Reform, as a grass roots movement, envisages action coming from members who have thought, studied, discussed and agreed. Discussion papers such as this one are written by individual members for the council of Reform and the wider church. The author alone is responsible for the paper. This paper may be copied freely.
Foreword - Rod Thomas, Chairman of Reform
From time to time Reform is criticised for affording primary significance to apparently secondary issues. We are sometimes seen as concentrating undue attention on the issue of women’s ministry in the church which ultimately, so it is claimed, is just a matter of church order. At other times we are told we are making too much of current disputes over human sexuality, since our reading of Scripture is only one possible approach. We are often urged, even from those who call themselves ‘evangelical,’ to focus our efforts not on these ‘secondary’ issues, but on the primary issue of getting the gospel heard. Yet as Angus MacLeay shows in this clear and readable booklet, behind these apparently ‘secondary’ issues lies one of the greatest importance: our biblical understanding of the triune God.
All Christians are called not only to share the gospel with others but also to defend it. If we allow the gospel to be watered down then we have nothing of value to share. Paul spoke of this danger when he described his ministry as that of preaching the gospel “not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.’ (1 Corinthians 1:17). Our belief in God as Trinity is crucial to an understanding of the gospel. Unless the Father and the Son are seen as united in the Godhead, then Christ’s death on the cross cannot be seen as an act of supreme love by the Father. Yet it is adherence to this very doctrine that is so often undermined by disputes that appear to be secondary.
My hope is that this booklet will continue to encourage Bible believing Christians to stand firm on current controversies, since it helps us to see how these relate to the defence of the gospel. My hope too is that it will explain to others who are mystified by our commitment, just what is at stake.
Fractured Foundations.
The urgent need to recover our doctrine of the Trinity.
By Angus MacLeay
(Talk delivered by Revd. Angus MacLeay, Rector St. Nicholas Sevenoaks at the Reform Conference 16th October 2007)
I am based in Sevenoaks and 16th October is a very special day for the people of Sevenoaks because 20 years ago it became “one oak”. On the previous day Michael Fish, the weather forecaster, was reputed to have said to a lady that there would not be a hurricane. What happened is now remembered as the Great Storm and as some of the older members of our church family remind me it was the worst since 1703.
I wonder if there is a parable in what occurred because, as Michael Fish has made pains to point out, the hurricane that he was referring to was actually somewhere in Florida. Yet despite his assurances, we were engulfed in an enormous storm with great consequences, certainly in the south east. In a similar way some people are telling us not to be over-troubled by what is happening in the United States of America and Canada where the Episcopal churches certainly seem to be gripped by a hurricane. Nevertheless we are also increasingly being engulfed by a very severe storm.
Many people look at this storm and see it simply as a skirmish over the homosexuality issue and the media often portray it in this way. Others recognise that though this is one of the presenting issues the far deeper problem relates to the Bible and concerns its authority, interpretation, relevance and application. All that is true and it is important that we keep working away at the Scriptures in order to discover and re-discover the truth of God’s word to every situation including the issues already mentioned. Yet underneath there may well be another major issue that we need to consider.
Years ago in 1956, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was in discussions with the British Council of Churches, a liberal body, following the successful Billy Graham campaigns. They discussed whether they might be able to work together. It was said to Martyn Lloyd-Jones, that the only point of difference between them was their differing view of the Scriptures. Therefore, he was asked to explain his views on the Bible to see if in fact it would be possible to find any agreement. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ replied: “I don’t think we agree about any of the cardinal doctrines, so if we are going to discuss things I would end with the scriptures”. A few months later Martyn Lloyd-Jones was asked to present a paper and he decided to speak on the character of God. Having delivered this paper it says in his biography “Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ words were met with polite but almost universal opposition”. The reason for this was that the thing that underlay their differences about the scriptures was a difference about the character of God.
In a similar way underneath our differences about how the scriptures should be interpreted is a fundamental divide. In our own generation my view is that there is a full scale attack on the doctrine of God. Now we should not be surprised about this. Paul states:” for although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over to sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Romans 1:21-24). That passage reminds us that immorality flows from idolatry and a false view of God. That is exactly what is happening in our day. The problem underlying current issues of immorality concerns our doctrine of God.
As we develop this theme it is worth being aware that, within Reform we have been involved in various campaigns over the years. These include concerns about the liberal drift within our denomination, penal substitution, the multi-faith agenda, concerns about women in the Episcopate and gay issues. These may seem quite disparate as they relate to ethics, church order, salvation, mission and theology. However I am persuaded and I hope to persuade you, that there is a common unifying theme. Each of these disparate issues has arisen because of challenges to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The problems we face and will continue to face are because the foundations of this Christian view of the Godhead have been fractured. We will look at this thesis under five headings and as we proceed I will share from some of my reading over the last year.
1. The Trinity and Revelation
Our first issue relates to the Trinity and revelation – who is God and how do we know Him. Within the wider church, my own observation from places like General Synod is that slowly but surely the vocabulary of faith is changing. There are hymns which have no reference to Father or Son whatsoever. Often there is simply a reference to “God” and that is all. A defining moment in my own thinking about this subject concerns an interview that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave on Radio 4 on 31st October last year. John Humphrys met with three faith leaders and said on air, “I’m inviting them one at a time to convert me” – what an invitation! I need to say that if ever I was in that situation sitting opposite John Humphrys I think that I would probably be completely tongue tied, stammering and incoherent. Anyway, in response to this desire of John Humphrys to be converted, we have over 10 pages of transcript from the interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury and there is only one reference to “Jesus”. That reference is actually a fairly obscure one. He speaks of the time when Jesus went to his home town and he failed to heal anybody. That is the one reference to the Lord Jesus Christ though “God” is mentioned all the time. Yet if John Humphrys asked you how he could know God surely you would have automatically had in the back of your mind texts such as John 14:6 “I am the way the truth and the life, no-one comes to the Father but by me”. Surely you would have wanted to mention the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. Surely that is the way that we have access to the Father so that we can get to know God. But page after page, that is missing. Indeed we are given such quotations as this: “God isn’t a person alongside other persons, a reality alongside other realities. There is someone on the other side of the room watching. God is the agency that’s at work in everything”. I would suggest that what is happening here is of great concern to all of us because the foundations are slowly but surely being chipped away. Enlightenment rationalism leaves us with ‘God’ but with no Trinity. Fitzsimmons Allison in The Cruelty of Heresy states “Liberal theologians have tended until recently to be doing the adoptionist thing all over again and in some cases without even admitting a delegated divinity for Jesus. They have been marked by a candour in print and pulpit concerning what they do not believe – a candour not matched by their actions which would mean leaving their avowedly Trinitarian denominations and becoming honest Unitarians”. It is not just an outcome of enlightenment rationalism; it is also the product of post-modern mysticism that focuses on ‘the Spirit’ without any engagement with the Trinity. So whether it is enlightenment rationalism or post modern mysticism, no place is found for the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. We must hold on to the Trinity. We approach the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit and when we come to this God we find not some lonely agency at work but the warmth of eternal relationships.
2. The Trinity and Salvation
Moving on from how we know God, we turn to the Trinity and salvation and the issue of how we are saved. Within the wider church and also within the Church of England the doctrine of penal substitution has been challenged. These are the words written by Steve Chalke: “The fact is that the Cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse, a vengeful father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably both people inside and outside of the church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that however is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement “God is love”. If the cross is a personal act of violence, perpetrated by God towards mankind but borne by his Son then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and refuse to repay evil with evil. The truth is the Cross is a symbol of love”. Now we might well have our differences but we might well wonder what this has to do with the Trinity. After all Steve Chalke mentions both Father and Son within that passage.
In reply Tim Chester in Delighting in the Trinity comments: “the main problem with this view of substitutionary atonement is that it assumes a view of the Cross that is not truly Trinitarian. It assumes the Father and Son are separate individuals. It is indeed unfair for one individual to punish another for crimes he has not committed but the Son is not another individual. The divine Father and Son are one - sharing one will, sharing one love, sharing one being… a trinitarian view of the cross prevents us thinking that an unwilling Father is placated by the Son or that an unwilling Son is victimised by the Father. Father and Son have one will and one love. They eternally determined together to save a people through the death of the Son on our behalf. And they share one being. God does not punish another. He punishes himself.”
He continues: “This relationship between the atonement and the Trinity operates in both directions. The Trinity is the foundation of the atonement and the atonement is the ultimate revelation of God’s trinitarian character. An exclusive emphasis on the exemplary view of the atonement has tended to go hand in hand with scepticism towards the Trinity and the divinity of Christ as well as towards the wrath of God, original sin and the uniqueness of Christ. Once you abandon a trinitarian understanding of Christ it is difficult to make sense of the cross except as an ideal to which we should aspire or an example of the transforming power of self-giving love.” It highlights once again that it is fractures within the foundation of our doctrine of the Trinity that have led to these sorts of views being propagated.
Another quotation from The Cruelty of Heresy reminds us that “textbooks on doctrine inadvertently mislead us when they put ‘unitarianism’ under the category of doctrines about God and the Trinity. Although this is academically correct, the human factor so frequently overlooked is that unitarianism does not begin with someone scratching their head about three in one or one in three. Historically, it began not with the doctrine of God but with the doctrine of human nature. When human nature is regarded as sufficient to fulfil God’s law by its willpower all one needs is to be given the law and the example of Jesus and exhorted to obey and follow. The Trinity becomes irrelevant. This approach squeezes out of the doctrine of the atonement all substance except the exemplary theme which becomes a law we must follow – be like Jesus. This leads inevitably to an Adoptionist Christology and to a unitarian deity”. Now those words were penned long before the current furore over Steve Chalke’s position arose. Yet they are absolutely on target. The problem has occurred at the foundational level within our theology before surfacing in terms of the doctrine of the cross. In a very helpful book by Jeffrey, Ovey & Sach Pierced for our Transgressions there is much more on this and they have included a section which reminds us of the importance of a fully trinitarian view of the Godhead as the foundation for our view of the cross.
3. The Trinity and Mission
We now come to the Trinity and mission and the issue of who needs to hear the gospel. Within the wider church there has been much confusion in this area especially due to the rise of Islam. The following extracts are from a book written by a member of our church family in Sevenoaks, Philip James, entitled The Children of Abraham. He says “Here’s a quotation from one popular contemporary theologian, [the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP], ‘It is time the West confronted its ignorance of Islam. Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham. This is the moment to bring the faiths closer together in understanding of our common values and heritage’”. Or as another well-known theologian His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales affirms, “we share as Muslims and Christians a powerful core of spiritual belief in one divine God”. Again, “Muslims believe in one God, the same God who is worshipped by Jews and Christians”.
These are not people who are noted for being leaders of the church community, but we see the popular misunderstanding that the God who Abraham believed in is the same God who Jews believe in or Muslims believe in. Once again it goes back, very obviously, to the doctrine of the Trinity. We need to remind ourselves of the way in which the Trinity is present throughout the Old Testament. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are present in Genesis 1 when we read that God says “Let us make man in our image”. Colossians 1:15-17 speaks of the Son being present at creation, “all things were made by Him and for Him”. When we read of the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters of creation in Genesis 1:2, we see that the Spirit was also there at creation. And time after time we see in the Old Testament that in many references we see the Lord Jesus Christ. For example in Genesis 15 we read that the word of the LORD appeared to Abraham and spoke to him. Then the word of the LORD took him outside and showed him the stars in the sky and we see there a picture of the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. Think again of Isaiah in the temple with his great vision of the Lord of hosts in all his glory and yet in John 12: 41 it says, “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him”. The Trinity is already there within the Old Testament.
Later James states, “We started this book by noting the popularity of the view that people from different faiths are all ‘children of Abraham’…. Even within the Christian church, there are those who hold to the belief that the Muslim, the Jew and Christian worship the same “god”. We suggested that such a view seriously compomises the Church’s ability and desire to be a witness to the Lord Jesus Christ within the world since it reduces him to being merely an add-on to the ultimate divine being who is commonly worshipped by all the major faiths. We noted too that whilst others in the Church would be concerned about any suggestion that they shared a common object of faith with Muslims and Jews, they were somewhat unclear about the identity of the God of Abraham. They appear to believe that Abraham worshipped a unitarian “God” known apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, as opposed to the Trinitarian God known only through Christ who is the object of the Christian Church’s faith today. This view also places some constraint on the Church’s evangelistic ability since it is difficult to testify that there is one true God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit - whilst also effectively believing that two different “Gods” exist within the Bible”.
He also takes us back to Justin Martyr who said, “Whenever God says ‘God went up from Abraham’ or ‘The Lord spake to Moses’ and ‘The Lord came down to behold the tower’ or when ‘God shut Noah into the ark’, you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place…. Neither Abraham, nor Isaac nor Jacob nor any other man, saw the Father and ineffable Lord of all… but saw him who was according to His will, His Son, being God, and the angel because He ministered to His will.” Or consider the words of Calvin “The holy men of old knew God only by beholding Him in His Son as in a mirror. When I say this, I mean that God has never manifested Himself to men in any other way than through the Son, that is, His sole wisdom, light and truth. From this fountain Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others drank all that they had…” It is important for us to be clear on this issue for the sake of our evangelism and clear for the sake of building up people in the knowledge of the truth.
I came across an article recently in The Briefing. David Jackman is being interviewed about preaching and he says: “And of course recognise that Yahweh is trinitarian and that Christ is in the text all the time. In England sometimes the guys say to me, ‘How do I get to Jesus in this text?’ But once you begin to see that the revelation of the triune God is there in the Old Testament as much as it is in the New [Testament], you are there with Jesus and the fulfilment of the gospel.” He ends by saying “we need to draw those lines so that people see the whole revelation of Scripture”. Now of course it is right and appropriate for us to help people to see how the Old Testament builds progressively and points forward to the fullness of revelation in our Lord Jesus in the New Testament. But what David Jackman is saying is very important. We do need to see how the text points towards that full revelation in the New Testament, but we must not think that Jesus is absent from the Godhead in the Old Testament. Here we have yet another area where it’s through our faulty thinking at the foundational level of the Trinity that we get ourselves into difficulties, which are then picked up by the world around us.
4. The Trinity and Ministry
The issue here relates especially to women in the presbyterate and in the episcopate. Many argue that appointments to such positions are a matter of justice, equality and gifting. As a result it is argued that there cannot be submission within equal relationships. Texts are argued over but again at a deep level it is the Trinity that is at stake. The equality and differences between men and women reflect the equality and the differences within the Godhead, within the Trinity. The Trinity models both authority and submission, love and sacrificial service and so if we choose a different model for our human relationships we will reflect back on the Trinity something that is actually untrue. Grudem interacts with this in his book Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth in a section entitled The Equality and Differences between Men and Women Reflect the Equality and Differences in the Trinity. He states: “the idea of headship and submission existed before creation. It began in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity. The Father has eternally had a leadership role, an authority to initiate and direct that the Son does not have…. The idea of headship and submission never began. It has always existed in the eternal nature of God Himself. And in this most basic of all authority relationships, authority is not based on gifts or ability, (for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal in attributes and perfections). It is just there. Authority belongs to the Father, not because He is wiser or because He is a more skilful leader, but just because He is the Father”.
We recognise that the Father and Son are equal and that they are one. Yet their roles are not mutually interchangeable. There is order within the relations of the Trinity that models the ordering both of Christian marriage and also of Christian ministry. Once again it is a misunderstanding of the Trinity that is the root cause of many of these issues.
5. The Trinity and Sexuality
Finally we come to the Trinity and sexuality. The issue of gay rights is an issue, we are told, of justice and of equality. Surely this cannot be linked to the Trinity. But again, we look more closely at what we are told at the very beginning: “Then God said let us make man in our image in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). In the next verse we read, “So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them”. So men and women are each individually made in the image of God but it is also true to say that it is male and female together that are created in his image. Therefore one of the truest reflections of the one triune God in his relationships within the Trinity is reflected in male and female becoming one, which reflects those ordered relationships of love and mutuality within the Trinity, the triune Godhead himself. Our doctrine of marriage is to be based in creation on the Trinity. If we lose hold of the doctrine of the Trinity eventually we will lose all that is distinctive within our Christian doctrine of marriage. It is not male and male together that will reflect that image of God but specifically male and female together that will reflect those triune relationships.
Conclusion
As we draw to a close we recognise that the Trinity is anything but an irrelevant doctrine. Neglect it and everything collapses. We have considered five areas - epistemology, soteriology, missiology, ecclesiology and anthropology and we have seen that all of those flow from a proper Biblical theology of the Godhead. When the Biblical theology of the Trinity has been lost then we will not be surprised when God becomes unknowable, remote and impersonal. We will not be surprised when the Cross becomes merely a moral example, a symbol of love. We will not be surprised when all impetus for mission is lost in a multi-faith society. We will not be surprised when ordained ministry reflects the world’s values rather than being modelled on the Godhead. And we will not be surprised when the character and significance of Christian marriage is threatened. But surely we all believe in the Trinity. Of course we do, or do we?
For my last major quotation I refer to David Well’s book God in the Wasteland a follow on from No Place for Truth. “It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal, but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life…. [And] when God becomes weightless as I believe he is so often today, we lose the doctrinal signals that might otherwise warn us that some profound change has taken place - the sorts of signals that once warned us of the threat of heresy. Too often in Our Time there is only peace and quiet. The traditional doctrine of God remains entirely intact whilst its saliency vanishes. The doctrine is believed, defended and affirmed liturgically and in every other way held to be absolutely inviolable but it no longer has the power to shape and to summon that it has had in previous ages…. God has not disappeared in the sense that he has been abducted or overwhelmed. He is not like a child snatched away while its parents were momentarily distracted. No, God is more like a child that has been abandoned within a family, still accorded a place in the house, but not in the home. Because the doctrine is professed, perhaps even routinely in creed or confession, it seems as if all is well. But it is like a house that gives no outward signs of decay even though termites have rendered it structurally unsound” - fractured foundations! And he continues by saying “The consequence of all of this is that what was once transcendent in the doctrine of God has either faded or been relocated to the category of immanent, and then this diminished God has been further reinterpreted to accommodate modern needs. These alterations have drastically changed the whole meaning of Christian faith. They have affected the way we view God in relation to our selves, to life, and to history. They affect the way we think of his love, his goodness, his saving intentions, what his salvation means, how he reveals himself, how his revelation is received, why Christ was incarnate, and what significance this has for other religions. All of this and much more follows the moment that the formal categories of transcendence and immanence within the traditional doctrine of God are unsettled.”
David Wells wrote that over ten years ago in the North American situation. But he describes exactly the situation that I have been trying to paint for us in these five different areas that Reform has been campaigning about over the last 15 years. The doctrine of the Trinity is right at the foundation. I must admit that when I first saw Reform’s Covenant I thought that some of the things set out did not need saying. It said, “specifically we lay emphasis on the following; 1. The triune personhood of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. Yet it is exactly what needs to be said if this analysis is in any way correct.
So what do we do? We go back to the scriptures. I have been studying 1 Peter over the last year. It is written to those who are exiled. They are scattered, marginalised and facing persecution and opposition. What is it that they need above all? Peter starts by introducing himself and having identified his recipients the first thing that he wants to tell them concerns the Trinity. In 1 Peter 1:2 he speaks of those who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father because that is the thing that will give them ultimate security as they face persecution and opposition in knowing that God the Father has planned their salvation through the sacrifice of the lamb, planned from before the beginning of the world and that he is the one who is overseeing all things. Further they are told of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. And what is this for? It is to lead to obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. Peter uses the doctrine of the Trinity to give assurance and to provide encouragement in order to leave his recipients right at the very beginning of his epistle kneeling in obedience at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. His great desire is to enable these battered believers to live and work so that they will bring glory to our Lord Jesus Christ in all that they do. But he starts with the Trinity. That is the secure foundation. Therefore we are to be those in our generation who are prepared to work again at this tremendous doctrine from which all the other doctrines flow. We are to be those who are to use our minds, our hearts and everything that we have to focus on working out afresh what this doctrine means in every part of our lives. And we are to be those once again who are set on fire with a greater passion for God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bibliography
C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Cruelty of Heresy, SPCK, 1994.
Tim Chester, Delighting in the Trinity, Monarch, 2005.
Philip James, The Children of Abraham, Verité, West
Sussex, 2007
Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, IVP, 2005.
David Wells, God in the Wasteland, IVP, 1994