17 - Chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII.

Some of the most Prominent Objections to the doctrine of the Trinity, considered.

1. Says Mr. Morgridge, “ The doctrine of the Trinity is to be rejected’, because the belief of it is impossible.” If this objection is correct, if it can be shown to be impossible for a man to believe the doctrine of the Trinity, in the sense and light in which Trinitarians hold it, then the consequences are these: First, Unitarians are under no obligation to believe it. Second* it is not true. Third, Trinitarians. do not believe it. Fourth, those who pretend to believe it, are all false witnesses, and liars. Fifth) Trinitarians are all hypocrites, or they would abandon it. Sixth, no man on earth does, or ever did, believe it. But where is this impossibility? It might be impossible for us to believe as Unitarians represent the doctrine of the Trinity. But as we hold it, there is no difficulty in believing it. Jesus Christ says, “ I and my Father are one.” “ He that hath seen me, hath seen. the Father.” Unitarians admit the Father and Holy Ghost to be one, and all they lack is to believe what Christ says, and then the matter is at rest. So the item that they esteem impossible to believe, lies between them and the Savior, and he says, “ except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.”

2. Says the same writer, “There is no passage of Scripture, that asserts that God is three.” We think there are a number. Not that say, however, that there are three Gods, but that bring to view in the character of God three distinctions, which we denominate persons. ’*’ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, (one,) the love of God, (two,) and the communion of the Holy Ghost, (three,) be with you.” “ In the name of the Father, (one,) and of the Son, (two,) and of the Holy Ghost,” (three?) “ Come ye near, I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that it was, there am I, (one,), and now the Lord God, (too,) and his Spirit, (three,) hath sent me.” Isaiah 48:16.

3. “ Trinitarians,” says Mr. Morgridge, “professedly worship two other objects beside the Father.” He thinks the Son is not to be worshiped as God. “ Ye cannot serve (Gr. Douleuein) God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24. “ Ye serve (Gr.-etouleuete,) the Lord Christ” Col. 8:24. Here the same word denoting service is applied to God and to Christ. Christ informed satan that it was written that God alone should be served, and his followers served the LORD Christ. They were either idolaters, or they considered Christ Lord of all.

Again. “Thou shall worship (proskuneseis) the Lord thy God.” “ And they worshiped him,” (Christ) proskunesantes, &c. Luke 24:5-6. Here the same word, and one that conveys the idea of the same kind of worship, is applied to the Father, and also to the Son. Now are we to be considered idolaters because we also worship the LORD CHRIST? Where Christ speaks of the true worshipers,” he says they shall worship (Gr. prpskunesousi,”) the Father In Spirit. It was the manner of the worship he here speaks of. It was to be spiritual worship. He did not teach, that true worshipers should not worship the Son too in Spirit, but he taught men to “ Honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.”

4. “Jesus denies being God, he denies calling himself God, and repels the accusation of blasphemy, even on the supposition he had called himself God.” [1] The same author on this point goes on to state, that Jesus did convince the Jews that they were wrong in charging him with blasphemy, and thus satisfied their minds. Now these statements are utterly incorrect. He did not deny making himself God. The Jews did not ask him if he was God, but they asked him if he was the Christ. John 10:24. He calls himself the Son of God, and testifies that he and his Father are one. We repeat it. He did not deny making himself God, after he was accused by the Jews, but repeated his former statement. John 10:88. The writer then states that the Jews were satisfied that he did not intend to be understood, as making himself God. They were not satisfied, and as they went to take him, he made his escape. John 10:1-42. It waa for this very sentiment, that he was condemned at the [1] See True Believer’s Defence, page 44. judgment seat of Caiaphas. Here he -was accused of professing to be the Christ, and Caiaphas said to him, “ I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the -Christ, the Son of God.” Then, under the solemnities of an oath, Jesus answers him affirmatively, and says, “ thou hast said.” “ Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matthew 26:63-64. Does this look as though he “repelled the accusation?”[1] Not at all; for on this acknowledgement he was condemned.

We have already stated in chapter ix. that the Jews understood, the Savior, correctly. This is evident from the fact that they considered him guilty of blasphemy. Had they understood him, (as Unitarians do,) as only professing unity of sentiment and design, with the Father, they would not have accused him of blasphemy, for Moses, Elijah, and David, professed as much as that. He did not say he and his Father “ were one in the business of watching the sheep,” as Mr. Morgridge says he intended. But he professed an unity of nature with his Father.

[1] When we read. these statements of Mr. Morgridge, a professed minister of Christ, we were shocked. When he states that “ Christ satisfied the Jews that He did not pretend to make himself God,” we could but suspect not only the piety, but the veracity of the man. The reader will find these quotations oil page 44, and the following pages, of his work.

Now we ask; Did Jesus Christ decline the appellation, GOD? Did he deny being GOD?, Not at all. But when one of his disciples looks on him, and says to him, “My Lord and my GOD,?’ he seemed to incur the approbation of the blessed Savior. - “

Never did he satisfy the Jews that he did not intend to be understood as making himself equal with God.

5. It is stated by Mr. Morgridge and Mr. Barr, as well as other Unitarian writers, that our Lord Jesus is not omniscient, because there was one thing that he said he did not know. Mr. Barr thinks it was the “ day of judgment.” The, text they use to show him not omniscient is as follows. “ But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son but the Father.” Mark 13:82. Another evangelist has it thus. “ But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” Mat. 34:36. The expressions contained in these texts we acknowledge to be of the same, or nearly the same, import. In Matthew, however, the “ Son” is omitted. We will now endeavor to come at the sense of the text quoted from Mark..

Says the Savior to the Pharisees, “ Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.” John 8:15. Again he says, “ The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” John 5:22. In the first of these texts, he was asked to pass his judgment upon a certain woman. He informed them that that was not ’his present business. Not that he had no power to judge, for long before this he had told them that “all judgment was committed to the Son;” but he wished to inform them that in his present employment he could not judge in that matter. One thing is clear, he had the power or ability of knowing that day he spoke of, or he had not. The “day and hour,” the Savior spoke of, was not the “day of judgment j” but he spoke of the desolation of the Holy City. [1] All the preceding and attending circumstances he described, and the result of the day. He told his disciples, that of the temple, there should not “ be left one stone upon another that should not be thrown down.” He also knew that “ her enemies would cast a trench” around the city. Daniel fixed the year of the destruction of Jerusalem more than five hun-

[1]1. It is evident that Christ was here speaking of his coming again to visit Jerusalem, not in mercy as at present, but in dreadful vengeance. 2. The text says: “ But of that day and that hour.” It only remains to show what day and. hour he refers to. He says, verse 33, “ Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is, for the Son of man is as a man taking a’ far journey,” &c. Verse 27, he says “Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh.” It will not be doubted, that when he speaks of the coming of the master of the house, he means his own coming, and he declares, verse 26, that they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds, and, verse 30, he says, “This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be done.” But it does not affect our argument in favor of our Lord’s omniscience, to admit that he here had some reference to the final coming of the Son of man at the last day. hundred years before this. “Seventy weeks are determined upon. thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression and make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and. to anoint the MOST HOLY.” Daniel 9:24. It is evident Daniel was informed when it was. Who. gave him this information? We answer, “ The spirit of Christ.” “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.”, 1 Peter 1:10, 11. Now with these facts before us shall we conclude that Christ had not the power of knowing when that day should arrive?

“Knoweth no man,” &c. The word, oiden is the 2d per of eido, “to know,” and is variously rendered. “To know” is its obvious meaning. But the next question is, in what sense the Savior used it? “ If this passage signifies that the knowledge of Christ was limited, it plainly contradicts those already quoted, which prove he is omniscient. But considering the word know to have the same meaning here that it has in 1 Corinthians 2:2. “ For I determine not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified,” it involves no obscurity, for it there has the causative sense. “I determine not to cause to know, or make known.”* If Jesus by his spirit gave Daniel information when this should take place five hundred and seventy years before this, is it not strange that he had not the power of knowing it, when the event was “nigh, even at the doors?” We think the undoubted sense in which the Savior used the word “ to know,” was as above stated, for says one, “ Hast thou not heard, hast thou not known, that the everlasting God the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” Isaiah 40:28.

6. Mr. Morgridge devotes one chapter of his work to a search for the “supposed second person of the Trinity,” and says, “ God the Son does not exist,” “ there is nothing for him: to do,” and tells us that “God the Son,” is the creature of human creeds.” He bases his argument mainly on the following passage of holy writ. “ Then Cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power; for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted that did put all things under him. And when all things shall be sub- * See the Faith of the F. Baptists, page 44, 45, and the remarks there made on Mark 13:32. dued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:24-28. “ Here,” says Mr. Morgridge, “We see the same dependent Son, giving up the kingdom to the Father.”

We will make a few brief remarks on this passage.

First. The kingdom the Son is to give up. The “end” the apostle spoke of was the end of the present world, the grand close of human affairs. Christ during this period acts as our Mediator and Intercessor, but at the end of the world this office must cease, there being no more need of a Mediator. It is, then, the Mediatorial kingdom that is given up.

Second. To whom the kingdom, or reign, is given. It is evident that the reign is given up to the Father. But is it to be supposed that the Father was inert, and had nothing to do with the reign all this time, and now the Son is to be inactive? Certainly not. Man’s probation being closed, the distinction in the persons of the Holy Trinity, in atoning for, sanctifying, and pardoning men, and preparing them for heaven, now ceases. The divine nature of the Savior being superior to his human nature, is now the all-controlling, all-absorbing Deity, and now.

“The God shines gracious through the man, And sheds sweet glories on them all.”

Third. Who is all in all. The apostle informs us that “ God shall be all in all.” In Colossians 3:11, he speaks of Christ as being “ all in ail,” but it was on a different occasion from the one under consideration. But mark, he does not say that the Father shall be all in all, but GOD shall be all in all. The distinction in the divine essence as now recognized by us will cease, and.

GOD be ALL in ALL.

We have abundant evidence that this is the sense of the text, for God says of the Son, “ Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.’* And the Revelator tells Us he saw the “ Lamb in the midst of the throne.”

Let men make light of the existence of “ God the Son,” because that nowhere in the scriptures this precise form of expression is used, yet they will find him without much search in a coming day!

Jehovah calls ’him God. “Thy throne, O GOD.” ’Jesus says he that “ the SON makes free is free indeed,” and therefore we have no scruples in giving him the appellation “ God the Son.” And now “ to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion, and power, both now and ever.”

Amen..

7. It is again stated by the last mentioned author, that though Christ is called God, it is in a subordinate sense, and therefore it does not prove him to be the “ Supreme God.” We have yet to learn that the Christian religion admits of different grades of Gods, Gods superior and inferior. We unhesitatingly state that the term “god,” is no where in the Bible applied to men or angels, unless it is used in the plural number, or preceded by the article a, or otherwise qualified by the sense, so that it cannot be understood to mean the Supreme Being. [1] But where it is applied to Christ, this distinction ceases to be made.

Says one, “Christ is Hot what the Bible calls him. He is called a Rock, a Lion, a Lamb.”

It should be borne in mind that these titles denote different characters under which he is revealed to us. When spoken of as a sacrifice for our sins, he is denominated a lamb. When his power and ability “to take the book, and unloose the seals, is spoken of, he is compared to a Lion, and his immutability is spoken of under the figure of a Rock. But is he inferior to the objects that figuratively represent him? What is he when he is represented by the terms, “ Mighty God,” “ Everlasting Father,”[2] “ True God, and Eternal Life,” “ Great

[1] Mr. Morgridge says,; “ Moses is called Jehovah, their God.”Deuteronomy 11:13-15, and that “Jonathan calla David, O Lord God of Israel.” 1 Sam.’ 20:12. See Morgridge’s work, page 122 and 125.

What man, and especially what Christian, can but blush at such statements as these! The reader may consult the sacred text, Henry’s, Clarke’s, or any other Commentary on earth, to see how untrue these statements are. The fact is, truth is not now, nor ever will be, indebted to falsehood for its support. But how fruitless must be such attempts to destroy the doctrine of the Supreme Divinity of our blessed Lord. That cause that truth will not sustain, is a bad cause, and should be forthwith abandoned.

[2] The term, “Everlasting Father,” in this passage, we think, does not refer to the first person in the Trinity, but to Christ as the Author, Creator, Governor, and Protector of the Universe, or the Father of all created things, and of the Gospel dispensation. Trinitarians should be careful not to confound the idea of these two persons. Let the distinction always be maintained.

God,” “ Only Wise God,” The first and the last, the Almighty?” If he bears, in the sacred Word, such appellations as these, and yet they do not prove bis Supreme Divinity, there can be certainly no proof from the word of inspiration, that any Infinite Supreme Being exists in the universe. We would ask, if these titles would prove the Father to be the self-existent God? /and if so, what do they prove in relation to our Lord Jesus Christ? But the time of vain speculations on the character of Christ will close ere long; that day when God the Son shall take the throne of judgment and call all human beings before his face. Our eyes will see him clad in robes of judgment. We shall see those flaming eyes and burning feet. Our ears will hear his pleasing voice, bid us welcome to the mansions of unsullied bliss, prepared eternal in the heavens; or we shall tremble at that voice which says, “ depart.” Our hearts will flutter in our bosoms, filled with joy; or sink within us, convulsed with awful terror. Then will shine forth the attributes of him who was dead, and is alive, and has the keys of death and hell. Forbid it, blessed Jesus, that we should be deceived!