www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqQWgi5CZc
Early Christianity on
the Persons of God
Post-Apostolic Church
INTRO
This is the third video in a series on what the
Pre-Nicene Christians wrote about the Divinity.
We have looked at what the early Christians wrote about the nature of
God and how they rejected the doctrine of Monarchianism, that is, the belief in
one God in one Person, let’s look at what the Pre-Nicene Christians wrote about
the Persons of God.
THE PERSONS OF GOD - PLURALITY
The early Christians made a good point by
showing the times when God spoke about Himself in the plural. Tertullian wrote,
How is it possible for
a Being who is merely and absolutely one and singular to speak in plural
phrases, saying, "Let us make man in our own image, and after our own
likeness"?* …He is either deceiving
or amusing us in speaking in the plural, if he is one only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the
Jews interpret the passage, because they also do not acknowledge the Son...? No, it was because He had already His Son
close at His side. (Tertullian. AD 213.
ANF, vol 3, page 606.)
*Gen 1:26.
Hippolytus noticed this in the words of Jesus
which appear to be hiding in plain sight, writing,
Again, if he [Noetus]
alleges His [Jesus'] own word when He said, "I and the Father are
one,"* let him recognize the fact and understand that He did not say,
"I and the Father am one”, but “are one." For the word "are" is not said of
one person, but it refers to two Persons, and one Power. (Hippolytus.
AD 205. ANF, vol 5, page 226.)
* John 10:30.
Like Hippolytus, Tertullian also commented on
John 10:30, writing,
"Two" are
still the subject in the masculine gender.
He accordingly says, "unum," [that is Latin for
"one,"] a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of number but
unity of essence, likeness, conjunction, and affection on the Father's part,
who loves the Son, and [there is] the submission of the Son who obeys the
Father's will. (Tertullian. AD 213.
ANF, vol 3, page 618.)
Novatian also commented on John 10:30,
Let the heretics
understand that He did not say "one" person. For one [is] placed in the neuter, [and it
is] close to the social harmony, not the personal unity.... For He would not have added "We
are," if He had had it in mind that He, the only and sole Father, had
become the Son.... Writing to the Corinthians, [Paul] said, "I have
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. Therefore, neither is he that plants
anything, nor he that waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that waters are
one."* And who does not perceive
that Apollos is one person and Paul another, and that Apollos and Paul are not
one and the same person...? Apollos
indeed is one, and Paul another, so far as respects the distinction of persons,
yet as far as respects their agreement both are “one.” (Novatian.
AD 235. ANF, vol 5, page
637-638.)
* 1Cor 3:6-8.
THE PERSONS OF GOD - AUTHORITY
Tertullian noticed that the Father and the Son
have different positions, that is, they are different in their authority. Though the Son and the Father are equal in nature—being fully divine--, the Son
is under the Father’s authority. About this, Tertullian wrote,
"When He [the Son]
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. For He must reign until He has put all
enemies under His feet...."*
"However, when all things will be subdued to Him, (with the
exception of Him who did put all things under Him,) then will the Son also Himself
be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in
all...."** Now, from this one passage of the letter of the inspired
apostle, we have been already able to show that the Father and the Son are two
separate Persons, not only by the mention of their separate names as Father and
the Son, but also by the fact that He who delivered up the kingdom, and He to
whom it is delivered up--and in like manner, He who subjected all things, and
He to whom they were subjected--must necessarily be different Beings. (Tertullian.
AD 213. ANF, vol 3, page 600.)
* 1Cor 15:24-25.
** 1Cor 15:27-28.
The Father is distinct
from the Son, being greater than the Son, just as He who begets is one, and He
who is begotten is another; He who sends is one, and He who is sent is another;
and again, He who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is
another. (Tertullian. AD 213.
ANF, vol 3, page 604.)
Tertullian
said that the Father is greater than the Son.
Do the Scriptures teach this? We
will revisit this later.
Tertullian reminds us that though the Son is a
different Person, He is not separate from the Divinity.
If He
[the Son] is also God, according to John who said, "The Word was
God,"* then you have two Beings: One that commands that the thing be made
and the Other that creates. However, in
what sense you should understand Him to be another [Person], I have already
explained [it to be] on the ground of personality, not of substance. [They are different] in the way of
distinction, not of division.
(Tertullian. AD 213. ANF, vol 3, page 607.)
* John
1:1
THE PERSONS OF GOD – FLESH AND BLOOD
Christians know and believe that the Son took
on flesh and was born a human. Could the
same be said of the Father? The early
Christians said, “No!” Tertullian wrote how the Son was
a different Person while also remaining in the Divinity.
That which has come
forth out of God [the Father] is at once God [deity] and the Son of God, and
the two [Father and Son] are one.... He
[the Son] is made a second in manner of existence--in position, not in
nature. And He did not withdraw from the
original source, but went forth [from the Father]. (Tertullian.
AD 197. ANF, vol 3, page 34.)
We will
revisit this difference between the Son becoming flesh and the Father not
becoming flesh.
SCRIPTURES: ONE GOD IN THREE PERSONS
Now that we have looked at what the early
Christians believed, let's look at the Scriptures to see if what they believed
was true. The Scriptures have a lot to
say about the Persons of God.
SCRIPTURES:
PLURALITY
Tertullian
and Hippolytus pointed out how God sometimes referred to Himself in the
plural. What do the Scriptures say about
the Divinity being plural? From the first and third chapters
of the Bible, it reads,
God said, "Let Us
make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...." The Lord God said, "Since man has become
like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take the
from the tree of life, eat, and live forever." (Gen 1:26, 3:22)
It is no
accident that from creation, God shows us that there is more than one Person in
the Divinity present. And this is not
the only place in Genesis. When the tower of Babel
The Lord said, "If
they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then
nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down there and confuse
their language." (Gen 11:7)
Tertullian quoted John 10:30 and said that the
Father and the Son being one is not numerical but a statement of unity. This is also echoed seven chapters later
where Jesus referred to Himself and the Father in the plural. Praying to His Father, Jesus said,
May they all be one, as
you, Father, are in Me and I am in You.
May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me. (John 17:21)
The following verse was an important one to
the early Christians about the Persons of God.
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. (Matt 28:19)
In this
verse, we see both the unity and oneness of God while also seeing the three
Persons of God. We see each of the names
of the three Persons. At the same time,
we see one, singular “name” of God.
Jesus did not say, “names.” Tertullian added,
[Jesus] commands them
to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into a
uni-personal God. (Tertullian. AD 213.
ANF, vol 3, page 623.)
SCRIPTURES:
AUTHORITY
Earlier, Tertullian mentioned that the Father
is greater than the Son. At first thought,
that may sound heretical to some people.
But is this true? What do the
Scriptures say? In John's gospel, Jesus said to His disciples,
The Father is greater
than I. (John 14:28)
Jesus
plainly confirms that the Father is greater than He. If the Father and the Son were the same
Person, how could He be greater than Himself?
No, the Father’s authority over the Son demands that they be two Persons.
Now does this mean that Jesus is a lesser God than
the Father? Not at all! So how is the Father greater than the
Son? The Father is greater in authority
because the Son receives His authority from the Father.
Jesus replied, "I
assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He
sees the Father doing. For whatever the
Father does, the Son also does these things in the same way…. I have not spoken on My own, but the Father
Himself who sent Me has given Me a command as to what I should say and what I
should speak." (John 5:19, 12:49)
Notice
that Jesus does not recognize His own authority, but recognizes where His
authority comes from: it was given to Him by the Father.
The
following Scriptures point out how different the authority of the Son is to the
Father. Paul wrote,
I want you to know that
Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God [the
Father] is the head of Christ. (1Cor
11:3)
Then comes the end, when
He [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He abolishes all rule
and all authority and power…. For God
has put everything under His feet. But
when it says “everything” is put under Him, it is obvious that He [the Father]
who puts everything under Him is the exception.
(1Cor 15:14,27-28)
Being under the authority of His Father and not
greater than His Father, the Son learned obedience because He was the Son of
God and Son of Man,
He
[Jesus] humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to
death on a cross. (Php 2:8)
Though He
was God’s Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. (Heb 5:8)
When James and John asked Jesus to put them on
His right and left in His kingdom, Jesus said,
To sit at My right and
left is not Mine to give; instead, it belongs to those for whom it has been
prepared by My Father. (Matt 20:23)
Jesus
says that He does not have this particular authority, but this authority is
only with the Father.
Jesus also said about His Second Coming,
Now concerning that day or hour no one knows--neither the
angels in heaven nor the Son--except the Father. (Mark 13:32)
Jesus
told His disciples that there is at least one thing He does not know; only the
Father knows this. If the Divinity is
made up of one Person, how can that person simultaneously know and not know
when He will return?
Very interestingly, the Father is referred to
as “the God” of the Son, which is quite amazing. For example, the Father said through a psalm
to the Son,
Your throne, God [the
Son], is forever and ever, and the scepter of Your kingdom is a scepter of
justice. You have loved righteousness
and hated lawlessness; this is why God [the Father], Your God, has anointed You
with the oil of joy rather than your companions [the angels]. (Heb 1:8-9)
The
Father calls the Son God while also saying that He is His God. Jesus Himself acknowledged this in two other places saying,
I have not yet ascended
to the Father. But go to My brothers and
tell them that I am ascending to My Father and your Father—to My God and your
God. (John 20:17)
I will make him [the
victor] a pillar in the sanctuary of My God, and he will never go out
again. I will write on him the name of
My God and the name of the city of My God—the new Jerusalem, which comes down
out of heaven from My God—and My new name.
(Rev 3:12)
FLESH
AND BLOOD
Lastly, Tertullian said that when Jesus came
to earth, He was made to exist in a secondary position under the Father. Is that true?
What do the Scriptures say? This
secondary position happened when Jesus was born as a human. The author of Hebrews wrote,
We do see Jesus—made
lower than the angels for a short time….
Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared
in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power
of death—that is, the Devil… and free those who were held in slavery all their
lives by the fear of death. (Heb 2:9a,
14, 17)
So the
Son became flesh and blood, a human. The
Father did not and remained above the angels.
That is certainly a difference between the Father and the Son. In the last video about Monarchianism, there
were a few quotes about how the early Christians considered it blasphemy to say
that the Father Himself would be born of a virgin and die on the cross. This was one of their popular arguments
against the belief that God is one Person.
Even after His resurrection, Jesus said,
Look at My hands and My
feet, that it is I Myself! Touch Me and
see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have. (Luke 24:39)
Therefore,
we see that Jesus had flesh both before and after His resurrection.
But even at this point, those who believe that
the Father and the Son are the same Person might be able to explain how that
works. However, the fact that Jesus is
God and became human is much more significant than what many understand. First, let it be known that Jesus became flesh and blood, a human, lived among
us, and people saw Him and His glory. The
apostle John wrote,
The
Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the only
begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
Yet just three verses later, John write,
No one has ever seen
God. The One and Only Son—the One who is
at the Father’s side—He has revealed Him.
(John 1:18)
Now if
the Father and the Son are the same person, then how can no one see God while
plenty of people saw the Son? Paul also makes this clear and
takes it a step further, writing about the Father,
The only One who has
immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; no one has seen or can see Him,
to Him be honor and eternal might. (1Tim
6:16)
Paul is
clear: when it comes to seeing the Father, no one has seen Him and no one can
see Him. On the other hand, about the Son,
The
Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the only
begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
In summary, the apostles wrote that God has
not been seen nor can He be seen. They also said that the Word became flesh,
lived among men, and that people saw His glory.
How can we reconcile
what the apostles wrote? How can we
explain the nature of the Divinity when the Father has never been seen and no
one can see Him—while the Son became flesh and His glory was seen? If God is only one Person, then John and Paul contradicted themselves. But if the Father and the Son are different Persons, then this is the best
explanation of the nature of the Divinity and fits perfectly with what John and
Paul wrote. And this explanation that
the Divinity is multiple Persons is nothing new; nor did the early Christians invent
this. They explained it just as they learned
it from the apostles themselves or from those who knew the apostles.
About the invisibility of God the Father, we
will go into more about what the early Christians said about this in a future
video.
CONCLUSION
This has been a detailed look at some of the
things that the early Christians said about the Persons of God. In the next videos in this series on the
Divinity, we will begin looking specifically at their writings about God the
Father.
Blessings and so forth.
