What is Abinadi saying about the trinity? Mosiah 15:1-5

What is Abinadi saying about the trinity? Mosiah 15:1-5

Answer:
Nothing, because the trinity is not real. Haha.

Seriously, though, he isn't talking about the trinity here, even though there is a lot of talk about Fathers and Sons and probably also the Holy Ghost somewhere in there.

But here it is all about how Jesus Christ can both be called the Son and the Father. As if naming God weren't already tricky enough, here's a new layer of words to make it even more confusing.

Here's a fairly concise explanation:

“As Abinadi taught, Christ was ‘conceived by the power of God’ [Mosiah 15:3] and therefore has the powers of the Father within him. In addition to that divine lineal relationship, Christ also acts as the Father in that he is the Creator of heaven and earth [see Mosiah 15:4], is the father of our spiritual rebirth and salvation, and is faithful in honoring—and therefore claiming the power of—the will of his Father above that of his own will” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon [1997], 183–84).

The scriptures can't just say things forthright. They have to add lots and lots of layers of symbolic meaning. I guess this is good because we are supposed to read them continually throughout our lives and it would get a bit dull without them. I also think God is interested in protecting our agency, so he purposefully makes spiritual things have multiple layers. 

I also think that there needs to be room for all kinds of people in God's kingdom on earth, including those crazy apologists, hermeneuticists (haha is that even a word?), linguists, and scholars.

I am not sure if I fall squarely into any of these camps (or ever really will), but I certainly appreciate them all. My list is probably in ascending order of how much I honor/respect them, by the way.

I'm just a person who writes about my thoughts sometimes - not really qualifying in terms of training, expertise, or publications to fit in the other clubs. I guess I'd be capable of sitting down at the table and having a conversation with any of them, but that's true of a great number of kinds of people, many of whom I guess I'd never aspire to become.