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Is
God a Trinity?
Is God really three Divine Persons who are each God while God is
still one? Is God really a
Trinity? Sure, Jesus is God (John 1:1-3, 14). But let's examine now
the issue of who or what the Holy Spirit is . . . according to the Bible. We’ll find that God is really two Persons at
this time.
Let’s warm up by examining the nature of the Holy Spirit
first. The Holy Spirit doesn’t have a separate center of
consciousness from the Father and the Son, but these two members of the Godhead
act through the Holy Spirit and are present through the universe through the
Holy Spirit. That’s one reason why at times the Spirit may appear to
be a person. Consider this interesting text that effectively equates
the Holy Spirit with Jesus (II Cor. 3:17-18): “Now the Lord is the
Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. . .
. just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Furthermore,
when the Holy Spirit is in a Christian, the Spirit is “Christ in you, the hope
of glory” (Col. 1:27; cf. Romans 8:10). This is how someone could
lie to the Holy Spirit, since they were lying to Jesus, who was in the Apostle
Peter. (See Acts 5:3-4). The same goes for how the Holy
Spirit can be blasphemed. The Holy Spirit is the agency through
which God, the Father and the Son, act, much like the human mind acts through
its hands and feet. The burden of proof is on the Trinitarians to
show that the Son and the Holy Spirit are separate divine persons since various
texts can be cited that equate the two.
The personhood of the Holy Spirit isn’t a biblical
teaching. For example, many texts refer to the Holy Spirit
impersonally. In Acts 10:45 and I Timothy 4:14, the Holy Spirit is a
“gift.” The Spirit can be “quenched,” meaning, “put out” (I Thess.
5:19). It can be poured out like water (Acts 2:17,
33). People are baptized in it (Matt. 3:11). People can
drink of the Spirit (John 7:37-39). They can partake of it (Hebrews
6:4) and be filled with it (Eph. 5:18; Acts 2:4). It also renews us
(Titus 3:5). If it is a person and active, why would it need to be
stirred up? (II Timothy 1:6). It also has designations applied
to it, such as (in Ephesians 1:13-14, 17) its being “the guarantee of our
inheritance,” “the Holy Spirit of promise,” and “the spirit of wisdom and
revelation,” which show that it isn’t a person. Unlike the Father
and Son, who are represented in forms and shapes like that of men, the Holy
Spirit is frequently represented symbolically. The Spirit is
compared to breath (John 10:22), oil (Psalm 45:7; cf. Acts 10:38; Matt.
25:1-10), a dove (Matt. 3:16), wind (Acts 2:2), fire (Acts 2:3), and a down
payment on eternal life (Ephesians 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5). So if
the Holy Spirit is a person, why does Scripture so often refer to it
impersonally, unlike the case for the Father and the Son?
The various cases in which the Holy Spirit is said to do this or
that personal activity are examples of personification. After all,
we wouldn’t say that Abel’s blood literally called out from the ground (Genesis
4:10), right? We certainly don’t believe that wisdom literally cries
out with an audible voice (Proverbs 1:20-21). The valleys shout for
joy and sing in Psalm 65:13. According to Isaiah 14:8, the cedar
trees talk and the cypress trees rejoice. In Hababkkuk 2:11, the
timbers and stones are said to speak to each other. In Matt. 11:19,
wisdom is said to have children. Righteousness speaks in Romans
10:6. Obviously we have figurative language used in these
texts. The same principle applies to the cases in which the Holy
Spirit is described in a personal manner, including in John 14-16.
The Holy Spirit has no separate consciousness separate from the
Father and the Son. Rather, the Holy Spirit is the power or force of God
(Luke 1:35; I Cor. 2:4; Acts 1:8; compare Romans 15:13, 19, and Acts 6:5 with
verse 8). Paul in Eph. 3:16 desires that Christians “be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” The Holy
Spirit gave spiritual power to Jesus and the disciples (Luke 4:14; Acts
1:8). Power and the Spirit are equated in Acts
10:38: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with
power.” Furthermore,
rarely is the Holy Spirit referred to in the introductions and conclusions to
the letters where the writers mention the Father and the Son. No songs,
prayers or exclamations directed to the Spirit in the Bible, unlike the case
for the Father and the Son. Furthermore, since the Holy Spirit was the
means by which the Virgin Mary was impregnated, “He” would be the “Father” of
Jesus instead of the Father, if “He” were a separate divine person (Matt. 1:18,
20; Luke 1:34-35). So then, the Spirit was the agency or power
through which the Father sired Jesus as His Son. It isn’t a separate
person or being from them.
The Holy Spirit is never described as a personage in any of the
heavenly scenes found in the Book of Revelation. The seven spirits
shouldn’t be seen as the third member of the Godhead of the Trinity
teaching. “The Holy Spirit” is never personified in any of the throne
room scenes described in the Book of Revelation, which is one of the best
arguments against its being a separate member of the Godhead. Even if
someone believes in that teaching, wouldn’t it be peculiar to imagine one
member of the Godhead being seven separate “Spirits” (Revelation 4:6),
right? That’s a poor way to claim that the Holy Spirit has a presence in
heaven as a consciously separate Divine entity from the Father and Son.
In order to show that the seven spirits of Revelation aren’t
references to a purported third member of the Godhead, let’s begin by looking
at Revelation 4:6 more closely: "Seven lamps of fire were
burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God."
Likewise, consider Rev. 15:1: "Then I saw another sign in heaven,
great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in
them the wrath of God is complete." Now, these seven spirits stand before
God's throne, according to Rev. 1:4. Also notice how the seven stars are
the seven angels in Rev. 1:20: "As for the mystery of the seven
stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the
seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are
the seven churches.” In Revelation 3:1, Jesus equates the seven spirits
with the seven angels when we compared Rev. 1:20 with this statement:
"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: 'The words of him who has
the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. "'I know your works; you
have the name of being alive, and you are dead.’” In the next two
chapters of Revelation, one angel corresponds with each church Jesus
specifically wrote a letter to.
Angels are messengers for God, for the very word translated
“angel” means “messenger” in Greek and also Hebrew. The seven spirits
shouldn’t be seen as the third member of the Godhead of the Trinity
teaching. “The Holy Spirit” is never personified in any of the throne
room scenes described in the Book of Revelation, which is one of the best
arguments against its being a separate member of the Godhead, unlike the case
for the Father and the Son.
The texts describing the Holy Spirit in John 14-16 are commonly
cited to prove that it is a “he.” However, Greek is a language that
uses nouns with assigned genders, much like Spanish, French, and
German. The word translated “Comforter” or “Helper” happens to be
masculine. But grammatical agreement between a noun and pronouns
doesn’t prove the Holy Spirit is any more a person than a feminine pronoun
referring to a “silla” in Spanish proves that a chair is a real
woman. In addition, Jesus told the disciples, and they responded
back, that figurative language had been used during the conversation between
them on the night before His crucifixion (John 16:25,
29). Interestingly enough, the word in Greek translated “Spirit” is
a neuter word, which may have contributed to why even the Trinitarian
translators of the King James Version used the word “itself” to refer to the
Holy Spirit in Romans 8:16, 26.
Interestingly enough, the original Nicene
declaration of 325 A.D. merely asserted they believed "in the Holy
Spirit," saying nothing about its nature. Only later on that
creed was rewritten, and the detailed description of the Holy Spirit’s being a
person was added.
Furthermore, the Trinity is wrong because the Bible teaches that
God is a Family composed of the Father and Son at present. God is in the
process of reproducing Himself, since He made mankind after the “God kind” in
Genesis 1:26-27. In
order to interpret this text, it's helpful to read its immediate context and
refer to other texts elsewhere in Genesis and the Bible. Let's look at
its words, including the following two verses (Genesis 1:26-28), which arguably
is the “theme statement” of the Bible:
"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed
them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and
subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the
air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'"
But on the other hand, notice that the texts in Genesis never
says exactly how many members of the Godhead there are. John 1:1-3 only
mentions two members of the Godhead, the Father and the Son. Godhead has
only two members at present (John 17:5, 20-24; Hebrews 2:6-11).
We are made in His image, which is ultimately supposed to
become a reality in character, if we live righteously as Jesus said so that we
would be as the Father is (Matt. 5:48). We are to become just as Jesus
is, who is God (Eph. 4:13). Christians are to become as one with Jesus
and the Father (John 14:20-24) as Jesus is with the Father (John 10:30-34),
which was a divine claim by Jesus. The glory that Jesus had before the
world was (John 17:5) is a characteristics that the glorified, resurrected
saints will have as well (John 17:22; Romans 8:18; 9:23; Col. 1:27; II Cor.
3:18). For a little while mankind is lower than God (compare Hebrews 2:7
with Psalm 8:5), but Jesus is bringing many sons to glory, which means that
they will gain a divine characteristic (Hebrews 2:9-11). For although
Christians now bear the image of the earthly man, Adam, they will bear the
image of the Lord from heaven, who is God (I Cor. 15:47-49). Clearly
“image” doesn’t mean merely a superficial physical resemblance in this context
(after all, we’re literal men just as much as Adam was), but the actual
substance or essence, especially when the meaning of the Greek is examined (cf.
Hebrews 1:3). This teaching isn’t unique to my church, the United
Church of God. You may wish to download the booklet "Is God a Trinity?"
from ucg.org, which I found helpful in preparing some of this
email. Although the Greek Orthodox Church teaches “theosis,” its
concept of the deification of man by God to become God doesn’t go far enough.
The reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:19-20
doesn’t prove the doctrine of the Trinity because this text doesn’t say each
one is God or (technically) even a person with a separate center of
consciousness from the others. Merely mentioning the three together
doesn’t prove much, especially when many more texts (such as in the greetings
and salutations of the letters) exist that mention just the Father and the Son,
such as John 1:1. When Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand
of the Father (Acts 7:55; cf. Col. 3:1), why didn’t he see the Holy Spirit at
the Father’s left hand? In point of fact, although God is one
(Deuteronomy 6:4), it’s easy to cite texts that show that the Father and Son
are separate Beings, if that word “being” has a normal meaning. For
example, if Jesus was begotten by the Father (Hebrews 1:5), yet the Father and
Son are one being, how did Jesus beget Himself? In Matt. 22:44, how
could Jesus sit at the right hand of the Father if the two are one and the same
Being? How did Jesus ascend to the Father (John 20:17) if He and the
Father were one Being, and He was already in heaven? How could the
Lamb, Jesus, walk up to the Father in heaven, if the two are fully one
Being? (See Revelation 5:1-2, 6-7). It’s a mistake to say
God is “one Being” in this manner when the text of Scripture, when interpreted
in a straightforward manner, show the Father and the Son aren’t a solitary,
single Being.
We should avoid thinking anything much is proven by analogies
between the physical world and the doctrine of the Trinity. For example, some have reasoned that the
three major physical dimensions of height, width, and depth correspond to the
three Divine Members of the Trinity.
However, this analogy isn’t much good, especially in an era in which quantum
mechanics and the theory of relativity rule the world of physics. Long
ago Einstein propounded time as a four dimension, and the odd world of quantum
mechanics has still more dimensions than that. So this whole analogy
between the Trinity and the three main physical dimensions appears to be a
nineteenth-century construct devised when Newtonian physics was still the
dominant paradigm. It is now scientifically obsolete. That shows
the hazards of making such analogies between the spiritual and physical
worlds. It pushes natural theology too far into speculative areas.
Furthermore, there can't be
any correspondence between the members of the Trinity and the three physical
dimensions of the universe if God isn’t a Trinity to begin with.
According to the Bible, neither is the Holy Spirit a person nor is
God a Trinity. Jesus is indeed God, but
the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a separate center of consciousness from the Father
and the Son. The Godhead is composed of two Persons at present.
Eric Snow
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Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here and
Hereafter.htm
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Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is There an
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Is the United States the Beast?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are We the Beast
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Will there be a third
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Third Resurrection.htm
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