LEARNING Hebrew is hard: reading from right to left, words without vowels, peculiar verb systems. In Hebrew, “God” (elohim) is plural in form — the “-im” ending is like our English “-s” plural marker — but, despite this, it takes a singular verb. This is undeniably strange, but is it anything greater than a linguistic quirk?
Commentators explain that the word elohim can have a singular meaning: “godhead”. True, however the regular use of the plural elohim with a singular verb within the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is closely related to the God of Israel, and (mostly) with strict monotheism. The abstract idea “godhead” doesn’t all the time slot in such contexts. It can only be a part of the reply.
English has a verbal reminiscent of Hebrew’s plural for God: the “royal ‘we’” or (more formally) the “plural of splendor”. Some people confer with this plural/singular because the “plural of excellence” when applied to God/elohim.
Going by the biblical evidence, there’s at the least some evidence for a theological intersection between the only real, supreme Judaeo-Christian God on the one hand, and the concept of multiplicity inside the godhead on the opposite. In Christianity, strict monotheism meets a challenge to reformulate itself — or at the least to think about incorporating other types of expression — to do fuller justice to the one true God.
Two months, or nine weeks, after Maundy Thursday, when the institution of the eucharist was commemorated, many Christians observe the feast of Corpus Christi. It can be called a day of “Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion” (within the Church of England), and the “Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ” (within the Roman Catholic Church). Liturgical timing ties it to the ending of the Easter season, on the primary Thursday after Trinity Sunday.
Like all the pieces related to the meaning of the eucharist, Corpus Christi has change into controversial: a ground of division amongst post-Reformation Churches in Europe. It is just not often celebrated in churches which have a “memorial meal” tackle holy communion. Such churches offer no reverence to the stuff of holy communion: the outward and visual signs (bread and wine) of inward and invisible truths (the body and blood of Christ).
There is not any indication at present, despite the efforts of the ecumenical movement, that a reconciliation amongst Christians with divided views is imminent. So, if we must endure, for now, a division centred on the Lord’s supper, can the timing of the feast point us towards future hope?
In a technique, I believe it will possibly. God, in our Isaiah reading, is each plural and singular. He is each the “I” who will send someone and the “us” on whose behalf Isaiah will go. Paul writes in strict monotheistic terms, but he also describes each a Spirit of God, and Jesus the Christ. In Paul’s vision, the begotten Son stands (in a single sense) on equal terms with the adopted children (us). While God is a Father, and Christ is a Son, with the Spirit bearing witness, all three are undoubtedly supernatural beings; all three are in some sense “divine”. There is unity and variety within the one God, or godhead, elohim.
Trinitarian doctrine began to be worked out while the New Testament was still being written. Its earliest writings bear witness to those glimpses of multiplicity inside the Godhead. The one who “dwells in unapproachable light”, “whom nobody has ever seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6.16), has by some means to suit along with Jesus in his energetic ministry, and with the passive “acts” of his suffering.
The Holy Spirit should be incorporated too, doing justice to the biblical witness that the phrase “spirit of/from God” can appear as anything from a force or power under God’s control to a novel Person, embodying God’s will; even God himself. The Spirit is the Advocate for the defence of humankind; the antagonist to Satan, who appears in scripture because the Adversary or Accuser. Christianity has taken the hard-but-honest option reasonably than alternatives similar to absolute monotheism or hierarchy inside the Trinity.
There should be room, on Trinity Sunday, to have a good time a sliver of diversity — leeway — in our understandings of God, and to be guided not only by the clarity of Matthew’s Jesus (“Whoever is just not with me is against me”,12.40) but in addition by the generosity of Mark’s (“Whoever is just not against us is for us”, 9.40).
