I Am

BELIEF IN GOD AND THE TRINITY

   Do you know the story about the five blind men and the elephant?

   There were five blind men, blind since birth. They had never seen an elephant.

   Each of them was taken to an elephant and allowed to feel with his hands one part of the elephant; an ear, the tail, a tusk, the trunk and a foot.

   Then they were asked to describe the elephant. Each described what he had felt with his hands, and of course, each one described something different. The foot, for example, was totally different to the trunk.

   None of them were really wrong. Each man was correct in what he described. It was just that they each had a different experience of the elephant, and could only describe that part.

   This is how we are when we try to describe Each of us has a different experience of God, and it is a true one, but we only have a limited image of the whole. We cannot say what God is like, because we know only a part.

   People can know the reality of love, but science cannot prove it.

   People can know the reality of God, but not through scientific research.

   But what can be known about God—His eternal power and deity— can be understood by everyone because God has revealed it within them 1:18:20,

   In other words, God has given mankind the ability to learn about Him from His creation, and to some He has given a special revelation of Himself through the Apostles, Prophets, and Jesus Christ Himself.

   We can deduce clearly from all the created things that there has to be a creator. Someone once said that the chance of man’s being an accident is about as reasonable as walking into a scrap-iron yard, finding a Boeing 747 Jetliner and saying, “Look how those pieces of iron flew accidentally together and formed that airplane”.

   We are very, very complicated. For example, the neurons and nerve paths from each human eye to the human brain number some five hundred thousand. There is just no way that could happen by accident.

   As we see the sunsets, the regularity of the seasons, the laws of nature, we are drawn to the fact that there has to be an intelligence behind all of it.

   The Bible goes on to say that people suppress the truth, because their deeds are evil They do not want to believe what is clearly shown to them.

   God also reveals Himself through special revelation: The

   Prophets of God, who have walked with Him, have had special revelations.

   They have written these down over many years to form the book we call the

   Finally, the supreme revelation of God is Jesus Himself.

   Jesus was God come to earth. He came in fulfillment of two thousand years of Jewish history, and His coming was precisely foretold by the prophets.

   He came among us and showed us what God is like, so we could know him better. As He told His disciple Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”

   To sum things up, we can know God from the general revelation of creation, and we can know Him from the special revelation of those who have known Him—and especially from the life and words of Jesus Himself.

   Theologians have tried to describe God in many ways. He is the substance of all human virtues. He is all-wise and all-knowing. He can do anything and everything we cannot do. He is everything good that we would like to be. So, we say that He is omnipotent (all-powerful) or omniscient (all-knowing) or omnipresent (present everywhere).

   Also, we can describe God by contrasting Him with our own human limitations. For example, we are mortal, but God is immortal. We are fallible, but God is infallible.

   God is spirit: eternal and everlasting and everliving. He has no beginning or end. He is a person who is totally self-aware—“I Am”.

   He is the essence of love, and He is loving. He is also a righteous Judge—totally fair and just.

   God is the father of all creation; the creator of all. He is all powerful and sustains the universe. He exists outside the universe, yet He is present throughout the universe, and is its ruler. He exists in nature, but he is not nature, nor is He bound by the laws of nature. He is the source of all life and everything that is.

   For Biblical references on the character and nature of God, see: Deuteronomy 7:6-8, Psalms 147:5, Isaiah 43:3, 66:1, John 4:24, Jeremiah 32:17, Hebrews 1:3, I John 4:9.

   We know certain things to be true of God. We know God is one, but He exists as three persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit

   The English word “Trinity” is derived from Latin “Trinitas”, meaning “The Number three, a Triad”. The word “Trinity” is a term used to denote the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of the persons is distinct from the other, yet identical in essence.

   In other words, each is fully divine in nature, but each is not the totality of the other persons of the trinity. The Father is not the same person as the Son, who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit, and who is not the same person as the Father.

   Each is divine, yet there are not three Gods, but one God.

   The Trinity:

* God is three persons; each is not the totality of the Godhead.

* Each person is divine; each is not the other two persons.

* There is only one God; are related, but distinct from each.

   The word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, but this does not mean that the concept is not taught there. Most scholars agree that its meaning is clearly expressed; as in as we just read before. And, in Corinthians “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

   Also in 28:19) we see another reference to the Trinity:.

   “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. The words “Bible”, “Rapture”, “Omniscience” (All knowing), “Omnipotence” (all powerful), “Omnipresence” (present everywhere), are not found in the Bible either, but we use them anyway to describe the attributes of God. So, to say that the Trinity isn’t true because the word isn’t in the Bible is an invalid argument.

   Another important point about the Trinity is that it can be a difficult concept to grasp, but this again does not necessitate an argument against its validity. Many non-christians and new christians often struggle with the idea of the Holy Trinity, where we break-up God into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is something very important to christian belief, but it can be hard to understand. How can Christians, who talk about one God only, believe in three persons?

   Some people use math to explain the Holy Trinity. We cannot think of the Holy Trinity as a sum of three parts but instead show how each part multiplies the other to form a wonderful whole (1x1x1=1).

   Using the multiplication model, we show that the three form a union. We can think of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three pieces of God’s personality.

   Before, we gave several examples of who God is and how we can know Him. We learn about God through His creation, through His Apostles, His Prophets, and through Jesus Christ Himself. God also reveals Himself through the Bible.

   As we said before, God reveals Himself through Jesus Christ, who came among us and showed us what God is like. In (John 14:9) Jesus says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”.

   We know certain things to be true of God. We know God is one, but He exists as three persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

   On the occasion of Jesus’s baptism, all three persons in the Trinity were present and active. In all three gospels give the same account: Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized. As Jesus rose up out of the water, Heaven opened, and the spirit of God, like a dove, descended upon Him. Witnesses to the baptism heard a voice from Heaven saying, “This is my son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.” The Father clearly announced Jesus’s identity, and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus, empowering Him to begin His ministry.

   The Bible is the self-revelation of an infinite God. Therefore, we are bound to encounter concepts which are difficult to understand. The Trinity is, to a large extent a mystery. After all, we are dealing with God Himself.

   There are some who think that because we believe in “Monotheism,” we cannot accept the concept of the Trinity.

   Yet the Bible teaches that the Godhead consists of three divine persons Father, Son, and Holy fully God, each showing fully the divine nature

   The Father is the fountain head of the Trinity. He is the source of creation; the creator, the first cause, the giver of life. He is the primary thought, the concept of all that has been and will be created. The son is the “logos” or expression of God—the “only begotten” of the Father. If you want to know what the Father is like, look at the son. Jesus said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” The son of God is the agent of creation and our redeemer.

   The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, proceeds from the Father and is worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. The Spirit is God in action; God reaching people, influencing them, regenerating them, infilling them and guiding them.

   All three persons of the Godhead are eternal. The Father exists and has existed forever. With Him, always existed His expression, the Son. Always the Father loved the Son, and the Son loved and served the Father. From that relationship of love arose the spirit of God, who is eternal and has existed forever. There was, therefore, not a time when there was only the Father, then later the Son, and still later the Spirit. They all three have existed from before there was anything that could begin—three distinct persons all functioning as one. All three are a triunity inhabiting one another and working together to accomplish the divine design in the universe.

   There are also Trinities in nature. Light can be divided into many primary colors; yet light is one! A prism will reveal the individual colors separately that are unique yet unified. A glass prism made from thick optical glass will turn ordinary light into a colorful rainbow. Just like Sir Isaac Newton in the century demonstrated that white light is in fact composed of different colors.

   When white, or ordinary light, moves from air to the glass prism, it is bent (or refracted) at different angles depending on wavelength. Upon leaving the glass prism, the wavelengths are yet bent again at different angles, allowing the spectrum to be displayed. Violet light is spread one way, and red a different way, with the other colors arranged in between.

   At least two of the flat surfaces must have an angle between them. The intensity of the spectrum produced depends on a number of factors, including the source of light, room brightness, wall color, and angle of prism.

   Natural rainbows occur because rain acts just like tiny prisms, bending and splitting light.

   A possible interpretation of is that God’s relationship in the Trinity is mirrored in man by ideal relationship between husband and wife; two persons becoming one flesh, as described in Eve’s creation in

   “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” are not names for different parts of God, but one name for God, because three persons exist in God as one entity.

   The existence of the Trinity is a mystery that one day we will understand clearly. For now, we know the Bible teaches it, and Jesus revealed it, and the christian church, from the beginning, has confessed and safeguarded this precious truth.

   There are many things to learn about God and His desires for us. We need to just remember that He is our God. We need to read the teachings of Jesus. We need to listen to His spirit talking to our hearts. This is the purpose of the Trinity and that is the most important thing we need to understand about it.

   We see the Father as the prime mover; He brings forth the creative thought.

   We see the Son as an agent of creation; He expresses that creative thought.

   The Spirit activates the creative word and relates it to that which is created. He inspires the scriptures and empowers God’s people. He takes the things of Jesus and brings then to our remembrance. tells us that He convicts the world “of sin, and righteousness and of judgment”.

   Each one of us has a duty to search for God and know God as fully as we can. The central question about belief in God is very personal, and only we can answer it, and each person’s answer will be different, just as the example in the elephant and five blind men.

   Again, none of us knows God in His entirety or ever will while we live. But, We search for God by:

(A) Trusting God.

(B) Reading the Scriptures.

(C) Thinking about what we read.

(D) Trying to live a good life.