Even though it is true, as the Trinity booklet points out, that the word Trinity is not to be found in the pages of Scripture, the doctrine certainly is “clearly and consistently presented” there, as was Edmund Fortman’s’ point. The Bible asserts there is but ONE God, and yet also claims that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit —all three—that ONE God! Hard to understand? Perhaps. Unbiblical, no! What people need to understand is that the Bible is not a theology book with a chapter explaining the nature of God, the nature of man, and so on. We might wish it to be so, but it is not that way. Bible scholars throughout the centuries who read the Scriptures carefully and systematically—comparing Scripture with Scripture, armed with a cultural understanding of the times in which it was written, and a knowledge of the language and grammar—have arrived at theological systems and put this information down in theology books. The Bible itself just makes certain assertions—human beings have to figure out how it fits together! Theology is the study of God or things divine. Christology is the study of Christ.
Incidentally, the WTBTS has a Christology of its own, but you would never know it by reading the Trinity booklet. They believe and teach that Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel— both before he was born as a man and again now after his resurrection. Can we find that doctrine “clearly and consistently presented” in the Bible—that Jesus is Michael? No, Michael is only mentioned a few times in the Bible, and it never claims that Michael and Jesus are the same person. In order to arrive at that conclusion, you must read the WATCHTOWER** magazine or the WTBTS’s own theology book, Insight on the Scriptures. So ineffectual and weak is their argument that you will be hard pressed to find a JW who is willing to even make an attempt to prove that Jesus is Michael using the Scriptures.
When discussing this subject of the Deity of Christ with a JW, we always insist that they also defend the WTBTS’s teaching about Jesus being Michael from the Bible. One JW elder, who only wanted to “play offense,” told me that the Watchtower Society does not teach that Jesus is Michael! Incredible! He stuck to his story until I produced the documentation (a photocopy of the Feb.1, 1994 WATCHTOWER, pg. 6) proving that they do, in fact, teach that! How can JWs demand that we prove the Deity of Christ from the Scriptures, and yet, be unable and unwilling to prove their own Christology from the Bible?
Moreover, as I have already said, the Trinity booklet informs us of all the reasons why Jesus cannot be God without even mentioning, let alone making their case, that Jesus is Michael. Why is that, do you suppose?
Do The Ante-Nicene Fathers Agree With The Watchtower Society?
The Watchtower Society dances the “two-story two-step” when it comes to the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Story #1 is employed when it seems convenient to infer that the early Fathers were the “early Christians” [13. The booklet refers to the ante-Nicene Fathers as “the early Christians” on the last page of the Trinity booklet. Keep in mind that in order to be considered a Christian, one needs to be a JW. There are no true Christians outside of the WTBTS organization. If these men were Christians, though, when and how did the Great Apostasy develop?] doctrinally with the Church of today. They need this connection to the early days— some connection, as it were, with Jesus and his Apostles—so they do not appear as just another Johnny-come-lately, nineteenth-century, anti-Christian, religious cult, which, in fact, they are. ☺ The Trinity booklet contains a fine example of Story #1 on page 7 which presents a list of Ante-Nicene Fathers and makes it appear—through linguistic sleight-of-hand—that these men, who were closer in time to Jesus and His teachings, believed pretty much as the WTBTS does today.
Story #2 comes into play when it becomes necessary to explain why the WTBTS—calling itself a Christian organization—rejects all essential Christian doctrine as understood and taught for 1900+ years. This is when the WTBTS claims that the people who came on the scene soon after the death of the Apostles (the Ante-Nicene Fathers!) apostatized from the true Christian faith—which the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society thankfully “restored” when they came on the scene in the late-nineteenth century. These Ante-Nicene apostates are to blame for the infusion of Pagan philosophy into the Church, at which point the Christian Church became “Christendom.” More on Story #2 later, right now we’ll look at their portrayal of Story #1—that the Ante-Nicene Fathers believed similarly to the WTBTS when it comes to the nature of God and Christ.
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.”[14. Should You Believe …, p.7]
Really? Justin Martyr called Jesus a created angel? Justin identifies Jesus, the Son of God, with “the Angel of the LORD” Who appeared to men in the OT times, but never refers to Him as a created being. Let’s look at Justin Martyr’s own words.
…the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin. . . [15. Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe,vol. I (1884; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.184]… but now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts. . . [16. Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. I (1884; reprint,Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.212]
Like Justin Martyr, we believe Christ appeared as the Angel of the LORD to Moses and other Old Testament saints, but also like Justin, we believe Him to be WHO He said He is—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! In fact, the “Angel of the LORD” is the person who identifies Himself by the name of YHWH in Exodus 3:1-14!
What about Irenaeus? According to the Trinity booklet:
Irenaeus…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.” [17. Should You Believe …, p.7]
Irenaeus believed that the Father is the head of Christ just as the Bible teaches, and as we also believe. But keep in mind headship does not imply superiority of nature. Women are under the headship of their husbands, but they are not inferior to them. Men and women share the nature of humanity. But as to Christ’s nature, Irenaeus believed, as we do, that Jesus Christ is God.
3. Therefore, by remitting sins, He did indeed heal man, while He also manifested Himself who He was. For if no one can forgive sins but God alone, while the Lord remitted them and healed men, it is plain that He was Himself the Word of God made the Son of man, receiving from the Father the power of remission of sins; since He was man, and since He was God, in order that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in which we were made debtors to God, our Creator. [18. Irenaeus, “Irenaeus Against Heresies,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. I (1884; reprint,Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.545]
Next, we have Clement of Alexandria as portrayed in the Trinity booklet:
Clement of Alexandria, who died about 215 C.E. called Jesus in his pre-human 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. [19. Trinity, p.7]
Did Clement consider Jesus to be unequal to the Father—a mere creature? It doesn’t seem so from what he said here:
What therefore he says, “from the beginning,” the Presbyter explained to this effect, that the beginning of generation is not separated from the beginning of the Creator. For when he says, “That which was from the beginning,” he touches upon the generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-existent with the Father. There was, then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreate. [20. Clement of Alexandria, “Fragments from Cassiodorus,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe,vol. II (1884; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.574]
Clement was making the point that Jesus—although “generated” or begotten of the Father—was generated “without beginning” and is, therefore, as eternal as the Father and not created. After misrepresenting Clement’s views, the Trinity booklet goes on to deliver the bombshell that:
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.”[21. Should You Believe …, p.7]
Oh, NO! Tertullian believed the Father and the Son are different persons? Well, duh! Trinitarians—like Tertullian and like us—believe there are different persons within the nature of the Godhead—three of them, in fact! That’s why Trinitarians happily sing the Holy, Holy, Holy hymn that concludes with “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Remember that old song? The Father is the First Person, the Son is the Second Person, and the Holy Spirit is the Third Person all of whom have the same nature. It’s hard to believe the WTBTS thinks this is such a big secret! Well, besides the shocking news that Tertullian seems to believe there is more than one person in the Godhead, what else did he have to say about the nature of God?
If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in the plural phrase, saying, “Let us make man in our image, and after our own likeness;” whereas He ought to have said, “Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness;” as being a unique and singular Being?…He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son?…Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase…[22. Tertullian, “Against Praxeas,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. III (1884; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.606]We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united. [23. Tertullian, “Apology,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTENICENEFATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. III (1884; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), pp.34-35]
This next quote by Hippolytus is the one I most love to show JWs at the kitchen table, along with a photocopy of Hippolytus’actual words, because even the most militantly obtuse JW has no choice but to recognize that Hippolytus believed the opposite of what the WTBTS claims he believed. According to the WTBTS:
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 pre-human Jesus. [24. Should You Believe …, p.7]
What Hippolytus actually said is:
God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world. And conceiving the world in mind, and willing and uttering the word, He made it; and straightway it appeared, formed as it had pleased Him…Beside Him there was nothing; but He, while existing alone, yet existed in plurality. [25. Hippolytus, “Against the Heresy of One Noetus,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. V (1884; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p.227]
God, before the creation of anything, existed in plurality! There can be no doubt that the WTBTS knows what Hippolytus actually taught and deliberately edited this out of their deceitful “quotation.” So when they close this section on the Ante-Nicene Fathers with the statement that “the testimony of the Bible and of history makes clear that the Trinity was unknown throughout Biblical times and for several centuries thereafter,” [26. Should You Believe …, p.7] they show themselves to be shameless liars.
Story #2—The Great Apostasy
Gather around, children. We’re about to hear the story about how the Christian Church became nasty old “Christendom.”
This disreputable history of the Trinity fits in with what Jesus and his apostles foretold would follow their time. They said that there would be an apostasy, a deviation, a falling away from true worship until Christ’s return, when true worship would be restored before God’s day of destruction of this system of things.[27. Should You Believe …, p.9]Throughout the ancient world, as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common…And after the death of the apostles, such pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. [28. Should You Believe …, p.11]
(Originally printed in the Fall 2003 Issue of the MCOI Journal) Should you believe in the Trinity? This is the question raised by the widely circulated, 1989 booklet published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS)*, appropriately titled Should You Believe in the Trinity?and subtitled...
adlucem.co
Don't want to derail the thread
@synergy.
