I'm glad the Speaker opens by saying that the title of his presentation is a misrepresentation of what the doctrine of the Trinity is - it is not three Gods in one. Yet, he still thinks that this is what the doctrine teaches, which shows that he doesn't understand the doctrine well enough as we see throughout the rest of the video. He says, in contrast, that the way Christadelphians understand God is simple, straightforward, and reasonable. Is it? Having been a Christadelphian for some 30+ years I can say that it is only straightforward and simple is because they don't answer the difficult Christological questions. These days they don't even ask the difficult questions, they seem to just assume that what they have been given is true, even though they claim to test everything by Scripture as the Bereans did. We know that Christadelphians have struggled with their doctrine of God-manifestation as there were many Christadelphians asking questions to John Thomas and Robert Roberts at their inception. Christadelphians had questions about how Jesus, see this quote from an article by John Thomas' daughter to Robert Roberts on the nature of Christ (1867): "There are, at this time, some interesting points of doctrine in process of discussion among some in different places, and we do earnestly hope that all parties engaged therein will be enlightened in the end, and that no cause of strife may arise therefrom. I wish, in this letter, to mention and enlarge a little upon one of these points. It is about the nature and constitution of Jesus Christ. Some parties affirm that he did not possess the Divine nature in any respect; that he was constitutionally a sinner, like any other son of Adam; that when a child he was no more than any other child, and when arrived at years of maturity the Deity saw that his character was good and suitable for his purpose, therefore he made use of him, and filled him with the holy Spirit at his baptism. Others affirm that he was constitutionally righteous and incapable of sinning, and devoid of the propensities inherent in our nature. Now, evidently the truth of the matter is not wholly on either position according to the Scriptures." - Lasius, E. J. (1867). *On the Nature of Christ*. And in another article, she writes (1879): MANY reflections, by inference and insinuation, have been cast upon the doctrines we hold concerning the subject of the manifestation of the One Eternal God in human nature. These reflections have resulted from wrong impressions taken up, which have been allowed to grow into firm convictions on the part of those who cast them upon us, and those who have received them. - Lasius, E. J. (1879). *God Manifest in the Flesh*. And these questions come up repeatedly. Nowadays, if you ask the same questions, you will still get a variety of responses. From these unanswered questions (John Thomas chooses to leave it a mystery), divisions over whether Jesus had clean or filthy flesh arose. So, no, the Christadelphian doctrine is not "simple, straightforward and reasonable" as the Speaker claims. The Speaker then quotes a book called *Revealed Religion* which describes the Trinity as a mystery, which it is, but he skips over the definition of the Trinity itself. Nowhere in this talk does he define what the teaching of the Trinity is, which is a shame, because it's clear he doesn't understand the teaching and should have spent more time learning what the doctrine is before speaking about it. I say he doesn't understand the doctrine because his whole talk centres around the point that God is one and not three gods; he keeps repeating the misrepresentation that there are three Gods in the Trinity; he says that the LORD is synonymous with the Father; He says that God has parts or elements. So, either he doesn't understand, or he chooses to misrepresent the teaching to discredit it. He reads from *Revealed Religion* to say the Trinity is a mystery we can't understand, but there is nothing contradictory in it, and then speaks about how illogical this is. Which is true on the face of it, but the Speaker has a false understanding. It is not that the Trinity is a mystery that we can't understand ANYTHING about, but that we can't fully understand it. There are parts that we understand, i.e. that God has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that the Son was incarnate in the Virgin Mary and became man etc. We cannot understand the whole mystery though, and I'm sure the Speaker will admit that we cannot fully understand God, for God is ineffable. To say that the doctrine is without contradiction is to say that all that we do understand can be verified by Scripture and does not contradict it. The Speaker brings up a few things that he believes are contradictions but as we will see, they're not once you understand the doctrine of the Trinity properly. He turns to various passages in the Old Testament to show that there is one God, not three. The teaching of the Trinity is that there is one God, there is no contradiction here. There is one God, who is three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is revealed by the New Testament Scriptures and can be seen in the commission to baptise "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19). We see the Trinity in: The creation, where we see the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit (Gen 1) creating together, and when they say "Let us make man in our image"; At Jesus' baptism; At the Transfiguration; In Revelation 1,4 & 5 we have the Father, the Seven Spirits and Jesus the lamb of God. We also see the Trinity in various theophanies in the Old Testament, such as in Genesis 18:1-15, where Abraham is visited by three angels who are called the LORD. There are also passages that speak of the Word of God as a person (Gen 1; Is 55:11; Pr 8; Ps 33:6; Wisdom 1:4-7; 7:22-26, 8:3-4; 9:9-12, 10:1-21), and identify Jesus as the rock (1 Cor 10:4, see Deut 32:4; Ps 18:2; Is 26:4). So there are plenty of places in Scripture where we see the LORD is one, but revealed to be three persons. This only gets clearer when we read the New Testament where John picks up the words of Genesis 1, Proverbs 8,9 and Wisdom 1, 7, 8, 9 & 10 in his prologue to show that the Word became man. Notice that the Speaker doesn't show any passages that might disagree with his position. The Speaker digresses to say that Mary is not the mother of God, as recited in the Hail Mary. He says this is not Biblical, yet, if Jesus is God, it is only logical to say that Mary is then the Mother of God, for she is the mother of Jesus, who is God. As for Jesus being God, what else should we conclude when Scripture reveals that Jesus receives the Honours due to God, possesses the Attributes of God, bears the Names of God, does the Deeds that God does, and occupies the Seat of God's throne (see the excellent book, *The incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defence* by Bowman and Komoszewski for a full treatment and the origin of the HANDS acronym I've used here)? The Speaker's flawed understanding of the Trinity causes him to ask the question, 'Is the Holy Spirit the Father of Jesus as the Holy Spirit causes his conception?'. The answer is no, the Holy Spirit is the Breath of Life that gives life to all things, Just as God "breathed" into Adam and gave Adam life, so by the Holy Spirit's action, Mary conceived and bore Jesus.
The question is not whether the speaker understands the Trinity, but whether he understands and correctly presents scripture. Before science there was "natural" philosopy, concerned with the "nature" of things. If you ask Meta Ai the question: "How and when did the concept of divine "nature" develop", the response is very interesting. _ The development of the concept of divine nature has been shaped by various philosophical and theological traditions, from ancient Greek thought to contemporary Christian theology. _ The Trinity is preoccupied with the concept of *divine nature* arising out of Greek philosophy and the traditions of men. The only place "divine nature" occurs in scripture is in 2 Peter 1:4 "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the *divine nature* . The same is true of *oneness* as Jesus says in prayer to his God: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may *be one* , as we are. That *they all* may *be one* ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may *be one* in *us* . (Note that *the oneness* is between God and his Son, - no mention of a holy spirit). The question is whether you read the Bible carefully as is, or overlay it with the preconceptions of Greek philosophy.
So when Christ said, no man knows the day, but His Father, Who is in Heaven, what did that mean? Was the Father speaking to Himself? This sermon serves no purpose but to cause the preachers of it and the unwitting simple, to confuse themselves needlessly. Christ clearly said He and the Father are One and at the same time His Father was greater than Him.
Jesus says in prayer to his God: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may *be one* , as we are. That *they all* may *be one* ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may *be one* in *us* . (Note that *the oneness* is between God and his Son, - no mention of a holy spirit). The question is whether you read the Bible carefully as is, or overlay it with the preconceptions of Greek philosophy.
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I'm glad the Speaker opens by saying that the title of his presentation is a misrepresentation of what the doctrine of the Trinity is - it is not three Gods in one. Yet, he still thinks that this is what the doctrine teaches, which shows that he doesn't understand the doctrine well enough as we see throughout the rest of the video.
He says, in contrast, that the way Christadelphians understand God is simple, straightforward, and reasonable. Is it? Having been a Christadelphian for some 30+ years I can say that it is only straightforward and simple is because they don't answer the difficult Christological questions. These days they don't even ask the difficult questions, they seem to just assume that what they have been given is true, even though they claim to test everything by Scripture as the Bereans did.
We know that Christadelphians have struggled with their doctrine of God-manifestation as there were many Christadelphians asking questions to John Thomas and Robert Roberts at their inception. Christadelphians had questions about how Jesus, see this quote from an article by John Thomas' daughter to Robert Roberts on the nature of Christ (1867):
"There are, at this time, some interesting points of doctrine in process of discussion among some in different places, and we do earnestly hope that all parties engaged therein will be enlightened in the end, and that no cause of strife may arise therefrom. I wish, in this letter, to mention and enlarge a little upon one of these points. It is about the nature and constitution of Jesus Christ. Some parties affirm that he did not possess the Divine nature in any respect; that he was constitutionally a sinner, like any other son of Adam; that when a child he was no more than any other child, and when arrived at years of maturity the Deity saw that his character was good and suitable for his purpose, therefore he made use of him, and filled him with the holy Spirit at his baptism. Others affirm that he was constitutionally righteous and incapable of sinning, and devoid of the propensities inherent in our nature. Now, evidently the truth of the matter is not wholly on either position according to the Scriptures." - Lasius, E. J. (1867). *On the Nature of Christ*.
And in another article, she writes (1879):
MANY reflections, by inference and insinuation, have been cast upon the doctrines we hold concerning the subject of the manifestation of the One Eternal God in human nature. These reflections have resulted from wrong impressions taken up, which have been allowed to grow into firm convictions on the part of those who cast them upon us, and those who have received them. - Lasius, E. J. (1879). *God Manifest in the Flesh*.
And these questions come up repeatedly. Nowadays, if you ask the same questions, you will still get a variety of responses. From these unanswered questions (John Thomas chooses to leave it a mystery), divisions over whether Jesus had clean or filthy flesh arose. So, no, the Christadelphian doctrine is not "simple, straightforward and reasonable" as the Speaker claims.
The Speaker then quotes a book called *Revealed Religion* which describes the Trinity as a mystery, which it is, but he skips over the definition of the Trinity itself. Nowhere in this talk does he define what the teaching of the Trinity is, which is a shame, because it's clear he doesn't understand the teaching and should have spent more time learning what the doctrine is before speaking about it. I say he doesn't understand the doctrine because his whole talk centres around the point that God is one and not three gods; he keeps repeating the misrepresentation that there are three Gods in the Trinity; he says that the LORD is synonymous with the Father; He says that God has parts or elements. So, either he doesn't understand, or he chooses to misrepresent the teaching to discredit it.
He reads from *Revealed Religion* to say the Trinity is a mystery we can't understand, but there is nothing contradictory in it, and then speaks about how illogical this is. Which is true on the face of it, but the Speaker has a false understanding. It is not that the Trinity is a mystery that we can't understand ANYTHING about, but that we can't fully understand it. There are parts that we understand, i.e. that God has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that the Son was incarnate in the Virgin Mary and became man etc. We cannot understand the whole mystery though, and I'm sure the Speaker will admit that we cannot fully understand God, for God is ineffable. To say that the doctrine is without contradiction is to say that all that we do understand can be verified by Scripture and does not contradict it.
The Speaker brings up a few things that he believes are contradictions but as we will see, they're not once you understand the doctrine of the Trinity properly.
He turns to various passages in the Old Testament to show that there is one God, not three. The teaching of the Trinity is that there is one God, there is no contradiction here. There is one God, who is three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is revealed by the New Testament Scriptures and can be seen in the commission to baptise "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19).
We see the Trinity in: The creation, where we see the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit (Gen 1) creating together, and when they say "Let us make man in our image"; At Jesus' baptism; At the Transfiguration; In Revelation 1,4 & 5 we have the Father, the Seven Spirits and Jesus the lamb of God. We also see the Trinity in various theophanies in the Old Testament, such as in Genesis 18:1-15, where Abraham is visited by three angels who are called the LORD. There are also passages that speak of the Word of God as a person (Gen 1; Is 55:11; Pr 8; Ps 33:6; Wisdom 1:4-7; 7:22-26, 8:3-4; 9:9-12, 10:1-21), and identify Jesus as the rock (1 Cor 10:4, see Deut 32:4; Ps 18:2; Is 26:4). So there are plenty of places in Scripture where we see the LORD is one, but revealed to be three persons. This only gets clearer when we read the New Testament where John picks up the words of Genesis 1, Proverbs 8,9 and Wisdom 1, 7, 8, 9 & 10 in his prologue to show that the Word became man. Notice that the Speaker doesn't show any passages that might disagree with his position.
The Speaker digresses to say that Mary is not the mother of God, as recited in the Hail Mary. He says this is not Biblical, yet, if Jesus is God, it is only logical to say that Mary is then the Mother of God, for she is the mother of Jesus, who is God. As for Jesus being God, what else should we conclude when Scripture reveals that Jesus receives the Honours due to God, possesses the Attributes of God, bears the Names of God, does the Deeds that God does, and occupies the Seat of God's throne (see the excellent book, *The incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defence* by Bowman and Komoszewski for a full treatment and the origin of the HANDS acronym I've used here)?
The Speaker's flawed understanding of the Trinity causes him to ask the question, 'Is the Holy Spirit the Father of Jesus as the Holy Spirit causes his conception?'. The answer is no, the Holy Spirit is the Breath of Life that gives life to all things, Just as God "breathed" into Adam and gave Adam life, so by the Holy Spirit's action, Mary conceived and bore Jesus.
The question is not whether the speaker understands the Trinity, but whether he understands and correctly presents scripture.
Before science there was "natural" philosopy, concerned with the "nature" of things. If you ask Meta Ai the question: "How and when did the concept of divine "nature" develop", the response is very interesting.
_ The development of the concept of divine nature has been shaped by various philosophical and theological traditions, from ancient Greek thought to contemporary Christian theology. _
The Trinity is preoccupied with the concept of *divine nature* arising out of Greek philosophy and the traditions of men. The only place "divine nature" occurs in scripture is in 2 Peter 1:4 "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the *divine nature* . The same is true of *oneness* as Jesus says in prayer to his God: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may *be one* , as we are. That *they all* may *be one* ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may *be one* in *us* .
(Note that *the oneness* is between God and his Son, - no mention of a holy spirit).
The question is whether you read the Bible carefully as is, or overlay it with the preconceptions of Greek philosophy.
So when Christ said, no man knows the day, but His Father, Who is in Heaven, what did that mean? Was the Father speaking to Himself? This sermon serves no purpose but to cause the preachers of it and the unwitting simple, to confuse themselves needlessly. Christ clearly said He and the Father are One and at the same time His Father was greater than Him.
Jesus says in prayer to his God: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may *be one* , as we are. That *they all* may *be one* ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may *be one* in *us* .
(Note that *the oneness* is between God and his Son, - no mention of a holy spirit).
The question is whether you read the Bible carefully as is, or overlay it with the preconceptions of Greek philosophy.