Is It Clearly a Bible Teaching?
IF THE Trinity were true, it should be clearly and consistently presented in the Bible. Why? Because, as the apostles affirmed, the Bible is God’s revelation of himself to mankind. And since we need to know God to worship him acceptably, the Bible should be clear in telling us just who he is.
First-century believers accepted the Scriptures as the authentic revelation of God. It was the basis for their beliefs, the final authority. For example, when the apostle Paul preached to people in the city of Beroea, “they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.”—Acts 17:10, 11.
What did prominent men of God at that time use as their authority? Acts 17:2, 3 tells us: “According to Paul’s custom . . . he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving by references [from the Scriptures].”
Jesus himself set the example in using the Scriptures as the basis for his teaching, repeatedly saying: “It is written.” “He interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.”—Matthew 4:4, 7; Luke 24:27.
Thus Jesus, Paul, and first-century believers used the Scriptures as the foundation for their teaching. They knew that “all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.”—2 Timothy 3:16, 17; see also 1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:20, 21.
Since the Bible can ‘set things straight,’ it should clearly reveal information about a matter as fundamental as the Trinity is claimed to be. But do theologians and historians themselves say that it is clearly a Bible teaching?
“Trinity” in the Bible?
A PROTESTANT publication states: “The word Trinity is not found in the Bible . . . It did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century.” (The Illustrated Bible Dictionary) And a Catholic authority says that the Trinity “is not . . . directly and immediately [the] word of God.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Catholic Encyclopedia also comments: “In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word τρίας [tri′as] (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A. D. 180. . . . Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian.”
However, this is no proof in itself that Tertullian taught the Trinity. The Catholic work Trinitas—A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity, for example, notes that some of Tertullian’s words were later used by others to describe the Trinity. Then it cautions: “But hasty conclusions cannot be drawn from usage, for he does not apply the words to Trinitarian theology.”
Testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures
WHILE the word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, is at least the idea of the Trinity taught clearly in it? For instance, what do the Hebrew Scriptures (“Old Testament”) reveal?
The Encyclopedia of Religion admits: “Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity.” And the New Catholic Encyclopedia also says: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the O[ld] T[estament].”
Similarly, in his book The Triune God, Jesuit Edmund Fortman admits: “The Old Testament . . . tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. . . . There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a [Trinity] within the Godhead. . . . Even to see in [the “Old Testament”] suggestions or foreshadowings or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”—Italics ours.
An examination of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves will bear out these comments. Thus, there is no clear teaching of a Trinity in the first 39 books of the Bible that make up the true canon of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures.
Testimony of the Greek Scriptures
WELL, then, do the Christian Greek Scriptures (“New Testament”) speak clearly of a Trinity?
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: “Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity.”
Jesuit Fortman states: “The New Testament writers . . . give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. . . . Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.”
The New Encyclopædia Britannica observes: “Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament.”
Bernhard Lohse says in A Short History of Christian Doctrine: “As far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the Trinity.”
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology similarly states: “The N[ew] T[estament] does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. ‘The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence’ [said Protestant theologian Karl Barth].”
Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins affirmed: “To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; . . . they say nothing about it.”—Origin and Evolution of Religion.
Historian Arthur Weigall notes: “Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word ‘Trinity’ appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord.”—The Paganism in Our Christianity.
Thus, neither the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures nor the canon of 27 inspired books of the Christian Greek Scriptures provide any clear teaching of the Trinity.
Taught by Early Christians?
DID the early Christians teach the Trinity? Note the following comments by historians and theologians:
“Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds.”—The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.
“The early Christians, however, did not at first think of applying the [Trinity] idea to their own faith. They paid their devotions to God the Father and to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and they recognised the . . . Holy Spirit; but there was no thought of these three being an actual Trinity, co-equal and united in One.”—The Paganism in Our Christianity.
“At first the Christian faith was not Trinitarian . . . It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the N[ew] T[estament] and other early Christian writings.”—Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.
“The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. . . . Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.
What the Ante-Nicene Fathers Taught
THE ante-Nicene Fathers were acknowledged to have been leading religious teachers in the early centuries after Christ’s birth. What they taught is of interest.
Justin Martyr, who died about 165 C.E., called the prehuman Jesus a created angel who is “other than the God who made all things.” He said that Jesus was inferior to God and “never did anything except what the Creator . . . willed him to do and say.”
Irenaeus, who died about 200 C.E., said that the prehuman Jesus had a separate existence from God and was inferior to him. He showed that Jesus is not equal to the “One true and only God,” who is “supreme over all, and besides whom there is no other.”
Clement of Alexandria, who died about 215 C.E., called Jesus in his prehuman existence “a creature” but called God “the uncreated and imperishable and only true God.” He said that the Son “is next to the only omnipotent Father” but not equal to him.
Tertullian, who died about 230 C.E., taught the supremacy of God. He observed: “The Father is different from the Son (another), as he is greater; as he who begets is different from him who is begotten; he who sends, different from him who is sent.” He also said: “There was a time when the Son was not. . . . Before all things, God was alone.”
Hippolytus, who died about 235 C.E., said that God is “the one God, the first and the only One, the Maker and Lord of all,” who “had nothing co-eval [of equal age] with him . . . But he was One, alone by himself; who, willing it, called into being what had no being before,” such as the created prehuman Jesus.
Origen, who died about 250 C.E., said that “the Father and Son are two substances . . . two things as to their essence,” and that “compared with the Father, [the Son] is a very small light.”
Summing up the historical evidence, Alvan Lamson says in The Church of the First Three Centuries: “The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity . . . derives no support from the language of Justin [Martyr]: and this observation may be extended to all the ante-Nicene Fathers; that is, to all Christian writers for three centuries after the birth of Christ. It is true, they speak of the Father, Son, and . . . holy Spirit, but not as co-equal, not as one numerical essence, not as Three in One, in any sense now admitted by Trinitarians. The very reverse is the fact.”
Thus, the testimony of the Bible and of history makes clear that the Trinity was unknown throughout Biblical times and for several centuries thereafter.
[Blurb on page 7]
There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a [Trinity] within the Godhead.”—The Triune God
Does Christianity Require Belief in a Trinity?
ALL major religions of Christendom accept the Trinity doctrine as an article of faith. The more than 250 churches belonging to the World Council of Churches confess “the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
While the views of the various religious bodies belonging to this fellowship vary radically, all are required to be in agreement that the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” are but “one God.” Hence, rejection of the Trinity doctrine is, in effect, regarded as a rejection of Christianity.
Though not belonging to the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church likewise adheres to belief in the Trinity. Of this teaching, Catholic theologian Walter Farrell noted:
“The mystery of the Trinity, as God has told it to us, is the mystery of three divine persons, really distinct, in one and the same divine nature: coequal, coeternal, consubstantial, one God. Of these persons, the Second proceeds from the First by an eternal generation; the Third proceeds from the First and the Second by an eternal spiration. . . .
“The Trinity is a mystery; no doubt about it. Unless we had been told of its existence, we would never have suspected such a thing. Moreover, now that we know that there is a Trinity, we cannot understand it. The man who attempts to unravel the mystery is in the position of a near-sighted man straining his eyes from the Eastern Shore of Maryland for a glimpse of Spain.”
The words of this theologian imply that it is impossible to know the God whom one worships. But that is not in agreement with Jesus’ words to a Samaritan woman: “You worship what you do not know; we [Jews] worship what we know.” (John 4:22) Though the Jews never viewed God as a trinity, Jesus Christ could still say that they knew what they were worshiping. Those accepting the Trinity doctrine, however, cannot explain or understand whom they are venerating. God is a great mystery to them. Does this not suggest that something is amiss in trying to speak of God in terms of a mysterious Trinity?
The previously quoted Catholic theologian indicated that it would be impossible to have come up with the idea of the Trinity apart from divine revelation. If that were so, why do even non-Christian religions teach a trinity concept? On the basis of his studies, Professor E. Washburn Hopkins said of the trinities of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christendom: “The three trinities as religious expressions are identical. . . . One may say: I believe in God as godhead, and in the divine incarnation, and in the creative Holy Spirit, as a Christian, a Vishnuite, or a Buddhist.”
Noteworthy, too, is the fact that the trinity of Chinese Buddhism is defined in a way that is practically identical to what professed Christians say. We read:
“The Three are all included in one substantial essence. The three are the same as one; not one, and yet not different; without parts or composition. When regarded as one, the three persons are spoken of as the Perfect One (Tathagata). There is no real difference [between the three persons of the trinity]; they are manifestations, different aspects of the same unchanging substance.”—Origin and Evolution of Religion, p. 348.
Surely no one would claim that such belief in a trinity makes a Buddhist or a Hindu a Christian. The fact that non-Christian religions can frame their belief in terms similar to the language of Christendom’s theologians nullifies the claim that only the God of the Bible could have revealed this doctrine. No Buddhist nor Hindu would admit that this is the source of his belief. Well, then, did Christendom’s churches get the basis for their doctrine from the God identified in the Bible?
The word “trinity” does not appear in the Holy Scriptures. True, the ‘Father, Son and holy spirit’ are mentioned together. (Matt. 28:19) But does this in itself imply the existence of a trinity? A family might consist of a father, a mother and a son. Yet no one would say that they are a trinity, with each family member having equal authority, knowledge and power.—Compare Matthew 2:19-21.
But someone might reply: ‘The “New Testament” goes far beyond just naming the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” together. It teaches the Trinity doctrine.’ Is that the case?
The New Catholic Encyclopedia, after discussing the theological development of the Trinity, states: “The impression could arise that the Trinitarian dogma is in the last analysis a late 4th-century invention. In a sense, this is true.” Does the “New Testament” provide the basis for this invention? Does it, for example, reveal Jesus Christ to be equal with God?
Jesus Christ never made such a claim. He recognized his Father as his God. To Mary Magdalene, Jesus said: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.” (John 20:17) He looked to his Father as the source of his authority, saying: “The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing.”—John 5:19.
Rather than hint at equality, the Scriptures clearly point to Jesus’ subjection to his Father. We read: “The head of the Christ is God.” (1 Cor. 11:3) “The Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.”—1 Cor. 15:28.
Then, too, if the Father, Son and holy spirit were equal and constituted one God, a sin against the Son would also be a sin against the Father and the holy spirit. But this is not so. Jesus Christ said: “Every sort of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. For example, whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the holy spirit, it will not be forgiven him.”—Matt. 12:31, 32.
So, then, can the Trinity doctrine be viewed as Christian? No, for it denies the clear Biblical statements that Jesus Christ is the “Son of God,” the “firstborn of all creation” and the “beginning of the creation by God.” (John 20:31; Col. 1:15; Rev. 3:14) It falsely claims that he is coequal and coeternal with the Father.
True Christianity, therefore, requires that we reject the Trinity doctrine as false, as an “invention” of sinful men. We should worship the Father as the only true God, and do so through his firstborn Son Jesus Christ, the One who occupies the first place among all of God’s intelligent creatures.—Col. 3:17.
[Footnotes]
For a detailed Scriptural discussion, see the booklet “The Word”—Who Is He! According to John and the book Aid to Bible Understanding, pp. 918-920.
The Trinity—Is It Taught in the Bible?
“The Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. . . . So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God.”
IN THESE words the Athanasian Creed describes the central doctrine of Christendom—the Trinity. If you are a church member, Catholic or Protestant, you might be told that this is the most important teaching that you are to believe in. But can you explain the doctrine? Some of the best minds in Christendom have confessed their inability to understand the Trinity.
Why, then, do they believe it? Is it because the Bible teaches the doctrine? The late Anglican bishop John Robinson gave a thought-provoking answer to this question in his best-selling book Honest to God. He wrote:
“In practice popular preaching and teaching presents a supranaturalistic view of Christ which cannot be substantiated from the New Testament. It says simply that Jesus was God, in such a way that the terms ‘Christ’ and ‘God’ are interchangeable. But nowhere in Biblical usage is this so. The New Testament says that Jesus was the Word of God, it says that God was in Christ, it says that Jesus is the Son of God; but it does not say that Jesus was God, simply like that.”
John Robinson was a controversial figure in the Anglican Church. Nevertheless, was he correct in saying that the “New Testament” nowhere says that “Jesus was God, simply like that”?
What the Bible Does Say
Some may answer that question by quoting the verse that commences John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1, King James Version) Does that not contradict what the Anglican bishop said? Not really. As John Robinson doubtless knew, some modern translators disagree with the King James Version’s rendering of that text. Why? Because in the expression “the Word was God” in the original Greek, the word for “God” does not have the definite article “the.” In the earlier expression “the Word was with God,” the word for “God” is definite, that is, it does have the definite article. This makes it unlikely that the two words have the same significance.
Hence, some translations bring out the qualitative aspect in their translations. For example, some render the expression “the Word was divine.” (An American Translation, Schonfield) Moffatt renders it “the Logos was divine.” However, indicating that “divine” would not be the most appropriate rendering here, John Robinson and the British textual critic Sir Frederick Kenyon both pointed out that if that was what John wanted to emphasize, he could have used the Greek word for “divine,” thei′os. The New World Translation, correctly viewing the word “God” as indefinite, as well as bringing out the qualitative aspect indicated by the Greek structure, uses the indefinite article in English: “The Word was a god.”
Professor C. H. Dodd, director of the New English Bible project, comments on this approach: “A possible translation . . . would be, ‘The Word was a god’. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted.” However, The New English Bible does not render the verse that way. Rather, John 1:1 in that version reads: “When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was.” Why did the translation committee not choose the simpler rendering? Professor Dodd answers: “The reason why it is inacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole.”—Technical Papers for the Bible Translator, Volume 28, January 1977.
The Plain Sense of Scripture
Would we say that the idea that Jesus was a god and not the same as God the Creator is contrary to Johannine (that is, the apostle John’s) thought, as well as Christian thought as a whole? Let us examine some Bible texts that refer to Jesus and to God, and we will see what some commentators who lived before the Athanasian Creed was formulated thought about those texts.
“I and the Father are one.”—JOHN 10:30.
Novatian (c. 200-258 C.E.) commented: “Since He said ‘one’ thing,[] let the heretics understand that He did not say ‘one’ person. For one placed in the neuter, intimates the social concord, not the personal unity. . . . Moreover, that He says one, has reference to the agreement, and to the identity of judgment, and to the loving association itself, as reasonably the Father and Son are one in agreement, in love, and in affection.”—Treatise Concerning the Trinity, chapter 27.
“The Father is greater than I am.”—JOHN 14:28.
Irenaeus (c. 130-200 C.E.): “We may learn through Him [Christ] that the Father is above all things. For ‘the Father,’ says He, ‘is greater than I.’ The Father, therefore, has been declared by our Lord to excel with respect to knowledge.”—Against Heresies, Book II, chapter 28.8.
“This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”—JOHN 17:3.
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 C.E.): “To know the eternal God, the giver of what is eternal, and by knowledge and comprehension to possess God, who is first, and highest, and one, and good. . . . He then who would live the true life is enjoined first to know Him ‘whom no one knows, except the Son reveal (Him).’ (Matt. 11:27) Next is to be learned the greatness of the Saviour after Him.”—Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? VII, VIII.
“One God and Father of all persons, who is over all and through all and in all.”—EPHESIANS 4:6.
Irenaeus: “And thus one God the Father is declared, who is above all, and through all, and in all. The Father is indeed above all, and He is the Head of Christ.”—Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 18.2.
These early writers clearly understood these verses to describe the Father as supreme, over everything and everyone including Jesus Christ. Their comments give no hint that they believed in a Trinity.
The Holy Spirit Reveals All Truth
Jesus promised his disciples that after his death and resurrection, the holy spirit would be given to them as a helper. He promised: “When that one arrives, the spirit of the truth, he will guide you into all the truth, . . . and he will declare to you the things coming.”—John 14:16, 17; 15:26; 16:13.
After Jesus’ death, that promise was fulfilled. The Bible records how new doctrines were revealed or clarified to the Christian congregation through the help of the holy spirit. These new teachings were written down in the books that later became the second part of the Bible, the Christian Greek Scriptures, or “New Testament.” In this flood of new light, is there ever any revelation of the existence of a Trinity? No. The holy spirit reveals something very different about God and Jesus.
For example, at Pentecost 33 C.E., after holy spirit came upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, the apostle Peter witnessed to the crowd outside about Jesus. Did he speak about a Trinity? Consider some of his statements, and judge for yourself: “Jesus . . . , a man publicly shown by God to you through powerful works and portents and signs that God did through him in your midst.” “This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.” “God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.” (Acts 2:22, 32, 36) Far from teaching a Trinity, these expressions by the spirit-filled Peter highlight Jesus’ subordination to his Father, that he is an instrument for the fulfillment of God’s will.
Soon after, another faithful Christian spoke about Jesus. Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin to answer accusations. Instead, Stephen turned the situation around, charging that his accusers were like their rebellious ancestors. Finally, the record says: “He, being full of holy spirit, gazed into heaven and caught sight of God’s glory and of Jesus standing at God’s right hand, and he said: ‘Look! I behold the heavens opened up and the Son of man standing at God’s right hand.’” (Acts 7:55, 56) Why did the holy spirit reveal Jesus to be simply the “Son of man” standing at God’s right hand and not part of a godhead equal with his Father? Clearly, Stephen had no concept of a Trinity.
When Peter carried the good news about Jesus to Cornelius, there was a further opportunity to reveal the Trinity doctrine. What happened? Peter explained that Jesus is “Lord of all.” But he went on to explain that this lordship came from a higher source. Jesus was “the One decreed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” After Jesus’ resurrection, his Father “granted him [gave him permission] to become manifest” to his followers. And the holy spirit? It does appear in this conversation but not as the third person of a Trinity. Rather, “God anointed [Jesus] with holy spirit and power.” Thus, the holy spirit, far from being a person, is shown to be something impersonal, like the “power” also mentioned in that verse. (Acts 10:36, 38, 40, 42) Check the Bible carefully, and you will find further evidence that the holy spirit is not a personality but an active force that can fill people, impel them, cause them to be aglow, and be poured out upon them.
Finally, the apostle Paul had a fine opportunity to explain the Trinity—if it had been true doctrine—when he was preaching to the Athenians. In his talk, he referred to their altar “To an Unknown God” and said: “What you are unknowingly giving godly devotion to, this I am publishing to you.” Did he publish a Trinity? No. He described the “God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth.” But what of Jesus? “[God] has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.” (Acts 17:23, 24, 31) No hint of a Trinity there!
In fact, Paul explained something about God’s purposes that makes it impossible that Jesus and his Father are equal parts of a Trinity. He wrote: “God ‘subjected all things under his [Jesus’] feet.’ But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.” (1 Corinthians 15:27, 28) Thus, God will still be over all, including Jesus.
Is the Trinity taught in the Bible, then? No. John Robinson was right. It is not in the Bible, nor is it a part of “Christian thought.” Do you view this as important to your worship? You should. Jesus said: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3) If we take our worship of God seriously, it is vital that we know him as he really is, as he has revealed himself to us. Only then can we truly say that we are among the “true worshipers” who “worship the Father with spirit and truth.”—John 4:23.
[Footnotes]
According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907 edition, volume 2, page 33.
Novatian is referring to the fact that the word for “one” in this verse is in the neuter gender. Hence, its natural meaning is “one thing.” Compare John 17:21, where the Greek word for “one” is used in an exactly parallel way. Interestingly, the New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967 edition) generally approves of Novatian’s De Trinitate, although it notes that in it “the Holy Spirit is not considered a divine Person.”
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The plain sense of Scripture clearly shows that Jesus and his Father are not one God
[Blurb on page 29]
Why did not holy spirit reveal that Jesus was God after Pentecost 33 C.E.?