Does the Modern day Trinity Concept match the Bible?

I lovingly invite you to prayerfully read and ponder on the many Bible verses and information in this article, and see how you feel about this important question.

Our church has many amazingly great and knowledgeable Bible scholars, who know the Bible backwards and forwards. Even more important than that, we are blessed with true prophets and apostles of God, to help give us guidance and clarity. If you study the Bible yourself very carefully and prayerfully; I am convinced that you will not be able to find any church that teaches and follows the Bible more closely than “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There are many verses in the Bible that each different Christian church interprets differently, which is partly why there are many dozens of different Christian denominations.

True Story: Regarding the Trinity teaching/concept that we interpret differently than many Christian churches:  A nice young Bible believing couple, who were my long-term insurance customers, knew that I also had a deep love for the Bible, and for Jesus Christ as our Savior, and we discussed it at times. They knew and trusted me. Their doctor and dentist were also members of our church along with several others they knew and trusted. One day, the wife asked me, if we believed that our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, were two separate individuals or one person – – – as in the Trinity doctrine that started being taught in the Catholic Church by majority vote after much disagreement and debate at the Nicene Creed in 325 A.D. If you study the Bible prayerfully and very carefully, I believe you will see that that doctrine was never taught in the Bible by Jesus, or by any of his apostles or prophets. Anyway, the wife wanted to know what our church believes about that, because she and her husband had been studying the Bible on their own quite extensively for the past few months; and they had observed, that there are lots of Bible scriptures that make it very clear that our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ are two separate individuals. I agreed with her, that if you study the Bible carefully, that it is quite clear that they are separate individuals. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I hope you don’t mind if I quote some of the many Bible scriptures, that to me make it very clear that our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, are two separate individuals, who are one in unity and purpose as they taught us to be,  such as the following Bible verses, and dozens of others: 

When Jesus was baptized, the people heard “a voice from heaven, saying This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  (Matthew 3: 17),  – –  (Notice that Jesus was being baptized, and a separate voice from Heaven was heard, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased – – – not this is me, in whom I am well pleased in myself.) 

Jesus said while praying as recorded in Luke 22:42: “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”  – – – that  sounds like  two separate individuals with two separate wills, doesn’t it? Jesus said that He always did the will of the Father. How can He do the Will of the Father, if He and the Father are one and the same individual?

John 4:34:  “Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”

John 5:30: “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”

Pause to consider, when Jesus prayed to His Father in Heaven on the cross: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34) Why is Jesus asking His Father in prayer to forgive them, if He and His Father are one and the same individual?             

When Stephen was stoned, as described in Acts 7:55-56 it says:  “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”  – – – (How can Jesus be seen standing on the right hand of God, if they are both the same individual? And if neither of them has a physical body as many in modern day Christianity teach?)

“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.”   John 10:17  – – – please notice Jesus is not saying: therefore I love myself, because I lay down my life… 

Yes, there are some Bible verses that say that Jesus and His Father are one in unity and purpose, just like Jesus taught his apostles and disciples to be “one” in unity, not one in the same individual or physical body, right? Consider these words of Jesus below in John 10: 30:

“I and my Father are one.” 

And in John 17:20-22   “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one”. Jesus is clearly asking his disciples to be united as one, as He and His Father in Heaven are united as one.

Acts 4:32  :  “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.”  

Romans 12:5   “So we, being many, are one body in Christ”   Clearly all of the followers of Jesus Christ are taught by Jesus Christ to be “of one heart and one soul’ –  – – in purpose, unity, etc., as Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven are, but not to be one and the same individual person, right?

Anyway, if you read the New Testament very carefully, and prayerfully, I believe that you will come to know that even though our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ are both perfect, they are two separate individuals, who both love you very dearly as a child of God. Even if we don’t agree on the interpretation of some Bible verses such as these above; I am convinced that we can all feel the same: love, joy, and inner-peace, etc. from the same Heavenly sources, and that we can sense within the inner spirit part of us, through the Light of Christ or inner-conscience guidance system, that helps us to know the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, right and wrong, and that we will be blessed as we choose to follow that guidance and the commandments and principles that Jesus and his apostles and prophets taught us in the Bible.  

Some questions to ponder on regarding the thief on the cross next to Jesus, who most modern day Christian Pastors were taught in Bible college, will go to Heaven to receive the maximum eternal Heavenly reward there for accepting Jesus Christ as His Savior on his death-bed:

Did that thief believe that Jesus was praying to himself ?  – – – or to our Father in Heaven? – – meaning did he believe that they were one and the same individual, or two separate individuals? – – In other words, did he believe in the Trinity doctrine that was approved as official Catholic doctrine about 300 years later at the Nicene Creed in A.D. 325 by majority vote after much lengthy debate by the church leaders attending the conference. And remember, the apostles and prophets had all been murdered/martyred by then, so none of them were present to clarify the truth from God on the subject.

If the thief on the cross got the answer to that question wrong, would our loving and fair Father in Heaven send him to suffer forever in Hell instead of sending him to Heaven over that technicality of interpretation? If you or I were to get that answer wrong, would our loving and fair Father in Heaven send us to suffer forever in Hell over that technicality of interpretation? As the loving father or mother that you are for your own children; would you send one of your children to suffer forever in Hell over a technicality of interpretation of some verses in the Bible? – – – of course not, right?  And isn’t our Father in Heaven, and our Savior, Jesus Christ, even more loving and fair than any of us?

Whether our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, are actually the same individual or two separate individuals; would any influence that we feel from either one of them, be any different? In other words, if they are two separate individuals, who are united on the same Heavenly team and who are both perfect; wouldn’t we feel the same uplifting light, love, joy and inner-peace, goodness, etc. from either of them?

And when we feel the influence from the devil or any evil minions on his team at any time in our life, then we feel darkness, fear, evil, lack of light, love, joy and inner-peace, goodness, etc. – – don’t we?  Obviously, our loving Father in Heaven, wants us to prayerfully seek His uplifting light, love, joy, and inner-peace, goodness, etc., and that we avoid the devil and those on his team who tempt us to do evil and to be in the wrong dark and evil places. However, can you see that our loving Father in Heaven will of course not punish any one of us forever in Hell over innocent technicalities of Bible interpretation, such as do we believe that Jesus Christ and His/our Father in Heaven are one and the same individual or two separate individuals, who are one in purpose and unity, as Jesus taught his disciples and followers to be?

In Joseph Smith History 1: verses 16 – 17: the prophet Joseph Smith testified: “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”

In Articles of Faith #1, Joseph Smith taught: “ We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”

In the Doctrine and Covenants Section 130: verse 22, the prophet Joseph Smith taught:  “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” 

Please pause to consider that death is the separation of the spirit and the body,  and resurrection is the re-uniting of the spirit with a more perfected eternal body that will never die again.

Luke 23: 46 teaches us:  “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

In Luke 24: 36 – 43 the Bible teaches:  “36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

43 And he took it, and did eat before them.”

Did  Jesus Christ ever die again after he was resurrected?  No, so He still has a perfected body of flesh and bones, that will never die again.

Elder Charles Hunt