One of the central doctrines of Scripture is that of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity was established early on in the early stages of the church to guard against heresies that threatened Christianity. There is little argument on the validity or authority of the Trinity. It is firmly establish in the framework of our faith. Each of the members of the Trinity has distinct roles. Among those roles are a Creator God, Atoning Son, and an Indwelling Spirit. These three work in complete unity with one another, each with distinct functions, but total unity. Christianity is monotheistic, but not unitarian. It is Trinitarian, but not tritheistic. It is impossible to separate the three or promote one over the other. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
In scripture we see this triunity. In John 16:14 Jesus says that the Spirit “will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” A parallel is found in John 17:4 where in his high priestly prayer Jesus states that during his ministry on earth he glorified the Father. Here we see the Trinity acting in concert one with the other in glorification to each other. The Spirit glorifies Jesus and Jesus glorifies the Father. It becomes evident to see that these three are intertwined in harmony together. Again we see the Holy Spirit mentioned with the Father and Son in Jude 1:20-21, “But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.” Here Jude instructs us to “pray in the Holy Spirit.”(v. 20) The only instruction that is given in the Bible of how to pray...
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...hets. Many who do not believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit are good intentioned people who believe the lie that is meant to discredit and suppress the power of the Holy Spirit. Their intentions are good, but they are misled. But many of these people, when pursuing God and open mind and a hungry heart, have found that anointing that the Holy Spirit gives. It has set them free and they have found great power for ministry and anointing in their ministries. “Because Jesus Himself is baptizer in the Holy Spirit, no believer should refuse to be baptized in the Spirit’s power. It simply is a matter of obeying Jesus’ plan for the implementation of the Great Commission in the earth.” Why would we want to? Why would any believer not want to experience the full measure of what God has promised us? What’s more, the Holy Spirit longs to fill us with His power and presence.
In the teaching on the Holy Trinity, St. Basil was a student of Alexandrian theology and its main representatives—Origen and Athanasius of Alexandria. The reason St. Basil wrote this teaching is that the Church was waging a war against heresies of Pneumatomachoi and Neo-Arians. St. Basil wrote the work On the Holy Spirit between 373 and 375 AD. It was written to “Your desire for information, my right well-beloved and most deeply respected brother Amphilochius, I highly commend, and not less your industrious energy.” The author commends his brother’s eagerness to find knowledge. When the Apostle Paul writes, “There is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things,” it does not mean that a writer is trying “to introduce the diversity of nature, but to exhibit the notion of Father and of Son as unconfounded.”
What does it mean to say the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How is God best understood? How can the Church communicate this today?
Three equals one. Out of all of the statements made by the Christian faith, perhaps none is more confusing. The Doctrine of the Trinity has been questioned for decades and many Christians do not even understand it. Colin E. Gunton argues that this does not have to be so. Instead, he calls the Western Church to learn from Eastern Orthodoxy and allow Trinitarian thinking to permeate every aspect of the church. It is when the Western Church embarrasses “The Forgotten Trinity” (the name of the chapter) in thinking and in worship, that we not only learn the nature of God, but how we should live in light of it.
In the article “The Forgotten Trinity”, a segment of Colin E. Gunton’s book Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he targets a problem with the practice of the Trinity in the Church today. Gunton believes that the church has strayed from the essential tradition that it ought to follow- a culture solidified on not just one person of the trinity but all three. He makes this view clear with lines such as “Once upon a time we were a deeply Trinitarian culture”(4), and with questions such as “Is the worship of the Church truly informed by Trinitarian categories?”(5) Gunton’s aim is to clarify the God that Christians worship: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Gunton believes that a proper perspective on the Trinity is vital to the structure of the Church because the Trinity establishes God as a God of love and
The mention of the Holy Spirit so often in Romans 8 (more than twenty times) has the purpose of pointing out the actions of the Father, which serves to reveal His identity as the one who raised Jesus, specifically in Romans 8:11, from the dead. This same verb, is also used in Romans 4:17 in relationship to the faith of Abraham. The Father who raised Jesus from the dead and gives life the Abraham 's faith is the same Who will raise the believers of Jesus. In a similar fashion to the identity descriptions within Romans 4, namely Romans 4:5, 17, 24 and their relationship, there is an echo in Romans 8:32: “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” The Father is He who
In the Old Testament everything is scarttered and it is hard to explain the exact meaning of the word trinity. However, in the Old Testament, they set up the idea of the trinity. God is the creator of this universe and he created this world by speaking his word and sending out his spirtit. Bavinck wrote that God’s “word” is the objective principle of creation and his “spirit” is the subjective principle. According to him, the world came into being by threefold causes, the word of God, word hypostatized as wisdom and the spirit of God. In other word, the Old Testament refers to God's word, his spirit, and Wisdom. This t...
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit begins with examining biblical witness to the work of the Holy Spirit in the history of Israel, as well as the ministry of Jesus, and in the life of the church. During the creation account it was the breath of God that grave life to all creation. The Holy Spirit has been a primate actor sin the beginning of time. While the Spirit was present prior to the ministry of Christ, the New Testament speaks in greater detail of the Spirit because it empowered Jesus. From his conception to the day of Pentecost the Sprit was present and active in the life of Christ and the believers. We see in ...
The statement by John, “Baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” has an undertone which is connected to a theme which intertestamental Jews held. This idea was not related directly to the Holy Spirit and the work He would have at Jesus’ baptism or in Jesus’ ministry. A question such as, why would an unrelated belief have a connection to the Holy Spirit who was to come in the baptism of Jesus? This belief was the idea that a time of affliction or anguish would take place before the coming of the messiah. This was referred to as the birth pangs of the messiah. One reference which is used to support this is from the prophet Daniel, where in one of his visions he refers to war being made against the saints and until the ancient of days would come there would be judgment upon the saints (Dan. 7:21-22). The fire which john speaks about could be a fire of judgment for the people as well as a fire which would purify the saints. Various OT prophets confirm this idea of judgment by fire (Amos 7:4; Mal. 4:1) which the people would have to experience. Another reference to fire as judgment 2 Peter 3:6-7 where the fire is being stored up for the heavens and the earth until the day of judgment. The imagery of this fire in Jesus’ baptism is seen as a river or stream of fire (Dan. 7:10). Another element of this early held view of the fire of Jesus’ baptism was also dual purposed in its nature. As the fire would destroy the wicked it would also purge and cleanse the righteous. These references to fire help clarify the possible understanding of the differences between John’s and Jesus baptisms. This was not the sole purpose of His baptism; he was preparing the way (Matt. 3:3) for Jesus. One way the baptism of Jesus could be seen,...
“The practice of baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the second century propelled the development of the trinitarian theology” (LaDue 48). According to Collins, the trinity can be defined by three statements “1. There is only one true God. 2. This one true God exists as three distinct persons. 3. Each person is fully divine” (Collins 29-31). The three people that make up the trinity are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. First there is the Father. There are many Bible passages where God is referred to as the Father, this can be concluded because He alone created all things and His first human creation, Adam, was called the son of God. Jesus is God’s son and he was sent by his father, the Father, to offer humanity salvation from their sins. The “God of the Israelites reveals himself as a distinct, unique, superior deity who is always there. God’s being there is what defines him” (LaDue 14). The Israelites sometimes see the God Yahweh as an imitation of the trinity in the old testament, but they do not have distinct leveled personalities. Although God is distinct and unique, the idea that He is superior can be a false assumption as all the persons of the trinity have equal power and divinity. Another person of the trinity is the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is a person. This is a common misconception of the
The Bible never makes of the specific reference of the trinity, the Bible does talk about the divine existence of each of the three members of the Trinity, God (The Father), The Son (Jesus Christ), and the Spirit (The Holy Spirit). It is still a complex idea for me to understand fully but scripture does indeed tell of the work and existence of the trinity.
Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit in 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 not knows him. Y...
The doctrine of the Trinity, as seen in the Holy Bible, means that there is one God who eternally subsists as three distinct persons: the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Although they are stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. If examined closer, one can see three important principles. One being, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each distinct persons, the second is each Person is fully God, and the last is there is only one God. In the Bible for example, it speaks of the Father as God, Jesus as God, and the Holy Spirit as God. If one were to simply read these passages, it could seem to be somewhat contradictory. One could believe that these are three different ways to look at God, or maybe three different roles that God plays. However, the Bible also indicates that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all distinct persons. For example, since God sent his son Jesus into the world, as seen in the book of John, He cannot be the same person as the Son. Furthermore, after Jesus returned to God, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into...
In Christianity one of their primary beliefs is the idea of a Triune God, which means the belief of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one entity not three separate beings. This would result in God being indivisible and could not be divided into three different parts for an ...
Christians must come to understand that in order to serve God and His people well, we need to know and live better my Catholic Faith. We must study and read about the Church’s teachings and traditions to appreciate them better, but we must also allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in our Christian lives. He will do it! God’s Spirit desires to form a close relationship with each and every one of us. Indeed, He is the Great Unknown Companion within us that we already received in our baptism to form us perfectly into God’s image and likeness. However, if in Baptism we receive the Spirit to bear Christ 's image, it 's equally true that in Confirmation we are sent by God in that same Spirit to bear true witness to Christ. With the Holy Spirit we are sent to share with others the wonders that God has done, and to share that God is alive and that God is love. Therefore, open your heart to the Holy Spirit’s presence and action in your life; always invite Him with desire, faith, and fervor to fill you completely; and pray to Him constantly for wisdom, strength, guidance, and courage. God will do it – yes, He will! God bless you
I am a Christian and I believe in the Holy trinity: God, the Son, the Holy Spirit.