TRINITY
We believe in one God … existing in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Deuteronomy 6.4 announces perhaps the oldest Israelite creed (called “the Shema” (after the first word in the verse): Shema Israel. Adonai elohenu. Adonai echad.
…Shema Israel: “Hear, O Israel”. All Israelites – listen, agree, and confess this truth!
…Adonai elohenu: “I AM is our God.” We belong to Him!
…Adonai echad: “I AM is one.” The God of Israel is the ONE AND ONLY GOD!
Israel, as far as we can tell, was the first group of people to worship only one God. Every other nation worshiped many gods because they worshiped the many things in the world. Israel alone worshiped the God behind the natural world, the God responsible for the existence of the natural world. I AM who simply IS – He lives – and He alone is able to give life to everything else as “the Creator”.
Jesus was born into Judaism but regularly spoke in a very odd way about Israel’s Creator God. Jesus didn’t see God as distant and unapproachable. Jesus called Him “my Father”, a name uncomfortably comfortable for Jewish tradition. Worse, Jesus claimed a oneness with I AM and insisted that He be honored on the same level as I AM. On at least one occasion Jesus called HIMSELF “I AM”. More than once Jesus’ familiarity with God was deemed blasphemy and the Jews tried to stone Him for claiming to be God!
Jesus’ apostles, all Jews, didn’t try to correct this notion, but embraced as truth that Jesus was I AM! They believed that Adonai echad – The LORD is one – but they saw it more in terms of “The LORD is a UNITY”. There was one GOD, but there were three distinct persons who were the ONE God: the Father who sent His Son and the Spirit sent by the Father and the Son who was the ‘inner person’ (as it were) of both of them. All three were, together, in a unity, I AM, the Creator of the world.
This idea – a tri-unity (or trinity) is how orthodox Christianity traditionally formulates its belief in what God is like.
There is one God, but God is three persons. Not three gods. Three persons in one God.
The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. They are three separate persons. But they are a unity – Adonai echad -- the ONE TRUE God.
Scripture never explains how this works. It just states the case: three separate persons are each called God, but there is only one God. Christians affirm both truths while confessing that we don’t understand how these mysterious ideas fit together.
That used to bother me – until I started doing a little reading in particle physics and quantum mechanics. Our world is full of inexplicable paradoxes on the subatomic level – things that can be proven mathematically and demonstrated experimentally, things that we know exist without understanding how they fit together and work in our world.
If things in our known world are that way, might there be as yet undiscovered modes of existence which, in our world, could only be described as one entity in three persons?
Deuteronomy 6.4 announces perhaps the oldest Israelite creed (called “the Shema” (after the first word in the verse): Shema Israel. Adonai elohenu. Adonai echad.
…Shema Israel: “Hear, O Israel”. All Israelites – listen, agree, and confess this truth!
…Adonai elohenu: “I AM is our God.” We belong to Him!
…Adonai echad: “I AM is one.” The God of Israel is the ONE AND ONLY GOD!
Israel, as far as we can tell, was the first group of people to worship only one God. Every other nation worshiped many gods because they worshiped the many things in the world. Israel alone worshiped the God behind the natural world, the God responsible for the existence of the natural world. I AM who simply IS – He lives – and He alone is able to give life to everything else as “the Creator”.
Jesus was born into Judaism but regularly spoke in a very odd way about Israel’s Creator God. Jesus didn’t see God as distant and unapproachable. Jesus called Him “my Father”, a name uncomfortably comfortable for Jewish tradition. Worse, Jesus claimed a oneness with I AM and insisted that He be honored on the same level as I AM. On at least one occasion Jesus called HIMSELF “I AM”. More than once Jesus’ familiarity with God was deemed blasphemy and the Jews tried to stone Him for claiming to be God!
Jesus’ apostles, all Jews, didn’t try to correct this notion, but embraced as truth that Jesus was I AM! They believed that Adonai echad – The LORD is one – but they saw it more in terms of “The LORD is a UNITY”. There was one GOD, but there were three distinct persons who were the ONE God: the Father who sent His Son and the Spirit sent by the Father and the Son who was the ‘inner person’ (as it were) of both of them. All three were, together, in a unity, I AM, the Creator of the world.
This idea – a tri-unity (or trinity) is how orthodox Christianity traditionally formulates its belief in what God is like.
There is one God, but God is three persons. Not three gods. Three persons in one God.
The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. They are three separate persons. But they are a unity – Adonai echad -- the ONE TRUE God.
Scripture never explains how this works. It just states the case: three separate persons are each called God, but there is only one God. Christians affirm both truths while confessing that we don’t understand how these mysterious ideas fit together.
That used to bother me – until I started doing a little reading in particle physics and quantum mechanics. Our world is full of inexplicable paradoxes on the subatomic level – things that can be proven mathematically and demonstrated experimentally, things that we know exist without understanding how they fit together and work in our world.
If things in our known world are that way, might there be as yet undiscovered modes of existence which, in our world, could only be described as one entity in three persons?