Trinity continued?

Question

Have Trinitarians ever considered that when Jesus said I and the Father are one, he meant: Im only doing what He asked me to do and am not acting out of my own will.

Instead of: I and the father SHARE an essence?

because if he meant the latter, that would mean God was Jesus too.

"...Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father who gave them me, is greater than all."

But doesnt the previous part of the verse NEGATE the fact that Jesus and God are One?

I have read that the original words Jesus used to say: I AM are not the ones God uses in the OT. So he must have meant something else.

Answer 1

Look at the words in context. The Jews understood that Jesus was saying He was God - they were going to stone Jesus for blasphemy.

John 10:29-33
29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
30 The Father and I are one.”
31 Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone Him.
32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. Which of these works are you stoning Me for?”
33 “We aren’t stoning You for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because You—being a man—make Yourself God.”

Answer 2

I think that passage may very well be understood that way, but this isn't the only verse Trinitarians use to back the theory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit being one. Take John 1 where is says that in the beginning was the Word (Jesus) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Bible clearly states that there is one God, but yet the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all called and refered to as God.

Answer 3

Matt. 26:39 : “Going a little farther he [Jesus Christ] fell on his face and prayed, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’” (If the Father and the Son were not distinct individuals, such a prayer would have been meaningless. Jesus would have been praying to himself, and his will would of necessity have been the Father’s will.)

John 8:17, 18,: “[Jesus answered the Jewish Pharisees:] In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true; I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me.” (So, Jesus definitely spoke of himself as being an individual separate and distinct from the Father.)

The New Encyclopædia Britannica says: “Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deut. 6:4). . . . The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. . . . By the end of the 4th century . . . the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since.”—(1976), Micropædia, Vol. X, p. 126.

If you put the sciptures that are the bases for the tritarian doctrine into context with the the passage and the rest of the bible is becomes quite clear that Jesus is a separate being from his father, God

Answer 4

I do what my boss asks me to do, but it doesn't make me one with him. Here is what the Christian Church has accepted about the Trinity for many centuries, long before denominationalism started tearing Christian doctrine to bits ...

http://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html

"Trinitarians" is synonymous with "Christians". If you don't believe in the Trinity, you don't believe in the God of Christianity.

And Yes! You are right in saying that "God is Jesus too". But you would be incorrect in saying that God the Father is Jesus. Jesus is God the Son, and is a distinct Person from God the Father. Yet both of them are God, and therefore God is both of them. Likewise the Holy Spirit.

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Answer 5

Essence is Greek philosophy,

John 10:30 context shows they are one in works.

The greek word translated one is neutured. meaning one thing. not one person.

Jesus corrected the jews in that he stated he was equal to the human judges (Ps 82:6) and Jehovah God (Ps 83:18)

Even if ‘Sam’ is a Grandfather, Father, and Son, Sam still has only one will, unless he is mentally disturbed or Sam is three different individuals. Sam Sr., Sam Jr., & Sam III.

Answer 6

Jesus said "before Abraham sprang into existence,"I AM"....then the Jews picked up stones to kill him..They knew exactly,what Jesus was saying of Himself....and Jesus asked them,why they would want to kill him..they answered him.

"That you being a man,make yourself,God"

This is only one of many,proofs of the divinity of Christ,which is usually the reason that most of the antagonists of the Trinity doctrine,have issue with.

Answer 7

"All who acknowledge and worship any other God than the Lord the Savior, Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah God Himself in human form, sin against this first commandment. Those also sin against it who persuade themselves of the actual existence of three Divine persons from eternity. For as they confirm themselves in that error, they become more and more natural and corporeal, and at length are unable to comprehend interiorly any Divine truth; and if they listen to it and accept it, they still defile it and cover it up with fallacies. They may therefore be compared to those who dwell in the lowest story or the cellar of a house, and in consequence hear nothing of the conversation of those who are in the second and third stories, because the floor above their heads keeps the sound from penetrating to them. [2] The human mind is like a house of three stories, in the lowest of which are those who have confirmed themselves in favor of three Gods from eternity, while in the second and third stories are those who acknowledge and believe in one God under a visible human form, and that the Lord God the Savior is He" (True Christian Religion n. 296).

Also - THE GOD OF HEAVEN IS THE LORD

"First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. Throughout all heaven no other than the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of heaven. There it is said, as He Himself taught,

That He is one with the Father; that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; that he who sees Him sees the Father; and that everything that is holy goes forth from Him (John 10:30, 35; 14:9-11; 16:13-15).

I have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have invariably declared that in heaven they are unable to divide the Divine into three, because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and this One is in the Lord. They also said that those of the church who come from this world having an idea of three Divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven, since their thought wanders from one Divine being to another; and it is not allowable there to think three and say one.{1} Because in heaven everyone speaks from his thought, since speech there is the immediate product of the thought, or the thought speaking. Consequently, those in this world who have divided the Divine into three, and have adopted a different idea of each, and have not made that idea one and centered it in the Lord, cannot be received into heaven, because in heaven there is a sharing of all thoughts, and therefore if any one came thinking three and saying one, he would be at once found out and rejected. But let it be known that all those who have not separated what is true from what is good, or faith from love, accept in the other life, when they have been taught, the heavenly idea of the Lord, that He is the God of the universe. It is otherwise with those who have separated faith from life, that is, who have not lived according to the precepts of true faith" (Heaven and Hell n.2).

Answer 8

Most Christians take things literally that support their beliefs, and take things that contradict them non-literally. That was demonstrated in a recent question of mine.

The very opposite of a critical reading of a text.


The concept of the trinity was a purely human invention a few centuries after Jesus' death that arose in a canonical pissing match in the early Church.

Answer 9

What are we humans right. So when we give birth it is to another human. When god made his son jesus he was also a god. marry was pregnat with the holy spirit which makes them 3 in one the trinity.

Answer 10

The belief of God being an "essence" is NOT taught by scripture.
There are THREE persons, and I mean PERSONS.
It would be good if you would re-read the pertinent scriptures.