I never believed in Three Gods

[Sam]

I became a Christian on March 28, 1955. Shortly after that I joined a local Baptist Church in our small town. I also participated in a couple of correspondence courses from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. One of them was on Romans and one of them, called The Bible Says, was on doctrine. God was described as being three persons but one God. I was told that just as there is no way you could contain the whole ocean in a teacup, there is no way our small human brain could understand God. I often wondered if there were three separate spirits in God, if one of them (the Son) took on humanity to die on the cross, and if so, what happened to that body in heaven --was it stuck off in the corner somewhere while the spirit who was the Son was kneeling at the right hand of the Father's throne praying to the Father.

On December 6, 1955 (my 18th birthday) I prayed before going to bed as usual. As I got off my knees and was getting into bed I received what I believe to be a "revelation." Some how I "saw" (but not a literal picture) that God is one invisible Spirit who visited planet earth in a human body to pay the penalty for my sin and is now living in us as the Holy Spirit. I saw that Jesus was God manifested in flesh and whatever we find Jesus doing or saying could be as God or could be as man. Now, this did not answer all my questions but it helped me see that God acts and moves in various ways but is not three separate spirit beings in heaven.

I've since come to the conclusion that our word "person" came from a word meaning "persona" or "mask" or "role" and that one God can be three "persons" if we take that as meaning that one God plays all three roles --Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-- in the drama of redemption.

I still go along with the teacup and the ocean thing. We humans cannot reduce an infinite God into a package small enough to fit into our puny brain and into our human understanding and explanation or theological package. I don't really like the labels oneness and trinity and don't like to categorize people that way. I think we all believe in one God who came to us in the person of His Son and who lives in us as the Holy Spirit.