Interesting. Where does it say that?
Oh well, what the hey, I’ll chime in…
As well as also being curious where it says that Jesus raised himself from the dead, i’d also like to know, if the Trinity is firstly true and secondly, so important, why does Jesus command his disciples to baptise people in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, yet in Acts, they never do? They always baptise in the name of Jesus.
And yet on the other hand we clearly see Jesus claiming to be God by forgiving sins and stating “I am” and all those other things.
(I’m not an anti-trin, I’m just confused and think the issue is much more complex than most Christians seem to think).
I want closure!!! 
I think that Jesus says it in John.
rline,
I know there’s at least some controversy over the possibility that the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is a later addition to the text. There’s a lot of info on the internet, but I have not looked at it enough to know what’s reliable or not. I bet some people here know way more about it than I do! I’m interested to hear more about this.
In John 10:18, Jesus says that no one takes his life from him, that he has the authority to lay down his life and to take it up again. Or maybe Jason has something else in mind.
Sonia
I had a couple of other things in mind as well, but that was the main one (also verse John 10:17): “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one has taken [or takes] it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” (Relatedly, Jesus also asserts with “I AM” statements in GosJohn, not only that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, but that He is the Resurrection and the Life.) This authority comes from the Father, so there is certainly a distinction of persons (and an authoritative distinction, too). But still, Jesus is not passively raised by the Father. He is empowered by the Father to raise Himself (and also, consequentially, to raise all other persons, too, on the Day of the Lord to come.)
Not incidentally, this statement is given in relation to a comparison of Jesus as the good shepherd laying down His life for His sheep when the wolves come, to the mere hireling who runs away and abandons the sheep when danger comes. And the phraseology is the same as later in John 15 which features the famous statement about a man laying down his life for his friends (in context of Jesus trying to get the disciples ready for His forthcoming crucifixion.)
Also, if the disciples rightly understood Jesus to be referring to the “temple” of His own body, then back in the (first) Temple cleansing Jesus declared that He Himself would raise up the “temple” in three days that the chief priests would destroy, as a sign that He had authority to be saying and doing what He was doing. (John 2:18-22)
It’s worth pointing out that in the immediate sequel to this speech, John 10:22-30, Jesus even more directly claims the sheep/shepherd language from 10:1-18, to be an application of Psalm 95:5-7 to Himself as well as to the Father, thus claiming the identity and authority of the one and only YHWH Most High Whom we should worship (while also claiming some kind of real distinction of the persons of Father and Son.) Not coincidentally Jesus climaxes this declaration of shared identity with the YHWH of Psalm 95 with a claim of Shema unity, “I and the Father are One.” This, unsurprisingly, nearly gets Him stoned. 
But even in the previous scene there was a major debate among the Pharisees following Him, about whether Jesus was demented in the sense of being demon-possessed and/or insane, to be saying such things about Himself.
My relatively brief (and not recently updated, though it needs one) Trinitarian Digest paper (only 76 pages right now, but could be expanded substantially more), can be found here.
My relatively briefer (less than 76 pages 
) list addressing some scriptural critiques of trinitarian theism by non-trinitarians on this forum, can be found here. Boxer’s observations are dealt with near the top, as it happens.
A rather more in-depth discussion between (mostly) myself and Aaron Reynolds on the OT and the Trinity (or not, as he would argue), can be found here. I’ve been wanting to get back to this for quite a while now, but I probably won’t while Aaron is on sabbatical (since that wouldn’t be fair to sneak in replies while he’s not around. 
)
Thomas Morris’ ideas on this are interesting to me, because on the surface (there is a lot to digest there), he seems to be saying what the concordant literal crowd (i.e., Martin Zender) are saying; which is that Jesus is not “fully God and fully man”, but is partly both. And that seems to be the sum of their argument against trinitarianism, other than quoting all the scriptures that appear to dissuade one from the idea. It seems like a middle ground that attempts to do justice to the mystery, while interestingly claiming to be anti-trinitarian. Morris seems to be using the same data to help explain the opposite conclusion?
Put God in a box? Nah. You might as well try nailing Jell-o to the wall.
Well, I’m not sure what “partly human” would be compared to “fully human” – less than fully human?
But “partly God” compared to “fully God” would certainly be less than fully God. And whatever is less than fully God isn’t God. A super-angel maybe, but not the creator and sustainer of all reality, and not something we ought to be worshiping along with God Most High. Absolutely not something we ought to be worshiping as our only Lord and Owner.
Such an entity might have some of the attributes of God–we have some of the attributes of God, after all. But aside from not having the attributes unique to God, we should not call such a creature (and this person would definitely be a creature, not the Creator) by the names unique to God, nor should we consider it to have the characteristics unique to God, nor should we consider it to do the deeds unique to God (such as being our ultimate Savior and Judge); much less should we consider it to have the throne unique to God. Much much much less should we render it the honor unique to God.
And if that person claims such things for him or herself, then that person is at best wildly deluded. Or else a Satanic rebel against God.
A trinitarian could believe in a manifestation of God that was less than human at all (such as a column of smoke and fire), or only partly human at most (such as an unborn body temporarily created for the convenience of eating a meal with a follower). But such a manifestation, even of God fully God, is not yet an Incarnation.
And an incarnation of something less than fully God, is not to be worshiped by those who acknowledge the existence of God Most High (which sooner or later should be everyone, even if people are currently ignorant or in denial about God’s existence.) A pagan might have some excuse about that. We don’t.
Loyal angels warn us not to worship them, when we make honest mistakes about their identity, but to worship God alone. Even setting aside problems with being only partly human instead of fully human, a claim of only partial divinity for Christ instantly obviates religious worship of Christ–which means the New Testament authors (and Jesus himself by report) are expecting us to worship that which is, at best, a lesser lord or god.
Speaking as a strict monotheist I have an absolute obligation to God Most High to reject that or any other idolatry. Period. The end. If I believed Christ was only partly divine, I would have to believe Christ to be a satanic rival to Satan. (Which might go far to explain the “only partly human” claim, too. )
This is why Christology is a big issue from the point of practical ortho-doxy: right praise of God; right representation of God in testimony to other people.
And whatever Knoch’s personal beliefs may have been, I have never been given any special reason to doubt ortho-trin from his Concordant Literal translation (if that’s the one you’re talking about.) 
First, I think it is a mistake to affirm that the Trinity concept was taught from the second century. Trinitarianism was promoted chiefly in the fourth century, although it may have occurred in a few pockets of thought prior to then. Tertulllian (about 200 A.D.) seems to have held a sort of proto-trinitarianism.
Secondly, there is no occurence of the word “God” in the New Testament which refers to a compound Being. Invariably the phrase “ο θεος” (The God) when there are no other adjectives modifying “θεος”, refers to the Father alone.
Thirdly, Jesus the Son of God Himself, in his prayer says, “This is lasting life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” [John 17:3]. He not only calls His Father “the only true God” but with that little conjuction “and” seems to identify Himself as something other than “the only true God”.
Fourthly, there is no indication in the New Testament that Jesus raised Himself from the dead, in spite of all the Easter hymns. The phrase falsely translated, “He has risen” is correctly translated “He is risen” in the King James. There is a great difference between saying, “The dog has eaten” and “The dog is eaten”. In modern English the Biblical phrase ought to be rendered “He has been raised”.
Fifthly, there is no reason to assume that the following passage is speaking of Jesus’ death or resurrection:
*For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. *
In my opinion He is speaking of His laying down His life here on earth for the sake of the Father instead of living it for Himself. But this is completely voluntary. God doesn’t force it upon Him. He could take it again, and live it for Himself like other human beings do.
Sixthly, Justin Martyr, a second century writer, in Dialogue With Trypho had a discussion with Trypho, a Jewish man, and several other Jews. Both Justin and Trypho spoke of the Holy Spirit. Clearly Trypho didn’t think of the Holy Spirit as another Divine Individual, since Jews have always believed that God is a single Individual. Justin used a great deal of discussion time to try to convince Trypho, that Jesus was the Son of God and therefore another Divine Individual and for this reason was properly called “God”. But never did he suggest that the Holy Spirit was a third Divine Person.
Have you heard of Michael Heiser? He argues that the Hebrews were (at first, at least) binitarianists because they believed in both an invisible YHWH and a visible YHWH which they called the “word of God” (as in, the word of God came to me/spoke to me/stood over there). This was characterized even more in the Arabic Targums as the “memra of God” and this figure is what John was referring to in the first of his gospel.
thedivinecouncil.com (You can start with “the Word of Yahweh”)
Also, you may be aware that the word for “resurrect” means “to stand up.” Not that I don’t believe Jesus resurrected without the help of the Father, but it may be an interesting note to add.
I’ve struggled with the doctrine of the Trinity for a while, so I feel I ought to engage with this.
Yes, and I understand you points (although I felt that number 1 was more “matter-of-fact” rather than an argument against the Trinity).
I’ve often wondered if the doctrine of the Trinity makes light of the fact that Jesus was the Messiah? The Jews seem to be clearly expenctant of a human to set them free. As can be seen from the Old Testament, every time a human came along, s/he did well as long as s/he followed God, and the people were on board. But then temptation entered into it and it all came tumbing down. Oh dear, the people are left wanting to be free again. They needed someone who would not fall.
Then the Messiah comes (“Christ” means “Messiah” as most people on here probably know). The Messiah is human. He is exactly what the people are expecting (in that respect): he is not an angel or anything else. But where all the others failed, he will succeed. His ways are in line with God’s ways (hence “I and the Father are one”). When tempted, he will overcome. The problem was that the people were expecting freedom from the Romans, but Jesus didn’t seem to do that. (I did hear from one person that actually the collapse of the Roman Empire can be traced back to Jesus… so maybe he did free them from that, just not in their timescale!) Jesus came to show people how to live for God, and to be the gateway for people to return to God (hence salvation “through Christ”).
The thing is, the Messiah was clearly God’s annointed. He was clearly more than Joe Human - he got it right! Which is why I have no issue with Jesus “being seated on the throne.” Yes, Jesus forgave sins - and that annoyed the Pharisees - but Jesus also taught us to forgive others: Matt 6:14-15. But to say that Jesus IS God? …Hmmmm… I’m not completely convinced.
And the argument I frequently hear:
“We’re trying to describe God from a human perspective. Because He is so much greater than us, He is pretty much incomprehensible. Any human analogy will fail, so we just have to accept it…”
And the conclusion is that the Trinity is the correct understanding?! To me, that argument is just as much against the analogy of the Trinity as it is for it.
Just some thoughts.
I can’t figure out who you’re replying to with this statement. Robin? But he didn’t say it was taught from the second century; he said theologians “thrashed out the doctrine of the Trinity from 2nd to 5th centuries” and that in doing so they were “seeking to find ways of doing justice to the divine self-revelation testified to in Scripture. They wanted to preserve the fine balances required to appreciate the God revealed in Christ.” That isn’t the same thing as saying that the 4th century ortho-trin system was being taught from the 2nd century.
I’m the only other gung-ho trinitarian in this thread; and not only have I also never said it was taught (per se) in the 2nd century, I pretty much agree with Robin on what he did actually say. (And I expect, along with me, he’s including respectful reference to non-trinitarians trying to hash out the implications faithfully, too.)
Debatable, of course, but the actual point for debate is what the references to the term {theos} add up to theologically. For example…
…off the top of my head I can think of one obvious and well-known exception to this, where Thomas answers Jesus {ho theos mou} as part of an address which, in Old Testament parallels (both LXX and the underlying Hebrew, “the Lord of me and the God of me”), is uniquely addressed to God Most High.
But even when {ho theos} is being modified with an adjective, when an author (at least of the same school as the Evangelist of GosJohn) says of Jesus Christ {houtos estin ho alethinos theos kai zoe aionios} “This (one) is the true God and life eonian”, that’s a freakishly huge thing to say about someone compared with the “the True One” Whose Son Jesus is, and Whom we are supposed to be worshiping.
Already addressed in my commentary links I gave, so I’ll pass on. (The short version is that trinitarians accept the scriptural testimony there and actually deploy it in disputes with modalists as clear testimony of the distinction of the Persons, if any more evidence was necessary. The real complaint against trinitarians here, by modalists and various Arians on either end, is metaphysical, not scriptural: namely an expectation that if a multi-personal self-begetting and self-begotten God existed, the self-begotten Person wouldn’t be able to plausibly call the begetting Person the only true God and even His God.)
Except of course the indications in the New Testament that I talked about in some detail, the details of which you basically ignored when you addressed that same example next.
I agree with that, by the way; in all four Gospels and Rom 8, the phrase should be rendered “He has been raised” in modern English.
Since trinitarians don’t deny that the Father (and the Spirit for that matter) raised the Son from the dead, but rather affirm that (too), this is not really a problem. But for accuracy’s sake, the NASB and some other high ranking translations ought not to be reading in doctrine from somewhere else here. The KJV is in fact more accurate to the translation in those places.
On the other hand (as I also mentioned), if the disciples afterward (apparently including GosJohn’s author) were correct about Jesus’ prophetic sign-dare reported in John 2:19 (indirectly attested to again three Passovers later during His trial scene in the Synoptics), then Jesus said “I will raise” His body again within three days of the chief priests destroying it. The grammar and text transmission there are rock solid and not in dispute.
The only way out of it is to call coup against accurate reporting by GosJohn, and/or his sources; and/or to deny that the disciples actually came to understand Jesus’ reference wrongly after His resurrection (which I suppose is technically possible.)
Other than the reasons I gave, which you didn’t bother to discuss. While giving no actual reasons yourself for interpreting it another way.
Not that I disagree with your opinion there. But I disagree that this is the extent of what Jesus meant, not least because the immediate context is about the good shepherd risking his life being killed by wolves raiding the flock, unlike the mere hirelings who flee when the wolves arrive. The phraseology is the same as when Jesus tells them in the final discourse (John 15:13) “Greater love has no one than this, that one may be laying down his life for his friends.”
Since I am no expert on exegeting Justin Martyr, I’ll leave that for other people. The more pertinent question is whether the Judeo-Christian scriptures ever indicate, directly or by context, that the Holy Spirit is a third person.
Jason: I’m the only other gung-ho trinitarian in this thread…
Tom: I’m a gung-ho trinitarian observer of this thread! 
Yaaay to the triune God.
Tom
Which is odd, then, that you quoted me on the issue of worshiping Jesus but then didn’t engage with it. 
Getting completely away from claims of even partial divinity of Jesus and focusing only on the (full not only part??) humanity of Jesus, doesn’t help the divine worship issue either, much less engage it.
Um… no?
Trinitarians sometimes do, since in modern parlance the problem is more with the claim of divinity. But the historical fact is that most of the Christological controversies from the 4th century onward through around the 7th involved the ‘orthodox’ party defending and stressing the FULL HUMANITY of Jesus against various doctrinal threats–including, among other things, the notion that Christ was only partially human.
(The main reason the three main Eastern trinitarian branches split apart was over the humanity of Christ; the Alexandrian branch wanted to stress the divinity at the expense of the humanity, and the Nestorian branch wanted to accentuate the division of human nature from the divine nature, each with the purpose of protecting the doctrine of the divinity from being imperiled, as they thought, by the doctrine of the humanity, although neither did they deny the full humanity of Christ. The middle ‘orthodox’ branch, which eventually split between “Eastern Orthodox/Catholicism” and “Roman Catholicism”, was concerned in those disputes to protect the doctrine of the humanity of Christ from being overrun or disregarded as unimportant.)
The doctrinal set certainly stresses the full humanity of Jesus (instead of only partial humanity, for example again.) So while trinitarian theologians may inadvertently not stress that enough, especially when concentrating on the part that modern people find more difficult to believe, the problem isn’t with the doctrinal set.
Actually, in the OT there is a lot more talk of expectation of God Most High, YHWH ADNY ELHM Himself, returning in some kind of direct visible presence to set His people free. Not so much about a human king coming to do this, though there’s some talk of that, too (along the son/branch of David, son of Judah). But even when they talk about that, they typically talk of this human king in wildly elevated terms that really should only apply to YHWH Most High on pain of idolatry (if he, or He, isn’t somehow YHWH.)
Call it a persistent hangover from paganism (and its propensity to talk about merely human kings in terms rivaling God Most High–which YHWH and the OT prophets constantly fulminate against.) That could easily enough explain it, but by the same token that means we ought to know better than to be following them on that! Yet the NT authors follow them on that, while also strenuously warning just the same that we are not to worship lesser lords and gods (whether human or angelic) the way the pagans do.
Except that the immediate contexts of that verse, as I discussed at some length above, go hugely farther than that. Jesus wasn’t nearly stoned (and eventually handed over to be hung to death on a tree) by the religious establishment for only claiming to be a human Messiah (a concept they would have been perfectly comfortable with, aside from political worries.)
I actually agree with that! But you’ve never heard such a thing from me. (Including in the comments you were supposed to be engaging. )
The “Son of Man” was clearly a divine title which was borrowed from Daniel, which in and of itself was a parallel to a Ugaritic text describing Baal (in order to trump Baal and show Elohim’s preeminence over the Canaanite gods).
Reference: logos.com/ugaritic
Sorry, I meant in the sense of having posted lengthy entries in this thread on the topic! I was trying to figure out who Paidion was replying in regard to there.
(Edited to add: as a rule, when I describe myself as “gung-ho”, I’m being a bit self-deprecating about my propensity to disgorge a giant blob of post. 
Sonia is as much ortho-trin as I am, too, but she only had a couple paragraphs of comments; at any rate it was easy to see that Paidion wasn’t replying to either of you, and even my posts are too long for me to sift through sometimes! But I know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have claimed ortho-trin as a system per se was being taught in the 2nd century.)
Knoch was an interesting dude. He started out as ECT and came out on the side of universal restorationism as a result of his translation work (and yes, he is the one I’m referring to). But he also has some interesting twists on dispensationalism as well. He basically believes that the Gospel preached in the gospels only applies to the Jewish converts of Jesus’ day, and that after Paul’s revelation of the “higher” (but not different) gospel is for everyone else. He also makes a distinction between the body and bride of Christ (The bride being those converts pre-destruction of Jerusalem AD70 and the body, everyone else.)
He sort of comes out as a universalist dispensational literalist with a good measure of preterist thrown in. His views are certainly among the most unique I’ve seen from those we would call christian universalists.
I may not be doing justice to his version of non-trinitarianism (I’m a little fuzzy because it has been awhile), but basically that article I sent you a link to awhile ago for review (that I bugged you about a couple times ) was his argument against trinitarianism. For the most accurate representation of his view, look in the horse’s mouth!
Jason, thanks for your comments on my post. I suppose I need to explain a little more where I’m coming from.
Attempting to keep it brief… I’ve heard loads of people try to explain the Trinity to me, but their arguments just don’t seem to hold. I think maybe it’s because it’s a difficult and tricky concept and I can see that maybe they don’t actually understand it that well themselves. From Robin Parry’s blog, I read an article which, whilst helpful in discussing the “problems” of the Trinity, went incredibly deep to the point of being rather confusing for me, and what I did manage to comprehend from the last quarter of it I didn’t feel was a good argument. But I’ll admit that maybe the part I didn’t understand was the crux of it.
The problem is that I’ve had a few chats with other people about it. After battling through comments about being a heretic for even questioning the Trinity, I was effectively told…
which is the reason I said it. If people say that sort of thing to me, I switch off from them. No offense to them, it’s just that I find that argument fairly pathetic (which you seem to agree with anyway!).
A few weeks ago we had a Bible study on the subject of the Trinity, and I came to the conclusion that maybe I’m not actually in denial of the Trinity, but that I dislike the usual terminology and explanations for it. (The explanations I’ve heard seem to miss the idea of Jesus being the Messiah and what that meant to the people at the time… which is why I mentioned it.)
I will freely admit that I’m not too well read on the subject, but from my mathematical background I believe I can see jumps in logic and arguments which don’t necessarily make sense (of course, I may be wrong in that assumption!). I have read Robin Parry’s book “Worshipping Trinity” (for which, coincidentally, my sister designed the front cover! 
) and although I found it a very good read, personally I felt it just didn’t quite have that spark to nudge me from where I was at. However…
Actually, I would argue that from the opening paragraph of chapter 5 of Robin’s book. (If you want me to type out that paragraph, I am happy to… but I can’t be bothered right now!) Sorry if you felt I was ignoring your comment on that, I just didn’t feel it was a particularly strong argument and wanted to address what I felt were more pressing thoughts!
Like I said, I’ve been struggling with the idea, not because I desperately want it to be true or false, but because I just want to understand the whole thing better and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere… just comments of being a heretic for questioning it. (One person actually spoke to the rector about me, suggesting that maybe I shouldn’t be involved with the youth work if I didn’t completely accept this doctrine. I’m glad the rector appreciated my questioning nature…)
There may or may not be a Trinity. Nobody knows. What we do know is that the Apostle Paul never heard of it. We really don’t have to look much further than the introductions to his epistles to see that he makes a very careful distinction between God and Jesus.
Here are his greetings:
Romans, I & II Corinthians, and Galations:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Colossians:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
I Thessalonians:
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you.
II Thessalonians: To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I & II Timothy:
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not once, in any of his writings, does Paul ever refer to God the Son or God the Holy Spirit. And, of course, he never mentions a trinity, three persons in one, a triune God, or anything of that nature. I can just imagine Paul on Judgment Day, seeing Trinitarian theologians and asking, “How on earth did you ever get the idea that I was preaching about a God who is three persons in one?”
Given this complete lack of explicit teaching in the Bible about a Trinity, here is the question with which we are all faced:
All of these “difficult and controverted” texts are addressed here:
biblicalunitarian.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=109
Again, there may be a Trinity. I don’t have any axe to grind. If it turns out that there really is a Trinity, and He (or They) don’t mind that I misinterpreted the texts on this one, then I’ll be a happy camper. I’m just saying that I don’t find it in the Bible.