[Ed. note: this is our eighth installment in the Bell Ringer of excerpts from the important Nordskog Publishing title Rebuilding Civilization in the Bible: Proclaiming the Truth on 24 Controversial Issues.]
TOPIC 8
DOCUMENT 8
The Trinity
Introductory Comments
The historic doctrines of the attributes of God including the Trinity and the two natures of Christ form the essential foundation stones of Christianity on which rest many other doctrines and basic truths of Christian theology. These doctrines also provide answers to basic philosophic questions such as “the one and the many” and “the connection between the visible and the invisible worlds.” If we Christians do not believe in the Biblical view of the Triune God as expressed in the Nicene Creed of AD 325, and in the two natures of Christ as expressed in the Chalcedon Council in AD 451, some of the Bible’s answers to the world’s foundational, philosophic questions are unanswerable. But because of these two heavenly mysteries which we cannot fathom logically and completely, we have indeed in the Bible’s view of God those powerful answers for the non-Christian thinkers of the world.
It took the careful scholars of the Church over three hundred years to clarify the accurate picture of God from the Bible and we are indebted to them for working it out for posterity. For nearly 2000 years this doctrine of the Trinity and of God’s attributes has been believed by the Body of Christ in every country and is still considered to be necessary if one is to be a true, orthodox Christian and to be worshipping the one true God.
Religious liberals who have rejected the Bible as their source for truth have long since given up on believing in the Trinity or the deity of Christ. But within the last century, many Bible-believing people and some conservative denominations have adopted a modern version of the “modalism” heresy from the third century AD, and as that false doctrine taught, they believe wrongly that God is not a trinity of three distinct Persons, but rather is only one divine Person who manifests Himself in any of three different modes at different times, like one Shakespearian actor playing the three different roles of Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. This serious error has penetrated many evangelical circles and is a deadly, un-Biblical cancer which needs to be exposed and corrected. Because of this confusion among evangelicals, we have included the Trinity as one of the issues which must be addressed by this Church Council Project. We commend to the Church at large this statement on “The Trinity” to help her stay true to the historical and Biblical position held by the Church for twenty centuries and to offer her theological clarification which may help her correct some of her wayward children.
Such confusion and lack of theological clarity abounds in evangelical circles these days that a number of pastors and Christian leaders believe in the heresy of “modalism” while thinking all along they truly believe in the Trinity. Many others simply do not have enough theological interest or knowledge to even care what anyone believes about the Trinity. Thus we offer this one question as a simple test to let pastors, teachers, and church members be able to tell if a pastor or layman friend of theirs holds an errant/heretical view and needs to be exhorted and re-trained. The correct answer is “yes!” And a “no” answer or an “I don’t know” answer is a signal that that person holds a mistaken view of God, and is probably a “modalist.”
The question is, “Does the one true God, the God of the Bible, exist as a Trinity of three Persons wherein all three Persons are fully God and possess all the attributes of God, but the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son?” A true Biblical and historical Trinitarian will answer “yes” enthusiastically.
DOCUMENT 8
Concerning the Trinity
Copyright 2003, The Coalition on Revival
ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL
ARTICLE I
Historic Statement on God and Christ’s Deity
We affirm there is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts…of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (From the 39 Articles AD 1571)
We further affirm that there is one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made. (From the Nicene Creed AD 325)
Gen. 1:1; 17:1, 18:14; Exod. 3:14; 34:6-7; Deut. 6:4; Pss. 65:6-8; 145:3; Isa. 40:12-18,
21-26; Jer. 10:10; 32:27; Matt. 19:26; John 4:4; Rom. 11:33; Eph. 3:20; Rev. 4:8-11
We deny that there is any god in existence other than the one, true God of the Bible.
Matt. 8:26-27; 13:27; 14:19; John 1:1, 18; 2:1-11; 4:11; 8:58; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus
2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rev. 1:8; 22:13
ARTICLE II
The Trinity Defined and Modalism and Arianism Denounced
We affirm that this one, true God exists in a Trinity of three persons and not as three separate Gods, and that we worship this one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Substance. (Last two lines are from Athanasian Creed, fourth century.)
We further affirm that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons within the Godhead so that the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but all three are fully God and possess all of God’s attributes being equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct and harmonious offices in the work of redemption. (Last line is from New Hampshire Baptist Confession 1833.)
Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Ps. 110:1; Isa. 6:8; 48:16; 61:1; 63:10; Matt. 28:19; Acts 5:3-4;
1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; Heb. 1:8; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20-21
We deny that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely three different manifestations, personages, appearances, or modes of action of one single Person in the Godhead as was claimed by the heresy called Modalism (or Modal Monarchianism) of the third century AD and by certain cults today.
We further deny that anyone may properly call himself a Christian who denies this historic doctrine of the Trinity or who denies the full deity of the Son or of the Holy Spirit as did the Arians who were condemned as heretics in AD 325 and as is done by religious liberals of this century.
ARTICLE III
Distinction of the Three Persons Clarified and Mystery Acknowledged
We affirm that within the Trinity in Unity the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding: the Son is eternally begotten of the Father: the Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. (From the Westminster Confession 1646)
Matt. 3:16-17; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13-14; John 1:1; 5:18; Acts 5:3 (Note: All the verses under Article II above apply here also.)
We deny — While we deny that God’s self-revelation in Scripture is ever logically inconsistent, we also deny that finite minds will ever plumb the depths of all truths about God, and therefore deny that it is ever right or reverent for creatures to demand that their Creator satisfy all their questions about Him before they submit their wills to Him.
ARTICLE IV
Attributes of God: Old Testament God and New Testament God — the Same God
We affirm that God, in all three Persons, existed from all eternity and is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, self-existent, indivisible, unchangeable, personal, and that He is perfect in His holiness, justice, love, mercy, and fatherliness in His Being and in all His activities, words, motives, and decisions.
Gen. 1:1; 17:1–18:14; Exod. 3:14; 34:6-7; Deut. 6:4; Pss. 65:6-8; 145:3; Isa. 40:12-18, 21-26; Jer. 10:10; 32:27; Matt. 19:26; John 4:4; Rom. 11:33; Eph. 3:20; Rev. 4:8-11.
(Note: All the verses under Article I above apply here also.)
We deny that God’s infinity detracts from His Personhood or that His Personhood limits His infinity or that His holiness and justice are ever in conflict with His love and mercy.
We further deny that there is any difference between the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Triune God of the New Testament regarding justice and mercy or any other attribute since they are indeed the very same unchangeable God.
John 5:21-23; 8:58; 14:8-11
ARTICLE V
The Bible Our Source of Knowledge of God: Heresies Denounced
We affirm that this one, true God is indeed the God of the Bible Who is adequately and accurately, but not exhaustively, revealed in the Old and New Testaments by divine inspiration of inerrantly revealed language through God’s prophets and apostles.
Ezek. 3:1-4; John 5:32-39; Rom. 1:1-4; 2 Tim. 3:16
We deny any and all views of God that negate or deviate from the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of God, including atheism, deism, finite-godism, pantheism, polytheism, or the process god of panentheism. (From “42 Articles on Historic Doctrine”)
ARTICLE VI
God’s Transcendence and Immanence
We affirm that God is both transcendenta over and immanentb in His creation concurrently.
a. Gen. 1:1; 18:14; Exod. 3:14; Pss. 65:6-8; 145:3; Isa. 40:12-18, 21-26; Jer. 10:10; 32:27; Matt. 19:26; Rom. 11:33; Eph. 3:20; Rev. 4:8-11
b. Gen. 2:21-22; Job 12:10; Jer. 10:12; Eph. 4:6; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3
We deny the Neo-Orthodox and liberal claim that, in His transcendence, God is totally Other so that human language and logic cannot serve as an adequate and accurate connection between God’s mind and our human minds.
We further deny that, in His immanence, God is ever identified with His creation as is claimed by the pantheists and by many religious liberals.
ARTICLE VII
Supernatural Intervention by God
We affirm that from time to time God supernaturally intervenes in the course of natural or human events to accomplish His sovereign and redemptive purposes.
Exod. 7:31; Deut. 6:22; Ps. 135:9; Acts 4:30; 5:12; Rom. 15:19; Matt. 11-4-5; Luke 4:36-41; John 2:23; 4:54; 20:30-31
We deny any naturalistic view which rejects either a supernatural God or His miraculous intervention in nature and history.
ARTICLE VIII
The Two Natures of Christ
We affirm with the Chalcedonian Creed of AD 451 that when God the Son was incarnated into a human being through the virgin Mary, He was “perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly Goda and truly man,b of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin;… to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ….”
a. John 1:1, 18; 5:27; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1
b. Matt. 1:18-20; Gal. 4:4-5; Isa. 9:6; John 1:14; 5:27
We deny that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior was any less than 100% God or any less than 100% man or that His two distinct natures, divine and human, ever resulted in Him ever being anymore than one single Person, the incarnate Son of God.
We further deny that, having taken on a human body for His work as Prophet, Priest, and King, He will ever, throughout all eternity, exist in any form other than in a glorified human body and reigning as King at the right hand of the Father.
This article is an excerpt from Dr. Jay Grimstead and the late Dr. Eugene Clingmans’s Nordskog Publishing book Rebuilding Civilization on the Bible: Proclaiming the Truth on 24 Controversial Issues.
© 2023
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