Misiunea Liberă

Isus Hristos este acelaşi ieri, azi şi în veci. Evrei 13:8

Limba:




It is significant that secular writers hit the target, reporting more precisely than their religious counterparts.

Those who defend the Trinity doctrine should do as others, and use books from neutral and independent sources rather than just from their own denominations. Ultimately they should regard the Bible as the only valid word. It is unanimous. Each encyclopædia, which deals with the Trinity states that no such doctrine is found in the Old Testament, New Testament, or in the documents of the first two centuries. The christological dispute became a state council, after the last general persecution of Christians under Cæsar Diocletian (302-312) ended. It was Constantine I who especially for that purpose called the Council of Nicaea (325). He as a politician had the interest of his kingdom remaining united. Agreement was not reached at all between the two leaders Athanasius and Arius or the more than 250 others present, which represented different factions. Other councils followed. There was dispute, disagreement and fighting in formulating the Godhead more and more after man’s own concepts.

Many have desired to know the Truth, some of which were excellent theologians. Unfortunately they did it without forsaking wrong thoughts and concepts that they had learned. You cannot have the Word and the interpretation, the right and the wrong cannot coexist, one via revelation the other from the mind. If the point of origin is not right and does not spring forth from the Bible, how can the result be right and merge into oneness with the origin?

Professor Emil Brunner has dedicated a whole chapter to this theme under the title »The triune God«. From his book, chapter 16, pg. 208-244, we take the following statements. »Judaism, Islam and rational theism are Unitarian. Otherwise we must be honest and confess that the Trinity was never in the early New Testament Christian theme or proclamation nor was it a central point of content but has crept into the faith of the church at another time. Therefore: The Center of Christian theology but not of the Christian faith. Is such a discrepancy between theology and faith possible? Or is it owing to a wrong development of the whole doctrinal structure of the church?« Most certainly Professor Brunner must have known about the testimony of Paul, »God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself« (2 Cor.
5: 19). Such wonderful application originates with a professor of theology, who belongs to the Trinity camp! : »The origin of the Trinity is entirely pagan.«

»The early Christian Church lives by the fact that through the Son, she has the Father and is connected with the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit.«

»As the prophet was the one who made known the Word of God, which came to him, and he brought it to validity, so now it is Jesus Himself Who came.«

»He, Who is the true image of God, is the One who transforms us into that image of God.«

»The Son is the revelation of the Father. Inasmuch as we call upon Jesus as the Lord, we call upon Him Who is from eternity and Lord alone, Whom we only came to know in Jesus as He would be known and have Him as He has given Himself unto us.«

»That was the point, that in the Son and only in Him do we have the Father, that through the Son and only through Him do we receive the Holy Spirit, that only through the Son do we know the Father and become partakers of the Holy Spirit.«

»The concept of a ›triune God‹ does not belong to the testimony or proclamation of the original Church.«

»In Jesus Christ the holy merciful God revealed Himself to us, self-revealing, reconciling, redeeming. By His Holy Spirit He makes the historical fact an inward experience, even in this He does the work, and draws us.«

»Only if it is true that God Himself was in Christ, is it true that He reconciled us with Himself.«

»Only the self-speaking, self-acting, personal Presence of God is the complete revelation and reconciliation, and this has happened in Jesus Christ.«

»A Son exists only from the time of incarnation. This one is truly God. Therefore Christ is a kind of theophany and God Himself, the Father, stepped into the sufferings of death.«

Please allow me a few more historical publications from which I shall quote, in reference to this theme. Please reflect for they will be helpful, possibly even taking someone out of self-assurance and lead them into divine assurance. In the history book »The Paganism in Our Christianity«, we find the BOLD statement

In the Encyclopedia of Religion we read the following, »Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity. … Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity.«

The Jesuit Edmund Fortman states in his book »The Triune God«, »The New Testament writers … give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three coequal divine persons … There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a Trinity within the Godhead.«

The New Encyclopædia Britannica writes, »Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament.«

In the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics the writer states, »At first the Christian faith was not Trinitarian … It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and other early Christian writings.«

In the New Catholic Encyclopedia it is written, »The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century.«

In the Encyclopedia Americana we find the following statement, »Fourth century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching.«

Many centuries before Christ, there were triads, or trinities, of gods in ancient Babylonia and Assyria. The French Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology notes one such triad in the Mesopotamian area: »The universe was divided into three regions; each of which became the domain of a god … the triad of the Great Gods.«

The historian Will Durant makes the following remark, »Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it … From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity.«

The book » Symbolism of Hindu Gods and Rituals« states, regarding a Hindu Trinity that existed centuries before Christ: »Shiva is one of the gods of the Trinity. He is said to be the god of destruction. The other two gods are Brahma, the god of creation, and Vishnu, the god of maintenance …«

The writings of »The Church of the First Three Centuries« carry the following statement: »The doctrine of the Trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation; … it had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; … it grew up, and was engrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers.«

The New Shaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge confirms this: »The doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who … were much influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy.«

What an overwhelming testimony these sources have given! May such statements compel everyone to consider the subject.>

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