John the apostle died around A.D. 100. Since then, Theophilus of Antioch in A.D. 181, Tertullian in A.D. 216, Origen in A.D. 225, and thousands of other church fathers have spoken on the doctrine of the Trinity and how it comes from God. Today we will look at what Origen said in A.D. 225. It is written, “for we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist” (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1) “For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages.” (ibid.) Notice how only 81 years after John the apostle died, that the Trinity was taught.
Since A.D. 181, the Trinity has been agreed upon as core doctrine in the church. So what does this teaching mean that Christians have agreed upon for the last two thousand years? The answer is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons in one God. The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, and vice versa. We believe that there is only one true God in the heavens and that he exists in three persons. It is written, “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) Notice how God, not Gods, said let us make man in our image. And since Jesus does everything through the Father and is our creator, the “us” is the Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, since “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) Praise be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
