The third aspect or facet or ‘component’ is God’s Holy Spirit. Ru Allah you would call Him. By His Spirit God speaks to the hearts and consciences of people. By His Spirit He also leads them (John 16:7 – 15). Evading complicated theological formulations let us simply assume that the one God chose to reveal Himself in the three mentioned ‘forms’, ‘functions’ or ‘personalities’. Knowing our incapacity to comprehend this, He chose to explain Himself in this way, and for that reason we ought to accept that. Although my formulation may not be sufficient or comprehensive, it expresses in essence what the concept of the trinity of God is all about.
The name by which God revealed Himself in the Bible is Yahweh Elohim. Yahweh translated means simply ‘Lord’. The ending ‘ . . . im’ of Elohim, always indicates the masculine plural form of a word. Therefore it should actually read ‘Gods’. In Deuteronomy 6:4 (given to Moses), we read: “Yahweh (the Lord) Eluhenu (our Gods) Yahweh echad (the Lord is one, or a unity).”
As time went on (8th century BC), God explained his ‘personality’ somehow more tangibly through the prophet Isaiah:
“I will tell of the kindness of the LORD – he became their JESHUA (the Hebrew form of the English name ‘Jesus’, meaning ‘Saviour’) . . . yet they rebelled and grieved his HOLY SPIRIT” (Isa. 63:7 – 10).
In the Gospels, Jesus is called both, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’. Although these names seem to be in opposition to each other, in essence they are the same. That becomes quite clear when we consider a vision the prophet Daniel had:
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven . . . He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away” (Daniel 7:13, 14).
We realise that this does not refer to a human being.
The term ‘Son of God’ does not want to indicate a sexual relationship between God and Mary, which resulted in a ‘begotten’ son to be born. We must be mindful that God is Spirit! It rather demonstrates the unique relationship between Yahweh and Jeshua, i.e. God the Father and Jesus His Son. Not with a single word does the Bible even remotely suggest what most Muslims seem to assume is taught in the Bible, that Christians believe Jesus to be a physical Son of God. The Bible rather suggests that in every sense no one is closer to the father than his son. They are of the same kind. And so it is with God the Father and His son Jesus.
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