Review Archives

2007-1503
2007-1503-24
JANUARY 23, 2007

Experiencing the Trinity

rom 1963 to 1967 I served as pastor of a multi-church district in British Columbia,
Canada, which included Prince George. Grace Dowy, a senior citizen of the Prince George
church, reminded me frequently: “The Adventist pioneers did not believe in the Trinity.”
 
During the 1960s at an alumni weekend at Paci c Union College, W. R. French, a retired
college religion teacher, was asked to present a short devotional for vespers. He took the
occasion to present a one and a half-hour attack on the doctrine of the Trinity.1
 
Two or three years ago when I exited church from the Sabbath worship service, I found on the
windshield of my car a pamphlet that had as its primary objective to demonstrate that the
Trinity is not believable.
 
Let’s try to get our minds in gear by raising a few questions. Is the word “Trinity” in the
Bible? The answer is a clear “No.” But there is a deeper question: Is the idea of the Trinity
biblical? We will do more thinking about that in what follows. Is the Trinity a mystery? I see it
as a mystery, but not an absurdity. Is the Trinity important? Well, if whom we worship is
important, then the Trinity is worthy of our most careful attention.
 
The rest of this study falls under three heads:
 
The Trinity Means Three Persons
The pre x “tri” signi es three. We are acquainted with the words “trio,” “triangle,”
“tricycle,” “triplets”—three musicians, a three-angled gure, a three-wheeled vehicle,
three o spring born at the same time.
 
In the rst chapter of the Bible is a statement that should startle us, but familiarity has bred
inattention. We would expect to read: “Then God said, ‘Let me make man in my image, in my
likeness’” (Gen. 1:26). Here in the earliest thoughts of Holy Scripture we have a hint of
plurality in divinity. A careful perusal of other Old Testament passages will give us more
suggestions of plurality in deity, but it is in the unfolding of salvation history in New
Testament times that the picture of three persons becomes more lucid.
 
Imagine yourself at the Jordan River just as John the Baptist has immersed Jesus. “As soon as
Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven
said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16, 17).
 
Today in the Christian world there are millions of Oneness
Pentecostal people who hold that God is one person who
was the Father during the Old Testament era, the Son
during the Incarnation, and the Holy Spirit subsequent to
the Incarnation. In other words, God is a single person
who has existed in three di erent modes in a time
sequence.
 
However, the baptismal scene when Jesus was baptized is
crystal clear that the three Persons of the Trinity were all
involved contemporaneously on that occasion. Jesus the
Son was immersed in the water; the Spirit descended on
Him in the form of a dove; the Father spoke audibly from
the sky. No wonder that Augustine of Hippo is on record as
saying, “Go to the Jordan and you will see the Trinity.”
 
Sometimes we struggle with the personality of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we have a tendency to
think of this entity more as an in uence, because He is without hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose,
or mouth.
 
Decades ago I remember being in a Bible course in college when a passage from Acts
convinced me of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The narrative records that Ananias and his
wife, Sapphira, sold a piece of property, pledged to give the entire proceeds to the Lord’s
work, and then privately decided to withhold a portion of the money. When Ananias appeared
before the apostles, Peter said, “‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so lled your heart that you
have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the
land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at
your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to
God’” (Acts 5:3, 4).
 
One cannot tell untruths to an in uence. One can lie only to an entity or entities with mental
capacity and personality. Ananias had prevaricated to a person, God the Holy Spirit.
 
Arius (d. 336) was a theologian in the early Christian church who taught that “there was a
time when the Son was not.” Early Seventh-day Adventist pioneers such as Joseph Bates and
James White held a similar concept. In fact, from 1844 to 1890, very few Adventists believed in
the eternity of the Son. Many have argued for the Father preceding the Son in time because
biologically in life that is all we know.
 
However, it is interesting to note that in biblical passages the word “son” is employed
frequently to describe character rather than biology. Here is a simple example: “Joseph, a
Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of
Encouragement), sold a eld he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostle’s
feet” (Acts 4:36, 37). Barnabas was a “Son of Encouragement” because of his generous
character in giving to help others in the apostolic church.
 
The Trinity Means Three Eternal Persons
Of the documents that compose the New Testament the Gospel of John especially focuses on
the divinity of Jesus. Hear again the rst sentence: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The rst statement stands in contrast
to John 1:14: “The Word became esh [emphasis supplied].” At a point in time the Word
became human, was born into our race. But before that, in the beginning, He always was in
existence with God the Father as a separate personality and was indeed Himself divine. There
never was a time when the Son was not. “In the beginning was the Word.”
 
Striking also is John’s record of the tension between Jesus and the Jewish leaders in John
8:56-58. Jesus is speaking, “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day;
he saw it and was glad.’
 
“‘You are not yet fty years old,’ the Jews said to Him, ‘and you have seen Abraham!’
 
“‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’”
 
What is awesome here is that Jesus does not merely say that He existed before Abraham was
born, but He claims equality with deity. He claims to be the one who spoke to Moses from the
burning bush. He claims to be eternal and self-existent. No wonder that the Jews in angry
denial of His claim picked up stones to throw at Him.
 
Adventism in the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century had been
slow in accepting the eternal preexistence of Christ. W. W. Prescott had been commissioned to
write a four-quarter Sabbath school lesson series for 1896-1897 on the Gospel of John.
Diligent Bible student as he was, Prescott became convinced of the full eternal sonship of
Christ and became a shaping in uence on Adventist thought.2 Not insigni cant has been the
forceful sentence in Ellen White’s The Desire of Ages: “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed,
underived.”3 Someone has wittily, but truly said, “Jesus was older than His mother and as old
as His Father.”
 
Once the eternal preexistence of the Son has been fully established from Scripture, people do
not generally seem to have di culty thinking of “the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14).
 
On Sabbath, May 22, 2004, I was invited to preach the sermon during the worship hour at the
rural Silver Creek Adventist Church in British Columbia. During the fellowship meal following
the service, the Adventist woman who sat across from me told the story of how a Christian
woman friend of hers had converted from Christianity to Islam because she was convinced
that Christians are breaking the rst of the 10 commandments by worshipping more than one
god. The rst commandment reads: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3).
How shall we view this challenge?
 
The Trinity Means One God in Three Eternal Persons
Mathematically, this seems confusing because three do not equal one, but there is a oneness
beyond mathematics. Think about a couple of sentences in the prayer Jesus prays to His
Father as recorded in John 17. “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the
name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one” (verse 11). Jesus is asking of His
Father that the 11 apostles who are the nucleus of His church may be one. Obviously, He is not
requesting that His followers become one person. He prays that they may have a oneness, a
unity in purpose, mind, and character. The oneness He desires for them is compared to the
oneness that exists between Himself and His holy Father in heaven. The oneness, the
harmony He asks for the 11 is expanded later in the prayer to include all genuine followers of
Jesus. Hear His words in verse 22: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they
may be one as we are one.” The harmony between the Father and the Son is to be the example
of the harmony that Jesus cherishes for Christians among themselves.
 
The ancient Greek and Roman gods were indeed many
gods. They were infamous for being in con ict and
warring with one another perpetually. In sharp contrast
is the God of the Bible who exists as three Persons in
oneness, harmony, love, and purpose. “God is love” (1
John 4:8) implies more than one Person in one God. God
is one, but God is not alone. The Father loves the Son. The
Son loves the Father. The Father loves the Spirit. The
Spirit loves the Father. The Son loves the Spirit. The
Spirit loves the Son. At the center of our universe is a
community of love, harmony, and oneness.
 
With intelligence, with integrity, and with adoration we
can worship as “trinitarian monotheists.”
 
Years ago George and Lillian Knowles, a husband and
wife team, were directing an evangelistic eld school in
Vancouver, Canada, under the auspices of the Seventh-
day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews
University, with numerous seminarians in attendance. I
had heard that John Stott, the eminent, godly evangelical leader, was to be preaching in town
on a Sunday morning while our evangelistic team was in Vancouver. I persuaded George
Knowles to have us hear Stott as a group, and so on a Sunday morning in walked this cadre of
budding Adventist preachers to discover what we could learn about preaching from a diligent
practitioner.
 
It turned out to be Trinity Sunday in that Anglican church. Most of the service has receded
from my memory, but I still have a few notes from the sermon. The impression of the
message moved me to tears because here was a man sent from God who did more than talk
about the Trinity. I experienced the Trinity as he spoke out of his own vital experience of
knowing God in three eternal persons. To this date it is the only sermon I have ever heard
preached on the Trinity, but how unforgettable.
 
In the April 2, 2001, Christianity Today John W. Yates III wrote an article commemorating John
Stott’s turning 80 years old on April 27 of that year. I treasure these words in my heart:
 
“The day begins for Stott at 5 a.m. He swings his legs over the side of his bed and starts the
day in prayer:
 
“‘Good morning, heavenly Father; good morning, Lord Jesus; good morning, Holy Spirit.
Heavenly Father, I worship You as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Lord Jesus, I
worship You, Savior and Lord of the world. Holy Spirit, I worship You, Sancti er of the people
of God. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen.’
 
“‘Heavenly Father, I pray that I may live this day in Your presence and please You more and
more. Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow You. Holy Spirit, I
pray that this day You will ll me with Yourself and cause Your fruit to ripen in my life: love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Holy,
blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons in one God, have mercy upon me. Amen.’”
 
For decades, Stott has begun each day with a version of this Trinitarian prayer.4
 
___________
1
Woodrow Whidden, Jerry Moon, John W. Reeve, The Trinity: Understanding God’s Love, His Plan of Salvation, and Christian Relationships (Hagerstown,

Md.: Review and Herald, 2002), p. 14.

2
Gilbert Valentine, “A Slice of History: How Clearer Views of Jesus Developed in the Adventist Church,” Ministry, May 2005, pp. 14-19.
3
The Desire of Ages, p. 530.
4
John W. Yates III, “Pottering and Prayer,” Christianity Today, Apr. 2, 2001, p. 61.

 
______________________________________
Allan Robertson is a retired pastor living in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.

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