Quote:
Originally Posted by JTULLOCK
You know I have read the creed and talk with many people that have studied on it. There is a common denominator in these discussions. Most of them believe that when it is using the term "three persons" that it is accually meant to be that the word "persons" should have been manifestaions. That it was not intended to be the word "persons" as we understand it today. Like you, MOW and I are three different people. It was intended to mean three offices or manifestations.
Also with the Co's, it was intended to be that the offices of God are Coequal, Coeternal, and Coexistent from the mindset that if Jesus is Father, Son and Spirit that He did not stop being the Father when He came as Jesus and was never the Spirit until Jesus died. It accually means that God is all the Co's because He is all of the offices, manifestations, persons, forms, etc. all at one time. It is not intended that there is three individual bodies 1 God, 2 Jesus, 3 Spirit. It is accually saying that He can exist in all forms at all times.
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But that's just it, none of the earliest Creeds use the term "persons" in the English translations or the Greek or Latin equivalents of the English word. Here's the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 A.D. as used in Eastern Orthodox churches today. This is the Creed to which I adhere:
"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made:
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man;
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried;
And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures;
And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father;
And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead,
Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets;
And we believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the age to come. Amen."
Perhaps the best English word to use, in order to be consistent with what the Nicene and Ante-Nicene fathers believed is the word "persona," which is the same as the Latin word that is a translation of the Greek word prosopon.
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