When a Oneness advocate on a Facebook group asked for trinitarians to explain how Jesus could be truly God, but be distinct from His Father, I replied with an exegesis of John 17:5. This verse clearly distinguishes the Son from the Father in Person but shows that they are coequal and coeternal. Here is my explanation of the verse: And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. — John 17:5 “O Father” – This is in the vocative case, grammatically signifying that one person is addressing another person. In the Koine period the vocative case was passing from common use and you see nominatives in
A Biblical Perspective on Politics
The 2016 United States Presidental election is indeed an historic election. We could say that every four years is an historic election. Every election becomes more historic, yet more disappointing, fearful, and evil. Christians endure greater pressure that voting is their solemn, moral duty before God. Dread grips their hearts as the moment of truth in November draws ever nearer. The greater good is to choose yesterday’s Satan over today’s greater Satan. Does the Bible offer us a solution to this madness?
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 17)
Having answered all Mr. Burch’s “difficult questions,” we will now turn outside the Scriptures to the understanding of the early church to see how they understood what the Scriptures taught. These were the ones who could read the Scriptures in their original languages and access what the apostles taught outside the inspired writings. By observing the history of the early church, I am in no wise appealing to it as an authority on doctrine. Like Mr. Burch I believe in sola scriptura and tota scriptura, and I stand by my original statement that the Scriptures “ooze and bleed” the doctrine of the Trinity. The Scriptures alone are sufficient to prove their own teachings, and only prooftexts without context resulting in
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 16)
The Incarnation of the One known as the Son of God will always prove to be a scandal to the world because of the mystery of how God in the person of the Son can be fully divine and fully human at the same time. According to the hypostatic union as expressed in the Chalcedonian Creed, Christ joined a human nature to Himself in the Incarnation, resulting in two natures–divine and human. These two natures are neither divided so as to make Christ two persons as the Nestorians argued, nor are they confounded, confused, and fused so as to obscure His human nature as the Eutychians argued. However, many within Christendom today, usually out of ignorance of the theological battles
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 15)
In this part we will answer one of Mr. Burch’s remaining “difficult questions” for trinitarians. This question has to do with the distinction in person and role between the Father and the Son. We will see that the Scriptures provide all the answers to this that we need if we let the Spirit lead us into all truth.
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 14)
In this part we will continue to look at Mr. Burch’s “difficult questions” that raise the challenge of Jesus being human and yet divine. Three of these “difficult questions pertain to the fact that Jesus prayed to the Father; thus, we will answer these three together. Indeed, if we are to look to Jesus as our example, we should understand not only the how but also the why of His prayers to the Father.
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 13)
In this part we will continue to address the “difficult questions” that Mr. Burch poses in his book. The previous two parts answered questions related to the deity of Jesus Christ regarding His death and resurrection. Now, we will shift gears to answer several of Mr. Burch’s questions concerning the humanity of His earthly ministry. Understanding the purpose and nature of the incarnation can help us to understand why the Son as deity submitted to the Father and experienced the human difficulties as we do, but without sin.
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 12)
In the previous part we observed the Scriptural answer to Mr. Burch’s first “difficult question” regarding Jesus dying on the Cross and being God at the same time. If we do not let human rationalism cloud our thinking, we realize that this “paradox” of the One Who is divine becoming incarnate and dying is not only acceptable but rather definitional to the orthodox Christian faith. On the heels of this first question comes Mr. Burch’s second “difficult question” concerning the resurrection of a divine Christ.
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 11)
Thus far we have seen a systematic Biblical case for the Trinity and against Mr. Burch’s attempts to resurrect the corpse of Arianism. However, Mr. Burch provides a list of questions that he posits are a challenge to the deity of Jesus Christ as co-personal with God the Father.[1] He emphasizes this list by repeating it later in the section.[2] In this part we will begin to examine these questions and demonstrate that they pose no challenge to the doctrine of the Trinity, primarily because they demonstrate that Mr. Burch does not quite understand exactly what he is denying.
The Unbreakable Threefold Cord: A Defense of the Trinity (Part 10)
In this part we will shift gears from the usual focus on defending the deity of Jesus Christ. We will look at the Person of the Holy Spirit. According to the Trinity, the One Being of God exists in Three co-equal, co-eternal persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Most of the debate over trinitarianism and unitarianism centers on the Person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Indeed, most of the heat of trinitarianism is in its insistence that the very God Who created the universe took upon Himself flesh and lived as the God-Man historically known as Jesus of Nazareth. Much ink has been spilled arguing over whether a transcendent God can condescend so as to