As Christians, we are used to saying that Jesus Christ is God. Is this statement true? Again, before we can answer that, we have to ask: What do you mean by God? If God means Trinity, then no, Jesus Christ is not the Trinity. He is the Second Person of the Trinity, but not all three persons of the Trinity. If God means the Father, then again the answer is no, Jesus Christ is not the First Person of the Trinity, He is the Second Person, He is the Son. And while the Father and Son are God, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. So then, the only sense in which we can say that Jesus Christ is God, is in the sense that Jesus Christ is divine. (James L. Papandrea, Reading the Church Fathers: A History of the Early Church and the Development of Doctrine [Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute Press, 2022], 8)
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