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Shincheonji´s View of the Trinity.

Dear reader, 

While talking to a Christian about spirit-revelations to end-time leaders in Christianity, he replied, ¨Don´t expect the kingdom of darkness to play fair.¨  This is true when Christians analyze the way spirit entities (angels, Jesus, or a spirit of prophecy) harshly and deceptively represent Christians or Christian teachings. 

For example, end-time movements exaggerate by saying that all Christians are worldly, evil, and have Satan working through them.  They contend that they are being persecuted when Christians disagree with them.  In Mr. Lee´s book, Creation of Heaven and Earth, he communicates that Christian ministers and missionaries only want to get wealthy and have no true love for Jesus or God´s Word.   

Another way end-time groups do not play fair is the way they misrepresent one of the longest teachings in Christian history - the Trinity (i.e. the relationship between the Lord Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit).  Years ago the Watchtower Society published a booklet about why people should not believe in the Trinity.  However, they used a false definition to disprove it.  

Spirit revelations to apocalyptic prophets do not play fair when they use a false definition of the Trinity to show that it is unbiblical, pagan, or diabolical.  In Christian thinking, such tactics are spiritually dishonest and deceptive.  

On Shinchonji´s website, they published two articles about why the Christian belief in the Trinity is false.  Yet, in both articles, they used a definition that no Christian church follows.  This makes it difficult for Christians to take Shinchonji seriously.  One intellectual said that he dismissed Shinchonji´s credibility because of this error. 

Shinchonji contends that Jesus, God, and heaven have descended upon the one who overcomes.  According to Mr. Lee, they have the highest theological knowledge in the history of Christianity.  If true, this means that there should be no errors about the Trinity. Further, if Jesus is working through Mr. Lee and wants to convince Christians around the world that the Trinity is false, he surely knows the meaning that Christians believe about it.  

Using a false meaning is a sign to Christian thinkers that something is wrong.

What is the correct definition of the Trinity?  Some believers do not know how to define it (like other Christian teachings), but all Christian denominations agree that the Scriptures make it known that the Lord Jesus is God´s presence, the Holy Spirit is God´s presence, and God the Father is God´s presence.  All three are God-persons, but different.  Here is a summary.
   
1.  God is one in his essence (i.e. there are not two God-beings or three Gods).
2.  Three God-persons are associated with or identified with God`s being - the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus, and the Father.

3.  The three identities/persons have distinctions and are not the same identity/person.  The Lord Jesus is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not Jesus.  This is evidenced in the Gospels.
4.  Christian churches believe in one God-being and three distinct, God-persons. 

In Christian thinking, there is a plurality and unity to God´s presence and nature.  If we alter one of these points, we end up with tritheism (three Gods), Modalism (Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the Father), or bitheism (two Gods).  Below are three simplified definitions.   Which one do Christians hold to?  Which one correctly defines the Trinity? 

1.  The Trinity means there is one God-being and three God-beings.
2.  The Trinity means there is one God-being and three God-persons.
3.  The Trinity means there is one God-person and three God-persons.


The definition used by all Christian denominations is number two (one being and three persons).  No Christian minister believes that God is one being (one God) and three beings (three Gods).  Christian leaders carefully distinguish between beings and persons in God´s nature.  When we read Shinchonji`s website, notice their definition.    

"When people use the word “Trinity” they refer to the idea that God is three in one; the idea that God is simultaneously both one and three beings.  People read verses like Mt 28:19-20 and created the doctrine of the Trinity.  How is it that three beings can simultaneously exist as one being? ...When Jesus no longer had a physical body, the three again existed as three separate beings¨(1).

Shinchonji states that Christians who believe in the Trinity use definition number no. 2 (three beings and one being).  Thus, in an attempt to correct the Trinity, they use a definition that Christians really do not believe.  The revealed word to Shinchonji does not play fair by using a definition that no Christian community teaches.  


When pointing this out, one Christian instructor wrote back with arguments against the Trinity, but this is not the point.  (Many final prophets use complex reasoning to disprove it.) To Christian thinkers, the test is seeing if spirit-revelations correctly define it or not.  In passing, Christians have analyzed arguments against the Trinity for centuries and realize that denying the Trinity only creates greater problems.  

For more information, see other articles on the internet about these points.   
  
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(1) ¨The God of the Trinity¨ Shinchonji Website Articles. Accessed January 8, 2014.
http://www.shincheonji.kr/English/scj.php?sMenu=D2000&pno=6&mode=view&no=18