The Nicene Creed was developed in AD 325, taking its final form in AD 381. Notice how developed the doctrine of the Trinity is:
We believe in one God, the Father the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father….
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified….
This creed clarifies the Trinity in great detail.
1. There is One God. The Bible is clear there is one and only one God. He is only one being, not three Gods.
· Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
· Isaiah 45:5-6: “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
2. God is Three Persons. This means the Father is not the Son and not the Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Father and not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father and not the Son. God is one in essence, three in Person.
· John 14:16-17: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
· John 15:26: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”
3. Each Person is Fully God. One isn’t the other, and each member of the Trinity is equal in rank, power, glory and majesty.
· The Father is God. Malachi 2:10: “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?”
· The Son is God. After Thomas expressed his doubts he boldly declared the deity of Christ in John 20:28: “My Lord and my God!”
· The Holy Spirit is God. In Acts 5:3-4, Peter asks Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied to man but to God.”
The doctrine of the Trinity comes directly from the pages of Scripture and the biblical authors were utterly captivated by our Triune God. Ray Pritchard writes: “We find evidence for oneness, evidence for threeness, and evidence for three-in-oneness. By carefully pulling all the evidence together, and without slighting any part of the evidence in favor of other evidence, we arrive at the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity….”
The doctrine of the Trinity is divinely revealed, not humanly constructed. It is so far from human understanding that no one could have invented it, nor tried to explain. So what do we do with this divinely revealed trinity? We embrace it by faith.
In Christ,
Sallie Rathbone
Pastoral Assistant