Wednesday, June 27, 2007

There is only one word in the English language that can capture the essence of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity…mysterious. This doctrine is far too deep, wide and high for any of us to attempt to remotely grasp it…because this doctrine is the central teaching of the Bible regarding the God who is…we can no more fully grasp this revelation about His nature than we can fully grasp Him.

Every denial of the Trinity is an attempt to cut God down to size…to make Him smaller…to make Him understandable. In the Mormon world God (commonly called “Heavenly Father”) is nothing more than an exalted man with a physical body of flesh and bone. Joseph Smith taught, “If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible-I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form” The fifth Mormon President, Lorenzo Snow, will be forever remembered for crystallizing Mormon teaching about God and man with his summarizing and now famous (or infamous) statement, "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." Certainly Mormonism is an attempt at cutting God down to size…and magnifying the nature and potential future nature of man.

While Jehovah’s Witnesses do believe that God is eternal and invisible…they maintain a strange understanding of Him having a “spiritual” “body”…they do not believe God is omnipresent. Again…when we deny the Trinity we attempt to undercut the greatness of God.

You see…man has the insatiable, voracious and ravenous lust to dominate his reality. Since Eden man has attempted to be like God…which is to be God. Anything that deflates our ego, anything that humiliates us, anything that is bigger, stronger and vaster than we are…we reject…and ultimately make war with. A flat denial of the Trinity is a willful act of rebellion against God. All such denials are attempts at cutting Him down to size, to make him more manageable, less magnificent and less intimidating. Once those things are perceived to have been accomplished inserting your strange doctrines and teachings must seem much less frightening.

Let’s be clear shall we? The denial of the Trinity is rebellion. It is not an issue of ignorance. Surely an uneducated yet sincere man is not a heretic or an apostate. But the one who has been exposed to and properly instructed about what has been revealed about the Triune nature of our God…and rejects it…is a liar, a heretic and apostate. He is also an idolater. All the sincerity, all the good deeds, right behavior, sweet countenance and sacrificial dedication in the entire WORLD can not make blasphemy into something acceptable before God.

No one claims to have anything remotely near an exhaustive knowledge of God…damn such a thought! But such an admission and acknowledgement does not excuse or justify the denial of what has been revealed!

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29 niv.

No church, organization or society can handle God and no church, organization or society can define Him. He is Holy…He is beyond us…so far beyond us that we can not fathom how far from us He actually is! Yet, in what can only be attributed to His grace…He has revealed to us all that He desires for us to know of Him. We can not even handle what He as shown us and to think that His nature is bigger than the Bible and infinitely greater than all our councils and theologians can together dream…what else can we sing other than How Great Is Our God!

The doctrine of the Trinity is at one time the very least that He could have revealed and the very most we can begin to handle. To deny this doctrine is to spit at God and to look for another, lesser god. You can not deny the Trinity and worship the God who is…because God is in three persons…the blessed Trinity!

The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. Proverbs 15:14 niv

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hun, this isn't really related to the trinity blog, but are you sure Orthodox people are saved??? When I went to Romania, that whole country is Orthodox and we were there to evangelize. I just don't know. I guess it would be more likely that you are saved if you were evangelical and converted to Orthodox than if you were just raised Orthodox....

irreverend fox said...

na...very interesting question and one that maybe I could dive into here soon...

but in short...the Eastern Orthodox "Church" does not preach the Biblical gospel...they do not teach that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. they have a doctrine called "deification" which is basically a salvation by works system.

they believe new life occurs at baptism.

the Eastern Orthodox do have some great qualities...but they do not teach salvation...they therefore teach "another gospel".

one can attend such a church but can not truly "be" Eastern Orthodox in his theology and be a Christian. you can be a Christian and attend...but you can not be a Christian and believe Eastern Orthodox theology regarding salvation.

Anonymous said...

Gary
This may of been one of you best studies...You are a great writer...

irreverend fox said...

thanks momma!

tonymyles said...

I like the spirit of your post here, Gary... you're right - some things are clear while still remaining mysterious.