Doctrine of Trinity, Free Online Course, Lesson 1A

Doctrine of Trinity, Free Online Course, Lesson 1A
GOD OF THE BIBLE

The first sentence of the first book of the Bible is, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This sentence gives everyone who reads this Book from the beginning, an idea of its scope, which extends into the infinities of Time and Space—the eternity of the past and the boundless beyond that encompasses the universe. The first words, “In the beginning God” takes the reader to the beginning of ‘beginning less’ Time and to what God Who transcends both Time and Space has done. There is no other book in the world, the scope of which is so immense and so relevant to man. That is why it is said that the Bible is the Book of books.

It is humanly impossible to compose a book, the scope of which is so vast and so beyond our capacity for comprehension; no man has ever attempted to write a book of this sort because human imagination is incapable of handling facts and ideas of the sort described in this book. As we have noted, the first sentence of this book suggests that it is the revelation of God and not something man has discovered. In this Book of 66 books containing 929 chapters and 31173 verses, we come across the expression, “Thus saith Jehovah” or its equivalent, more than 2000 times. The claim that God is the true author of this book is proved by the accurate fulfillment of the prophecies it contains, the accuracy of scientific truths it refers to incidentally and above all, the style of its narration and the love of truth and justice revealed in its contents.

The fact of divine authorship of the Bible means that we human beings have no right to tamper with either its text or ideas. It is our duty to accept them as they are. Even if it seems to us that a certain idea in this book is wrong scientifically or historically what we should consider is that that is the truth in spite of it being beyond human comprehension; because it is stated by the God of Truth.

It is in the light of these facts and principles that we should try to understand the statements and doctrines in the Bible. What we find in it is God’s self-revelation to which nothing can be added. So Theology, unlike the other branches of human knowledge is the proper understanding of nothing but and nothing more than what God has revealed to us through His Word. And we have to consider every idea in this Book sacred in the sense that we have no right to modify it in any manner by our interpretations. Interpretations should be made with a view to magnifying what is there in the Scripture, not with a view to inserting our ideas into it or deleting from it those ideas, which we do not like or we do not understand. Bearing in mind these guiding principles of studying the Bible let us examine the concept of Trinity and find out whether it is in accordance with the teachings and ideas in the Old and New Testaments.

According to those who believe in Trinity the Bible makes it clear that there is only one God, that Christ is God and that the Holy Spirit also is God. The idea that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit [see Matt: 28:19—20] together constitute one God existing as three distinct Persons is referred to by the term Trinity or Triune God. [All the verses quoted in this book are taken from the Standard Edition of the Holy

Bible Newly Edited by the American Revision Committee in A. D. 1901 and Printed and Distributed by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. Brooklyn 1, N. Y., U. S. A., which has been publishing the literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It may be noted that Jehovah’s witnesses cannot question the authenticity of this translation to which they had

no objections when they printed and distributed it. The reason for using this translation in this book in preference to their New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is explained in chapter 4].

Explanation of Trinity: The Bible does not explain how three different persons can be one and the same. We do not find any perfectly suitable example in our material world to explain this idea. The fact that the Bible contains this ‘unreasonable idea’ is proof that it was not human wisdom that inspired the prophets and apostles to write this Book. What the Bible presents to us is not a god with three heads; if it were so, it would just be a foolish idea borrowed from some mythology. What the Bible presents to us is the one and only God Who exists as three Persons the essence of each of Whom is the same. This is a unique idea found only in the Bible. An example, which may to a certain extent explain this concept, is this: If we take water in three different glasses of different colours and shapes, we will see that they are different in respect of appearance and shape, but are the same with regard to their content.

Another example, which also may help us to understand this truth is the same source of electricity that illumines three different bulbs of different colours; these bulbs are different from one another with regard to their appearance and properties; but with regard to what illumines them, they are the same. To the question how three persons can be one, the answer can be given by the example of three interlocking rings like those representing the five continents on the Olympic Flag; each of these is a perfect ring in itself; but it passes through the others and lets the others pass through it, causing each one to be inside the other two and the other two inside each one; thus the three rings constitute one entity; but at the same time they are separate rings and are different from each other. Similarly we may say that the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Universal Spirit [God] Who ‘fills heaven and earth’ [Jere: 23:24] exists as three different Persons—God the Father [invisible Person Who is in heaven], God the Son [visible Person Who came into the world to redeem mankind from sin], and God the Holy Spirit [the invisible Person Who now dwells in the hearts of believers and strengthens them]; these three Persons are one and the same in essence, but are different with regard to personhood and functions.

‘Unreasonableness’ of Trinity: There are many who think that this concept of Trinity is untrue because it is quite ‘unreasonable.’ The followers of Islam find it very difficult to think that one God exists as three Persons; their question is, “How can one be three and three be one?” It is possible to give them satisfactory explanation with the help of their own sacred book, the holy Koran, in which we read, “And when We gave unto Moses the Scripture and the Criterion {of right and wrong}, that ye might be led aright.” [Surah 2: 53] and “ Lo! We did reveal the Torah [Old Testament of the Bible], wherein is guidance and a light, by

which the Prophets who surrendered [untoAllah] judged the Jews, and the rabbis and the priests [judged] by such of Allah’s Scripture as they were bidden to observe, and there unto were they witnesses.” [Surah 5: 44]. Thus the holy Koran accepts the authority of the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God and therefore the followers of Islam are bound to accept the revelations about God in it. And we are going to see that according to the Old Testament there is only one God and this one God exists as three Persons. But before examining the relevant passages in the Old Testament it is desirable to determine whether it is the Word of God or human reason that we should accept as our guide to truth. If we find that the human faculty of reason is not as good a guide as the Word of God in our search for truth, we should be reasonable enough to accept the statements in the Word of God as true instead of modifying them with interpretations that seem to be more reasonable than divine revelations.

Limitations of human comprehension: We ought to bear in mind that the limitations of our faculty of reasoning have made it very difficult in the past, to comprehend certain realities as they are: Though Copernicus, and later Galileo pointed out that the Ptolemaic theory of the universe was wrong and the earth is actually revolving round the sun, instead of the sun revolving round it, the people of their age considered this idea most unreasonable; as a result, Galileo was persecuted for uttering this incomprehensible truth, which was considered blasphemous nonsense. But as time passed, the incomprehensible truth the scientists uttered, became comprehensible.

Another truth, which remained incomprehensible until the age of Galileo is that, the earth is hanging in empty space; it was recorded in the Bible probably before B. C. 1500, “He stretcheth out the north over empty space, And hangeth the earth upon nothing”[Job 26:7]. The idea that the earth remains hung in empty space was extremely incomprehensible to the ancients. So no one dared even to think of the meaning of this verse. All ‘intelligent’ men believed that if an object was suspended in empty space, it would surely ‘fall down.’ And different theories were formulated with a view to explaining how the stars are prevented from ‘falling down’ from the sky: It was explained by the ancient Greeks that the Titan Atlas, son of Iapetus and Clymene, was holding up the pillars of the huge sphere of the sky with the stars stuck on its inner surface, and thus preventing the heavenly bodies from falling down; in ancient India it was explained that Ananthan, the king of serpents, was supporting the earth upon its thousand heads and thus preventing our globe from falling down.

People found these explanations quite ‘reasonable’ and ‘convincing’. For thousands of years, until Galileo invented the telescope, these were considered ‘unquestionable truths’, because people could comprehend them easily. But today we know that the ‘incomprehensible’ Biblical idea of the earth hanging in empty space is the one that is true and that this idea is true about all heavenly bodies, while the ‘comprehensible’ ideas, millions believed in, for millenniums, are nothing but foolishness. This historical fact proves that it is quite reasonable to believe the ‘unreasonable truths’ of the Bible and it is really unreasonable to accept seemingly comprehensible ideas in preference to the revelations of the Word of God. We can legitimately expect that the incomprehensible truths in the Bible will become fully comprehensible to us one day, when we stand before God.

 

 

Doctrine of Trinity, Free Online Course, Lesson 1A
GOD OF THE BIBLE

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