Trinitarian Concepts

In relation to my two previous posts, I have been thinking about the Trinity, and how it is revealed progressively throughout the Bible. The early church fathers wrestled with the concept. It was in an answer to Praxeus, that Tertullian put forth a teaching of the triune nature of God. Hippolytus wrote of the Trinity around the same time, at the start of the third century.

I don't agree with all that Tertullian asserted about the Trinity, but to say he did not have a thoroughly correct understanding of it is not a slam. I wouldn't know if any believer who has written about it or whose words were recorded ever has. He was not preaching quite the same doctrine of the Trinity that "mainstream" Christianity teaches today, but he is probably the first person to use the word, Trinity.

Tertullian, as I understand it, was in a fight for truth when some in power, who were asserting Monarchian doctrines of adoptionism regarding Jesus, or a more modalistic form of Monarchianism. Things were probably a bit confused, and Tertullian may have been significantly influenced by this. It was through Sabellius that this doctrine gained its largest following, and the concept is often referred to as Sabellianism to this day because of that. Sabellian even used the word "person" in reference to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but he meant to represent each person of the Godhead as a particular "role", if you will, through which God chose to reveal Himself at different times. In other words, for Sabellius, none of the three persons of the Godhead existed at the same moment in time.

Hebrews 1:1-3 teaches us something different.

"1 GOD, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,"

The writer of Hebrews is not just saying that Jesus is like God. He is saying He is God. The writer is saying that Jesus has the full glory of God and that He is the perfect representation of God. What's more, verse two tells us that not only did Jesus create the worlds, but verse three clearly states that His creation is upheld because He says so. Simply stated, He is not only the image of God, but He has done the work of God, He is doing the work of God, because He is God.

The writer also tells us that Jesus, Creator and Sustainer of all things, is the very one who made it possible for our sins to purged, for us to be purified from them. The writer then tells us that Jesus sat down, "at the right hand of the Majesty on high." This makes the person of Jesus distinct from the person of the Father. The Father is the one who sent the Son, and now the Son is seated next to the Father. Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are all one God, but they are three distinct persons. That might be a brain-teaser for some, but John 1:1-5, 14-18 and Colossians 1:13-20 wonderfully affirm this passage in Hebrews.

Sitting "at the right hand" was a concept that would not be lost on anyone in the Jewish culture. It gave an indication of authority from God, and meant that the person in that position held privileged access to the throne of God. In Jewish society, for one to say one was sitting at God's right hand, was coming pretty close to saying one was equal to God. Jesus told the Council at His trial that, "Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God." And telling them next that saying He was the Son of God would be right and correct, caused the high priest to tear his clothes. The high priest should have known better.

Perfect unity with the Father is something we all sadly lack on our own, and we will never have it except through Jesus. After all, it was Satan who tempted Jesus in the desert, to try to get Him to act outside of the Father's will, the same way that he successfully tempted Adam and Eve to act toward their own will. Jesus made it clear in John's gospel that He only and always acted in perfect accord with the Father's will. Which of even the most admirable persons in the Bible could make that claim? Only God can do that.