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Religion

2011-07-01 08:19:00

Origins of the holy Trinity

Question: Although difficult, I am trying to understand the concept of the Trinity, where there are three persons in one God. I have come to understand that God the Father always was and always will be. That’s kind of tough to imagine, but it does lead me to my question. If there are three persons in one God, was there only one of these persons who ‘always was’? Did then both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have a beginning insofar as being a God? If so, I know when Jesus was born, but how about the Holy Spirit?

Answer: Theologians have wrestled with these questions throughout the ages. The orthodox (established or ortho means “straight” and doxa means “belief”) doctrine of the Christian Church was entitled with the familiar term known as the Trinity. Our coming to discover the Trinitarian nature of God, didn’t just show up when Jesus was born or when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. It always was there but the framers of the creeds and confessions of the early church worked hard at coming to understand it more fully. Now early on in the scriptures we see the eternal nature of God, “In the beginning God...” {Genesis 1:1}. He was already there. He is the “Eternal God” {Deuteronomy 33:27} and “the Everlasting Father” {Isaiah 9:6} which points us to His no beginning and no end. He is “from everlasting to everlasting.” {Psalm 90:2} The Triune God was already existing when God said within the Trinity, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness:”{1:26b}. We see the presence of the Holy Spirit at creation where it says, “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” {Genesis 1:2} We read in the NT Jesus was also there when John tells us, “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” {John 1:2-3} Paul echoes the fact of Jesus’ creation involvement, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” {Colossians 1:16-17} How do we know they were always part of the Godhead? Well if God being eternal and immutable (He never changes), then what God is today, He was in the past and will be the same forever. God says in Malachi 3:6a, “I the Lord do not change.” James 1:17a confirms that with “God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows.” The same attribute is assigned to Jesus because they are one when it says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” {Hebrews 13:8} Now the whole concept of the Trinity took several years to come to fruition and be appreciated as a well developed understanding of God through much prayer, study, theological discussions and Councils. The earliest creed was the Apostles Creed but it didn’t go far enough. A lot of unanswered questions centered on Jesus. For instance: the Agnostics said Jesus could not be God because the material world they believed was evil so Jesus only seemed to be God but was not God with us. The Ebonites (2nd Century) who were Jewish Christians saw Jesus as a prophet but not God. The Modalist (3rd Century) saw God as one but with three names but not different persons. Arians (Bishop Arius of the 4th Century) saw Christ as a created being and not coeternal as scripture shows and not the same substance. This is why the Council of Nicea in 325 began the process of formalizing the statement of the Trinity as seen in the Nicene Creed which was a long process coming into being. It said Jesus was the same substance of God and that He was begotten from God and not created. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was also hammered out. He was the same substance and “proceeds from the Father…together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.” This idea of procession was draw together in the 2nd Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381. Later in 419 under the influence of Augustine came the idea of the Holy Spirit proceeded from “the Father and the Son” known as the double procession and termed the “Filoque” (Latin means – “and the Son”). The Roman (Western) church accepted the change but the Eastern (Orthodox) church did not in Constantinople and it was one of the Theological reasons for the split of the church between the east (Eastern Orthodox Church) and the west (Roman Catholic Church). What does this mean to us? The blessings for us are that God is eternal and gives us eternal life because Jesus Christ is the substance that can save us. The Holy Spirit comes inside of us and gives us God’s eternal life through Jesus. That this God we worship is always consistent in His love and grace, not changing. That we have a sure anchor in a Father who we can count on and doesn’t fluctuate or waver. What a great God! Very blessed and overjoyed with you because of His consistent grace to our lives.