Why is there a need for Son or Jesus in the trinity?

[Timi_Celcer]

Why is there a need for Jesus in the trinity? I understand the Father and the Holy Spirit roles but what about Jesus? Is it possible for more than three persons to be in the God?

Also one extra question: Why was it important to name the Son, Jesus? Why is Jesus, Jesus? Is there something about the name?

 

[skrlife]

Well, for starters, trinity means “group of three people/objects”.

 

[ClearWater]

The Trinity is a mystery. Our minds are really not able to adequately understand the nature of God.

In my understanding of God, God the Father is the Creator. God the Son, Jesus, is the redeemer/Savior, and God the Holy Spirit is the love between God the Father and God the Son.

The closest analogy I’ve come to is the family. We have the mother, father, and their child. The mother and the father, through marriage, become one. From their union comes their child. It is a little like the Trinity.

All “parts” of God are necessary. We don’t fully understand God, but I don’t think we were meant to, especially not in this lifetime.

 

[Richca]

Why is there a need for Jesus in the trinity? I understand the Father and the Holy Spirit roles but what about Jesus? Is it possible for more than three persons to be in the God?

Also one extra question: Why was it important to name the Son, Jesus? Why is Jesus, Jesus? Is there something about the name?

Hello Timi,
It is of the very nature of God that there are three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. St Thomas Aquinas explains that God the Son proceeds from the intellect of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love or will of God the Father and God the Son. Since there is but one intellect in God and but one act of that intellect, since God possesses the fullness of being, existence, and perfection, only one person proceeds from the Father’s intellect. And since there is but one will in God and one act of that will, only one person proceeds from that one act of will from the Father and the Son.

God has revealed to us that He is three persons but one God.

The name Jesus means “God saves.”

 

[CaptFun]

CaptFun responds in RED

Why is there a need for Jesus in the trinity? God didn’t have a need to. But He chose to BE that way. And revealed it, little by little to mankind.

I understand the Father and the Holy Spirit roles but what about Jesus? After the fall of Adam and Eve a savior was promised. The Lord always planned to do what He did – become man and die for our sins. Your not understanding why is quite understandable. Some things about God are quite profound … and even St. Paul, who wrote much of what would become the New Testament admitted that " … now we see as through a glass, darkly. Then we shall see Him face to face." per his human understanding of the Lord while he was on Earth being inferior to what he would one day know about God.

Is it possible for more than three persons to be in the God? With God all things are possible so (theoretically) yes. But such has never been revealed to us so it has not been taught. In another way of looking at things, Jesus projects to a time when his apostles, and all believers will be one with Him and the Father. If He was speaking about US … and we are eternal beings who are persons … this little exercise becomes quite interesting (but probably not the most fruitful speculation for us to engage in given our tasks today and attendant temptations that threaten to keep us from EVER being united with God by enticing us into mortal sin, a broken covenant, and preferring distance from God to intimacy with Him.

Also one extra question: Why was it important to name the Son, Jesus? Since it was what God DID. It IS/WAS important. Your question WHY could get quite big. The angel sent to Mary from God the Father declared that would be the name. Jesus means “Savior” and I have no improvement nominee names. Jesus isn’t the only name He is called. The Christ (the annointed one), and Immanuel (God with us) refer to the person of Jesus; and his apostles and hearers refer to Him by titles like, Master, Lord, the Messiah, Rabbi, and Teacher – While Jesus Himself calls Himself: The way, the Truth, the Life, the Vine, the Son of God, the son of Man, the Sheepgate, and “I am He …”

Why is Jesus, Jesus? Is there something about the name? Since it’s the name He chose, the answer must be YES. Also, in that name the apostles expelled demons. A Bible verse affirms that there is no other name in heaven and Earth by which men are saved.

*And if you invoke the name of Jesus in a religious conversation (as opposed to just referring to “God”) … you will in many cases feel a change in the spirit of the room or the conversation. And a big change.

– If everyone there is a believer the conversation and the insights become more intimate.

– If there exists a division about what is believed about the person of Jesus … there is a tension whereby the spiritual battle that is always around us becomes almost palpable.

– PRAISING the name of Jesus out loud and in the spirit of Worship (which is personal, and a profession of belief) tends to “affect the atmosphere,” for lack of a better way to put it, even more. The most Holy Name of Jesus is powerful.*

And that is also why people are tempted to stupidly and carelessly use that name as part of irreverent or cursing speech instead of any other name.

(continued as an appendix to this last question)

 

[CaptFun]

**continued from previous … **

There IS something about THAT name. But because of THAT person, Who, in His time upon the Earth took that name and left it to the Church as a channel of power. Per the Trinity: when the Church invokes God " … In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit …" as part of its confession that HE is the vine and we are but the branches – that it pleases Him to work through (with our free wills, as part of obedience to, faith in, and participation in completing OUR part HIS covenant(s) ) – there is true power there as well.

The title question is a collection of words that COULD be asked in a bad spirit. That is, not in a “seek and you shall find” sort of wondering about the Lord which is very holy when done right; and a sort of probing the Lord Our God as if we were somehow above Him – a District Attorney of sorts, who have decided to put Him on trial with many a theoretical complaint and demanding He produce PROOF before we have FAITH. Though THAT order is not what the Lord has desired, as St. Thomas (and others) found out.

The “why is there a need for …” question about something God has DONE, or IS, can also be a distraction to us if we are not careful. Discovering why our intellectual musings are deficient (which is what we will discover when we pose them “against” Revelation) might be a good thing … but is rather looking in the wrong direction if intimacy with God is what is desired.

That said, it has reminded me of a number of fruitful things that I hope will lead me into
a deeper love relationship with Jesus Christ, the Trinity, and all the people He has created
all around me – some of whom have taught me about Him in the first place (though of course He has always been all around me).

In summary. God NEEDS nothing. He is self-sufficient. Yet He has chosen to create beings that could love Him back. And to redeem a fallen race at considerable cost to Himself (as part of His plan and an expression of love to us).

The next question along these lines might be:

What is God trying to tell me by doing things JUST the way He did?

And what is my answer to His offered covenant(s)?

YES? No? A counter-proposal or two? Endless circular questioning that pleases the ego but damages the soul through procrastination, avoidance and suspicion until …

Time is up … and such a non-decision counts as a “No”. And almost a more insulting “No” than a dismissive person’s. Or a rebellious person’s. For it is as “… this might be TRUE … but it is not so important as my theoretical objections.”

Revelation 3:15 "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot.

16 So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

17 For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

18 I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see.

19 Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.

20 " '"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, (then) I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.

http://spiritlessons.com/Documents/Jesus_Pictures/Jesus_066_small.jpg

21 I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne.

22 " ‘“Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’"

Note that above Jesus (understood) is the speaker … and the persons of the Father and the Spirit are mentioned.

This scripture’s pronouncements warn that salvation is not a passively bestowed nor passively received event. There is an IF and an AND required in response to the Lord’s covenant. The Son speaks, but so does the Spirit. The Son shares the throne of the Father (through His victory) and invites us to sit with Him (and the Father) on that throne IF we are “victors”.

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/coronat.jpg

Should we reach that sublime state, our intellects will not be raising objections anymore.
We may then know the answer to this question. Or if not – and some aspects of God remain a mystery to us for all eternity (or are revealed little by little to our delight over eternity) – we might be too involved in experiencing bliss to care to know. :extrahappy:

 

[Richard_White]

Don’t forget, the Son was created separately, but is and was and forever shall be with the Holy Spirit and the Father. And Jesus means “God saves” because God saved mankind from sin through His Son, Jesus.

 

[petersomething]

In many sermons, Eckhart refers to the Son as the “Divine understanding of the Father.” When explaining the actual relationship between the Father and the Son, Eckhart refers to the Son as the “Intellect from the Father.”

"The Intellect from the Father is the Son: “God is abstract being, pure perception, which is perceiving itself in itself.” St. John means that the Son is in the Father, in His Nature. “I saw the Word of God.” Here he is referring to the Intellect which, flowing into God eternally, proceeded forth from God in distinction of Person, namely, the Son.”

Also, what differentiate the Divine Persons from each other are their formal properties.

The formal property of the Father is paternity, and the formal property of the Son is filiation. These two properties are conceptually co-dependent, which makes the Father and Son ontologically co-dependent. The Father’s entire being and purpose is defined by his giving birth to the Son – a birth which occurs in eternity and in every moment.

“The Father can only beget; the Son can only be begotten.”

“The creation of the Son has ever been to Him His whole existence, who is still being born of the Father eternally with all that He is, and this birth remains in the Father eternally”

Therefore the Father and the Son are ontologically equivalent in the sense that they share the same essence of nature. This is reflected in the words of Christ: “I and the Father are one.” One cannot conceive of the Son without the Father and similarly one cannot conceive the Father without the Son because the very mention of one Person automatically implies the existence of the other. The Father simply cannot be called “Father” if there is no Son and vice versa. Thus, if one of the Father or Son is present, the other Person is necessarily present as well:

“And he who fondly weens that if he has the Son and the Father with him, he has more that if he had the Son without the Father, is mistaken too. The Father plus the Son is no more than the Son is by Himself and the Son plus the Father is no more than the Father by Himself.”

 

[sw85]

Why is there a need for Jesus in the trinity? I understand the Father and the Holy Spirit roles but what about Jesus? Is it possible for more than three persons to be in the God?

Also one extra question: Why was it important to name the Son, Jesus? Why is Jesus, Jesus? Is there something about the name?

The necessity of three persons in the divine nature is made real by the very fact of creation. Stuff – the world – exists, and God created it. To create, one must normally have an idea of what one is creating; for instance before I build a house, I have an idea of the house I want to build in my mind, and I act to turn that idea into reality. When God creates/created however, the situation is quite reversed: God alone existed, and nothing else did.

So to create God needed to have an “idea” of himself, the only thing that then existed. He needed to comprehend himself. Therefore he needed to think about himself. Recall that God is absolutely simple so that God is not composed of distinct parts. Thus God’s thought about God becomes God, and this we call the “Word,” because it is an idea which reflects the reality of God. Thus the Father begets the Son.

Recall too that God is omniscient and therefore knows the true value and worth of all things. Since the Son is God and nothing is more valuable than God, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. So first we had thought or self-contemplation and now we have love: and the love, too, becomes God, i.e., the Holy Spirit.

So the Father thinks about himself and begets the Son; the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the love between them is the Holy Spirit.

All of the above of course “happened” in eternity, i.e., outside of time, so I am not describing relations born of temporal necessity but of logical, causal, or ontological necessity. There was a never a time “before” the Father begot the Son or the Holy Spirit proceeded from them. Rather the Son is “begotten” by the Father in the way heat is “begotten” by a fire: they aren’t really separate things, the fire doesn’t precede the heat, but still its meaningful (in some mysterious way) to talk about heat and fire separately.

 

[Richard_White]

*the Son was not created separately

 

[JimG]

*the Son was not created separately

That’s right. The Son is a Divine Person, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is not a question of need. It is a question of the nature of God. God exists as a Trinity of Persons because that is the nature of his existence. The Son was given the name Jesus upon his incarnation, taking on a human nature. He already possesses the divine nature from all eternity.