Questions about the Holy Trinity?

Question

Why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Is it because we would all go to hell if it were not for him dying?

This doesn't make sense... what purpose would God have in making this deal?:
"I will sacrifice my son so I don't have to... " what?

If God is omnipotent, why would it be necessary to sacrifice God's son for any purpose? What would've happened if he didn't?

Also, I still don't understand this thing about the monotheistic trinity...? What's up with that? Is it one? Is it three? I'm not trying to be clever (it's not like I'm the first person to wonder about this stuff), this stuff just doesn't jibe.

Answer 1

Good Question! This is one of the reasons I converted to Islam!
In Islam it states that Jesus Did not die for our sins and that he was not crucified on the cross (A man similar looking to him was put up instead of Jesus)...It says that our sins lie on us, and that we do not "inherit" sins...Our sins are our own...God will Judge us all separately and Fairly, on the sins that we have done or haven't done in this life...not on the sins from others or our parents or Adam and Eve...
To believe in a "Monotheistic trinity" is to go against God...God is ONE, not three...and Jesus was not God, but a Prophet FROM God...
Sadly, these are misconceptions that have been caused by man....After Jesus died, everybody misinterpreted everything and claimed Jesus said he was God and that if you didn't pray to Him you would go to Hell...
The Quran is the third and final book sent from God..It clears up these misconceptions that have emerged from the Christian Religion, and brings light to things we were not aware of before!

And No, you aren't the first person to wonder about this! That is why there are so many Christian Scholars converting to Islam...

Answer 2

I will deal with your last set of questions since they connect with your original question. According to the trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and holy spirit are all co-equal, co-eternal, and almighty. Does the Bible support such a concept of God? No. There is not one verse in the Bible that says God is made up of 3 equal parts. How could that be if Jesus said at John 17:3 that the Father is the only true God? At John 14:28, Jesus said: "The Father is greater than I am." If the trinity is true, then Jesus lied about himself and his Father. But we know that's not true.

The trinity is a man-made falsehood.

Answer 3

Before Jesus, men would have to sacrifice animals to acount for there sins. (this is in the old testament books which were written before Jesus. the new testament was written after Jesus) But when Jesus came, he took the sins of the past present and future and made it possible for us to be saved. God is pure and perfect, same with heaven. So for us to gain access to heaven, we need to be pure and perfect, and of course there is no man on earth without sin. Thats why we need Jesus took cleanse us of our sins. It is only by faith in Jesus and by His grace that we are saved. there is no works we can do to gain access to heaven.


Your right about God being omnipotent, and He has the power to do anything he wants. He could have made us all believe in Him right when we were born, but he didn't. He gave us a free will because He wants us to chose Him. Think of it this way: If had a son of your owe, and maybe you do, would you force him to love you or want you want him to love you because that's what he chose to do? It's the same with God and us. Choose Jesus and you will have eternal life.
Read Romans 10:9-13 if you want to know how to recieve Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

About the trinity, i don't think i can help you out too much right now because i haven't learned everything i want to know either. It's a very hard concept to understand. But just remember, we are man and God is God. we are probably not going to be able to understand everything God says or does.

In Isaiah 55:8-11 it says,
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the Lord.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty, but will acomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

I pray that God blesses you in your search for truth and that you will find it.

Answer 4

sounds like a a approaches question and the trinity would be difficult for persons to comprehend....took me a collectively as, allot of prayer, some learn, chatting with extra mature Christians and taking notes in church and extra prayer. I even have not stumbled on any element to hint in direction of something different than the daddy, Son and Holy Ghost they're notably distinctive however the comparable save asking questions... returned it with scripture

Answer 5

Ok first question... why did Jesus have to die? For the purpose of the atonement. without this the rest of us would not be able to repent and be forgiven of our sins. Heavenly Father did not want to let His Son die, or watch us struggle either but it was necessary. As far as the trinity, i don't believe in the trinity. i believe they are all three seperate beings. for more answers go www.lds.org they will have all the answers to your questions.

Answer 6

It is like this: The Ice, Water and water vapor is same water....

Read this in order you will understand:

The doctrine of the Trinity -- that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each equally and eternally the one true God -- is admittedly difficult to comprehend, and yet is the very foundation of Christian truth. Although skeptics may ridicule it as a mathematical impossibility, it is nevertheless a basic doctrine of Scripture as well as profoundly realistic in both universal experience and in the scientific understanding of the cosmos.

Both Old and New Testaments teach the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead. The idea that there is only one God, who created all things, is repeatedly emphasized in such Scriptures as Isaiah 45:18:

"For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; …I am the Lord; and there is none else."

A New Testament example is James 2:19:

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe, and tremble."

The three persons of the Godhead are, at the same time, noted in such Scriptures as Isaiah 48:16:

"I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me."

The speaker in this verse is obviously God, and yet He says He has been sent both by The Lord God (that is, the Father) and by His Spirit (that is, the Holy Spirit).

The New Testament doctrine of the Trinity is evident in such a verse as John 15:26, where the Lord Jesus said:

"But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, He shall testify of me."

Then there is the baptismal formula:

"baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19).

One name (God) -- yet three names!

JESUS -- That Jesus, as the only-begotten Son of God, actually claimed to be God, equal with the Father, is clear from numerous Scriptures. For example, He said:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8).

HOLY SPIRIT -- Some cults falsely teach that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal divine influence of some kind, but the Bible teaches that He is a real person, just as are the Father and the Son. Jesus said:

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come" (John 16:13).

TRI-UNITY -- The teaching of the Bible concerning the Trinity might be summarized thus. God is a Tri-unity, with each Person of the Godhead equally and fully and eternally God. Each is necessary, and each is distinct, and yet all are one. The three Persons appear in a logical, causal order. The Father is the unseen, omnipresent Source of all being, revealed in and by the Son, experienced in and by the Holy Spirit. The Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son. With reference to God's creation, the Father is the Thought behind it, the Son is the Word calling it forth, and the Spirit is the Deed making it a reality.


We "see" God and His great salvation in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, then "experience" their reality by faith, through the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit.

Though these relationships seem paradoxical, and to some completely impossible, they are profoundly realistic, and their truth is ingrained deep in man's nature. Thus, men have always sensed first the truth that God must be "out there," everywhere present and the First Cause of all things, but they have corrupted this intuitive knowledge of the Father into pantheism and ultimately into naturalism.

Similarly, men have always felt the need to "see" God in terms of their own experience and understanding, but this knowledge that God must reveal Himself has been distorted into polytheism and idolatry. Men have thus continually erected "models" of God, sometimes in the form of graven images, sometimes even in the form of philosophical systems purporting to represent ultimate reality.

Finally, men have always known that they should be able to have communion with their Creator and to experience His presence "within." But this deep intuition of the Holy Spirit has been corrupted into various forms of false mysticism and fanaticism, and even into spiritism and demonism. Thus, the truth of God's tri-unity is ingrained in man's very nature, but he has often distorted it and substituted a false god in its place.

Answer 7

Imagine that our sins grieve the heart of God. He used the animal sacrifice to help us visually understand the consequences of sin. God forgives us but for us to have access to that forgiveness we must have a way of understanding it, engaging it in our hearts with faith. That is what Jesus accomplished, he filled the gap between man and God.

Answer 8

Don't expect to get a realistic answer from a Christian. Their mind have already checked out because of faith. I just wish I could use the faith argument to get beautiful women. I would get slapped if I walked up a fine lady and told her to marry me today on the faith I would have millions of dollars one day.

Answer 9

Please split up your questions. There is too much to answer in one shot.

If you really want answers to all of these questions and more, contact missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). They have answers for anyone who really wants to know, not just debate.

Answer 10

your heart must be openned to hear and receive the truth of God in order to begin to understand Him

"IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT"

232 Christians are baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"53 Before receiving the sacrament, they respond to a three-part question when asked to confess the Father, the Son and the Spirit: "I do." "The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity."54

233 Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names,55 for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.

234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith".56 The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin".57

235 This paragraph expounds briefly (I) how the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated the doctrine of the faith regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by the divine missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, God the Father fulfills the "plan of his loving goodness" of creation, redemption and sanctification.

236 The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). "Theology" refers to the mystery of God's inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and "economy" to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.


237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God".58 To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

II. THE REVELATION OF GOD AS TRINITY

The Father revealed by the Son

238 Many religions invoke God as "Father". The deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world.59 Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born son".60 God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is "the Father of the poor", of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection.61

239 By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard:63 no one is father as God is Father.


240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."64

241 For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature".65

242 Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one only God with him.66 The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father".67

The Father and the Son revealed by the Spirit

243 Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth".68 The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.

244 The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time. The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father.69 The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus' glorification70 reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

245 The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father."71 By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity".72 But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son's origin: "The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature. . . Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,. . . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son."73 The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: "With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified."74

246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)". The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration. . . . And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son."75

247 The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447,76 even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.


248 At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason",78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle",79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.