Trinity

Comment from a Jehovah's Witness who calls himself Lukas

Lukas: Whoever wants to justify the Trinity with the Holy Scriptures will not manage without interpretation (once again). And one can interpret everything possible to all possible conceptions, how man wants it to be and according to which the ears itch."

Ruediger: The Trinity is not an important or decisive war issue for me. The Trinity can make many things comprehensible and bearable for our minimal human logic, but it cannot claim biblical validity as a component of teaching. So Trinity is not a factor that includes or excludes healing and salvation. In this respect, I have no difficulty in disproving it biblically, nor in proving it biblically. For I do not do either.

Only one thing can be considered remarkable in this context: The Trinity makes some things comprehensible that are generally claimed by God and that are contradictory because of our small human minimal brain power. But this is by no means a reason to treat the doctrine of the Trinity as part of the Christian doctrine.

You will find a new perspective on the topic here: Trinity – believe it?. The Bible forces the Trinity of God! It is very easy to understand! [RH, 05.09.2013]

Lukas: The bad thing is: The (convinced) Trinitarian actually believes not, that Jesus is God's Son, even if he claims to be.

Ruediger: What is "the (convinced) Trinitarian"? I know many Christians and know of few how they weight the Trinity. In everyday life no clear statement can be found. From this I conclude that the Trinity plays no role in their life of faith. I would probably – if I ever met a "convinced Trinitarian" – show him a bird. For such a human crutch of understanding cannot be a central part of the Christian faith.

Jesus says to the healed one: "Throw away your crutches and go!" We will be so close to God one day that we will understand Him even without human teachings. But already now my forehead was wrinkled if I had to hear from someone that the Trinity was a fundamental part of his faith.

Lukas: He believes that Jesus is the Almighty God, he makes the Son the only Almighty God, which he never was and never is, and he is not the will of Jesus to claim such a thing.

Ruediger: When I became a believer, I didn't care who Jesus was exactly. What mattered to me was that I had to be saved in His name and that His special teaching seemed to me to be the only one to overcome the meaningless dilemma of the world. This peculiarity is the point that he provides for our salvation and that out of this salvation worked by him comes a growth that is only possible in him.

It means that all the good in me can only be done through him. So I must be in him to be part of the vine as his fruit. What other qualities this Jesus has in addition to that is, for the time being, most uninteresting. Because first our salvation comes in him and for something else he did not come to earth either.

Lukas: With this he does not believe God (nor Jesus), because he makes other statements, but makes him a liar.

Ruediger: Whether one believes God and Jesus or not, this certainly does not attach itself to the help of the Trinity doctrine! For first comes salvation and the acceptance of salvation. And this salvation takes place in the bond with Jesus Christ. His word and work bring about the life that he himself is. And how should Jesus be life if he were not God Himself? But Jesus says: "I am the truth and the life".

Lukas: If Jesus were the Almighty God, it would be impossible that Jesus would then be begotten by the Father, and empowered and sent to be the Son, when all this does not originate from Him, but from one who is greater than Him (cf. Jn 14:28) and who was there before Him.

Ruediger: The teaching that Jesus is "begotten of the Father, and empowered and sent" simply binds itself to the fact that God in Jesus has become fully human. In order to be able to meet people at all as such a self-contained contradiction, the sonship with God was prepared as a kind of general declaration by God already in the Old Testament. The apparition of the Messiah had to be announced in human words. Otherwise no one could have believed it.

The sonship with God clings to the phase of the humanity of Jesus. And here we are also amazed by the perfection of Christ's words, where he even speaks of the Son of Man who he is! In this way he rounds off our understanding and makes it clear to us that his being is a thing long prepared by God. And by equating the concepts of the Son of God and the Son of Man, he places us in the necessity of recognizing that we are stuck with our logic. For he is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. This is an indication that any attempt to understand Jesus with human logic must fail. Moreover, he implies that his sonship with God and his sonship with man refer to the phase of his humanity.

Lukas: Nevertheless, the dogma tries to make him believe that both are possible: that the son is the son, the father the father, and yet both the almighty and only God.

Ruediger: No, dogmas are man-made cornerstones, core statements that play no role for a true Christian. For his faith does not cling to man-made things, but to the knowledge that is given to him by the Holy Spirit. For the bond with the Lord Jesus is his hold and not the coordination with people who let themselves be pumped full of colorfully illustrated manipulation literature.

Nor can dogmas influence a true Christian, even if they come from a Catholic or Protestant corner. And what the Holy Spirit says can neither be used as a dogma nor as the content of adult education classes. For the Holy Spirit says precisely those things which cannot be learned from people.

Lukas: And he makes the holy spirit (which is God Spirit, just as our spirit is our Spirit) into another person. It is the respective spirit that characterizes us and turns us into persons, while our physical shell (the flesh) is only a transient dwelling place of the same. God does not have a transient fleshly (= earthly) shell, but a spiritual (= heavenly) body that is imperishable. And in this spiritual body of the Almighty dwells his Holy Spirit (as God is holy), whom he can and wants to give to men already in this world as "pledge" and gift, so that they may recognize him and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Ruediger: There you go. If God can and will give away his spirit to lead us to the knowledge of the truth, then it is already clear from this matter that our thinking is not sufficient to be able to make us a true picture of God. It is not for nothing that we say: You should not make yourself a picture of God! Just as at that time people made wood and stone pictures of him, so today the idolaters make themselves an image of God from fixed ideas and definitions.

Whether or not the Holy Spirit is to be regarded as a person is just as open as the question of whether God has a "spiritual (= heavenly) body". The spirit works as it pleases. This makes it clear that he has his own will. And Jesus promised to send the Comforter to introduce us to all truth. With this Jesus gives the Holy Spirit a mission. This also suggests that the Holy Spirit is an independent person. Or can one give an order to a non-person?

Lukas: "But to us God has revealed this through the Spirit; for the Spirit explores all things, even the depths of God. For who of men knows the inner being of a man? But only the Spirit who dwells in the man concerned. Likewise, no one has known the inner being of God except the Spirit of God... (1 Corinthians 2:10-11)

Ruediger: That's right. Therefore, only the Holy Spirit can make the true facts clear to each individual believer. But to want to conclude from the comparison with man and his Spirit that God's being is built exactly as we experience ourselves is an unfounded conclusion that false teachers like to connect with the true meaning of this biblical passage. For with this they can then tell others something that anticipates the Holy Spirit, God Himself.

Man is created in the image of God. But not as a one-to-one copy!

Lukas: God (unlike us who are His creatures) can give His (holy) Spirit, for He is also "the Father of spirits", from whom all things proceed, and who is "all in all": "But as soon as all things are subjected to Him, then the Son himself will also submit to Him who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all (or in all)" (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Ruediger: The mere statement that the son will submit to the father implies that he is now equal to the father in everything. The submission of the Son here is nothing other than the entrance of the Son and the Father into the inseparable unity of God. This inseparable unity had been given up so that God could die in Jesus for us on the cross. The words of Jesus: "Father, Father!" are the expression of this separation of the Son from the Father, which took place solely for our salvation. Why have you forsaken me!

Lukas: So the Holy Spirit is God's Spirit, this statement we encounter again and again in Holy Scripture, he is not another person besides the Father, but his Spirit, the Spirit of the Holy One. We identify ourselves through our (human) spirit as who we really are, according to biblical understanding it is the same with God: "God is (holy) spirit ..." (Jn 4:24, cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18).

Ruediger: That the Holy Spirit is a part of God is undisputed. But the impudent conclusion: "he is not another person besides the Father" is too short and orientates himself only by our human and completely inadequate thinking ability. This confirms that your Watchtower doctrine is a single muscle play with human effort. Your faith is like bodybuilding, but not the concession to God that only He can save us from His power. But whoever accepts Jesus as the Beginner and Perfector of his faith will experience more than the Watchtower teaches.

Lukas: In this way (cf. Ephesians 4:6, see above) God also wants (and can) achieve unity, as it exists between Him and His Son Jesus, who in turn forms unity with His true followers, so that they too may be one with God (John 17:11+21-23), because God's Spirit works in His Son as well as in all (followers). Unity therefore not in the often misunderstood (interpreted) sense of "identical" or "the same", but in the sense of the same character, views and action. In other words: There is no selfishness, i.e. disputes, differences etc., just unity (cf. 2. Cor 3, 18; Rom 8, 29). Unity also not in the greatness or power that God possesses, who is the (supreme) head (1 Cor 11, 3) and assigns to everyone according to his wisdom, but in the inner being, as it is also described by the first Christians: "But the totality of those who became believers was a heart and a soul, and not a single one called a piece of his property his exclusive property, but they had everything as common property." (Acts 4, 32). So the (high priestly) prayer of Jesus was heard that he spoke (in John, chapter 17) to his Father.

Ruediger: "In this way God wants (and can) achieve unity" – Wrong! God has achieved this unity for a long time. Whoever comes to Jesus experiences this unity already now and here in him. By this his disciples can be recognized that they are one with the Son and through him with the Father. And those who have come to know this unity can well and gladly do without human dogmas. For the true Christian, the doctrine of the Trinity and also the doctrine of the Anti-Trinity play no role. Because the Comforter leads him piece by piece into all truth. Just as he can bear it.

And why should one believe a Bible that expressly forbids another God in the front, but shows up with another God in the back? Jesus can only be God Himself, who became man, otherwise the first commandment will be broken. [RH 0101.2019]

Comments
01

Pride comes before the fall and nothing tempts more than apparent knowledge!

Jesus teaches us prayer! A call is not equal to prayer and a prostration is not anyway!

The expression invoke means nothing more than prayer. Prostrating is even more than getting down on one's knees. Calling and prostrating are the more intense forms of prayer. With Jehovah's Witnesses, everything seems to be the other way around. [RH]

But the head of Christ is God, someone says in the commentary to then claim that this would say Christ is God. There one may and must probably ask oneself, what goes wrong with this person, whether he also considers connections etc..

Has a woman become her husband when her head is her husband?

The man and the woman are one flesh! This accurately describes the nature of the Trinity. The Father and the Son are one God. For this, the son does not have to become the father and the father does not have to become the son. [RH]

And are we now Jesus Christ when we accept Him as our head?

We may be one in him and with him. Read John 17, the whole chapter. Let it sink in. Rather than defaming Jesus, focus on the black spots in your potatoes. [RH]

The answers might be clear, at least if you give more value to the word than to the talk of the world.

Johannes [April 13, 2022]

02

Quote John: "Pride comes before the fall and nothing tempts more than apparent knowledge! Jesus teaches us prayer! A call is not equal to prayer and a prostration is not anyway!"

Then the people who prostrated themselves before the statue of Nebuchadnezzar did not do any idolatry or did not worship it at all. Man, were the friends of Daniel stupid. They must have known that this would not have been bad at all and that it was not worship at all.

They should have had a Bible study beforehand and then prostrated themselves, then they would have done everything right!

A.D. [April 13, 2022]

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