Pretty good exegesis and I would have no problem with your conclusions. However I still like the example I give for the children because anyone can “get it”. The question on the Trinity is, “How can three persons be one?” Consider an Apple. Seed, flesh, peel. Three aspects, one thing. Seed contains the life force. Flesh is fruit of life. Peel is the protector of life. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three aspects of one being, and as you said, outside of time.
What I was trying to overcome is the sterility of the ultra precise verbiage found in the creeds and that I feel also communicate error.
The Chalcedon Creed asserts that Jesus had both a God nature and a human nature with Jesus switching between the two modes. That is a pointless invention and just plain wrong. Jesus didn’t have two natures, He was just Himself.
The Nicean Creed says that Jesus and the Father were different persons but were both made out of the same “stuff”
In the interest of stating my post simply:
Jesus is the I AM of God within time. The Father is the Great I AM beyond time.
Still hard to understand I suppose, but a lot shorter.
I like how the explanation I’ve offered demolishes the Islamist’s argument that Christians are polytheist pagans. Also skeptics have sport ridiculing the notion that God provided a hapless whipping boy that He could vent His anger upon because God loved us SO much. That ridicule is answered well by the explanation above.
Regards...
Give a kid a cookie. Divide it into three and tell him he's got three cookies. Kids would be onto that scam lickety-split. Adults, well they've got their trinity cookie. It can do the most... unnatural things. Because the adults say so.
Meanwhile, over in the kiddie play corner...the children recognize that
The Messiah *is* the Law: the embodiment of it. He just does it. It's his character, his very identity: it is simply WHO HE IS. He has compassion on people and just wants to heal them. Loving, conscientious, pays close attention. Really into his work. Driven to get things just right. He desires to rectify what doesn't work right, to put everything in proper order, because it is the only way. Like father like son. This guy cares. He loves the kids. He is not interested in tricking them. He has the work ethic and sincerity and love all can see and emulate if they so choose.
And every kid knows, "You don't mess with the Law." Oh, they'll test the authority and probe for the boundaries, but they learn which adult deserves their respect, and which to put on "ignore". The ones telling them that the peel is a whole apple, are going to ever wonder why those insolent kids won't mind them. And when those adults become teachers, there's already a saying for them: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
Simple folks can discern that the most humble man on the face of the earth isn't the one going around showing people that he is God. The one who desires to play up to expectations, though... yeah, he'll do exactly that. Give them what they want. Let the market decide.
Eh, what is so complicated? Every day life bears witness to simple truths.
Yet there are these complex, mysterious doctrines. One can study the dogmas in great detail until the cows come home and never learn a thing. Or he can pay attention to what the Redeemer is DOing, which shows where his heart is, and what the results of the outworking of that heart are, and go do that, basking in all that light. The joy of simplicity. People can get pretty motivated when they realize that something isn't so hard after all.
The Wile E. Coyotes of this world are doomed to get what is owed to them, by the works of their own hands (or lack thereof). Pharaoh's death decree to Hebrew infants is what put Moses in the basket, causing him to be picked up and raised in pharaoh's own house, right under his nose. And even better, Moses' mother was paid by the palace to nurse her own son. Excellent! Moses ended up educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Inside track. See, if the pharaoh had known what he were really doing, he wouldn't have done that. Then there was Haman, who was determined to build his own gallows.
Those guys should have been paying attention.
Looney Tunes. Road Runner. The obvious child-like simplicity of the whole thing is going to offend the learned. Heads will explode but what to do. All that "knowledge and understanding", all that dedication to proving that which isn't so - *poof*. Worthless.
Gotta laugh.Well, not like it wasn't in the Book all along.
In Isaac shall Abraham's seed be called.
Isaac = "he laughs"
Heh, what's in a name?
I EXPECT that I might be allowed to understand some day if I get to heaven. If not, then that's God's plan and I am content with His plan. Why wouldn't I be?