Social media provides us many things. We get family Christmas photos of our friends, encouraging messages on our birthday, and the occasional heresy. I’m shocked at how often I find heresy regarding the Trinity while scrolling through Facebook. It’s right there in-between pictures of my friends’ vacation and latest lunch!
In a previous post, I discussed elements of the Trinity: You can find it here. I take a different angle in this post.
The Bible
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:16-17
The Trinity is the spiritual reality and the theological truth that the God we serve is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three in one and one in three. The Holy Trinity is the full expression of the One True God.
The word “trinity” is not found in the Bible. It was first used in the second century by Tertullian to express the truth taught in the Bible. It is a theological term which helps us to quickly and clearly summarize beliefs about God.
God is one: Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:6; 1 Timothy 1:17
God, the Father: Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 64:8 John 6:27; Titus 1:4
God, the Son: John 1:1, John 8:58, Colossians 1:13-16, Colossians 2:9
God, the Holy Spirit: Hebrews 9:14, Acts 5:3-4, 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19
The book of Ephesians provides many statements of Christ/Spirit/God or Spirit/Lord/Father which shows each member of the Trinity as equally God (1:13-14; 2:18, 20-22; 3:14-17; 4:4-6; 5:18-20; 6:10-18).
Church History
Church history has provided creeds and confessions which gather consensus and articulate orthodoxy:
The Apostle’s Creed: “I believe in God the Father. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
The Athanasian Creed: “This is the catholic [meaning, universal] faith: That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons, nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit, still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.”
The Westminster Confession: “In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.”
As a baptist, I’m fond of the expression “No creed but the Bible.” Yet, creeds are extremely helpful when confronting heresy.
Much of the heresy I see on the internet regarding the Trinity denies the co-equal and co-eternal nature of Jesus. For one to have a historic and orthodox understanding of God, one must know him as Trinity. One must speak of God as three in one and one in three.
Kevin DeYoung summarizes the Trinity in seven statements: 1) There is only one God. 2) The Father is God. 3) The Son is God. 4) The Holy Spirit is God. 5) The Father is not the Son. 6) The Son is not the Holy Spirit. 7) The Holy Spirit is not the Father. (DeYoung, Daily Doctrine page 62)
Heresy forces the church into precision regarding what is taught in the Bible.
Heresy: Arianism
Heresy is a belief contrary to orthodox Christian doctrine. Some use the term rather flippantly and merely refer to an error in theology. While no error in theology is good, some errors are small and some are large. Heresy should be reserved for errors which are such a departure from authentic, orthodox Christian doctrine that they threaten to deprive one of salvation.
Arianism is the belief that Jesus, as the Son of God, was a created being. It was proposed early in the 4th century by Arius of Alexandria. He argued the Son of God is not equal with the Father but a great creature. His concern was to protect monotheism – belief in one God – as well as belief in God’s immutability (Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief page 138).
In a letter to Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, Arius insisted that the Son “is not eternal or co-eternal or equally self-sufficient with the Father.” (Fairbain and Reeves, The Story of Creeds and Confessions page 56)
Yet, the coequal and coeternal nature of Jesus is the first truth proclaimed in John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).”
Arius and his colleagues affirmed a kind of Trinity made up of three “divine” beings (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), only one of whom is truly God. He argued that only the Father is “without beginning” and that the Son, though a great creature who shares many of God’s attributes, did not exist before he was begotten by the Father. The two key elements of Arius’ thought about God the Father and Jesus: First, God is by nature removed from creatureliness, if Jesus became human, he must be a creature. Second, salvation is a process of being joined with God by grace and free will, and if Jesus communicates salvation to us, it must be something he accomplished by grace and free will in a manner that we can emulate; and if he was God, then salvation would not be something he could accomplish. With this thought process, Arius pushed the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ further and further apart to the point it became a denial of Jesus’ divinity and rejection of the Trinity (Paragraph greatly aided by Olson, The Story of Christian Theology page 147).
Arianism is alive today as a main distinctive doctrine of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society which is more popularly known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Arius’ belief was denounced as heresy by the Council of Nicaea (presided over by Constantine) in 325.
Those I see denying the coequal and coeternal nature of Jesus on social media are no fans of Constantine. They blame him for many things. Yet, the Council of Nicaea got it right. Arianism is not orthodox Christianity and proponents of Arianism need to be declared heretics.
The Council of Nicaea last two months and covered many issues facing the early church. Present were 318 bishops representing East and West branches of Christianity. According to one account, soon after the council opened someone called for a reading of the Arian position. Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia stood and read a clear and blatant denial of the deity of the Son of God, emphasizing that Jesus is a creature and not equal with the Father in any sense. Before Eusebius finished, some of the bishops were holding hands over their ears and shouting for someone to stop the blasphemies. A bishop near Eusebius grabbed the manuscript out of his hands, threw it to the floor and stomped on it. (Olson, The Story of Christian Theology page 153).
The council decide to write a unifying creed summarizing “the ancient faith of the church.” The document produce clearly declared Arianism a heresy.
The original Nicene Creed:
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,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,
that is, from the substance of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God, begotten not made,
of one substance with the Father,
through Whom all things came into being,
things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,
and became incarnate and became man, and suffered,
and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,
or created, or is subject to alteration or change
– these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.
The creed is sharp enough to exclude, yet strong enough to unify. Phrases in the creed are clear enough to mark the differences between those who are Christians and those who are outside of orthodox Christianity (Packiam, What’s a Christian Anyway? page 23).
The Nicene Creed promulgated a virtual consistency among Christians that the God we worship is three persons (hypothesis) and one substance (ousia) or being. God is one – monotheism – by virtue of the common essence, substance, and three by virtue of distinction of persons within this Godhead (Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief page 139).
Rejections
The Nicene Creed declare what is true about the Trinity. Perhaps it might be helpful to describe what the Trinity is not:
Orthodox Christianity rejects adoptionism, which believes that the power of God came upon Jesus at his baptism, thereby “adopting” him into Sonship and deifying his humanity.
Orthodox Christianity rejects modalism, which believes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely different names for the different “modes” of God.
Orthodox Christianity rejects Arianism which denies the full divine nature of Jesus.
Orthodox Christianity rejects all forms of tritheism, which teaches the the three person of the Trinity are three separate God (Mormon theology).
Correction is Needed (and Biblical)
The New Testament is full of letters written to encourage and correct the church. I love the opening paragraph of 1 John:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. – 1 John 1:1-4
John preached what he heard with his own ears and saw with his own eyes. When he heard or saw something which contradicted what he heard in Jesus and saw in Jesus, it was corrected. He later wrote of a group which departed from the church’s fellowship,
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. – 1 John 2:19
Trinitarian theology is witnessed in the life and ministry of Jesus, heard in the teaching of Jesus, recorded in the New Testament, affirmed throughout church history in creeds, confessions, and taught through orthodox preaching and teaching.
Denials of the Trinity need to be confronted. In denial of the Trinity, or in confrontation, some depart form the church’s fellowship.
Why does this matter?
Why does Arianism rise to the level of heresy? At the core of Arianism, is the denial of the full divine nature of Jesus. Jesus’ full divinity and full humanity is necessary for his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead to provide forgiveness of sin, reconciliation, and eternal life for sinners like you and me.
Jeff Gravens 
2 thoughts on “Still Blessed Trinity”