Ken Loucks
Knowing & Understanding God - Is God a Trinity?
Part 1
Craig Scott pastors the United Church of God congregations in Raleigh, Greensboro and Jacksonville, North Carolina.
playlist
Related Sermons
Knowing & Understanding God
Jeremiah 9:23-24 God wants us to know and understand Him... and He wants us to then pattern our lives after what we know. Because that is how we will get joy and pleasure from the gift of eternal life.
We know and understand Him through 1) what He does (hesed, exercises kindness, grace, mercy) and 2) what He says (guidelines for justice and righteousness).
What He Does: the record of Israel's history... is there to show YHWH in action… ready to bless with every good thing, but also ready to judge righteousness and justice, but with mercy. The Psalms & Prophets could be seen as reflections on what we come to know about God through His actions.
What He Says: God has given us a foundation of laws, statutes, and behavioral case studies. These are God's ideals for human interaction.
Then… God revealed Himself to us even more powerfully through the life and ministry of Jesus. God became a human being so that we might know God better (and visa versa).
The Trinity
However, most professing Christians (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) insist that God must be understood in a very different manner... the trinity.
The Trinity doctrine expresses the belief that God is one being made up of three distinct persons who exist in co-equal essence and co-eternal communion as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
For most, the trinity is the central doctrine of Christian faith... a litmus test for defining who is and who is not a follower of Christ... they say it is impossible to have a sincere belief in Christ without believing and professing the trinity... without acceptance of the trinity you cannot be saved.
Historically (when religious was combined with the state), not giving lip service to this concept could lead to imprisonment, banishment, torture, and death.
The trinity formula is a way of describing and seeking to understand God not found in the bible. And worse yet, almost everyone agrees its a concept that cannot be explained, is incomprehensible to the human mind, an absurd contradiction, which even professing to believe it requires suspending all reason and logic and therefore is itself an act of faith.
These are not my words, these are what trinitarian believers say themselves (the 1st chapter of the UCG booklet on the trinity has dozens of quotes to this effect from eminent theologians).
Its no wonder then that the trinity teaching is not understood by most church goers... and therefore mostly ignored. The average person can't explain it and (more important) cannot turn to any verse of scripture that actually proclaim it.
Yet, it is accepted that without believing it a person cannot be saved.
The Church of God agrees that there are matters about a reality made up of both spirit and matter which we cannot grasp. But, what are we to do in such matters?
A Dead Argument?
Who cares? Isn't this a dead argument from centuries long ago?
How does what I believe, or don't believe, about the trinity make me a better person?
A Concept Developed Long Ago... But Not At The Beginning
The term "trinity"is not found anywhere in the bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the end of the 2nd century (IE. 150+ years after the church began). Its a borrow word from Greek philosophy, in particular Plato. The Greeks were obsessed with narrowing all explanations of reality to one unifying principle. The Greeks were also really into geometry… especially triangles. So, they liked ones and threes.
The word "trinity" only came into wider use in the 4th and 5th centuries.
The formal doctrine of the trinity was first presented at the council of Nicea 325 AD. But it was only later at the Council of Constantinople 381 AD. that the holy spirit was added to the mix.
The trinity doctrine was not a teaching of Jesus, or the apostles... it only came along about 350 years later. Yet, it is proclaimed to be essential!
What's Really Going On?
The initial presentation of the trinity was highly controversial. People from east and west had all kinds of weird ideas... but only a small minority actually believed the teaching that came out of the councils. What we have is a compromise formulated by a committee, overseen by the emperor of Rome.
What the emperor wanted was one state religion. He wanted everyone in agreement… because the emperor’s main purpose for adopting Christianity as the state religion was to unify and strengthen the crumbling social cohesion of the empire. The theologians then struggled among one another to see whose teaching would be adopted as the official truth... and who would enjoy royal patronage.
My opinion is that the doctrine of the trinity is about power, authority, and submission.
Now… all the players from the 4th century are dead and gone but the issue of authority remains.
The trinity teaching demands an answer: Do you accept "the Church" as having the authority to define the terms of salvation without any direct reference to scripture. Will you agree to an irrational statement as truth because "those in power" threaten you with dire consequences if you do not.
There is One God
The trinity is partly an importing of Greek philosophical concepts into "the church". It is also an attempt to address the monotheist idea of "one God" with the new testament presentation of a Father (who is God), and a Son (who is also God).
Deuteronomy 6:4 is the classic OT monotheist statement. However, the concept is also found in the numerous places in the NT. But let’s go somewhere else…
John 1:1-5, 14 here is the classic NT statement on a new way of understanding God.
Confusion arises because of preconceptions about what the word "God" means, and what the word "oneness" means.
The Word For God is Elohim
In Deuteronomy 6:4 the Hebrew word translated God is elohim. The "im" suffix on the word makes it a plural. The singular form is eloha. So right way there is more going on in this verse than meets the eye. But the significance of it never came forth until the coming of Jesus.
The word, who was with God and who was God.
What Does it Mean to Be One?
Most read the word "one" in places like Deuteronomy 6:4 as a statement about singularity, or being... "I have one car", "only press the button one time", etc. Greek philosophers with their obsession with finding one unifying principle for all things would feel right at home with this perspective.
However, God does not base His revelation of truth on dictionaries, lexicons, or word definitions. God reveals His truth through concrete reality and living experience. In other words, things that everybody can understand. The two most powerful biblical examples of a different way to think about oneness are: human marriage or family, and the church.
Genesis 2:24 a couple goes from being two separate entities to becoming one. They become "one flesh", they become "a family" through their covenant relationship of marriage.
Mark 10:6-9 husband and wife quite literally become "one flesh" through begetting and birthing children. Half a set of chromosomes come from each to combine and create a new being. Every single person in this room has participated in this process.
Galatians 3:28 the Church is to be one, although having many moving parts within. A car has an engine, wheels, exhaust pipes, windows... but its one car. Paul uses the example of a body in 1 Corinthians 12… many parts but one.
John 17:3,11,20-23 like the body of believers the Father and the Son are one although still a Father… and a Son. God's choice of the roles "Father" and "Son" are His way of telling you... God/Elohim is a family... a unity of interaction that puts them in a state of oneness.
Family, and Church are patterned on the relationship of the Father and the Son. Within that relationship there is:
This is God's grand design for thinking feeling beings. We experience it, and learn about it, in our own families, in our own Church. This is the pattern which will be extended out into all the earth and all the universe. It is a pattern for how we can all live together in peace. It is the answer.
The trinity teaching obscures the clarity this central truth. Far better that we accept God's revelation of Himself as a family than come up with one of our own.
A Model of God Built By Human Design
The trinity builds a model of God that is not based on the words, examples, or explanations God has provided in His word. It is based on a model of God based on human reasoning, philosophies, and word games. Therefore, it is a model of God built by human design which plays fast and loose with the first three commandments.
Exodus 20:3 the trinity God is another God than the one presented in scripture.
Exodus 20:4 an idol is a presentation of God built by human hands according to human design. Instead of using gold, silver, wood to build an image of God the trinity teaching uses human reason to accomplish the same end.
Exodus 20:7 the trinity God is a misrepresentation of God... attaching His name and reputation to ideas that are vain, empty, confusing, and useless.
Conclusion:
God wants us to know and understand Him so we might seek to be like Him. He wants to be understood through 1) what He does and 2) what He says.
He has given us living models through which we can understand Him... the family, and the Church. These also address the questions about what oneness means… and does so in a manner that affects behavior. Because to be one in this manner we must practice loving kindness, mercy, judgment, justice, and grace.
We should limit ourselves to what He chooses to say about Himself... or remain silent.
Craig Scott pastors the United Church of God congregations in Raleigh, Greensboro and Jacksonville, North Carolina.