Trinity
Monday, October 17, 2022
3:29 PM
The doctrine of the Trinity declares that God is one in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The doctrine of the Trinity holds together two theological truths: that God is one (Christianity is a monotheistic religion) and that God is fully experienced in God in the Creator Father, Redeeming Son, and Sustaining Holy Spirit.  
New Testament—The word “Trinity” does not appear in the New Testament.  The latin Trinitas seems to have originated with Tertullian (Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 4, p. 99).  However, the term describes a concept that appears in various New Testament texts.  Matthew:  As Jesus commissions the Apostles to make Disciples throughout the world, he instructs them saying, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Importantly, Jesus does not same names (plural) but name (singular).  John: The unity of the Father and Son is affirmed in the prologue to John (1:1ff) and is developed more fully in the Christological reflection in John 5:19-47.  The role of the Holy Spirit is explained in Jesus’s closing discourses as Paraclete in John 14:15-21, 14:25-31, 15:26-27, 16:8-15.  In the final verse, the intertwined relationship of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is described.  Pauline Epistles: The Apostle Paul variously reflects the developing Christian doctrine of the Trinity (see 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; and Ephesians 4:4-6.  Two texts bear particular attention:  1 Corinthians 8:6 Paul affirms God is one and God is known as both the Father as creator and “one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.”  In Corinthians 12 as Paul describes the gifts of the Spirit, Paul seems to equate the Spirit as Lord.  Catholic Epistles:  The greeting to 1 Peter appears as a Trinitarian formula, “ 2 who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.”  
Pre-Nicene Christianity—Clement of Rome in one of the earliest Christian writings following the New Testament appeals to the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in an appeal for unity between members of a congregation.  “Do we not have one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace which was poured out upon us?  And is there not one calling in Christ? Why do we tear and rip apart the members of Christ, and rebel against our own body, and reach such a level of insanity that we forget that we are members of one another?” (1 Clement 46:6-7).  
Works Cited: (Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 4: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Part First and Second, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Revised and Chronologically arranged with brief prefaces and occasional notes by A. Cleveland Coxe (New York:   Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885).
The Apostolic Fathers, 2nd Edition, Trans. J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer; ed. Michael W. Holmes.  Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1989.  