Christians? I'm Confused By This Verse? Can You Help?

I applaud you for noticing this. This is just one of many verses that conflict with the teaching of the trinity. There is not a single verse of scripture that says God exists as separate persons. Instead, over and over, it emphasizes that God is only one.

Jesus is indeed the Father... in flesh. Get you Bible and follow along with these verses:

God exists as one Spirit: (John 4:24; Eph. 4:4)

Because God is a Spirit, and is holy by nature, the term Holy Spirit refers to God Himself, not a third person or an "active force." Holy Spirit is a descriptive title that tells us who/what God is.

It was this same one Holy Spirit who caused Mary to conceive: (Mt. 1:18-20)

By simple logic then, we can see that it is the Holy Spirit who is the Father of Jesus, since it is the Holy Spirit who caused her to conceive. This means that Father and Holy Spirit are simply titles of one and the same Being, not two separate persons. (If they were separate persons, as trinitarianism teaches, then Jesus was calling the wrong person Father!)

If we look at Jesus first solely from the physical perspective, He was a man, fully human. This is the child who was born, the son who was given. Like all of us, He got hungry, thirsty, tired, etc. He had limited knowledge and prayed to His Father (the one Spirit). When the time came, it was this human being who suffered and died for our sins. (By definition, God is immortal and cannot die.)

But that's just the physical perspective. Let's look at the other side:

God was revealed in flesh. God was literally IN Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to Himself: 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:19

What this means is that God, the same one Spirit who is the Father of Jesus chose to dwell in the body of His son. As a result, Jesus had a dual nature: On the one hand, he's the son of God and Mary, a human being like us who lived, prayed, suffered, died and rose from the dead. But He is also the one true God in flesh.

This fulfills the other part of Isaiah's prophecy: Jesus is both Mighty God and Everlasting Father. Jesus Himself told us that we have only one Father, that is, God. So if Jesus is not that same one Father come to earth in flesh, then Isaiah was mixed up. But when Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus looked at him and said, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know Me? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. So how can you say 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:8-9)

Jesus confirmed that He was God in John 8:58, when He identified Himself as I AM.

Col. 2:9 tells us that ALL the fullness of the Godhead (not just one person of it) lives in the body of Jesus.

In Mt. 28:19, Jesus told the disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. But when the time came to baptize, His disciples baptized using only the name of Jesus. (Acts chapters 2, 8, 10, 19 & 22) Why? Because Jesus didn't tell them to baptize in any of God's titles, but in the one NAME of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We've already seen that those aren't separate persons, but titles of the one Spirit who took on flesh. So they obeyed the command by using the name of Jesus. Titles have no power to save us. Only the name of Jesus can do that. (Acts 4:12)

Most of the terminology of trinitarian teaching is not found in the Bible, including persons, eternally begotten, co-equal, Trinity, triune, etc. These words all come from creeds of later centuries. The Athanasian creed is the one that most fully defines the doctrine of the trinity. But if you read it in the original Latin, it contradicts not only the Bible, but also itself. At one point, it admits we have to acknowledge individually three gods and three lords, but then hastens to add that we aren't allowed to SAY three gods or three lords!

There was so little support for the idea of a trinity that in the early medieval period someone added a new verse to one of the epistles in a Latin manuscript. It didn't make it into a Greek manuscript until the 11th century, where someone scribbled it in the margin. There is no doubt the verse is a fraud, and not even trinitarian scholars accept it as valid. 1 John 5:7 http://www.bible-researcher.com/comma.html

Jesus is called "Everlasting Father" in the sense that the Almighty God has given him the power and authority to give humans everlasting life. Notice what it says at 1 Corinthians 15: 24,25: "Next, the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power. For he must rule as king until [God]* has put all enemies under his feet." From this verse we can understand that God, the Father, gave the Son power to rule over Earth. Jesus is A father in a sense, but is not THE Almighty father.

As you stated, the Father is not the Son and visa versa. This is because in actuality, the idea of the Trinity is not found in the Bible. Notice what The New Encyclopædia Britannica says about the history of the Trinity: “Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deut. 6:4). . . . The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. . . . By the end of the 4th century . . . the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since.”—(1976), Micropædia, Vol. X, p. 126.

Consider another verse that sheds light on the subject. Colossians 1:15 states "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn+ of all creation." Jesus was the first thing God created, so he had a beginning. At Psalm 90:2 it states that "Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God." Jehovah God has always existed, he has no beginning. Therefore the Almighty God and Jesus cannot be the same person.

Dear Friend,

God is a Triune God. Which means He is Three Spiritual "Persons" in One called the Trinity (in One).

The Trinity is: God the Father, Jehovah. God the Son, Jesus (Savior/Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit (all Power).

If you take an egg, it has three parts, the shell, the yolk and the white. Yet they can be used together and/or separately, yet it is called one egg.

The Three Spiritual Persons in the Trinity can also be used independently one from the other or together as...One.

and yes...Isaiah 9:6 says, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

This verse illustrates Jesus as God. That God who is Holy, Just and Righteous came to earth...clothed as a sinless Man (Jesus) to pay the debt of sin that man could not.

The Word became "flesh" my friend, and His name is...Jesus (Savior/Redeemer). The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are...One.

Blessings,

Check out Colossians 1:13-19 and things might become clearer.

Break down the Isaiah verse:

the child-son who is born-given unto us shall be known as the mighty God and everlasting Father.

Isn't that now a prophecy fulfilled? Jesus is recognized as the fullness of God.

Look specifically at John 14:16,18, & 20 and you will see that you cannot have one member of the Trinity without the presence of the other two as well.

At Isaiah 9:6, the Bible talks about the Ruler of this government. Notice what it says about him: “There has been a child born to us, . . . and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called . . . Prince of Peace.”

Do you know what a prince is?— Yes, he is the son of a king. Who is the supreme heavenly King?— You are right if you said Jehovah. The Bible calls him “the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83:18) In the Bible, Jesus is often called “the Son of God.” One reason is that Jehovah gave Jesus life. Jehovah is Jesus’ real Father.—Luke 1:34, 35; John 1:34, 49; 3:17; 11:27; 20:31; Acts 9:20.

God’s Kingdom, which Jesus taught us to pray for, is a special kind of government. It is a “princely rule” because Jehovah makes his Son, Jesus, the Ruler, or King, of the Kingdom.

Don't get yourself tied up over words... just because we use the name Father for our male parent that isn't what we mean when speaking about God. The same applies to Son and thankfully we usually say Holy before Spirit otherwise we might get confused with alcohol. The trinity is God in 3 person or 3 aspects or 3 characteristics.

Jesus also said I and the Father are one, whoever has seen the Father has seen me and whoever has seen me has seen the Father. When He was nailed to the cross He called out Father why have you forsaken me, In the garden He said not my will but yours. Yes logically we would say He was talking to Himself. Clearly Jesus (fully human and fully divine) spoke to His Father indicating that during His time here on earth they were separated yet clearly linked. It makes sense when we understand the nature of God and of sin... that God and sin just can't be in the same place as each other. Somehow the Holy Spirit is able to reach us in a spiritual dimension, it touches our soul and teaches us, leads us, lifts us... but is never part of this world.

One thing I know for sure, God is always consistent, never changing...the very epitome of integrity. The trinity works... it makes sense of the different natures or faces we see of the same one Almighty God. People are confounded and confused when they struggle with understanding how God can be different and yet claim to be the same... the trinity makes sense of it.

Christians traditionally,since early in their history, have taken this verse as a prophecy of Jesus. But Isaiah wrote over six centuries before Jesus--and over a thousand years before the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. The concept hadn't been formed. He certainly couldn't have intentionally expressed it.

A modern Jewish translation renders this verse:

For a child has been born to us,

A son has been given us,

And authority has settled on his shoulders.

He has been named

"The Mighty God is planning grace;

The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler"

-- Jewish Publications Society translation

In their view each line is ONE name. The concepts of something wonderful (i.e., God's grace), counselling or planning, and Mighty God have been rolled into one name: "The Mighty God is planning grace."

The concepts of eternity, God as father figure, and peace as a principle produce another name:

"The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler."

These may seem awfully clumsy names, but in chapter 8, Isaiah was told to name his own child "Pillage hastens, looting speeds" to commemorate one of his prophecies of disaster. The guy was into that sort of names.

There's nothing particularly wrong with Christians regarding this passage as in some way setting a context for the Messiah (Greek "Christ"; i.e., Jesus). But expecting it to reflect fourth-century Christian theology, when it was written in the seventh century BCE, is expecting way too much.

Because Jesus is God Almighty! He has a dual nature......He was both God and man when He came to this earth. It is one God-but 3 persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Understanding the Father-Son distinction as an existential distinction between the uni-personal God's two modes of existence is not akin to Trinitarianism. As opposed to Trinitarian theology which posits three persons in the Godhead respectively, Oneness believers acknowledge only one divine person, but see that one person coming to exist in two distinct ways after the incarnation. The incarnation did not create a second divine person; it simply changed the one person’s manner of existence. What is being distinguished is the manner in which the one divine person has come to exist/function, not the person Himself. When God became a man in the incarnation He began to exist as man in addition to His existence as God. Jesus is the same personal God, but existing in a new way (as man).

Trinitarianism holds that there are three eternally distinct persons within the one essence of God. Oneness theology, however, admits no such personal distinctions within God.

Whereas in Trinitarian theology the Father-Son distinction is between two divine persons, in Oneness theology the Father-Son distinction is between the one divine person’s divine and human modes of existence.

Whereas in Trinitarian theology the Father-Son distinction is eternal in duration, in Oneness theology the Father-Son distinction comes into existence only at the incarnation. Whereas the Trinitarian distinction is eternal and unrelated to the incarnation, in Oneness theology the distinction is temporal and exclusively bound up in the incarnation.

http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/ugstsymposium.ht...

The word father in this verse can also be translated chief, forefather, principle or leader. As in head of the household. Christ is the head of the church.