The Forgotten Trinity

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Book: Read The Forgotten Trinity for Free Online
Authors: James R. White
Tags: Non-Fiction
this passage to lay out an entire discourse on the nature of God. He is instead addressing the matter of
worship. But in doing so, He bases His teaching upon a belief that was
a given, a truth that had been revealed in the Scriptures long before:
God is not limited to time and space. He, unlike man, is spirit, and His
worship cannot be limited to a particular place. Some of the Old Testament passages that informed the people of this truth include these
words from Jeremiah:
    "Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?"
declares the LORD. "Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:24)
    Likewise, Solomon knew the truth that no man-made temple could
contain God's presence:
    "But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how
much less this house which I have built" (2 Chronicles 6:18).
    God's omnipresence flows from the fact that He created all things: how
could His creation be greater than He? How could there be anyplace
in His creation beyond His presence?
    God's being is not limited. And since God is omnipresent, another
important truth can be seen: God's being cannot be divided. What is
half of omnipresence? How can the infinite be divided into parts? We
will see why this is important when we consider how all the fullness
of the being of God is shared completely by each of the Divine Persons
of the Trinity.
    BEYOND THE REALM OF TIME
    We have already seen a number of passages witness to the eternal
nature of God. One of the clearest comes from Moses:

    Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting,' You are God.
(Psalm 90:2)
    From everlasting to everlasting. Without limitation. God has existed as
God eternally. There has never been a time when God was not God.
    For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever,
whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also
with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of
the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).
    "Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work
of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; and all of
them will wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change
them and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your
years will not come to an end" (Psalm 102:25-27).
    The psalmist here makes the same contrast that Moses made in Psalm
90:2: creation is temporal, passing, and limited. God, the true God, is
none of those things.
    We struggle with God's eternity. We cannot grasp it. Our lives are
conditioned by the passing of time. Our language itself is based upon
tenses: past, present, future. We are creatures, and as such, we have
been created to exist temporally, that is, within the realm of time. God
is not a creature and does not exist temporally, but eternally. Rather
than thinking of eternity as a long, long time, think of it here as a way
of existence that does not involve a progression of events and moments. That is how God lives. He defies our categories and our feeble
efforts to comprehend Him. If He didn't, He wouldn't be God. And if
we struggle mightily to even begin to envision the eternity of God,
which is part of the most basic truth He has revealed about himself,
how can we expect to probe all the recesses of His highest revelation,
His Triune nature?
    Since God exists eternally He is unchanging. He is not growing,
progressing, evolving, or in any way moving from a state of imperfection to a state of perfection. This is the teaching of the Scriptures. In deed, the very fact that God is unchangingly faithful to His promises
to Israel is based upon the understanding that Yahweh himself does
not change with time:

    "For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, 0 sons of
Jacob, are not consumed" (Malachi 3:6).
    God says He does not change. Change

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