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Evidence of the Trinity in the Hebrew Scriptures

Table of Contents Jewishness and the Trinity 1. God Is A Plurality The Name Elohim Plural Verbs used with Elohim The Name Eloah Plural Pronouns Plural Descriptions of God The Shema II. God Is At Least Two Elohim and YHVH Applied to Two Personalities III. God Is Three How Many Persons Are There? The Three Personalities in the Same Passage Conclusion New Testament Light I was recently in some discussions/debates online about the nature of God and whether the "Trinity" exists, or if God is purely singular and exists in different forms rather than different persons.   This idea that God has different "forms" or "mod...

Who is the New Jerusalem?

...on of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.   Contrast this with Rev 21 again: Revelation 21:14And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.   And again, just before this verse, the description of the surrounding walls are named after the tribes of Israel: Revelation 21:12It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed...

The Coming Kingdom of the Son of Man

...ck to the apostles]. That conclusion is quite a stretch of the imagination and, like the other dispensationalist interpretation which says that this refers to some far future event, it completely rips it from its direct and immediate context: a message to the apostles. But, as many commentaries point out, the Futurist interpretation was not the common view until recent times, nor the historical position of the Church for millennia. As the Benson commentary (amongst others) puts it: ...until the Son of man shall come — To destroy their capital city, temple, and nation. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus is often called the coming of the Son of man. See M...

How was Jesus a sacrifice?

...ual! The apostles obviously recognised these parallels, as they refer to them in their epistles — see 1 Peter 1:18-20, 1 Corinthians 5:7 and basically all of Revelation. But how does this help us in our sins? The Passover wasn’t a sin offering, yet somehow the death of Jesus in this way saves us from our sins. To better understand this, and to grasp why in various places Jesus is called our “ransom”, we need to go back to the reason for the original Passover, not the ritual. Passover was what God did when he delivered his people from the slavery of the Egyptians. The blood of the lamb was the symbol that they belonged to God, and so escaped death. Or...

Does Easter Have Pagan Origins?

...the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him. … And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.–Eusebius, Church History, Book V, Chapter 24 Despite their differences in how they celebrated Easter, they both agreed that it ultimately didn’t matter because at the end of the day, they were both celebrating the risen Lord! Sadly, this peace didn’t last, and the tensions grew until the Roman custom was eventually set as the “r...

Lent: Day 10 - Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans

...Day Ten: St. Ignatius of Antioch: Letter to the Smyrnaeans (full text) Who: Ignatius converted at a young age and later became Bishop of Antioch. A friend of Polycarp and fellow disciple of John, there is a long standing tradition that Ignatius was the child that Jesus held in his arms and blessed in Mark 10:13-16 What: A defence against the heresy of Docetism and an intriguing insight into the possible origins of evil spirits! Why: Ignatius wrote a series of letters to the churches in Asia Minor whilst en route to Rome to face martyrdom by wild beasts in the Colosseum around 108 AD. When: Around 107-108 AD The opening chapters of this letter pulls no punc...