Three Persons
Historically, the greatest attack on the doctrine of the Trinity has been targeted at the person of Jesus Christ. Heresy has primarily centered around the question of ‘who Jesus is’. Therefore, up to this point I have focused on the identity and deity of Jesus Christ. If someone does not believe that Jesus is fully God, they can’t understand the concept of the Trinity. If Jesus was not fully God, He is no different than Mohammed, Buddha and countless other religious icons claimed by the world religions. If Jesus was merely a man, the world would be correct in its claim that all religions point to the same God. However, since Jesus was God, He has the right to claim that no one comes to the Father except by Him. No longer is the cross just another symbol, but it is the doorway to salvation that God Himself created by His own sacrifice and His own blood. Because Jesus is God, all the other religions challenge our allegiance to the one true God. God did not pay our debt to sin through Buddha. God did not provide works or methods in which to redeem ourselves. God paid our debt by becoming our sin so that we can become His righteousness through Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” (John 10:1).
So we can see that this is an essential doctrine. On the deity and eternal personhood of Christ, the Christian faith hangs. Other religions claim to be Christian, but unless they come through the door of the cross, they and their leaders are robbers and thieves. There is no other way. Only God has the right to pay for sins and only God can redeem our souls from the justice demanded by the law. I can’t redeem myself, nor can any religious icon. Only Jesus Christ was God and only He has the right to pardon our sins. Only He paid the debt so I could be pardoned.
The first point of contention in the question of the Trinity is, ‘who gets to define what the Trinity means’? Anti-Trinitarians argue that the Trinity means three persons, thus there are three gods. However, it only makes sense to allow those who hold a certain doctrine to be the ones who define what the doctrine teaches. In this sense, rather than presenting the definition in my words, I will let the early church speak. In 160 AD, Athenagoras wrote that the church believes:
“they hold the Father to be God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit, and declare their union and their distinction in order.”
The church believed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are God in one union and distinct from each other. Iranaeus spelled the Trinitarian belief with the following statement:
The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father ‘to gather all things in one,’ and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all.
Though he never used the word ‘Trinity’, Iranaeus spelled out the modern belief in the Trinity. One God, three persons. This was written over 145 years prior to the council of Nicaea. In 190 AD, Clement of Alexandria stated:
“I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father.”
“There was then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreated.”
Clearly we can see that the church believed in the Trinity long before the Council of Nicaea where the critics argue it was invented. Clement was one of the first writers to use the term ‘Holy Trinity’. The word ‘Trinity’ is a Latin word that means ‘three in one’.
We can establish by the testimonies of the church fathers that the Holy Trinity was indeed a doctrine held by the church. We can see that the church believed that there was one God, revealed in three persons that were one substance (or God). We also see that each person of the one Godhead was uncreated and eternally distinct. Now let’s examine the scripture teaching of the separate persons of the Trinity.
The Triune God is not a New Testament doctrine. It is taught in the Old Testament as well. However, what was veiled in the Old Testament has been revealed in Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of the God of the Old Testament. Until we understand Christ, we can’t understand the Trinity. However, I will state here that we can’t expect to fully understand God. An infinite God can’t fully be grasped by a finite human mind. If we think we fully understand God, we have created God into an image and He is no longer God. Some argue that the Trinity can’t be understood, therefore it can’t be true. We can’t understand how God could exist without a beginning, but that doesn’t make God false. If we think about the beginning, creation seems illogical from a human perspective. How could something begin out of nothing? How could there be nothing before the beginning? Humanly speaking, it is incomprehensible to think of a time when there was nothing and out of nothing the universe was created. If we reverse the logic, it remains incomprehensible. It seems equally illogical to think that the universe always existed and there is no beginning. Therefore, how can we fully understand God who we can’t see, when we can’t fully understand the universe that we can see?
Trinity in the Old Testament
One thing that we notice from the Old Testament is that God speaks in the plural and then identifies Himself in the singular. Let’s begin in Genesis.
Genesis 1
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Who is the ‘Us’? It is not angels because angels do not have the power to create. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image”; two plural terms. This is followed by the statement that God created man in His own image. This affirms that God is one by using the name of God in the singular. Without knowledge of the Trinity, this would seem contradictory. We see this two more times in Genesis. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve took the fruit and discovered sin. Their eyes were opened and they became aware of evil. Genesis 3:22 says, “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil’”. The LORD God said (singular), man has become like Us (plural). This passage affirms that there is one God, but also affirms a distinction in persons.
Jump ahead to Genesis 11:
7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech."
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
The LORD said, ‘let Us go down’ (plural), followed by the LORD scattered them (singular). We see this again in Isaiah 6:8. God asks ‘Who will go for Us’. The concept of the Trinity teaches this principle. One God, three persons. Now look ahead to Isaiah 48:
16 "Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit Have sent Me."
17 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.
This is a fascinating passage. The LORD (Jehovah) is saying, ‘the Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me’. Who sends Jehovah? How can the Lord God and His Spirit send Jehovah to redeem Israel? In this passage we have Jehovah identifying Himself in three persons. We see a similar passage in Zechariah 2
10 " Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst," says the LORD.
11 "Many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent Me to you.
In this passage we have the LORD (Jehovah) saying that He was sent to Israel by the LORD (Jehovah). How can this be unless God is truly a Triune God? Look again to the passage we used before in Isaiah 44
6 " Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ’I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.
The LORD (Jehovah) is the King of Israel and his Redeemer is the LORD (Jehovah) and they are one God. “Beside me there is no God”. This is the Trinitarian view. Jehovah is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Person of the Holy Spirit
Many try to make the Holy Spirit into a non-person or a force. The reason is that if the Holy Spirit is God, then the non-Trinitarian belief does not make sense. However, the Holy Spirit is a person. Acts 5 tells us that the Holy Spirit is God:
3 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?
4 "While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God."
Peter said, ‘you lied to the Holy Spirit’ and then, ‘you have not lied to men, but to God’.
The Holy Spirit speaks. Look at the following passages,
Acts 8
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go near and overtake this chariot."
Acts 10
19 While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men are seeking you.
20 "Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them."
Acts 13
2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."
Can a ‘force’ speak? Can a force say, “go near the chariot”, or “three men are seeking you”, or “separate to Me these men”?
Historic Christianity
Before he was martyred, one of the early church theologians named Hippolytus wrote around 200 AD:
If then the word was with God and was also God what follows? Would one say that he speaks of two God’s? I shall not speak of two Gods but of one; of two persons however and of a third economy, the grace of the Holy Ghost. For the Father is indeed one but there are two persons because there is also the son; and there is the third the Holy Spirit. The Father decrees, the word executes and the son is manifested, through whom the Father is believed on. The economy of the harmony is led back to the one God, for God is one. It is the father who commands and the son who obeys and the Holy Spirit who gives understanding; The Father is above all the son is through all and the Holy Spirit who is in all. And we cannot think of one God, but by believing in truth in Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Athanasius also wrote a challenge to Serapoin who taught against the Trinity:
“[The Trinity] is a Trinity not merely in name or in a figurative manner of speaking; rather, it is a Trinity in truth and in actual existence. Just as the Father is he that is, so also his Word is one that is and is God over all. And neither is the Holy Spirit nonexistent but actually exists and has true being.”
*****
To download this as an Acrobat document, go to
http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/topical/trinity/trinity_menu.shtml
*****
