Was the Trinity included in Jesus’ gospel?

[John Zain]

This is NOT arguing against the Trinity … I believe in the Triune Godhead.

Jesus went around to all of the villages and towns preaching the gospel ... His gospel.
And later, Jesus commanded His disciples to preach His gospel to the ends of the earth.
Jesus’ gospel (good news, glad tidings, etc.), not Paul's gospel, nor anyone else's gospel.
And this obviously has nothing to do with the Nicean Creed from 325 a.d.

Note:
There is some difference between Jesus’ preaching of His gospel to the multitudes
compared to His teaching to His disciples (especially at the end of His ministry).
To the mutlitudes … was the Holy Spirit ever included?
To the disciples … the Holy Spirit was included,
especially in His great farewell discourse ... see a great Trinity passage: John 14:16-26.

Two sources of belief in the Trinity:
1) being born into a family, culture, etc. which has “blind faith” in it.
2) being given a further spiritual revelation (beyond a belief in the gospel).

My bottom line
The Trinity was never a part of the simple gospel that Jesus preached to the multitudes.
A belief in the Trinity often needs to come from a spiritual revelation.

Are you able to show me verses of Jesus' preaching (in the 4 gospels)
where the Trinity is a part of His gospel?

Note:
This has led many (including Muslims) to insist that Paul preached a different gospel.
But, let us realize that Jesus and Paul preached to 2 totally different audiences:
Jesus preached to the multitudes (none of which had the Holy Spirit).
Paul’s letters were to the churches (most of whom had the Holy Spirit).

 

[aspen]

This is NOT arguing against the Trinity … I believe in the Triune Godhead.

Jesus went around to all of the villages and towns preaching the gospel ... His gospel.
And later, Jesus commanded His disciples to preach His gospel to the ends of the earth.
Jesus’ gospel (good news, glad tidings, etc.), not Paul's gospel, nor anyone else's gospel.
And this obviously has nothing to do with the Nicean Creed from 325 a.d.

Note:
There is some difference between Jesus’ preaching of His gospel to the multitudes
compared to His teaching to His disciples (especially at the end of His ministry).
To the mutlitudes … was the Holy Spirit ever included?
To the disciples … the Holy Spirit was included,
especially in His great farewell discourse ... see a great Trinity passage: John 14:16-26.

Two sources of belief in the Trinity:
1) being born into a family, culture, etc. which has “blind faith” in it.
2) being given a further spiritual revelation (beyond a belief in the gospel).

My bottom line
The Trinity was never a part of the simple gospel that Jesus preached to the multitudes.
A belief in the Trinity often needs to come from a spiritual revelation.

Are you able to show me verses of Jesus' preaching (in the 4 gospels)
where the Trinity is a part of His gospel?

Note:
This has led many (including Muslims) to insist that Paul preached a different gospel.
But, let us realize that Jesus and Paul preached to 2 totally different audiences:
Jesus preached to the multitudes (none of which had the Holy Spirit).
Paul’s letters were to the churches (most of whom had the Holy Spirit).

I agree with you. Jesus humbled Himself and came down to Earth in total obedience to the Father for our example. I didn't mean to derail your thread, I was responding to Belantos' heresy

 

[tomwebster]

The Trinity is included in Christ's name!

 

[Rach1370]

[21] Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, [22] and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22 ESV)

I think this is a pretty clear representation of the three person's of the Godhead in action, and even though it is right at the beginning of Jesus journey/teaching, I think it's hugely important.

 

[aspen]

[21] Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, [22] and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22 ESV)

I think this is a pretty clear representation of the three person's of the Godhead in action, and even though it is right at the beginning of Jesus journey/teaching, I think it's hugely important.

great verse!

 

[veteran]

Examples of The Triune Godhead exist in the Old Testament Books too. So I don't see all the fuss about this matter among us Christians.

So what if the RCC later made it an official doctrine with the Trinity?

It's still non-Christians and unbelieving Jews that deny Jesus Christ as part of The Triune Godhead, and that's where this argument really stems from.

 

[belantos]

I agree with you. Jesus humbled Himself and came down to Earth in total obedience to the Father for our example. I didn't mean to derail your thread, I was responding to Belantos' heresy

There is not a single passage that teaches that Jesus "came down to Earth", on the contrary, Paul clearly stated, "....concerning God's son, Yeshua the Messiah, our Master, the one who comes from the [patrilineal] seed of David according to the flesh and the one who was designated son of God in power according to the spirit of Holiness by reason of a resurrection from the dead...." [Romans 1.1-4]

The early Greek fathers, who adopted the virginal conception idea from their Pagan beliefs, proposed that God impregnated a man's wife behind his back, and when he found out about it, told him that he was to put up with it. This is a character alien to God and insulting to Him.

On the other hand there were many Greek mythological heroes that had virgin births, even Plato:

"It is said, even when he was still alive, that Plato was of divine birth. The story, no doubt developed much after Plato's death, goes that the figure of god Apollo came to Plato's virgin mother, Perictione, and impregnated her. When his father, Ariston, attempted to lie with her, the god appeared to him in a vision, commanding him to abstain from her for ten months until the child was born.

...


By a frugal life and strict personal care, Plato lived to a great age. He died willfully on his own birthday, being exactly 81 years of age. The number 81 is holy. It is the called the "squared-squared number", and is the square of the number of Muses, the choir of his god Apollo.

On this Seneca wrote, "You know, I am sure, that Plato had the good fortune, thanks to his careful living, to die on his birthday, after exactly completing his eighty-first year. For this reason wise men of the East, who happened to be in Athens at that time, sacrificed to him after his death, believing that his length of days was too full for a mortal man, since he had rounded out the perfect number of nine times nine. I do not doubt that he would have been quite willing to forgo a few days from this total, as well as the sacrifice."

http://www.platonic-philosophy.org/plato.html

Interestingly, the Hebrew version of Matthew used by the Ebionites (who were the Jews that escaped from Jerusalem and were led by Jesus' brothers) lacked the birth narrative...

 

[aspen]

There is not a single passage that teaches that Jesus "came down to Earth", on the contrary, Paul clearly stated, "....concerning God's son, Yeshua the Messiah, our Master, the one who comes from the [patrilineal] seed of David according to the flesh and the one who was designated son of God in power according to the spirit of Holiness by reason of a resurrection from the dead...." [Romans 1.1-4]

The early Greek fathers, who adopted the virginal conception idea from their Pagan beliefs, proposed that God impregnated a man's wife behind his back, and when he found out about it, told him that he was to put up with it. This is a character alien to God and insulting to Him.

On the other hand there were many Greek mythological heroes that had virgin births, even Plato:

"It is said, even when he was still alive, that Plato was of divine birth. The story, no doubt developed much after Plato's death, goes that the figure of god Apollo came to Plato's virgin mother, Perictione, and impregnated her. When his father, Ariston, attempted to lie with her, the god appeared to him in a vision, commanding him to abstain from her for ten months until the child was born.

...


By a frugal life and strict personal care, Plato lived to a great age. He died willfully on his own birthday, being exactly 81 years of age. The number 81 is holy. It is the called the "squared-squared number", and is the square of the number of Muses, the choir of his god Apollo.

On this Seneca wrote, "You know, I am sure, that Plato had the good fortune, thanks to his careful living, to die on his birthday, after exactly completing his eighty-first year. For this reason wise men of the East, who happened to be in Athens at that time, sacrificed to him after his death, believing that his length of days was too full for a mortal man, since he had rounded out the perfect number of nine times nine. I do not doubt that he would have been quite willing to forgo a few days from this total, as well as the sacrifice."

http://www.platonic-....org/plato.html

Interestingly, the Hebrew version of Matthew used by the Ebionites (who were the Jews that escaped from Jerusalem and were led by Jesus' brothers) lacked the birth narrative...

John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.


[font="Verdana][size="3"]Here is the problem with your position, Belantos - you can always have your cake and eat it too. If a verse works against your theory, well than those nasty Nicenes slipped in the verse. If no verse exists - than you rest your case on the authority of the Bible. Airtight reasoning.[/size][/font]

 

[belantos]

[font="Verdana][size="2"]John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.[/size][/font]
[font="Verdana] [/font]
[font="Verdana][size="3"]Here is the problem with your position, Belantos - you can always have your cake and eat it too. If a verse works against your theory, well than those nasty Nicenes slipped in the verse. If no verse exists - than you rest your case on the authority of the Bible. Airtight reasoning.[/size][/font]

The verse is not against my theory. You need to consider it in context:


John 6:

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life [ie. life pertaining to the age], and I will raise him up on the last day."
41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."



Deuteronomy 8:
3 He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.


Matthew 4:
3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

OK, so we should be able to see that the manna symbolised the instructions (Torah) of God. Jesus stated that he was the bread that came down from heaven, that is, symbolically he was the Torah. He wholly devoted his life to the service of God, that one could understand the meaning of the Torah through his words and deeds. This is the very thought that can be found going right through the gospel of John. Jesus, as the personified Torah.

Jesus never meant that physically he came from heaven.

 

[John Zain]

[21] Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
[22] and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22 ESV)
I think this is a pretty clear representation of the three person's of the Godhead in action,
and even though it is right at the beginning of Jesus journey/teaching, I think it's hugely important.

People are having difficulty understanding what I have presented in Post #1.
Show me verses of Jesus' preaching (in the 4 gospels) where the Trinity is a part of His gospel?
The gospel preached to the multitudes, not to His 11 or 12 disciples.

Examples of The Triune Godhead exist in the Old Testament Books too. So I don't see all the fuss about this matter among us Christians. So what if the RCC later made it an official doctrine with the Trinity?
It's still non-Christians and unbelieving Jews that deny Jesus Christ as part of The Triune Godhead, and that's where this argument really stems from.

Yes, but I'm not here to present any argument about the Trinity.
I'm fine-tuning it, but people are just not getting it (except for Aspen).
Maybe I'm just bringing this up to prepare people who are attacked with ...
"Jesus didn't mention the Trinity when He preached the gospel to the people."

 

[aspen]

[/size]
The verse is not against my theory. You need to consider it in context:

John 6:

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life [ie. life pertaining to the age], and I will raise him up on the last day."
41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."


Deuteronomy 8:
3 He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.


Matthew 4:
3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

OK, so we should be able to see that the manna symbolised the instructions (Torah) of God. Jesus stated that he was the bread that came down from heaven, that is, symbolically he was the Torah. He wholly devoted his life to the service of God, that one could understand the meaning of the Torah through his words and deeds. This is the very thought that can be found going right through the gospel of John. Jesus, as the personified Torah.

Jesus never meant that physically he came from heaven.

[font="'Book Antiqua"]So Jesus fits every part of His own analogy EXCEPT the part that conflicts with your theology? How convenient.[/font]

 

[belantos]

So Jesus fits every part of His own analogy EXCEPT the part that conflicts with your theology? How convenient.

None of his analogies talk about him physically existing before he was born. There is a Jewish concept of pre-existence, when anything God promised or planned was considered deal done. Therefore, the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven, Messiah, but also Moses and all the righteous pre-existed with God from the creation of the world - but not as persons, only in the counsels of God.

If you ignore who this Galilean Hashidic Jewish Rabbi was, you will not understand what he says correctly.

 

[aspen]

None of his analogies talk about him physically existing before he was born. There is a Jewish concept of pre-existence, when anything God promised or planned was considered deal done. Therefore, the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven, Messiah, but also Moses and all the righteous pre-existed with God from the creation of the world - but not as persons, only in the counsels of God.

If you ignore who this Galilean Hashidic Jewish Rabbi was, you will not understand what he says correctly.

Our beliefs differ, at the most fundamental level, Belantos. We are so fundamentally opposed to one another's understanding of the gospel that reconciliation is not possible - you would have to convert to Christianity or I would have to convert to Judaism - you have already made your decision and so have I. Hopefully. our conversation will help us clarify our own beliefs because that really is the only thing that can come from it. I can live with all the points of disagreement you produce because I use a different lens to view the material than you do and I have made my decision, as have you.

I do not believe Judaism is the complete answer, but I do understand the frustration Judaism has towards Christianity because I have the same frustration towards religions that have build what I consider heresy upon Christianity - LDS/Jehovah's Witness/Worldwide Church of God.

 

[belantos]

Our beliefs differ, at the most fundamental level, Belantos. We are so fundamentally opposed to one another's understanding of the gospel that reconciliation is not possible - you would have to convert to Christianity or I would have to convert to Judaism - you have already made your decision and so have I. Hopefully. our conversation will help us clarify our own beliefs because that really is the only thing that can come from it. I can live with all the points of disagreement you produce because I use a different lens to view the material than you do and I have made my decision, as have you.

I do not believe Judaism is the complete answer, but I do understand the frustration Judaism has towards Christianity because I have the same frustration towards religions that have build what I consider heresy upon Christianity - LDS/Jehovah's Witness/Worldwide Church of God.

You need to convert to the religion of the apostles away from the Hellenistic religion of the fourth century Greek "Christians".

I am not a Jew. You need to understand that it is all about covenants. Covenants are promises. The Jews are under the Abrahamic promise that in his seed all families of the world will be blessed. We are under an earlier promise, that Abraham will be the father of many nations. Covenants are complete in themselves.

Judaism has no frustration in regards to any religion. They simply reject the idolatrous idea that they should worship a man. Else they would not have a problem to accept Yeshua ben Joseph, as Geza Vermes doesn't reject him.

Heresy is always determined by the one who makes that judgment. It is relative to you.

 

[Duckybill]

I am not a Jew.

You're not a Jew and you deny the NT. Just what are you???????? Muslim?

 

[belantos]

You're not a Jew and you deny the NT. Just what are you???????? Muslim?

Neither a Muslim. Before you ask, I am not a JW either. Nor a Christadelphian, nor an SDA. You cannot put me in a box. I simply follow Yeshua ben Joseph as a Gentile convert.

 

[Duckybill]

Neither a Muslim. Before you ask, I am not a JW either. Nor a Christadelphian, nor an SDA. You cannot put me in a box. I simply follow Yeshua ben Joseph as a Gentile convert.

Judaism?

 

[aspen]

Belantos,

Who is your authority?

 

[belantos]

Neither a Muslim. Before you ask, I am not a JW either. Nor a Christadelphian, nor an SDA. You cannot put me in a box. I simply follow Yeshua ben Joseph as a Gentile convert.

I only reject the Hellenistic interpretation of the NT, not the NT itself.

Judaism?

??? I did not say I converted to Judaism. That would mean circumcision and the obligation to observe the whole Torah. Though one day I may do it, but not for salvation.

Belantos,

Who is your authority?

My Master is Yeshua ben Joseph, the son of David according to the flesh, from the tribe of Judah, the anointed of the Almighty. Who is yours?

 

[aspen]

Belantos

And you follow a private interpretation of the Bible? Or do you follow the teachings of a Church?