What are the origins of the trinity?

[Second Phoenix]

You realize Tertullian was a pretty much a Pentacostal hence his not being held as a Saint.

Also Gospel of Matthew 90 AD.

Matthew 28:19

Go ye therefore, and teach
all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost:

God's word is much better than man's.

I thought it was because he joined a Gnostic group?

 

[OzSpen]

I thought it was because he joined a Gnostic group?

Would you please provide documented evidence that Tertullian joined a Gnostic group and was not an orthodox Christian believer? I'm using orthodox as the opposite of unorthodox and not as a member of the Orthodox Church.

 

[Purge187]

It gets confusing sometimes. I consider myself to be a Trinitarian, but here's a few tidbits from the website of a local Pentecostal church I was thinking of visiting:

God is absolutely one, with no distinction of persons. (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:8; 45:5-6, 21-23; 46:9 Romans 3:30; Galatians 3:20; James 2:19).

In order to save sinful humanity, God provided a sinless Man as a sacrifice of atonement -- Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In begetting the Son and in relating to humanity, God is the Father. In working to transform and empower human lives, God is the Holy Spirit. Thus, for our salvation, God has revealed Himself as Father (in parental relationship to humanity), in His Son (in human flesh), and as the Holy Spirit (in spiritual action). (Malachi 2:10; Luke 1:35; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 1 Timothy 2:5)

They're a Oneness Pentecostal church so far as I can tell, but the above description of God, Son and Holy Spirit seems respectable to me.

I think the key is to always believe in the absolute divinity, perfection and Biblical accounts of all three.

 

[OzSpen]

Oneness Pentecostalism does not promote orthodox Trinitarian theology. The wording that you gave of their statement concerning Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is not parallel with orthodox Christian teaching.

I urge you to read Matt Slick's excellent assessment of their unorthodox teachings in his articles on Oneness Pentecostal.

Matt Slick's summary of The Trinity is an accurate one:

God is a trinity of persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the same person as the Son; the Son is not the same person as the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is not the same person as Father. They are not three gods and not three beings. They are three distinct persons; yet, they are all the one God. Each has a will, can speak, can love, etc., and these are demonstrations of personhood. They are in absolute perfect harmony consisting of one substance. They are coeternal, coequal, and copowerful. If any one of the three were removed, there would be no God. (See also, "Another Look at the Trinity").

Jesus, the Son, is one person with two natures: Divine and Human. This is called the Hypostatic Union. The Holy Spirit is also divine in nature and is self aware, the third person of the Trinity.

There is, though, an apparent separation of some functions among the members of the Godhead. For example, the Father chooses who will be saved (Eph. 1:4); the Son redeems them (Eph. 1:7); and the Holy Spirit seals them, (Eph. 1:13).

A further point of clarification is that God is not one person, the Father, with Jesus as a creation and the Holy Spirit as a force (Jehovah's Witnesses). Neither is He one person who took three consecutive forms, i.e., the Father, became the Son, who became the Holy Spirit. Nor is God the divine nature of the Son (where Jesus had a human nature perceived as the Son and a divine nature perceived as the Father (Oneness theology). Nor is the Trinity an office held by three separate Gods (Mormonism).

The word "person" is used to describe the three members of the Godhead because the word "person" is appropriate. A person is self aware, can speak, love, hate, say "you," "yours," "me," "mine," etc. Each of the three persons in the Trinity demonstrate these qualities.

The chart below should help you to see how the doctrine of the Trinity is systematically derived from Scripture. The list is not exhaustive, only illustrative.

The first step is to establish the biblical doctrine that there is only one God. Then, you find that each of the persons is called God, each creates, each was involved in Jesus' resurrection, each indwells, etc. Therefore, God is one, but the one God is in three simultaneous persons. Please note that the idea of a composite unity is not a foreign concept to the Bible; after all, man and wife are said to be one flesh. The idea of a composite unity of persons is spoken of by God in Genesis (Gen. 2:24).

There is only one God

The first step is to establish how many Gods exist: one! Isaiah 43:10; 44:6,8; 45:5,14,18,21,22; 46:9; 47:8; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:5-6; Gal. 4:8-9

• "I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God," (Isaiah 45:5).
• “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me," (Isaiah 44:6).

In this summary of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, Matt Slick exposes one of the fallacies of Oneness Pentecostalism: 'Neither is He one person who took three consecutive forms, i.e., the Father, became the Son, who became the Holy Spirit. Nor is God the divine nature of the Son (where Jesus had a human nature perceived as the Son and a divine nature perceived as the Father (Oneness theology)'.

Take a read of the other unorthodox doctrines they promote in relation to baptism and speaking in tongues.

Oz

It gets confusing sometimes. I consider myself to be a Trinitarian, but here's a few tidbits from the website of a local Pentecostal church I was thinking of visiting:

God is absolutely one, with no distinction of persons. (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:8; 45:5-6, 21-23; 46:9 Romans 3:30; Galatians 3:20; James 2:19).

In order to save sinful humanity, God provided a sinless Man as a sacrifice of atonement -- Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In begetting the Son and in relating to humanity, God is the Father. In working to transform and empower human lives, God is the Holy Spirit. Thus, for our salvation, God has revealed Himself as Father (in parental relationship to humanity), in His Son (in human flesh), and as the Holy Spirit (in spiritual action). (Malachi 2:10; Luke 1:35; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 1 Timothy 2:5)

They're a Oneness Pentecostal church so far as I can tell, but the above description of God, Son and Holy Spirit seems respectable to me.

I think the key is to always believe in the absolute divinity, perfection and Biblical accounts of all three.

 

[Keachian]

God has revealed Himself as Father (in parental relationship to humanity), in His Son (in human flesh), and as the Holy Spirit (in spiritual action). (Malachi 2:10; Luke 1:35; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 1 Timothy 2:5)

This is the crux of the issue, this is where the Sabellianism of Oneness theology hits the road, it is a revelation of the different masks of God and his relationship to his creation. In contrast the orthodox position is;

God exists eternally in three coequal and coeternal persons, who from eternity past deemed to create and reveal himself to man through entering into his creation through the incarnation of the second person who condescended to us and was crucified giving himself wholly for us, the impassable clothed in passability, the eternal clothed in mortality. The Father then in response raised him back to life glorifying him with the glory that they shared before creation and together they sent forth the Holy Spirit to comfort and unify the Church.

And I've probably not done justice to either the Gospel, the doctrine of the Trinity nor the Incarnation of the Son.

 

[Hammster]

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