Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Matt. 28:18-20
This is perhaps the the clearest expression in the New Testament of Trinitarian belief. Yet, before this doctrine could be fully developed, heresy arose.
How can we truly worship the “One true God” if we don’t know who “He” is?
The God of the Bible is a Trinity, as defined by the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.(Anno Domini – Latin for The Year Of Our Lord).
“The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life,” CCC 261. The “mystery” of God is not a puzzle to be solved, as in a detective novel. It is a truth to be reverenced for He is beyond all human comprehension. The doctrine of the Trinity includes three truths of faith:
- The Trinity is One. Not three gods but One God. A unity of Persons in One Divine nature.
- The Divine Persons are distinct from one another. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three appearances of modes of God, but three identifiable Persons, each fully God, yet distinct from the others.
- The Divine Persons are in relation to each other. Their distinction is understood only in reference to the others. The Father cannot be the Father without the Son, nor can the Son be the Son without the Father. The Holy Spirit is related to the Father and the Son who both send Him forth.
All three Persons work together in the works of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him. After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:13-17
St. Augustine in his Sermon II [LII. BEN] concerning the Trinity, says this in these excerpts from paragraphs one and two;
“For we behold and see as it were in a Divine spectacle exhibited to us. The notice of our God in Trinity, conveyed to us at the river Jordan… when He was baptized then, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in the form of a Dove: and then a voice from on High followed, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” Here then we have the Trinity in a certain sort distinguished. The Father in the Voice,- the Son in the Man,- the Holy Spirit in the Dove. It was only needful just to mention this, for most obvious is it to see. For the notice of the Trinity is here conveyed to us plainly and without leaving room for doubt or hesitation.”
“But one may say to me, “Show the Trinity to be inseparable rather. Remember that thou who art speaking art a Catholic, and to Catholics art thou speaking.” For thus doth our faith teach, that is, the true, the right, Catholic faith, gathered not by the opinion of private judgement, but by the witness of the scriptures, not subject to the fluctuations of heretical rashness, but grounded on Apostolic truth: this we know, this we believe. This though we see it not with our eyes, nor as yet with the heart, so long as we are being purified by faith, yet by this faith we most rightly and most strenuously maintain- that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a trinity inseparable; One God, not Three Gods. But yet so One God, as that the Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. This ineffable Divinity, abiding ever in itself, making all thins new, creating, creating anew, sending, recalling, judging, delivering, this Trinity, I say, we know to be at once ineffable and inseparable.”
So as we see through Sacred Scripture, the teaching of St. Augustine and the Catechism of the Catholic Church the proclamation of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. Defined by the Church as doctrine, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in A.D. 325 it still stands true today.
Glory to God who has given His Church His authority to teach the faith!
Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that You are one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; I believe that Your Divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that these and all truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because You have revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.
