Why Understanding The Trinity Is Important

Please turn in your Bibles to First John 4:1.

Why is it important to understand the doctrine of the Trinity?

We must understand the doctrine of the Trinity in order to have a mature relationship with God.

Our understanding of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ will be determined by our view of the Trinity.

We will be inaccurate in our view as to how to live the Christian life if we do not have an accurate understanding of God the Holy Spirit’s role in the plan of God.

We will be inaccurate when praying if we don’t understand the role of each member of the Trinity.

We are not able to worship God accurately and are not able to be spiritual if we don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

God’s plan demands accuracy in our doctrine.

For example: Only one member of the Trinity became a human being and died on the cross for us, the Son (John 1:14).

There is only one person of the Trinity who we are to believe on in order to be saved, Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity(John 14:6; Acts 4:12)..

There is only one person of the Trinity we are to pray to, which is the first person of the Trinity, God the Father (Matthew 6:6; Luke 11:1-4; John 14:13-14; 16:23-27; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 2:18; 3:14; 5:20; Col 1:3, 12; 3:17; 1 Peter 1:17; Revelation 1:6).

There is only one person of the Trinity who provides us with the power to live the Christian life, namely, the third member of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:1-11; Galatians 5:16-23).

It is critical for the Christian to understand the doctrine of the Trinity in order to protect them from false doctrine.

The apostle John instructs Christians to reject false doctrine.

1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (NASB95)

In this text, John is attempting to protect his readers from false teaching and presents them a test in which they can identify false teaching.

By means of the indwelling Spirit, they can determine if a certain teaching is from God the Father or not.

If someone confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, the teaching is from God the Father and if not, they are not from God the Father.

There are several major heresies with regards to the doctrine of the Trinity that have plagued the church throughout the centuries.

There is “modalism,” which does not view Father, Son and Spirit as three particular “persons in relation” but merely as three modes or manifestations of the one divine person of God. Thus God comes in salvation history as Father to create and give the law, as Son to redeem and as Spirit to impart grace.[1]

Robert Letham writes that modalism is “the blurring or erasing of the real, eternal, and irreducible distinctions among the three persons of the Trinity. This danger can arise when the unity of God, or the identity in being of the three persons, is overstressed at the expense of the personal distinctions. It can also surface where there is a pervasive stress on salvation history, so as to eliminate any reference to eternal realities. When that is so, God’s self-revelation in human history as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is no longer held to reveal who he is eternally in himself.”[2]

He describes also in another way, “Modalism is the idea that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are merely ways God revealed Himself and do not represent eternal antecedent personal realities in God Himself. They are temporary appearances, like an actor assuming different roles at different times. The problem with this, of course, is that if it were so, we would have no genuine knowledge of God, for He would be something in Himself other than that what He has revealed Himself to be.”[3]

There is another heresy that has plagued the church throughout the centuries when it comes to the subject of the Trinity, namely “tritheism,” which is the belief that there are three gods.

Having a good understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity will protect the Christian from this false doctrine.

Tritheism is the belief that the Trinity is not one God but three and is a distorted believe in three different Gods-Father, Son and Spirit rather than one God who is unified and yet diversely three persons.

It can arise if the persons of the Trinity are regarded as substantial beings in their own right, sharing a common divinity only in the sense that people share a common humanity.

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (NASB95)

Another false doctrine which has plagued the church throughout the centuries is “subordinationism,” which is a heresy that originated in the second and third century.

It contended that the Son and the Spirit proceed from the Father, but they are not equal to the Father and are thus not fully divine.

Another important reason for understanding the doctrine of the Trinity is that it will protect one from the cults.

Many groups which call themselves “Christian” do not subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity and in fact reject it.

Carl Trueman commenting on the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity has the following comment, he writes “So what is the immediate importance of the doctrine of the Trinity for believers today? I would suggest at least a twofold importance. First, we need to be very clear that what is at stake in the doctrine of the Trinity is the very identity of God. Christians do not worship a God who is merely an example of deity in general. He is the very specific, particular God who is both three and one. This is especially significant in the context of the modern pluralist societies in which we live. For example, many Christian might find themselves faced with the question of whether the God of the Koran is the God of the Bible. After all, they seem to have some things in common (both are sovereign creators, for example). A clear grasp of the doctrine of the Trinity precludes a positive answer to this question: if Allah is not the one who is three and the three who are one, then he is not true God in any real sense. Thus, at a basic level, a grasp of this doctrine reminds us that the God of the Bible is utterly unique and different than other religious conceptions of god, even other monotheistic viewpoints. Second, the doctrine should shape the way in which we worship. If God is a very particular God, and in Christ has set forth a very particular way of salvation, then our response of worship should, in turn, be very particular and take full account of God as Trinity.[4]

The doctrine of the Trinity is extremely important and essential to know because it explains who the Lord Jesus Christ is and also assures us that God is personal, which stands in stark contrast to the monotheism of Islam.

Without the Trinity, we cannot truly know God and He cannot be revealed.

The Son reveals the Father and the Spirit the Son.

The Trinity is critical for a proper understanding of redemption.

The Father planned the redemption of sinful mankind and the Son accomplished this plan while the Spirit appropriates the benefits of the Son’s work on the Cross for the sinner who exercises faith in the Son.

[1] Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling, C. F. (1999). Pocket dictionary of theological terms (79). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

[2] The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology and Worship; page 500; P & R Publishing, 2004

[3] Ibid. 409

[4] . Vol. 10: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology Volume 10. 2006 (1) (96). Louisville, KY: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.