The Trinity One God in Three Persons  See the work of Nathan Busenitz for a fuller treatment of this subject  Grudem says: “The word trinity is never found in the Bible, though the idea represented by the word is taught in many places. The word trinity means ‘triunity’ or ‘three-in-oneness.’ It is used to summarize the teaching of Scripture that God is three persons yet one God.” 

The Claim of Opponents 

The Trinity was Invented in the Fourth Century (at the Council of Nicaea)  Dennis A. Beard says, “The Doctrine of

the Trinity did not exist until 325 A.D.”  P.R. Lackey, speaking of the Council of Nicaea, asserts that at that time: “a whole new theology was formally canonized into the church.”

The Claim of Opponents 

Robert Spears: “It is an unquestionable historical fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is a false doctrine foisted into the Church during the third and fourth centuries; which finally triumphed by the aid of persecuting emperors.”



Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians, etc. argue that the Trinity was invented in the 4th century

Four Considerations Biblical Authority  Patristic Affirmation  Creedal Articulation  Practical Application 

Biblical Authority Scripture is the Ultimate Authority  The Testimony of the Church merely affirms what is already true  the church does not establish truth, Scripture is truth  Trinity is based on two fundamental Biblical Truths 

Biblical Authority  Reality

1: There is one true God

 Isaiah 46:9: “Remember the former things

long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is no one like Me.”

Biblical Authority 

Reality 2: The one God has eternally existed as three distinct Persons, each of whom is equally and fully God.



The Father is God:  2 Corinthians 1:3: “Blessed by the God and

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.”

Biblical Authority 

The Son is God.  Titus 2:13: “Looking for the blessed hope and the

appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” 

The Son is not the Father.  John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and

the Word was with God, and the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God.”

Biblical Authority  

The Holy Spirit is God. Acts 5:3-4: “But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

Biblical Authority  

The Spirit is not the Father nor the Son. John 14:16-17: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be with you.”

Biblical Authority 



On this Basis, the Bible often speaks refers to God in ways that emphasize all three Members of the Trinity. 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

Biblical Authority  

The Church Fathers Understood the Scripture to be their Ultimate Authority Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395): “Let the inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire, and the vote of truth will surely be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words.”

Patristic Affirmation 

The importance of the church fathers (the patrons)

Patristic Affirmation Reality 1: There is one true God.  Theophilus of Antioch c. 185:  “And I pray for favor from the only God, that I may accurately speak the whole truth according to His will, that you and everyone who reads this work may be guided by His truth and favor.” 

Patristic Affirmation 

Reality 2: God exists as three distinct Persons, each of whom is equally and fully God:

The Father is God:  Iranaeus (c. 202): “The preaching of the apostles, the authoritative teaching of the Lord, the announcements of the prophets, the dictated utterances of the apostles, and the ministration of the law—all of which praise one and the same Being, the God and Father of all.” 

Patristic Affirmation The Son is God:  Around 106, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote a letter in which he explained that the Christians in his region sang hymns “to Christ as to a god.” 

Patristic Affirmation 

The Son is God:  Ignatius of Antioch (50-117): “For our God,

Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost.”  Justin Martyr (100-165): “For if you had

understood what has been written by the prophets [about the Christ], you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God.”

Patristic Affirmation  The

Son is God

 Origen (185-254): “Jesus Christ…while He

was God, and though made man, remained God as He was before.”  Novatian of Rome (210-280): “Scripture has

as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God…This same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God.”

Patristic Affirmation  The

Son is not the Father.

 Tertullian (160-255): “The Father is God,

and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God…As soon as Christ came and was recognized by us as the very Being who had from the beginning caused plurality (in the Divine Economy), being the second from the Father, and with the Spirit the third.”

Patristic Affirmation 

The Son is not the Father  Speaking of the different roles within the

Trinity, Irenaeus (c. 202): “The Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing [what is made].”

Patristic Affirmation 

The Holy Spirit is God.  Origen (185-254): [refuting that the Holy

Spirit is not the eternal third member of the Trinity] “For if this were the case, the Holy Spirit would never be reckoned in the Unity of the Trinity, i.e. along with the unchangeable Father and His Son, unless He had always been the Holy Spirit.”

Patristic Affirmation 

The Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son



Clement of Rome (c. 99): “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Scepter of the Majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him.”

Patristic Affirmation 

The Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son 

Iranaeus (c. 202): “The church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [she believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents and the birth from a virgin and the passion and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

Patristic Affirmation 

On this basis, the church Fathers often referred to God in ways that emphasized all three Members of the Trinity



Tertullian (c. 160-202): “We define that there are two, the Father and the Son, and three with the Holy Spirit [which] brings about unity in trinity, interrelating the three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Patristic Affirmation 

Hippolytus (170-235): “We cannot otherwise think of one God, but by believing in truth in Father and Son and Holy Spirit…the whole Scriptures, then, proclaim this truth.”

Creedal Articulation 





“Indeed,” Teabing said. “Stay with me. During this fusion of religions, Constantine needed to strengthen the new Christian tradition, and held a famous ecumenical gathering known as the council of Nicea. Sophie had heard of it only insofar as its being the birthplace of the Nicene Creed. “My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.”

Creedal Articulation Sophie, apparently stunned at this revelation, stammers, “Not the Son of God?” To which Teabing replies, “Right…Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea.”  Now Sophie is flabbergasted: “Hold on. You’re saying Jesus divinity was the result of a vote?”  As Sophie glanced at Langdon, he offered a soft nod of concurrence.  Teabing says…It was a relatively close vote at that. 

Creedal Articulation 

In 325, Constantine calls the Council of Nicaea

Statue of Emperor Constantine

The Council of Nicea 

A Council of (estimated) 318 elders and bishops met at Nicea (Modern Turkey)

The 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, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance [homoousios consubstantialem] with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. 

The Nicene Creed 

And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence (from the Father) or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion – all that so say, the Catholic [Universal] and Apostolic Church anathematizes them."

The Council of Nicaea  The

Debate is over Two Words:  Homoi-ousios (of a similar nature/substance)  Homo-ousios (of the same nature/substance)

Ousios Ousios = Substance/Nature/Essence  Substance is “that which constitutes or makes a person what it is” 

The Council of Nicaea Greek Word

Meaning

Proponent

Homoousias (Homo=same Ousias=substance)

Same substance/essence

Athanasius

Homoiousias (Homoi=similar)

Similar substance/essence

Arius

Heteroousias (Hetero=different)

Different substance/essence

Eunomius

Arius’ View was not enough 

J. Gresham Machen: “The next thing less than the infinite is infinitely less”



Christ is HOMO-Ousios: He is of the exact same nature, substance, and God-ness as God



Christ IS God!

Creedal Articulation In 381 at the Council of Constantinople, the church council added more detail regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit:  “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets.” 

Creedal Articulation The Athanasian Creed The Apostles’ Creed the Augsburg Confession, the Scottish Confession of Faith, the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the 39 articles of Religion of the Anglican Church,  the Westminster Confession,  the Philadelphia Confession,  1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.       

Practical Application  

Be Confident, because Truth and Time go hand in hand. Roger Olson: “A few groups flatly deny the doctrine of the Trinity as false and perhaps an invention of certain church fathers unduly influenced by the Roman emperor Constantine. But church history proves these groups wrong. The very earliest church fathers believed in the Trinity and the Trinity is strongly implied in Scripture. In fact, there’s no way to make sense of Scripture without it!”

Practical Application  

Embracing the Trinity is the way to experience God. Fred Von Kamecke: “Was the Trinity invented? No. Rather, it was the inevitable response of the church’s experience with God. He’s the One who revealed himself to us in this mysterious manner, a fact borne out by the Scriptures. The word ‘Trinity’ never appears, but the reality to which the term points is everywhere evident. Since it is a concept so deeply imbedded in the Scriptures, it is God himself who is responsible for it. This is the eternal unchanging nature of this incredible God.”

Practical Application Some things are definitely worth fighting for, and the deity of Christ is one of them.  Athanasius: “Wherefore…considering that this struggle is for our all…let us also make it our earnest care and aim to guard what we have received” 