Another wrong illustration is using ourselves: I am one person, but also a wife, mother, and writer. Space consists of three things: height, width, and depth. In other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a unique and unbreakable unity, and their existence together is the being that is God. Some people have suggested using an egg to explain how God can be both one and three. He has the world and our individual lives within His supremely capable hands. But the Trinity is our belief as Christians that God is one being who exists in three Persons- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.. Its all one person, simply functioning in three different roles. If you say, "water" then you are incorrect. Son and Holy Ghost are each fully God. The Father hears their intercessory prayers. The military would end up destroying themselves. Who is God? They that dont have the Holy Spirit in them will talk like the Adversary. It's impossible to be an Orthodox Christian without professing belief in the Triune nature of God. It is the Central Mystery of our Christian faith. Its impossible to be an Orthodox Christian without professing belief in the Triune nature of God. For the Trinity, instead of using the formula 1+1+1, we use 1x1x1. In trying to describe what they saw in the pages of the Bible, the early church decided to use the word person to describe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To the other major monotheistic faiths (Islam and Judaism), it is rank heresyTrinitarianism is therefore definitional to Christianity. I and My Father are One (John 10:30). In the second instance, the truth of Gods Trinity reveals a further aspect of Gods love for His people. Water has three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Genisis 1:17, KJV. In scripture we see explicit trinitarian references, especially at Jesus' baptism where the Father speaks, the Spirit descends, and the Son is in the water. Lord of all, we bow before thee. Yet others have thought that H20 (water) shows us the Trinity since H20 can be three things: solid (ice), liquid (running water) and vapor (steam). They have a common purpose in making harmonious music, but each note is its own separate entity. Below is a compilation of the verses that reference all 3 persons of the one God. Love your blogs! You are an egg! How can God be Three in One? This view teaches that three separate beings exist. Well the issue is, the water analogy is akin to the heresy of Modalism. The Egg Analogy - This claims to be a good representation of the Trinity because Eggs have three distinct parts: the shell, the yolk, and the whites. Here's a look at six explanations for why so many people truly believe 3 Ways to Experience The Good Life in Jesus. Answer (1 of 25): Cynics assert that the idea of the Holy Trinity is a logical impossibility. Eggs are one, yet comprise yolk, shell and albumen. His ways are not my ways! The Father is fully God; Jesus is fully God and the Holy Spirit is fully God. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John14:2, 3). Just like an egg, none of the parts are co-equal, nor are all of the parts necessary for the egg to exist. I'm always interested in ways to encourage you, so feel free to contact me and let me know what areas interest you! RELATED: The Biblical Principle Of Baptism By Fire. When we use analogies, we need to indicate these things so as to not lead to heresies, A Catholic and Filipino writer interested in theology, philosophy, liturgy, politics, and law. The idea of God as three-in-one is indeed a mysterious concept, one that is difficult to understand. Some have used examples such as water, watermelons and eggs; the principle behind those illustrations is that even though each thing is one, it is also three. Through the brokenness of the Shell, His Son, the Spirit white pours out into our beings through our faith in what was done and believers are joined with the yolk, for it is by One Spirit we have access to God the Father (Ephesians 2:18). On a whim, I looked up the lyrics at a later time. The scientific analogy that will be provided in a few moments is truly inadequate to describe the Holy Trinity. For example, we know that God didnt create humanity because He bored or lonely. Father, Son, Holy Sprit : 3 persons, 1 great relationship, Copyright 2023 Fervr | Terms of Service. Yet there is still only one God we serve. 1 Corinthians 8:6: Yet for us there is but one God.. Each PERSON is distinct from one another. The trinity is like water. So if all of these explanations are heretical, what is a good analogy? The three-leaf clover analogy is OK. Haydn Lea is an Associate Pastor in Queensland, and is currently studying his Master of Arts (Theology). This book is now available in a published format for easy sharing and classroom use. It became real to me because I have experienced His love, grace, guidance, redemption, conviction of sin, and fellowship that comes from Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are equally eternal, powerful, sovereign, and worthy of worship. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also exist eternally and concurrently. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Romans 8:9). This analogy explains that the Father is like the sun. God does not morph from one person to another, nor does God exist as three separate beings. There have been many attempts to explain the Trinity the relationship between God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. An essential factor lacking from those concepts is the relational quality of God. Lost will be burned up. Trinity is like a Shamrock (or an Apple or an Egg). The unseen Father is in Christs mind. If youre interested into diving deeper into the topic of the Trinity, here are some valuable resources that could help. But the Father is not the Son or the Spirit. The Bible reveals that each person of the Trinity has unique roles, relationships, and functions which are distinct from one another. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Although the water changes forms it is still H2O. Some who deny the Trinity claim 1+1+1=3, and therefore claim we worship three Gods. - well, sort of. He completed a doctorate in 1990, looking at the question of harmonic rhythm in the organ music of J.S. God is much bigger and much greater than we can understand, and to be honest, I'm ok with that. I believe that the best way to talk about the Trinity is to simply say that God is one God, who eternally exists in three Persons. Jesus Person is joined to the Father by the Fathers Holy Spirit, because Gods Spirit is also Jesus Spirit - "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. Dont become discouraged if you cant answer the question to your liking. Born in England in 1961, Benjamin Waterhouse Benjamin Waterhouse has been the organist of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity since 2000. 3. Surely this is a better understanding of the water analogy! That is a holding pen for final judgment. The more I reflect on Easter, the more Ive realized how much its become a consumeristic holidayeven Did Jesus really rise from the dead? No analogy is perfect, but we want to be careful of using wrong ones that may confuse people. In one egg you have the white, the yoke, and the shell composing one full egg. I dont know how our majestic God feels about being compared to watermelons and eggs, but He is also a loving Father, and like any father, I believe God would seek to provide simple explanations so His little children can understand. Although he is one he has different roles to different people. I go to prepare a place for you. The Spirit white is connected to Jesus Person I will come to you (John 14:18) and the Fathers Person, We will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23). Perhaps youve heard the analogy that the Trinity is like H2O (the molecular symbol for water). The idea that the Trinity can be compared to a shamrock is largely attributed to St. Patrick. Thus the Father is in Jesus " I and My Father are One" (John 10:30), "The Father is in Me" (John 14:10) God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). Often these analogies explicitly teach heresy. I dont know how our majestic God feels about being compared to watermelons and eggs, but He is also a loving Father, and like any father, I believe God would seek to provide simple explanations so His little children can understand. In reality, I change my role depending on who I am interacting with. When we separate them we can fall into the error of tritheism, which is the worship of three individual deities as one. When discussing God, especially in regards to his nature, being and persons, a simple statement to articulate the Trinity is: God is 1, *. However, it breaks down on the level of equality: No one keeps or eats the shell of an egg. Yet, these persons are not separate from one another. The white of an egg is the connection between the yolk and the shell. The Father sends the Son, and both the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. The term Economic refers to the roles, functions, and relationships that exist within the Trinity. In humans, our spirits are designed to operate with and be united to the soul which is the person of anyone and so it is with our Egg. God is not made up of 3 'parts' like the 3 parts of the egg. This may be my favorite verse of them all. The following verses attest to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). THE TRUTH IS: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three different parts or components of God, but the . When discussing God, especially in regards to his nature, being and persons, a simple statement to articulate the Trinity is: God is 1 what and 3 whos*. It leads to the heresy of MODALISM which teaches that God switches to different modes. Jesus, visually seen, judges all, not the Unseen Father. But common sense is intuition based on day-to-day experience. Rather, He created us in order to bless us. The Father hears their intercessory prayers. All three persons exist at the same moment in history. In humans, our spirits are designed to operate with and be united to the soul which is the person of anyone and so it is with our Egg. The Latin word for trinity (trinitas) combines two words- unitas (unity) and trias (three). These hand embroidered emblems are made with metallic gold-plated thread with silver content, printed on canvas. There are two basic ways that people misunderstand the Trinity: 1. Further, we can label each of the sides. Here are four. What happens when an egg hatches? He has not yet revealed some mysteries (what did Jesus do in His childhood, when will He return, what does the word Selah mean in the Old Testament- and so many more.). We define a person as one having a will and who is distinguishable from another person. Hi Im not a theologian and I dont disagree with what you say but when you state that we know the persons of the Trinity have perfectly loved for eternity etc how do we know? Haydn describes himself as a five-point Calvinist, but he recognises that many faithful Christians disagree. RELATED: What Did Jesus Really Look Like? The Holy Spirit descended upon Him to equip Him for His ministry. Each one is fully God. Just as water changes forms so too is the trinity. Each part of the egg make up only one portion of the wholethe yolk is not the fullness of the egg. So cool that God imparted that song in your mind and heart before you even wrote this blog post! What is wrong with what I said? And in our efforts to grasp it, weve come up with a number of analogies. None of the 3 are less divine than the others. God is like H2O in that the Bible may refer to a specific person of the Trinity but that person is still God. But remember, it is much better to let Scripture teach the 3 points above which establish the doctrine of the Trinity than to rely on analogies. 2:5-6; Col. 1:15-17, 2:9; Heb. Similarly, light and heat are simply creations of the sun, yet it is the heresy of Arianism to claim that the Son or Spirit are mere creations of the Father. I have the good one. Yet we do not have three gods but ONE God. This analogy actually teaches the heresy of modalism. Common, yes. Share your thoughts with us in the comments! And then theres Jesus, Gods son. That helps explain the concept quite well- the oneness, unity of God with the distinct three persons of God- Father, Son, and Spirit. Water Analogy God is like water, or H2O, which can exist in 3 forms. In the first place, if we truly claim to love God, then surely we should endeavour to know Him. Analogies that we present would always be insufficient as none of them would equate to the incomprehensible beauty of God. A certain YouTube page created a famous video titled "St. Patrick's Bad Analogies" (which can be found here), in which the historic St. Patrick meets charming villagers who deride him based on the analogies which he uses in the process of explaining the Holy Trinity. ), The Son Phil. Some think of God as H 2 O, which is sometimes a solid (ice), sometimes a liquid (water), and sometimes a gas (steam). The analogy breaks down because the three cloves are overly distinct and cannot represent the unity of God. The word Trinity comes from the Latin word trinitas which means tri-unity. 5And there are varieties of ministries and the same Lord. The Church should not forget that these heresies still exist in the present day and is even being taught by some priests and catechists. It is a miraculous invention, the egg. Some have taken on the task of explaining how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as one. In the same way, at one moment God is the Father, but at different times God morphs or transforms into the Son or Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Holy Spirit that saves us. The egg shell is the image of the yolk and the white. From time to time, Doctors of the Church used analogies, but with care. Others compare God to an egg, which is part shell, part white, part yolk. We define a person as one having a will and who is distinguishable from another person. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:25). The yolk represents Gods Person, His Being, and His Holiness which generates Light that no man can approach (I Timothy 6:16). It may not appear to agree with common sense. Discover the richness of the old yet living 2,000-year-old religion which built the West. If the sun exists, there is also day; if nothing of this be manifest, it is impossible that the sun should be there. The idea that the Trinity can be compared to a shamrock is largely attributed to St. Patrick. Haydn Lea is an Ordained Minister, and is currently serving as an Air Force Chaplain in Adelaide. Unfortunately, there is a problem with this view of the Trinity. Before moving on I should note that providing a full theological explanation of Trinitarian doctrine is well beyond the scope of what I can do here. It falls into the heresy of tri-theism. Through the brokenness of the Shell, His Son, the Spirit white pours out into our beings through our faith in what was done and believers are joined with the yolk, for it is by One Spirit we have access to God the Father (Ephesians 2:18). This means there is a sense in which all 3 persons may act or speak as one. The Trinity is foundational and at the heart of our Christian faith. Because Gods Person is unapproachable, the Spirit White acts as insulation, for we know that it is through the Holy Spirit that God can communicate, speak through and interact with mankind. What is H2O? I dont believe that God wishes us to be confused about the Three that are so apparent throughout the Old and New Testaments. Trinity Egg Analogy . But you cannot be broken when your faith is in Jesus, for the Spirit of the Son that lives in us and gives us the voice through which we cry Abba, Father, (Galatians 4:6,) this Spirit of the Father that dwells within you is there to strengthen, protect and guard your person. In Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9) If we separate them we still may have God the Egg yolk, God the Holy Spirit Egg white and God the Son, the Egg shell/image, three individual parts of an Egg, but they cannot be a Trinity, or tri-unity unless they are unified and are seen as one Egg, so to speak. It should bring us to realise that we truly are finite creatures standing before a sovereign, transcendent, divine mystery. Modalism, or Sabellianism, denies the three distinct Persons of the Trinity and claims that God is one Person who appears in different modes at different timesin the Old Testament He appeared as the Father, in the Gospels He appeared as the Son, and from Pentecost onwards He appears as the Holy Spirit. For instance, we know that God is perfectly loving. PART OF A WHOLE. God created us for community, since God is communal and we were created in His image. According to modalism, God does not actually exist in three persons. This is a worse analogy than the egg because it is more analogous to the heretical doctrine of Modalism/Oneness than for the Trinity. We can say that the first is egg the shell, the second is egg the albumen and the third is egg the yoke. As a doctrine (belief), the trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three separate and distinct persons united in one being- God. His ways are higher than ours, but isnt that a comfort?! The beautiful depth of Gods eternal Triune nature is a sublime reality which should bring an end to our attempts to cognitively master Him. RELATED: Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead? So whats one good way to explain what the Trinity is? We all want to experience the good life. and Holy Spirit are only parts of God (egg and sun). We believe in only one true God in all existence, in all places, at all times. The Trinity is established by 3 Biblical truths, . There would be three thrones. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each called Jehovah (or Spirit of Jehovah), given divine attributes, and, (usually there is no argument that the Father is not God, since every place Jesus speaks to God, he is addressing the Father.). In the same way is God being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.. Or, we can quote Daniel Webster; a strong Christian- I do not pretend fully to understand the arithmetic of heaven now. . Also, the egg is made up of three distinct and unalike parts. But it cant be that way with God. The Holy Spirit prays for us. If you're looking to dive deeper into God's word, here are 6 kinds of bible study tools and resources 9 Influential Female Leaders in the New Testament. As we examine the scriptural witness we see three truths that make up the doctrine of the trinity. The Trinity is one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity. Holy Trinity, the downtown Greek Orthodox church that was partially destroyed by fire 11 years ago, was a special place for 57-year-old Georgiou. Here many of the creeds help us in clearly articulating the trinity. The Son "proceeds" from the Father, and the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son.". The yolk represents Gods Person, His Being, and His Holiness which generates Light that no man can approach (I Timothy 6:16). MULTIPLICATION ANALOGY. The Holy Spirit is like the heat that the sun produces, unseen yet powerful and effective in making the sun felt. Here are some common analogies that Christians have used about the Trinity: God is kind of like water which can be ice, liquid and steam. . God controls that light. The concept is literally unthinkable. Water can be frozen and is called ice. They are three in one egg. I never thought about it in that way some of these examples Ive never heard of. To help you out, here is a comical and silly video that teaches about these bad analogies. Each one is fully 100% God. THE TRUTH IS: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three different parts or components of God, but the three are all equally one God. The trinity is a like a Three-Leaf Clover. The Trinity is a tri-unity, a unity of Three, - God the Father, Jesus, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. Further, his dialectic is guided by the particular consideration of what true love is: a trinity of lover, beloved and the love that binds . This is a quick way to describe the doctrine of the Trinity namely, God is 1 being (the, is Gods nature, essence, being) and 3 whos (the, being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The Trinity are three distinct persons who exist apart from each other. Jesus is the visual form of God. If the Sun existed from eternity past then so were the light rays from the Sun. The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that there's ONE GOD who is THREE distinct PERSONS existing as a community of self-giving and loving relationships with each other. God is one. The Trinity is a concept that is impossible for any human being to fully understand, let alone explain. John introduces us to the Trinity in John 1:1- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God. Jesus, the Word, was present in Genesis 1. God is NOT like H2O in that He does not need the right pressure and temperature to exist as three persons. When they used the word person, they didnt mean it in the same way that we do today. These images fall short, because these components arent enough to be considered a whole on their own. Notice the distinction between persons and being. Thus the Father is in Jesus " I and My Father are One" (John 10:30), "The Father is in Me" (John 14:10) God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). St. Augustine, one of the most important Fathers of the Church, wrote a great deal on the doctrine of the Trinity. He explains why the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to the gospel even if it seems abstract or confusing, highlights why all analogies and metaphors are of limited value when thinking about the Godhead, and responds to the . What makes it hard is that all of our analogies and metaphors fall short of capturing what the Trinity actually is. But Hes God too, right? When we look at the egg as an example of the Trinity, we must view it in its entirety. Paul leaves the Corinthians with this blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14- May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.. As a result the water molecule must change forms. We can think of it this way: the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The egg white represents Gods Spirit. However, in some instances, the use of carefully chosen analogies may be of help for some of our brethren in learning the teachings of the Church. But we cannot do that (assuming we can) with God. This is because the H20 is changing forms in representing each person. Understanding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. My name is AnnMarie and I'm so glad you're here! Each of the divine persons is GOD WHOLE AND ENTIRE, and there is one God. Both are one. It is still important that we have some understanding of the concept, however. Analogies of the Trinity. Relationship Analogy (Husband/Son/Father) God is like a person with different relationships just as a man can be a Dad, but also someones Son, and also someones Husband. They suggest that only one God exists but this God transforms or morphs into each of the different persons Let's begin with the second view. He can even be all three at the same time. There have been many attempts to explain the Trinity the relationship between God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Likewise we cannot have the Father or His Spirit without the Son I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Me- John 14:6.

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