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What About The Trinity?
by Brian McLaren
Text: Various New Testament texts
Topic: What it means for God to exist in three persons
Big Idea: We become Christians by entering into a relationship with God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Keywords: Apostles; Belief; Bishops; Christ, deity of; Christ, humanity of; Christ, one with the Father; Doctrine; False Teachers; Fatherhood of God; God, trinity; Heresy; Holy Spirit; Philosophy; Salvation; Teachers, false; Trinity
Introduction:
- The early church had no articulated doctrine of the Trinity.
The Gnostics forced the church to develop doctrine protecting Jesus' humanity.
- Gnostics tried to mix Christianity with Greek philosophy.
- This contradicted what the early church leaders knew about Jesus.
- Illustration: Celfus condemned Christians for insisting Jesus was God.
The church refused to fit Jesus into a philosophy, and started with the story about Jesus.
- Colossians 1:13–20
- Colossians 2:8–10
- John 14:15–18, 23–24
- Luke 1:35
Arias forced the church to develop doctrine defending Jesus' divinity.
- Greek philosophy couldn't accept a God who experienced emotion.
- Emperor Constantine called a church council to deal with Arias's teachings.
- The Nicaean Creed resulted and was refined over the next 56 years.
The nature of Jesus can be understood as two whats and one who.
- The whats are that he is God and he is man.
- The who is that he is Jesus.
- God exists as three whos: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- Unless God is three persons he cannot be love.
The idea of the Trinity is not an abstract doctrine, but a community to be experienced.
- John 14:23
- Matthew 28:19
- To become a Christian is to come into relationship with the three-person God.
Conclusion:
- Illustration: Picture this doctrine as a beautiful, unspoiled, virgin forest, guarded by a fence; and the truth is like a path leading through the forest.
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