TRINITY (Part 1) By: Wayne Grudem The word “trinity” means “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness.” It is summarize the teaching of Scripture that God is three persons yet one God. Acording Genesis 1:26, God said, “Les us make man in our image, after our likeness.” What do the plural verb (“let us”) and the plural pronoun (“our”) mean? Some have suggested they are plurals of majesty, a form of speech a kind would use in saying, for example, “We are pleased to grant your request.” However, in Old Testament Hebrew there are no other examples of a monarch using plural verbs or plural pronouns of himself in such a “plural of majesty”, so this suggestion has no evidence to support it. Another suggestion is that God is here speaking to angels. But angels did not participate in the creationof man, nor was man created in the image and likeness of angels, so this suggestion is not convincing. The best explanation is that already in the first chapter of Genesis we have an indication of a plurality of persons in God himself. We are not told how many persons, and we have nothing approaching a complete doctrine of the Trinity, but it is implied that more than one person is involved. The same can be said of Genesis 3:22 (“Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil”), Genesis 11:7 (“Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language”), and Isaiah 6:8 (“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”). (Note the combination of singular and plural in the same sentence in the last passage). Mengenai Mazmur 110:1, bagi Grudem, Daud mengungkapkan bahwa ada pluralitas pribadi-pribadi dalam satu Allah. Konteks ini dikutip oleh Yesus (lih. Mat. 22:41-46). Unless they are willing to admit a plurality of persons in one God, Jewish intepreters of Scripture to this day will have no more satisfactory explanation of Psalm 110:1 (or of Gen. 1:26, or of the orther passages just discussed) than they did in Jesus day). Yesaya 63:10, Roh Kudus berdistingsi dengan dengan Allah. And in Isaiah 48:16, the speaker (apparently the servant of the Lord) says, “And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his Spirit.” Here the Spirit of the Lord, like the servant of the Lord, has been “sent” by the Lord God on a particular mission. The parallel between the two objects of sending (“me” and “his Spirit”) would be consistent with seeing them both as distinct persons: it seems to mean more than simply “the Lord has sent me and his power. In fact, from a full New Testament perspective (which recognizes Jesus the Messiah to be the true servant of the Lord predicted is Isaiah’s prophecies), Isaiah 48:16 has trinitarian implications: “And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his Spirit”, if spoken by Jesus the Son of God, refers to all three persons of the Trinity. Several Old Testament passeges about “the angel of the LORD” suggest a plurality of persons in God. The word translated “angel” (Heb. mal’ak) means simply “messenger.” If this angel of the LORD is a “messenger” of the LORD, he is then distinct from the LORD himself. Yet at some points the angel of the LORD is called “God” or “the LORD” (see. Gen. 16:13; Ex. 3:2-6; 23:20-22 [note “my name is in him” in v. 21]; Num. 22:35 with 38; Judg. 2:1-2; 6:11 with 14). At other points in the Old Testament “the angel of the LORD” simply refers to a created angel, but at least at these text the special angel (or “messenger”) of the LORD seems to be a distinct person who is fully divine. Grudem menjelaskan Matius 3:16-17 bahwa masing-masing Pribadi dari Trinitas memperlihatkan tiga aktivitas yang berbeda. Allah Bapa yang berbicara dari sorga; Allah Anak (Yesus) dibaptis dan Roh Kudus yang turun dari sorga memberikan kekuatan bagi Yesus untuk pelayanan-Nya. Matius 28:19, Roh Kudus adalah “equal” dengan Bapa dan Anak. The KJV translation of 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” The Problem with this translation is that it is based on a very small number of unreliable Greek manuscripts, the earliest of which comes from the fourteenth century A.D. No modern translation (except NKJV) includes this KJV reading, but all omit it, as do the vast majority of Greek manuscripts from all major text traditions, including several very reliable manuscripts from the fourth and fifth century A.D., and also including quotations by church fathers such as Irenaeus (d. ca. A.D. 202), Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. A.D. 212), Tertullian (died after A.D. 220), and the great defender of the Trinity, Athanasius (d. A.D. 373). Grudem memberikan tiga pernyataan dari pengajaran Alkitab: 1. God is three persons. 2. Each person is fully God. 3. There is one God. Mengenai poin 1: “God is three persons” didasari pada fakta Alkitab bahwa ketiga Pribadi: Bapa, Anak dan Roh Kudus adalah saling berdistingsi. Grudem menjelaskan The fact that God is three persons means that the Father is not the Son; they are distinct persons. It also means that the Father is not the Holy Spirit, but that they are distinct persons. And it means that the Son is not the Holy Spirit. John 1:1-2 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The fact that the “Word” (who is seen to be Christ in vv. 9-18) is “with” God shows distinction from God the Father. In John 17:24 (NIV), Jesus speaks to God the Father about “my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world”, thus showing distinction of persons, sharing of glory, and a relationship of love between the Father and the Son before the world was created. 1 Yohanes 2:1, pribadi Bapa berdistingsi dengan pribadi Yesus. Yesus adalah “pengantara” (bdk. Ibr. 7:25). p. 232 The Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit. They are distinguished in several verses. Jesus says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit also prays or “intercedes” for us (Rom. 8:27), indicating a distinction between the Holy Spirit and God the Father to whom the intercession is made. Distingsi antara Yesus dan Roh Kudus (Yoh. 16:7). Poin 2 Yesus sepenuhnya adalah Allah (Yoh. 1:1-4 menyatakannya). In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Here Christ is refered to as “the Word”, and John says both that he was “with God” and that he “was God.” The Greek text echoes the opening words of Genesis 1:1 (“In the beginning....”) and reminds us that John is talking about something that was true before the world was made. God the Son was always fully God. The translation “the Ward was God” has been challenged by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who translate it “the Word was a god”, implying that the Word was simply a heavenly being but not fully divine. They justify this translation by pointing to the fact that the definite article (Gk. Ho, “the”) does not occur before the Greek word “theos” (“God”). They say therefore that theos should be translated “a god.” However, their interpretation has been followed by no recognized Greek scholar anywhere, for it is commonly known that the sentence follows a regular rule of Greek grammar, and the absence of the definite article merely indicates that “God” is the predicate rather than the subject of the sentence. John 20:28 in its context is also a strong proof for the deity of Christ. Thomas had doubted the reports of the other disciples that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and he said he would not believe unless he could see the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and place his hand in his wounded side (John 20:25). Then Jesus appeared to the disciples when Thomas was with them. Ha said Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side’ do not faithless, but believing” (John. 20:27). In response to this, we read, “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my Lord!’” (John 20:28). Here Thomas calls Jesus “my God.” The narrative shows that both John in writing his gospel and Jesus himself approve of what Thomas has said and encourage everyone who hears about Thomas to believe the same things that Thomas did. Jesus immediately responds to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). Other passages speaking of Jesus as fully divine include Hebrews 1:3, where the author says that Christ is the “exact representation” (Gk. charaktēr, “exact duplicate”) of the nature or being (Gk. hypostasis) of God – meaning that God the Son exactly duplicates the being of nature of God the Father in every way: whatever attributes or power God the Father has, God the Son has them as well. The author goes on to refer to the Son as “God” in verse 8 (“But of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever’”), and he attributes the creation of the heavens to Christ when he says of him, “You, Lord, did found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands” (Heb. 1:10, quoting Ps. 102:25). Titus 2:13 refers to “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”, and 2 Peter 1:1 speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Romans 9:5, speaking of the Jewish people, says, “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen (NIV). [The marginal reading in the NIV is similar to the reading in the main text of the RSV, which is, “and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 9:5 RSV). But this translation is far less likely on grammatical and contextual grounds and is justified primarily by arguing that Paul would not have referred to Christ as “God.” The NIV translation, which refers to Christ as “God over all”, is preferable because (1) Paul’s normal pattern is to declare a word of blessing concerning the person about whom he has just been speaking, who in this case is Christ; (2) the Greek participle ōn, “being”, which makes the phrase say literally, “who, being God over all is blessed forever”, would be redundant if Paul were starting a new sentence as the RSV has it; (3) when Paul elsewhere begins a new sentence with a word of blessing to God, the word “blessed” comes first in the Greek sentence (see 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; cf. Peter’s pattern in 1 Pet. 1:3), but here the expression does not follow that pattern, making the RSV translation unlikely. See Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology, (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1981), pp. 339-40]. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, (Norton Street, Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2007), pp. 226-232, 234-236.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 18:14:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015