gurrato alaien:
…]
Please wake up brothers.
Peace.
You raise a good point here, gurrato. I understand and commend you for trying to make sense of a faith which is different, but so closely related to your own.
The problem is that we cannot take individual verses in Holy Scripture out of context and use them to prove doctrines. Certainly, if these types of verses, where Jesus is praying to the Father, were the only verses describing their relationship, then no Christian would beleive that Jesus is God; however, there are other verses that complicate the matter, particularly in the Gospel of John.
The fourth Gospel opens with an explicit description of Jesus’ divinity:
John 1:
1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be
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through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
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the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
…]
14
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
The Word of God a.k.a. the Son are referring to Jesus Christ. This presents him clearly as a Divine Person. But how do we reconcile this with the philosophical impossibility of more than One God? Further reading…
John:
- John 10:30 I and [my] Father are one.
- John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
- John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM.
So we clearly have a dilemma. Christ and God the Father are one, and yet they are two Persons who communicate to one another. How do we reconcile this, considering all Scripture is equally weighted inerrant Truth? The answer was that our One God has more than One Person in Himself. Simple. So then, how do we get the doctrine of Three Persons? Contrary to what Muhammad and many Muslims thought/think Christians beleive: Mary is
not a Divine Person, she is solely human. The Third Person is the mysterious Holy Spirit, of whom Christ Himself told us:
John 16:
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"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
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But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.
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He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
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Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Christ here introduces us to a Third Person, who possesses all that is His, and also all that is the Father’s… so naturally we must conclude that our one God has Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and this “Spirit of Truth.” Back to Matthew now, we find some clarification at the end:
Matthew 28:
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The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
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When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
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Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
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teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Here Christ explicitly admonishes His disciples to baptise, not only in the name of the Father–but the Son and the Holy Spirit. Does this mean there are three Gods? Impossible, as Christ has already explained to them that He, the Father, and the Spirit are One. So, we must conclude that our One God is Three, one Name with three parts, one Nature with Three Persons. This is a great mystery revealed.
We must take Scripture in its entirety, and when that is done, we can only accept the Oneness of God, and yet the Trinity of His Personality. The Son prayed to His Father in Gethsemane, one Divine Will to another, yet they share One Divine Nature.
This is a poor analogy, but it would be something like one human being having three wholly autonomous and individual personalities. This never actually occurs, although we have simulations of it in psychological phenomena; but with God it is real and true.
We have One God, and He is Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Glory to the holy and undivided Trinity, now and forever! :bowdown: