So far, there have been three categories of teachings concerning the divine Trinity. The first is modalism, the second is tritheism, and the third is the revelation concerning the divine Trinity. Both the first and the second are heretical teachings. Only the third is correct according to the proper revelation of the Bible.
When the theologians debated about the persons of the Trinity during the second and third centuries, one group asserted that the Father, Son, and Spirit are just one God and that They have appeared in three different modes at different times and places. So this school of teaching is called modalism, and those that held to this teaching were called the modalists. The strongest proponent of this teaching was Sabellius. Hence, in proper church history, his teaching, Sabellianism, is also known as modalism. He asserted that God is three and one. This is correct. But he said that in the Old Testament, God was the Father; in the New Testament in the Gospels, the Son came, and the Father ceased to exist. In other words, in the Gospels the Father became the Son. During this period only the Son existed; the Father did not exist anymore. In the Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation, the Spirit came, and the Son ceased to exist. The Son became the Spirit. During this period only the Spirit existed. Both the Father and the Son had ceased to exist. For this reason there are three modes of God: the mode of the Father, the mode of the Son, and the mode of the Spirit. These three modes are not simultaneous but appear consecutively one after another. When the second came, the first passed away. And when the third came, the second was over. This is a great heresy.
From the second and third centuries on, another group of people rose up to oppose modalism. They strongly asserted that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three different persons, that they are distinct as well as separate yet existing simultaneously at any one time. This kind of teaching resulted in tritheism, and it formed an extreme contrast to modalism. Modalism stood in one extreme, while tritheism stood in another. Both are heresies. Orthodox theology rejects both of these kinds of teachings. In A.D. 325 the Council of Nicaea and its subsequent creed avoided these two kinds of extremes.
I have clearly presented before you the essence of the four Gospels. You can see that we do not believe in modalism or in tritheism but in the revelation of the divine Trinity. In the Old Testament, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were all there. Genesis 1:1 says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God was there. Then verse 2 says that the Spirit of God brooded over the water. The Spirit of God was also there. By chapter eighteen, there were three men who appeared to Abraham. One of them was the Lord Jesus. He appeared as a man, and Abraham washed His feet and served Him a feast. He also ate the feast served. By Exodus chapter three this man was the messenger of Jehovah. This messenger appeared again in Judges and in Zechariah. The Father was in the Old Testament; the Son was there; and the Spirit was also there. This is not like modalism, which says that in the Old Testament there was only the Father; there was no Son and no Spirit. When we come to the Gospels, we have seen that while it was the Son that came, He came with the Father and by the Spirit. The Son said that He was never alone because the Father was with Him and He was in the Father and the Father was in Him.
This is not all. The Son was conceived of the Holy Spirit and was born of the Spirit. The Spirit was in Him as His essence. At the age of thirty the Spirit furthermore came upon Him to be His power. He lived and moved by this Spirit, and He worked and fought also by this Spirit for the fulfillment of the Father’s divine economy.
Essence and economy are two most important, key words in the study of the Triune God and the person of Christ. The Lord Jesus could be conceived and born as a God-man because He had God in Him as His essence and element. In addition, at the age of thirty the Holy Spirit came upon Him. This does not mean that before thirty He did not have the Holy Spirit in Him. Indeed, the Holy Spirit was already in Him. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon Him as His power is the economical aspect. There is a distinction between essence and economy. The Holy Spirit was upon Him for three and a half years. He worked and cast out demons by the power of this Spirit; this is the economical aspect. From His conception, through His birth, and through His living on earth, the Holy Spirit was in Him as life; this is the essential aspect.
Because in the past nearly no one knew the distinction between the essential and the economical aspects of the matter, a great heretic came out by the name of Cerinthus. He taught that Jesus was not God and that He was only a man born of Joseph and Mary. It was only at the age of thirty that Christ (i.e., the Spirit) came upon Him as a dove. He worked and cast out demons by this Christ for three and a half years, until He died on the cross, when the Christ left Him. This was why Jesus prayed on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me.” The heretical teaching of Cerinthus was a conjecture based upon the two facts of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Lord Jesus at His baptism and the forsaking of God at His crucifixion on the cross. He made a wrong deduction in considering God to be with the Lord Jesus for a period of time and then leaving Him after three and a half years. Cerinthus did not have the revelation. He did not realize that the Holy Spirit’s coming upon the Lord Jesus at His baptism and the forsaking of God at His death on the cross were not essential matters but economical matters.