And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God. -- Luke 1:35, American Standard Version.
Sometimes trinitarians will quote Luke 1:35 and in some way claim that Gabriel was revealing God as being a triune God. One claims:
In this verse, Gabriel accomplishes two things. The first one is obvious i.e. to tell Mary that she is going to conceive a Son. The second one is to assure Mary that God is Triune.
The reality is that Gabriel only presents one person as being the "Most High". However the claim is that Gabriel "explaining the role of each Member of the Trinity in this conception." The is appears to be based on the assumption that the trinity is a fact, and thus we know because we believe the trinity to be a fact that Gabriel was speaking of the trinity. Of course, such is circular reasoning, and actually proves nothing
The trinitarian has to imagine and assume that God is three persons, and then imagine and assume the assumption to be fact, and then seek justify what has been imagined and assumed by "seeing" triune God in scriptures when it is not there.
Trinitarian love to speak of the trinity as being God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son. The scripture does speak of "God the Son". Nowhere do we find the expression "God the Son" in the Bible. But let us blend to the scriptural "the Son of God" with the trinitarian added-on expression "God the Son". This results in "God the Son of God". Definitely self-contradictory. The truth is that "God" in Luke 1:35 refers to only one person, that is the God and Father of Jesus. (Ephesians 1:3) Trinitarians will agree to this, but still insist that God is three persons, despite the fact that no scripture even once presents such a concept.
Likewise, in Ephesians 4:3, we find the phrase "the Holy Spirit of God". We have no reason to think that "the Holy Spirit" in Luke 1:35 is not the same "Holy Spirit of God" in Ephesians 4:3. The trinitarians love to use the phrase "God the Holy Spirit", although no such phrase is ever found in the Bible. Again, blending these two phrases together would result in "God the Holy Spirit of God". Again, this is self-contradictory.
Oddly, while the Holy Spirit of God is being imagined and assumed to be a person of God, and while the Son of God is being imagined and assumed to be a person of God, "the power of God" in Luke 1:35 is not being thought of as a fourth person of God, but it is usually blended in with the imagined and assumed God the Holy Spirit of God.
In reality, Gabriel said nothing to Mary to the effect that God is more than one person, or that God is three persons, or that God's Holy Spirit is a person of God, or that God's Son is a person of God. All such has to be conjectured beyond what is written, and the conjecture has to be added to, and read into, what is written.
More may be added later.
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