The Trinity, the Godhead, the Triune God. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (or for you old timers, the Holy Ghost. My kids prefer Holy Spirit, they say Holy Ghost sounds too scary).
Atheist and Agnostics love to say that you won’t find the word trinity anywhere in the bible. Oneness Pentecostals deny it. And most Christians say they believe it but run away when you ask them to explain it. 
I have been reading a book called Christian History Made Easy. Now before you get all huffy because I am reading a “made easy” book, let me point out that I do own all 8 volumes of History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff, I just haven’t managed to get past volume 1. So, back to Christian History Made Easy (which I really recomend by the way), I reached the part where the western and eastern churches disagreed on whether God the Father is divine and shares his divinity with the Son and Holy Spirit (eastern church) or whether the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equally divine (western church). I am not about to touch that subject, but it made me think about the relationship between God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and how it can often be difficult to wrap our heads around it.
So here it is in a nutshell. There is one God, not three. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not three separate gods, they are one God. But, they are three distinct persons. They are three persons that are one being. Okay, so I know that doesn’t make any sense to our human minds. It’s a mystery, and that is okay. I am one of those analytical people, I think about stuff too much and everything has to make sense to me. The idea that there could be a mystery surrounding God that I couldn’t understand bothered me for a long time, but I eventually realized that since I am not God, I cannot possibly understand everything about him. So, to recap. There is one God, who exists in three persons (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). These three persons are one being.
So it’s still not an easy thing to wrap your head around, I know. One thing that has helped me is to think about why we need to explain God this way. It’s not to explain what God is, but what He is not. Why would we need to explain what God is not? Because over the history of Christianity (including the present time) people have either added to or taken away from what the bible says about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Often they have done this in order to make God easier to understand in their mind. Wouldn’t it be easier to wrap your head around the idea that there is one God (the Father) and he created Jesus as a human with superhuman power? When people teach ideas that either add to or take away from what the bible says about God it’s called heresy and the person is called a heretic. So when we say that there is one God who exists in the three persons of the Father, the Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit who are one being, we are not trying to explain everything there is to know about God, we are explaining what we do know and what must not be changed.
The First Council of Nicaea. Oh yeah, we are getting into church history now. The First Council of Nicea was a gathering of the overseers (bishops) of the both the eastern and western churches in 325AD. Without going into too much detail the eastern church eventually became the Orthodox Christian Church and the western church became the Roman Catholic Church. So back to Nicaea…. Many people, especially non-christians, believe that the idea of Jesus being God was invented at the First Council of Nicea. This is simply not true, let me give you the story.
Long, long before the First Council of Nicea, even before the Apostles Creed was something called the Rule of Faith, this was used to confirm the belief of new Christians, and had been in use prior to the second century.
Do you believe in God the Father, Ruler of all? Do you believe in Christ Jesus, God’s Son, who was born by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried, and rose on the third day, alive from the dead, and ascended into heaven, sat at the Father’s right hand, and will come again to judge the living and the dead? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?
Notice it covers God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But it doesn’t specifically state that there is one God and each of them is a person in that one God. Why? Because no one doubted that Jesus was God, there had been no reason to explain it, until the 4th century that is.
In the 4th century an elder from Alexandria in Egypt named Arius began teaching that Jesus was not God Eternal, but that he was a created being who did not exist from the beginning of time. The reason he came up with this idea was that he didn’t believe God experience emotions, and in order for this idea to work Jesus could not be God.
Christians had always believed that Jesus was God, it was a given. That’s why the Rule of Faith didn’t spell it out. But now that someone was teaching that Jesus was not God, it became an issue. So at the First Council of Nicaea the leaders of the eastern and western churches agreed upon a statement of faith, the Creed of Nicaea, that specifically excluded the heretical teachings of Arius.
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
You’ll notice that the Creed of Nicaea expands on the earlier Rules of Faith, clarifying the divinity of Jesus. It was nothing new or radical.
I want to point out two things in the Creed of Nicaea you may have noticed in the last paragraph. First is the “[and the Son]” after the phrase “…who proceeds from the Father”. This was used by the eastern church for fear that without it some may think that the Son (Jesus) is not distinct from the Father. The second is the use of “holy catholic and apostolic Church”. In this context when it says catholic it is referring to the original meaning of catholic which is universal or all-encompassing, this is often called the little “c” catholic as opposed to the big “C” catholic which refers to the Catholic Church as we know it today.
In summary, the Trinity is the understanding that there is one God, with three distinct persons of the Father, Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. These persons while distinct are one being that is God. Christians worshiped Jesus as divine (God) from the beginning, it was not a creation of the First Council of Nicaea. And the purpose of the Creed of Nicaea was to combat heretics that were claiming that Jesus was not God but a created (and separate) being, not to create a new doctrine.
Once last thing…. Even though almost 1700 years ago the leaders Christian churches gathered and reconfirmed in a written statement that Jesus was God, there are still those that claim that Jesus (the Son) is not God but a created being. The two biggest groups that believe this are the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t mean to step on any toes here, but if you are a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness or have been approached by someone from these groups please check into this. Ask them straight up, does your religion believe that Jesus was a created being or is he God Eternal? It’s a simple yes or no question but it has eternal implications.
Okay, I have written over 1500 words in this post. Sorry for being so long winded. If you have any questions or comments please post them or if you prefer you can contact me directly using the Contact Me link on the left.
-Keith
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