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The Trinity according to Baptists

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by Gina B, Dec 28, 2004.

  1. Gina B

    Gina B Active Member

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    In this thread: CLICK
    I'm getting the bad feeling that I've either been severely misled or have horribly misunderstood our position on what the Trinity is. I've always understood what I've been taught in my Baptist church to be that God is manifested in three forms, and that all are one. That we are created in that image and reflect the trinity in that we are body, mind, and spirit.
    All three have different functions yet all still make up one.
    What's the real teaching? I'm being told I'm wrong, it really blows my mind that what I've always thought was a standard doctrine to Baptists is considered heresy by the same. :(
    Gina
     
  2. PastorGreg

    PastorGreg Member
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    I think some of the other stuff over there might be confusing you, Gina. The oneness people don't believe that there are 3 persons in the trinity. They believe in one person who may manifest Himself as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. We believe (because the Bible teaches) there are 3 distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one God. Thus the Trinity - three in one. Not one person in three forms.
     
  3. Marcia

    Marcia Active Member

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    It depends on what is meant by the word "manifest." It is used mostly by those who deny the Trinitarian God. To say God 'manifests' as God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, usually implies a heresy called modalism (and once called Sabellianism) because it denies the 3 Persons in the Godhead.

    The Trinitarian view is that God is one divine substance with 3 distinct Persons (or Beings), not 3 gods, as the Oneness people (and the JW's)falsely charge. Or, as Dr. Norman Geisler says, "One What and 3 Who's."

    On my website, I say:
    This is the statement of my church, seminary, the churches that support my ministry, and every Christian organization that I know of.

    My church, Cherrydale Baptist, says this:
    Although we have no exact analogy of the Trinity in our human surroundings and mind, we can apprehend the truth of it. The Bible clearly teaches it and it is has been one of the essentials of the Christian faith.

    Modalism (that God manifests in 3 modes at various times -- which is the main view of Oneness followers today) was denounced as a heresy in the 3rd century (it was called Sabellianism):
    http://www.believersweb.org/view.cfm?ID=673
    Thus, Oneness followers do not believe in the biblical Jesus nor in the biblical God or Holy Spirit. Often. the HS is just a power to them, and not a Person of the Godhead.

    The two main organizations of Oneness followers are the United Pentecostal Church (keep in mind there are trinitarian pentecostals, but not in this church) and the United Apostolic Church. Other groups are Apostolic World Christian Federation, Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ, Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.

    More info on Oneness and why it is unbiblical:

    1) http://www.carm.org/oneness.htm

    2) http://www.namb.net/atf/cf/{CDA250E8-8866-4236-9A0C-C646DE153446}/BB_PENTECOSTALS.pdf
    or try
    http://tinyurl.com/4c548

    3) http://www.watchman.org/profile/onenesspro.htm
     
  4. IveyLeaguer

    IveyLeaguer New Member

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    I don't think I've ever read a better statement.
     
  5. cbailey-va

    cbailey-va Guest

    Non Baptist in Baptist Only forums

    [ December 29, 2004, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: dianetavegia ]
     
  6. koreahog2005

    koreahog2005 New Member

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    Our most recent SBC confession of faith, the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, describes the Trinity as follows:

    "The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

    In other words, the three members of the Trinity have the same divine stuff (substance, essence), a conclusion already in Scripture but also formalized at Nicea in 325 A.D. God alone has the divine stuff. There is a clear difference between the Creator and His created beings. Non-divine beings are not composed of this divine stuff. The council at Chalcedon in 451 A.D. clarified that when Jesus put on human flesh, He was a union, not a mixture, of the divine stuff and non-divine stuff:

    http://www.reformed.org/documents/chalcedon.html

    [ December 29, 2004, 02:11 AM: Message edited by: koreahog2005 ]
     
  7. Ben W

    Ben W Active Member
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    We believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirt, all three being equal.

    Yet what I might point out is that there is no illustration that can ever describe the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Forget all about eggs and iceblocks floating in water. The Bible says that the three are one and the KJV uses the term Godhead. Thus the Bible says it that is how it is.

    General William Booth penned the 11 doctrines of Christianity, He sums it up pretty well in no 3 -

    We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead, - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.

    http://snipurl.com/bn99
     
  8. Aki

    Aki Member

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    the Father is God.
    the Son is God.
    the Holy Spirit is God.

    since they are all distinct persons, it is only logical to believe that there are three Gods.

    they being one only manifests in their nature, which does not make a single God.

    again, there are three.
     
  9. rufus

    rufus New Member

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    God is ONE ESSENCE but Three PERSONS. All THREE have different functions but are "composed of" the divine nature.

    Rufus
     
  10. Bro. James

    Bro. James Well-Known Member
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    "Let us make man in our image"

    "Behold man is become as one of us to know good and evil"

    There is a tri-unity in God--the Creator, the I Am That I Am.

    There is a tri-unity in man--the created, not a god.

    Man has a physical body, corrupted by sin; a mind, corrupted by sin; a spirit, separated from God by sin.

    Jesus told the Jews: "If you do not believe that I AM THAT I AM, you will die in your sins". They charged him with blasphemy--"he makes himself to be God".

    Jesus is either God or the greatest imposter ever.

    There is only one true God: Father/Son/Spirit.

    "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father", Jesus said. Also: "My Father and I are one."

    "Tri-unity" is a biblical doctrine.

    Selah,

    Bro. James
     
  11. danrusdad

    danrusdad New Member

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    There is nothing logical about 3 persons equalling three God's. Just like there is nothing illogical about saying there are three persons (whos) in one being (what). Comparing personhood to essence is apples and oranges. The burden is on you to justify your leap of logic.
     
  12. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Aki your statement better represents the Mormon view of God/gods.

    The orthodox view uses the word "distinct", the cultic view(s) use the word "separate".

    God is three distinct (not separate) persons in one divine essence.

    The persons of the Trinity are not only one in agreement (as per the cults) but in essence as well.

    HankD
     
  13. Archeryaddict

    Archeryaddict New Member

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    God visited Abram in the plains of Mamere
    three persons Came to Abram and Abram acknowledged all 3 as LORD meaning all 3 being equal to one another also all 3 acknowledged Abram in return as being equal in their lordship

    this passage of scripture paints a perfect picture of the Trinity

    Genesis 18

    1. And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;
    2. And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,
    3. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:
    4. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:
    5. And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.
     
  14. IveyLeaguer

    IveyLeaguer New Member

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    From my notes:

    Ephesians 2:18 - "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."

    ... God Himself, One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified. Yet this holy Trinity is One God, for we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal. A.W.Tozer
     
  15. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Three Persons in One Divine Nature

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  16. Marcia

    Marcia Active Member

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    I don't think Tozer should get credit for this! :eek:

    It looks like a combination of some Creeds -- maybe Nicene Creed and the Athansian Creed?
     
  17. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    The Nicene Creed

    The Athanasian Creed
     
  18. IveyLeaguer

    IveyLeaguer New Member

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    I don't think Tozer should get credit for this! :eek:

    It looks like a combination of some Creeds -- maybe Nicene Creed and the Athansian Creed?
    </font>[/QUOTE]Matters not to me, have it your way. That's where I got it from.
     
  19. Marcia

    Marcia Active Member

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    Tozer didn't write it. Did he have his name as the author?
     
  20. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Chapter 3
     
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