate in states and therefore a bad analogy), the egg is a better image.

When you purchase eggs at the supermarket, you don't buy egg whites or egg yolks or the shells seperately, they are purchased as one.

In other words; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all parts of an egg. Hope it helps.

(Idea from a sermon preached by the Pastor at my church)

[E_Lewis]

Jesus said that you can be forgiven for blasphemying the Son of Man, but not for blashpemying the holy spirit. What does it mean to blasphemy the holy spirit?

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

Everything I have been able to figure out says that the sin was specific to Jesus' ministry on earth in that they were saying Jesus' power came from Satan.  Since Jesus isn't ministering directly anymore, we can't even commit this sin if we tried.

 

I don't really worry as a Calvinist, because I trust God to be fully in control of salvation anyway, so its not like you lose out on salvation because you made a stupid mistake.