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From Times Square to Nicea - The Doctrine of the Trinity
Christianity stands or falls with confession of the deity of Christ and of the Trinity - Herman Bavinck
On Thanksgiving Day, at the Thanksgiving Day parade, (broadcast by NBC) as on New Year's Eve at the celebration in Times Square over 3 million people (plus an additional 1.5 million travelers each day) will see the Unitarian Universalist advertisement on the jumbo NBC Astrovision screen overlooking Times Square.
The tag line is Imagine a religion where people with different beliefs worship as one faith...
It is true - they join the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Swedenborgs, Muslims, United Pentecostals and other religions that deny the deity of Christ and the Trinity.
Athanasius said "in the confession of the Trinity throbs the heart of the Christian religion: every error results from or upon deeper reflection may be traced to, a wrong view of this doctrine." Athanasius understood better than anyone in the early church that Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of the Trinity. He wrote the treatise entitled Against the Gentles -- On the Incarnation, affirming that Jesus was both God and Man. Later in his fight against the the Arian heresy he wrote Three Discourses Against the Arians where he stress that the Father's begetting of the Son was an eternal relationship between them and not a point of time. He also wrote a defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit in his Letters to Serapion.
The creed that Athanasius helped hammer out is the Nicene Creed - a fully Trinitarian creed that we have the privilege of affirming many Sundays.
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again
according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Live,
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.
Here we are 1700 years later and at the heart of Christianity remains the doctrine of the Trinity
Posted by Christine at November 19, 2005 1:13 PM
