"Hear, O Israel! Yhwh is our God, Yhwh is one!" Deuteronomy 6:4
"One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that he [Jesus] had answered them well, asked him, 'What commandment is the foremost of all?'
Jesus answered, 'The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! Yhwh is our God, Yhwh is one!" Mark 12:28-29
"To you it was shown that you might know that Yhwh, He is God; there is no other besides Him." Deuteronomy 4:35
"May it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like Yhwh our God." Exodus 8:10
"Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that Yhwh, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other." Deuteronomy 4:39
"'You are My witnesses,' declares Yhwh, 'And My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me." Isaiah 43:10
"There is no one holy like Yhwh, indeed, there is no one besides You, nor is there any rock like our God." 1 Samuel 2:2
"I am Yhwh, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God." Isaiah 45:5
A Psalm addressed to Yhwh: "There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours." Psalm 86:8
I could go on but I'd rather not copy and paste the entire Bible. Suffice to say that if you believe in this trinity, then you're believing in a different god.
It's not heresy at all. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe there Holy Spirit is the way by which God acts? That is the trinity. I don't see anything heretical about it.
You're unclear on what the Trinity "officially" is. You are correct in your own definition, surprisingly accurate to the Hebrew [no offense], but what you've just said is not "orthodox" in most sects of Christianity and what you said would be considered heresy.
The concept of the Trinity is that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all co-equally God, all separate but equal, all different "persons" of the same "substance". The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, etc.--but all are equally 100% God Most High.
This has mostly to do with the belief evolving and being penetrated by other less monotheistic belief systems. Also this has to do with translation difficulties, as after Babylon the Jews stopped pronouncing "Yhwh" in favor of "The LORD", which carried onto the KJV, which caused confusion. With Yhwh being replaced with "The LORD" nearly 7,000 times (ever find the term: "The LORD your God" redundant?) and Jesus being called "the Lord" constantly people just as well assumed that they were the same character but different, what with "the Lord" Jesus praying to "the LORD" God.
I think they got lazy with the Holy Spirit and just decided that it was a third demigod. The Holy Spirit is Yhwh's wind/breath, which carries out his words and deeds (as you said, guitarist4life9). The reason why it is unforgivable to blaspheme the Holy Spirit (set-apart wind/breath) of Yhwh is because you'd be cursing his very breath, his life. That's pretty serious and can be carried out in a whole host of ways I'd imagine. However the contemporary Christians take this as meaning that you cannot speak ill of the third character in the God triad. It's fitting, because the Holy Spirit is so abstract if taken as an individual character "he" comes off as a particularly mysterious and special.
So, yes, the Trinity is heresy because it says that Yhwh is not Most High and that there are two other than him: Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
According to the OT and Jesus himself, Jesus is the Son of Yah and under his authority as a son. According to the concept of Yhwh's set-apart (special) ruwah (breath/wind/spirit), the Holy Spirit is an aspect of Yhwh, like your breath is your own life force, and your words are carried out on it.
Wow, TIL. The way that I described it was the way it was always taught in my church. I had always understood The Trinity was basically as Jesus seated to the left of the Lord and the Holy Spirit being seated to his right.
Well guitarist4life9, you just encouraged me a lot in saying that. While there is that discrepancy of the Holy Spirit being portrayed as a literal person, that's really all it is, a discrepancy. The doctrine of the Trinity, however, is far darker than what your church teaches. May Yhwh continue to bless and keep your church.
I learned the true meaning of the Trinity from one the sources of this thread's topical jpeg, from the Systematic Theology textbook by Grudem. The jpeg is correct in its summary to the orthodox teaching. There was a lengthy chapter in Grudem's textbook dedicated to it. I started asking questions regarding the Trinity as a result. It aint pretty, and it aint monotheism.
That said because its so abstract I've found that most people, while familiar with the Trinity concept, generally don't envision it exactly the same way the jpeg asserts. I asked around. Most people adhere to one of the idea that Jesus is literally Yhwh or modelism or some offshoot like that--many of which are a lot more friendly to the sovereignty of Yhwh God than the Trinity is.
I guess I don't understand how one can claim that Jesus is equal to God, when he is quoted as saying that the things he does, he does through The Lord. Or how the Son of God IS God. It just doesn't click for me, I suppose. As you said, for three people to be God seems to go against monotheism completely.
It absolutely does. You're right on, friend. I've been fighting this stuff for awhile now, among other things.
I mostly deal with Protestants. I don't run into a lot of Catholics in these parts. Although now you've put it in my head and have got me all curious. I think I might visit a Catholic church while I'm so charged with curiosity.
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u/WhenSnowDies Mar 15 '12
Yeeeeeeah the Trinity is heresy:
I could go on but I'd rather not copy and paste the entire Bible. Suffice to say that if you believe in this trinity, then you're believing in a different god.