The Forgotten Trinity Read Free Page A

consciousness the
thoughts and affections that relate to the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, and there is no Christian consciousness left. The Trinity is the constitutive idea of the evangelical theology, and the formative idea of the evangelical experience. The immensity of the
doctrine makes it of necessity a mystery; but a mystery which like
night enfolds in its unfathomed depths the bright stars-points of
light, compared with which there is no light so keen and so glittering. Mysterious as it is, the Trinity of Divine Revelation is the
doctrine that holds in it all the hope of man; for it holds within it
the infinite pity of the Incarnation and the infinite mercy of the
Redemption.
    And it shares its mysteriousness with the doctrine of the Divine
Eternity. It is difficult to say which is most baffling to human comprehension, the all-comprehending, simultaneous, successionless
consciousness of the Infinite One, or his trinal personality. Yet no
theist rejects the doctrine of the Divine Eternity because of its mystery. The two doctrines are antithetic and correlative. On one of
the Northern rivers that flows through a narrow chasm whose
depth no plummet has sounded, there stand two cliffs fronting
each other, shooting their pinnacles into the blue ether, and sending their roots down to the foundations of the earth. They have
named them Trinity and Eternity. So stand, antithetic and confronting, in the Christian scheme, the trinity and eternity of God.'
    One attitude of the heart struggles against an eternal God, desiring
to make Him "more like us." But a godly attitude, the attitude that is
imparted by the Spirit of God, bows in humble reverence, and instead of struggling, it embraces in love the God who is beyond all comprehension. Such an attitude cannot be forced on anyone. It takes a miracle for the naturally hostile4 soul to be made willing to love God and
seek His face. That miracle is the work of regeneration, of causing one
to be "born from above,"5 made "a new creature."6 Hence, such truths
as the eternality of God, and His Triune nature, are doctrines for Christians, in the sense that to truly love, accept, and hunger for these
things, the miracle of salvation must take place.

    The more exhaustive our knowledge of God's revelation, the deeper
our love for Him will be. So we must delve into God's revelation, "put
our waders on," so to speak, and explore the Scriptures so that we can
properly understand the pinnacle of God's revelation about himself the
Trinity.
    A BRIEF WORD ABOUT THE FORMAT
    I wish to bring my love for the Trinity into the hearts of many of
my fellow believers. As a result, I have done my best to avoid the temptation that comes from having defended this great truth against those
who deny it: to attempt to be exhaustive at every point. Anyone who
has spent a great deal of time "debating" with someone who denies the
Trinity knows how one must, at times, get very, very particular in responding to certain arguments and points. But since I am not writing
specifically for those who don't believe, but for those who do, I have
tried to be brief, concise, and direct. There are many passages of Scripture I could have presented, objections I could have addressed, but I
did not. My reason was simply to make sure that the final result was
readily available to the widest possible audience.

     



The single greatest reason people struggle with the doctrine of
the Trinity is miscommunication. It is very rare that anyone actually
argues or debates about the real doctrine of the Trinity. Most arguments that take place at the door, or over coffee, or at the workplace
involve two or more people fighting vigorously over two or more misrepresentations of the doctrine itself. It is no wonder so many encounters create far more heat than they do light.
    It is basic to human communication to define terms. Yet so many
people have so much emotional energy invested in the Trinity