Doctrines of Christianity
The word translated “doctrine” means instruction and applies
to a lifestyle, a teaching by an authoritative source.
In the Bible, the word refers to spiritually related fields of study. The Bible says of itself that it is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
We are to be careful about what we believe and present as truth. First Timothy 4:16 says, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Biblical doctrine helps us
understand the will of God for our lives. Biblical doctrine teaches us the nature and the character of God (Psalm 90:2; 97:2; John 4:24), the path of
salvation through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9; Romans 10:9–10), instruction
for the church (1 Corinthians 14:26; Titus 2:1–10), and God’s
standard of holiness for our lives (1 Peter 1:14–17; 1 Corinthians 6:18–20).
When we accept the Bible as God’s Word to us (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20–21), we have a solid foundation for our doctrine. There can be disagreement within the body of Christ over secondary points of doctrine, such as eschatology, church organization, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But truly biblical doctrine is that which incorporates the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) and draws conclusions based on that which seems most closely aligned with the character of our unchanging God (Numbers 23:19; Hebrews 13:8). (Source: Got Questions)
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While Christians hold different perspectives,
a majority of Christians agree on these core doctrines of faith:
Trinity:
There is one God who exists eternally in three persons: the Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit.
Person of Jesus:
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life.
Atonement & Resurrection:
Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for humanity's sins, physically rose from the dead, and provides salvation to all who believe in Him.
Scriptures:
The Bible is the divinely inspired and authoritative word of God.
Second Coming:
Jesus will physically return to earth one day to judge the living and the dead, establishing an eternal kingdom.
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Doctrine of Trinity
"Of all the things that Christians say about God, the most distinctive is that one God is three persons."
--Bruce Shelley, PhD, former Senior Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, Denver Seminary.
The following is adapted from Dr. Shelley's book, Church History in Plain Language,
5th edition, Marshall Shelley, revision editor.
No other major religion confesses or worships a three-in-one deity. Christians themselves are hard-pressed to explain what they mean when they sing of the 'blessed Trinity.' Most seem to treat the doctrine as a sublime mystery.
It wasn't so in the early church. When believers tried to describe or address God in worship, they inevitably spoke of Father, Son, and Spirit. Yet when describing God's nature, they said that God was one.
Fourth-century Christians felt a nagging restlessness about the doctrine. What did they mean by the Trinity? What was the orthodox Christian understanding of the triune God?
Belief in the Trinity moved to center stage after Constantine's conversion to Christianity, when the new emperor became troubled by reports of the bitterness of Christians over this theological issue and others.
The most serious dispute was in Alexandria. Arius, pastor of an influential church there, asserted that Jesus the Christ had a different nature than God the Father. He said the Son had a beginning, but God was eternal. But his bishop, Alexander, would have none of it. He called for a synod of church leaders, who condemned the teaching of Arius and excommunicated him.
Soon, Constantine had no choice but to intervene and stop the bickering. So, he called for the first ecumenical council of bishops to meet at Nicaea in the summer of AD 325 in Asia Minor (today's Turkey). After many days of debate about the divinity of Christ, all but two bishops finally signed the first Nicene Creed.
But the heated debate over Arianism continued for the next fifty years. The creed was revised in AD 381 and remains today as the standard of orthodoxy in Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestant churches.
Today, in an attempt to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, Christians sometimes appeal to patterns of threeness in the world: the yolk, white, and shell of an egg; the roots, trunk, and fruit of a tree; or water in its three forms: ice, liquid, and vapor.
These are fascinating ideas and might be useful to illustrate the Trinity. But they miss the personal aspect in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
The true foundation of the doctrine rests on God himself. It is God as He acted in history, revealing Himself to Israel. It is God, entering our world as a Jewish carpenter named Jesus, dying and rising again to save us. It is God as He acted in history at Pentecost, descending as the Holy Spirit to share life with the Christian church.
When we search for personal analogies, we find that there are only two options. We may think of God as three persons or may think of God as one person.
As three persons, theologians usually point out that three persons can become so close they may be said to share a common life. They call it the social analogy.
If we think of God as one person, theologians say that a person may have several distinct functions or roles, such as mind, emotions, and will. They call it the psychological analogy.
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As the decades passed between 325 AD and 381, when the Second General Council of the church met, leaders of the Arian debate slowly clarified their use of the word "person." Three so-called Cappadocian Fathers saw the distinction between the three divine persons was solely in their inner divine relations. There are not three gods. God is one divine being presented in three persons.
The word "person," however, did not mean to the early Christians what it means today. To us, a person means an individual. But the Latin persona meant a mask worn by an actor on the stage. In Trinitarian thought the "mask" is worn by God not to hide but to reveal His true character.
It's clear that when we think of the Trinity, we should not try to think of three persons in our sense of individuals but of three personal disclosures of God that correspond to what He is really like.
This concept of unity and plurality is an essential aspect of Christianity. God declares that in marriage "two become one" (see Gen. 2:24).
The church is "many members but one body." And in the early church, salvation was about more than going to heaven. It was about union with Christ (Eph. 5:31-32) and with God. Father, Son, and Spirit are the model of this unity.
God by His essence is love, which requires more than one's solitary self. In salvation, we are invited into the already existing divine fellowship. Christians believe we will not be made into God or equal to God, but we will be transformed into the rich, eternal communion with God that is part of God's very nature.
"God in three persons, blessed Trinity."
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