Truth Defined Online Blog

Archive for September, 2011

First, the Trinity is not merely a doctrine that we believe in, although in theological discussions many of us, in our ignorance, have treated Him that way. The Trinity IS God. God IS The Trinity. The Trinity is the truth about God as He exists eternally as Three Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures declare in 1 John 4:7 that God is Love, and Love is best expressed in relationships. So God, as a Triune Being, is a living relationship of Three Persons co-existing eternally as the One God.

When someone such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses declare that the Trinity is “unreasonable” the declaration that they are making is not just denouncing a doctrine, it is denouncing God! God is the most intelligent being in the whole universe, and in their ignorance they are saying that He is “unreasonable” if He expects us to believe that He is a Triune Being. God tells us to understand Him in Isaiah 43:10-12:

“You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior. I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the LORD, “that I am God.”

Those words “…understand…besides Me there is no savior…I am God” in that passage declare that we are to understand that the Lord is God and there is no other. None before Him, and none after Him. He alone was, and is, and will continue to be the only one and true God. And as we study the rest of the Holy Scriptures, we find that there are actually Three Persons who are shown to be God. Refer to this table:

Either God is confused when He says “I am God and there is no other” while the rest of His word shows that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are also called God, OR, the only conclusion that makes sense of it, the One God somehow exists as Three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are many more scriptures that show each of the Three Persons to be God, and not just a part of God. So in light of the Scriptures that show God to be Triune, when God states in Isaiah 43:10 that He wants us to “understand” that He is God, He is also asking us to “understand” that He is a Triune Being.

This is the only rational conclusion when viewing the Scriptures as a whole entity as being divinely inspired by God, and True.

Now on to Part 2…

It has been claimed by Jehovah’s Witnesses that the idea of a Triune God, or Trinity, leads to confusion of the mind and so it cannot be true.  They believe that the Trinity is an “unreasonable” concept.  I first discovered this about the Jehovah’s Witnesses while listening to Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults tape set that I had purchased from the Christian Research Institute (CRI). Walter Martin’s tape set planted the seeds of a beginning zeal for studying the Bible and getting to know the real Jesus, and to find out more about the God who loved me.  I had been in a New Age Cult before accepting Jesus as my Saviour, so I was very interested in the ministry of Walter Martin and CRI.

With each tape that I listened to I noticed that many, if not all, of the Cults – Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc – denied the Deity of Christ and the Trinity.  This claim by Jehovah’s Witnesses accusing the Trinity of being “unreasonable” was the catalyst that inspired me to begin a search for truth regarding reason as it relates to the Trinity.

Some years later I had a Bible college class where our assignment was to prepare a demonstration showing how to share the truth of Christ with Jehovah’s Witnesses.  While I was spending some personal time studying the Bible at a picnic table the Lord began to speak to my heart in a powerful way regarding the claim that the Trinity was unreasonable.  I guess you could say that this was my first memorable experience with the “anointing” of the Holy Spirit.  He spoke a Scripture to me that is from Proverbs 21:30:

“There is no wisdom or understanding Or counsel against the LORD.”

Then Romans 1:20 was next:

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse”

Those words “…since the creation of the world” sparked my memory of some things from the elementary science of my childhood education, and further Scriptures and insights were added to my thoughts by inspiration of the Holy Spirit that weaved together a very powerful answer to the challenge of the Jehovah’s Witnesses against the Trinity. Note: The things that were given to me were not things that I had heard or read before in any study or discussion on the Trinity. In 2004 I was again inspired to take the insights and write a book that was first titled “Physics and the Trinity,” and was later titled “Reason and the Trinity.”

The next post will begin a detailed report of evidence that supports the reasonability of the Trinity that we can see in elementary science and Scripture.

Driving on the way home today I was thinking about how the lives of the disciples of Jesus were changed during the time that they knew Him before His death, then again when Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection.  If the resurrection really never happened, then the disciples’ boldness to continue preaching about Jesus and support of one another beyond three days after His death makes no sense.

Before they came to know Jesus, these Jewish men had some problems getting along with one another.  Matthew was a Tax Collector, and as such he was probably shunned by most if not all of the common Jewish community who already hated having to pay taxes to Caesar.  How could they get along with a fellow Jew who had defected to the Romans (in their opinion).  Peter being a fisherman was not one of the social crowd either, and he probably was not used to being around the upper class such as tax collectors.  He was sure to have some issues getting along with Matthew.

Without thinking upon more details about the disciples, these thoughts came to mind – Peter and Matthew would have never been friends or companions unless Jesus had called both of them into His fold where they were taught by Him to Love one another as Jesus had loved them (John 13:34-35).  After Jesus’ arrest, Peter fled away, as did the other disciples, thus again separating himself from Matthew and the others.  He was not even the first to go to Jesus’ tomb on the third day when the tomb was found empty – it was the women who loved Jesus who first found the empty tomb, who then reported this to the others.

After their experience seeing the risen Jesus, the disciples once again were all together, including Peter and Matthew.  Once again Peter and Matthew were comrads, opposites otherwise in the social order of their world.  Jesus was the only one who gave them a reason to co-exist together – their lives also changed from selfish interests to serving God.

Now here is the point: If Jesus Christ had never risen from the dead, would not the disciples who had once followed Him have gone back to their old lifestyles?  They had believed that Jesus was their Messiah, that He was going to save them from their sins and change their world for the better.  They did not remember that Jesus had told them He would rise on the third day until they experienced the empty tomb.  Unless they really did see their Risen Saviour, who would have kept them from returning to their old sins of racism and hatred of one another? Who would have brought Peter and Matthew back together to the point that they would even become martyrs for the sake of following Jesus whom they claimed had risen from the dead?

Peter and Matthew had no good reason to lie to protect a false testimony, if Christ was still dead.  Matthew would again prosper as a tax collector, and Peter as a fisherman, and would soon return to their old ways and the social problems caused by the oppression of the Romans. Although I am sure that they had their opinions and arguments with one another regarding their roles under Roman rule, Matthew and Peter never had any arguments concerning Christ’s Resurrection.

The future destiny of mankind is probably the most important topic to consider in the discussion of evolution and/or theistic evolution, even more so than man’s origins. In the course of discussion regarding creation vs. evolution the focus is most of the time, if not all of the time, on the question of man’s origins. But let’s consider for a moment a statement by Charles Darwin from his book on Origins:

“…we may look with some confidence to a secure future of great length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.”¹

But what is this perfection that he is talking about? What is his reference point? What is the goal of natural selection, to evolve life into the ultimate perfect being (God)? What will happen then? Once perfection is achieved, will evolution then be obsolete, no longer necessary since the ultimate goal has finally been reached? Will evolution then stop altogether? And if not, then how could Darwin ever have declared natural selection to be progressing toward perfection? If evolution would never stop, then how would it ever achieve its goal? And how could we “look to a secure future,” as stated by Darwin, if natural selection never achieves perfection?

The Bible gives us a very different picture of the future than that of an endless “natural selection.” In the book of Revelation (21:1-4) the “first heaven and the first earth” has passed away – in the new heaven and the new earth, “God will wipe away every tear,” and “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.” There shall be “no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” There will be no more “struggle for existence.” If evolution were used by God, then it would now stop, become obsolete, cease to exist altogether! Since death was instituted as a curse upon life because of sin, and since evolution depends upon death as a means for creating or perfecting new life, then how could God possibly have used evolution to bring life into being? And since, according to the book of Revelation (21:1-4), God eliminates death, sorrow, crying, and pain, and thereby brings his creation into perfection without them, why would He ever use death as a means for creating or perfecting new life in the first place, especially considering the fact that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…”? (Gen. 1:31).

This obvious contrast between Darwin’s statements and the declarations of Scripture regarding the future show the two to be incompatible thus challenging the viewpoint of those who believe in Theistic Evolution. It also demands an answer regarding the “perfection” that is claimed to be achieved by Evolution. I have not yet seen any progression towards this “perfection” professed by Darwin in our present world. I have, however, seen the changes made in a person’s life when they truly accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour and begin to live for Him. Evolution as taught in public schools does not, in my opinion, give us any reason to have hope or to find meaning for our lives that has any real ultimate purpose or conclusion. I put this discussion as a challenge to those who are considering the question of their origins, and of their ultimate destiny at the end of their life.

NOTES

1. Charles Darwin. The Origin Of Species. New York: Hurst & Company, 1859. 473-474.