 Posted Monday, January 19, 2009 9:32 PM
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I've been lurking here on almost a daily basis for a couple of months now. At the risk of sounding like a Wednesday evening testimony... I'm really grateful to have found this forum!!
It's been a couple of years now since I last attended a CS church, but it's only been within the past couple months that I've withdrawn my MC membership and started to explore other religions beliefs/churches. I've found though that after completely ignoring CS and religion in general for two years, I have a lot of baggage from CS that I never realized was there. In essence, I've been living in denial... a "natural" coping mechanism I apparently picked up from years of Christian Science lifestyle! It feels as if I have to de-program my entire way of thinking and viewing the world!
The concept that currently eludes me is the idea of a Trinity. I just don't understand the idea that God is three different persons but one being. How is that possible? I feel stupid for not getting it - but after years of being told that Jesus is not God, and reading Bible passages that refer to Jesus as the Son of God, I'm really struggling to understand this core Christian concept. I'm hoping that somebody here could take a stab at explaining it, or recommend a book/website/article for me.
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Posted Monday, January 19, 2009 10:58 PM
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Elbee,
Welcome!
The concept that currently eludes me is the idea of a Trinity. I just don't understand the idea that God is three different persons but one being. How is that possible? I feel stupid for not getting it - but after years of being told that Jesus is not God, and reading Bible passages that refer to Jesus as the Son of God, I'm really struggling to understand this core Christian concept. I'm hoping that somebody here could take a stab at explaining it, or recommend a book/website/article for me.
The Trinity can be a tough concept. Most Christians admit to struggling with it.
The simplest explanation I can offer that I think has helped me begin to understand the Trinity is relative to my own identity that takes on many perspectives depending on function. All of the following are the same person:
Do Go Be Man the Web Forum Co-moderator
Do Go Be Man the Husband of Mrs. Do Go Be Man
Do Go Be Man the Father of My Children
Do Go Be Man the Son of My Parents
Do Go Be Man the Deacon of My Church
Do Go Be Man the Employee of My Boss
... and so on. As Do Go Be Man is not my legal name, I also have an identity not known to most on these forums.
Christian Science has a similar concept in the Seven Synonyms. Mary Baker Eddy is also known by various names including Discoverer, Founder, Pastor Emeritus, Mother, Author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Miss Baker, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Patterson, Mrs. Eddy, etc.
As to helpful resources, I found John 1:1-18 quite useful when I carefully followed the equivalences from Word to God to flesh.
I've found Reform theology to be the flavor of Christianity that makes the most sense to me. Pastor R.C. Sproul, founder of Ligonier Ministries, provides good teaching that I enjoy and find in line with the Bible. His podcasts and lots of resources are free. His books are good and not usually overpriced. You might consider Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. I subscribe to Tabletalk Magazine from Ligonier that includes easy to digest articles and devotionals.
The Bible itself is always your best resource. I recommend to those coming out of Christian Science that they consider a translation other than the King James to avoid echoes of old teaching. I prefer the English Standard Version (ESV). You can access quite a few English and other language translations including the ESV at Biblegateway.org.
Read the full context of what the Bible offers including the surrounding words as well as the historical, cultural, and grammatical contexts. Do not cherry pick, dig in.
I have a study Bible edited by Pastor Sproul with notes reflecting Reform theology. Be careful, however, with study Bibles and other writings that they do not replace direct study of the Bible.
Do Go Be Man
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Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2009 1:01 PM
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Welcome!
I, too, am a former Christian Scientist. It's been about 13 years now. A few years ago now, I found Christ and a new church home. However, there was a time when I didn't understand the trinity very well either and I still find it kind of hard to explain. However, there was a radio program that helped me a lot a while back. It was clear and concise and made good sense to me at the time.
It was on a radio program called "Haven Today" and I just looked in the archives on their website: www.haventoday.org and searched "Trinity Program" in the archives and found a portion of it written out. I've cut and pasted a a few of the sections below for you. There is more there if you want to look it up. (Moderators: I'm not sure if it is ok to copy this info from one website onto here. If not, please edit me or delete me accordingly. Thanks!)
This is what it says:
"2. What is the Trinity?
The doctrine of the Trinity affirms three true things about God:
1. There is one God
2. This God eternally exists as three persons - The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
3. The three persons are equally divine
These three truths are like three sides of a triangle as soon as you take one away you lose the truth about God as Jesus revealed it. The mystery of God is not fully explained by these three statements but the truth about him is preserved within the triangle of these statements --which is why the early church knew how important they were."
I cut out a portion of the program here because I thought it might be too wordy. You can look it up and see if it helps in your understanding further if you'd like. It goes on to say:
"3. Does the Trinity matter to me?
Yes! You cannot understand your salvation unless you understand it in terms of the trinity. When Jesus came he drew back the veil on the mystery of God and showed us that the living God is not a solitary, monolithic being. Within God, from all eternity, there was a relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit.
God's purpose is to bring us into that relationship � to include us in that joyous fellowship.
In order to bring us into that relationship, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all work together. Listen to how the Trinity works for us in our salvation --
Gal. 4:4-7 "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."
The Son took on our flesh and became one with us, not on his own initiative, but in obedience to the Father's will. He identified himself with us and paid the penalty for our sin so that, in Him, we could be brought into the relationship of sonship with the Father and share his rich inheritance with us. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are united to him and adopted by the Father as his children and heirs. And together both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit into us so we can experience the reality of that relationship. The Spirit is the Spirit of Sonship. He causes our hearts to call God "Abba, Father," which is the same term Jesus used to speak to his Father in heaven.
In other words, in Christ we are heirs of the Son's relationship with the Father through the gift of the Spirit! Our salvation is all about the Trinity! I can't explore everything Jesus showed us about his relationship with the Father but listen to how he prays for us in John 17: 5, 13, 20-23 --
"And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began . . . I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them . . . My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
gle of these statements --which is why the early church knew how important they were.""
I hope that helps explain it for you.
Again, welcome to Christianway.org!
Grace
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Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2009 5:52 PM
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| Welcome to the forums, Elbee! The concept that currently eludes me is the idea of a Trinity. I just don't understand the idea that God is three different persons but one being. Don't feel bad -- the Trinity can be hard to comprehend. It started making sense to me when I looked at what the Bible says about the Father, about Jesus, and about the Holy Spirit and saw that they are all given attributes that can only belong go God. If I didn't know about Jesus or the Father and read only the verses about the Holy Spirit, I would probably conclude that the Holy Spirit is the one "God" being referred to. I would reach the same conclusion about the Father if I only read verses about him, and I would conclude that Jesus is "God" if I read only the verses referring to him (after all, the Bible describes Jesus as eternally existent, as the creator of all things, as the sustainer of all things, as claiming an authority to forgive sins that the Jewish scribes considered blasphemous, and as claiming and doing other very godlike things). If the Bible says there is only one God and then writes about the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus as if they are all God, then I have to conclude that there's such a thing as the Trinity. The Christian Way Web site has a section entitled "CS and the Bible" that has sections dealing with the deity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You can link to them here.
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Posted Wednesday, January 21, 2009 5:40 PM
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Hi, I'm Peggy-Sue inDuncan, SC....30 years in, born and raised, and only 2 and 1/2 years out.
This helped me to understand the concept of the Trinity:
It's like ice, water and steam. They are the same in substance but in different forms. They are 1 but 3. This concept really helped me.
Maybe you can help me....I am still under bondage in a lot of ways from CS. ...Moderator's note: the rest of this comment was moved to the "Recovery" category and is posted at the top of the thread enitled Depression and fear after CS.
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Posted Friday, February 20, 2009 11:29 PM
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Dear Elbee,
I just got on this site today... but I've been out of Christian Science since 1992. (Originally joined in 1978)
The idea of the Father in Heaven being God is pretty easy for us, right? And what (former) Christian Scientist could argue with the Holy Spirit? Well, you know what I mean. With all the synonyms they give for God's name, it's not too far of a leap. The problem for me, up until 1990 was the part about who Jesus was/is. There's a short, potent book on the market, "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. It should help you get that part squared away. Christians ALL seem to get this part easily, but we who were raised in Christian Science gag on the divinity of Jesus. When I got done reading that little book, I got busy and started praying about it. I'd go as long as it took to get an answer, or come across the answer... On the 10th day, I got it. While it may not make sense to mainstream Christians, it's what I needed to hear to "get it" and get on board.
The neat part about a "mystery" is that we don't have to understand it exactly to be blessed by it or believe it. That's probably part of the reason Trinity is considered a mystery. Even if we did "know" what it meant, we'd still be relatively clueless compared to what it IS. I just figured there's limit to what human language can express.
My recommendation is read! Ask God for guidance, double check that it's not something that conflicts with the Bible, and then READ until you find your answers. (God doesn't mind us making sure it's from Him.)
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