According to the traditions of the so-called “fathers of the faith," it really began to take form after the Council of Nicaea. Again, please notice that it was NOT taught (as it has been defined), in the first century church as sound doctrine, or by the Hebrew prophets, or even by Jesus' apostles. Origen and many other Gnostic Christians like him, began to merge the idolatrous teaching of Greek philosophers with God's word in the late first century on into the second and third centuries, and they slowly began to take root. So surely, if the Trinity is really "implied" by Scripture (which it isn't ), then the prophets, and apostles have done a great injustice to the Almighty by not directly and out rightly teaching it from the beginning, where as the Greek philosophers that the Gnostics borrowed from, were righteous in doing so. Does that make any sense? I don't think so. I ask you, "Why imply it rather than clearly and openly teach it, if it is the truth?" And since when does the Almighty send any Scriptural truth, or sound doctrine to his people through unsaved idolatrous men like Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates? If this doctrine wasn't directly and openly taught by Jesus, the apostles, or God's real prophets, then why is it taught as truth now? What changed to make it kosher to teach that God is three separate persons, and not just one God? Nothing changed on God's end, his word once given, doesn't change. The change occurred when men, who thought of themselves as Christian leaders, added to God's word. That is a BIG no no!
Yes, I realize that there are those who stubbornly state that the New Testament does teach the Trinity through implication. Well, alrighty then -- did you know that the very same (and only) New Testament verse that "implies" the Trinity is hotly debated as being added to the text well after (about a thousand years after) many of the older and more reliable manuscripts were penned? In fact, it is well documented that there are only 8 later Greek texts that contain the added text of the last half of verse 7 to the first half of verse 8, against the hundreds of early Greek texts that omit this add in. And of those 8, only 4 or 5 of those texts contain them in the marginal notes, not the body of the text. So let's look at 1 John 5:7b-8a (a.k.a. Comma Johanneum) shall we? Let's read the verse in question it as it appears in the my NKJV study Bible. I have put the spurious verses in question in bold ink.
7 (a) For there are three that bear witness (b)in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.
8 (a)And there are three that bear witness on earth: (b) the Spirit, the water and the Blood;
and these three agree as one. (emphasis mine)
7 For there are three that bear witness:
8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.
- the Spirit (who witnesses to the Truth)
- the water (representing birth and priestly baptism)
- the blood ( being the righteous sacrifice of Jesus and proof of God's humanity).
When the rest of 1 John 5 is read in this context, that there are three witnesses of God con-cerning the authenticity of our Lord Jesus Christ as being the Son of God, the chapter makes a whole lot more sense, and affirms the rest of Scripture which teaches us that there is only ONE God, not three separate co-equal, co-eternal persons being one God. Also, this passage reminds me of another, 1 Timothy 3:16. Let's look at it from Young's Literal Translation:
"and, confessedly, great is the secret of piety -- God was manifested in flesh, declared righteous in spirit, seen by messengers, preached among nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory!"
"And the Spirit expressly speaketh, that in latter times shall certain fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron." 1 Timothy 4:1-2
Now I will briefly elaborate on how these verses got contaminated. It is fairly (albeit grudgingly) admitted by Trinitarin scholars that a man named Erasmus (a sixteenth-century Dutch Catholic priest and scholar) directly translated the New Testament from the original Greek texts, into Latin to update the Vulgate, but didn't include the Trinity formula in his translation. Good for him! Can you imagine the liquid hot panic that erupted from the bowels of the Vatican clergy when Erasmus' translation of 1 John 5:7-8 didn't contain their implied idolatrous Trinitarian teaching? To be honest, from other posts that I've read, even Jerome's original Vulgate didn't contain the Trinity formula, it was added much later. Even so, the last thing they needed was a reputable scholar publishing the word of God from the original language of the New Testament without their false teaching, thus making waves in their holy See. What to do, what to do? Well, instead of killing him, or putting him on trial for heresy (which was their usual M.O.), they opted for the more subtle art of trickery instead, like their father the Devil would do.
As the story goes, when Erasmus rightly defended himself from the Catholic authorities accus-atory chagrin by saying that he could not in good conscience publish 1 John 5:7-8 according to the current Vulgate Trinity version, because the many Greek texts in his possession didn't contain the implication of the Trinity. But unfortunately, he said something that left himself vulnerable to their deceit. He said that if they could produce a Greek text that contained the Vulgate's New Testament Trinity version of 1 John 5:7-8, then he would include it in his third publication of the Greek New Testament. And wouldn't you know it? Amazingly, the Catholic charlatans supplied Erasmus with a single Greek New Testament manuscript (Codex Britannicus/ Montfortianus) that contained the augmented verses in question. And so, as they say, the rest is history. For more information on this account of unscrupulous Scriptural intrigue, I urge you to look into the work of the late Bruce Metzger and others who contend that the authentic verses of 1 John 5:7-8 don't contain any Trinity formula.
The council was called to deal with Arius' doctrine that the Son of God was merely a created being, which denied Jesus' divinity. What was the alternative? That there is three separate co-equal, co-eternal persons in the Godhead. See what I mean about camps Gross Error and Special Error battling it out in the man-made arena of General Error? Arianism (Gross Error) and Trinitarianism (Special Error) are both wrong. Can you imagine a bigger waste of time than two false doctrines trying to see who's right about being wrong? Simply nauseating. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Arianism is right by saying the Son came after the Father, for truly we don't see the Son of God until the New Testament. However, Jesus is clearly God in the flesh since he forgave sins (Matthew 9:1-8), and rose from the dead by his own power (John 2:19). And let's not forget the monumental fact that Jesus himself said he was God to the Pharisees who wanted to stone him for claiming to be the "I Am" in John 8:58! So Arius was wrong -- very wrong! But the effort to stamp out Arius' blasphemy
doesn't exonerate Hoisus of Corduba and his push to make everyone believe his nonsensical Trinitarian blasphemy. Besides the Arianism issue, there were some other pressing matters in the so -called "Christian" (more like universal, or Catholic) church to hammer out at that time. Things like:
- The calculation of the date of Easter [spring feast of the false gods Ishtar and Tammuz, by using the paranormal science of astrology]
- The construction of the 1st part of the ecumenical creed of Nicaea [syncretism- the mixing of righteous and pagan faiths]
- The declaration of the principles of cannon law [laws used by Catholics (fake Christians) to persecute and murder other fake Christians, and real Christians]
- To hammer out the Trinitarian issue of the nature of The Son of God and his relationship to the Father.
Apparently, it wasn't until a later ecumenical council that they realized their error in leaving out the Holy Spirit in their little “Tri-Divine Menagerie” discussion. This is one of those “D'oh! I forgot something”, or “but wait- there's more!” kinda things I guess. Honestly, that alone should tell you there's something rotten in Nicaea! Remember, by this time, many other Christian cults and true Christians were sporadically being persecuted, and even martyred by the fake Christians (Catholics). This sordid behavior still goes on in varying degrees even to this today, by the Jewish, Catholic and Islamic faiths. But that's another story!
Who called the council to convene?
Wait, isn't the cross a symbol of Christ's gospel? Well....it can be, but just in case you didn't know this dear reader, the cross is also internationally known as being a pagan symbol for the sun. This has been fact since the Fertile Crescent days. Even so, this fact shouldn't take away from Jesus' death, burial and Resurrection. After all, it was the idolatrous Roman Empire that carried out his death sentence, so it's not likely they would have nailed him to a giant menorah, right? All this means is that we Christians shouldn't be wearing a cross to identify ourselves as Christians. Dying to self by bearing our cross daily is a metaphor, not to be taken literally. The identifiers we are to have include spreading the true gospel and to love one another like Jesus told us to.
Please allow me to point out what should be obvious to us, that Constantine's conversion is not the Biblical definition of how one obtains salvation, nor is the wielding of an actual sword the Scriptural means of spreading Jesus' gospel. On the contrary, Constantine continued in his paganism, and only added Christian lingo and facades as was the fashionable custom, making it seem to some, like he converted. The only certainty his story reveals is that he was a very good politician. Some will doubt this, but all you have to do is look at the arch monument dedicated to him by his own government. It doesn't contain one scrap of Christian symbolism, or teachings, only a vague inscription that may or may not throw a nod of acknowledgement toward the Almighty. And as if that isn't bad enough, the arch's placement in Rome is pretty self explanatory as to its real purpose.
"The Arch of Constantine is located along the Via Triumphalis in Rome, and it is situated between the Flavian Amphitheater (better known as the Colosseum) and the Temple of Venus and Roma. This location was significant, as the arch was a highly visible example of connective architecture that linked the area of the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum) to the major entertainment and public bathing complexes of central Rome." Dr. Andrew Findley, Arch of Constantine, Khan Academy
Yes, that's right dear reader, the politically pandering Constantine did what his vicious idol-atrous forerunners couldn't do, stem the rising tide of true Christianity with ecumenism. Incidentally, he (Emperor Constantine)with the help of Hosius of Corduba, is the one who forced the definition of hypostasis to mean a plural-essence of being, or persons, in stead of its true meaning as being a singular person, confidence, or substance. Whether he intended to or not, through Constantine's council, Hosius married paganism with Christianity, and unified what we know as Catholicism today. Constantine only wanted to make both sides somewhat happy, his real goal was peace through compromise, so he relied on Hosius' leadership at the council to make that happen. But compromise doesn't strengthen anything, it only weakens whatever it is used on. Make no mistake, neither Constantine nor Hosius of Corduba were friends of Jesus Christ, and neither of them were real biblical Christians.
The counsel was made up of many religious leaders, all of differing beliefs, all of which claimed to be based on Scripture, and we all know how that goes, right? The attendees that were debating God's nature at this general error council were members of what I like to call camps: Special Error, and Gross Error. This man-ordained council was one of the first attempts to accomplish universal (Catholic) ecumenicism after Christ's ascension, and was presided over by Hosius of Corduba. While this attempt at unity sounds nice on the
surface, this is nothing more than veiled compromise, which is (as you guessed it) of the Devil.
Dear reader (thanks be unto God), we now have ready access to the Scriptures! God caused many brave men to spend their precious lives upon the task of bringing God's word to the hungry masses, in defiance of the Universal (Catholic) church that had deliberately taken it away from them--from us! Instead of having the priesthood manipulate us with the God's word, now we can read it for ourselves, and allow the Holy Spirit to help us renew our minds to the truth, what a rich blessing!
However, there are indeed things within Scripture that can only be discerned spiritually and by faith, for as 1 Cor. 2:14 clearly says, spirit bears witness to spirit. But if a teaching is clearly not in Scripture, then it's not faith people use to believe it. It's indoctrination of man-made traditions. Yes, there are people who read, study, and enjoy the Scriptures solely for their merits as a masterful work of literature, and that's fine. But there are also those who read it for the sole purpose of using it as a means of profit, whether it be monetary, or to gather a following after themselves, which is bad. True children of God should read it for the sole purpose of learning God's will, and to acquire instruction in the way of righteousness. But if some black sheep mixed in the flock want to redefine already established terms, or insert their own doctrines, then they are actually goats and wolves in sheep's clothing. Such are the like of Constantine and his ecumenical council, headed by the Catholic Bishop Hosius of Corduba.
Jesus' apostle, the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Cor, 11:16, and 1 Cor. 14:37,38 that there is no tradition of debate regarding sound doctrine in the churches of God. He said that if these debaters were indeed spiritual, then they would know that the apostle's instructions were from Jesus and not mere men, and then the ecclesia (called out ones) would simply obey them. He further instructed them that if anyone continued to contend with and argue against sound doctrine, then they were to be esteemed as ignorant and patiently instructed in proper doctrine. And some were even to be avoided, or shunned, until they repented from their disorderly conduct. Again, if they didn't repent, then they were to be avoided and publicly labeled as heretics and apostates, but they were never to be physically harmed. The only Scripture approved council was at Jerusalem, found in Acts 15, no other council was needed. The only two factions of importance that are concerned there are the Jewish and Gentile factions, and they were officially reconciled on that day, even if some didn't agree with it.
I ask you, "Was Paul ignorant of Gnosticism?" Hardly! Gnosticism (besides Judaism) was a major enemy of the Gospel in his day, as it continues to be in our day. His epistles addressed both dangers of Gnosticism and Judaism, and he warned the reader of their poison. This shows that the Council of Nicaea and subsequent councils after the Jerusalem council of Acts 15 were not godly or biblical, but Gnostic, and Anti-Christ in nature. Why? Because they sought to redefine and debate what was clearly written and taught in Scripture. Truly, Gnostics can never just accept what God says, because they have beautiful and inquiring scientific minds that must analyze, and rationalize his word to death in an effort to justify their idolatry. A foolish practice that has been proven to be fatal, one that not only ensured their own spiritual death, but also effected the spiritual deaths of all who blindly followed them. Beware little sheep, there are ravenous wolves out there, and they are dressed like sheep! The only sure way to unmask these cunning canines is with the use of sound doctrine that comes from our Good Shepherd.