Genesis 1:26
‘… God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, to be like us…”’
Christian theologians call God as the Trinity. The plural “… us…” in Genesis 1:26 was said [NET Bible Commentaries] to (1) symbolise majesty, (2) represent God inviting the heavenly host to witness his creating mankind, assuming that all beings invited share his divine image in some way, or (3) reveal the Trinity; for the third interpretation:
“When St. Patrick first brought Christianity to Ireland, it is said that he used a clover leaf to explain the Trinity to new converts: three separate leaves, combined in only one plant. Others have used the sun to illustrate the Trinity: The sun is an object in space, but it also produces both light and heat – yet it is still one. Water can be a solid or a liquid or a gas, but it is all water…” Billy Graham wrote in his book The Journey, “… These illustrations may help us understand the truth of the Trinity, but none of them fully explains it. Ultimately it is a mystery we will never fully understand this side of heaven… We worship God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for that is who He is: the Holy Trinity.” Bill also quoted Paul:
“Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully…”
– Paul [1Corinth 13:12]
If anyone or anything causes us to doubt such doctrine, we ought not to yield or be discouraged; “… the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive… you recognise him, because he lives with you and will be in you. I am not going to forsake you like orphans… you will know that I am in my Father, that you are in me, and that I am in you” [John 14]. Only believe!
Once I tried to trace the history of the Church at large, and it is all so complicated. New doctrines are founded, challenging the status-quo understanding about God. Nevertheless, I believe the Trinity is more than a traditional doctrine; sometimes I do wonder: God allows the Western or Roman Catholics (from which also comes the Protestant in the 1600′s) and the Eastern Orthodox share the same main-stream doctrines based on the Nicene Creed, and isn’t it important to understand this history and grand work of God?
Denominations such as Oneness Pentacostalism, True Jesus Church and so on; if we do not examine their history and foundation, we can hardly distinguish them from the main-stream churches because their statements of faith seem so similiar with each other! I hope to understand more about why there is Church divisions/denominations, what leads to it, and the way to solve the problem, for example, through the Catholics’ (and other churches’) Ecumenism movement.
May God help all of us. Amen.