Trinity
Trinity. Three in One. The Godhead. Where do we get this theology from? The Bible of course. Who developed the doctrine so that three in one could be understood not as a contradiction, but as an undeniable truth? St. Ignatius of Antioch, first of the four Fathers of the Church (35 A.D. – 110 A.D.). St. Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John – John the Beloved – promulgates that the three Persons are God. St. Ignatius proceeds from John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. In this St. Ignatius unravels the sacred truth of the Trinity. What he begins to expand on is the fact that there are three Persons sharing one divine nature. St. Ignatius drew this conclusion from Matthew 28:19 which reads, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. He noticed that the baptism was done in the ‘name’, not ‘names’. This distinguishes unity in one power, one love, one authority, one nature but given to three persons; the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit [originally known as Paraclete]. But from the Gospel of John, St. Ignatius sees that first was God.
Trinity Doctrine
St. Ignatius reads in scripture that the Word [God] was the beginning. This is why God said, “I AM” to Moses in Exodus 3:14. There was nothing before God or existing with God to describe Himself with or compare Himself to. It was just God existing, so God said, “I AM”; i.e. I can describe another as 5’10 inches, brunette, and male. This is because the measurement of height had been before the man I’m describing therefore I can apply it to him to describe him. Color was before him therefore accredited and compared to the description of his hair. Lastly, the types of gender were distinguished before him to appropriate to him the gender of male. But nothing was before God to compare God to or use to define Him. From God all things proceed. This is why God simply said, “I AM”. This is why God is called the First. God the Father is also called the First because He is never ‘sent’. Jesus is sent by the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus. But the Father remains.
St. Ignatius moves into the next segment in John’s gospel which reads, “…and the Word was with God.” We know, as explained in article God of Atheists, that God is intangible and has no contingency. He simply IS. He needs nothing to exist. This means He does not have parts, as we have parts that function together to keep us alive. God is incumbused in Himself. This means that God’s thoughts are not separate from Himself, but God’s thoughts are Him, not a part of Him; remember, God is not built of parts but simply IS. So when God was with the Word, just as He was the Word; so far this indicates that there are two Persons who are God indivisible. This is the Second Person we know as the begotten Son, Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. St. Ignatius used the term ‘generated’ when mentioning the application of the First and Second Person. God the Father did not create Jesus the Son, because they, both being the Word, were the beginning. But as God is the beginning, the First, the Alpha and the Omega, He generated Jesus, who is Himself God of the beginning. Even God cannot speak and have His words be only words separate from Him, because God is not divisible; God, when speaking the Word, had to give all of Himself being that He was the Word, and that Word, being all that God was and all that God had given, generated the Second Person, Jesus Christ.
In the beginning, God spoke the Word, which was Himself. Thoughts and words coming from God cannot be separate parts, lest God’s thoughts and words hold all perfection and divinity that solely are His. God thought Himself, speaking the Word, which was Himself, and generated Himself into the Second Person Jesus, which was always God the Father, connected in divinity and nature. In this simultaneous eternity, God loved Himself, which is the bond of the eternal Father and Son, and this bond of love is known as the Holy Spirit, Who is the Third Person. Remember, love is not a separate part appropriated from God but God’s love which is never different than Himself generated as the Holy Spirit. Three Persons with one nature. We know there are three because there was the Word [God] in the beginning, and the Word was with God [Jesus], and the Word was God [Holy Spirit]. St. Ignatius, disciple of the apostle John and appointed into Apostolic Succession by St. Peter, conveyed the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity waiting to be revealed in the Bible. St. Ignatius didn’t create this truth, he discovered it. St. Tertullian coined the term Trinity around 200 A.D..
Man: Made In The Image of God, The Trinity
Knowing that God is the Word, and God was intangible until the Incarnate Jesus, we understand that “man was made in the image of God” means in the same spiritualness, though not equivalent to God. God was not physical, but God was a triune. Where do we see a triune in man? Well first, let’s explain the aspects of the Trinity. We know that from God generated Jesus. Jesus is the same with God the Father. Where do we see in the Bible that a man was the first, and from him generated a partner, yet still equal in nature (human) yet made of the same flesh? Adam to Eve. Eve was a second person, generated all from Adam’s own being (Adam’s rib), yet still one in nature, one from his flesh and bone, yet a different person. As God the Father and Jesus Christ give each other themselves in mutual and requited love, They being one share in mutual love; this love is called the Holy Spirit. This love [Holy Spirit] is entirely Jesus as well as God the Father, yet still it’s own Person. As man joins in conjugation with his wife, he shares this entire giving of self that bonds them into one flesh through mutual and requited intimacy. In this sacred act, the two become one and create a third, a child, who is one in flesh, that of the two that have come together, made of love, yet still their own person. As God and Jesus are one, generating the Holy Spirit as one by coming together, so do man and wife reflect the Divine Triune by coming together as one to conceive another person that is still one (in means of love, family, and their own flesh). To further understand this truth, read article Conception, Not Contraception. In this, where a family is one in flesh, blood, and love, they are three persons all sharing the same nature of the family. This is how man is made in the image of God.
“There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards; therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever.” St Gregory, 270 A.D..
Your’s,
Drew Castel
