Denying that God is triune puts you outside orthodox Christian teaching?

Faith & Science Conversation
143

Dear Bill,
How dod you think the seven planets got their names?

  • Sun-day: Jesus is the giver of life, represented by the sun.
  • Moon-day: Lucifer is the deceiver, the fallen light bearer, but he no longer has his own light and can only reflect that of others, thus his symbol of the moon and the significance of the eclipse at Jesus’ death, the moon’s short victory over the sun.
  • Tuesday: Raphael is the mate of Lucifer who remained true to Jesus. Mars in Old English twesdai.
  • Wednesday: Aholah is the fallen mate of Gabriel. Mercury in Old English (wōdnesdæg = Woden’s Day)
  • Thor’s-Day or Thunder-day: Gabriel, the Heralder of Heaven.
  • Friday: Ahoblibah is the fallen mate of Michael. Frigga in Old Norse, being an old translation of Venus.
  • Saturn-day: Michael is represented by the planet Saturn.
144

Nice eisegesis but hard to believe.

The root of moon is “to measure” which makes sense because people measured time by the moon. Then you just jump over to saying it represents Lucifer which is just the Latin for morning star.

You are basically saying Greek and Roman mythology is based on the Old Testament. Oh wait, of course you would say that.

145

What I am saying is that all of the main pagan gods are based on the three fallen archangels - Lucifer, Aholah and Aholibah (Ezekiel 23). Known in Greek as Poseidon, Aphrodite and Athena, in Egyptian as Amun, Horus and Hathor, in Roman as Neptune, Venus and Minerva. The pagan gods are also immortal and they should show up through all time.

The worshipers of these three are the ones that Constantine bought into Christianity with his adoption of the trinity. This is why I believe it should not be part of Orthodox Christianity, regardless of what biblical evidence supports it.

146

I am confused. You start with:

But the names are based on the planets.

The planets got their names from pagan gods.

So the seven spirits of God are actually fallen archangels? They doesn’t make sense.

147

No, the seven spirits of God existed before the Fall. Three of the seven fell. Jesus, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel remained true to God

148

@Shawn_Murphy

This is a little late in context but I want to get back to the original discussion about the Trinity. This is a little long so apologies, but I pray you take the time to consider what I present.

You state that the only reason the church supports the idea of the trinity is that it is “doctrine” as though there is no Scriptural support. But there is a wealth of Scripture already quoted above that I will add to:

Colossians 1:15-19

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

“By Him (Jesus) all things were created”, but God the Father is the creator.

“all things were created…”for Him,” yet in the Old Testament clearly all things were created for the Father, not the Son.

“He is before all things” yet only God is eternal. Time is a created construct but Jesus was there before all created things, so if Jesus was present before time existed He must be eternal, and only God is eternal.

“In Him all things hold together”, yet it is God who created and sustains the universe.

“In him all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell” How could anyone but God contain all the fullness of God?

This last point is reiterated in Colossians 2:9:

“ For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,”

clearly indicates that Jesus is deity incarnate.

Hebrews 1:1-3

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high”

Once again, Jesus was at the creation of the world and through Him the world was created. Jesus is the “exact imprint of His nature” speaks for itself. And finally once again it is Jesus who upholds the universe by His power, but that clearly in the OT was God’s role. This can only be true if Jesus is deity.

Hebrews 1:8-12

But of the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

10 And,

“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
12 like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”

God says to the Son, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” God is calling His Son, God.

Then God claims that Jesus laid the foundation of the earth, so Jesus is the creator. And if the years of Jesus have no end, He is eternal…but only God is eternal.

Titus 2:13

13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

In the original Greek the section in bold type reads, “tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon” which literally is translated “To great God and Savior our.” Tou is the definite article, and hemon is the possessive pronoun, meaning that the words “great God and Savior” in between are to be treated as a single unit all referring to Jesus Christ. That is the original Greek grammar.

Philippians 2:5-7

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Jesus was in the form of God in his preincarnate state. This is not true of the angels. He was in the form of deity but emptied himself of his deity to take the form of man.

John 20:28

Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!”

This is Thomas’s confession after seeing Jesus for himself, and Jesus does nothing to stop him from worshiping him. In every instance where an angelic being is worshipped in the Bible, the angels stop the act because only God is to be worshipped. Jesus does nothing. Thomas’s words in the Greek, by the way, read “ho theos mou kai ho kyrios mou” or “the God of me and the Lord of me”.

Acts 5:3-4

3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

In this case Peter moves from seamlessly from accusing Ananias of lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God. By lying to the Holy Spirit he was lying to God.

Romans 8:9-11

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Look at these verses! Paul moves from the “Spirit of God” to “the Spirit of Christ”, to simply “Christ”. Then he goes back to “spirit of Him” and “His spirit” which are both referring to the spirit of God. Do we have multiple spirits inside of us, or is Christ in us? Clearly the natural reading of the text is that all references are to same deity, yet Paul invokes multiple members of the Godhead because while they are all different persons, they are one God.

Finally, in the NT the person of God is referred to in Greek as “ho theos” which literally means “the God”, and is how the authors generally referred to God the father. The NT term in Greek that we see as Lord when referring to Christ is usually Kyrios. In the Septuagint, the translation in the OT for YHWH is kyrios. Now kyrios can also mean Lord as in master, but look at Romans 10:9-13

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The first “Lord” in verse 9 is Kyrios, repeated in verse 12. But then in verse 13 quoting the prophet Joel , Paul quotes Joel 2:32 an OT scripture where the word Lord is kyrios in the Septuigint translated from the original text in Hebrew which used the name of God YHWH! So Paul is saying that if you confess that Jesus is Lord/kyrios you will be saved because everyone who calls on the name of the Lord/kyrios/YHWH according to the OT prophet Joel will be saved. Paul is overtly stating that Jesus is kyrios and kyrios is YHWH.

5 Likes
149

Dear John,
To be clear, I said in my challenge to show me a quote in the Bible where Jesus says He is part of the trinity. But let’s look at what you have quoted.

I agree 100% with your comments here. It says that Jesus is of the same divine essence as God and together they created everything from the beginning, but only God is eternal. No mention of a trinity. It does clearly say that Jesus was the incarnation of the Son of God.

Peter is simply confirming that a sin against the spirit or any spirit is a sin against God.

This is a great example of the language used in the bible about having the spiritual essence of God in each of us, while at the same time distinguishing the uniquenesses of having the spirit of Jesus Christ in only His followers. Each one of us, has a piece of God in our soul and spirit, even Satan. Without this gift of eternal life, we all would die, so would Satan. The difference is clearly stated here: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” If you do not believe in Jesus as your Shepard, your King, then you do not belong to Him, as Satan does not belong to Jesus.

Readers of the Bible confuse the word “spirit” too often to mean only Holy Spirit. But Romans 8 clearly states the difference between the spirt of God and that of Jesus, thus it is not speaking of the same essence.

150

If your criteria for evidence for the trinity is a “mention of a trinity” in the Bible, then I’m sure you’d agree it’s a waste of time for anyone to debate this topic with you.

4 Likes
151

Dear Laura
If you look at @Christy initial post, this was her point. In all of my posts I have shown that biblical evidence is against the trinity, thus making it man made. Therefore, not believing in the trinity should not put me and others outside of the core Christian message, that Jesus died for our sin and only through A belief in Him can we achieve eternal life. We need to love God, our neighbors and our enemies as ourself.

I hope I have shown that the trinity gets in the way of this core goal by taking to focus off of Jesus.
Best wishes, Shawn

152

HI Shawn,
I can appreciate the desire to keep the focus on Jesus. Christians are all capable of letting otherwise valuable doctrinal discussions take center stage, so thank you for that clarification.

We can all agree that the word “trinity” is not in the Bible, but if your position is that “the word ‘trinity’ is man made” is equal to “biblical evidence is against the trinity,” then I’d have to agree to disagree, as one does not follow from the other.

3 Likes
153

It takes more than being “an interpretation of the Bible” to qualify as Christianity. Christianity is a confessional religion. It has established doctrines and established boundaries.

It’s great that you embrace the “core Christian message.” But when you add a bunch of other stuff about the seven eternal beings that are the pagan gods, and Jesus is one of them, and pre-existent souls waiting to be born, and all the other extra-biblical stuff you believe, and you re-interpret central Christian doctrines to mean something other than what the Christian Church has always held based on the mystic experiences of some 20th century medium, you don’t have any room to criticize “man-made” doctrines.

4 Likes
154

Dear Christy,
The Christianity that you are saying is established wasn’t done so until the 4th century AD. What I present here has no single source, just those that were and are rejected by established religions. Yes, some of the sources are “mystical” as you may call, but Origen of Alexandria was the most prolific biblical scholar who specifically showed that Jesus is independent of God and denied the trinity. He and his followers were destroyed by the roman empire, the same power that gave us the inquisition.
Best Wishes, Shawn

155

I am very familiar with Church history and very comfortable with the process that was used to canonize the Bible and formalize the creeds.

Origen was a great scholar of the early church. His belief on the preexistence of souls was deemed unorthodox. And he never taught half the other the nutty stuff you believe. It is news to me that Origen “denied” the Trinity. He is considered a pioneer of Trinitarian theology, being the first to speak of three hypostases in one God and the first to use the term homoousios to speak of the relation between the Father and the Son, which was later incorporated in the Nicene creed.

The stuff about spirit beings who existed since the creation of the world and were imprisoned in material bodies because of the cooling of their love, or whatever, is not found in his extant writings and certainly was not considered Christian doctrine by those who came after him. All the church fathers were fallible people and no one of them is the measuring stick for truth.

1 Like
156

Dear Christy,
Yes, little of Origen’s work survived his anathema, so there is little supporting material remaining for the Apocatastasis. But Jesus did say that His Word would never die, and this is what you label as coming from mystic sources. You would do the same if an OT Prophet appeared today and said they were speaking the world of God. But this is what Jesus promised! It is our responsibly to see if they come from God. (1 John 4) Why else would this have been written?
Best Wishes, Shawn

157

I believe in prophetic gifts. But when God speaks through people today, the message is tested by the Church against what has already been revealed and established. I don’t believe that the Bible promises new revelation that will overturn the teaching of the apostles. Quite the contrary actually. We are instructed to reject false teachers who come in the name of God with some other message.

4 Likes
158

@Shawn_Murphy
Let me add that there is nothing in this tradition to say that God cannot speak to us with a personal message that adds to what is in the Bible. It is only that no authority has been given by God for us to preach these things to the world as something everyone must believe and follow – not in Christianity. Nor is this to say we cannot teach things upon a different authority such as objective evidence of science. In Christianity, the Bible is the only authority given into our hands for Christian belief and thus this is our standard and measure of what is acceptable for teaching Christianity to others.

Of course in a free society you are free to preach whatever religion you want, provided it meets some minimal standards of doing no measurable harm to others or in any other way violates the same liberties of others. But this includes the freedom to call out others for deception when they seek to subvert the religion of others by teaching their own beliefs under that name.

159

Dear Mitchell,
This is in conflict to what @Christy says above, which I totally agree with. It is not the church’s interpretation which Christy refers to because the Bible tells us how often the priests have corrupted the Word. The only reason for modern prophets is therefore to correct the false interpretations of the Words of Jesus made by men.

160

The portion you quoted

Was to underline Christy’s words…

Though to be sure, there is technically a dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism. The former giving authority to the church and the latter to the Bible alone. I have also made it clear elsewhere that I do not think the Bible is sufficient for the definition of “Christianity” but for that there is also the decision of the ecumenical council of Nicea 325 AD.

As for “corrections” to the interpretation of the Bible by modern day “prophets” like you have in the LDS and JW, that is what puts them outside of Christianity. If these were simply how they chose to understand the Bible and the Nicean creed instead of as a correction to them then I don’t think there would be any separation. This is not to say they would not be criticized as the denominations of Christianity do criticize each other.

But to be Christian, the Bible has to be accepted as the word of God requiring no corrections whether you call them “correct interpretations” or additional revelations and scriptures. In Christianity (defined by the early ecumenical councils), the only thing with authority for the teaching of Christian beliefs is the text of the Bible alone.

1 Like
161

So it seems that this has all been a charade. You don’t really care what the Bible says, just what your mythology claims.

Thanks alot.

162

Roger, this comment came after the 14 verses that I posted that show Jesus is not God and was given no biblical proof of the trinity. Also, 7 and 12 are the perfect numbers, not three. Three is a pagan number. That is where the comment came from.
Best wishes, Shawn