Sunday, May 07, 2006

Trinitarian vs Oneness Doctrine

I believe that the Lord my God is one God. Explaining how the Father, Son and Holy Ghost as represented in the Bible is ONE GOD is something that has probably proven challenging for laymen and theologians alike. I have never given it much thought except to think that however you explain it the bottom line must be THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD. Not “one” in terms of purpose as some may postulate but ONE IN BEING. That being said the Bible speaks about the Godhead, which we see manifested in all its forms at one time after Christ was baptized. Jesus rose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended bodily and the Father spoke from heaven. Apparently this is hard for some to accept and still hold to the ‘One God’ doctrine but personally I am of the view that it is not for me to conform God to what I can comprehend but to understand that ‘his ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts higher than my thoughts.’

Tied to this is the issue of baptism and whether to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost or in the name of Jesus. This is the question that arose and had our pastor explaining to us that we (the church) follow the apostolic doctrine and hence baptize ‘in the name of Jesus.’ I’ve never considered these issues so I decided to do some research on the internet about the subject. This brought up the Trinitarian vs Oneness issue that I was previously unaware even existed. So I am doing some reading about these issues but one thing I am sure about: there is only ONE GOD.

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