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Gen 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth INDEXDefinition (God)God: Elohim = Plural Sometimes 'el (mighty, strength) is also translated as God. Due to the fact that we are studying the Three of Them together, 'el will not be included as it could cause confusion as to when God refers to the Father and when it refers to the Three of Them. Where do we read of Them?
How can Three be One?How can God be plural and still be one? Just like a husband and wife is supposed to be one - one in spirit and one in mind, agreeing in everything and working together as one. But because husbands and wives always try to do their own thing, having a 50-50 relationship instead of a 100-100 relationship, we cannot even begin to comprehend what it is like to live in such harmony. Jesus even wants us to be one, one with our spouses and one with Them, just like They are one:
The Lord wants us to be one just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is One. It is therefore a sin for church leaders to bring division in the body of Christ and force "their" flock to come to "their" church rather than any other church. It is a sin for church leaders to be joyful of new converts in their church and jealous of new converts in other churches. The body of Christ does not have a very proud history. They divided Christians even in the times of Jesus when they told Jesus that a certain person was not part of their group and where baptizing other people in His Name. We hide behind pastors, teachers etc. instead of going to the Father ourselves and getting into a relationship with Him.
Who are the Three?Who are these three? They are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit How do we know that They are three different individuals? There are many more examples, but I will just use a few that Jesus mentioned:
Jesus is talking about two beings: The Father and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is compared to something good and a gift. We as parents give our children gifts and we try and give them the best gifts. When our two daughters got married, we took as much money as we could and divided it up among them. We would have given them more if we had more. Our sons each got a car. We would have given them bigger cars if we could have afforded it. Our youngest son was chosen to play rugby in Japan. We would have done anything we could to get hold of the money if we did not have it. Parents always try and give their children the best. Of course I am not including people who are abusing their children under the heading "parents". They are just males and females. To be a parent you have to be a man and a woman, not a male and a female. Being a male is a question of birth (and sometimes a question of surgery), but being a man is a question of choice. The same goes for the difference between a female and a woman. Just like we are trying to give our children the best when they ask for it, in exactly the same manner the Father will give us the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Now why is this seen as such a wonderful gift? See Holy Spirit for the answer.
Now Jesus is talking about the Father sending the Holy Spirit / Comforter / Holy Ghost in His (Jesus) Name. It is not a difficult calculation to make, there are definitely three individual beings mentioned here. We will study the Comforter in more detail under Holy Spirit.
Now Jesus calls the Three by Name: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. There is no confusion here - there are three different individuals. We will be looking at each one of Them in more detail.
This site was last updated 05 September 2007 |
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