Arising out of the crucible of christological and theological debates in the early centuries of the church, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity expresses the mystery of God that is the heart of all revelation. Many think that the angel of the Lord is a Christophany—a manifestation that, while distinct from God, is also God. Old Testament Trinity Proof Texts . Those words of the Anglican marriage ceremony will be heard often during the month of June, the traditional wedding season. The Holy Trinity is an important subject of iconographic representation in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and has a rather different treatment from depictions in the Western Churches.There are two different types of Holy Trinity icons: the Old Testament Trinity and the New Testament Trinity (Троица Ветхозаветная and Троица Новозаветная in Russian). Question: Is the Trinity taught in the Old Testament? Engaging them with a trinitarian understanding sheds new light on their possible implications. Come listen to Mary and Elizabeth marvel at the miracles being birthed within them. I pronounce you husband and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. However, the heavenly realm exists within the bounds and phenomena of creation itself; it is only as the horizon of creation retreats from view, or as God is seen over against the creation, that God’s uncreated being and self-relations will better be seen. There’s a whole set of traditional ways to find the Trinity in the Old Testament—and it’s kind of a mixed bag. In light of this, it’s no surprise that this would reframe our understanding of God’s Spirit in the Old Testament. It would irresponsible to translate Elohim as gods as in “In the beginning the gods created the heavens and the earth.” So it seems that that this name of God that is plural in nature could also point to the coming New Testament revelation of the Trinity. Or again, a reader who continues through to Deuteronomy learns even more about his character and his ways. This allows you to understand the sense that individual parts make on their own, but help you also grasp the higher meaning that is generated by understanding them in relation to each other. Critics of the doctrine of the Trinity often claim that the theology of the Old Testament is inconsistent with orthodox Christian theology. We do not need to sort out all the layers of these questions here. That assumption can be summarized in this question: “Why is the one God called both Elohim and Yahweh?” These older theologies keep working at that question until getting to a trinitarian distinction. In light of this revelation, can we expect to see traces of the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament as well? Jesus promises us the Spirit in the New Testament, and in Acts we see the Spirit’s advent at Pentecost. Rereading can even be made to sound subversive and transgressive, as if in the high-theory war between reader and author, rereading is a matter of taking up arms in anarchic rebellion against the author. A lot of older theologies ask, “What is the ultimate reason why two names are given to us right at the beginning of Scripture?” Within that question is an analysis—one that relies on an assumption. It has served more fully and consistently to disclose the eternal, uncreated, living God who exists independent of all created things. Right at the very beginning of Genesis, you have two different ways of talking about God during the act of creation. From such a picture, further details of the creation account may also be revealed in a new aspect: the Spirit hovering over the primeval waters, the archetypal Image of God in which humanity is created, the light that first dawns in creation, and more. Like a dog with a particularly juicy bone, he returns to his chosen text again and again, worrying at it and aiming to get all the goodness out of it for the benefit of his readers.”. It is here that, as we follow the New Testament’s guidance, we can see the fullest revelations of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Basil the Blessed on Moscow’s Red Square. The Angel and the Spirit are not merely individually associated with YHWH, but are intimately connected with each other. The doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be one of the central Christian affirmations about God. These theophanic manifestations reveal God, while not being directly identified as God. and keep you; In the book of Proverbs, we are introduced to the wisdom of God personified as a woman. The New Testament writers follow the lead of Jesus himself in creatively rereading their Scriptures in the light of who he is and what he has done. It concludes that the Trinity in the Old Testament is not an invitation to search for threesomes in the scriptures of Israel, but instead is tied up with a proper understanding and confession about how the literal sense speaks of its divine referent.

As all created powers retreat from view, rather than merely seeing the divinity of three detached agents, we see the unity of the one triune God in his indivisible activity. Pursue a deeper knowledge of God through self-paced college- and seminary-level online courses in Old and New Testament studies, theology, biblical Greek, and more. Does the Old Testament contradict the doctrine of the Trinity? A piece of mine reflecting upon the doctrine of the Trinity within the Old Testament has just been posted over on the Desiring God website:. One way we can do this and maintain interpretive integrity is by rereading. It is in re-reading that some magic may lie.”. Please check errors and resubmit. In Russia: The Muscovite period …Dionisy and Andrey Rublyov (whose Old Testament Trinity, now in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery, is among the most revered icons ever painted).Russian architects continued to design and build impressive churches, including the celebrated Cathedral of St. The revelation of the Trinity comes with the revelation of the gospel. But we discover Jesus and the Holy Spirit as distinct persons who are also God. In the Triune God course, you will explore the main contours of the central and mysterious Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He has an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary and PhD from Graduate Theological Union. Nonetheless, even in such demythologization, the biblical witness to God overwhelmingly operates within the frame of the creation and history. It captures the ambiguity and concealment of the original writings, but also accounts for the progressive revelation and the attendant growth in understanding of the earlier material. Some commentators make a lot out of the distinction between the name Elohim and the name Yahweh. Dr. Fred Sanders. All of our resources exist to guide you toward everlasting joy in Jesus Christ. Genesis 1:26 "Let US make man in OUR image": Three plural pronouns, (We, Us, Our) used 6 different times in four different passages: Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8. Please consider this request from John Piper and become a monthly partner by December 31. He is still the one true God we discover in the Jewish Shema prayer: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. There is a perennial danger of retrojecting a developed philosophical doctrine of the Trinity into texts operating within a very different horizon. Two pregnancies tell the story of Christmas. Rereading is a mode of the New Testament’s use of the Old. The eye of the mind can scan the whole, ranging backward and forward in it. Here are five quotes from the … Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from, “On that day the Lord will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.”—. Trinity, in Christian doctrine, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. the Lord make his face shine on you Here are some traditional proofs (some more compelling than others) for the presence of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Although the truth of the Trinity is materially present within Scripture, it requires a sort of discourse that proceeds according to different — and largely extra-scriptural — principles of investigation for that truth to come into crisp doctrinal focus. Sophisticated trinitarians grant this, holding that thedoctrine was revealed by God only later, in New Testament times(c.50–c.100) and/or in the Patristic era (c. 100–800).They usually also add, though, that with hindsight, we can see that anumber … This is especially true of the Old Testament, but also of the New, and must be remembered when we seek to discover the Trinity in the Old Testament. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from HarperCollins Christian Publishing (501 Nelson Place, Nashville, TN 37214 USA) providing information about products and services of HCCP and its affiliates. Genesis 1:27 is complimented by Genesis 2:18 (LXX), 3:22, 11:7, 20:30; Isaiah 6:8, and 41:21-24, Deuteronomy 4:7, and many more. While two of the men — referred to as “angels” in the next chapter — proceed to Sodom, YHWH remains to speak with Abraham, presumably in a human appearance, before “going his way” after their conversation concludes (Genesis 18:33). Whole new vistas of insight and enjoyment open up to the reader who returns to certain well-structured books, where there is a palpable frisson between intuiting the whole text at once and reclaiming the linear experience of another trip through it. 6:4; Job 33:4; Psa. Spirit of the Lord The mysterious way in which the Angel of YHWH can speak of God in both the first and third-person invites reflection. This, it must be observed, continues a work of demythologization that distinguishes the Old Testament itself from the ancient Near Eastern literature contemporary with it, the gods of whose polytheistic pantheons were typically fickle, flawed, and limited sexual beings with origin stories, conceptually and metaphysically imprisoned within the changeable material realm of creation itself. Rereading is the key hermeneutical category for this kind of interpretation. Accepting the invitation to reread the creation in the light of the more developed New Testament doctrine of the Trinity, we can begin to see a fuller manifestation of the threefoldness of the Creator incipient within it. No trinitarian doctrine is explicitly taught in the OldTestament. In his gospel, John describes Jesus as the Word of God. Though there are numerous examples of the Trinity, many found in the New Testament, below are a few examples of the Trinity in the Old Testament. When Christians see Christ and the Trinity in the Old Testament, we are following the New Testament’s own lead. Some of them provide a good demonstration of the elements of trinitarianism in the Old Testament. Successful novelists from Jane Austen to J. K. Rowling prove themselves to their fans not by how good their books are for reading but for rereading. Matin Calinescu situates rereading as a counter-practice against the regime of normative first reading. When Christ comes on the scene, he comes as a silhouetted figure who has been active in salvation and judgment throughout Israel’s history, finally stepping into the light. “For the word of the Lord is right and true; “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall, “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of. It’s easy to understand how a trinitarian theologian, informed by the New Testament, would recognize the angel of the Lord—a figure who seems to be with God and to be God— as a christological figure. In recent years, we’ve seen a resurgence of arguments against Christian theology using the doctrine of the Trinity as a proof. Scripture: Genesis 1:2, 26; 3:22; 11:6-7; 19:24; Deut. The later philosophical discourse that played midwife to a Christian doctrine of the Trinity is by no means either illegitimate or inappropriate, as some more biblicist thinkers have suggested. For instance, from the early church, Christian thinkers have seen a shadowy witness to the Trinity in the “let us” of Genesis 1:26. Rereading makes possible an interpretive interplay between the text’s parts and its whole. Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity —the teaching that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence (from the Greek ousia). While the truths of the Trinity are found in the Old Testament, it is only in the New Testament that we find the doctrine fully revealed. Rereading is the act of studying a document by reading it all the way through to the end—and once you have an understanding of the document as a whole—you read it all the way through again. He participates in the. Genesis 1 says that God created the heavens and the earth. “In the argument of Hebrews we see a first-century example of a Christian expositor whose instinct it was to develop his argument by focusing successively on a number of key texts, and in each case not simply to quote it and pass on, but to stay with it, exploring its wider implications, and drawing it into association with other related Old Testament ideas, so as to produce a richer and more satisfying diet of biblical theology than could be provided by a mere collection of proof-texts. A rereading of Genesis 1 is in this case enriched by the knowledge that the God of the Exodus created the heavens and the earth. I. Watchtower Hypocrisy: When the Watchtower says, "the concept of trinity as revealed in the New Testament, is not taught in the Old Testament".They are right, but many concepts that are taught in the New Testament like the Trinity, were merely alluded to in the Old Testament. Similar to the personification of wisdom in the Old Testament, many things said about the Spirit “going forth” or “being with” seem to indicate agency. In the next verse the Son is more clearly identified as God. As the theologian Anthony Rogers pointed out, the trinity is found throughout the entire warp and woof of the Old Testament. There … Rereading is a mode of scriptural re-engagement that allows trinitarian interpretation to maintain the original meaning of the Old Testament, but also to layer onto it the insights that arise from later developments of its themes. The doctrine of the Trinity is … and be gracious to you; He speaks as God in the first person (Genesis 16:10; 22:11–18; 31:11) and is addressed as God by human beings (Genesis 16:13; Judges 13:22) and by the Scriptures themselves (Exodus 3:2–4). Without the teaching of the New Testament we would not be aware of this truth. Some of them provide a good demonstration of the … Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: How Is One God Three Persons? The Trinity In The Old Testament BY HENRY M. MORRIS, PH.D. | SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2005 "Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; 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" (Isaiah 48:16). This personification is a speaking agent who is difficult to distinguish. For Instructors and School Administrators. In fact, there are many places in the Old Testament where we can see little seeds of faith that would later bear fruit. Whether they are spoken in a small, intimate ceremony or at the very large wedding of important personages like Prince Charles and Lady Diana a few years ago, all who personally attend the ceremon… Sign up for Fred Sanders’ Triune God online course. The Gospels present Christ in the mold of a pre-existent heavenly being, one who has “come” — as angels might — on an earthly mission. Copyright © 2020 HarperCollins Publishers. A fuller understanding of the identity of Christ and the Trinity emerges only gradually out of reflection upon the more complex portrait of the realm and operations of heaven and its beings, something that was already well underway by the time of the New Testament, exciting intense speculation within apocryphal, deuterocanonical, and other Jewish literature around figures or personifications such as the Son of Man, the Archangel Michael, Enoch, Logos, and Wisdom. Quite the opposite! While not imprisoning God within his creation, Scripture does not reflect much upon his transcendent being in himself. Throughout the Old Testament we catch glimpses of an agent of Yahweh who sometimes behaves as if he were the presence of the Lord, and at other times he appears to be an emissary. From the beginning God introduces himself to man as Elohim. the Lord turn his face toward you The mysterious way in which the Angel of YHWH can speak of God in both the first and third person invites reflection. 2:7; Isa. God’s Spirit also seems to dwell with God’s followers, and seems to act as an objective personality. It seems throughout the Old Testament that the Spirit is the self-conscious immanence of God, as well as the revelation of God. 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