Many believe in what they call the Godhead or the Trinity, and this is a belief that God is three distinct persons but in one.
This doctrine has risks and I would like to mention a few:
- While Christianity prides in worshipping one God (monotheism), the Trinity doctrines to argue that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three separate persons compromises monotheism and risks us to an indirect polytheistic belief system. To say that three individual-separate gods become one is not what the monotheism of the Bible teaches.
- Having GOD THE FATHER at the top, GOD THE SON in the second seat, and GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT in the third row is a divine hierarchy which essentially is symbolic in power, status and authority, and this makes Jesus lesser than the Father and the Holy Spirit at the bottom. In other words, Jesus is God’s servant and the Holy Spirit is the tool in his hand. This risks Christianity to be like other ancient cults whose gods were ranked. If the doctrine of the Trinity says that they are three in one, then it is a contradiction for it to have a HIERARCHY in what is ONE. Lest we conclude Islam, is right on what it believes Isa Masiya to be.
- The doctrine of the Trinity, directly and indirectly, presents God the Father as the ultimate judge who is furious with us, then Jesus Christ (God the son) as kind and merciful and pleading on our behalf before God the Father who is not loving and willing to forgive the sinner but has to be convinced and persuaded by his son to forgive. (something close to the Catholic church rosary and Mariology belief). Then Jesus also has no direct relationship with us (sinners) but he has to channel through his agent in us who is the Holy Spirit. In other words, God the Father is for our salvation it is something he is influenced into by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And this is the kind of image that people who believe in the Trinity and take seriously have about who God is.
- Finally, the doctrine of the Trinity risks the soteriology (how we are saved) theology, by arguing that while Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine (incarnation: two active nature’s in one), when he died on the cross, it was only the humanity that died but the divine couldn’t be touched. This brings about problems, for the humanity that Jesus dressed was fallen by proxy (in Adam) and it could not die a salvific vicarious death for all other fallen humanity. The game changer in the death of Jesus Christ is that he dressed this body and did what we could not do in the same fallen body and that was being obedient in all details (Thought and Action) of the law. And after he has represented us in that, he also had to take on our penalty which was eternal death and this is the death he died on the cross.
But who died? The representative died? Who was the representative? God was the representative. If divinity did not die in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, then we were but represented by a fellow human being.
What makes salvation real are two factors:
(a) – GOD INCARNATE DIED
(b) – GOD RESURRECTED.
And that is how our redemption is possible. The moment God chose to become a man to represent his criminal (us sinners), he could not excuse himself from the death of the one he came to represent.
Unfortunately, the doctrine of the Trinity teaches thus, and I find this contradictory to the whole theology of the Bible.
So am not saying you won’t go to heaven because you believe in the Trinity, all am saying is that it is a very wet floor and if you are a committed believer you will have a wrong image of who God is and what essentially he has gone through to save you. So it is safer to look at God as ONE God and the Same God who got incarnate and walked on our streets in his attempt to reveal himself to us. And yes, he is the same God who dwells in you and you call him Holy Spirit.
Pr ITM White
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 