The Blessed Trinity

 The Blessed Trinity

Brett A. Todd

In most Christian churches, not all, but most, one of the standard teachings is that of the Trinity (The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), which was “kind of” ratified at the First Council of Nicaea way back in AD 325.  I say “kind of” because not much is said about the Holy Spirit.  It wasn’t until later we saw a more serious discussion concerning the role of the Holy Spirit.  Intriguingly, the word “Trinity” was never used in any of the ancient church creeds. 

Not only will you not find the word “Trinity'' in the ancient creeds, but you also will not find this word in the Bible.  In fact, some are surprised when they find out there is also no explicit teaching of this doctrine in the Bible.  It does not exist.  The closest we come to a trinitarian expression is found in Matthew 28:19, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.  But these words don’t tell us much about a trinity. They don’t say whether or not all three are coequal or coeternal.  It just tells us there are three and their “name” (singular) is: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  As one can see, the old expression is quite applicable, “It’s a mystery!”  

Interestingly, in the Book of Acts, you never see the disciples baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, rather, they baptized their converts in the name of Jesus (ex. Acts 19:5). It seems a little odd if Jesus told his disciples to baptize their converts using the trinitarian formula that they would forgo Jesus’ command by using his name (Jesus) instead.

Some will point to 1 John 5:7 where the King James Bible reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”  We have already discussed this verse early in another study, but it is worth mentioning again.  You will not find these words in any of our earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts.  For this reason, most modern translations of the Bible omit these words and simply state, “There are three that testify”.  Why were these words added to some of the Greek manuscripts?  Whoever added these words more than likely wanted to bolster their position on the teaching of the Trinity.

One Scholar shares the following story about 1 John 5:7, being inserted into the Bible after church leaders’ play of politics basically forced him to. “...Erasmus--possibly in an unguarded moment--agreed that he would insert the verse in a future edition of his Greek New Testament on one condition: that his opponents produce a Greek manuscript in which the verse could be found.” (Barth Ehrmann). So what did they do? They created one.  They forged it.  

Should we ditch the teaching of the Trinity since it is not fully supported in the Bible?  Being a good old Celtic Christian you might have to guess that my answer would be a resounding “No!”  Like Hegel, I’m quite possessed with the number “3”.  And remember, many of the teachings of the church, if not all of them, have been in some kind or another under development from the very beginning and will continue into eternity.  Nevertheless, we must be clear: neither the Jews of the Hebrew Scripture nor early Christians of the New Testament had any inkling of this so-called Trinity as taught by the modern church.

In our next four lessons, we will be looking at some of the Christmas stories to see what it is the Bible teaches.  As you might guess by now, each gospel has a different story about Jesus’ birth.  A couple of them don’t even mention his birth.