Questions about the Trinity in Revelation

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Could some explain to me why Jesus refers to God as “my God” a number of times in Scripture - for example Rev 3:12
  • 12Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
If Jesus is God why does he refer to God as a separate being and presumably by calling him God he shows that there is a higher being than himself.

Confused.

Thanks for your observations.

Tom
 
Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17)
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As in the above verse, when Jesus refers to God as “my God” in Revelation, he might be highlighting the difference between his unique, natural Son-to-Father relationship with God the Father and our creature-to-Creator relationship or our adopted-children-to-Father relationship with God the Father.

Or, when Jesus refers to God as “my God” in Revelation, he might simply be emphasizing the very personal nature of his relationship with God, like the psalmist does, saying, “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise thee with the lyre, O God, my God” (Psalm 43:4), or Paul does in his letters(Romans 1:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Philippians 1:3; 4:19; Philemon 1:4)
 
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Consider the sayings, “A physician who treats himself has a fool as a patient” and “An attorney who represents himself in court has a fool as a client.” It is, therefore, not unusual for a sick doctor to employ another doctor to treat his illness nor for a defendant who is an attorney to employ another attorney to defend him in court. It would not, then, be unusual for a doctor to refer to another doctor as “my doctor” nor for an attorney to refer to the attorney as “my attorney.” Such a doctor-doctor relationship or an attorney-attorney relationship does not imply that one doctor is superior to the other or that one attorney is superior to the other. Similarly, that Jesus refers to God as “my God,” does not imply that God is superior to Jesus.
 
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Tom7 said:
Hello

Could some explain to me why Jesus refers to God as “my God” a number of times in Scripture - for example Rev 3:12
  • 12Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
If Jesus is God why does he refer to God as a separate being and presumably by calling him God he shows that there is a higher being than himself.

Confused.

Thanks for your observations.

Tom
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It is well known that the doctrine of the Trinity does not exist in the Bible and cannot be found in the writings of the earliest Christian authors. Consider these quotes from Catholic sources…

“Indeed, until Athanasius began writing, every single theologian, East and West, had postulated some form of Subordinationism. It could, about the year 300, have been described as a fixed part of catholic theology.” (R. P. C. Hansen)

The New Testament itself is far from any doctrine of the Trinity or of a triune God who is three co-equal Persons of One Nature. (William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 27.)

There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament writers, if this means an explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. (Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 44

Regarding Ignatius, Edmund J. Fortman says the following:

Thus although there is nothing remotely resembling a doctrine of the Trinity in Ignatius , the triadic pattern of thought is there, and two of its members, the Father and Jesus Christ, are clearly and often designated as God. (Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 40

I hope this helps…
 
Luckily we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to explain these things, it’s always worth consulting the Catechism if you have a question like this, alternatively ask your priest.

This section is too large to paste but it tells you about our Triune God.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

To find an area of interest quickly I just search - Catechism question, for example - Catechism Triune God, that should present you with the correct link to the relevant part of OUR Catechism.
 
Lee1 said:
Luckily we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to explain these things, it’s always worth consulting the Catechism if you have a question like this, alternatively ask your priest.

This section is too large to paste but it tells you about our Triune God.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

To find an area of interest quickly I just search - Catechism question, for example - Catechism Triune God, that should present you with the correct link to the relevant part of OUR Catechism.
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This is an interesting section of the CCC that you shared describing the doctrine of the Trinity.

CCC 262 specifically states: The Incarnation of God’s Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God.

Yet CCC 262 is contradicted by footnote 100 referencing John 17:21-23. Note what John 17:22 says: And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one

The followers to whom Christ refers and for whom He prays to be one with each other are never going to be consubstantial with each other. The oneness here clearly is of unity, purpose, righteous behavior, discipleship, etc. But they’ll always be separate and distinct beings. And Christ prays that His followers achieve the same oneness that He and the Father already have. Since the goal is not for the followers to be consubstantial with each other we can assume that The Father and The Son are not consubstantial with each other either.

This illustrates why the OP was confused about a biblical reference that appears non-Trinitarian and why the CCC can’t and doesn’t use the Bible to fully justify the doctrine of the Trinity either.
 
gazelam said:
Yet CCC 262 is contradicted by footnote 100 referencing John 17:21-23. Note what John 17:22 says: And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one

The followers to whom Christ refers and for whom He prays to be one with each other are never going to be consubstantial with each other. The oneness here clearly is of unity, purpose, righteous behavior, discipleship, etc. But they’ll always be separate and distinct beings. And Christ prays that His followers achieve the same oneness that He and the Father already have. Since the goal is not for the followers to be consubstantial with each other we can assume that The Father and The Son are not consubstantial with each other either.
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There is no contradiction here for Christians. Just because Jesus is praying for His followers to have unity in the Spirit does not mean that He and the Father are not consubstantial.

Jesus and the Father, while being consubstantial and one God (along with the Spirit), are also unified in love, wisdom, purpose, righteousness, power, etc. That just goes without saying.

One sort of unity does not cancel out the other kind. Jesus and the Father are unified and consubstantial with the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean He cannot also pray for His disciples to be unified and filled with the Holy Spirit as well, even though His disciples are obviously not God and will never be consubstantial with the Spirit.

He is praying for them to be filled with and obedient to the Spirit when He comes, to be sanctified and partakers of the Divine nature, and to be unified in One Church, which is a reflection of the Trinity and a powerful symbol to the world of the unity of God.

Trying to say that this refutes the Trinity is stretching the verse out of context.
 
Thank you, I have a little eye strain today so I don’t want to read long sections of text.
 
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