There have been many attempts to explain the “Trinity’” the relationship between God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Some have used examples such as water, watermelons and eggs; the principle behind those illustrations is that even though each thing is one, it is also three. Water can be ice and steam, yet they are the same element. The watermelon has a skin, pulp and seeds; the egg is shell, yolk and egg white.
     I don’t know how our majestic God feels about being compared to watermelons and eggs, but He is also a loving Father, and like any father, I believe God would seek to provide simple explanations so His little children can understand. I don’t believe that God wishes us to be confused about the “Three” that are so apparent throughout the Old and New Testaments.

     I think the illustration that represents the “Trinity” most accurately is the egg example.
     The yolk represents God’s “Person,” His Being, and His Holiness which generates Light that no man can approach (I Timothy 6:16).
     The egg white represents God’s Spirit. Because God’s Person is unapproachable, the Spirit “White” acts as insulation, for we know that it is through the Holy Spirit that God can communicate, speak through and interact with mankind. A good example would be an electrical cord. We can touch the cord, but not the power it is insulating.

     The egg shell is the image of the yolk and the white. Jesus’ Person is the image of God’s Person (Hebrews 1:3), and the Invisible Spirit of the Father that is in Him - “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (II Corinthians 5:19). This is why Jesus said, “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

     The white of an egg is the connection between the yolk and the shell. Jesus’ Person is joined to the Father by the Father’s Holy Spirit, because God’s Spirit is also Jesus’ Spirit - "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Romans 8:9). – “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30). In Jesus “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9)
     In humans, our spirits are designed to operate with and be united to the soul which is the person of anyone and so it is with our Egg. The Spirit white is connected to Jesus’ Person – “I will come to you” (John 14:18) and the Father’s Person, “We will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).

     It is the Father’s desire to join His Spirit with all of us as well for He has said – “They shall be My sons and daughters” (II Corinthians 6:18). In order to accomplish this union with God and man, He allowed His Shell to be broken with the weight of our sins to cleanse our souls so His holiness can approach, for God cannot look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13). Through the brokenness of the Shell, His Son, the Spirit white pours out into our beings through our faith in what was done and believers are joined with the yolk, for it is by One Spirit we have access to God the Father (Ephesians 2:18).

     Now God can be in you by His Spirit! You are an egg! - well, sort of. But you cannot be broken when your faith is in Jesus, for the Spirit of the Son that lives in us and gives us the voice through which we cry “Abba, Father,” (Galatians 4:6,) this Spirit of the Father that dwells within you is there to strengthen, protect and guard your person. And when the time comes when death is allowed to crack your shell in its final hour and your believing soul is released; the Spirit of God that holds you will carry you in His arms to your heavenly home because –“ In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John14:2, 3).
     It is a miraculous invention, the egg. This little child cannot look at one without experiencing a profound sense of wonderment and awe.

The Egg and I - Part Two

    When we look at the egg as an example of the Trinity, we must view it in its entirety. The word Trinity comes from the Latin word trinitas which means tri-unity. The Trinity is a tri-unity, a unity of Three, - God the Father, Jesus, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. When we separate them we can fall into the error of tritheism, which is the worship of three individual deities as one.

     In Biblical Trinitarianism we can never have one without the other because they are one Spirit; each is the totality of the other which means we cannot have the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, “We will come” (into the believer through the Holy Spirit, John 14:23), and we cannot have the Son without The Father whose Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20). Thus the Father is in Jesus –" I and My Father are One" (John 10:30), "The Father is in Me" (John 14:10) God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). In Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). Likewise we cannot have the Father or His Spirit without the Son – “I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Me”- John 14:6.

     If we separate them we still may have God the Egg yolk, God the Holy Spirit Egg white and God the Son, the Egg shell/image, three individual parts of an Egg, but they cannot be a Trinity, or tri-unity unless they are unified and are seen as one Egg, so to speak.
     The egg example, while not perfect or complete by any means, will still give us a basic understanding of the primary principle of Biblical Trinitarianism.

     When we view the egg in its entirety we have the Biblical Trinity, One that is Three.
     When we separate them and view them as individual deities, that is the error of tritheism, which is the worship of three individual gods as one.
     When we see them as three individual spirits, (God is one Spirit John 4:24), then that is the blasphemy of polytheism which is the worship of more than one God.

copyright 2009 by H.D. Shively

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