The History of the Trinity | Steven Gill

i am so thankful to be here with you all i won't spend a lot of time on preliminaries but uh as has been said i hail from the hoosier state and if you are wondering what in the world is a hoosier you and me both nobody knows don't let them if somebody tells you they know they don't know they're lying to you i'm so honored to be here with you all to give honor to your bishop bishop carpenter your pastor brother erickson brother zach hammond nolan carpenter uh sister flannery carpenter their wives they've treated me so well this week i just i want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that doesn't go unnoticed the kindness of this church the kindness of this ministry staff to me and i'm so very thankful for that and tonight in your hearing i was as zach hammond mentioned i was asked to present the symposium presentation the the doctrine symposium and i intend to do exactly what's been asked of me but this this evening i'm going to begin just a little bit differently than i did at general conference and i hope uh the reasons for that will make sense as we uh as we progress tonight i'm going to be reading from the book of colossians chapter number one and i'm going to begin in verse number 14 and while you're turning there i also want to extend honor to my pastor pastor saint claire in anderson indiana he is just a prince of a man and the ministry of fpc anderson has in so many ways saved my life and i'm so thankful for them and i know he is probably at camp meeting tonight um with our bishop and i just want them to know how much i love them if they're watching online if they're not watching i love them very much the book of colossians chapter number one and verse 14 it's speaking of jesus and it's a very familiar passage and so we can probably many of us quote it we can read it together the writer said in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins who is the image of the invisible god he is the firstborn of every creature somebody look at your neighbor and say that's me for by him who are we talking about jesus all things were created that are in heaven that are in earth visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him he is before all things and by him all things consist jesus is the image of the invisible god and tonight we are going to take a deep dive into history because i want to give you some practical knowledge that you can take with you beyond just the things that we have come to know and love in the church we can all quote acts 2 38 and we can all quote colossians we can quote the book of romans we know that jesus is god as apostolics we are proud to know that there is only one saving name and that name is jesus christ uh but tonight if i can i'm gonna give you some some practical uh knowledge some practical study that hopefully you can take with you uh from this place and uh before we put our bibles down i would just ask that we all lift our hands to the lord and ask god to anoint the remainder of the service tonight god we are so thankful to be in your presence one more time god i don't ever want to take an opportunity to hear your word i don't ever want to take an opportunity to be in your presence for granted and i pray master that from the top of our head to the souls of our feet you would anoint us in this place tonight god for what you're going to do god i believe that there are hearts that have walked into this place god that are looking for answers god and i believe that you're ready in this place tonight to give those answers i pray that the word that goes forth would be good seed for good soil god that it would fall upon good ground and we'll give you all the glory and all the honor for it in jesus name everybody say in jesus name why don't you give a handclap to the lord while you're seated brother mcbroom if he is back there if you want to throw the first image that i sent to you on the screen thank you so much to this video team as well that what a phenomenal job this week they have i know i have made him wrestle with the beast at ephesus over this symposium information has anybody here been to venice you can raise your hands fine venice a few of you if you were to travel to venice italy you would see this statue outside of saint mark's basilica it's significant because none of the four men depicted in this statue were christians it sits outside of saint mark's and it depicts diocletian or diocles as was his birth name the glory of zeus golaris the offspring of the serpent and the god of mars constantinus who was the father of constantine the great the restorer of everlasting light and maximian none of these men were ever christians and so the question sort of begs how in the world did we get here all four of these men would eventually play important roles in the development of the doctrine of the trinity although none of them knew it at the time you can remove the image i'm going to proceed forward here and you're hearing so to begin in order to understand how the doctrine of the trinity came to exist in the church or even why it came to exist at all it's really tempting as apostolics for us to begin at 3 25 a.d at the first council of nicaea or 381 at the first council of constantinople because many of us uh have been blessed in this place to read great books like ancient champions of oneness by william shalfont and history of christian doctrine by you know dr arnold and brother bernard we've read their books and we know uh we we know about the councils and we know about the creeds but the truth of the matter is that those councils and those creeds they were the products of something they were they came from somewhere you know we we we say this all the time and i don't think we always know what it means the doctrine of the trinity didn't begin in a vacuum and what we mean by that is it had a cause and it hadn't it had an effect you know it didn't just happen out of nowhere and so uh in order to understand how the doctrine of the trinity came to exist you need to go back more than 500 years before the first council of nicaea and the and the council of constantinople to the days of alexander the great around roughly speaking 326 bc it's difficult to say too much about how good of an how great of an influence alexander the great had on the world during his time he conquered most of the known world including most notably the persian empire and something you have to understand about alexander he although he was from macedonia alexander the great believed that his soul belonged to athens his family worshiped zeus his entire life and he considered himself the offspring of heracles or hercules if you're roman and alexander made it his mission to greekify the known world and so when he would travel to different regions you know throughout asia minor and throughout the persian empire what is now iran he would institute hellenic practices greekish culture if you will and this is not a world history class tonight but i want to help you understand a few things about what the world understood about the gods and about religion and the ancient world alexander came to egypt during his conquest and he encountered an issue that he had never run into before you see when alexander was conquering the world you got to understand they didn't have airplanes back then they didn't have social media quite literally some of these men were seeing different parts of the world for the first time it's it's actually extremely interesting if you read what what men grown men who were soldiers how they reacted the first time they saw an elephant it's hilarious and uh you know alexander came to egypt and when he gets to egypt he he has a problem he's instituted worship of zeus in all of asia minor which was common because most of asia minor was greek city states but when he gets to egypt they worship a god called ammon and so alexander has a little bit of a problem now as the hegemon of the greek empire he is obligated to pay obeisance to zeus in order to keep his people happy but if he wants to claim legitimacy as the pharaoh of egypt he has to worship ammon and so what does he do alexander realized that he could in fact as the hegemon of greece and the hegemon of egypt combine these two things if he would just communicate recognition of his own god in the name of another god and so this this leads us to you know things uh i highly recommend this book edith hamilton wrote in her book on mythology she was a professor of history and classics she said that the zeus of song and story has been made by combining many gods when his worship spread to a region or a province that already venerated another deity the two were slowly fused into one unquote now i say i say slowly and i emphasize slowly because the change that has the longest impact in the world tends to take the longest to institute change that is going to have a lasting impact and this is true of your life too the change that is going to impact you the most usually takes the longest to impart and so this is exactly what happened you know mark twain said nothing is either loved or feared but what is likely to endure and that is certainly true where religion is concerned and so alexander begins this practice of combining the authorities of the various deities in in one name you know in egypt zeus would be forever called ammon but it would be zeus and in grace he would be called zeus but if you travel to different regions of the empire whatever their supreme deity was the two would just slowly become combined now this is important because after alexander died in 323 his empire was fractured into three pieces the ptolemaic empire the seleucid empire and the macedonian empire and it was israel that largely came under the subjection of the seleucid greeks and during the reign of the seleucid greeks there was a man named anticus epiphanes iv who did not like the jews in fact he hated the jews and this is where we get the story i'm not going to go into it tonight but this is the story of the maccabean revolt and how you get the story of hanukkah and tychus epiphanes iv made it illegal to read the scriptures he made it illegal to celebrate uh biblical holidays he made it illegal to observe the sabbath in a kosher diet he hated the jews and he wanted to institute centers of hellenism around israel and it was during this time that hellenic influence began to grow in israel in a very large way and there's uh really not um there's really not a better way to uh to present this to you then to just give you a few examples and i don't mean to be uh crass or or anything like that but one example that you find is that the jews uh would would commonly they they began they began to enjoy the greek lifestyle they began to enjoy the games and the theater and they wanted to participate in the culture around them but they had a problem you see the greeks performed a lot of their stage productions and their athletics in the nude and it was very easy to identify a jew if they were naked and so they solved this problem by covering up their circumcision in order so that they could participate in the events of the world around them in other words they hid who they really were in order so that they could claim a little bit of institutional and as this began to progress um eric gruen uh wrote a phenomenal uh entry talking about um the the development of hellenism in jewish culture he said this uh in his book cultures of the jews quote the jews that might better be said redefined their heritage in the terms of hellenic culture itself they engaged actively with the traditions of helles in a world where hellenic culture held an ascendant position they strove to present judaic traditions and express their own self addition self-definition through the media of the greeks and to make those media their own examples there is a book called the exegoge that was written by a man named ezekiel roughly around the first century and it's a retelling of the story of moses but it has some uh changes to the what we would call the exodus there's some variants for example in the book moses has a conversation with jethro and he's talking about a vision that he had in which he was descended high above the heavens and there was one seated on the throne but the one that was seated on the throne took his scepter and diademony he gave it to moses and he unseated himself off the throne and moses himself sat down on the throne and uh this is it's important to understand this is a very greek story the idea that men can become gods is it was a very it was a very greek story and there's other examples joseph joseph and asinith was a is a retelling of the story of joseph but it was it was an alexandrian love story and this practice became more and more common it's important to understand this because the israel into which jesus was born was a very hellenistic israel and it's in this context that many of the warnings against assimilation to this present world come to us in the scriptures particularly in the epistles although the seleucid empire's control of the empire had expired by the first century rome was the hellenized outgrowth of greece and macedonia in many ways the romans embarked on a mission to expand hellenic influence in an even greater measure than enticus and his legions did hellenism was an amalgamation of the most ideal portions of every culture it was a projection of culture as identity is probably the best way i can describe it and it was a novel departure from other major social identities and so in in centuries prior you know in in so many centuries leading up to this you were identified by your religion or you were identified by your family this is the first time that culture really became an identity mainstream in the world this became such a problem in the first century church that we find examples like i said in the in the epistles certainly in the writings of paul warnings about assimilation to this very greek lifestyle in fact we we like to quote it a lot and i brought this up at gmc and i don't want to offend anybody's sensibilities but acts 17 and 28 if you want to throw it up there paul was trying to warn the church about the deceitfulness of philosophy and men's traditions and and letting themselves be drawn in to this greekish way of thinking and he says this in the book of acts he says for in him we live and move and have our being and then read the next line it says as certain also of your own poets have said and why did he say that well if you study greek classic literature you would know that in him i live and move and have my being is actually a quote from epimenides that was written 500 years before paul ever lived so he was trying to make the point that the greeks had something that sounded a lot like truth but it wasn't quite the truth he said as even as your own poets have said you know in him i live and move and have my being that's a version of the truth but it's not the whole truth this leads to men and i won't spend a lot of time on them but men that we've heard of if we've read any books on church history justin and tertullian justin was a greek philosopher and he never gave up the philosopher's cloak even at his death he he command he he he insisted that he be referred to this way justin was the first one uh sometime around the second century to begin formulating a what we would call a trinitarian quote unquote mode of baptism now it was not the trinitarian mode of baptism that so many of us are familiar with today it was very different it was in the name of god and of the father and of the lord jesus christ and also of the holy spirit it was kind of a four-way baptism but he was he was the first to kind of in the mainstream sort of depart from what had traditionally been done which was in the name of jesus and you see another example in men like tertullian tertullian was the first one born probably around 150 a.d that used the term trinity in his writings but i want to help you understand that these men were not the sources of the doctrine they were products of their culture and we also know that these men were not necessarily well respected in their time tertullian was nothing more than a local presbyter and he was labeled a heretic at his death justin was beheaded and they were not necessarily well received in their time all the honor that's been put on them especially by the catholic church in years gone by is very ad hoc it's all after the fact because they could look back on history and say um yeah yeah that's that's that's where we get our we can go back far too and they might be able to go back to the first they might be able to go back to the second or the third century but there's only one church in the world that can go all the way back to the book of acts in an upper room in jerusalem and that is the apostolic book of acts jesus name church brother mcbroom if you want to throw uh the source number two up there for me i showed this at gmc this is the yes that is it thank you i took this picture in 2016 at the rockefeller archaeological museum in jerusalem it's a statue of aphrodite that was excavated from the church of john the baptist in iron carim it's significant for a couple of reasons number one stop and think about what i just said it's a statue of aphrodite that was excavated from the church of john the baptist now i don't know about tennessee but in indiana we don't make a habit of putting statues of aphrodite around our churches why was it commonplace hellenic culture had influenced the church in a much more meaningful way than sometimes we understand just as it had influenced the jews you know it was attractive to the jews because if they participated in the culture enough uh you know if they would give in on a few things they would be found acceptable and the christians over time begin to participate in the exact same way is that well it's not really idolatry you can call her aphrodite and worship her to us she's you know we will we'll say that that's a picture of mother mary and move on it it was very it was a it was a very slow process like edith hamilton said it was they were slowly fused and this statue is also significant because it predates the councils of nicaea and constantinople by almost 100 years so you can't blame nicea and constantinople you know when somebody comes to you and they say uh or rather when you if you're discussing you know the doctrine of oneness with somebody who believes in the trinity it's very easy for us to just jump at uh nicean creed athanasian creed you know that that's where you get your doctrine they probably have never read the nicean creed and they probably also don't care you see we care about this stuff because we put a premium on the infallibility and inerrancy of scripture but if your highest source is tradition then it's not necessarily effective to tell somebody um i see in create 325 i'm right you're wrong it doesn't actually work that way and so uh you know it's important to if you can learn about this stuff so that you can start to maybe help people see a little bit of where did your doctrine really come from where uh you know what's the roots because the bible says if the root be holy then the branch is also holy you know it also says things like a little leaven leavens the whole lump it matters where your doctrine comes from as you move forward throughout history it's not hard to understand that why christianity and hellenism were at odds with one another you know against this backdrop it's easier for us to comprehend the great persecution that many christians suffered throughout judea uh the biblical christianity of the first century it served as perhaps one of the most significant objections to hellenic idealism it it was almost exactly the opposite of what the greeks taught for example hellenism emphasized the glorification of the human as the ideal and it presented its deities as conquerors they were cruel taskmasters that were interested in the subjection of humanity to their ever-changing wills in hellenic culture men could become gods and all the god gods of this world flowed into the greek pantheon this was uh the understanding that that led men to uh you know this it was it was hellenic culture that that uh that developed the practice of deifying emperors when they would die they believed that that men were you know men were sufficient this was this was socrates search for the good life this was it was marcus aurelius's meditations the the idea that all of your sufficiency in life could be found inside of yourself and christianity was a protest to all of that christianity did not preach the glorification of the human will but the crucifixion of it their god was singular he was unique he saw humanity as the apple of zion not the subject of his scorn he could not be amalgamated into other idols he demanded exclusivity of worship and while the greeks venerated conquering kings the christians worshiped a suffering servant it it it was bizarre to the greeks if you read their writings they thought the christians superstitious kind of funny when we look back on history you know they called us superstitious i want to read something to you brother mcbroom if you could throw source number three on the screen i'm gonna try and do this from the book that i brought this manuscript is known as the second medicine manuscript it's in a dead language that i'm not going to try and trans or try and read to you but i have this english translation i read at gmc i've had this book for i don't know 10 15 years now and i keep it almost for just one page brother hammond we talk about we're talking about books today and sometimes you can read an entire book of bones and then you just get like that one thing this book was written almost two thousand years ago it's called the annals of tacitus he actually used to be required reading in public school tacitus was not a christian he was a roman senator he was a historian and he hated christians um when tacitus wrote his history of rome he didn't realize it at the moment but he was probably solely responsible for giving the church what is largely considered the only death certificate of jesus christ that exists in history he was writing about the days that rome was set on fire we've heard in history about the burning of rome well there was a lot of theories about the burning of rome some said the christians did it and some said nero did it himself and tacitus had this to say in his book he said but all human efforts all the lavish gifts of the emperor talking about nero all the propitiations of the gods did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order consequently to get rid of the report nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called christians by the populace from whom their name had its origin christus suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of tiberius at the hands of one of our pro-curators pontus pilate in a most mischievous superstition thus checked for a moment again broke out not only in judea the first source of the evil but in rome where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular accordingly an arrest was first made of all who pled guilty and then upon their information an immense multitude was convicted not so much of the crime of firing the city but as of hatred against mankind mockery of every sort was added to their deaths covered with the skins of beasts they were torn by dogs and perished or served as nightly illumination when daylight had expired the tacitus didn't realize it at the moment but he was actually testifying about what the new testament was telling us that the church would begin in judea but it wouldn't just stay in judea because although they tried to silence them that most mischievous superstition thus checked for a moment again broke out not only in judea but in rome and into the uttermost parts of the earth now christians were persecuted harshly by the roman empire traditionally taught there are 10 great epics of persecution against the christians those begin roughly speaking with nero and 60 a.d which you read about in the new testament and they end with diocletian and galeris in 311. now the the the the persecution that happened against christians at this time you got to understand that this wasn't just a how do i say this we're very we're in an american church we think of persecution as no service for 60 days or no service for what i don't know what it was 15 days to slow spread whatever it was we think of persecution as somebody said something mean about me on facebook we think of persecution as you know somebody somebody looked at me funny in the grocery store the persecution that these christians suffered with some of the most horrendous stories you'll ever read for 300 years this persecution continued throughout the empire brother mcbroom if you want to throw the first image back up there source one for me and it all culminates with these four men that i started our lesson with tonight diocletian golaris constantinus and maxentius the persecution against christians the harshest persecution against christians is largely due to the influence of the man named golaris glarus at the at the behest of his mother ramula incited the persecution against christians and his generation his mother claimed to be the consort of the serpent which was possessed by the god mars and this is important to understand because gularis was also the one who eventually issued the edict of certica in 311. which granted christians the right to worship in the empire you might say well hold on if he was this harsh persecutor against christians why in the world would he issue an edict at his death allowing them to worship the answer christianity could not be stopped by persecution the first century church was not going to be put out by this present world and as it grew the empire the the emperor and uh all of the the leaders of the provinces and the governors understood that this christian doctrine was not going away so we have a problem half of our empire is pagan and worships idols and the other half is christian and because gularis knew that the christians were not going anywhere he issued the edict of certica in 311 and he died shortly after issuing it now this is important because this is where we get to somebody we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about tonight which is constantine constantine the great was the son of constantinus which is on this statue up here constantine the great was a greek revivalist you read read his biographies read his stories read particularly eusibius who was the first church church historian he was constantine's personal biographer also sat with him at the council of nicaea it was a right-hand man you can you learn a lot about constantine he was a greek revivalist he he wanted to reinstitute greek as the language of the empire instead of latin he wanted to re uh he wanted to relocate the capital of the empire from rome to byzantium which he actually eventually did part of his his great push to greekify the empire was to unify the empire once again under one hegemon which is what alexander the great was known as the problem is there's four emperors at this time now diocletian was the first one to ever retire in history and we don't necessarily know why galeris dies so that leaves maxentius and constantinus constantinus dies maxentius dies a little bit later and what do you think their children started to do with one another they probably started to fight a little bit everybody wants a piece of the pie so maxentius's son maximian and constantinus's son constantine the great go to war and this is where you get the story of the milvian bridge the supposed moment of constantine's conversion which was not a conversion and constantine and maxenti or maximian are both uh uh maxentius are both uh vying for control of the empire and then all of a sudden golaris is the last to pass away and this creates a big problem because there's a vacuum now in the leadership of the empire now i know that none of us would believe that this would happen in politics today but every once in a while when somebody wants power and they want control sometimes they'll just sort of hitch themselves to uh sort of hitch themselves to whoever's got the biggest name and whoever's got the biggest wallet and they kind of want they want to be synonymized with that legacy that's exactly what happened constantine the great and maxentius both issued edicts favoring the christians almost immediately on galerius's death why because they both wanted to claim legitimacy to the throne that galerus left behind they both knew that if we're going to be respected as the leaders of the empire then somebody's going to have to synonymize us with what he did with what he said we want we want to be the ones that favor his proclamations we want to be the ones that we want to be the ones that people look at and they say that's galeris successor so they both do it at the same time which makes it kind of awkward because it doesn't solve their problems at all constantine he grew up in and around diocletian's court he understood the art of assimilation he needed to unify a religiously fractured empire he goes to war with maxentius the milvian bridge and he defeats him constantine is left now all by himself he has a total control constantine knew that the only way to bring the numberless christians into the empire was to distance them from the memory of the christians of the first century why do i say that the romans and later on the byzantine empire hated the jews for the revolt against vespasian in 70 a.d when you read in the new testament you know we know that the temple was destroyed in 70 a.d and john was writing revelation in 90 something a.d there is a great revolt you hear paul talk about it peter talks about this the you know the great persecution that's coming in the fire and the you know that this this isn't just all um spiritual language there was a literal revolt happening in judea at the time the roman empire reached its peak during the augustine dynasty this is caesar augustus who issued the tax in which mary and joseph returned to bethlehem for that caesar augustus the the he was the he was the successor of julius caesar you know e2 brute that julius caesar he was his successor he he fought with you know this is octavian and libya he fought with mark antony and cleopatra in egypt that's the caesar augustus of the new testament the augustine dynasty contained all of his children that's that's caesar augustus that's tiberius and caligula and claudius and then eventually nero now nero is a terrible emperor i can't go into it all today but nero nero was truly truly a horrible man very unstable the emperor the empire was really fed up with nero and so revolts started to happen around the empire the worst of which happens in judea and nero can't put it down he's blamed for his weakness and he is eventually abdicates his throne and is forced to commit suicide vespasian takes over and vespasian is the first man to kind of step into the role as emperor that was not of augustine quote-unquote augustine blood and this angered the romans against the jews now the reason i'm telling you this story is because the christians of the first three centuries were synonymized with the jews in very inseparable ways for example and we read this in the new testament as well the christians worshiped in their synagogues paul's some of some of paul's largest conversions happened in synagogues he traveled to berea he travels to all these cities and and we know that the first christians were jews and the gentile christians later they they synonymized himself with with the jews for at least a short amount of time the christians were considered a sect of the jews they were they were what the new testament said you know when they asked paul about what is this sect and they called it the way the the romans despised the christians because of this so constantine understanding that he has to find a way to distance the christians from the revolt that happened in 780 he's got to distance this modern christianity from the memory of their roots if i can just get them away from the from their jewish roots get them away from the old testament i need to get them away from that name of jesus that's that's a jewish name i don't want that i've got to get them somehow i got to get them away from them so that they can harmonize a little bit with the pagans that are living around them so how does he do that in 314 constantine wrote to a roman official in charge of civic affairs in north africa that he had the explicit goal of unifying christianity under one state-sponsored umbrella and he would not tolerate any variants among christians concerning their beliefs he wrote that just as he had reunified the empire under a single ruler so too he would unify it under a single religion and he would do it through negotiation bribery exile and execution if need be constantine worshiped a god called soul invictus his entire life brother make broom if you want to throw the coin image up there he worshipped a god called soul invictus this is that's that's it's called the unconquered sun you think about his dad's name you know the the giver of giver of everlasting light constantine worshiped the sun god his entire life it did not cease at his death modern history will tell you and i i i don't want to be harsh but there's a reason why catholic and denominational historians have whitewashed the life of constantine because he was the founder of the catholic church and because of that it's very difficult for them to reconcile in their mind well how was the founder of our church so pagan i'm showing you this coin on if you look at this coin on one side it depicts the emperor on the other side it uh it's a it's a symbol of constantine's power you see that orb holding in his hand i'll get to that in just a moment on one side it says the invincible son companion of the emperor on the other side it says the unconquered constantine this coin was minted a year after constantine's quote-unquote conversion it's very evident that he continued to worship the sun god throughout his life if you want to throw up source number five for me uh brother mcgroom that's the last statue and i think it's the last image if you were to travel to turkey and the top of it has been removed over years of erosion this is called constantine's pillar you notice around his head the kind of statue of liberty looking thing the halo around his head that was the symbol of everlasting light to the romans and so was the orbeez holding his hand which you also see depicted on the coins and this was constructed a year before constantine's death as a matter of fact constantine's arch which was built after his apparent conversion it venerated the sun god as well and gave the sun god credit for his victory over maxentius this is important because it was quote unquote the the the battle at the milvian bridge in which constantine claimed uh you know i saw a sign uh superimposed on the sun and uh it would he said conquer maxentius and so i did that and now i'm a christian this story which is not consistent throughout all historical accounts was a farce that was created to make people believe that constantine was leaning leaning a little bit more towards christianization of the empire constantine did not hate the christians like diocletian did but his relationship with the sun god is important to understand because when constantine protested the catholic bishops that he could not understand why he could not worship the god of the christians and so invictus something very sad happened we would love to believe that the christian bishops that were convened by constantine we would love to believe that they came to him and said constantine hear o israel the lord our god is one lord thou shalt have no other gods we would love to tell we would love to believe that they would have looked to him and said neither is there salvation and then the other but that's not what they did after 300 years of persecution and being pressured by the empire to conform more towards a pagan sort of worship the christians realized they had an opportunity at the council of oro in 3 14. this is when constantine meets with all these leaders he says what are we going to do the council of rome in 3 13 and arlen 3 14 is when this happened he says what are we going to do i tell you what i don't have a lot of doctrine but i've got power and you don't have any power but you've got doctrine so i tell you what you give me some of what you have and i'll give you some of what i have and we'll put this thing together in 313 constantine offers the church institutional legitimacy in the empire in exchange for him being named the head of the church which they acceded to when he met with these bishops to say why can't i worship the sun god and your god the bishops did not respond with deuteronomy 6 and 4. in fact they used new testament scriptures out of context to help constantine support his personal beliefs for example they were they they they told him that he could in fact worship both gods because christ was the quote-unquote light of the world according to john 8 and 12. in fact in matthew 17 and 2 it was said of the transfiguration of jesus that his face shone like the sun so you see maybe what you believe in what i believe really aren't that different and we can roll our eyes and say well that seems silly but i want to ask you a question after 300 years of persecution how long would it take you to trade your beliefs for relief and this is exactly what began to happen because constantine used a different tactic he could have brought the sword against the christians and they may have continued on their merry way but instead he says i'll just show you a little bit of mercy but i need you to do something for me in return make me the head of the church and that's exactly what they did at his death he demanded to be buried uh he demanded to be buried and named the 13th apostle he wanted to be considered one of the original 12 that walked with jesus kind of silly also somebody should have told him there was already a 13th apostle but we won't get into that nobody ever accused constantine of doctrinal like soundness you know some other things about constantine you should know one he was the chairman of the council of nicaea in 325 he chaired the council of nicea he convened it has anybody ever read than i see in creed it has a phrase in there called god of god light of light of the same substance as the father you ever wonder where the phrase light of light came from was constantine's emphasis that jesus was simply an emanation of soul invictus that he was the son of apollo he was he was a sub-deity he was he was he was a he was a god-like figure but he was he was a god-like figure in the same way that we've always worshipped quote-unquote god-like figures in the greek empire that's where this phrase comes from the council of oral it was also demanded that bishops no longer participate in the lord's supper the only reasoning for that could have been because of its connection to the jewish passover in 326 one year after the council of nicaea in case you weren't convinced that constantine was not a christian in 326 one year after the council of nicaea he had his wife faustus drowned in a bath of boiling water in a bout of paranoia he was paranoid that she was trying to supersede him somehow as the emperor had her drowned in a bath of boiling water he had his son crispus either poisoned or suffocated in a bathhouse constantine was not a stable man but he understood opportunity when it was in front of him constantine convenes the council's 34313-314-325 and after three centuries of persecution three centuries of torture the church looks to the romans and says okay we'll let you set the terms of what we believe the powers that be in the church decide that if they just give in a little bit to the pressures of this new emperor to redefine their doctrine in the terms of the hellenistic peoples if they would just give up a little bit of their principles they will finally gain what they never had before which was power i want you to understand something that what begins with sincere motive sincerity is not a virtue goodness is a virtue mercy is a virtue sincerity is not a virtue because you can be sincerely wrong and we look at what happened at nicaea and i'm sure there were people that thought at that moment it'll never go farther than this we'll still privately baptize in jesus name and they're going to leave us alone it's a deal the first council of nicea happens in 325 but by the time you get to the 8th century under empress irene in the 700s you have the second council of nicaea which was convened to deal with the veneration of saints as idols in the basilicas i bring that up only to emphasize the point that sin never stops at just one event it'll always go further it'll always grow into something you never intended it to be it matters where your doctrine comes from the doctrine of the trinity finally reached its final codification in 381 under emperor theodosius the first council of constantinople this is the first time that god is specifically described as god the father the son the holy spirit co-equal consubstantial co-eternal and it all culminated because of this now it's really easy this is by and well i'm done with the history for tonight so if you don't like history just i want to help you understand something it does matter in the 21st century whether or not you believe god is one or goddess 3. and i'm going to give you some examples as to why i don't know if this was shared before my arrival so i came from a denominational school i went to bible college in indiana wesleyan in my second or third year we were in a theology class there was a woman in that room we were talking about prayer talking about the power of prayer she came from a catholic background she raised her hand to ask the professor now understand up to this point i had had some experiences with people who were ardent trinitarians before but never on a level that was what i would say more noticeable than i would have expected it to be she raises her hand and she asked the professor a question she said professor i have a question about when i'm praying he said okay she said i've always struggled she's in her 50s she said i've always struggled in prayer with knowing who to address when i'm praying for different things do i pray to the father or his son or the spirit and in that moment my heart broke because i realized at that point i had not been enough of an influence in that class that she didn't understand the difference yet i jumped in started to talk to her a little bit about oneness she didn't receive it very well and i was truly heartbroken for her i was because i cannot imagine going through life not knowing the power of the name of jesus i cannot imagine going through life feeling like i don't know who to pray to when i'm in need as i said she didn't receive it very well cade you'll like this but there was two others that did i had jumped in in that conversation and started i opened up to romans 8 and i was talking about you know in romans 8 you know at one point it's called the spirit of christ and then it's called christ in you and then it's called the spirit of god and the holy spirit i said are there four different spirits no of course not it's all one and the same and as we begin to talk a little bit i took her to john one and one and and as i said she was unconvinced but there was two people sitting in that class who i had not met yet that were very intrigued by the conversation i was having with this woman the young man i won't mention his name he came up to me as we went on break for class he said man he said i've i've never hear me congregation please hear this he said i've never heard john 1 1 before in a christian school he's never heard john 1 1. i'll do you one even better he was a pastor of an ame church in indianapolis and had never read john 1 1. he said i've never heard that before talk to me more about oneness his wife was in the class too so we begin to talk a little bit about one god and the power of one god he said i've got to know more about what you're telling me he said i want to come to church with you where do you live at that time i lived more than two hours from that location i was driving like a fiend to get to school i said man i lived pretty far away i said where do you live kade he said i live on english avenue in indianapolis care to tell us what's on english avenue calvary tabernacle in indianapolis at that time under the leadership of brother mooney he lives less than five minutes from calvary tabernacle in indianapolis i said great i said i tell you what i'm gonna do i'm gonna miss a midweek at my service and i'm gonna come with you to indianapolis we're going to go to church because he wanted to be in that service we get to the church and you got to understand something after a long time what had effectively been at that point three years of feeling like i wasn't breaking through and it was it was a struggle a little bit to understand why don't people care about this like i care about it you know and you feel like you're wrestling i walk in that night brother mooney is preaching though the vision terry wait for it we sit on the back row and service begins to go on as brother mooney is preaching i see something begin to stir up a little bit and and this man and his wife we have the altar call they want to take me down to the altar so we're going down there we're walking down to the alcohol brother sleeve is standing down there i went down i began to talk to him for a little bit and can i tell you that while i was talking to brother silva i didn't have to do anything else other than tell him that there is only one god in his name is jesus i didn't have to do anything else but introduce him to truth and while i'm standing off to the edge talking to brother sleeve i look over at vincent and amber and he's speaking in other tongues for the first time with his hands raised and he got the holy ghost that night and to this day is preaching one god in an ame church in indianapolis indiana you got to understand something church family that you have something that this world does not have you have something that the denominational world needs and that is the power of the name of jesus i have one more story i want to tell you i was in my this was only in my uh first first or second year at the school and on this particular night i was feeling extremely bitter about some things that were going on privately with my decision to go to a trinitarian school instead of going to indiana bible college or texas bible college you fill in the blank and i was feeling pretty frustrated i showed up to class and if you've ever been in that kind of a classroom environment the way that it normally opens you kind of come in you sit down and the professor will take his prayer requests he'll write them on the whiteboard and it's usually a silent prayer or just him praying and everybody with their heads bowed and that's prayer i walked into class that night i want you to hear me you have something that this world needs needs not not it's a benefit not not not it's just something added to their faith i hate that doctrine that just says well it's just it's just an added bonus to your faith it is the essentiality of your salvation is the name of jesus i was sitting in that class that night he was taking prayer requests there was a gentleman in that class that raised his hand he said he was an older gentleman he said professor i need prayer for my wife she's dying of cancer normally the professor you know would just write it on the board and that's kind of what i expected i'm putting my notes together he looks over at me he stops the prayer request he said stephen he knew i was pentecostal we had talks he said will you do me a favor he said will you come over to where this man is sitting will you lay hands on him and pray for him the way that you do in your church and you talk about a moment when you realize that there are even christians in your world who don't feel power in prayer like you feel power in prayer and they do not know the name of jesus like you know the name of jesus and they do not know god the way that you know him because you know that he is not just the second person in the trinity he is not just jehovah jr he is the mighty god in christ there is not three persons that you have to look to when you're in need there is one name that is above every other name it is the name of jesus neither is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved i want to tell you that when i walked over to that gentleman and i laid my hands on him i began to pray for the first time in that class we prayed out loud together and as i looked around the room there was tears coming down the faces of my fellow students and the professor was crying and the man was crying and i said at the end of that prayer in the name of jesus and can i tell you that he walked in the next week with a smile on his face he said professor i want to tell you the cancer is in remission church family can i tell you it matters what you believe about the godhead because there is only power in one name you cannot get power when you call on three persons nobody sins were ever remitted in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit there is one name that is above every other name and it is the name of jesus christ great is the mystery of godliness god was manifest in the flesh he was justified in the spirit he was preached among the gentiles he was seen of angels god listen to this was received up into glory when you call on the name of jesus you're not getting jehovah jr when you call on the name of jesus you are getting everything that you ever needed the name of jesus is higher than every other name and whether the world wants to believe it yet or not one day every knee is going to bow every tongue is going to confess that he is lord stand with me all over this house with your hands lifted every eye closed i pray that we begin to pray over this region right now over every denominational christian over every denominational church that does not know the power of the name of jesus yet i believe that god wants to do something through this church in this city like no other city in america i believe that god wants to use this church to be a beacon of hope for christians all over who are searching for something more than what they've been taught god i believe it right now all over this place that there are hungry hearts god there are those in this house who know this apostolic truth that are ready to take it out into a lost and dying world god i pray that you would begin to equip them right now god i pray that you would put boldness in their hearts to take this gospel outside of the four walls of this sanctuary god i pray that there will be hearts in this place that would be broken for their christian friends and family who are living for god the best they know how but they don't know the name of jesus yet god i pray that you would begin to reach for those that we've given up on and said they don't want this apostolic truth i pray god that you would begin to soften the hearts that have been hardened by years and years of criticism against apostolics in this city i pray that you would begin to soften hearts against those god soften the hearts of those who have said this city doesn't want apostolic truth god i believe that you're doing a work right now god i believe that there are people sitting in their homes right now watching this online who have never been baptized in jesus name god i believe that you're working through them right now showing them the revelation hear o israel the lord our god is one lord i believe that you're showing them neither is there salvation in any other name god i pray that you would let this church become a magnet god let it become a beacon of hope for those christians who are looking for more these altars are open i pray that something that you heard tonight people ask me all the time stephen why in the world why are you why do you read books so much why do you like history so much and look it did not begin because i just wanted to know a bunch of random things about a bunch of random people it began when i was driving home one night i was 21 years old i was driving home from kokomo indiana and i realized up to that point in my life there was really nothing i could say i had done in the kingdom of god yet i had went through 12 years of public school without reaching any of my friends my christian friends my lost friends all my friends i made a commitment in that moment that god i don't know what you want me to do i don't know what it's going to look like but i'm tired of feeling so uncomfortable around people who don't have the truth and not knowing what to tell them i'm tired of going to camps and conferences and seeing wheelchairs emptied seeing crutches left at the altar and then going back into the public school going back to my job and it just being business as usual i want people to know about the miracles that happen when you call in the name of jesus i want people to walk into my church and say this feels like nothing i have ever felt before in my life i want people to walk through the doors of this church in tennessee and say i have been to a thousand churches and never felt anything like i feel when i walk in this place and look i can tell you right now the difference is not the lights and i'm thankful for the lights and the difference is not the music and i'm thankful for the music the difference is this is a jesus name church and when they come in they are being introduced for the first time to the creator they're being introduced for the first time to the one who made them to the one who redeemed them to the one who restored them father i pray that those who are wrestling in their hearts tonight with what you want them to do god i pray that every one of us in this place would be reminded of our first calling to go into all the world to preach the gospel to every creature the gospel it says that god loved me enough that he didn't send a son to do what he wasn't willing to do but he came and took on the form of a servant the god of all creation made himself of no reputation he lived in this world and healed the sick and raised the dead and died on a cross and he rose again on the third day it wasn't just some man wasn't just a prophet wasn't just a priest wasn't just a king it was adonai it was yahweh it was god is my salvation hanging on that cross god i pray that all over this house that you would reignite a fire inside of somebody who has let go of that first and greatest calling to tell people who jesus is i'm finished any musicians singers i don't know how you close this out brother i want somebody in this place to leave if you didn't get anything from a history lesson on the doctrine of the trinity if you didn't get anything from hearing about all the things that have happened in our world over the last 3000 years i hope the one thing that you take from this place is that you are blessed beyond measure if you if you are sitting in this place and you've been baptized in jesus name will you raise your hand you are a child of the living god you have a revelation that this world needs you have an understanding like nobody else in this world because you know the creator and his name is jesus