Christian Understanding of Trinity3
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TRINITY : M. M. NINAN<br />
5<br />
OLD TESTAMENT THEOPHANIES<br />
Theophanies are the revelation <strong>of</strong> God to Man in a way Man<br />
could experience God. Without such revelation we could never<br />
know God since God is beyong comprehension. In the Old<br />
Testament, several theophanies are recorded in which "God<br />
appeared" to one or more human beings in a physical<br />
manifestation that could be seen and heard.<br />
What we have so far done was to establish the fact that a strictly<br />
monistic God actually violates the concept <strong>of</strong> God who is a<br />
creator and is active in history. We have also seen from the first<br />
chapter <strong>of</strong> Genesis, that God declares himself in plural form.<br />
However we know that God is beyond understanding to the<br />
human mind and we should not try to make God fit to our reason.<br />
So the reasoning that we have done is simply apolegetic. The<br />
actual corroboration should come from the revelation <strong>of</strong> God to<br />
mankind through history. Such revelation did take place from<br />
time immemorial to our fathers and it is this that form our faith<br />
and understanding. These appearances <strong>of</strong> God are called<br />
Theophanies or Epiphanies in Greek and Latin terminologies.<br />
In this chapter we are looking at the Old Testament Theophanies<br />
to see how God has appeared unto the patriarchs.<br />
ADAMIC THEOPHANY<br />
The first appearance is described thus:<br />
Gen 3: 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound <strong>of</strong> the<br />
LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool <strong>of</strong> the<br />
day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees <strong>of</strong> the<br />
garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"<br />
53