Is God a Trinity?

Jehovah's Witnesses are known for their Unitarian doctrine of God. Utterly rejecting the Trinity doctrine of the Christian Church, they insist:

'Many Christian denominations teach that God is a Trinity. However, note what the Encyclopædia Britannica states: “Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament. . .The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies.” In fact, the God of the Bible is never described as being part of a Trinity.'

We begin with a point I never tire of making, and that I made in my last post. I think of the generations of theologians, teachers, and leaders who have studied such things in great depth. Does the Watch Tower Society, which discourages further and higher education in favour of door-knocking, think it knows better?

This no more true than when it comes to the nature of God. Do Jehovah’s Witnesses think the answer to this question is there to be had by anyone who cracks open a Bible and takes its ‘plain meaning?’ Let’s see…

In the Name…

Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples, ‘baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…’ (Mt.28:19)

Peter, standing before the council of rulers, elders, and scribes, declared, ‘This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:11,12)

‘Name’ in these texts, ὄνομα onoma, means a given name. Jesus doesn’t say ‘names’ but uses the singular ‘name.’ Following Jesus’ clear teaching, Peter uses the singular ‘name’ rather than names. This is a Trinity reference as all three members of the godhead have the one name. It is an indication of Jesus’ deity. It is sometimes argued that ‘name’ means authority, but the primary meaning of onoma indicates a personal name.

When Jesus speaks ‘as one having authority’ (Mt.7:29) he clearly says, ‘...you have heard that it was said...but I say to you…’ (Mt.5) All the prophets spoke what they heard from God, the apostles spoke what they heard from Jesus, but Jesus spoke in his own name. We are baptised in the name of the three, there is no other name by which we are saved, and Jesus used that name as his own.

In John 3:16 Jesus is typically described in our Bibles as the ‘Only Begotten Son’ (KJV), ‘only Son’ (ESV), ‘only-begotten Son’ (NWT). This has rather muddied the water and opened the door for the cults to claim either Jesus is a son in the human sense and so can’t the God he is the son of, or Jesus is one god among many. Islam, of course makes something of this, insisting ‘God cannot have a son’ and this is not wrong. The Greek μονογενής monogenēs is better translated ‘one of a kind, unique.’ God is the kind, the Bible tells us there is no other God (Is.44:6-8), and that Jesus is that kind (Jn. 3:16). Paul goes so far as to tells us that in Christ, ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…’ (Col.2:9)

John, in his gospel, describes Jesus as making his dwelling among us (Jn.1:14). The Greek σκηνόω skēnoō better translates as ‘pitched his tent among us’ or, ‘tabernacled among us,’ which takes us back to Exodus when God literally ‘pitched his tent,’ or, ‘tabernacled’ among his called out people. Jesus is God come to call out a people ‘from every nation, tribe, and tongue,’ (Rev.7:9, cf Gal.3:28) so he may dwell among them (Jn.14:23).

Trinity

The early church and its leaders held councils to address the challenge of heresies, the first we have a record of being the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Here they tackled the challenge of those who would take Christian believers back to the law. The deity of Jesus was an established doctrine long before the much misrepresented Council of Nicea, which was convened to defend that established doctrine; not to make Jesus God but to defend the doctrine that he is God. If you want to give some time to better understanding these issues you would profit from the teaching of Dr. Michael Heiser on the early doctrine of the Trinity.

It was the Carthaginian lawyer Tertullian (155-220AD), who converted to Christianity at age 35, first used the Latin word Trinity (trinitas). at a time when Latin was overtaking Greek as the language of the empire. He is remembered as the father of Latin Christianity, also famous for giving us the terms Old Testament (vetus testamentum) and New Testament (novum testamentum).

‘Be confirmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the Apostles, in order that in everything you do, you may prosper in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spirit.’ Ignatius of Antioch 110 AD

‘It is inescapable that this [man] is the Christ of God...that He pre-existed as the Son of the Creator of all things, being God, and that He was born a man by the Virgin.’ Justin Martyr, (100 to 165 AD)

‘Being God and likewise perfect man, He (Christ) gave positive indications of His two natures: Of His deity, by the miracles during the three years following after His Baptism; of His humanity, in the thirty years which came before His Baptism, during which, by reason of His condition according to the flesh, He concealed the signs of His deity, although He was the true God existing before the ages.’ Melito of Sardes 177 AD

‘The Son of God is the Word of the Father, in thought and in actuality. By Him and through Him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. Since the Son is IN the Father and the Father is IN the Son by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Mind and Word of the Father is the Son of God. And if, in your exceedingly great wisdom, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by 'the Son', I will tell you briefly: He is the First-begotten of the Father, not as having been produced -- for from the beginning God had the Word in Himself... Who, then, would not be astonished to hear those called atheists, who speak of God the Father and of God the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and who proclaim their power in union and their distinction in order.’ Athenagoras of Athens 180 AD

‘The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning - for He was in God - and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man.’ Clement of Alexandria (about150 to 216 AD)

‘For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages.... It seems right to inquire into the reason why he who is 'born again through God' to salvation has need of both Father and Son and Holy Spirit and will not obtain salvation apart from the entire Trinity, and why it is impossible to become partaker of the Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit. In discussing these points it will undoubtedly be necessary to describe the activity which is peculiar to the Holy Spirit and that which is peculiar to the Father and Son.’ Origen (c 225 AD)

Tertullian used ‘Trinity’, not to describe a novel doctrine but, in the spirit of those early church councils, to reinforce an accepted teaching. He encapsulated for the ordinary believer in this one word the established doctrine of the church. Tertullian was an early Christian apologist who went on to write the earliest and most extensive defence of the post apostolic faith of the early church. His work is found in the collection of the writings of the Patrologia Latina, the Early Church Fathers