Were the earliest Christians Trinitarians? This seems like a great place to start as the doctrine of the Trinity is a central tenant of the Christian faith. In fact, the line of demarcation or the proverbial line is the sand would be; if you are not a Trinitarian or you deny this doctrine, then you are not Christian. So to deny this pillar of the faith would be to deny the full measure and weight of the Church, the Bible and most importantly—God himself.
Clearly all people that place their faith and trust in the God of Israel are strict monotheists, worshiping one God. This is very clear going all the way back to the Shema, “Hear, oh Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”—Deut. 6:4 (NIV). Of course, there is a multitude of other passages from both testaments to buttress this notion of the singularity of God, but this verse carries the most weight and will suffice for this study. But if the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, then using simple mathematical terms that a four-year-old could perform, there are three god’s. This is the mysterious nature of God as revealed in Scripture that has baffled the greatest minds throughout Church history, how can all three be “Almighty”? If anything more than one being is Almighty then it is not “Almighty”, because Almighty is not Almighty if equal power exists. This is where definitions are important, and we'll touch on that later. I should add that while there is a mystery to the Trinity, it is not a contradiction—properly defined. As it has rightly been stated, although we cannot fully ‘comprehend’ the Trinity, we can ‘apprehend’ it, and as finite beings, we simply bow before an infinite God. Obviously, this is an enormous subject, and all I'm doing in this first part is laying the historical groundwork from the inception of the Church and up to the point where the Trinity became an official doctrine of the Church. It has been widely understood that for the first Christians, the Triune nature of God would have been a category error, because they simply didn’t think in terms or language that you and I do. In other words, if you would have asked them if Jesus and God were equal, they wouldn’t have known how to respond. It seems to me, they would have said that because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and vindicated him, God the Father demands that Jesus be worshipped, and we are simply following the dictates and commands of God. Some Scripture support for this can be found in Acts of the Apostles where Saint Paul while finishing up a message in Pisidia Antioch says, “We tell you the good news: What God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”—Acts 13:32-33. Again, in his letter to the Church of Rome, Saint Paul says, “Concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead.”—Romans 1:4. So while the early Church didn’t understand the ousia or essence of the Triune nature of God, they shared the belief that God demanded the worship of Jesus. This is also demonstrated through early forms of worship that were normally reserved for YHWH only. As the late Larry Hurtado pointed out in his fine work, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity the earliest Christians going back to within months of the resurrection were praying to Jesus, baptizing in the name of Jesus and celebrating the Passover (weekly or more) in the name of Jesus. And we know the earliest Christians were performing these acts of worship-based Saint Paul’s own words. While testifying before Agrippa in Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul said, “Many a time I went from on Synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.”—Acts 26: 11. At the time, Saul of Tarsus was trying to get his fellow countrymen and others whom he perceived as engaging in false worship of God to deny Jesus. So the earliest believers, while not holding to a strict understanding or doctrine of the Trinity could at minimum be accused of belief in ditheism (that Jesus and the Father were both worshipped). In the ensuing centuries to follow, Scripture began to coagulate into a more formal canon and ideas began to develop regarding the nature of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. While examining Scripture, certain places seemed to point to a distinction between God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while seeing them as One. For example, earlier the most frequently cited verse in Scripture to affirm the oneness of YHWH was the Shema; but Saint Paul seems to have taken the Shema and sort of baptized it with a new revelation. In his letter to the Church of Corinth, Saint Paul says, “There is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and from whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”—1 Cor. 8:5-6. While this isn’t strictly a “Trinitarian” passage, it demonstrates a new revelation that Jesus is Kyrios. To tie together some verses that use a Trinitarian formula I will briefly mention a few. While making plans to travel north into Phrygia and Galatia, Saint Paul is stopped. We read, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them. So they passed Mysia and went down to Troas.”—Acts 16:6-7. Again, there is no explicit use of the word Trinity, but it is certainly implicit in the text. And many other places (Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-3; John 10:30; Heb. 1:3). So the early Church really did grapple with the Trinity. In some early circles, you had people debating was Jesus truly a divine being that appeared to be human? This is where the early heresy Docetism sprang into existence. This was the idea that Jesus was truly God and he only ‘seemed’ to be a human. But this view was deemed as heretical because if Jesus didn’t possess a human nature, then he couldn’t die for our sins. There were other heresies, but the most prominent prior to the adoption of the Trinity was Sabellianism. This view was actually widely accepted and accepted by many as the standard view. We know it today as ‘modalism’ but the idea is, God exists in three different modes. He is at once the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Much like I am the son of Mark Norbie, the brother of Nate Norbie and the dad of Gwen Norbie (son, brother and dad). Of course, this didn’t work because if you’re the father of a son, you can’t be the son that you’re the father of. Not to mention that Jesus prayed to the Father (He wasn’t praying to himself). Needless to say, while these ideas were interesting, they didn’t correspond with divine revelation. Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers coined the term, “The Trinity”. This term codifies that three ‘separate’ persons are all God (The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). While not appearing anywhere in Scripture, the implicit teaching is that while God is One, he exists eternally as three persons. There is always a danger of many Christian’s holding to Modalism or a type of Unitarianism, and this is where precision is important. And to a degree, this is understandable because within Scripture there are places where Binitarianism is explicit and where Trinitarianism is explicit. But the Church has been forced to go to the direction of Trinitarianism, even though it hasn’t been easy. This direction carries the weight of the ecumenical councils and the Bible. By releasing this revelation if you will, has opened up deep levels of this doctrine in many other places including the Old Testament.
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In part one of this blog, I spoke about some of the different views the Church has believed about eternal conscious torment (hell) throughout its long history. I briefly discussed the traditional or dominant view which supposes that when we draw our last breath there are two alternatives, everlasting life or everlasting conscious torment. I also discussed the possibility of divine reconciliation where upon death, those who are not in Christ have the opportunity to repent once they encounter Jesus and will eventually be saved. And the third view and probably the most persuasive is, annihilationism, or the view that after the proper punishment has been rendered, the individual will cease to exist. For example, Adolf Hitler will endure far more punishment than an old lady that lived a quiet peaceful life but never believed in Jesus. Now the last position is the view that I would affirm; and part of the reason for that is predicated on the belief that immortality is not given to those who are not in Christ or that just because you exist does not mean you’re eternal. I will address that in this blog and I will also address some of the most popular passages with regard to eternal conscious torment and define some of the Hebrew and Greek words that are used in these passages and their meanings.
What is immortality? Within Greek philosophy it was commonly understood that man is immortal. Of course, as the logic goes, all men are mortal, Socrates was a man, therefore Socrates died. But that’s not what is meant by all men are immortal. This simply means that the human soul cannot be destroyed and therefore, man is immortal in that sense (at least that’s how I understand it). So this idea or concept of all mankind being immortal was adopted by the Church to mean that when you physically die, all souls will continue to exist for eternity. This as I said, was adopted by the Church and is found in some of the confessions such as, The Westminster Confession and the Belgic Confession, affirming the immortality of all human beings. But what happens when we throw out Greek philosophy (especially when it conflicts with Scripture) and look to see what the Bible says about immortality. It could rightly be said that our first parents, Adam and Eve were created immortal provided they remained within God’s outlined parameters, namely do not eat the forbidden fruit or else death would ensue. However, Adam and Eve disobeyed by eating the fruit, and they became mortal. So in the same way that the tree of life provided immortality or life for Adam and Eve, so too does the tree of life (Christ) provides those in him with immortality. Perhaps the most famous of all verses in the Bible that could provide some insight into immortality is John 3:16. Here we read, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” It doesn’t get much clearer than this regarding immortality. If you believe in Jesus Christ you will not perish, meaning you will possess eternal life as long as you abide in him. There is a conditional offer here: on the one hand you have eternal life which would consist of immortality and on the other you have perish which means to no longer exist. Elsewhere, Jesus warned to not fear those that possessed the power to destroy the body but not the soul. Rather, Jesus said, fear God who has the power to do both--Matt. 10:28. It seems to me that God has the power to give both immortality (eternal life) and destroy the soul as well. As Greg Boyd correctly stated, “God will do to the soul of the wicked what humans do to the body when they kill it.” In the epistles, Saint Paul categorically states that God alone possesses immortality when he said, “Who alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and glory forever. Amen.”--1 Tim. 6:16. Here, Saint Paul says that God alone possesses immortality. Lastly, Saint Paul writes, “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, and immortality, he will give eternal life.”--Rom. 2:7. If immortality was the default position as some claim, then why does Saint Paul equate it to something being sought after to obtain? So if immortality is not given to human beings by default, then it is a gift from God for those that partake in eternal salvation this would then make annihilationism a viable option. Before we examine some of the popular passages from the New Testament that deal with eternal conscious torment, perhaps it should be notated that the Old Testament is completely and utterly silent on this doctrine, which is somewhat alarming considering the weight eternal conscious torment carries if it is indeed eternal. Of all the passages and warnings about the human condition ranging from Sodom and Gomorrah, to the Egyptians and even the unrepentant Israelites, no warnings of eternal conscious torment are delivered. In other words, God never instructed a single prophet to tell the people that if they persisted in disobedience that eternal conscious torment or hell awaited them. The closest passage to this doctrine is located in Daniel 12:2 where the prophet says, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.” Knowing some Aramaic or consulting lexicons does help in better understanding this verse. First, this is the only OT passage that refers to everlasting life. Second, scholars are not sure this is an entirely eschatological verse in the sense of final judgment, because Daniel says, “many will rise” whereas that is juxtaposed with John 5:28 where referring to the final judgment Jesus says, “all who are in the graves will rise.” Finally, the word for everlasting or olam in Aramaic does not always mean everlasting in the sense of eternal, and contempt properly translated is abhorrence as seen in Isaiah 66:24 referring to corpses and a corpse does not possess conscious awareness. But I would be remised if I didn’t say there are some NT passages that seem to argue very strongly that the duration of hell is eternal and conscious. Matthew 25:41 says, “Then he will also say to those on his left hand, ‘depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”’ Strictly speaking, eternal suffering is not mentioned in this verse. As Steve Gregg correctly pointed out, “We are told that the fire is eternal, but not that all things thrown into it are equally eternal.” Jesus says the fires of hell were not originally intended for human beings, rather for Satan and his minions. It would be an exegetical error for those that hold to the traditional view to say this verse has the same fate for humans as it does for Satan; when it doesn’t say that. Later on, in the same passage, Jesus says, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”--Matt. 25:46. The argument here for the traditional view is much stronger as one can easily deduce that if on the one hand you have eternal life than the opposite must be eternal damnation. This is what Saint Augustine argued that the duration of eternal life is juxtaposed with eternal conscious torment, but if I say two things in the same sentence it does not mean that both are equal. For example, if I told you that I enjoy and unbreakable everlasting friendship with two friends, you would be unjustified to say or assume that I have known both for the same amount of time. Now, without going into super deep details, the key to understanding this passage, particularly the last verse is to understand what is meant by the use of ‘everlasting’ or the Greek word aionios. While I admit the Greek word aionios is the most common translation for eternal; however, the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic makes this much more difficult to answer. The Hebrew/Aramaic word for eternal or everlasting is as I said is olam, but is doesn’t actually mean eternal or everlasting as Hebrew scholars often refer to the word as having no end in sight or the vanishing point. An example of this is found in Isaiah 34:10 where olam is used for generation to generation, or in Isaiah 60:15 olam is used for the joy of generations. So olam or eternal can be used to denote a lengthy period of time which likely means that Jesus did not have eternal conscious torment in view here. Keep in mind too that we made a strong case that immortality is limited to those in Christ, so not everyone possesses immortality. Another passage used to support the traditional view of eternal conscious torment which is very persuasive is Revelation 14:10-11 which says, “He himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” While this passage sounds very persuasive to the traditional view, it is actually very problematic in its support for hell. First, almost the entirety of this letter is apocalyptic in nature which means that most of the language is highly symbolic, but this seems to be ignored by some that hold to a traditional view of this passage. However, the language in this passage is strong as we read words such as, ‘torment’, ‘fire and brimstone’ and ‘forever and ever’. But is it possible these words mean something completely different from eternal conscious torment and hell? A closer examination might reveal that. The use of the phrase fire and brimstone is not unique to Saint John’s letter as its use is abundant in the OT to signify judgment, but not eternal conscious torment. So while fire and brimstone sounds hellish, Saint John is almost certainly using OT imagery to drive home a point. When we look back to the OT, this type of language originates with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24). Moses actually warned the Israelites not to violate God’s covenant, and if they did, judgment would visit them in the form of fire and brimstone (Deut. 29:23). In the Psalms, David used the same imagery of God judging the wicked (Ps. 11:6). Other prophets including Isaiah and Ezekiel used fire and brimstone to describe God’s wrath upon certain people and nations. So being almost all of Saint John’s epistle is derived from the OT, it would seem that the use of fire and brimstone is likely referencing something other than hell. It is also logical that the smoke that rises from Babylon ‘forever and ever’ (Rev. 19:3) should not cause someone to believe that Babylon is hell and that the smoke from Babylon rises forever and ever. That is why there is a growing number of scholars and exegetes that believe this passage is actually a reference to Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and has nothing to do with hell and the final judgment. Next time, we will visit Jesus’s parable of Lazarus and the Rich man found in Luke 16, while exploring a few more passages and discussing Greek words that could be defined such as: Gehenna, Hades, aionios, and olam. |
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