Providence:Faith

Stand Firm

Firm in truth. Gentle with people.

1 Peter 3:15, BSB

Doctrine Atlas · Explore a living library

Expand a family. Choose a subject. Open the study.
Browse topics
Foundations of the faith

What We Defend

What is the shared Christian faith at the center of Stand Firm?

60-Second Answer

There is one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three distinct persons, equal in deity, not three gods.

  • Jesus Christ is the eternal Son, fully God and fully human. His divine and human natures belong to one person.
  • He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, truly died, and rose bodily. The resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian proclamation.
  • The historic creeds give a shared vocabulary for these truths. Stand Firm defends this foundation and does not host debates between Christian denominations.
ScriptureMatthew 28:19 · John 1:1 · Colossians 2:9 · BSB

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:19 · BSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1 · BSB

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

Colossians 2:9 · BSB
Objections & replies

Does the Trinity mean one God is also three gods?

No. The confession is one divine being and three distinct persons. It does not say that God is one and three in the same respect.

Does calling Jesus human diminish His deity?

No. Christian confession affirms both His full deity and His real humanity. Chalcedon protects both truths while identifying one and the same Son.

Do all Christian disagreements belong on this page?

No. Stand Firm concentrates on the Triune God, the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the defense of the Christian faith. Disputes between Christian denominations are outside this page’s scope.

Read the full study Go deeper
Take the study with you
Full study

Why this matters

  • Christian hope rests in who God is and who Jesus is. Reducing the Son to a creature or dissolving His humanity changes the identity of the Savior proclaimed by the apostles.
  • A clear shared foundation helps us distinguish a disagreement within Christian faith from a teaching that replaces its central confession.

The Triune God

  • Scripture confesses one God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three competing deities or three parts that combine to form God.
  • The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit. Their personal distinction is real; it is not one person appearing under three temporary names.
  • The Son shares the Father’s divine being. The Nicene language of one substance protects this confession against the claim that the Son is a created being, however exalted.
  • Read Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 28:19, John 1:1–3, and 2 Corinthians 13:14 together. The doctrine seeks to hold the scriptural testimony together rather than discard one part to simplify another.

The person of Christ

  • Jesus Christ is one person, the eternal Son, in two natures: fully divine and fully human. Chalcedon’s confession refuses both a blending of the natures and a division of Christ into two persons.
  • The Son’s humanity is real. He was virgin-born, lived without sin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and died a real death.
  • His resurrection is bodily, not merely a symbol that His influence continued. Paul places Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and appearances at the heart of the message in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8.

The shared creedal foundation

  • The Apostles’ Creed gives a concise confession of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and of the central events in the life of Christ.
  • The Nicene Creed, associated with Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381, confesses the deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
  • The Chalcedonian Definition of 451 clarifies the confession of the one Christ in two natures.
  • The Athanasian Creed offers a fuller statement of the Trinity and incarnation. These historic statements serve as a vocabulary for the faith being defended, not as an excuse to treat people with contempt.

Speak with gentleness and respect. Examine a teaching carefully; treat the person before you with dignity.

Sources & further study

These studies present a Protestant Christian response. Source links are provided for closer reading; inclusion is not an endorsement of every position a source takes.

Providence: Faith · Stand Firm · Apologetics

Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain.

https://providencefaith.com/stand-firm/what-we-defend/

Scripture quotations: Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain.