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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

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