Bible-Based Teachings

The Bible is sufficient to prove the Trinity. You can use it, but many people will not be convinced without more proof, and that’s okay. We have it. The additional proof can be found in the writings of the Church fathers.

The men who led the Church during the first four centuries of Christian history had a single, consistent confession of Faith in the Trinity. These men held their ground against heresies by teaching that there is One God, the Father, who maintains dynamic unity with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Church fathers called that unity the Trinity—a unity of Three.

Are you eager to learn exactly what these men thought? Are you ready to hear the voices of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, and Athanasius? If you like the Bible, you will very much enjoy what they wrote. You’ll be refreshed to listen to their theology because they reinforced Biblical passages like this one:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons (1 Corinthians 12:4–6).

These men were not only powerful in the Scriptures; they had character. They owned the Christianity that was still uncorrupted by Roman Imperial influence. They preached prior to the Emperor’s declaration of Christianity as Rome's official religion. Although countless church leaders succumbed to the pressure of prestige and power in the fifth century and earned the title "priests;" the Church fathers led the Church when it was poor and persecuted to the end of the fourth century—and so deserve the title "pastors."

The Standard Lost

The Trinity was the gold standard of Christian theology for 400 years—a standard which Church leaders sourced from Scriptures. They cited the Bible profusely in their arguments. For example, they loved this one from Paul:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).

This relationship between God, Jesus, and the Spirit—and the division of labor the Father determined, which the Church fathers called their “economy”—was the message of the Church until 427 AD. In that year, Augustine of Hippo published a famous book in which he declared “The Trinity is God.” That turned everything upside down. With his unparalleled influence on Imperial Christianity, Augustine pivoted theology towards the “Triune God” doctrine so popular today.

Not a Creed

Augustine got big help with his heresy. In the 5^th century, the “Triune God” doctrine was a new trend, but a group of anonymous Frankish priests in France codified it and made it the new standard. They did this through a document they forged. That document, which the Church father Athanasius, who died more than a century beforehand, never would have signed, they deceitfully called the “Athanasian Creed.”

They forged this document under the name of Athanasius because he was a very famous Church father—the one who combatted Arianism. They wanted to lend credibility to their document and to make it appear authoritative, so they slapped his name on it. In addition, they called it a “creed” when it was not. Creeds must be approved by Church councils. Their text was unauthorized. Calling it a “creed” made it appear as if it were.

Lastly, they filled it with anathemas and curses against anyone who dared oppose it. Whoever would not affirm every point of their fake "creed" would be excommunicated, they said. Their project was completed in approximately 500 AD.

A new, well-funded Imperial clergy was hoisted up right along this new standard, this new “creed.” Although it was contradictory to the Trinity, they performed their last fraudulent act by appropriating the name “Trinity” to give it credence. Abandoning the Biblical standard upheld by the Church fathers for more than four centuries, these theological thieves rose up to take control the Imperial Church—and then they led it straight into the Dark Ages.

Gaslighting

You and I have been victims of gaslighting on a massive institutional scale. We have believed the lies of corrupt Church leaders for too long. Imagine the audacity of men who when they deny the Trinity, dare call themselves “Trinitarians.” Then, they call True Trinitarians (like us) heretics. It’s unimaginable, but it’s exactly what happened.

Church leaders to this day do the unthinkable: They deny the Father. They insist that the One God is not the Father, a heresy, and they replace him with a Being who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together. They call their Augustinian version of God the “Godhead” or the “Triune God.” They also dare call him “the Trinity”—and therein lies the gaslighting. Their version of the Trinity is not the Trinity as defined by the Church fathers.

They have produced a really bad situation in the Church. These men (we call them the Pseudos) deny the most foundational Christian Truth. They deny that the One God is the Father. This is very dangerous for the spiritual health of all who follow them. In fact, Jesus warned us against such people. Here’s what he said about the religious leaders who do not know God:

… he who sent me [the Father] is True, whom you do not know (John 7:28–29).

You know neither me nor my Father (John 8:19).

My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the One who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him… (John 8:54–55; NIV) 

… they do not know the One who sent me (John 15:21)

… they have not known the Father... (John 16:3)

So, the Pseudo-Trinitarians have denied God Himself, and that’s no small matter. It qualifies them as heretics. They will seek to justify themselves by claiming that Church fathers such as Tertullian and Athanasius taught their “Triune God” theology, but that’s another lie. No Church father ever held their belief. The only thing the Church fathers did similar to them was use the word Trinity—but it meant something completely different to the fathers than it does to modern preachers.

The Modern Definition and Its Status

Violating every principle of academic, intellectual, and spiritual integrity, the Pseudos have misled millions. They are blind—but that's the least of their sins. Since they lead many different kinds of believers, they often lead the blind, and they lead even some who have sight away from God. Approximately 95% of Evangelical pastors affirm the "Triune God" lie today. They must, because if they don't, they lose their salary.

Online statements of Faith prove that around 95% of Christian churches in the United States make the “Triune God” their primary and non-negotiable standard. Fellowship is routinely conditioned upon affirmation of this formula. Church leadership will prohibit and forbid ministry opportunities to anyone who will not affirm their definition of the One God—the Augustinian God who is “Three in One.”

The leaders of these churches not only uphold a false version of God, they also make people believe that it has been a long-held doctrine of historic Christianity. It has not. The evidence proves their assertion to be a lie. Their “Three in One” definition of God is not only absent from the first four centuries AD, it directly contradicts the explicit language of the Bible and the creeds.

The Nicene Creed

"What creeds?" you ask. Well, let's look at the most famous of all. Most of today's church leaders will affirm that the Nicene Creed (325 AD) is an accurate summary of sound doctrine. However, it begins with words that contradict their “Three in One” doctrine. How do they reconcile the two?

The Nicene Creed, penned in 325 AD, says:

We believe in One God, the Father Almighty…

The Creed does not begin with “We believe in the Triune God” or “We believe in the Godhead existing in three co-equal Persons.” It begins exactly where Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church fathers left off: with the Father as the One God.

In the writings we will survey—spanning from the first to the fifth century—there is zero occurrence of the theology of (1) a “Triune God,” (2) a “Godhead,” or (3) three co-equal “Persons.” Admittedly, a trickle of such philosophical language existed in the Cappadocian fathers but not even they sounded anything like the modern Church. The fathers, up to 427 AD, remained in the original orthodoxy.

The Church fathers spoke and wrote exclusively of the Father as the One God, of the Son as being “from God,” and of the Spirit as proceeding from God. They never identify the One God as a composite of three “co-equal” Persons.

Tertullian and the Word “Trinity”

Tertullian is often cited as the originator of the Latin term trinitas, and it’s true. What is not true is the claim that he taught the modern definition of Trinity. That came to us through Augustine and the Frankish priests who forged the so-called “Athanasian Creed.” In one of his letters called Against Praxeas, Tertullian wrote with unmistakable clarity:

The Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole… The Father is greater than the Son… He who begets is one, and he who is begotten is another; he who sends is one, and he who is sent is another.

Tertullian’s definition of what he called the “economy” of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit completely contradicts the modern co-equal formula. For the Fathers, the Three were not equal or the same. Each one does something different within the framework of a hierarchy.

By the standard of the statements of faith of today’s churches, Tertullian—along with the rest of the fathers—would be barred from the pulpits of 95% of Evangelical churches.

How bizarre! The men who defined orthodoxy and died for it would be deemed heretics today. What irony.

Data Reveals a Crisis

Research from George Barna’s 2025 American Worldview Inventory has documented that only about one in four Born-Again Christians will affirm the existence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That’s only 25% of the most Bible-focused believers!

Because of the uncertainty and doubt evidenced by the data, Mr. Barna calls for more rigorous teaching of the very lies that have produced the widespread confusion. He calls for pastors to reinforce the “Triune God” or “Three in One” theology.

We believe there’s another solution. The Church needs to go back to Jesus, the Apostles, and the first four centuries of Christian theology. The solution is not more instruction in the later, post-Nicene definition that the Early Church never held. The solution is to recover the clear, scriptural, and historically continuous teaching about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit the Church we see in the Bible and the writings of the Church fathers.

The Four Tenets

The unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was understood to be a “tri-unity” or Trinity since the times of Tertullian (213 AD). We love the word because it encapsulates much sound doctrine, but it’s not enough to repeat the word. Such strong gaslighting has taken place over the centuries that it has another meaning in the minds of many. Therefore, we need to instruct people on the four tenets that underscore Trinitarian theology. We need to teach these tenets by means of the Bible and the writings of the Church fathers.

Although the four tenets are blatantly contradicted by 95% of Evangelical statements of faith, they are true. They do not need the approval of today's pastors because they appear consistently in the writings of the Church fathers and the earliest Christian creeds. Most importantly, they come from the Bible.

They are:

a)   Only the Father is “the One God.”

b)  The Father is the Source of the divine nature in the Son and the Holy Spirit.

c)   The Trinity has a hierarchy: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in that order.

d)  God’s “division of labor” is that each One operates in a unique way.

This is the doctrine that produced the pure Christian Faith of the first four centuries. Call it “original Trinitarianism.” Call it “orthodoxy.” Call it whatever you like, but the indisputable facts are that these four tenets are the inheritance of the Church. Even if 95% of church "statements of faith" deny them, true Christians will never deny them.

Our Mission

Our forefathers contended against all heresies by clinging to the Trinity. Let’s be inspired by their fight. Since their day, there’s never been a time in history when the battle for the Trinity has been more necessary. If we live in times when church statements of faith sound more like heresy than the Bible, when Trinitarian pastors cannot get a job, and when only one out of every four Born-Again Christians believes in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—then we are in an apostasy.

Paul advised Timothy how to deal with apostasy:

… the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the Truth and will turn aside to myths.

But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry (2 Timothy 4:3–5).

The time of apostasy has come, but there's still work to be done. God chose you to live in these times, for good or for worse. Make the best of it by sharing the doctrine of the Trinity and spreading your knowledge of the tenets. Let’s resolve the confusion Barna identifies in today’s churches.

We can't preach in their congregations, but we can speak to the individual Christians who go there--the ones who want freedom from the confusion. Although we’re not welcome to preach in the churches themselves, the people need us. Ask them what they know about the Trinity, and then you'll notice their need. Listen to them, then speak truth to them.