The Trinity

 

 

(The following was taken from http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p088.html.)

 

Many of the Patristic writers denied the equality of the Son with the Father. Similarly their logic denies co-eternality. The relevant passages are as follows.

Justin

Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is therein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed. (Apol. I, xiii)

And the first power after God the Father and Lord of all is the Word [or logos], who is also the Son. (Apol. I, xxxii)

It is wrong, therefore, to understand the Spirit and the power of God, as anything else than the Word [or logos], who is also the firstborn of God. (Apol. I, xxxiii)

 

Thus Justin thinks of the Logos as an emanation of God, which is capable of individuation to embrace the concept of the Spirit in general and Christ in particular.

 

Hippolytus says and most significantly:

Now, that Noetus affirms that the Son and Father are the same, no one is ignorant. But he makes his statement thus: "When indeed, then, the Father had not been born, He yet was justly styled Father; and when it pleased Him to undergo generation, having been begotten, He Himself became His own Son, not another's." For in this manner he thinks to establish the sovereignty of God, alleging that the Father and Son, so called, are one and the same (substance), not one individual produced from a different one, but Himself from Himself; and that He is styled by name Father and Son, according to vicissitude of times. (Hippolytus repeats this opinion in his summary, Book X.) (Con. Noet, n. 14, "The Refutation of All Heresies", Bk. IX, Ch. V, ANF, Vol. V, pp. 127-128);

 

It is with this writer that we first develop the error that Christ was the only emanation of the Father. The other elements of the heavenly Host are said to be creations of the Son and thus do not share in the divine nature as does the Son. Now this is the basic error upon which the doctrine of the Trinity began to be built. The elohim as was demonstrated from the biblical context are a multiple Host of which the Lamb is the High Priest. He is one of them as a fellow or comrade, even though all of the hierarchical structure was created by, or in him and for him (Col. 1:15).

 

The saints likewise become companions to Christ from Hebrews 3:14 and hence brothers to the Host (Rev. 12:10) and co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). The heavens, all things that were, referred to as being created by the Son, are the spiritual and physical structures. This is the intent of the references at John 1:3 regarding the creation and 1Corinthians 8:6 regarding the universe (or ta panta) and humans. Colossians 1:15-17 specifically allocates the creation of all things visible and invisible. The creation of thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities, through him and for him, cannot refer to the Council of the Elohim. The creation by Christ of the lordships (or kuriotetes) is not of the entities.

 

The New Catholic Encyclopedia (N.C.E.) article Trinity, Holy, Vol. XIV, McGraw Hill, N.Y., 1967, p. 296 makes the most extraordinary assertion concerning the doctrine of Hippolytus.

Hippolytus in his refutation of Noetus (10) and the exaggerated identification of Christ with the Father, insists that God was multiple from the beginning.

 

This is simply false from a comparison with the actual text of Hippolytus (C. Noetus 10) above.

The first instance of a reference to the Christian Godhead as three entities was by Theophilus of Antioch (c. 180 CE) who used the term trias of which the Latin trinitas is held to be a translation. The term was used where he spoke of the trias of God, His Word and His Wisdom (Theophilus to Autolycus. The ANF here translates the word trias as trinity). The next instance of the use of the term is by Tertullian (De Pud, c. xxi, P.G., II, 1026). Tertullian was the first to directly assert the essential unity of the three 'persons', but his logic and arguments are essentially subordinationist (see Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, p. 570). The nearest equivalent to the Nicene doctrine did not occur until proposed by the Roman Bishop Dionysius (CE 262) who was a Greek by birth. He was concerned to eliminate the process of reducing the three entities to separate Gods (Schaff, ibid.).

 

The assertion that God is an entity comprising two beings and a persona as a spirit or power, which emanates from one or both is a later fourth, fifth and sixth century Trinitarian assertion. The assertion was made in modification of an original trias (above) and abandoned as inadequate. Both the triune cosmology and the Trinity, as it is now understood are biblically unsound.

The concept of the trinity may be defined in two ways as

1. "Three Persons who are equally possessed of the divine nature". This is held to have been the dominant view since the Councils of Nicæa and Constantinople.

2. The Son and the Spirit as deriving from the Father who is the sole source of Godhead. This was the prevalent view of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and the Church generally up until Nicæa (c. 325 CE) (see G.H. Joyce, The Catholic Encyc. (C.E.) article ‘Trinity’, Vol. XV, p. 51).

 

The doctrine of the Trinity rests on a series of false assumptions made contrary to biblical evidence. The two major false assumptions, which are evident from the quotes herein, are:

· that the terms translated God are confined to one, two or three entities or hypostases; and

· that Christ is God co-eternally and co-equally as God the Father is God.

 

The formation of Islam was inevitable. By 632 CE, the groundwork was set for a division of theology and Monotheism that would gradually become so estranged that the greatest Holocaust in history is shortly to burst upon us. The perpetrators are the Trinitarian, Hadithic and Talmudic Scholars, who have lied and distorted the history of religion for their own ends and killed everyone who spoke the truth about the original faith and tried to follow that faith once delivered to the saints.

 

Irenæus says of God:

For He commanded, and they were created; He spake and they were made. Whom therefore did He command? The Word, no doubt, by whom, He says, the heavens were established and all their power by the breath of His mouth [Ps. 33:6]. (Adv. haer. III, viii, 3)

 

Irenæus held that:

It is clearly proved that neither the prophets nor the apostles did ever name another God, or call [him] Lord, except the true and only God.... But the things established are distinct from Him who has established them, and what have been made from Him who made them. For He is Himself uncreated, both without beginning and end, and lacking nothing. He is Himself sufficient for Himself; and still further, He grants to all others this very thing, existence; but the things, which have been made by Him (ibid.).

 

Irenæus extended the capacity to become God (theos or elohim) to the Logos here as distinct from the other things established (ibid.). He had already established the position of God and the Son and those of the adoption as theoi or elohim and all sons of God from Book III, Chapter VI.

 

Tertullian holds from Against (Adv.) Praxeas that:

This one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made...All are of one, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons- the Father, the Son and the Holy [Spirit]: three however, not in condition but in degree; not in substance but in form; not in power but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power inasmuch as He is One God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy [Spirit]... (II);

 

Tertullian also says that the Father raised the Son from the dead (II). Thus Tertullian makes important distinctions in the interrelationship of the three entities, which are aspects of the operation of God in degree. The Son and the Spirit are processions from the Father and subordinate aspects of His manifestation. Tertullian gave the Trinity a numerical order and distribution (III). He also held that the Monarchy of God came from the Father (III). But that it was equally the Son's being held by both (III) being committed to the Son by the Father (IV).

 

Tertullian held that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father through the Son. Tertullian holds (IV) that the Father and the Son are two separate persons. Thus, it might be asserted that true Binitarianism commences with Tertullian.

 

It has been seen from earlier development, and above, that the Bible and the early Church theologians were subordinationist and Unitarian. God the Father was the God and Father of the Messiah who was the firstborn of many brothers (Rom. 8:29). The Holy Spirit is the mechanism by which all the Sons of God, the angels included, reach this position of unity with God. Christ was one of a multitude of the spiritual Sons of God, but he was the only born (monogenes) (Son of) God, the first begotten (prototokos) of the heavenly Host as the high priest of the elohim.

 

This understanding began to be lost through the syncretism of the early Church.

 

The major assumption of modern day Christianity is that God exists as three entities or hypostases. The three entities are described as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whether or not they are described as persons. The three entities are said to form a Trinity.

 

Another equally false assumption is that the early Church was Binitarian rather than Trinitarian. This is to say that Christ, while being subordinate, was nevertheless co-eternal. There were thus two true Gods existing side by side as Father and Son. This is what is known anciently as the Dual Power Heresy. This contravenes the testimony of John (17:3 and 1Jn. 5:20) who holds that there is only One True God and that Jesus Christ is His son. Also the writings of Paul hold that only God is immortal from 1Timothy 6:16. The understanding of John and Paul and the other apostles was also held by the disciples of John and their heirs.

 

The assertion that God is confined to three entities each being co-eternal and co-equal was not the understanding of the Apostolic and early Church. The concept of a Godhead of three beings preceded Christ by many centuries. There is no doubt that the triune god is found among the earliest civilisations and is known to extend east into Asia. These concepts entered Christianity largely through the Greeks and their influence on the Romans.

 

 

 

There is no doubt that Irenæus had a subordinationist view of the Godhead. The loyal Host are also included in the council from the understanding in Revelation 4 & 5 – thus the loyal Host are also the Ecclesia of God. There is no doubt that the term elohim or theoi was held to extend to the Church. This was the understanding of the first century Church both from John to Polycarp who taught Irenæus and on into the second and subsequent centuries. (unquote)

 

I would conclude by saying that Jesus Christ is God.  However He is not an hypostasis--that is he is not a person separate from the Father.  He is YHVH, as the Father is YHVH.  He is Eloah: the Son is his "express image."  He will be subject to the Father "that God may be all in all" (2 Corinthians 15:28).

 

The Kenites love that most Christians worship the Trinity; for the Trinity points to Lucifer their father, Cain his son, and Eve (Cain's mother) .  Thus the Trinity (in the popular sense of that word) is a corruption of God revealing himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus is often identified as the "angel of the LORD" (Exodus 3:2).  And we have in Isaiah 63:9, "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old."

Jesus and God are a monad.