“An un-Triune Trinity” John 3:16 & John 17:9

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”[John 3:16 CSB]

“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours.”[John 17:9 CSB]

First off, I want to give you the definition of the trinity. The Trinity means there is one God, one Being. In this Being, there are three distinct Persons, which comprise the Triune Godhead. They are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are in perfect and complete harmony, unity, and agreement. At no time are they opposed to each other. Whatever One wants, all want. Whatever One does not want, all do not want.

The reason why I bring this up is in today’s churches, they preach God being opposed to Himself. In John 3:16, it says “For God loves the world in this way:”. Now, ppl conflate the word ‘world’ to mean ‘everybody whoever existed’. Then in John 17:9, the Christ in His High Priestly Prayer said “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world…” Now, who are the ‘them’ the Christ is praying for? In John 17:2 the Christ says ”since you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.” And He also said ”I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”[John 17:6] So we can plainly see the ones the Christ was praying for was not the entire world indiscriminately, but for those the Father had given Him to redeem from the world. Now, why would God love the world…everybody without exception, and the Christ not pray for everybody without exception? This is an un-harmonious Trinity, a disagreeable Trinity, an un-united Trinity. In other words, whoever says God loves everybody whoever lives, is making a rather blasphemous statement, seeing the Christ did not pray for the world.

To stop the confusion, one must realize the word ‘world’ does not mean ‘everybody whoever lived’, but rather, it encompasses the world, but not everybody. Here’s an example. To this day, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Billy Graham are known all over the world. This does not mean everybody whoever lived has heard of them, but that their fame has been spread worldwide. Here are a few verses to show you what I mean.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace.[Colossians 1:3-6] Paul here is telling them that the gospel is growing all over the world. It is bearing fruit all over the world. But it was not bearing fruit in everybody without exception. Remember, the world to them at the time of Paul’s writings meant inhabited earth. They never thought of this with regards to those who were living in modern day Canada, United States, Mexico, the Hawaiian Islands, Figi, Alaska, &c. The gospel was not bearing fruit in these places at the time when Paul wrote Colossians. In C.I. Scofield’s ‘Prophecy made plain’, he wrote that 800,000 ppl had not heard the gospel. He died in 1921, so that book was written somewhere around 1900. Wayne Peterson of the ‘Alliance for the Unreached’ told CBN news “Out of the seven billion people on planet Earth, I think it’s 3.2 billion people, which is about 40 percent of the population, have no opportunity to hear the gospel where they live, in their location.” This was as of April 2018. I will provide the link at the bottom of the page. So it’s obvious the gospel spreading and producing fruit all over the world, Paul was not saying everybody whoever lived was hearing it, but that it was spreading through the inhabited world, which to them was the area surrounding Israel going into other surrounding gentile nations.

”He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.”[John 1:10] Here we see three times ‘world’ is used. ”He was in the world…” This is referring to the Christ during His earthly life. No way can this say that everybody whoever lived was in John’s mind here. He is saying that He was in the world, planet earth, not everybody whoever lived. “and the world was created through Him…” Here is one place that ‘world’ could mean everybody whoever lived, as this is saying all His creation, which John 1:3 says ”All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.“ This is talking about His creating everything we see, not just mankind in general. ”and yet the world did not recognize Him.” So, if the world, meaning everybody whoever lived, did not know Him, then how did He have any believers, any followers, any Disciples and Apostles? It’s ludicrous to say the word ‘world’ means everybody whoever lived. The world in many places refers to the lost. Jesus told His ppl ”If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.”[John 15:19] Here He says He has chosen them out of it(world). This can’t mean everybody whoever lived, but chose them out of the world, those who are lost. They are no longer part of the world, the lost, and because of that, the world hates them.

I think it’s suffice to say I have proven to you, dear reader, that the word world (rarely means all whoever lived{that portion in John 1:10 is the only place I can think of that means this}) does not mean all whoever lived.

Now again, why would God love the world, all without exception, and the Christ was not praying for those the Father loves? This makes the Godhead opposed to each other. But once you grasp how the word world is used, it all clicks together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The “For God loves the world in this way” is true. But it does not mean He loves everybody without exception. He hates all evildoers.[Psalm 5:5] He also hates arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood[see Genesis 9:6], a heart that plots wicked things, feet eager to run towards evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony,and one who stirs up trouble among brothers. All of those can be found in Proverbs 6:16-19.

So now we know why the Christ, who was not opposed to His Father’s will, but yea, rather in complete agreement with it, was not praying for the world. He confirmed His agreement with the Father’s will by praying for those who He had been entrusted with. But it was not confined to those who were with Him whilst He was living on earth, but also ”I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.”[John 17:20,21] So His High Priestly prayer was for all of His sheep and not for the goats.

Here’s the link to Wayne Peterson’s statement…http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2018/april/more-than-one-third-of-humanity-will-never-hear-about-jesus-day-to-reach-the-unreached-set-for-may-20

With that, I pray you come out from believing in a fractured Trinity.

“The idolatry of the church sanctuary”: John 4:21-24

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”[John 4:21-24]

I see, or at least I see it this way, that ppl seem to have made an idol out of the church sanctuary. They say members shouldn’t eat in there because it is a place we have set aside for worship. I see this as something that is more practical than biblical. I see it as being wise not to eat in the sanctuary, seeing kids can be rather messy, so by not eating in the sanctuary it keeps the messes down. But to say one should not eat in the sanctuary because it’s a place of worship is a bit much, imo.

The woman at the well said something that stuck out with me. As she was conversing with the Christ she said, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” To her, worshiping God was to take place on a mountain. She was a Samaritan, which meant they had both Jewish and Gentile lineage. At many times Israel got into trouble by worshiping in high places(mountains), when they were supposed to not worship there. They had their idols on the mountain, and this idolatry caused the wrath of God to come upon them. Well, she seemed to be a little confused, because she had said “and you people say say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” The Christ then went on to say ”You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” He told her that they were on the mountain worshiping what they do not understand. They were worshiping idols. He was also saying the Jews knew who they were worshiping(the true Jews are those who make up true Israel, {Romans 2:28,29 Romans 9:6-8 & Romans 11:1,2},but that’s another subject), and that now those who worship Him, will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. They will no longer have to go to Jerusalem to worship, but will have the Spirit with, and in them, and can worship Him anywhere and everywhere they go.

I used this passage to support my claim(s). My claim(s) is this…we are now the temple of God(1 Cor. 3:16, 1 Cor. 6:19, 2 Cor. 6:16), no longer is it a temple that men built, that God dwelt in. He no longer dwells in a human erected building(Acts 17:24), but inside His ppl. The church is the ppl, not the building. If the church building burns down, the church does not cease. The church can be in a member’s house, in their yard, in a field, in a cave, &c. Those who lived during the Apostles days(after the Christ’s resurrection and ascension)had church in various places. I have worshiped God in my car and at work, should I no longer eat in my car? If church is at someone’s house, should they no longer eat in the room they have set aside(sanctified) for worship?

 

Edited to add: What I mean is eating in the church sanctuary after service, not during worship service and/or Sunday school.