The doctrine of trinity originated from the Bible; however, the word trinity is not applicable in the Bible. Most of the Orthodox Christians are in agreement that the doctrine of trinity states that God is only one spirit but exist in the form of three persons; God has three centers of consciousness but has one nature, God is one only, but three whos. The doctrine of trinity started that the Bible demonstrates that there is only one living external God who is the sustainer and Creator of the world (Lim, 2012). There is only one God that exists. The three persons are co-eternal and co-equal. They are also distinct or distinguishable from one another. The three distinguishable persons are named as one God. Things that are true about our God are also true about the three persons (the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit). The reversal of nature is not true. Whereas the Bible explains that the son is God, the spirit is God, the father is God it is not good to say that God is the spirit, the son is God, or the father is God. The nature of God comprises of three distinguishable persons. Thus it is wrong to compare God to one specific member of the Trinity.
To summarize, the Bible makes the following crucial points about God’s nature:
The Biblical teaching is the basis to the doctrine of the Trinity, and it’s stated of the existence of one and only one living God. According to the Bible teaching, there is no other similar divine being with the same real existence. Trinitarians are emphatic that there is only the existence of One God.
The most well-known startling statement in every part of the Bible is located in the verse that God pronounces that ‘in the beginning, he created the God created the earth and heaven’’ (Gen1:1). This statement was the most amazing statement in the world of the Polytheistic. Biblical Christianity upholds that there exists only one loving God, not several gods. God started it clearly in Moses’ writing when he told his people such as Israelites that the Lord is one and the Lord is people’s God (Roggema, 2015). Author and Pastor John MacArthur elucidate the true meaning well when he says’ that the real truth was essential to the religious convictions of Israel. This is because they existed in the midst of the societies of Polytheistic. It was more important that they offer their loyalty to the one God, whereas the cultures of the Pagan that surrounds them pray to many gods, the people of God were to worship the one true living God, and they should be faithful to him in their whole heart.
Solomon restated this truth about God by the dedication of the Temple to God so that all the people that are living on the earth surface may know that there exists only one true God and that there is no similar person like him (1 Kings 8:60). In the Old Testament, God declares that he is the only true God through his prophet (Isaiah). So the scripture in the Old Testament clearly states that there is only one true loving God.
The oneness of God can also be seen in the teaching of the New Testament. Jesus told the people that external life is for those who know God as the only true God (John 17:3). Paul as the apostle spoke that God is the Father and he is one God upon which everything exists (1 co. 8:6). Paul also confirms in the New Testament that there exists only one God of whom Jesus Christ acted as the only mediator between men and God (Ayres, 2010). These biblical teachings from both the New and Old Testaments were summarized by Dr. Bruce Ware through his narration of which he says ‘that the Bible stated that there exists only one God. He is the God of the Israelites; God of the Bible, and through Christ, God showed that he is the one and only God.
One of the most well-known hymns of the faith of Christian is ‘Holy, Holy’ in that hymn, the greatest mysteries relating to the doctrine of Trinity is located in the first verse of the last line which says ‘that God exists in three persons, and he is the blessed Trinity.’ John MacArthur who is a pastor speaks of the mystery when he utters, ‘there is only one God, and exist not as two but three distinguishable persons. That the mystery is unparalleled in the experience of the people.’ This then means that Jesus who is the son is God, God the father is God, and lastly, Holy Spirit is also God. This also suggests that God the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the son, the father is not the Holy Spirit or the son and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the son, each of them are God, but still there exist only one true loving God.
The truth of the existence of one God that is in three persons that is the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit can be seen in several places throughout the Bible. In the Book of Genesis that is found in the Old Testament, God mentions himself by stating that’ Let us create man in our likeness, and in our image. Millard Erickson also makes a significant observation about the same verse when he stated that, ‘’Here the plural happens both in the form of the verb, let us create’ as well as in the possessive suffix named as ‘our.’ What is important from the viewpoint of logical analysis is the movement to plural from singular. God is cited as applying the use of Plural verb when he refers to himself.’
The New Testament also contains the Biblical truth that argues that God exists as three persons. This can be seen in the book of Mathew when Jesus said to his followers (disciples) to go and be disciples of the entire Universe, and that they should baptize the people in the name of our father, son and the Holy Spirit. From this verse, it is essential to underline the singular application of the word ‘name.’ The word is a reference to the essence or character of our God as one. The Command does not come from Jesus that necessitates his disciples to baptize the people in the ‘names’ of the son, Holy spirit and the father. There are three persons, but the name is singular (McGrath, 2003). The existence of one God can be seen in the New Testament in that Jesus in his prayers; he prayed to God the creator of heaven and earth, he never prayed to himself. At the baptism of Jesus, his father’s voice spoke in approving the way for the coming of the son of a man- Jesus does not speak of himself. Thus the three persons acted as one and should not bring any confusion with one another. This passage also upholds the biblical truth that states that there is only one God who is present in the form of three-person that is the son, Holy Spirit, and the father.
The Final and third truth about the biblical Trinity is that each of the three persons is the true God. The son is God, the father is God, and lastly, the Holy Spirit is God (Holmes, 2012).
To start with the Father is God fully. This truth has hardly been the main subject of debate in most of the church history since it is openly taught in all the pages of the scripture. The first verse of the book of God (Bible) states that God created the earth and heavens at the Beginning of his creation. Jesus in his model prayer, he taught his disciples on how to pray, from where he instructed them to pray that, ‘Our father who is living in heaven, hallowed be his name.’
Secondly, the son is also fully God. Millard Erickson argues that the truth experiences a lot of the critics but is strongly biblical affirmed. He articulates, ‘somewhat challenging is Jesus as the deity; however, scripture recognizes him as God. There is one passage in the book of John when the apostle states that, in the beginning, there was the world, it continues to say that the world was with our God, and lastly the world was God. In the Bible, Christ is mentioned as ‘the world’ (Wieczorek, 2011).
The third person is the Holy Spirit who is also fully God. Regarding this aspect of the Trinity as the doctrine, Dr. Wayne Grudem rightly claims for the Spirit’s deity. He speaks in Acts (the book), Peter as the apostle. Openly argue that the Spirit with God by the time that he asks Ananias, who had initially held some of the proceeds from the property’s sale. He asked the reason why Satan filled his heart to make him lie to the Holy Spirit (Kombo, 2016).
The major debates that discuss the issues of Trinity occurred between the third and fifth centuries. The two well-known essential councils of the debate were the council of Chalcedon and Nicea. The council that represents Nicea safeguarded the deity of the Christ (Jesus Christ) by proclaiming that Jesus was the same as the lord our father (both Jesus Christ and God are the same substance). The council that represents Chalcedon help in setting limits for the reflection of Christian on Jesus as a person, by explaining that Jesus Christ was indeed the man of God and that he was one person that exists in two natures (Grenz & Smith, 2015).
The two most important figures in most of these debates were Augustine (354-430) and Athanasius (296-373). Athanasius originated from the eastern theologian, and he nearly single-handedly defended the faith of the Christian from the Arianism threat. The Arians represent the counterpart from the ancient to the modern witnesses of Jehovah (Ployd, 2018). The Arians informed the people that Jesus Christ was lesser equal to God our father, that God created him (and he was not co-eternal with God who is the father), and he was not also fully divine. Their main known slogans of all time are that ‘There was duration of time when he was not.’ The other name of Arianism is also called as Subordinationism; this is because it embraces that the Son is minor in essence as well as being to God the father. The battle of Augustine was somewhat different (Hastings, 2016). He assisted Christians to have a good understanding of God’s grace, and thereby safeguarded the church from Pelagianism. Nevertheless, Augustine’s writings on the issues dealing with Trinity were very influential and voluminous. Both Athanasius and Augustine, together with other notable figures are sometimes mentioned as the Fathers.
Majority of the church (Christian denominations) today, such as the Protestant, Catholic as well as Eastern Orthodox Church, affirm that Trinity as a doctrine is a representation of the belief of the Orthodox about the nature of God (Giles, 2017). This is to say, any individual who strays from Trinity is deviant and heretical. Many Christians embrace this doctrine since they strongly believe that this doctrine has great support by a clear verse of the book of God (the Bible). Muslim apologists usually respond by stating most of the clear verses from the scripture that exist and are contrary to the doctrine.
The Trinity and salvation
According to the lines of salvation, it is true that in the absence of the Trinity Christians cannot obtain salvation (we cannot be saved without salvation). The reason as to this is because the sin of the people is against God; and since we cannot undo our wrongdoing against God, because of our sinfulness as well as the inability of keeping the law of God, the only remaining party available capable that is capable of dealing with our wickedness is God himself. In spite of everything, our wrongdoings are against him. Therefore he has to chip in and do what we the people cannot do (McCormack, 2011). That is precisely what happened. Jesus is our God in the flesh, and he was born in this world under the law of God, and he never sinned. Because Jesus was capable of keeping God’s law where we as the people of God could not, Jesus was capable of redeeming us (Lucci, 2018). We Christians are conversant with this message of the gospel; but what most of the people unable to realize that is for our (as Christians) redemption to be true, our Redeemer is required to be in two natures: human and divine. Christians require a savior who must be divine for them to offer the sacrifice that is of divine quality.
Marriage is the promise of the covenant where a woman and a man come into a legal contract. They engage themselves to financial sharing, sexual privileges, and mutual fellowship, etc. with numerous exclusions to most of or all other members of the community (Dodds, 2010). In marriage, there exists a husband, whose responsibility is to love his God given wife. The husband also possesses spiritual authority over his wife. But when we try to take into consideration Trinity, we realize that God who is the father had control over the Son and he also loved him (the son) because he sent him (Hillar, 2012). Thus, when we consider the positional authority that the father possess over his Son, and we again recognize that it doesn’t mean there exists differences in importance or nature between the two of them, we can use this in marriage and see into it that the Spiritual head that the husband possess over his wife does not lower the importance and quality of the wife. This is crucial, particularly because the husbands mostly oppress the wives they are living with instead of taking them as equal human being before God (McWilliams, 2006). This then means that Trinity can easily help most of the Christians to value their marriage life as both the Husband and wife will try to regard each other as equal human being before God. This will help do away with evil did in the marriage life like Oppression of the wife by the husband.
God always lived as a Trinity of persons before his creation of the world. Therefore, we can tell that there has been perfect fellowship and harmony in the inter-Trinitarian Communion. The model of our lives, church, and Christian, is to use this God’s communion. Christians should, therefore, fellowship with each other throughout their daily lives (Strong, 2017).
Trinity matters to the Christian life because of what Jesus did for all the Christian on Calvary. Being fully man and fully God, Jesus died on the cross in my place and to that of the other Christians. Jesus is God, and if any person who believes in him put his/her faith in Christ, then their salvation will be fully secure since Jesus is Lord (Rose, 2008). Trinity also matters to the Christian life since it is a mystery that they really cannot explain of. It means people do not know everything and God is the only person who knows. These all truths make Christians to be humble as well as reminded us of the fact that there is only one God and we are not God.
The Trinity is also essential since it explains working together in both diversity and unity. Christians should be united and try to live as diverse and unique just like the way the three persons represented in the Trinity are distinct, unique, and yet unified. In our Churches, jobs, families, organizations, and neighborhoods, God created us in his own image and likeness (Valentine, 2017). Nevertheless, the Trinity explains to us through the model on how the three can jointly perform the task together as one.
Trinity is also relevance to the Christian life in that it can enable most of the Christian to apply it in most of their prayers. It teaches them the pattern of praying which the Bible says that we should pray to our father his son and the Holy Spirit. This will help in enhancing the cordial relationship between the Christian and God (Yang, 2016).
Conclusion
This paper explains and describes the doctrine of the Trinity. There is also an inclusion of the Debate of the early church regarding Trinity. We found out that the teaching of the Trinitarian of the nature and character of God should give Christians strong confidence especially in knowing the word of God and should also increase their faith In God. There is a section of the paper that states the importance of the Trinity to the life of the Christian. From this section, we found that the doctrine of Trinity matters a lot to the Christian life as it helps in binding the marriage and also impart salvation to most of the people.
References
Ayres, L. (2010). Augustine and the Trinity. Cambridge University Press.
Brümmer, V. (2013). Atonement, Christology and the Trinity: Making sense of Christian doctrine. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Dodds, A. (2010). Newbigin’s Trinitarian Missiology: The Doctrine of the Trinity as Good News for Western Culture. International Review of Mission, 99(1), 69-85.
Giles, K. (2017). The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity. Wipf and Stock Publishers. Green, S. STEPS TOWARDS THE TRINITY.
Grenz, S. J., & Smith, J. T. (2015). Created for community: Connecting Christian belief with Christian living. Baker Academic.
Hastings, R. (2016). Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity: Its Place and Its Rich but Controversial Facets. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 59(3), 585.
Hillar, M. (2012). From Logos to Trinity.
Holmes, S. R. (2012). The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity. InterVarsity Press.
Husseini, S. L. (2011). Early Christian explanations of the Trinity in Arabic in the context of Muslim Theology (Doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham).
Kleinschmidt, S. (2012). Many-one identity and the Trinity.
Kombo, J. H. O. (2016). Theological Models of the Doctrine of the Trinity: The Trinity; Diversity and Theological Hermeneutics. Langham Global Library.
Lim, P. C. (2012). Mystery unveiled: the crisis of the Trinity in early modern England. Oxford University Press.
Link-Wieczorek, U. (2011). The Doctrine of the Trinity—The Major Stumbling Block in Inter-Religious Dialogue?. Trinitarian Theology after Barth, 148, 287.
Lucci, D. (2018). Ante-Nicene authority and the Trinity in seventeenth-century England. Intellectual History Review, 28(1), 101-124.
McCormack, B. L. (2011). The Doctrine of the Trinity after Barth. Trinitarian Theology after Barth, 148, 87.
McGrath, A. (2003). Theological education and global tertiary education: risks and opportunities. Address at ICETE International Consultation for Theological Educators. High Wycombe, UK. www. theologicaleducation. org.
McWilliams, W. (2006). Only the Triune God Can Help: The Relation of the Trinity to Theodicy. Perspectives in Religious Studies, 33(3), 345-359.
Molnar, P. D. (2017). Divine freedom and the doctrine of the immanent Trinity: In dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Ployd, A. (2018). Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History, and Modernity. Augustinian Studies, 49(1), 136-139.
Roggema, B. (2015). Sara Leila Husseini: Early Christian–Muslim Debate on the Unity of God: Three Christian Scholars and their Engagement with Islamic Theology (9th Century ce.)(History of Christian–Muslim Relations.) ix, 242 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014.€ 110. ISBN 978 9004 27838 7. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 78(3), 614-615.
Rose, M. D. (2008). Education for Woman’s Ministries: A Rationale For and Review of Woman’s Ministries for the Beginning of the 21st Century.
Strong, A. H. (2017). Systematic Theology: Volume II-The Doctrine of Man. Lulu. com.
Thomas, D. (2013). The doctrine of the Trinity in the early Abbasid era. In Islamic Interpretations of Christianity (pp. 98-118). Routledge.
Valentine, G. M. (2017). Learning and Unlearning: A Context for Important Developments in the Seventh-day Adventist Understanding of the Trinity, 1888–1898. Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS), 55(2), 213-236.
Yang, H. (2016). A development not a departure: The lacunae in the debate of the doctrine of the Trinity and gender roles. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download