Understanding the Trinity

One of the things I struggled with over the years is reconciling the monotheistic concept of Judaism with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Since the term "Trinity" is not in the Bible I have felt a need to understand why it has been considered a core doctrine by Christian churches for virtually all of church history.

So before I raise questions in your mind about my own orthodoxy, let me explain. I tremble to even consider that I might misrepresent God's nature, and don't believe that anyone can truly comprehend the nature of God since he exists beyond our frame of reference in time and space. However, I really want to understand what the Bible says about the nature of God and his relationship to Jesus our Lord, so I will proceed with my limited analogy if you will bear with me in this endeavor.

The SHMA

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! (Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB)

This is a phrase that every Jew knows and memorizes as a child. It is the foundation of Judaism and the first commandment in the Torah. Jesus, being a Jewish Rabbi, understood and agreed with the writings of Moses, calling the SHMA the Greatest Commandment. However, the New Testament clearly indicates that Jesus made Himself equal with God by calling God His Father. So now God appears as two personalities in a family relationship.

This Father-Son relationship is most fundamental to Christianity and most abhorrent to the religion of Islam, who consider Christianity to be a polytheistic religion. So how do you explain to a Muslim (or a Jew for that matter) that you believe in one God who has multiple forms or personalities? Is He one God or two or three? One morning recently I awakened with thoughts that helped resolve that question in my mind.

The FORM of God

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6 NASB)

All through the Old Testament there are references to the "right hand" or "strong arm" or "outstretched arm" of God. These references uniformly occur in places where God is interacting with creation as Lord and Savior, in other words, in the role of Messiah. In fact in practically every reference you can substitute the name of the Messiah for this term and it makes perfect sense. For example,

My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, And the Messiah will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait for Me, And for the Messiah they will wait expectantly. (Isaiah 51:5)

Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and the Messiah. (Jeremiah 32:17)

Try this yourself; I think you will find a blessing in that.

In the New Testament we see the glorified Jesus our High Priest, seated at the right hand of God. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Jesus actually is analogous to God's right hand. The concept of a spiritual body consisting of multiple interacting personalities is not foreign to the Bible; reference the Body of Christ for example.

So when Jesus communicates with the Father, is this a conversation, or an interaction analogous to the interaction of the brain with the body, where the brain communicates via a type of nervous system to produce visible action? In this case, even though the Son of God is communicating to the Father as a person, in the spirit the two are considered one. You would not refer to me as "they" in reference to my body parts, but as to "him" who has a single will and many interconnected members. Is it possible that in the incomprehensible nature of God we can make such an analogy? Let me continue.

The Spirit Connection

I now understand that the Holy Spirit is analogous to the central nervous system of God. The Holy Spirit makes it possible to connect directly to God. It was the Holy Spirit that rested upon Jesus, fusing His will to God and allowing Jesus to carry out the perfect plan of God on earth. The Holy Spirit so fully embodied the Father's presence in Jesus that He could say "whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."

Now, the body analogy may be confusing since the Holy Spirit is invisible, like the wind. In my lifetime this has become much easier to visualize since we transmit control signals invisibly all around the world and through the darkness of space by various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Certainly the Creator of the universe could operate in ways that go far beyond our mortal technologies, even transcending the boundaries of time.

Jesus said that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That is our connection protocol. We authenticate by being authentic, by emptying ourselves of our old lives to put on the righteousness of Christ. We connect to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, the Helper whom the Father sends to be with us and in us, who teaches us and intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. The Holy Spirit translates our earthly requests to heavenly and perfect petitions before the throne of God.

Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In our human form we cannot behold the face of God and live, but through His Spirit we can grasp the nail pierced hand of God and draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.

Conclusion

Though we may not comprehend God's true nature while we exist in earthly form, we can understand that God took the form of a man (Jesus), and was indwelt by the Holy Spirit who empowered Him to perfectly reflect the nature and will of God on earth. The creator is still worshiped as the one true God. There is one throne in Heaven, not three, and Jesus is seated or standing there at the right hand of God to execute God's plan for creation.

Name Above All Names

The Hebrew name of God consists of four characters, “YOD”-“HEY”-“VAV”-“HEY”. You might have seen it spelled YHWH, the unpronounceable name.

Characters in the Hebrew language are as interesting as some of the real Hebrew characters in the Bible.  First, there are no vowels in the written language so sounds have to be added by annotations called “nikkud” or just added when the text is read based on knowing how each word should sound.  This makes it very difficult for a non-Hebrew speaking person to learn to speak Hebrew. Hebrew is not designed to be learned from a book, but rather from a teacher.

Aside from that challenge, in fact some characters in the Hebrew language can function as vowels or consonants depending on the word in which they are used. It happens that God’s name has two of these vowel/consonant characters, “VAV” and “HEY”. VAV can sound like a “V” when used at the beginning of a word, or like a “U” or “O” when used in the middle of a word. HEY can sound like an “H” or like “ha” when used at the beginning of a word, or like “ah” when used elsewhere. It can also be silent in some cases.

So now we get to the point – how to pronounce the name of God. Well, that’s even trickier because the ones who know won’t say, for fear of using the name of God in vain. And the ones who don’t know are all over the map. Jehovah and Yahweh are two commonly used pronunciations. There is also evidence that Yahu’ah could be the correct pronunciation. The translators of the Bible just avoid the whole issue by translating it “LORD” in all upper case.

One night I was thinking about the name of God and had this inspiring thought. If I were to attempt to say “Yahu’ah” around a Jewish priest he would probably say “shhhh!” Ya-shhh-hu’ah! That’s the Hebrew name for Jesus.

Yes, that is the name of my LORD! Lord you and the Father are one, Yeshua, yes you are!

Now why is God reluctant to be called by name? A name is used to distinguish one from another. In the case of God, there is only one and thus no need to identify Him. However, His name is also powerful, and at the sound of His name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. This goes back to holiness; we are not allowed to regard Him as one among many.

Speaking of Yeshua, what did he call God? Simply “Abba” or “Father”. That is really special; you only have one father and using that name identifies the love, respect and uniqueness that is due His name. I’m so thankful that He is willing to be called Father; that means that He is willing to call me son!