Trinity: Fact or fiction? –
Part 2
For a PDF download of this ministry’s notes click NOTES: Trinity: Fact or fiction
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Bible: induction
What are the characteristics that make God, GOD? In other words, what properties does He possess that no one else can claim to possess? If we can then show from the Bible that Jesus has all of these characteristics, we have proved by induction that He is God. God’s unique characteristics are:
1) Omnipotence
2) Omnipresence
3) Omniscience
4) Immutability
5) Eternal
6) Creator
7) Holy and Sinless
8) Rightly worshipped
1) Omnipotence – all powerful
Omnipotence is the attribute of God, which describes His ability to do whatever He wills. God is all-powerful which is why he is called the “Almighty”. There is nothing that He cannot do but his power is limited by His nature i.e. He cannot (or rather will not) do anything contrary to His nature as God, such as sinning. God is not controlled by His power, but has complete control over it; otherwise He would not be a free being. To a certain extent, He has voluntarily limited Himself by the free will of His rational creatures.
Rev
19:6 … Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Matthew
19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God
all things are possible.”
Job
42:1-2 Then Job answered Yahweh, "I know that you can do all things, and
that no purpose of yours can be restrained.
Jeremiah
32:17 Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your
great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you.
2) Omnipresence – everywhere present
Omnipresence is the attribute of God, by virtue of which He fills the universe in all its parts, and is present everywhere at once.
Jeremiah
23:23-24 Am I a God at hand, says Yahweh, and not a God afar off? Can any hide
himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says Yahweh. Don't I fill
heaven and earth? says Yahweh.
Psalm
139:7-12 Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol,
behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the
uttermost parts of the sea; Even there your hand will lead me, and your right
hand will hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light
around me will be night;” even the darkness doesn't hide from you, but the
night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.
3) Omniscience – All knowing
Omniscience is the attribute by which God, perfectly and eternally knows all things, which can be known, past, present and future.
Psalm
147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.
Psalm
139:2-4 You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts
from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with
all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you
know it altogether.
4) Immutability
Immutability is the perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change in essence, attributes, consciousness, will and promises. No change is possible in God, because all change must be to better or worse, and God is absolute perfection.
Malachi
3:6 “For I, Yahweh, don’t change…”
James
1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.
Hebrews
6:17-18 In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs
of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath; that
by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie…
5) Eternal
The Biblical concept of eternity and the eternal refers to the endless past, the unending future, or to God’s present experience of all time. God has no beginning as man can understand beginning and no ending either, but God exists now and knows both the beginning and the end as we perceive them. In the Scriptures, God is thus called “everlasting” and “eternal”.
Deuteronomy
33:27 The eternal God is your dwelling place. Underneath are the everlasting
arms.
Genesis
21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in
Psalm
90:2 Before the mountains were made, before you had given birth to the earth
and the world, before time was, and for ever, you are God.
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and
ever. Amen.
6) Creator
Isaiah
45:18 For thus says Yahweh who created the heavens, the God who formed the
earth and made it, who established it and didn't create it a waste, who formed
it to be inhabited…
7)
Holy & Sinless
Habakkuk
1:13 Before your holy eyes sin may not be seen, and you are unable to put up
with wrong…
Exodus
15:11 “Who among the gods is like you, o LORD? Who is like you – majestic in
holiness…”
8) Rightly worshipped
When Satan tempted Jesus to worship him, Jesus responded:
Matthew
4:10: “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and
serve him only’.”
Yahweh makes it clear that only He deserves worship:
Isaiah
42:8 "I am Yahweh. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another,
nor my praise to engraved images.
Jesus’ characteristics
We can now proceed to show that every one of these characteristics deemed peculiar to God are found in Jesus.
1) Omnipotence
1) Matthew 28:18 And Jesus coming up spoke to them, saying, “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth.”
ALL POWER is bestowed in Jesus, an attribute peculiar to God.
Phil:
3:20-21: For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for
a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble
state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power
that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Eph.
1:21-22: …far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every
name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He
put all things in subjection under His feet...
2) Omnipresence
Matthew
28:20 “And surely I (Jesus) am with you always, to the very end of the
age.”
Romans
8:34 Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at
the right hand of God …
If Jesus has promised to be with His disciples ALWAYS and yet is at the right hand of the Father in heaven, the only possible explanation is that He is omnipresent.
Matthew
18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in
the midst of them.”
3) Omniscience
John
21:17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter
was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said,
“Lord, you know all things; You know that I love you.”
Here Peter plainly acknowledges Jesus’ omniscience, stating that He knew “ALL THINGS”.
Why then did Jesus say only the Father knew the day of his second coming? Of course the answer is that the incarnation created a special circumstance, wherein God became flesh and allowed Himself to the limitations of a man. In the same way that as a man Jesus got tired, thirsty and hungry and was clearly not omnipresent, so too his knowledge was limited while on earth. This is clear from the Scripture:
Philippians
2:7 (Jesus) … emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the
likeness of men
Anti-Trinitarians will typically take Scriptures that apply to Jesus humanity and incarnation and then try using them to prove that Jesus wasn’t God. There were however self-imposed temporary limitations that Jesus accepted in his incarnation.
4) Immutability
Jesus too has the property of deity of never changing, though everyone and everything else does.
Hebrews
13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews
1:8,11-12 But of the Son he says... “They all will grow old like a garment
does. As a mantle, you will roll them up, and they will be changed; but you are
the same...”
5) Eternal pre-existence
Isaiah
9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be
on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The above prophecy concerning Jesus shows that He is EVERLASTING or ETERNAL.
Hebrews
1:8,11-12 But of the Son he says... “They will perish, but you continue. They
all will grow old like a garment does.
... Your years will not fail.”
John
1:1 In the beginning was the Word…
Colossians
1:17 … He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
John
8:57-59 “You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have
seen Abraham!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born
I AM!”…
Turning to Isaiah 44:6 we read:
This
is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says:
“I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.”
When Jesus appeared to John on the
Revelation
1:18 “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last.”
Jesus makes the same statement as Yahweh in the Old
Testament. It is impossible for there to be two “FIRSTS”. Either one must be
FIRST and the other SECOND if they are two separate beings. But
Jesus and Yahweh both state, “I AM THE FIRST.”
6)
Creator
Yahweh created alone:
Isaiah
44:24 …"I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who ALONE stretches out the
heavens; who spreads out the earth BY MYSELF”
But Jesus created alone:
John
1:1-4 In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was
God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t
make.
All members of the godhead were involved in creation. The Father wills, Jesus effected His will:
1
Cor 8:6: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things
came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom all things came and through whom we live.”
7)
Holy and Sinless
2
Cor 5:21 God made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us …
1
Peter 2: 21-22 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you,
leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no
sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.’
Hebrews
7:26 For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled,
separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens
The above verses show that Jesus was sinless. Peter spoke of Him as being “A LAMB WITHOUT BLEMISH OR DEFECT” (1 Peter 1:19). He alone could make the challenge to his enemies, “CAN ANY OF YOU PROVE ME GUILTY OF SIN?” (John 8:46).
8) Rightly worshipped
When Peter went to the house of Cornelius he refused to accept worship:
Acts
10: 25-26: “As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet
in reverence. But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man
myself.”
In Revelation 22:8-9: John related how the mighty angel refused worship:
…
I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to
me. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow with you and with your
brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship
God!”
We see from the above 3 passages that only God is rightfully entitled to receive worship. But Jesus accepted worship on numerous occasions during his ministry! When Jesus healed the blind man:
Then
the man said (to Jesus), “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:38)
Jesus is entitled to receive worship because HE IS GOD! Some more examples of Jesus accepting worship are:
From
the wise men - Mat 2:11
From
the leper - Mat 8:2
From
the ruler - Mat 9:18
From
His disciples in the boat - Mat 14:33
From
the Canaanite woman - Mat 15:25
From
the disciples following His ascension - Luke 24:52
Thomas
- John 20:28
All
creation worships both Father and Lamb: Rev 5:11-14
After Jesus’ resurrection the woman and the disciples worshipped him:
Matthew
28:9 And behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and took hold
of his feet, and worshipped him.
Matthew
28:16-17 But the eleven disciples went into
Furthermore in Hebrews 1:6 we read that the Father commands the angels to worship Jesus:
And
again, when God brings his first born into the world, he says, “Let all God’s
angels worship him.”
Jesus: in very nature GOD
We have selected 8 characteristics unique and peculiar to God alone. We have gone on to show that Jesus has all 8 characteristics; thus by induction we have proven that Jesus is God. You can make a god out of anything, but it will not be God by nature i.e. possess the characteristics of God. Heathen gods fall into this category of those you are worshiped as gods while not being God by nature.
Galatians
4: 8: “Formerly when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by
nature are not gods.”
Jesus, however, does not fall into this category as He is God by nature.
Philippians
2:5-6: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who being in
very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped…”
Concerning the term “nature” (morphē) or as the NASB and KJV translates, “form”, theologian, Charles Ryrie notes that the word nature (morphē) in the Greek connotes: “that which is intrinsic and essential to the thing”. Thus here it means that our Lord in His pre-incarnate state possessed essential deity.
Rev. Benjamin B. Warfield (former Professor of Theology at
Paul
does not simply say, ‘He was God’. He says, ‘He was in the form of God’,
employing a turn of speech which throws emphasis upon Our Lord's possession of the
specific quality of God. 'Form' is a term which expresses the sum of those
characterizing qualities which make a thing the precise thing that it is… And
'the form of God' is the sum of the characteristics which make the being we
call 'God,' specifically God, rather than some other being-an angel, say, or a
man. When Our Lord is said to be in 'the form of God’, therefore, He is
declared, in the most express manner possible, to be all that God is, to
possess the whole fullness of attributes which make God God.
To deny that Jesus was truly the morphē (nature) of God is to deny that Jesus was truly the morphē of man (same word used in verse 7: “taking the very ‘nature’ (morphē) of a servant”.
Bible: Implied
God is love
The Bible does not have an isolated verse here and there that teaches the Trinity. There are many passages where indirectly the Trinity was implied because the authors were Trinitarian, inspired by a Trinitarian God.
1
John 4:16 God is love …
Before going on, notice the practical importance of this. All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that “God is love”. But they seem not to notice that the words “God is love” have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.
Jesus’ resurrection
All the persons of the Godhead are mentioned as being the one who raised Jesus from the dead:
The Father
Galatians
1:1 Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
The Son
John
2:19,21 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in
three days”… But the temple he had spoken of was His body.
The Holy Spirit
Romans
8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you…
The great commission
There are many verses where the 3 persons of the Godhead are mentioned together, indicating their close association with each other. Following are 2 selected ones:
1
Peter 1:1-2 To God’s elect … who have been chosen according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit,
for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling of his blood.
Matthew
28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Ignatius, the head of the church at
There
are not then either three Fathers, or three Sons, or three Paracletes, but one
Father, and one Son, and one Paraclete. Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent
forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations, commanded them to “baptize
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” not unto one
[person] having three names, nor into three [persons] who became incarnate, but
into three possessed of equal honour. [1]
Who is God talking to?
Consider also the following passages:
Genesis
1:26 God (Elohim) said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …”
Genesis
3:22 Yahweh God (Elohim) said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us…”
And at the
Genesis
11:7 “Come, let us go down, and there confound their language.”
Isaiah writes:
Isaiah
6:8 I heard the Lord's (Adonai) voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will
go for us?”
Who is God talking to here? Here again we see possible evidence of the multiple personalities in the Godhead.
Ecclesiastes
12:1 Remember also thy Creators in the days of thy youth, While that the evil
days come not, Nor the years have arrived, that thou sayest, ‘I have no
pleasure in them.’
The word “Creators” is a plural form of the word “bara” which means to create out of nothing. The notion of plural Creator is also seen in Isaiah 54:5, where the prophet states:
For
thy Maker is thy husband, Jehovah of Hosts is His name, And thy Redeemer is the
Holy One of Israel, ‘God of all the earth,’ He is called.
In this verse the word “Maker” is the plural
form of the word “asa” which means to form or make. These verses present a
remarkable paradox. The Bible clearly teaches that there is but one God and one
Creator. Yet this one God is a plurality of more than one personage, each of
which has the attributes of God and performs the works of God.
Finally, we see a hint of the Trinity in a number of provocative verses which declare the holiness of God. In Isaiah 6:3 we read:
And
one cried to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of His glory!'
In Revelation 4:8 John is given a view of the four living creatures around the throne of God:
And
they do not rest day or night, saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!'
Why “Holy, holy, holy?” This is just another hint of the plurality of God and the three-in-one seen throughout the Scripture.
The deity of the Holy Spirit
The deity of the Holy Spirit has also been attacked by anti-Trinitarian cults. He has been demoted to an impersonal and mindless force. The Bible teaches both His personality and His deity.
Ephesians
4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
HOW CAN A FORCE BE GRIEVED?
John
14:16-18 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to
be with you forever – the SPIRIT of truth. The world cannot accept HIM, because
it neither sees HIM nor Knows HIM. But you know HIM, for HE lives with you and
will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I WILL COME TO YOU.”
A force does not have gender; only a personality does. Here Jesus repeatedly refers to the Spirit as “HE” and “HIM”. Furthermore, after He has promised the Holy Spirit He says, “I WILL COME TO YOU”. Romans 8:34 tells us that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. Therefore His “coming to us” is through the medium of the third person in the Godhead.
Jesus continues to refer to the Holy Spirit as a person in this passage:
John
15:26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, HE will testify about me.”
John
16:13-14 “But when HE, the Spirit of Truth, comes, HE will guide you into all
truth. HE will not speak on HIS own; HE will speak only what HE hears, and HE
will tell you what is yet to come. HE will bring glory to me by taking from
what is mine and making it known to you.”
We see also that the Spirit brings glory to Jesus, whereas Jesus repeatedly stated that the Son sought to bring glory to the Father (John 14:13). Thus none of the members of the Godhead seek their own glory; they seek to bring glory to the other persons in the Godhead.
Proving the personality of the Holy Spirit
Acts
13:2 “While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit SAID,
‘Set apart for ME Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called
them.”
The words “ME” and “I” indicate gender and “SAID” indicates the capacity for speech, only possible if personality is present. This passage also shows that the Holy Spirit has a will, something that is peculiar to a personality.
6 things are contained within the realm of personality and these are found in the Holy Spirit:
1) Will (1 Cor 12:11)
2) Intelligence (Romans 8:27)
3) Knowledge (1 Cor 2: 10-12)
4) Bestowment of power (acts 1:8)
5) Capacity for love (Romans 15:30)
6) Capacity for speech (Acts 8:29, 13:2)
Note also that personality is implied when He is called a witness in Acts 5:32 and in other Scriptures. Thus the Bible plainly teaches that the Holy Spirit is not a mindless “force”, but a personality and the 3rd person of the Godhead.
Matthew
1:18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, SHE WAS FOUND
TO BE WITH CHILD THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT.
If Mary conceived through the Holy Spirit, why was Jesus called “the Son of God”? Simply because the Holy Spirit is God!
Acts
5:3-4 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart
that you have lied to the Holy Spirit … You have not lied to men but to
God.”
So Peter uses the “Holy Spirit” and “God” interchangeably.
In the next 3 scriptures we find the “Holy Spirit” and “God” used interchangeably.
2
Corinthians 6:16 “For WE ARE THE
1
Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves ARE GOD’S
1
Corinthians 6:19 Do you know that your body is a
In Revelation 2-3 all the 7 Churches are addressed by Jesus, but He ends each address with: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Jesus here implies oneness with the Spirit.
We can safely conclude that not only is the Holy Spirit a person; He is also God.
The testimony of the early Church Fathers
Pre-Nicean Church
Anti-Trinitarians will claim that the deity of Jesus was a late development in the Church originating in the 4th century. Any serious examination of the writings of the Pre-Nicean church Fathers should dispel this myth.
Polycarp from
“…
may He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you,
and to all that are under heaven, who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus
Christ and on His Father that raised him from the dead.” [2]
Ignatius, head of the church at
“For
they speak of Christ, not that they may preach Christ, but that they may reject
Christ; and they speak of the law, not that they may establish the law, but
that they may proclaim things contrary to it. For they alienate Christ from the
Father, and the law from Christ. They also calumniate His being born of the
Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross; they deny His passion; and they do not
believe His resurrection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; they suppose
Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the Spirit, they do not admit that He
exists. Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of
God, not by Christ, but by some 
other strange power.”
Ignatius is giving a quick summary of some of the heresies about Christ. In the section above, he gives 3 separate heresies.
1) Those who say Jesus was just a man.
2) Those who say the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the same person (like Noetus, Praxeas, Saballus).
3) The Gnostics (like Marcion, Valentinus, Ptolemaus) who claimed that the creator God (Yahweh) of the OT was not the same God as the ‘Father’ in the NT.
140 A.D. Aristides: “[Christians] are they who, above every people of the Earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the creator and maker of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit” [3]
150 A.D. Justin Martyr: “The Father of the universe has a Son, who also being the first begotten Word of God, is even God.” [4]
C. 165-175 A.D. Tatian the Syrian: “We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man.” [5]
C. 177 A.D. Melito of Sardes: “The activities of Christ after His Baptism, and especially His miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the Deity hidden in His flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, He gave positive indications of His two natures: of His Deity, by the miracles during the three years following after His Baptism; of His humanity, in the thirty years which came before His Baptism, during which, by reason of His condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of His Deity, although He was the true God existing before the ages.” [6]
C. 180 A.D. Irenaeus of Lyons: “Nevertheless,
what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that He is Himself in His
own right God and Lord and Eternal King and Only-begotten and Incarnate Word,
proclaimed as such by all the Prophets and by the Apostles and by the Spirit
Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the
truth. The Scriptures would not have borne witness to these things concerning
Him, if, like everyone else, He were mere man.” [7]
200 A.D. Tertullian: “The origins of both his
substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the
other, not born.” [8]
200 A.D. Hippolytus: “For Christ is the God above all…”
225 A.D. Origen: “The holy Apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, treated with the utmost clarity of certain matters which they believed to be of absolute necessity to all believers...The specific points which are clearly handed down through the Apostolic preaching [are] these: First, that there is one God who created and arranged all things… Secondly, that Jesus Christ himself was born of the Father before all creatures...Although He was God, He took flesh, and having been made man, He remained what He was, God.” [9]
250 A.D. Ignatius of
235 A.D. Novatian: “For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God Himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God.”
253 A.D. Cyprian of
262 A.D. Gregory the Wonderworker: “We therefore acknowledge one true God, the one First Cause, and one Son, very God of very God, possessing of nature the Father's divinity, - that is to say, being the same in substance with the Father”
305 A.D. Arnobius: “‘Well, then,’ some raging, angry, and excited man will say, ‘Is that Christ your God?’ ‘God indeed,’ we shall answer, ‘and God of the hidden powers’” [12]
307 A.D. Lactantius: “When we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate them, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father.”
4th CENTURY: Council of Nicea
When
The controversy greatly agitated Emperor
Constantine, and he sent a letter to Arius and Alexander in an attempt to
persuade them to lay aside their differences. His efforts failed and in order
to regain unity among Christians,
Athanasius asked Arius rhetorically, “... how many fathers [in other words, the writings of the early Christians] can you cite for your phrases?” The great majority at the Council held the belief that the doctrine expressed by the Nicene Creed was ancient and Apostolic. After 3 months of painstaking deliberation the deity of Christ was affirmed by that council. Arius and his 2 remaining supporters were expelled as heretics. The Council of Nicea, a gathering similar to the one described in Acts 15:4-22, condemned the beliefs of Arius and wrote the first version of the now famous creed proclaiming:
“We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and
invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of
his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very
God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homousion) with the Father…
Council of Nicea – the role of Constantine
The Church was willing to accept the help of an emperor, to listen to what he had to say, but not to accept the rule of an emperor in matters of faith. It must be remembered that the Creed of Nicea expressed what the great majority of bishops at the council found to be traditional, Biblical, and orthodox of the Christian faith, a faith in which they believed so firmly that they were willing to die for it.
Despite his expulsion, Arius still swayed much of the church
off and on for many years after the Council of Nicea. During that period,
Athanasius, leader of the orthodox view and later bishop from
For those familiar with the ignorant claims in “The Da Vinci
Code” (i.e. that
Council of Constantinople
Constantius,
The Three-Personal God
C.S. Lewis writes:
If
you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say a
cube – a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. A cube is made up of six
squares. Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a straight line.
In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make
one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many
figures make one solid body. In other words, as you advance to more real and
more complicated levels, you do not leave behind you the things you found on
the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways – in ways you
could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels. Now the Christian
account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple
and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two
persons are two separate persons – just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat
sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate
figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you
find them combined in new ways, which we, who do not live on that level, cannot
imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three persons
while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one
cube. Of course we cannot fully conceive a being like that: just as, if we were
so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly
imagine a cube. [13]
The testimony of creation
Finally we come to the testimony of creation. The mark of the Creator is imprinted on His creation. As Paul states in his letter to the Romans:
Romans
1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His
eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
The creation has a distinct tri-une imprint on it. The whole universe consists of 3 basic “components”: MATTER, SPACE AND TIME. Each of these “components” are also tri-unities.
MATTER exists in 3 STATES:
1) SOLID
2) LIQUID
3) GAS
SPACE has 3 DIMENSIONS:
1) LENGTH
2) BREADTH
3) HEIGHT
TIME has 3 TENSES:
1) PAST
2) PRESENT
3) FUTURE
Threefold nature of man
The Bible teaches that man is:
1) BODY
2) SOUL
3) SPIRIT
This is by no means coincidental. The tri-une pattern of the Creator is seen in the masterpiece of His creation: the human being, Humans, created in the image of God, are tri-une beings consisting of BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT. The functions of the 3 “parts” of man are:
1) BODY: makes us WORLD CONSCIOUS
2) SOUL: makes us SELF CONSCIOUS
3) SPIRIT: makes us GOD CONSCIOUS
The body, through it’s 5 SENSES, makes us conscious of the
world, our surroundings, and other people. The soul, which is the seat of the PERSONALITY,
WILL, EMOTIONS and INTELLIGENCE makes us conscious of ourselves and provides a
“link” between our body and spirit. The spirit permits communication with and
consciousness of God, once a person has experienced “REBIRTH”, which as we
shall see shortly refers to the spirit of man. The soul uses the body to
communicate with other people, and it uses the spirit to communicate with God.
All decisions are made by the soul, which is the seat of INTELLIGENCE and
REASON. These decisions are influenced by our spirit and our body. This gives
clarity to the statement Jesus made to Peter, James and John in the
Matthew
26:40-41 Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Could you
men not keep watch with me for one hour?’ He asked Peter. ‘Watch and pray so
that you will not fall into temptation. THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, BUT THE BODY IS
WEAK.”
This illustrates the multiple and conflicting parts within each man. The disciples’ BODIES wanted sleep, their SPIRITS wanted prayer or “communication with God”. Their SOULS mediated between the 2 and chose to sleep, even though their SPIRITS WERE WILLING (to pray). This inner conflict within a man is illustrated very aptly by Paul in Romans 7.
Romans
7:15-23 I do not understand what I do. Or what I want to do I do not do, but
what I hate to do … I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful
nature (OR MY FLESH). For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot
carry it out … So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is
right there with me. For IN MY INNER BEING I DELIGHT IN GOD’S LAW, but I see
another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my
mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
An aspect of “the image of God” in man is reflected in our tri-unity. Consider the following parallel:
|
MAN |
GOD |
|
BODY |
THE SON (Jesus) |
|
SOUL |
THE FATHER |
|
SPIRIT |
THE HOLY SPIRIT |
Just as our bodies are our physical, external parts by which we are known and recognized, so Jesus is the fleshly visible representation of the Father.
John
1:18 No-one has seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side,
has made him known.
Colossians
2:9 For in Christ, all the FULLNESS OF THE DEITY LIVES IN BODILY FORM.
Remember in creating, the Father wills and Jesus effected His will.
Hebrews
1:2: “In these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the world.”
This is similar to how our Soul wills, but the Body effects the will.
Just as no-one can see our soul, so the Father has never been seen although numerous instances in the Old Testament relate incidents when people saw God.
John
6:46 No-one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only He has
seen the Father.
The spirit within a man seems to correlate to the Holy Spirit, who is the spiritual force in the Godhead, empowering and allowing for the operation of spiritual gifts.
Satan himself, in his impersonation of the Holy trinity, establishes an unholy trinity:
|
GOD |
SATAN |
|
THE SON, CHRIST (God in flesh) |
THE ANTICHRIST (Satan in flesh) |
|
|
Impersonates Jesus resurrection (Revelation 13:3) |
|
THE FATHER |
SATAN |
|
|
Seeks to usurp the Father's Throne (Isaiah 14: 13-14) |
|
THE HOLY SPIRIT |
THE FALSE PROPHET |
|
|
Impersonates the miracles of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit brings glory to the SON (John 16: 13-14) so the false prophet seeks to bring glory to the Antichrist. (Revelation 13:11-12) |