This was orignially posted in September when Pastor James MacDonald announced the addition of TD Jakes to the Elephant Room lineup.
My friend and fellow Gospel Coalition member, Pastor James MacDonald, recently created quite a
stir on the Internet (“Association vs. Discernment and Is James MacDonald Changing?”) articulating his reasoning for inviting Bishop TD Jakes to our next Elephant Room event.
For the record, I think if all the parties have the courage to still show up, and if a few guys still considering invitations can make it, the event could be a very clarifying and intriguing day of unscripted conversation.
To me, it's amazing MacDonald may actually pull off this conversation by having men speak to one another face-to-face rather than about one another blog-to-blog and tweet-to-tweet. My bags are packed, as I’m honored to meet with the men, act as a moderator, and as is often the case, don’t mind the controversy. Until then, the following lengthy teaching from me can perhaps help those who are a bit confused and/or wanting to learn more.
Defining the Trinity
The majority of controversy surrounding Jakes is in regards to his doctrine of the Trinity. Over the years there have been accusation that Jakes doesn’t hold to classic historical and creedal convictions on the Trinity.
In the Doctrine book Dr. Gerry Breshears and I wrote:
The Trinity is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—who are each fully and equally God in eternal relation with each other.
To clarify, to say that each member of the Trinity is a ‘person’ does not mean that God the Father or God the Spirit became human beings. Rather, it means that each member of the Trinity thinks, acts, feels, speaks, and relates because they are persons and not impersonal forces. Further, each member of the Trinity is equally God, which means that they share all the divine attributes, such as eternality, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence (13).
We then explain that the doctrine of the Trinity is curiously comprised itself in three big truths:
1. There is only one true God
2. The Father, Son, and Spirit are equally and simultaneously God
3. Though one God, the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct persons
For the record, I am staunchly Trinitarian, consider it a closed-handed issue that is necessary for Christian orthodoxy, and am certain MacDonald is also Trinitarian. Furthermore, at least one thing everyone can agree on is that when speaking of the nature of the Trinitarian God, there is a lot of mystery. For this reason, the word Trinity, which is not found in the Bible, is used to summarize in a shorthand way a lot of biblical teaching.
Beware of Many Discernment Ministries
Before we continue there is a lesson to be learned first.
Admittedly, sometimes when speaking, a teacher presents a belief in a way that is inaccurate and unclear. So called “discernment” bloggers who are usually not connected to any noteworthy or respected evangelical Christian theologians, schools, denominations, ministries, churches, or pastors make their living taking what people said wrongly, transcribing it, and then falsely—or at least wrongly—accusing them of heresy when it is untrue.
The ear is more forgiving than the eye, and when we say something wrong, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But, when what is said is then written down, there is far more scrutiny as a statement is parsed like a Bible verse, which is unfair.
What is fair, however, is scrutinizing what someone writes down in, for example, a book on theology (such as Doctrine) or a church/ministry doctrinal statement. So, to be fair to Bishop Jakes, let’s read what his own church's doctrinal statement says regarding the Trinity, which has been criticized and questioned for many years due in part to his involvement with what are called Oneness churches that do not hold Trinitarian belief. His statement says: “There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit." It’s fair to examine that statement.
Understanding Modalism
The term “modalism” was introduced by the German historian Adolf von Harnack to describe second and third century Trinitarian heresies. Modalism teaches that God is successively Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Modalism is a heresy that does not view the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three particular persons in relation but merely as three modes or manifestations of the one divine person of God.
Modalism is also sometimes called Sabellianism, which was an early third-century Trinitarian heresy named after Sabellius, who taught that the one God revealed himself successively in salvation history first as Father (Creator and Lawgiver), then as Son (Redeemer), and finally as Spirit (Sustainer, Giver of Grace). Hence for Sabellius there is only one divine person, not three as in orthodox Christian trinitarianism.[1]
Now, let’s look at another doctrinal statement on the same issue. The United Pentecostal Church (UPCI) is the largest Oneness group in America. They officially deny the doctrine of the Trinity saying:
In distinction to the doctrine of the Trinity, the UPCI holds to a oneness view of God. It views the Trinitarian concept of God, that of God eternally existing as three distinctive persons, as inadequate and a departure from the consistent and emphatic biblical revelation of God being one...Thus God is manifested as Father in creation and as the Father of the Son, in the Son for our redemption, and as the Holy Spirit in our regeneration.[2]
Again, notice the word “manifest,” which Jakes and the UPCI both use. In other words, the Son of God is the manifestation of the Father in the flesh. The Son is not eternal, nor pre-existent. Jesus is the Father and the Son: Father in his divinity and Son in his humanity. Hence, the Trinity is said to be a misunderstanding of the biblical teaching.
The debate land mine that MacDonald has stepped on is in large part over the word “manifestations”. In its simplest form, this is the language of Modalism. In classic Modalism there is one God who manifests Himself in three ways (Father, Son, and Spirit) but is not three distinct persons. By this it’s meant that God is successively Father, Son, and Spirit but not simultaneously Father, Son, and Spirit. Think of it in terms of someone who is an actor playing three different roles in a play with wardrobe changes between scenes.
So, according to Modalism, God appears as the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus in the Gospels, and Holy Spirit in the Epistles. But, the problem with this view is that at times in the Bible all three members of the Trinity appear together simultaneously, thereby negating modalism and its claims of successive manifestations.
For example, at the baptism of Jesus, we witness one of the clearest pictures of the Trinity. Matthew 3:16–17 says, “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice [the Father] from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” In this gospel account, all three persons of the Trinity are simultaneously present, and each one is doing something different, the Father speaks, and the Son is anointed and empowered to be Messiah and missionary by the Holy Spirit.
Regarding Bishop Jakes, my preference is to simply let the man speak for himself and see what he says. As moderator, I assure you, I don’t want to do anything but let the men speak for themselves without being disrespected, set-up, or pushed into an unfair position—and I know this is MacDonald’s stance too. The Bible is clear about loving people and truth telling. Our plan is to have both.
The History of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Part of the controversy throughout the history of the church, and today around the Elephant Room event, concerns the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. To help teach on this matter, I hope the following summary from the Old Testament to the present day is of help.
To study the doctrine of the Trinity is to tread on holy ground. As A.W. Tozer writes, “To meditate on the three Persons of the Godhead is to walk in thought through the garden eastward in Eden and to tread on holy ground.”[3]
Alister McGrath notes that although the word “trinity” (which means “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness”) is never found in the Bible, the idea represented by the word is taught throughout Scripture. “The doctrine of the Trinity can be regarded as the outcome of a process of sustained and critical reflection on the pattern of divine activity revealed in Scripture, and continued in Christian experience.”[4]
The foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity is the monotheism taught throughout the Old Testament. The biblical basis of belief in one God is found in several texts: Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:4; 32:39; 2 Samuel 22:32; 1 Kings 8:59-60; Isaiah 37:20; 43:10; 44:6-8; 45:5-6; 46:9.
Wayne Grudem points out that although the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly found in the Old Testament, several passages suggest or even imply that the one God exists as more than one person (Genesis 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8; 48:16; 63:10; Psalm 45:6-7; 110:1). Several of these OT passages use a plural in reference to God, or speak of multiple persons in reference to God. Grudem also points out that the several OT passages about the “angel of the LORD” suggest a plurality of persons in God (See Genesis 16:13; Exodus 3:2-6; 23:20-22; Numbers 22:35, 38; Judges 2:1-2; 6:11, 14).[5]
The earliest Christians were Jewish believers. As Jews, they believed that there was only one God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s important to note that the early Christians continued to affirm their belief in one God. The early church strongly affirmed that the God of the Old Testament was the same God as the God of the Christians. Despite living in a polytheistic Roman society (Acts 17:16ff), the early church never wavered in its monotheism. Monotheism is taught throughout the New Testament: John 5:44; Romans 3:30; 16:27; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; Galatians 3:20; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timothy 1:17; 2:5; James 2:19; Jude 25. Robert Letham puts it best: “The church understood its worship of Jesus as within the boundaries of OT monotheism.”[6]
The early Christian apologists, particularly Justin Martyr, promoted a Logos Christology that greatly influenced the patristic writers who followed them. The earliest Christian apologists were more concerned with defending the deity of Christ than with articulating a doctrine of the Trinity. The contributions of the Fathers to the doctrine of the Trinity are detailed below.
Tertullian
More than any other church father, Tertullian gave the doctrine of the Trinity its distinctive vocabulary. Tertullian invented the word “Trinity” (Latin: Trinitas). He introduced another Latin term, “Persona,” to translate the Greek word hypostasis. This word “persona” was eventually translated into English as “person.” A third Latin term, “substantia,” expressed the fundamental unity within the Godhead. Each person of the Trinity shares the same divine “substance.” Tertullian wrote: “We believe in one only God, yet subject to this dispensation, which is our word for economy, that the one only God has also a Son, His Word, Who has issued out of Himself…which Son then sent, according to His promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, out of the Father.”[7]
Irenaeus
Irenaeus was influential in thinking of the Trinity and the “economy of the salvation.” Economy (dispensatio) is not to be thought of in a monetary sense but rather as the way in which one’s affairs are ordered.
For Irenaeus, the economy of salvation meant the way in which the Triune God has ordered the salvation of humanity in history. At the time, Gnostic and Marcionite heresies taught that the creator God of the Old Testament was different from and inferior to the redeemer God of the New Testament. “Irenaeus insisted that the entire process of salvation, from the first moment of creation to the last moment of history, was the work of the one and the same God. There was a single economy of salvation, in which the one God—who was both creator and redeemer—was at work to redeem creation.”[8]
Irenaeus describes the economy of salvation in this quote: “God the Father uncreated, who is uncontained, invisible, one God, creator of the universe; this is the first article of our faith…And the Word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ…who, in the fullness of time, in order to gather all things to Himself, He became a human being amongst human beings, capable of being seen and touched, to destroy death, bring life, and restore fellowship between God and humanity. And the Holy Spirit…who, in the fullness of time, was poured out in a new way on our human nature in order to renew humanity throughout the entire world in the sight of God.”[9]
Athanasius
Athanasius was the one of the church’s most ardent and eloquent defenders of the deity of Christ. He wrote several works, including On the Incarnation and Contra Mundum, for the purpose of promoting Nicene Christology over and against the heretical teachings of Arianism.
The Cappadocian Fathers
The Cappadocian Fathers were a group of theologians who wrote between the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople. The group included Basil of Caesarea (A.D. 330-379), Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 330-395), and Gregory of Nazianzus (A.D. 330-389).
Letham summarizes the contribution of the three Cappadocian Fathers to the doctrine of the Trinity: “The three Cappadocians together brought about an open recognition of the deity of the Spirit, as well as of the Son, and thus cleared the decks for a definitive settlement of the Trinitarian crisis engendered by Arius. This they did by clarifying the real, eternal, personal distinctions of the three and setting these in the context of their relations to each other. God is one undivided being, yet three persons in communion and union. At the same time, while the Father is, in terms of the relations of the three, the principle, the fount, even the first cause, Gregory Nazianzen in particular took care to specify that this does not affect the being of God, and so all three persons are God in themselves. None is more and none is less God than the others.”[10]
The love of the Cappadocian Fathers for the doctrine of the Trinity is perhaps best seen in this quotation by Gregory Nazianzen from his Oration on Holy Baptism: “This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the one Godhead and power, found in the three in unity, and comprising the three separately; not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of three infinite ones, each God when considered in himself; as the Father, so the Son; as the Son, so the Holy Spirit; the three one God when contemplated together; each God because consubstantial; one God because of the monarchia (one source). No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendour of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of any of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.”[11]
Three major Ecumenical Councils
The three major Church Ecumenical Councils are worth noting in order to trace the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the early church. These gatherings of church leaders discussed major theological issues for the purpose of recognizing what the church believed. These councils often were called in response to heretical teaching that needed to be confronted.
For example, the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) met primarily to resolve the debate over Arianism (the doctrinal teaching that Christ was the highest created being) and concluded with the formulation of the anti-Arian Nicene Creed. With the deity of Christ officially recognized, the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381) extended the discussion to the identification of the Holy Spirit within the Godhead, making the Creed fully Trinitarian. Constantinople expanded the Nicene Creed and officially condemned Arianism. It solidified the orthodox doctrine of the full humanity of Jesus Christ. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) focused on the relationship of Christ’s humanity to his divinity (i.e., hypostatic union) and issued the formula of Chalcedon, which became the orthodox statement on the person of Christ.[12]
The contribution of the councils to the doctrine of the Trinity can be summarized under four headings:
One Being, Three Persons
God is one being and has one essence. This one being of God consists eternally of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The whole God is in each person, and each person is the whole God. Generally speaking, the Western church’s theological articulation of this idea went from the one being of God to the three persons, while the Eastern church went from the three persons to the one being of God. Both approaches are equally valid.[13]
Consubstantiality
One identical divine being is shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three persons are of one substance (i.e., consubstantial). There is only one essence or being of God, which all three persons share completely.
Perichoresis
This concept, also called circumincession, affirms the divine essence of the three persons of the Trinity in a manner that avoids blurring the distinctions among them. Any essential characteristic that belongs to one of the three is shared by the others. Since all three persons are fully God and the whole God is in each of the three, it follows that the three mutually indwell or contain one another. The three persons are inseparable.
The Order of the Persons
There is a clear order (taxis) of the relations between the three persons: from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) was one of the greatest theologians in church history. He greatly influenced Trinitarian theology, especially in the Western church. The collective Trinitarian wisdom of the church fathers culminated in the work of Augustine. He wrote his masterpiece, De Trinitate, or Treatise on the Trinity, over the course of 19 years (A.D. 400-419). This work has been one of the most influential books on the doctrine of the Trinity.
Essentially, Augustine proposed that we understand the triune nature of God in such a way that we distinguish the senses in which God is one and God is three, respectively. God is one in essence or nature, but God is three in person. God is one in essence, and so the essence of God is possessed fully by each member of the Trinity. But He is three persons. So, the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. However, all three possess the identically same divine nature.
Augustine made popular several analogies that are still used to explain the Trinity. These analogies have been ridiculed by later theologians. One of the most famous analogies of Augustine was the idea of love. There are three things in love—the lover, the one loved, and the love itself.[14] This analogy is problematic because it draws into question the personal status of the Holy Spirit. Love is a feeling, while the Holy Spirit is a person. Other famous triads from Augustine include mind, knowledge, and love; and memory, understanding, and will.
These analogies demonstrate the influence of Aristotelian categories on Augustine’s theology. Nevertheless, Augustine himself understood the limits of trying to explain an idea as profound as the doctrine of the Trinity. His closing prayer in his De Trinitate shows his humble spirit: “O Lord the one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of Thine, may they acknowledge who are Thine; if anything of my own, may it be pardoned both by Thee and by those who are Thine. Amen.”[15]
John Calvin and the Reformers
Calvin and the other Protestant Reformers relied heavily on Augustine in their articulation of the Trinity. This indicates a settled consensus in the Western tradition of the church. One area that the Reformers distanced themselves from Augustine was in relation to his psychological analogies. The Reformers, particularly Calvin, viewed them unhelpful and misleading. This lead one theologian to write: “There are no analogies in the world around us that adequately convey the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.”[16]
Calvin arrives at his definition of faith in Institutes, III.2.vii: “Now we shall have a proper definition of faith if we say it is a steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence toward us, which being founded upon the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ is both revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”
Calvin’s definition of faith is concise and the content of the knowledge of faith is clear. In faith one comes to know the “Divine benevolence” and the “gratuitous promise in Christ.” It’s the gratuitous promise that constitutes the content of the knowledge of faith. Further, faith’s certainty is not founded on an argument or proposition, but founded on the work of the Trinity—God’s will to be benevolent toward us is revealed in the gratuitous promise because of Christ and applied by the Holy Spirit. The ground of certainty is God. There is no distinction between the immanent and economic trinity; God is in God’s being how God is in God’s action towards us.
Given the place of God’s self-revelation in Christ and the testimony of the Spirit in Christian claims to speak of a transcendent God, it follows that a Christian understanding of God needs to be embodied in a Trinitarian reflection.
William Placher writes: “We cannot give an account of God or of how we come to know God and then add the Trinity later, for the God we come to know is the God self-revealed in the Word and known through the Spirit.”[17
It’s through the narrative of the humanity of Christ and, as Calvin argues, God’s already Christological self-revelation in the history of Israel that we are given the way of talking about the God who remains unknown to us. It’s through the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we trust not only those narratives.
The doctrine of the Trinity is difficult to understand, but J. I. Packer reminds believers that while difficult, the doctrine of the Trinity is nonetheless true! “The historic formulation of the Trinity seeks to circumscribe and safeguard this mystery (not explain it; that is beyond us), and it confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind has ever been asked to handle. It is not easy; but it is true.”[18]
Why we should study the Trinity
Believers should study the doctrine of the Trinity because God has given the church a great blessing in truthfully revealing something so glorious about Himself: namely, He is triune.
Bruce Ware provides a helpful illustration of why believers should study the doctrine of the Trinity. What would a husband think if his wife said to him, “You know, there’s something about me that is very near and dear to my heart that you don’t know, something that I’ve tried to tell you in the past but you just haven’t gotten it; you haven’t paid attention or listened when I’ve talked about it. And it really matters both to me and to our relationship that you understand this. But it isn’t the easiest thing to understand. I’m asking you, ‘Will you listen? Will you let me share with you something very, very important to understanding who I am, something that can make a big difference in the quality of our relationship with each other?’” Perhaps God would say something similar about his revelation of his triune nature. He might say, “There is something about me that I’ve told you, but it is something that you’ve just not been interested in understanding. To be sure, it isn’t the easiest thing to understand, but it matters, and I really care that you see this. I am one God, but I am also three. I am one God only as I am Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this makes a difference in how you see me and how we relate with one another. This matters in terms of how I do my work, who I am eternally, and how I have made you. I’ve told you about this in my Word, but you haven’t yet seen the beauty and wonder of what I’ve said. So now, will you listen to something I care about very dearly and deeply, and will you take it to heart?”[19]
In closing, I want to thank Pastor MacDonald for putting together what could be an amazingly insightful event around the Trinity and many other issues that the Church needs to consider. I thank God that I have an opportunity to be involved and ask some questions. I want to encourage folks to wait until the event before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. And, I want to encourage all the men who are signed up to show up. We worship a Jesus who died for what he believed. The least we can do in his name is get on a plane for what we believe.
Endnotes
1 Stanley Grenz, “Sabellianism,” Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, (IVP Academic, 1999), 104.
2 United Pentecostal Church International, “Oneness of God,” http://www.upci.org/about.asp.
3 A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, (Harper & Row, 1961), 17.
4 Alistair McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 321.
5 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Zondervan, 1994), 229.
6 Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, (P&R Publishing, 2004), 52.
7 Quoted in John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God, (Crossway Books, 2006), 473.
8 McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 323.
9 Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 6 [3.3].
10 Letham, The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, 164-65.
11 Gregory Nazianzen, Orations, 40.41, 36:417.
12 Grenz, “Councils,” Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, 31.
13 Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, 112-67.
14 Augustine, Treatise on the Trinity, 8.10.14 PL 42:960.
15 Ibid, 15.28.51.
16 Letham, The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, 6.
17 William Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong, 199.
18 J. I. Packer, “Trinity,” Concise Theology, 40.
19 Bruce Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 13-14.