SUBJECT:  Trinity

QUESTION: Where did the trinity doctrine originate?

ANSWER:

The Trinity Doctrine

By Herbert W Armstrong

The generally accepted teaching of traditional Christianity is that God is a Trinity--God in three Persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit (which is often called a "Ghost").

How did this "Trinity" doctrine enter traditional Christianity?

It most emphatically did not come from the Bible. I have quoted Revelation 12:9 saying that all nations have been deceived by Satan the devil. How, then, did the wily Satan introduce this doctrine into "Christianity"?

The history of this question is interesting. It seems incredible that a being like Satan not only could have deceived the whole world, but also "Christianity"--the very religion bearing Christ's name and supposed to be his true religion. Yet, paradoxically, Satan did!

He did it through his great false church, started A.D. 33 by Simon the Sorcerer, described in the 8th chapter of the book of Acts as the leader of the Babylonian mystery religion in Samaria. It is recorded in 2 Kings 17:23-24 that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who had invaded and conquered the northern kingdom--the kingdom of Israel--moved the people out of their land of Samaria, north of Jerusalem, and moved into that land people of the Babylonish mystery religion from the provinces of Babylon. They were, of course, Gentiles. They inhabited this area of northern Palestine in the time of Christ.  The Jews of Judea in Christ's time would have nothing to do with them, calling them contemptuously "dogs." They still adhered to this pagan Babylonish mystery religion in the first century.

In A.D. 33 two years after Jesus Christ from heaven founded the Church of God on that day of Pentecost, the deacon Philip, who later became an evangelist, went down to Samaria and preached Christ's gospel. This Simon the Sorcerer came with the crowd to hear him.

Simon had bewitched the people of that country, and they followed him as their leader in the Babylonian mystery religion "from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God" (Acts 8:10).

When the people believed Philip, preaching the kingdom of God, they were baptized, and this Simon managed to be baptized with them.

Then Simon came to the apostles Peter and John, offering money as a bribe, asking them to give him the power to lay hands on people and have them receive the Holy Spirit. Peter rebuked him strongly. But Simon proclaimed himself a Christian apostle, nevertheless, and called the pagan Babylonian mystery religion "Christianity." He accepted the doctrine of "grace" for the forgiveness of sin (which the pagan religions had never had), but turned grace into license to disobey God (Jude 4). He aspired to turn his pagan religion, under the name "Christianity," into a universal religion, to gain thereby the political rule of the world.

Simon, the "Pater" (Peter) of his counterfeit religion, did not accomplish this in his lifetime. But succeeding leaders, with the headquarters moved to Rome, did, later, gain political control over the Roman Empire and its medieval successor, called "The Holy Roman Empire." This empire is in process of again being resurrected in Europe now!

 
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