Trinitarian Theology for Third Graders

Mimi: "Okay, wait, so they don't have different functions?"

Sarah: "No. That's Modalism.  The only thing you can say about the Father that you can't say about the Son and the Spirit is that he is the Father.  But they're all the Creator, they're all the Savior.  All those things that they do, they all do."

M: "Okay.  Okay, I think I'm getting this.  So when it says that Jesus was the only one to die on the cross . . ."

S: "That's right.  That's the only exception, because only the Son took on a human body that could die.  So only Jesus died on the cross."

M: "Okay.  So only Jesus died on the cross, but Jesus and the Father and the Spirit were all creators together--"

S: "The Son, not Jesus.  Jesus hadn't been born yet.  You can't call him Jesus before then.  There's no Jesus in the Old Testament."

M: "Well, the Son was around, but he hadn't been revealed until the birth of Jesus."

Theo: "Mimi, you've got to get it right.  They talked about the Messiah in the Old Testament, but Messiah didn't appear until God sent him to Mary, and she named him Jesus because that's what the Angel Gabriel told her to name him.  So there's no Jesus in the Old Testament."

S: "Gosh, Theo, that's very accurate."

T: "It's because I have a third-grade Bible.  That's why I can know so much."

Third-grade Bibles for everyone, then, shall we?