Someone where called me a liar or such for writing that for the first three centuries after Christ, he was NOT seen as God at all, but the son of God. This is from Wikipedia and other sources back it up. I was correct and the further away we got from the loving Jesus, the more the church became deceived and now does the deceiving for gullible types like you to help propagate the apostasy.
Tertullian, a Latin theologian who wrote in the early 3rd century, is credited with using the words “Trinity”,[11] “person” and “substance”[12] to explain that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “one in essence—not one in Person”.[13]
About a century later, in 325, the First Council of Nicaea established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and adopted the Nicene Creed, which described Christ as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father”.
Besides ME??
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To: fabian
You cannot learn salvation and I also have not judged anyone.
Liar! |
I am very sorry to hear you rely on Wikipedia for either your theology or your history. There is a better source. It’s called the Bible. Nicea was the culmination of a long debate. The Gnostics had begun, within the lifetime of the apostle John, to attempt to discredit the early church belief in Jesus as God, because they wanted to sell their “secret knowledge” that could put you in an altered state of consciousness where you could rise above moral limitations and become one with the divine.
This pitch worked well enough with the pagans, but Christians were a problem. You only had to openly believe in Jesus, and repent of your sin, and God would accept you. That’s it. No eternal quest to reach God. He had already come to us in Jesus. No secrets to sell. Jesus revealed everything we really need to know. No altered states of consciousness to achieve. God had freely given us his Holy Spirit.
And no complicated man-made rules to artificially come between you and the enjoyment of life. Because you see, for the Gnostic, the material world was such an evil place, you had to avoid clouding your mind with sensory experiences and mortal passions. But those Christians, simpletons that they were, thought they could get around all that by just putting their faith in Christ.
So as it happened, the Gnostics did try, for centuries, to corrupt the church, in several ways, but mainly by attacking the deity of Christ, which, BTW, was believed by the apostles, especially after the resurrection. Even the doubter Thomas, when confronted with the living Christ, addressed him personally as “my Lord and my God.” And the Greek makes it clear he was speaking of Jesus when he said this. Don’t let anyone kid you about translation issues. That is the meaning.
Nevertheless, the battle raged on, and by the third century, it began to look as if the original belief in Jesus being God in the flesh might lose out to the Gnostic perversion. But God raised up men, and one man in particular, Athanatius, who would argue relentlessly from the Scriptures for the old belief, the first belief, that Jesus was in fact God. And God was pleased to use him and others to secure the truth about Jesus, so that it could be passed on to later generations who would be faithful to God’s written word.
Now I understand that it seems confused to you, that the trinity challenges your sense of logic. It challenges anyone who thinks about it honestly. That does not make it untrue. Quite the opposite. If God was just as we imagined him to be, we might rightly be worried he was just the product of our imagination. The truth about God really should be, at least in some respects, unexpected. Even more importantly, it should be based on what he has told us of himself, in his own words, and the words he inspired his unique messengers the apostles to write. And all those words point to Jesus being both with God from uncreated eternity past, but also being God Himself, “and the word was God.” Not a mistranslation.
Does it seem foolish? It should, at least for some. Paul said it would. For the gospel he says is foolishness to those who are lost. But for those who believe, it is the power of God unto salvation. The unconverted mind cannot grasp it, and hates it, and seeks to create its own path to redemption. The childlike faith of which Christ spoke was faith, not in some convoluted retread gnostic controlled mental shutdown, but faith simply in Jesus, to save us from our sins by his death and resurrection. God has hidden this simplicity from the wise and revealed it to mere children. He teaches it to the world even now through the foolishness of preaching. Can you hear it yet?
Peace,
SR
Someone where called me a liar or such for writing that for the first three centuries after Christ, he was NOT seen as God at all, but the son of God. This is from Wikipedia and other sources back it up.
I will indeed take up your challenge, as in contrast to you, i actually document both what sources say. First, you are in contradiction with yourself, for rather than Christ not being seen as God at all for first three centuries after Christ, which ended about 333 AD, Tertullian, whom you erroneously provide as was being the first (not that you understand the theology of the Trinity), lived 160 – c. 225 AD. And a seen, men earlier than that affirmed the Deity of Christ, while what the so-callled “church fathers” believed is not determinative of doctrine, but what the weight of Scriptural evidence best warrants, which as shown, is that Jesus is God, being one in being, or nature with the Father.
And i do not have a problem with using Wikipedia which you invoke, providing the references are acceptable, yet from the WP article on the Trinity of the Church Fathers we read,
Ignatius, second bishop of Antioch, who was martyred in Rome around 110 AD,[1] wrote a series of letters to churches in Asia Minor on his way to be executed in Rome. The conjunction of Father, Son and Holy Spirit appears in his letter to the Magnesian church.
“Study, therefore, to be established in the doctrines of the Lord and the apostles, that so all things, whatsoever ye do, may prosper both in the flesh and spirit; in faith and love; in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit;.. Be ye subject...to Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit...” (Epistle to the Magnesians, Chapter 13 [SR]).[2]
This source uses the gospel of Matthew only and no other known gospel, and thus it must have been written before the four-gospel canon had become widespread in the churches, i.e. before the second half of the 2nd century when Tatian produced the Diatessaron. Given its literary dependence on the Gospel of Matthew, it is not surprising that the Didache follows the Gospel of Matthew in designating the Trinitarian formula as a baptismal formula:
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After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water…. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. |
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Even though he does not use the word "Trinity" explicitly, Justin Martyr's First Apology, written around AD 150, reveals a primitive theology of the Trinity, in which God is in first place, Christ in second, and the Spirit in third,
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We will prove that we worship him reasonably; for we have learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, that he holds a second place, and the Spirit of prophecy a third. For this they accuse us of madness, saying that we attribute to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all things; but they are ignorant of the mystery which lies therein. |
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(First Apology 13:5–6).[5]
And to which is to be added, "in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." (First Apology, 61 LXI)
Theophilus of Antioch's Ad Autolycum is the oldest extant work that uses the actual word "Trinity" to refer to God, his Word and his Wisdom. The context is a discussion of the first three days of creation in Genesis 1-3.
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It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place.... The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity, God, his Word, and his Wisdom. |
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(To Autolycus 2:15).[6]
All these are before 300AD. And as regards the actual use of the word ”Trinity,” the WP article on that states that,
the first of the early church fathers recorded as actually using the word Trinity was Theophilus of Antioch [died approx 184AD] writing in the late second century. He defines the Trinity as God, His Word (Logos) and His Wisdom (Sophia)[71]
To which can be added (from http://carm.org/early-trinitarian-quotes), Ignatius of Antioch (died 98/117). Bishop of Antioch.
"In Christ Jesus our Lord, by whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever" (n. 7; PG 5.988).
Tertullian (160-215). African apologist and theologian. He wrote much in defense of Christianity.
"We define that there are two, the Father and the Son, and three with the Holy Spirit, and this number is made by the pattern of salvation... [which] brings about unity in trinity, interrelating the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are three, not in dignity, but in degree, not in substance but in form, not in power but in kind. They are of one substance and power, because there is one God from whom these degrees, forms and kinds devolve in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit." (Adv. Prax. 23; PL 2.156-7).
Origen (185-254). Alexandrian theologian. Defended Christianity and wrote much about Christianity.
"If anyone would say that the Word of God or the Wisdom of God had a beginning, let him beware lest he direct his impiety rather against the unbegotten Father, since he denies that he was always Father, and that he has always begotten the Word, and that he always had wisdom in all previous times or ages or whatever can be imagined in priority... There can be no more ancient title of almighty God than that of Father, and it is through the Son that he is Father" (De Princ. 1.2.; PG 11.132).
"For if [the Holy Spirit were not eternally as He is, and had received knowledge at some time and then became the Holy Spirit] 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." (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 rpt., Vol. 4, p. 253, de Principiis, 1.111.4)
"Moreover, nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word and reason, and by the Spirit of His mouth sanctifies all things which are worthy of sanctification..." (Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 255, de Principii., I. iii. 7).
If, as the anti-Trinitarians maintain, the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine and was never taught until the council of Nicea in 325, then why do these quotes exist? The answer is simple: the Trinity is a biblical doctrine and it was taught before the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.
Part of the reason that the Trinity doctrine was not "officially" taught until the time of the Council of Nicea is because Christianity was illegal until shortly before the council. It wasn't really possible for official Christian groups to meet and discuss doctrine. For the most part, they were fearful of making public pronouncements concerning their faith.
Additionally, if a group had attacked the person of Adam, the early church would have responded with an official doctrine of who Adam was. As it was, the person of Christ was attacked. When the Church defended the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity was further defined.
The early church believed in the Trinity, as is evidenced by the quotes above, and it wasn't necessary to really make them official. It wasn't until errors started to creep in that councils began to meet to discuss the Trinity, as well as other doctrines that came under fire. Be back later