The following is an article by John Ankerberg & John Weldon explaining the
Biblical doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
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What Do Christians Believe About God And The Trinity?
by Dr. John Ankerberg & Dr. John Weldon
The living God is not what the new religions claim He is, as if only in
the
last century or so God had now chosen to reveal Himself "as He truly is"
to
this or that group or person. God is not some unknowable, impersonal
divine
essence, such that our own personalities ultimately become an illusion.
Nor
does "He" or "It" or "She" manifest through our alleged "higher
consciousness" so that God and our true self are one. God is not the
universe itself nor is the universe His body (pantheism, panentheism). God
is not the originator of all religions (syncretism) or an eternally hidden
deity who is perpetually unknowable, unapproachable and indescribable
(mysticism). God is not unipersonal or monistic.
The Trinity is not a symbol of various religious, metaphysical or
psychological concepts, nor is the Trinity tritheistic (three gods) or
exist
in three different modes or aspects (modalism). The doctrine of the
Trinity
was never derived from ancient pagan religions.1 In fact, the only
rational
explanation of the Trinity is divine revelation.
Among all religions that have ever existed, the Christian concept of God
is
entirely unique, for in the totality of religious history, there is only
one
concept of an infinite-personal triune God. While every religion fits one
of
the preceding (or related) descriptions, no other religion has a Trinity.
Divine revelation accounts for our knowledge of the Trinity. Indeed, the
biblical concept of the Trinity is at once so unexpected and complex, and
yet so practical, that it could never have been invented by men in its
biblical formula. For example, only the existence of the biblical Trinity
logically explains the unity and diversity in creation. Only it explains
both the human personality and the many triune manifestations in nature
(man
as body, soul, spirit; space as height, width, length; time as past,
present, future; matter as energy, motion, phenomena; family as man,
woman,
offspring; and so on).2
In the following material we will do***ent that the Bible teaches the
doctrine of the Trinity and therefore no other concept of God. It is
im****tant to note here that the Bible teaches both monotheism and
trinitarianism. It teaches a monotheistic view - that there is only one
true
God, and a trinitarian view - that this one true God exists eternally as
three Persons. This "triunity" of God was defended from earliest times as
Christian theologians and apologists carefully safeguarded both the unity
of
God against tritheism and maintained the respective deity of the three
Persons of the Godhead. As Gregory of Nyssa stated in his letter to
Ablabius, "To say that there are three gods is wicked. Not to bear witness
to the deity of the Son and the Spirit is ungodly and absurd. Therefore
one
God must be confessed by us according to the witness of Scripture, 'Hear
Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord' (Deut. 6:4), even if the word
'deity'
extends through the holy trinity."3
There Is Only One True God
The Bible does not teach any form of tritheism or polytheism, as in the
Mormon faith, but that there is only one true God from all eternity. As
Jesus taught: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (John 17:5).
The following scriptures declare there is only one God:
.. the only true God... (John 17:3)
.. there is no God but one (1 Cor. 8:4)
.. there is but one God, ... (1 Cor. 8:6)
For there is one God... (1 Tim. 2:5)
This is what the LORD says... "I am the first and I am the last; apart
from
me there is no God" (Isa. 44:6)
I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God (Isa.
45:5)
I am the LORD, and there is no other (Isa. 45:6)
I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me (Isa.
46:9)
God Is a Trinity or Triune
Simultaneously, this one true God has revealed that He is three Persons,
or
centers of consciousness, within one Godhead. Because the concept cannot
be
fully comprehended does not mean the doctrine is irrational or cannot be
accurately defined. A good definition of the Trinity is provided by noted
church historian Philip Schaff:
God is one in three persons or hypostases [distinct persons of the same
nature], each person expressing the whole fullness of the Godhead, with
all
his attributes. The term persona is taken neither in the old sense of a
mere
personation or form of manifestation (prosopon, face, mask), nor in the
modern sense of an independent, separate being or individual, but in a
sense
which lies between these two conceptions, and thus avoids Sabellianism on
the one hand, and Tritheism on the other. [Sabellianism taught that God
was
one person only who existed in three different forms or manifestations;
tritheism refers to a belief in three separate gods.] The divine persons
are
in one another, and form a perpetual intercommunication and motion within
the divine essence. Each person has all the divine attributes which are
inherent in the divine essence, but each has also a characteristic
individuality or property, which is peculiar to the person, and can not be
communicated; the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Ghost
is
proceeding. In this Trinity there is no priority or posteriority of time,
no
superiority or inferiority of rank, but the three persons are co-eternal
and
coequal.4
The biblical doctrine of the Trinity is vital to understand because it
concerns who God is, which is essential for having a proper realization of
the nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To understand the
Trinity
is to understand God as He has revealed Himself to be. To misunderstand
the
Trinity is to fail to understand who God is.
This is im****tant because if we are to wor****p God "in spirit and truth"
(John 4:24), as Jesus commanded, we must know and wor****p the one true God
as He really is. To fail to do this is to fail to know and wor****p God,
and
this cannot bring Him glory. Thus, those who reject the Trinity by
definition deny the nature of God. Without a biblical theological
formulation about God, heretical views arise. This in turn can lead to
rejection of the one true God and the wor****p of a false God. And if the
Bible is clear on anything, it is clear that faith in a false God cannot
save people from their sins. Jesus Himself emphasized the im****tance of
having an accurate knowledge of God when He said, "This is eternal life:
that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have
sent" (John 17:3).
In his Christian Theology, Christian theologian Millard J. Erickson offers
six points that must be included in a proper understanding of the doctrine
of the Trinity (the following is the authors' paraphrase of Erickson's
points):
1. There is only one God
2. Each Person in the Godhead is equally deity.
3. The threeness and oneness of God constitute a paradox or an antinomy -
merely an apparent contradiction, not a genuine one. This is because God's
threeness and oneness do not exist in the same respect; that is, they are
not simultaneously affirming and denying the same thing at the same time
and
in the same manner. God's oneness refers to the divine essence; His
threeness to the plurality of persons.
4. The Trinity is eternal - there have always been three Persons, each of
whom is eternally divine. One or more of the Persons did not come into
being
at a point in time or at some point in time became divine. There has never
been any change in the essential divine nature of the triune God. God is,
and God will be what God has always been forever.
5. The function of one member in the Trinity may for a time be subordinate
to one or both of the other members, although this does not mean that that
member is in any way inferior in essence to the others. Each Person of the
Trinity has had, for a period of time, a particular function unique to
Himself. In other words, the particular function that is sometimes unique
to
a given Person in the Trinity is only a tem****ary role exercised for a
given
purpose. It does not represent a change in His status or essence. When the
second Person of the Trinity incarnated and became Jesus Christ, He did
not
become less than the Father in essence, although He did become subordinate
to the Father functionally. In like manner, the Holy Spirit is now
subordinated to the ministry of the Son (John 14-16) and to the will of
the
Father, but He is not less than they are. Certain examples may illustrate
this. A wife may have a subordinate role to a husband, but she is also his
equal. Equals in some business enterprise may elect one of their number to
serve as head or a chairperson for a period, without any change in rank.
During World War II, the highest ranking member of an aircraft, the pilot,
would nevertheless carefully subordinate his decisions to the bombardier,
a
lower ranking officer.
6. Finally, the Trinity is incomprehensible. Even when we are in heaven
and
fully redeemed, we will still not totally comprehend God, because it is
impossible that a finite creature could ever comprehend an infinite being.
Thus, "Those aspects of God which we never fully comprehend should be
regarded as mysteries that go beyond our reason rather than as paradoxes
which conflict with reason."5
Prior knowledge of the Trinity, especially in its theological formulation,
is not necessary for a person to be saved. But once saved, it is vital for
Christians to know the true nature of the God who has so graciously
pardoned
them. This explains why the Church has always recognized the im****tance of
a
proper understanding of God and maintained that those who reject the
scriptural view of God, as long as they do so, cannot be saved. Consider
Dr.
Schaff's comments about the Athanasian Creed:
[It] begins and ends with the solemn declaration that the catholic
[universal] faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation is the indispensable
condition of salvation, and that those who reject it will be lost forever.
This anathema [divine curse], in its natural historical sense, is not
merely
a solemn warning against the great danger of heresy, nor, on the other
hand,
does it demand, as a condition of salvation, a full knowledge, and assent
to, the logical statement of the doctrines set forth (this would condemn
the
great mass even of Christian believers); but it does mean to exclude from
heaven all who reject the divine truth therein taught. It requires
everyone
who would be saved to believe in the only true and living God, Father,
Son,
and Holy Ghost, one in essence, three in persons, and in one Jesus Christ,
very God and very man in one person.6
As Vladimir Lossky once put it boldly, "Between the Trinity and Hell there
lies no other choice."7 Only personal bias or ignorance can explain cultic
attempts to deny the biblical Trinity. It is significant that even some
Unitarians who reject the Trinity still confess it is a biblical teaching
based on "its obvious sense, its natural meaning" as found in Scripture.
These words of George E. Ellis, a nineteenth-century Unitarian leader,
illustrate the biases of anti-trinitarian groups and liberals who refuse
to
accept the Trinity on personal, not biblical, grounds. Ellis confesses,
"Only that kind of ingenious, special, discriminative, and in candor I
must
add, forced treatment, which it receives from us liberals can make the
book
teach anything but Orthodoxy."8 No less an authority than the great
Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield pointed out that the doctrine of the
Trinity "is rather everywhere presupposed" in Scripture.9 This is, for
example, clearly demonstrated in Edward Bickersteth's fine work, The
Trinity.
Recommended Reading
Perhaps the best devotional text is Edward Bickersteth's classic, The
Trinity (Kregel, 1980, rpt). Notable recent titles include Peter Toon's
Our
Triune God (Bridgepoint, 1996) and Millard J. Erickson's God in Three
Persons (Baker, 1995). Dr. Robert A. Morey's The Trinity: Evidence and
Issues (Grandville, MI: World Publ., 1996), is an extensive in-depth
analysis of all the biblical, philosophical, and historical issues
relating
to the doctrine of the Trinity. He deals with epistemology, hermeneutics,
heresy, orthodoxy, liberalism, feminism, the Jesus Seminar, Islam, the
cults, the occult, early Jewish literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Apostolic Fathers, and he brings to light new information on the history
and
origins of Arianism and Modalism. The chapter on the deity of Christ, "The
Son of God in the New Testament," is over 200 pages with 265-plus
footnotes,
often with multiple references in each note. And a brief, popular
treatment
can be found in our booklet Knowing the Truth About the Trinity.
Notes
1 See the discussion in our book Ready With an Answer.
2 See also Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent.
3 "Gregory of Nyssa Ablabius," in William G. Rusch, trans. and ed., The
Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), pp. 149,
151-52.
4 Philip Schaff, ed., rev. by David S. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom:
With a History and Critical Notes-Vol. 1: The History of the Creeds (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983). The Greek term was transliterated by
the authors.
5 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986,
one vol. edition), pp. 337-338.
6 Schaff, ed., Creed, pp. 39-40.
7 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1957), p.
66.
8 In E. Calvin Beisner, God in Three Persons (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1984),
p. 25.
9 Ibid., p. 26.
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