On The Holy Trinity
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
Vo imia Otsa i Syna i Sviatovo Dukha! Khristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese!
We greet one another throughout the Pascal season with these words, and they always remind me of my first Pascha in Russia in 1991. Just before the USSR fell, "Khristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese!" was emblazoned on banners strung over the streets of Moscow. Christ is risen as victor over death and despair!
"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). "Beloved, let us love one another … for God is love" (1 John 3:7-8). The Holy Trinity is the image in which we were created, the manifestation of divine love, and the example for us to follow. "For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one" (1 John 5:7). A monad god that is a single entity would be incapable of love; a dyad or dual god is still lacking in community; only the Trinity, the Three-in-One, can express the fullness of agape-love.
I mention this at the outset because as we study, discuss and debate over terms such as homoousios vs. homoiousios and Sabellianism vs. Arianism vs. Nicene Christianity, that it's easy to miss the forest for the trees; it's all for naught if we don't love one another: "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. … By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:14, 16-17).
St. Basil the Great took these words to heart as he not only helped to hammer out the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, together with the other Cappadocian Fathers: his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory of Nazianzus ("the Theologian"), Basil also gave his riches to the poor, building hospitals, hospices, homes for the poor and orphanages. As we should know, the original Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 described God the Father as the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible. It described the Son as the Only-begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, very God of very God, of one essence or "ousia" with the Father. But the original Creed simply stated: "And I believe in the Holy Spirit" – full stop, no explanation. It wasn't until after the Cappadocian Fathers wrestled with the ideas homoousios vs. homoiousios and Sabellianism vs. Arianism that the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 could add to the Holy Spirit phrase: "the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets." Here we see that the Holy Spirit is fully God, co-equal with the Father and the Son in essence and glory.
He is not merely an emanation of the Father, nor the spirit of the Son, as the Sabellian heresy taught: one "monad" in three different forms. This age-old heresy has popped up again these days in modalism – that the Father morphed into the Son and the Son morphed into the Holy Spirit, as a large segment of modern Pentecostalism teaches: I ran into some of these in Russia and Ukraine. On the other hand, the Arian heresy taught that only the Father is God pre-eternal, before all time; Jesus Christ for Arius and his followers was a created being of lower stuff than the Father, and the Holy Spirit was similarly a created being. This smacks of Gnosticism with its various levels of supernatural beings, and also of Islam, modern humanism and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism that put Christ on the level of a prophet or a really good man, an example, or a therapist, that's all, not God incarnate.
The Cappadocian Fathers also struggled with the terms homoousios vs. homoiousios, that is, "of one essence" vs. "of like essence." The former seemed too close to Sabellianism, that God is a monad, just one Being or Essence that takes different forms. But the latter term, homoiousios, just one iota different, was too close for comfort to some forms of Arianism. They finally came up with the formula of three Persons (hypostases) in one Essence (ousia). This explanation has held for all historical Christianity: Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants until the eras of Modernism and Post-Modernism.
But there are always some would-be internet theologians who will say, "The word 'Trinity' isn't in the Bible, so I don't have to believe in the Trinity!" The Bible itself, however, doesn't use the words "sola Scriptura" either; in fact, it states, "But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). The Church, not the Bible, is the foundation of the truth. The Church was established in A.D. 33, but the New Testament canon was only agreed upon almost 400 years after the Church was born. The printing press was invented 1000 years later, in the 1400s; thus the Reformation and sola Scriptura would have been impossible without readily available, relatively inexpensive printed Bibles.
Further, oral tradition handed down (or "traditioned") from the Apostles was of equal authority in a semi-literate society where hand-copied books were rare and expensive. St. Paul wrote, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle." Also, "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us" (2 Thes. 2:15 & 3:6). But the ultimate source of authority is Christ Himself: "All authority [exousia] has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe [tereo – "fulfill" or "hold fast," not just sit back and spectate] all things that I have commanded you (the Great Commission, Mat. 28:19b-20). What was the number one thing Christ commanded? Love God, and your neighbor as yourself! Here we have Christ, the final authority, sharing His authority with the Apostles, the leaders of the Church, and affirming the concept of the Holy Trinity. So let's take a look at what else the Bible says about the Holy Trinity, as interpreted by Holy Tradition, not by some wet-behind-the-ears, would-be internet theologians:
"In the beginning God made heaven and earth. … The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. Then God said [the Word] 'Let there be light', and there was light" (Gen. 1:1 & 3). Here, in the very first verses of the Bible, it tells us of God (the Father), the Spirit, and the Word. The Apostle John echoes these verses in his prologue to the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-2 & 14). From this, the Church Fathers taught that Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh, is pre-eternal with God the Father and is of the same essence as the Father. When God spoke the Word, the whole cosmos came into existence.
We learned in the Great Commission that Christ shared His authority with the Apostles, but He also shares it with all believers: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right [exousia – the authority] to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12). We, the laos theou, the laypeople of God, have the authority to become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4)!
When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, he confessed, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him" (John 3:2). He recognized that Jesus was from God. Then Jesus uttered the verse we so often see at football games, John 3:16 – "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." From this and from the above quote in ch.1, the Church Fathers taught that Jesus is pre-eternally begotten of God the Father. They also taught that the reason God gave His only begotten Son is because God so loved the world – the whole cosmos including mankind – He loves us so much, that whoever believes in Him can have eternal life: God invites us into His family!
The Apostle and Theologian John has more to say about the Trinity: "But the Helper [parakletos], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you" (John 14:26). The Helper is sometimes translated as the Comforter or the Advocate, and here it says that the Father will send Him to teach and remind us of what Christ taught. And the most central text on the Holy Spirit is this: "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me" (John 15:26). From this verse the Church Fathers at the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Councils defined the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. Only much later, in A.D. 589, did a local council in Toledo (now part of Spain) add the filioque, that is, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and from the Son" that subordinated the Spirit to the Son, thus leading eventually to the Great Schism in A.D. 1054.
Another important Bible text on the Holy Spirit is – "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13-14). So from these texts we learn that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father for the purpose of teaching and reminding us of the Truth (Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life), and the Spirit will glorify and testify of Christ, not bringing attention to Himself. Perhaps this is why some early Christians had difficulty defining the Holy Spirit, because He didn't want to draw attention to Himself! In the very next chapter, John 17, the words glory, glorify and glorified are used seven times to describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the relationship between the Father and the Son, "that they [we, Christ's followers] may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. … that the love with which You loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:24b & 26b).
So the Trinity's glory and love go together: when Judas the betrayer had left the Last Supper, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. … A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:31b-32 & 34-35). Did you get the message?
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: the Holy Trinity, one in essence and undivided! Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
______________
Sources:
KJV+ = King James Version with Strong's Dictionaries and Concordance (e-Sword)
OSB = Orthodox Study Bible (used throughout except where otherwise noted)
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