Home Christian Writings The true meaning of the word ‘God’ – The Trinity Doctrine Page 13

The true meaning of the word ‘God’ – The Trinity Doctrine

Part 01 – The Trinity Doctrine
Part 02 – Who is the Most High God?
Part 03 – Who and what is Jesus?
Part 04 – The true meaning of ‘God’
Part 05 – Supporting the Trinity
Part 06 – Pre-Nicene writings
Part 07 – Development of the Trinity
Part 08 – Why challenge the Trinity
Part 09 – Trinity Doctrine conclusion
Part 10 – An Apostasy
Part 11 – 100 indisputable proof verses
Part 12 – What is your confession?
Part 13 – The Roman Catholic faith
Part 14 – Trinity Doctrine resources

An important but much overlooked fact when understanding the word ‘God ‘in the bible is that both the Old and New Testament are translated from a number of different words and each original Hebrew or Greek word for ‘God’ have a wide range of uses.

Theos

Theos {theh’-os} is by far the most common Greek word that we translate as God or god. Below are the possible meanings of the word ‘theos’.

1) a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities
3) spoken of the only and true God
3a) refers to the things of God
3b) his counsels, interests, things due to him
4) whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way
4a) God’s representative or viceregent
4a1) of magistrates and judges

So the Father is God because of his authority. However God the author also sends messengers with his authority, so when our Father anoints someone to speak His words, that person is can be given the title ‘god’ whether he be an angel or a man. Also, someone or something that takes takes the place of God is also called a god, in particular a false god. In addition, the word god can be used when describing something great, like a great earthquake.

Let’s now look at some biblical verses that apply the word God (Theos) to denote different identities or as a description.

Below we see a verse where the word ‘theos’ is used when referring to the Father.

The Father

Ephesians 1:3 (English-NIV)
Praise be to the God (theos) and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Satan

The word ‘theos’ in the next verse is used to describe Satan / The Devil as he is the god of this world/age.

2 Corinthians 4:4 (English-NIV)
The god (theos) of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (theos).

Man

The word (theos) is also used to describe man / judges.

John 10:34 (English-NIV)
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, `I have said you are gods (theos)’

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and again we see that the word “God” can apply to our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, Angelic & Demonic powers, mankind, idols, and even things or events.

El

The NIV & NASB translate the following 3 words as God “el” “eloah” & “elohim”
Each is a generic term, meaning “God” or “mighty one”.
Normally when one of these words occur in the OT, it designates either the true God or something that the pagan nations viewed as a god. In a few instances these words are also used of angels and human beings.

The Father

Below is a scripture that shows that the Father is God.

Malachi 2:10 (English-NIV)
Have we not all one Father ? Did not one God (El) create us?
Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

Jesus Christ

The next verse uses the Hebrew word “eloah” which used to describe Jesus.
We will be looking at this scripture in more depth in Part 5 (Scriptures used to support the Trinity Doctrine).

Isaiah 9:6 (English-NIV)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God (El), Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Idols

The following verse uses ‘Elohim’ to denote idols.

Exodus 20:23 (English-NIV)
Do not make any gods (Elohim) to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods (Elohim) of silver or gods (Elohim) of gold.

Elohim

The word “Elohim” is the most common word that is translated God in the Old Testament.

The Father

Genesis 1:1 (English-NIV) says:
In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.

Man / Judges

“Elohim” can also be ascribed to Man. See next the verse.

Psalms 82:6 (English-NIV)
“I said, `You are “gods” (Elohim); you are all sons of the Most High.’

When Jesus said “you are gods (theos)”, as quoted previously on this page, he was actually quoting the above Psalm.

Angels

And, angels are called gods in Psalm 97:7. This verse is actually quoted in the Hebrews 1:6 and it is referring to the Angels.

Psalm 97:7
All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols; worship him, all you gods (Elohim)!

Earthquake or City

Finally the word elohim can be used to describe something that was exceedingly great like an earthquake or a city.

1 Samuel 14:15
And there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among all the people: the garrison, and the spoilers, they also trembled, and the earth quaked: so it was a very great (elohim) trembling.

Jonah 3:3
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly (elohim) great city, a three days’ walk.

Conclusion

These scriptures clearly show us the wide usage of the word that we know as God/god. It is a term or title that is used to identify God but is not always used in that sense. Rather it is a term that can apply to many types of authority, to idols, and even to things that are very great.

When the word God is being used to identify an authority, it is important to read the context because The Most High God is completely different to the god of this age and saying that God is always the one true God of Heaven and Earth, then we can mistakenly make Satan the one true God. In other words the type of God that is being referred to is determined by the adjective or context of the sentence. It is incorrect to read the word ‘God’ as the Most High God in every case. In fact the very term ‘Most High God’ leads us to conclude that there must be lesser gods.

We know that the word ‘Elohim’ is a term or title and not a name, but does God have a name? Yes he does. ‘YHWH’ which is called the “tetragrammaton,” meaning “the four letters,” is the revealed name of God, which scholars translate as Yahweh, Jehovah, Yahvah amongst others. Knowing that there is no such letter in Hebrew that makes the sound of a ‘J’, there are many Hebrew names that contain an emphasis on the *Yah* sound. Even Jesus name in Hebrew has this sound. ‘Yahshua’ is Jesus name in Hebrew and it is where we get the English name Joshua. But the word Yahweh is not actually a translation of the tetragrammaton, it is a transliteration meaning the sounds of those original Hebrew letters have been reproduced into another language. Other biblical names that have been transliterated include: Abraham, which in Hebrew is pronounced Abrawhawm and Sarah is pronounced Sawraw. Today if the president of the USA goes to Germany they will pronounce his name rather than change it into a German word of the same meaning. In the same way ‘Yahweh’ should be pronounced exactly the same in all languages.

God first reveals his name in Exodus.3:15 and Psalm 135:13
And Elohim said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, YHWH, Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

God’s response to Moses, shows us clearly that ‘God’ (Elohim) is not a name, but a title and we saw earlier how this particular title can refer to others including men, angels, and false gods.

Understanding the usage of the word theos and elohim in scripture clearly shows that these words are ascribed to more than God Almighty, especially when there is mentions of another person or thing. And the assumption that all who are called theos that are not the Almighty are by reason of that, a false theos, is not true either. Scripture applies theos and elohim in a positive way to men and angels. And can an earthquake be a false God?

Knowing that the Father is predominately the one being referred to when we see the word God, as pointed out, it is not always exclusively the Father. How many times is Jesus called God? Well let’s put it into perspective. Overwhelmingly it is the Father. Secondly, the term is used of false gods. Finally Jesus, angels, men, and Satan are mentioned only once  to a few times.

Discussion

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  • June 16, 2016 at 8:50 am#814942
    942767
    Participant

    Hi hoghead1:

     

    Doesn’t saying the “Word was God” make it clear the Word is God?  Why would it have to say the Was in the form of God?  I don’t follow you here.

     t8 uses Phillipians 2:6 to justify his belief that Jesus pre-existed, and he believes that Jesus is “the Logos” in John 1.
    June 16, 2016 at 9:15 am#814944
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi ,

    phil 2 speaks of the Spirit that anointed and made a human vessel into the living Word.

    John testified about this in his first letter

    June 16, 2016 at 1:28 pm#814950
    hoghead1
    Participant

    I’m not sure what John you are referring to here.  If this is I Jn., you are probably referring to the Johannie Comma, which is a much later tampering with Scripture by Trinitarians.  It is not in the early Bibles.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:29 pm#814951
    hoghead1
    Participant

    I side with t8 on that.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:32 pm#814952
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello, Ed,

    My sources largely come from contemporary process theology and also the Christian mystical tradition, specifically Jacob Boehme and Meister Eckhart.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:36 pm#814953
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hi, Kerwin,

    The early Trinitarians identified Christ with God simply  because there is no way you could have all the qualities of God and not be God. That doesn’t even begin to make sense. Sorry, but it doesn’t.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:37 pm#814954
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi hoghead1,

    1Jn 1

    John wrote of touching the Word.

    The Word that was with God in the beginning.

    He spoke of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh at the Jordan.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:41 pm#814955
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello,  Nick,

    I never said that man is our only hope. Also, I don’t view all human speculations as merely carnal. If we can’t trust our speculations in any way, then all is lost, simply because all we have is human knowledge.  As I said before, we can’t step outside of our humanity.  Also, I don’t view carnality as inferior or ungodly.  That whole idea came from Hellenic standards of perfection whereby the whole temporal-material order is something grossly inferior, evil, a big illusion.

     

    June 16, 2016 at 2:29 pm#814961
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi hogshead,

    You must be born again of the eternal Spirit.

    That Spirit wrote the scriptures through men as Peter told us.

    Only then will you rise above mere human speculative reasoning and know life.

     

    June 16, 2016 at 5:19 pm#814964
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello, again, Nick,

    As I already said, we are all human beings and have to think in human terms.  Even the Bible was written by human beings and is therefore a work of human thought.  So I don’t see the need to arise out of our humanness.  If anything, I think we should work to become more human. Also, about rising out of  or transcending human nature, what that amounted to is the old Hellenic notion that we should completely detach ourselves from the temporal-material order, the world of time and change and  physicality and feeling, etc.  Forget it.   The Hellenes, like Plato, can have it.  To me, living without a body, parts, passions, compassion, wholly immutable would be a totally deadbeat, boring existence.  I’d be living on a par with an amoeba.  No, not even that well, as after all, amoebas have feelings and mobility, though very little. The fact that God transcends us does not mean God is the negation of our humanity.  Put another way, I have a human nature.  Now, it’s wrong to go against nature, so there is not point in trying to cease and desist in being human, not for me, anyway.

    June 16, 2016 at 5:46 pm#814967
    Ed J
    Participant

    Have you read the book of Urantia?

    Hi Hoghead1,

    Is you answer “No”?

    June 16, 2016 at 6:00 pm#814969
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello, EdJ,

    Yes, I read it, but years ago.  My dissertation covered mysticism, but I was so loaded down with traditional mystics that I did little with anything modern, which is where I would put the book. There are certain themes that I recall strongly parallel ideas in both process and traditional Christian mysticism.

    June 17, 2016 at 1:18 am#814972
    kerwin
    Participant

    Hogshead1,

    The early Trinitarians identified Christ with God simply because there is no way you could have all the qualities of God and not be God. That doesn’t even begin to make sense. Sorry, but it doesn’t.

    It may not make sense to you but it made sense to at least one of John’s contemporaries by the name of Philo.

    The best I can say is that it is not all the qualities.

    June 17, 2016 at 1:41 pm#814996
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello, Kirwin,

    Philo was largely a Platonic thinker.  He said absolutely nothing abut Christ.  His goal seems to be to present Moses as the original source of Platonic metaphysics, relegating the temporal-material world to being an anti-God principle.    In his thought, God per se  did not create the world, has no contact with the inferior world of matter.  However, the Logos, a lesser being, does.  That stands in tension with the Bible, because the Bible affirms the innate goodness of the  material order and presents a highly anthropomorphic image of God.

    June 17, 2016 at 4:47 pm#815000
    kerwin
    Participant

    Hogshead1,

    You might want to look into him a little as he gives a numeric argument that is definitely Hebraic in nature and not Platonic. He does have some ideas in common with the later though its unclear about how much as he used the way of speech that is hard to understand. He also differs from them.

    From John’s way of speech it is clear their audiences are similar even when the words differ. Both have more mysticism in their writings than the other gospels. It is possible John wrote to those that had come to know of God through Philo’s evangelism.

    Philo of Alexandria

    Philo saw the cosmos as a great chain of being presided over by the Logos, a term going back to pre-Socratic philosophy, which is the mediator between God and the world, though at one point he identifies the Logos as a second God. Philo departed from Plato principally in using the term Logos for the Idea of Ideas and for the Ideas as a whole and in his statement that the Logos is the place of the intelligible world. In anticipation of Christian doctrine he called the Logos the first-begotten Son of God, the man of God, the image of God, and second to God.

    John 1:1 is just calling the logos a second God just like Philo did. It was not new at that time and it certainly did not mean the word was God in all ways.

    In fact Philo actually John’s words even though he was speaking of the OT.
    Logos
    b.) When the scripture uses the Greek term for God ho theos, it refers to the true God, but when it uses the term theos, without the article ho, it refers not to the God, but to his most ancient Logos (Somn. 1.229-230).

    From what I have come to understand saying calling the logos God is equivalent to saying the word that comes out of God’s mouth is Divine.

    June 17, 2016 at 4:59 pm#815003
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hell again, Kirwin,

    Philo does depict the Logos as a lesser god, however.  He also emphasizes the inherent evil of teh spacio-temporal world, a per Plato.  Really then, he is far more of a gnostic.  Of course, Gnosticism was a strong movement within the early church, though eventually declared a heresy.

    June 17, 2016 at 5:29 pm#815006
    kerwin
    Participant

    Hogshead,

    He might have had Gnostic leanings but he was definitely not a true Gnostic as his idea of a demiurge varied drastically from theirs. To Philo the demiurge is a tool of God so that the later does not act directly with his creation while the Gnostics teach the demiurge rebels against God and makes a flawed creation. In addition Pilo’s demiurge is not actually a being. It is the word that comes out of God’s Mouth.

    On aside not some Gnostic teachings are still present in the church though they have evolved over time.

    June 17, 2016 at 11:53 pm#815011
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Yes, I would agree with that about Philo. I’m just stressing that he definitely has gnostic tendencies.  Yes, definitely gnostic teachings were and  are present in the church.  Those are to be found in the static, world-negating God of classical theism.

    June 19, 2016 at 7:50 am#815037
    942767
    Participant

    Hi hoghead1:

    I side with t8 on that. (meaning that you believe that the “Logos” in John 1 is Jesus, and that Philippians 2:6 is speaking about a pre-existent Jesus who was “in the form of God” prior to being born into this world in the likeness of human flesh.)

    Well if that is what you believe, please explain what it means to be “in the form of God” and where do you see Jesus manifest as such in the OT prior to his birth into this world?

    John 1 states that “the Word was God”.  The definition of the word Logos is:

    of speech

    1. a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea

    The Word (what God has spoken pertains to Jesus), but is not him as some pre-existent being.  Jesus was foreordained (1 Peter 1:1:18-20, Ephesians 1:9-10, Gal  4:4)

    Jesus was “in the form of God” in his ministry on earth as God’s Christ.  The Apostle Paul was teaching the Philippians about humility, not about a pre-existent Christ.

    Love in Christ,
    Marty

     

    June 19, 2016 at 4:17 pm#815041
    hoghead1
    Participant

    Hello, Marty,

    I agree with traditional Trinitarian thinking which does argue Jn. 1 is affirming the  Deity of Christ.  “And the Word was God…”   I think that makes it pretty clear the passage is saying Christ is in fact God.    It doesn’t say “in the form of God” or anything like that.  Also, as I have said before, I don’t understand how something could be “in the  form of God” and not God.  “In the form of” is not a traditional theological c or contemporary theological concept, anyway.

    ‘Word” or “Logos” had ancient meanings beyond mere speech.  “Word” also means Reason.

    True, in the OT there is no reference to the “Word” as involved in creation or at any other part.  Hence, the Logos is a much later concept, found only in the NT.  That’s why it’s called the NT; it introduces new concepts and then is bound to clash with the OT.

    The reason why I keep insisting on the “ambiguity” of Scripture is because it is not a work in systematic theology or metaphysics.  As I have said many times, it provides but snap shots of God which often conflict, leaving us, the readers, to task of piecing   it all together. The Trinity is especially problematic in this regard.  If there are biblical passages that clearly imply it, there are others, such as those suggesting the subordinate status of the  Son to  the Father, or that both Son and Father are both two distinct full-blown personalities, that suggest otherwise.

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