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See: http://religiousliberty.tv/address-j-brent-walker-“church-and-state-in-the-usa-promises-and-challenges”.html

i believe there is powerful eternal love that passes between all three members of the Godhead, each one self existent. then there is matchless pure giving love from all three towards all creation. To imagine how selfishness developed in the heart of a created being in the presence of such love is beyond comprehension. it is called the mystery of iniquity. Then the response to the deception, lies, and misrepresentation of such love called upon love to express itself in ways never seen or heard or known, or could be known in any other way. Love is completely selfless, and willing to suffering and deny every comfort to bless those suffering from the power of selfishness. After a few billion eons of eternity the revelation of divine love towards the undeserving will not have lost any of it's luster. To think we are called to be in such so close relation to the trinity by one of the members of God becoming human and still being divine. The head of the human race is a member of the divine God head. God joined himself to us, at great cost to save us, there could be found no other way. And in this lofty position he stoops to comfort, wash, and serve the humblest, degraded, fallen members of His creation, with joy.

This a HUGE thing for me. This TRINITY thing. The way I understand God is all about the Trinity. 1 John sums up God's Being as pure 100% Selfless Love. In 1 Cor13 ( the love chapter) you literally see a piece by piece layered description of God's Character. And it all about selflessness and giving and serving another. Love is defined in that chapter .... as but there is at least One Other Person in the room. Being Love in action. As long as God has been alive ( ) for eternity past beyond the eons.. God has had a Love. You just cant sit there alone and love and serve and give to yourself in a vacuum ( naturally not speaking of self esteem or well regard for own welfare. ) The exercise of love gives depth and focus and purpose. It is shared giving and it being returned between the two. But wait! That can be selfish too! Ever have a single or divorced friend suddenly fall googly eyes over someone and you suddenly dont hear from them? Or when the new couple invited over (in the fresh newly both smitten kind) ..esp when young - are locked into each other to the exclusion of the world. Wearing matching tops? Always holding each others hands/won't leave each others side! Brag about a trinket/ring or showing off hickeys as a sign of ownership. Talk about the Other all time when Other is away. It can be like no one else existed. BTW ..all adorable and cute and expected. As love as love is .. it can be pretty exclusive. At least for awhile. Ahhh.. But what of a Third Party? It is not just a set of eyes lovingly staring at another set of eyes. The eyes are bouncing around in a Perfect Triune Circle. All ways giving and passing and receiving. I believe for Eternity there was/is/always be Three in complete harmony and devotion. This love was so good and so hot that it had to be expanded and Creation was naturally born from it. It had to give and serve more beings. Actually when all is said and done .. All will be included in the Godhead!!! It's the actual Good News to all of humanity. We are included in this Inner Wholly Circle. And this love..this precious precious Love ..will compel us to LENS every person as part of The BELOVED. In this we actually do really share the Gospel. Three connected like One Body.. yet separate Entities. God names us as part of the Body. His Body. (Which btw was also given to us literally in the Symbol of The Las Supper) I hope I'm making sense. I love talking about my God. Everyday i hope to catch this Image ..An ultimate selfless all serving all forgiving all sharing God. I fail miserably but Gods got it covered with His LOVE..

It's seven. The one and six are opposite each other, the two and five and the three and four.

Of course not. The problem with your arguments is that you do not enough see that it is only one God when we get outside of time and space, but the 3 beings of the trinity are just 3 simultaneous self revelations of that one God, just as if you had a glass of water that represents time and space and you are outside of time and space and put 3 fingers in the water. You are guilty as to what I said earlier about us trying to define God metaphysically, instead of leaving the metaphysical be simply "Holy, Holy, Holy" and that this "Holy, Holy, Holy" manifests him/her self to us in relationship through the trinity, two objective and one subjective manifestation.

There are two ways how I see this. First, a number of our pioneers questioned the trinity and went to sleep as non-Trinitarians; our official pastors were encouraged to preach against the trinity, however it was not a point that would be listed in lists of what we believed and our members were free to be either Trinitarian or non-Trinitarian according to their understanding of the scriptures. But on the other hand, both as we learn more about Old Testament imagery and thought processes, and even ancient imagery of the more eastern world and through processes and Mrs. White's philosophy the trinity makes it clearer to understand. A big part of our problem is that we are Greeks. We think metaphysically. We try to define God in metaphysically. What God is in and of God's self. And trying to fit the 3 in 1 is difficult when we are trying to make that define God in and of God's self as the good Greek thinkers that we are. Hebrew though on the other hand is focused more on how we relate to someone or something rather than describing the thing or person in and of themselves. Sadly I don't know the rabbi's name, but one of my professors, Dr. Jim Fleming, taught in Hebrew University in Jerusalem Israel. One of his colleagues on the faculty of Hebrew University was a rabbi noted to be the world's leading scholar of second temple Judaism. Dr. Fleming said that this rabbi says that the concept of the trinity was developed by the rabbis of the second temple to explain the Old Testament to a more Greek and western thinking world. And that there was a way that the Jews and early Christians, until the year 135 AD understood Monotheism and the trinity. In AD 135 the church and synagogue split into two different religions. This was a sad time in the history of God's people. It was very much like a divorce with both sides saying and doing things that pained the other and both sides being hurt in the process and many of our beliefs that we held in common were either divided up between us or split between us so that what the two religions had there after was not what we both had before. We kept some beliefs that the Jews gave up and we gave up some beliefs that the Jews kept, and others were divided in half. The trinity was one of those that were divided in half between us with the church latching on to the Threeness and the Jews latching on to the oneness. According to Dr. Flemming we do find with in some of the understandings of the Eastern Orthodox church of the trinity remnants of the former Jewish view. What is interesting is that this view also reflects Mrs. White's view of the trinity. Sadly we try to fit in the Western Roman Catholic views of the trinity. The Roman Catholic view is that the metaphysics of God is that we have one God in three persons. It is compared to how one clover has three leaves, or one rope with three strands. This is an incomplete view and thus confusing. Continued in Part 2

Lori: You are clearly correct as to a standard meaning for the term. My concern and response was related to how you used it. You were clear is stating that it was the you tube video that was based on the work of Alexander Hislop that was the source for your belief that the Trinity doctrine was not salvational. You then suggested that we watch the video. To start off, I have a problem with any suggestion that ones doctrinal belief should be based upon a source other than the Bible. In addition, when that suggested source is as faulty as is Hislop, I am much more opposed to that idea. If you had told us that that based upon your understanding of the Bible, you do not believe that the Trinity doctrine is salvational I would have agreed that at least you were suggesting a proper standard for determining such a belief. But, I cannot agree that Hislop should ever be a standard to determine what is salvational. That is exactly what you did when you said:

Lori said below: That is exactly what you have done. You are telling us that an extra-biblical you tube video has defined a salvational issue for you!

More on Alexander Hislop: He died in 1865. He is best known for his 323 page book entitled The Two Babylons. This book went through multiple editions with the final 1919 (on the title page listed as 1916) edition consisting of some 500 pages. He has been soundly criticized for historical errors and lack of logic in some of the conclusions that he made. If you want to read his book it is on the Internet and available to all. The following URL does not give you his book, but it tells you something about his life and work. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Babylons

Lori, the fact that a Trinity existed in some early pagan religions does not prove that Christianity got it from that source. I will remind you that baptism existed in non-Christian religions well before in became a Christian practice. Hislop is an interesting historian. But, as you probably knew and did not tell us, he would almost be considered ancient. He is not correct in everything that he said/wrote.

I'm not real impressed with the video. There's some misinformation that's being given. (for example, "Wicca" is *not* a synonym for "witchcraft") The claim that the triune pagan gods are cause to discredit the idea of the Christian Trinity is, in my opinion, inane. The idea that anything that has pagan origins — holidays, worship, or anything in daily life — is a reason to throw up our hands and recede from reality, is poppycock. We worship on the Sabbath, Saturday or the pagan day of Saturn. the whole idea of "pastoring" and of giving sermons is of a pagan (Roman and Greek) origin... should we now dismiss the whole population of ministers and pastors and go back to the original Christian assemblage of worship, where everyone is a participant rather than a spectator?

" I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) "Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work." (John 14:8-10) If Jesus and the Father are One, their Spirits can also be One. But I no longer believe that the Spirit is a separate being. When I get to the Kingdom, if Jesus tells me I'm wrong, I can be swayed.

Not rejecting the EXISTENCE of the spirit. Just denying its existence as a THIRD divine being. Only TWO divine beings are worshiped in Scripture. If you can point to even ONE passage which commands either directly or by example that we worship, pray to, sing to, praise, thank or serve a third divine being - please give me the reference. Revelation 5:13 "And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I [John] heard saying: "Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, [Being #1] And to the Lamb, forever and ever!" [Being #2]

I wouldn't say SDA's are denying th existence of the HS as much as they are denying the explicit personhood of the HS. The Bible is clear that the Holy Spirit exists; but (to me at least) it is also clear that the HS in the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of God. "You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ." (Romans 8:9) "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." (Romans 8:11) "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." I Cor. 6:11) "You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, (II Cor.3:3) "for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance." (Phil 1:19) "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Gen. 1:1) See also Gen. 41:38, Ex. 31:3 and 35:31, Numbers 24:2, 1 Sam. 10:10 and 11:6, 2 Chron. 15:1 and 24:20, Job 33:4, and Psalm 106:33 for just a small sample of scriptures pointing to the HS being the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ.