Three God Or One God, Which Is Right?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
First of all you should basically understand what Trinity is, and what it is not. The very word 'Trinity' is not found in the Bible because it is a concept framed to become a word that could keep the sanctity of the understanding about God of the Bible to be exactly in the same way the Bible explains it to be.
The English word "Trinity" comes from Latin "Trinitas", meaning "the number three". ... Tertullian, a Latin theologian who wrote in the early third century, was the first to use "Trinity" "person" and "substance" to explain that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "one in essence – not one in Person." So the word 'Trinity' in itself does not mean anything in English, until we refer it to the doctrine or teaching of the Trinity, which means 'God is one in essence, but three in person.'
About a century later, in 325, the First Council of Nicaea established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and adopted the Nicene Creed that described Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father."
It is illogical to say that the word Trinity is not found in the Bible and therefore we should not try to use it, why? because even the word Bible is not used within the Bible, but we use it to describe the Word of God, even the word Rapture is not in the Bible but the concept of it is found and therefore we use the word rapture to describe it in English (1 Thess 4:16-18), in the same way, words like omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence are not used in the Bible, yet we see the concept of all knowing, all present and all powerful God present in the Bible of which we describe through these above words, in the same way we do not find words like atheism (Psa 14:1), divinity (Psa 139), incarnation (John 1:1, 14), monotheism (Isa 43:10; 44:8), but we still use it all to describe what we or some person believe through these words described above accurately, and many more words like baptism etc... is not a English word but were imported in to the Bible by the translators to make the readers understand better.
What am I trying to say, when a concept is written in one core language like the Old Testament in Hebrew language and the New Testament in Greek and Aramaic language...we cannot avoid transliteration and use of certain phonetic sound in pronouncing in the same way to describe the same concept in another language to retain the same meaning of its entire concept intact to keep it from being diluted by many people who would try to mean it to become something else in the way they want, when it means something else. So the word Trinity was used by the council as we have seen above to preserve the purity of what the Bible reveals from being diluted to mean something else. So there is no point in arguing about it, whether it is in the Bible or not in the Bible, as the concept of what it means is strongly in the Bible.
In fact there are a lot of false teachers and agnostics in the centuries after all the first century apostles died, they tried to belittle Christ as a created being who was created by the Father and thus deny the deity of Jesus, which made the godly council to get together and produce the word 'Trinity' to keep its sanctity and the concept from being misused to mislead people in to deception.
Trinity as I have already said, the concept says, "the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit"—as one God in three Divine Persons (Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; Eph 4:4-7; Jude 20-21), they are three unique persons but with the same substance, essence or nature (John 14:9, 26; 15:26)." In other words, when God created humans he created them within the limitation of time, space and matter (Gen 1:1), yet when you see him from the limited understanding, He remains in eternity which is beyond our limited understanding to comprehend completely or perfectly (Isa 43:13; 57:15; Psa 90:2), which means 1+1+1=3 and 1*1*1=1 both can be correct at the same time because God is beyond our time calculation (Isa 48:14).
When we try to limit this great God by saying is He 1+1+1=3 or 1*1*1=1, my answer to it is He is 1+1+1=3 and 1*1*1=1 at the same time. When we count a person, we count him as one, two and three...when we count a genre of the same type we count as one to stop there to define a genre. When God in person is three and genre of the essence of the substance of the Character within Him is one, the out come of it is the incomprehensible Trinity which can be three and one which at least can be apprehended in part with our limited understanding. That is, one and only Genre of God within the essence of His character, but three in count within the personality of the Godhead. Then is He one God or three God, He is one God in the character of His essence and at the same time threefold person in their personhood remaining within the identical yet staying as individual.
Thus this God is a one triune God who stays in unity of three. For example, any object when seen from one direction stays as one dimensional object to our eyes, but when it is seen from three different direction of front, side and top to be projected out on a sheet of paper with a three dimensional engineering drawing, a engineer can see the full scope of the object in different dimensions. Thus God remains as one and the full scope of it can only be seen in three dimension to get a better understanding only when we know eternal engineering of seeing Him from different direction of time, space and matter all at the same time which is impossible except when we enter in to the eternal heaven to find God and have the understanding He has to reveal it to us to a certain extent.
It is like a dog trying to understand what the owner thinks, to a certain level it can but not to the full extent of its scope or else the dog will not have to remain as a dog to be fed by the owner. Even if we ask God to make us understand fully the mystery of Trinity, it is like a dog asking its owner to teach all the alphabets and make it a scholar like as a human, is that possible, it is impossible until the owner himself chooses to become one among the dog to make it understand that it cannot fully understand until it becomes in the likeness of the human race to at least understand to a certain level and become one among the owner community. Jesus did the same by becoming a human he left the divine glory of God and have told us to believe Him in faith to become a son of God so that one day in heaven in the likeness of God being glorified by Him with His own perfect knowledge we can fully and completely understand how God can be three in person and still be one (Php 2:6-8; Rom 8:14, 19, 29-30; 1 Cor 13:10, 11, 12).
With a limited capacity to process we can only explain the 'Trinity' in terms of physical attribute of three in one like how water can become vapor and liquid and solid, and at the same time yet remain as water in different state of its essence, or how the sun can be one and yet can express itself through as heat, light and radiation. But the fact of the Trinity will remain a mystery until we become recreated within as a new creation when we get born again and become a new creature in the likeness of God to receive the mind of Christ and enter in to heaven to find eternity hidden in God, until then we can only search the eternity which has been hidden in our hearts and apprehend a part of what the Trinity is according to the Bible (Deut 29:29; 1 Tim 3:16; 2 Cor 5:17; John 3:3; 1 Cor 2:16; Col 1:26; Eph 3:9; Eccl 3:11).
Do you know that Jesus himself with His very mouth uttered this commandment as the most important one, "29.. ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'" (Mark 12:29-30). This does mean that we can only love God the who is resided in heaven with all our heart only as we are present physically on earth and He is physically resided in heaven according to the revelation of the Scripture (Matt 6:9), we can now only speak with Jesus Christ who is physically resided in heaven at the right hand of the Father through hearing and speaking to Him from our soul filled with full of love for him as we are physically on earth (Heb 8:1; Rom 8:34; John 16:14), but only the Holy Spirit we can love him with all our strength physically by praying with him to tell to God our needs, wants and desires and thus speaking through Him to both Jesus and the Father in heaven, reading the Word of God with Him and let him illuminate the treasures hidden within it to hear what God wants to speak back to us (John 16:7; John 20:22; Acts 2:4). Thus this holistic knowledge of the operation of the Trinity can only be understood by the born again children of God only (John 3:8). To the one who is not born again, teaching this basics of Trinity is like trying to teach the 6 blind men the shape of the elephant, and each one of the five who tried to touch it with their hands described different shapes of the elephant as the real form it looks like until the sixth honest blind man touched a couple of different areas of the elephant and said I cannot see therefore I cannot comprehend its real shape.
Shall we as born again children of God rejoice in the understanding about Trinity that God has given already to us through salvation, and those who are unsaved let them agree about their limitation to understand this great and formidable concept that is as big, high and wide as eternity itself and move toward believing in Christ Jesus to have the revelation of it within their heart and soul and body too.
Yes the Lord is one in essence but three in the unity of their personhood. In other words, when you come to know God you cannot know him with out knowing the other persons of the Trinity. If you know one person in their essence and character, it is equal to knowing the two other person who are working in unison to reveal Himself to you (John 14:8-9). The highest heaven in which God resides in His Throne that is connected to the lowest foot stool of the earth on which he has kept his feet comfortably through the Spirit of God who resides in the heart of believers to connect it and to reveal God to them physically in Christ Jesus (Isa 66:1; Acts 7:49). No human can build as big a temple of the size of the highest heaven to the earth to make God reside in it. Impossible, how much more to understand the size of the Trinity in operation fully in our finite puny sized 3 pound 15 centimeters long brain. Hallelujah!
This truth of the One God from the Old Testament has not been changed in the New Testament, but agreed upon and built further by the revelation of the mystery of Trinity. The Structure is always standing on the one foundation of One God in essence, but the superstructure upon it has got widened enough to accommodate three person or three wide and large building standing on the same essence of one foundation.
The Father is not Jesus who is His only begotten Son (John 3:16), Jesus is not the Father, The Holy Spirit is not Jesus, Jesus is not The Holy Spirit, neither the Father is the Holy Spirit and nor the Holy Spirit is the Father. They are all unique person, with the same essence of divinity within them. One will not act without the others consent, all know each others will, mind and emotion, and each of them know everything around them, and nothing is hidden from all of them because they are all Divine person of God who has been working in unison from eternity past and will work in unison for eternity in the future. The will of each one is aligned inline with the will of the other and none will act separately without the other in operation.
Whether you understand the Father or Jesus who is the Son or the Holy Spirit, they are one God working in unity from the beginning to end. In creation they worked unitedly (Gen 1:1-3). In redemption, they worked unitedly (John 3:16; 17:4; Heb 9:14). In sanctification, they work unitedly (1 Cor 1:30; 2 Thess 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2; 1 Cor 6:11; Luke 22:31-32; Rom 8:34). And in glorification of all believers, they will work unitedly (Rom 8:11; John 6:40; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:17, 20). God cannot work outside of his will and he cannot lie (Tit 1:2; Heb 6:18; 1 Cor 8:6; Rev 4:11).
Jesus has never been created and it has been said by apostle Paul that He is the firstborn which means that He is the first existent one over all creation (Col 1:15-17). He was the uncreated being who existed in eternity past as one with the Father (John 1:18; 17:5), and through incarnation he was not created to be born as like other human beings but has been given by God from heaven as a baby gift to all human beings to become one among humans for their redemption and glorification (Isa 9:6-7). So when the Prophet Isaiah revealed Jesus Christ as eternal father, he did not mean the 'Father in heaven' (Matt 6:6:9), but rather He was one with God and was God Himself like as the Father was in heaven which does indicate both his humanity as a child and divinity as the Son. But no way does it indicate the Father in heaven as a person, because the Father did not become a child but the Son became a child among humanity to grow up and became mature to be one day baptized by John the Baptist in order to fulfill the righteousness of all humanity which was testified by the voice which came from the Father in heaven (Matt 3:15-17; Luke 2:52). In other words, Jesus being called the 'Eternal Father' does not mean that he is the same person of the 'Father in Heaven', why?, because Jesus was on earth at the time of baptism and Father God from the throne of heaven called Jesus as his beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Father was present in the highest heaven and Jesus was present on the earth at the time of His baptism. We see two distinct and unique person and also we see the third unique person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit of God descending like a dove from a opened heaven and alighting upon Jesus. So this removes all doubt that Jesus and the Father are the same person. And it shows that the the Father, the Son [Jesus Christ] and the Holy Spirit are three unique person with the same essence of God within them and work coherently all the time. And what you done is misinterpreted the Scripture by taking it away from the context of the entirety of the Scripture.
Therefore, I did not dare to make three God out of the One God, but all I did is that I have just revealed from the Canon of the Scripture in the Bible that already speaks about the concept of Trinity with in it to us all. So my conclusion is, The TRINITY is True--God is three in Person -- but at the same time God is One in essence of His character. GOD IS ONE in Essence! This is the foundation of the OLD TESTAMENT. GOD IS THREE in Person! This is the explanation about the one God of the Old Testament in the NEW TESTAMENT! I hope that whatever tower or the tallest building that are planned ever gets stopped with the foundation, but it becomes perfect only when the superstructure is built continually, for it all to be completed perfectly on a particular day and inaugurated for all to see the glory. The same is with all of us humans, we need the Old Testament foundation to be put, then the New Testament superstructure need to be built by us in Christ Jesus now while we are on earth through fellowship with the Trinity which one day will get inaugurated for eternal display of glory on the day of rapture for the Glory of God (1 John 1:3; 3:2-3, 24). We shall know God as He is on that day and we shall know heaven in details as we are know from heaven in perfection. We shall be just like Jesus is now in his glorious body in heaven through which He has a perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit now, that is also when we will fully understand how God can be one in essence and yet three in person for the Glory of God. Until then keep fellowshiping with the Father and Son who is our Lord Jesus Christ through the Spirit and have a joyous party with the Trinity daily without fail. Amen!
Much Blessings....
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