trinity – Believers Armed and Dangerous

Some Trinitarian Thoughts

1 John 4:7-8 (ESV) Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love

Let me start by saying a teacher once told me I had the ability to make difficult concepts easier to understand. This blog may prove him wrong.

As the title says, this is a blog on Trinitarianism, so you might ask how these specific verses apply. It’s just the last three words of the passage I’d like to concentrate on, actually: “God is love.” I’d also like to establish early on that God’s love is perfect:

1 John 4:18 (ESV): There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

So, God is love means God is by nature, love. He’s not just loving but must by nature love. God is also an infinite being, so His love is infinite, and that love is perfect. The word for perfect in 1 John 4:18 is teleios and means “complete.” The Greek word for love in these verses is agape, unconditional love for someone else: man. Throughout the Bible, God’s love is directed at someone or something. My point is that love, at least perfect love, requires an object to be loved whether it’s man or righteousness or something else. Love isn’t love unless it is expressed toward something or someone.

Now, if God is love, is eternal, and prior to creation, was only one person, and was alone, He would not have had an “object” at which to direct His love. His love would then have been imperfect, so God would have been imperfect at least in His love nature. But, if there were a second person, the Eternal Word, say, at whom to direct His love, that love would have been more perfect. “But,” you say, “that only gives us two persons in the godhead,” and you would be right. We’re seeking perfect/complete love here. There is another requirement of love we need to include if we want perfect/complete love. That would be the practice of two loving individuals directing their common love at another, a third person. We see this in a family where parents will say they didn’t know what love was until they had a child. The communion between parents in their common love for a child, in this case, results in perfect love.

“But,” you say again, “why not just continue on with a fourth, fifth, sixth, person and so on?” This isn’t necessary since the common love shared by a first, second, and third person doesn’t require a fourth to be complete. It only adds objects, not features to perfect love. Three will make it perfect, and since God is perfect and perfect in love, three is enough.

So, to lay this out logically, it would go something like this:

God is love.
God’s love nature must be perfect and complete.
For God’s love to be perfect and compete, there must be an object for that love.
Adding one person or object to be loved still leaves open a need to love another together.
Adding that third person completes the perfection of love as it adds a shared communal love of two toward another.
An additional person, a fourth person, does nothing to perfect that love.
Therefore, if God is perfect, efficient, and eternal love He must be three divine persons.

Is the Trinity logical?

We’ve all heard poor explanations of what the Trinity is and how it can be explained like the egg example: shell, white, and yoke. As a child, my son had a book explaining the Trinity in a similar manner using an apple: peel, meat, core or seeds. Both of these explanations make God out to be three parts. God is a simple being not made of parts, so we need to find a better explanation. How about this one:

Mary is going to try out for the Rockettes, but when she shows up at Radio City Music hall for the audition, no one is there. She decides to run through her routine anyway. When she finishes, she slips into a time machine and goes back in time to one minute before her dance routine began and joins her other self. They both dance the same routine, and when they’re finished, Mary reenters the time machine again and goes back in time to one minute prior to the start of the dance routine and joins her other selves.

Now, is each of the three dancers the same Mary? Yes, they are all Mary. Can they be distinct from one another? Yes they can. We can have the Mary on the left, Mary on the right, and Mary in the center. They can communicate with one another, move independently, etc. So, what we have are three distinct dancers but only one Mary. This principle can be applied somewhat to God. We have one God but three distinct persons all sharing the same nature. Therefore, the statements “God is one God” and “God is three persons” are not contradictory any more than saying “There is one Mary but three dancers.”

Why is this important?

It is sometimes important to present philosophical answers to questions about our beliefs because not everyone will accept direct biblical answers.

Most of what I have presented here is taken from the chapter on the Trinity in An Introduction to Christian Philosophical Theology by Davis and Yang (2020, Zondervan Academic)

Christianity’s Essentials

The Five Essentials

I was asked the other day what test could be used to tell if someone was a heretic or just in error. I thought this would be a good topic to share here, so here goes.

There are five major doctrines the church has historically and generally used as a test of Christian organizations to see if they was not cultic: The Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, salvation by grace alone, and the vicarious atonement. Denial of any of these has historically put an organization in the cult category. Let’s look at these very briefly:

The Trinity: Belief in the Trinity is to believe the one true God chooses to exist in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: one being but three persons. These three are coequal and co-eternal. We see this in Scripture here:

The Father is God: Gal. 1:1 (ESV) Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

The Son is God: Titus 2:13 (ESV) waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ

The Holy Spirit is God: Acts 5:3-4 (ESV) But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? ⁴While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

Yet there is only one true God: 1 Tim. 1:17 (ESV) To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Conclusion: The three persons are the one true God.

The Deity of Christ. This is the belief that Jesus is God the Son, in all ways equal in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit:

John 5:18 (ESV) This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

The Bodily Resurrection of Christ. This is the belief that Jesus rose from the dead in the very body that died on the cross at Calvary.

Luke 24:36-39 (ESV) As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” ³⁷But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. ³⁸And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Salvation by Grace Alone. This is the belief we are saved by God’s grace and not by anything we have done. Works have nothing to do with salvation.

Eph. 2:8-9 (ESV) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Vicarious Atonement. This is the belief that Jesus didn’t only die for the world corporately but for us as individuals as well. Vicarious just means “on behalf of another.” God is interested in all of mankind, but what about me, a lowly sinner. Is God interested in just me? In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus answers this for us:

Luke 15:3-7 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?”

God is looking to save you and me. That’s why salvation is such a personal experience.

Why is this important?

For the individual Christian, it is enough to rely on Jesus for your salvation. The above five doctrines can be useful for a Christian to examine an organization before they become involved in it.

A second danger of not understanding these doctrines is a Christian may have relied on Christ for their salvation but now thinks works are necessary for salvation, or Jesus is inferior in nature to the Father, or the Holy Spirit is just a name for God’s power. When they share their faith, they are sharing it in error. Maybe they are sharing a faith that is not a saving faith. Maybe they tell a seeker that Jesus is the Archangel Michael or God is really not triune but one person who relates to us in three ways, or maybe we don’t really need to rely on Jesus at all to be saved, that works need to be performed first. Is that a saving faith?

We are responsible before God both for what we believe and what we share with others. One day we will stand before God, and we will have to explain why we didn’t study our faith deeply enough to be able to explain it clearly and completely to others. We are expected to be able to give a clear and accurate representation of the Truth when asked.

2 Tim. 2:24-26 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, ²⁵correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, ²⁶and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Another Jesus?

2 Cor. 11:3-4 (ESV) But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

For the first few centuries of the church, Christian theologians struggled with one major problem: what to do with Jesus. The New Testament writers said Jesus was God (Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 14, 5:18, 8:58, 20:28, etc.). The Apostolic Fathers (disciples of Jesus’ disciples) taught Jesus was God:

“For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb of Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Spirit.” (Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians, cir. 110 a.d.) Ignatius was one of the Apostle John’s disciples.

So, how does this work? We know of God the Father, but now God the Son is presented to the followers of the faith. We also know there is only one God. How can the Father and Son both be God when there is only one? This was a major difficulty in the early church and by the end of the third century, was a common topic of conversation not just among church leaders but also among the average believer.

A lot of theories were proposed. Most of these centered around the nature and character of Jesus which indirectly affects Trinitarian doctrine. Let’s look at some of these:

The Judaizers These folks were around during the time of the apostles. They taught Jesus was just a man and, therefore, His sacrifice wasn’t enough to save. Christians needed to continue in the Jewish rituals to be saved. The Jerusalem Council was convened to deal with this error in Acts chapter 15.

Gnosticism was an early heresy and stated Jesus was not a man at all but a phantom. The Gnostics thought the material world was evil and only the spiritual was good. As a result of this belief, they taught Jesus was good and so was not physical. He only seemed to be. This false teaching was common even in New Testament times and survived for centuries thereafter. It has reappeared in the modern Christian Science and Unity schools. John the Apostle wrote against it:

1 John 1:1 – 2 (NASB) What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us

Modalism was another early heresy and was developed by a guy name Sabellius in the early third century. He taught Jesus was just a “face” or mode of God, that God is only one Person but wears three different “hats” as the Father, the Son, or the Spirit depending on the need of the Christian. The early church saw this was contradictory to the standard writings of the church. The Bible teaches the three persons of the trinity interacting with one another and not acting as one Person.

Patripassionianism is a form of Modalism which teaches that Jesus is both God and man but the God “part” is the Father who indwells the Son. Only the Father is God, Jesus is a human. The belief taught “as the Son suffered on the cross, so did the Father.” This is contrary to biblical teaching since we see Jesus, the Son, addressing the Father a number of times and indicating the Father is in heaven while the Son is on the earth as in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9).

Tritheism was an errant doctrine developed in the early third century by Dionysius of Alexandria to combat Modalism, but he pushed things too far and ended up teaching Jesus was one of three Gods: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The church pointed this out to Dionysius, and he quickly turned back to the classical Trinitarian view.

Arianism is a teaching begun by Arius of Alexandria (256-336 a.d.). He said Jesus was created and not God at all: “There was when the Word was not” was a famous saying of his. His teaching became so dominant by the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Nicaea was called by Emperor Constantine (an Arian) to decide whether Arianism or classical Trinitarianism was biblical. About 300 bishops were called together and argued the evidence. The Trinitarian doctrine we hold today was defended against Arianism and stood the test. Arius was excommunicated and cursed by the church.

Why is this important?

To have the wrong Jesus is to stand before God at the judgment and be rejected:

Matt. 7:21-23 (ESV) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Paul taught us to check what we believe against Scripture, to test our beliefs to see that we are in the faith, that we have the true Jesus. Let’s do that.

2 Cor. 13:5 (NIV) Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?