Three Persons, One Faith

Paul puts the whole doctrine in one sentence: the Father sends the Son, and then sends the Spirit, who cries Abba. Day 4 looks at how Christians pray, baptize and bless, how the churches say it in their own words, and why Nicaea needed a word that is not in the Bible.

Galatians 4:4-7; Numbers 6:24-26; Romans 8:14-17

Opening

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But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.

Galatians 4:4-7 (BSB)

Paul says God sent the Son, and then God sent the Spirit of the Son. All three are in one sentence, and the sentence ends in a prayer.

The Whole Doctrine in One Prayer

Paul puts the doctrine of the Trinity in a single sentence of a letter about something else. When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Count the persons. There is a Father who sends. There is a Son who is sent. There is a Spirit who is also sent, and who is called the Spirit of the Son. Then something happens inside a believer. The Spirit cries out to the Father, and the cry is the word a child uses at home.

Paul does not stop to explain how this works. He is not arguing for the Trinity. He assumes it, and he builds on it. The Son came so that we could be adopted. The Spirit came so that we would know we are.

This is how most Christians have always met the doctrine. They did not first learn it as a diagram. They learned it in prayer, when they said Father and found that someone was already praying in them.

Today we look at how the Trinity shows up in the ordinary life of the church, in the way people pray, baptize, bless and sing. We also look at how different churches hold it, and at the mistakes the church corrected.

REFLECT

Do this today: before you pray, say one sentence to each of the three. Father, I come to you. Jesus, I come through you. Holy Spirit, pray in me.

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

A Two-Minute Prayer

Abba, Father, I am your child because of your Son and by your Spirit. Teach me to pray the way the Spirit prays in me. Amen.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6:24-26 (KJV)

Israel’s priestly blessing has the name of the Lord three times. Christians have often prayed it beside Paul’s blessing at the end of 2 Corinthians.

Through the Son, in the Spirit, to the Father

Paul describes how a Christian comes to God. Through him, meaning Christ, we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Look at the direction. We come to the Father. We come through the Son. We come by the Spirit.

That pattern is the shape of Christian prayer. It does not mean you must say all three each time. It means that when you pray, all three are at work. The Father hears. The Son stands in the way you could not stand. The Spirit helps you pray when you do not know what to say. Paul says that in Romans 8: the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.

The same pattern shows in baptism. At the end of Matthew, Jesus tells his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Around the year 155, a Christian teacher named Justin described to the emperor how his church baptized. In the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, he wrote, they then receive the washing with water. The words were already fixed.

Blessing follows the same shape. The priests of Israel blessed the people with the Lord's name three times. Paul ends a letter with a blessing that names the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Churches still use it to close a service.

Worship uses it too. In Isaiah 6 the angels cry holy, holy, holy. In Revelation 4 the four living creatures cry the same three words day and night. Many Christians have heard in the threefold holy a faint picture of the Trinity. It is a way of hearing and not proof, and the text does not say so.

The point is that the doctrine was never a classroom item first. It was how people prayed and were baptized before anyone wrote a creed.

A child's hand held in a woman's hand as they walk down a stone lane toward one lit window at dusk. — Galatians 4:6 to 7: the Spirit crying Abba, Father, and you are no longer a slave but a son.

The doctrine was never a classroom item first.

How the Churches Hold It

The churches that confess the Nicene Creed agree on the center. One God, three persons, the Son fully God and fully man. They say it in their own words, and they differ on a few important points.

The Reformed churches say it this way in the Westminster Confession. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

It goes on. The Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

The last clause, the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, is the Latin church's addition to the Creed, called the Filioque, a Latin word that means and from the Son. The Roman Catholic Church, Lutherans, Anglicans and most Protestants teach it.

The Eastern Orthodox churches teach that the Father alone is the source of the Son and of the Spirit. They call this the monarchy of the Father, and they have objected for centuries both to the addition and to the way it was made. The Eastern and Western churches broke communion in the eleventh century, and the Filioque was one of the issues. Each side states its position from its own sources, and honest readers on both sides say the question is real.

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches all affirm that God is one and the persons are three, and they all pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Pentecostal churches such as the Assemblies of God teach the same Trinity and place a special stress on the Spirit's presence and gifts.

One more voice belongs here. The United Pentecostal Church International teaches something different, and says so in its own Articles of Faith: This one true God has revealed Himself as Father; through His Son, in redemption; and as the Holy Spirit, by emanation. They teach that God is one person who has shown himself in three ways. They are sincere Christians who take the Bible seriously, and they differ from the Nicene Creed on this point. The next section shows why the early church thought the difference mattered.

Three Persons, One Faith: a film — The doctrine came out of prayer.Made in code for Euangelion from this series' risograph art. Narration: Kokoro, voice am_michael.

Read the narration

The church did not start with a doctrine. It started with prayer, and with water.

Jesus told his followers to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

One name, and three persons in it.

And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father!

Paul puts the Father, the Son and the Spirit in one sentence, and the sentence is about a prayer.

A child, a lane, and a lit window at the end of it.

Different churches say it in their own words. They still say one God in three persons.

The doctrine came out of prayer.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Romans 8:14-17 (BSB)

Paul’s other place for the cry of Abba. The Spirit testifies, the Father is addressed, and Christ is the one the heirs share with.

The Old Mistakes

Three mistakes have come up again and again in the history of the church. Each one tried to make the Trinity simpler. Each one lost something Scripture says.

The first is modalism. It says God is one person who appears in three modes, as Father at one time, Son at another and Spirit at another. It was taught in the early third century by a man named Praxeas, and by Sabellius after him. Tertullian wrote against Praxeas. His point was that the Gospels show the Son praying to the Father and the Father speaking about the Son at the Jordan. If there is only one person wearing three masks, the baptism of Jesus is a stage play. Oneness Pentecostals today hold a form of this view, and they would say they only mean to protect the oneness of God.

The second is Arianism. Arius was a priest in Alexandria in the early fourth century. In a letter to his bishop he wrote that the Son was begotten before eternal times, but that he was a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures. The Son, in this view, is the greatest of created things and not God by nature. Jehovah's Witnesses hold a view like it today. Arius's concern was that if the Son were fully God there would be two gods. The church answered that the Bible says all things were made through the Son, and he cannot be made himself.

The third is tritheism, which treats the three as three separate gods. It is rarely held on purpose. It slips in when people forget the Shema.

In 325 the bishops of the church gathered in the city of Nicaea to answer Arius. They wrote a creed. It says: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

It goes on: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is of the substance of the Father. God of God and Light of light. True God of true God. Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.

The key Greek word is homoousios, which means of the same being. It is not in the Bible, and the council knew that. They used it because every other phrase they tried was one an Arian could agree to and mean something else. A word outside Scripture was needed to guard what Scripture said.

A generation later Basil of Caesarea wrote about the Spirit. He said that when we count the Father, Son and Spirit we do not count the way you count apples, one, two, three, adding up to a crowd. For I, God, am the first, and I am the last, he quoted from Isaiah 44. Worshipping as we do God of God, he wrote, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. Basil is using the verse from this week's opening to say that the church counts to one.

At dawn a small mixed group stands in shallow river water while one person is lowered under the surface by another. — Matthew 28:19: baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Early Controversies: The Mystery of the Trinity with R.C. Sproul — R. C. Sproul on the early mistakes about the Trinity and how the church answered them.Ligonier Ministries

Five Only Would Not Receive It

The Council of Nicaea is often told with more drama than the record supports. Here is what the early sources say.

Constantine, the emperor, called bishops from across the empire to Nicaea in the year 325. The number who came is disputed. Eusebius of Caesarea, who was there, wrote that there were about two hundred and fifty. Later writers say three hundred and eighteen, a number that became traditional. Eusebius was not sure of an exact figure.

The council wrote a creed. Eusebius sent a letter home to his own church describing it, and he included the text. The historian Socrates, writing later, copied it. After the creed came a short list of statements the church rejected, including the claim that there was when he was not, meaning that the Son once did not exist.

Socrates says that of the bishops present, five only would not receive it. Other sources give different counts of who refused, and the exact vote is disputed. The two most firmly remembered who held out to the end were Secundus and Theonas. Arius was condemned and exiled.

Two stories are told about this council that the early sources do not support. One is that Constantine invented the idea that Jesus is God. The record points the other way. The creed was written by bishops, Eusebius says the emperor only urged them to accept the word homoousios, and Eusebius’s own creed before the council already said God of God. The doctrine was in dispute before Constantine took an interest, and it was argued from Scripture.

The other is that the bishop Nicholas slapped Arius in the council. None of the fourth-century accounts mention Nicholas. The story appears centuries later.

The doctrine was not invented in one afternoon. It was the church’s answer to a specific question, argued from Scripture, written down by bishops and kept through years of dispute.

The Shamrock Story

One of the most repeated stories about the Trinity says that Saint Patrick, the missionary to Ireland in the fifth century, taught the Trinity with a shamrock. It is told in churches every March. The record does not support it. Patrick’s own writing survives, in a work called the Confession. It is clearly Trinitarian. It never mentions a shamrock. The earliest writing that tells the story comes from 1727, more than twelve hundred years later. A botanist named Caleb Threlkeld wrote that it was a Current Tradition, that by this Three Leafed Grass, Patrick emblematically set forth to them the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. The story may still be a good picture. It is not a record. A leaf with three lobes does not teach what the church means either: a leaf is one thing with three parts, and the persons of the Trinity are not parts.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Patrick, Confession, sections 4 and 14, fifth century. Caleb Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1727. The shamrock tale is first attested there, as a tradition, not a record.

A Home with One Name

ANCIENT TRUTH

In the ancient world a household shared one name, one table and one inheritance. Paul says believers have been adopted into one.

Jesus prays in John 17 that his followers would be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. The unity of the church is meant to look like the unity of the three.

MODERN APPLICATION

Many people today are shaped by a divided home or a lonely one. The Trinity is not a diagram but a picture of a home that was never divided.

NEW TESTAMENT ECHO

Galatians 4:4 to 7 and Romans 8 say that the cry of Abba is the family’s own word, taught by the Spirit.

A Day Shaped by the Three

If the doctrine came out of prayer, it should be able to go back into prayer. Here is one way to let it.

In the morning, speak to the Father. You did not make the day, and you did not start it. Paul says that all things came from the Father and we exist for him. Thank him for the light and for being addressed.

At midday, speak to the Son. He is the one through whom all things came, and he is the one who sat in a boat, ate with tax collectors and wept at a grave. Ask him what he would do with the next hour.

In the evening, speak to the Spirit. He is the one who helps us in our weakness and prays when we cannot. Ask him to finish in you what the day left half done.

This is not a rule. Different churches pray differently, and many will tell you to start where you are. It is a way to notice that the three are not three subjects on a test. They are three you can speak to.

There is a deeper reason this matters. John says God is love. If God were a single person only, then before he made anything there would have been no one for him to love. Christians have long said that the Trinity answers that. The Father loves the Son in the Spirit, and always has. Augustine called the three a lover, a beloved and the love between them, and then said himself that the picture falls short. It is an inadequate image, and it still points at something true. The God who made you is not lonely. He is not asking you to complete him. He made you because love gives.

REFLECT

When you pray, which of the three do you speak to most, and which do you leave out?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Where in your own life did you first hear the word Father used of God, and what did it mean to you then?
Which of the three old mistakes, one person in three modes, a Son who was made, or three gods, have you heard in ordinary Christian talk?
What would it mean for your prayer to begin from the idea that you are already being prayed for?

A Memory Verse for Today

One verse, about four minutes. The verse is Galatians 4:6.

Read it aloud

Read the verse once, slowly: And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Drop the last words

Say it again and leave off the last two words. Finish them from memory.

Drop more

Say it again and stop before the cry, finishing from memory what comes after.

Build it back

Say the whole verse from the beginning, one phrase at a time, until you can say it without looking.

Use it

Say it once before your next meal, and once before sleep.

Already Being Prayed

Return to the sentence that began today. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Notice who is crying out. Paul says the Spirit does. Elsewhere he says we cry out, Abba. Both are true. The Spirit prays in you, and you pray. There is no gap between your voice and his.

That means you do not have to begin from nothing. When you do not know how to pray, someone is already praying in you. When you are tired, the prayer has not stopped. When you cannot find a word, the one word you have, Father, is already the Spirit's.

The three are present at your prayer in a plain way. The Father listens. The Son stands beside you. The Spirit is in you.

Tomorrow we ask a different kind of question. Why believe any of this? What do we know about the first Christians, about the earliest creed, about the people who wrote about them from outside? Tomorrow is the day for evidence. For today, say Abba.

Prayer

Abba, Father, thank you that I was adopted and not hired. Jesus, thank you for opening the way. Holy Spirit, thank you for praying in me when I cannot. Teach me to pray as someone who is already heard. Amen.

BREATH PRAYER

Inhale: Abba — Exhale: Father

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Today's Commitment

I will pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, and I will say Abba at least once a day.

LEAVING AT THE CROSS

The idea that I must find the right words before God will listen
The suspicion that the Trinity is a puzzle for experts

RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS

A Father who listens
A Spirit who is already praying in me

One Question

What does the Greek word homoousios mean in the Nicene Creed?

The Voice Behind Today

Athanasius of Alexandria

a bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, who stood for the full divinity of the Son and was sent into exile several times for it

Athanasius attended the Council of Nicaea as a young deacon and became bishop of Alexandria in 328. He spent about seventeen years in exile across five banishments, mostly for refusing to accept that the Son was a creature. He died in 373.

He was made man that we might be made God.

— Athanasius of Alexandria

LESSON FOR US

Athanasius shows how stubbornly the early church held to the full divinity of the Son. The question was not a matter of words. It was whether the one who saves us is God.

Sources & Further Study

RELATED SCRIPTURES

Galatians 4:4-7

God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Numbers 6:24-26

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.

Romans 8:14-17

The Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!

Ephesians 2:18

Through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

John 17:20-21

That all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You.

FOR DEEPER STUDY

Sources for today. Abba is Strong’s G5; on the meaning of abba, scholars have corrected the older claim that it means daddy. Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 61, in Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 2, section 3, at opc.org. The Articles of Faith of the United Pentecostal Church International, the one true God, at upci.org. Arius to Alexander, preserved by Athanasius in On the Councils, section 16, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 4. The Nicene Creed of 325, from Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 1.8, translated by A. C. Zenos, at newadvent.org. Eusebius of Caesarea’s letter to his church, preserved in Athanasius and Socrates. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, 18.45. The Filioque: the Orthodox Church in America and the joint statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation. Caleb Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1727. Patrick, Confession. Augustine, On the Trinity, books 8 and 9.

BACK TO SERIES

Finished reading? Mark this day read.

CLIPPINGS

BEFORE YOU GO

Anything you want to keep from today?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

EUANGELION

Three Persons, One Faith

Galatians 4:4-7; Numbers 6:24-26; Romans 8:14-17

Opening

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But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.

Galatians 4:4-7 (BSB)

Paul says God sent the Son, and then God sent the Spirit of the Son. All three are in one sentence, and the sentence ends in a prayer.

The Whole Doctrine in One Prayer

REFLECT

Do this today: before you pray, say one sentence to each of the three. Father, I come to you. Jesus, I come through you. Holy Spirit, pray in me.

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

A Two-Minute Prayer

Abba, Father, I am your child because of your Son and by your Spirit. Teach me to pray the way the Spirit prays in me. Amen.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6:24-26 (KJV)

Israel’s priestly blessing has the name of the Lord three times. Christians have often prayed it beside Paul’s blessing at the end of 2 Corinthians.

Through the Son, in the Spirit, to the Father

The point is that the doctrine was never a classroom item first. It was how people prayed and were baptized before anyone wrote a creed.

The doctrine was never a classroom item first.

How the Churches Hold It

The churches that confess the Nicene Creed agree on the center. One God, three persons, the Son fully God and fully man. They say it in their own words, and they differ on a few important points.

It goes on. The Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Three Persons, One Faith: a film — The doctrine came out of prayer.Made in code for Euangelion from this series' risograph art. Narration: Kokoro, voice am_michael.

Read the narration

The church did not start with a doctrine. It started with prayer, and with water.

Jesus told his followers to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

One name, and three persons in it.

And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father!

Paul puts the Father, the Son and the Spirit in one sentence, and the sentence is about a prayer.

A child, a lane, and a lit window at the end of it.

Different churches say it in their own words. They still say one God in three persons.

The doctrine came out of prayer.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Romans 8:14-17 (BSB)

Paul’s other place for the cry of Abba. The Spirit testifies, the Father is addressed, and Christ is the one the heirs share with.

The Old Mistakes

Three mistakes have come up again and again in the history of the church. Each one tried to make the Trinity simpler. Each one lost something Scripture says.

The third is tritheism, which treats the three as three separate gods. It is rarely held on purpose. It slips in when people forget the Shema.

In 325 the bishops of the church gathered in the city of Nicaea to answer Arius. They wrote a creed. It says: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

Early Controversies: The Mystery of the Trinity with R.C. Sproul — R. C. Sproul on the early mistakes about the Trinity and how the church answered them.Ligonier Ministries

Five Only Would Not Receive It

The Council of Nicaea is often told with more drama than the record supports. Here is what the early sources say.

The other is that the bishop Nicholas slapped Arius in the council. None of the fourth-century accounts mention Nicholas. The story appears centuries later.

The doctrine was not invented in one afternoon. It was the church’s answer to a specific question, argued from Scripture, written down by bishops and kept through years of dispute.

The Shamrock Story

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Patrick, Confession, sections 4 and 14, fifth century. Caleb Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1727. The shamrock tale is first attested there, as a tradition, not a record.

A Home with One Name

ANCIENT TRUTH

In the ancient world a household shared one name, one table and one inheritance. Paul says believers have been adopted into one.

Jesus prays in John 17 that his followers would be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. The unity of the church is meant to look like the unity of the three.

MODERN APPLICATION

Many people today are shaped by a divided home or a lonely one. The Trinity is not a diagram but a picture of a home that was never divided.

NEW TESTAMENT ECHO

Galatians 4:4 to 7 and Romans 8 say that the cry of Abba is the family’s own word, taught by the Spirit.

A Day Shaped by the Three

If the doctrine came out of prayer, it should be able to go back into prayer. Here is one way to let it.

At midday, speak to the Son. He is the one through whom all things came, and he is the one who sat in a boat, ate with tax collectors and wept at a grave. Ask him what he would do with the next hour.

In the evening, speak to the Spirit. He is the one who helps us in our weakness and prays when we cannot. Ask him to finish in you what the day left half done.

REFLECT

When you pray, which of the three do you speak to most, and which do you leave out?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Where in your own life did you first hear the word Father used of God, and what did it mean to you then?
Which of the three old mistakes, one person in three modes, a Son who was made, or three gods, have you heard in ordinary Christian talk?
What would it mean for your prayer to begin from the idea that you are already being prayed for?

A Memory Verse for Today

One verse, about four minutes. The verse is Galatians 4:6.

Read it aloud

Read the verse once, slowly: And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Drop the last words

Say it again and leave off the last two words. Finish them from memory.

Drop more

Say it again and stop before the cry, finishing from memory what comes after.

Build it back

Say the whole verse from the beginning, one phrase at a time, until you can say it without looking.

Use it

Say it once before your next meal, and once before sleep.

Already Being Prayed

Return to the sentence that began today. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Notice who is crying out. Paul says the Spirit does. Elsewhere he says we cry out, Abba. Both are true. The Spirit prays in you, and you pray. There is no gap between your voice and his.

The three are present at your prayer in a plain way. The Father listens. The Son stands beside you. The Spirit is in you.

Prayer

BREATH PRAYER

Inhale: Abba — Exhale: Father

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Today's Commitment

I will pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, and I will say Abba at least once a day.

LEAVING AT THE CROSS

The idea that I must find the right words before God will listen
The suspicion that the Trinity is a puzzle for experts

RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS

A Father who listens
A Spirit who is already praying in me

One Question

What does the Greek word homoousios mean in the Nicene Creed?

The Voice Behind Today

Athanasius of Alexandria

a bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, who stood for the full divinity of the Son and was sent into exile several times for it

He was made man that we might be made God.

— Athanasius of Alexandria

LESSON FOR US

Athanasius shows how stubbornly the early church held to the full divinity of the Son. The question was not a matter of words. It was whether the one who saves us is God.

Sources & Further Study

RELATED SCRIPTURES

Galatians 4:4-7

God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

Numbers 6:24-26

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.

Romans 8:14-17

The Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!

Ephesians 2:18

Through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

John 17:20-21

That all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You.

FOR DEEPER STUDY

BACK TO SERIES

Finished reading? Mark this day read.

CLIPPINGS

BEFORE YOU GO

Anything you want to keep from today?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.