Rainbow Arc Dove

1 John 5:6, 9, “Jesus Christ—He is the One who comes by water and blood; not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the One who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. . . . If we accept the testimony of men, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that He has given about His son.”

Many of you know that I have been teaching in India for the past 8 months. One of the areas that was given to me was Worldview. My job is to develop the course, write the outline, make a syllabus, create the notes and then teach the course. All within a couple of months. To do this meant a lot of research within Indian culture and learning how the Hindus think, as the course was to be utilized for witnessing in India.

The concept is basically being able to get inside the heads of the common Hindu and understand their philosophy regarding Hinduism, as that penetrates everything in their lives; from eating, work, marriage, children and so on. When I say everything, I literally mean everything. In order to understand the common Hindu Indian you have to understand Hinduism, which has proven to be a daunting task, but I have been blessed and challenged in my own faith by it.

I found that Hinduism has their own trinity, and it is called Trimutri, literally meaning: having three forms. The three they would put here is Brahma (God’s creative ideas), Vishnu (work of saving the world), and Siva (creation being brought to perfection). This started my thinking process and right away I thought of the concept Rainbow, Arc, Dove being allowed to be used as the description for the Holy Trinity. How much longer before we can then use Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva as names for the Trinity, because they almost line up with ours. Why not? Would not this allow us to witness to them better?

As always, I went to the Bible to see if the Bible allows names for the Trinity other then what is used. I could not find any. I found where examples were used to describe them. Calling Jesus the life (JN 6:35), or truth (JN 14:6), but these are descriptions. When I looked, this is what I found.

God is called God the Father, I Am (Ex. 6:2, the name He gave Himself), Lord, but never anything close to Rainbow. He is always God: Genesis 15:7, 26:24; Ex. 3:6; Lev. 11:44; Numb. 15:41; Deut. 29:6; Judges 6:10; Ps. 81:10; Is. 42:8; Jer. 32:27; Ezek. 6:13; Hosea 12:9; Joel 2:27; Mal. 1:6. None of these verses, and there are plenty more, give another name for God. Again, they may use examples to describe Him, which is called anthropomorphic language, but never a new name.

Jesus is referred to as Jesus. They may use metaphorical language or syllogisms to describe Christ, but never to name Him anything but Savior – Jesus. Look for yourself: Matt. 22:32, 24:5 (says “I am Christ,” giving His name); JN 14:6; Acts 7:32; Rev. 1:8. No Arc anywhere, not even a reference and I could not even find an example where He was compared to an arc. Can you?

Lastly, but just as important is the Holy Spirit. I barely found anything besides Holy Spirit, and certainly no new names, unless you count Spirit of God in 1 Cor. 12:3. Again, look at these verses: Matt. 3:11, 12:32; Mark 1:8, 3:29; Luke 1:15, 11:13; JN 14:26 (called Helper, but again a description); Acts 2:4, 4:8; Titus 3:5; Heb. 6:4; 1 Peter 1:12; 2 Peter 1:21; Jude 1:20. And they clearly say that to even mess with the Holy Spirit can have dire consequences. Wouldn’t that include changing His name to dove? At least, I guess, this name is actually used, but the wording includes “like a dove,” a description.

We should not taint the names of God, nor think it is something His servants can actually do. Why do we think we have the right to usurp Him? This is dangerous. Again, how long before we can use Brahma, Vishnu, Siva to make Hindus comfortable in Church?

We should not be imitating other cults or religions. The names of God are precious and His to name, and to usurp that is not for us and in the end is evil and sin.

3 John 11, “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.”