Three Witnesses
Moses laid down the law that the testimony of two or three witnesses is required
to establish a matter: "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth
of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15).
Jesus raised this principle of law in making His case before the Pharisees.
They complained that His own, uncorroborated witness to His identity was insufficient: "The Pharisees therefore said to
Him, 'You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.'" (John 8:13). Far from challenging them on the law, He agreed
with their legal analysis: "And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent
Me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and
the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me." (John 8:16-18). As Jesus Himself had already explicated the law to His hearers, testimony
of only One Witness in His own behalf was not legally valid: "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. There
is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which He witnesses of Me is true." (John 5:31-32). Nor was
it suitable to the gravity of the matter to allow merely human testimony: "Yet I do not receive testimony from man..." (John
5:34). It's the Father who corroborates Jesus' own testimony: "And the Father Himself, who sent me, has testified of Me..."
(John 5:37). So we've got our legal minimum of two witnesses: the Father and the Son. But why stop at two; why not the
full complement of "three witnesses" Moses recommended?
Jesus said, "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the
Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me." (John 15:26). So a third witness rises to testify!
Yet if we listen to the 'Oneness' Pentecostals, all this corroborating testimony is as phony as a three-dollar bill: there's only One
Witness, He just keeps popping up under various aliases. But the case falls apart without corroboration. Many contemporary
Bible translations lack 1 John 5:7, missing in the early Greek manuscripts. Some think it was a marginal gloss which migrated
into the text. But if a marginal gloss, it's an uncommonly astute one, as these are the very three witnesses John's already
named to make the case that Jesus Christ is the Son of God: "...And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.
For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one...If we receive
the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of his Son." (1 John 5:6-9).
Has any witness in a court of law ever been permitted to go outside, put
on an ill-fitting wig and cheap glasses, return to be sworn in under an alias, and then been allowed to corroborate his own testimony?
Of course not! -- that's not two witnesses, but one witness whose perjured testimony is obviously worthless anyhow.
The witnesses with Whom we have to deal would not lower themselves to such a
tawdry scam: "And they made his grave with the wicked -- But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was
any deceit in His mouth." (Isaiah 53:9). As these three witnesses rise above any suspicion of perjury, their testimony
must provide the genuine corroboration Moses demanded: God in Three Witnesses, Blessed Trinity!
The Three Visitors at Mamre
The Old Testament presents under a veil the truths which shine forth unveiled
in the New. Did Abraham know that God is triune? He sure did:
"Then the LORD appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was
sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing
by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, 'My Lord,
if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash
your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After
that you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.' They said, 'Do as you have said.'" (Genesis 18:1-5).
Was Abraham a rude and inattentive host, who flat-out ignored two of his visitors,
concentrating on the third?: "'My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant.'"? Or had he figured
out what God here so obscurely intimates, in this theophany in three angels?
Christians often fail to notice what even the non-Christian Philo Judaeus
saw: "...when, therefore, the soul is shone upon by God as if at noonday, and when it is wholly and entirely filled with that
light which is appreciable only by the intellect, and by being wholly surrounded with its brilliancy is free from all shade or
darkness, it then perceives a three-fold image of one subject, one image of the living God, and others of the other two, as if
they were shadows irradiated by it...Therefore, the middle person of the three, being attended by each of his powers as by body-guards,
presents to the mind, which is endowed with the faculty of sight, a vision at one time of one being, and at another time of three...But
that which is seen is in reality a three-fold appearance of one subject is plain, not only from the contemplation of the allegory,
but also from that of the express words in which the allegory is couched. For when the wise man entreats those persons
who are in the guise of three travellers to come and lodge in his house, he speaks to them not as three persons, but as one,
and says, 'My lord, if I have found favor with thee, do not thou pass by thy servant.' For the expressions, 'my lord,' and 'with
thee,' and 'do not pass by,' and others of the same kind, are all such as are naturally addressed to a single individual, but
not to many." (On Abraham, XXIV-XXV, 119-131).
Holy, Holy, Holy
'If God is triune, why doesn't the Bible say so?' This question stuns attentive Bible students, who
see the triunity of God running all through the Bible. Here is an example:
The seraphim about God's throne praise Him with three 'holies': "And one cried
to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!'" (Isaiah 6:3). When Paul
feels moved to sing a hymn of praise to his God, he likewise finds three 'holies' just sufficient:
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ
to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace,..."
"[T]o the praise of the glory of His grace": the first 'Holy', awarded to
"the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ".
"...by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in
all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in
Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth -- in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to
the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to
the praise of His glory."
"[T]o the praise of His glory", the second 'Holy', goes to "the Beloved", Christ.
"In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of
our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." (Ephesians 1:3-14).
"[T]o the praise of His glory", the third 'Holy', awarded to "the Holy Spirit
of promise". Three 'Holies': not any 'Holies' too few, nor any left over!
Let us Make Man
Anti-trinitarians interpret passages like Deuteronomy 32:39 as if they were spoken
by one person of the Trinity, intending to criminalize worship of the others: "Now see that I, even I, am He, and there
is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand." But there is nothing
unusual or ungrammatical about the One God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, speaking of Himself in the singular.
What anti-trinitarians lack an answer for, though, are those occasions
in scripture where God employs a plural pronoun of Himself:
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to
Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all
the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
(Genesis 1:26-27).
Anti-trinitarians are more willing to dabble with theories of angelic co-creators
than to notice the obvious: that the "Our image" of verse 26
must correlate to the "His own image" of verse 27. It was
in the image of God man was made, not the image of 'God and the angels':
"For in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6). Angelic co-creators are Biblically impossible
in any case, because God created the world alone: "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the womb: 'I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself..." (Isaiah 44:24). The created choirs of "ministering spirits" (Hebrews 1:14) are as much spectators to the wonders of nature as we are.
More: "Then the LORD God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us,
to know good and evil..." (Genesis 3:22).
"And the LORD said, 'Indeed the people are one and they all have one language,
and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down
and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.' So the LORD scattered them abroad
from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city." (Genesis 11:6-8).
"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and
who will go for Us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me.'" (Isaiah 6:8).
"Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and
My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make
Our home with him.'" (John 14:23).
"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us break
Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.'" (Psalm 2:2-3).
Or is it the 'royal we?' This present age is not a golden age for hereditary
monarchy. Only a few hang on, some just for show like the British Queen.
But in the hey-day of this form of government, royal apologists sought
to explain and rationalize such usages as the 'royal we.' To these theorists,
it was not just megalomania. One theory is that the 'royal we' means 'God
and I.' To those who espouse the divine right of kings, the monarch stands
as trustee for God, if he is not indeed assumed to be an intimate of God.
Another theory is that the king embodies the nation,-- as Louis XIV said,
'L'etat c'est moi' (I am the state). To defenders of the royal system,
it is a downfall of representative government that it places power in the
hands of men who are after all private persons with private interests.
As the career of Jack Abramoff shows, elected officials need not always
pursue the public's interest but can look instead to their own. The king
is different: from earliest childhood, he is the one person with no private
interest, though he lacks for nothing. He is the one person in society
who need never carry a wallet. He is not the representative of a faction,
interest group, or social class, but embodies in his own person the nation.
So on either theory: that the 'royal we' means 'God and I' or that it means
'the nation which I embody in myself,' the 'royal we' is not really applicable to God.
But it may be over-reaching to seek a reason for this usage; language can
play odd tricks with singular and plural. Contemporary English speakers
address one another as 'you,' which is strictly speaking second person
plural; the original second person singular, 'thee,' is heard nowadays
only in religious speech, especially in petitions to the Almighty. Yet
to assign these enigmatic statements to some hypothesized quirk of language
is not to try to understand them, but to deny they have meaning.
The 'editorial we,'--"We endorse the re-election of Congressman Claghorn,"--
is, likewise, not strictly a case where an individual, the writer, is referring
to himself alone as "we." Rather the editorialist's 'we' incorporates others:
'I and the editorial board,' or 'I and the newspaper's owner,' or 'I and
the concerned citizenry.' When a writer expresses opinions so eccentric
they cannot conceivably be the opinions of any group or organization, readers
may retort to his 'editorial we' with a snappy comeback like, 'Do you have
a frog in your pocket?' The 'editorial we' is pretentious where there is
no editorial board, but only a voice in the wilderness.
Readers of the Koran note that Allah calls Himself "we" also:
"Of old sent we Moses with our signs to Pharaoh and his nobles: and he said, ‘I truly am the
Apostle of the Lord of the Worlds.’ And when he presented himself before them with our signs, lo! they laughed at them. . ." (Sura 43:45).
"Of old, too, did we destroy the cities which were round about you; and, in order that they might
return to us, we varied our signs before them." (Sura 46:26).
The God of the Koran is, by Mohammed's authorial intent, unipersonal. Yet
the Koran is a very derivative book. Were all the material cribbed from
the Bible to be removed, it would be a very thin book. Mohammed adopted
a 'vacuum cleaner' approach in collecting his material, tossing in the
'Seven Sleepers' alongside familiar Bible stories. He repeats a story,
Jesus' breathing life into clay sparrows (Sura 3:43), which in its first
telling in the apocryphal gospels was meant to underscore Jesus' deity.
Although Mohammed denies Jesus' deity, he nevertheless repeats a story
most Unitarians would know not to touch. There is consequently an odd-ball
category of theological literature: proofs of Jesus' deity from the Koran,--
which might seem pointless since Mohammed explicitly denied Jesus' deity.
Yet it is not pointless, since his 'filter' in collecting these stories
was set so coarse that material slipped through which, in its original
telling, was certainly intended to affirm Jesus' deity. It is not clear
that a compiler who repeats others' material can control the context so
firmly that, when he repeats a story, it means what he wants it to mean,
not what its author intended. Is that approach not reminiscent of Humpty
Dumpty, who used words to mean what he intended them to mean, not what
others understood by them?
Mohammed had several Christian and Jewish informants, including his cousin
Waraqa, Salman the Persian, Mary the Egyptian slave girl, and the Jewish
sages of Medina (before he slaughtered them). Can it be that he heard from
one of these that the God of the Bible has called Himself 'We,' and tossed
that into the blender along with Jesus' clay sparrows?
Since it may be that Allah's habit of referring to Himself with both singular
and plural pronouns borrows from the true and living God upon whom He is
modelled, this habit is not independent testimony.
Fire and Brimstone
"Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from
the LORD out of the heavens." (Genesis 19:24).
Christ's Baptism
At the scene of Christ's baptism, we observe three take the stage: "When all
the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And
the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are
My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.'" (Luke 3:21-22, Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11; John 1:32-34). Three interacting characters
talk with one another, pledging mutual love. Staging the baptism of Christ as a church pageant or a summer theatre production,
our program for the evening's entertainment would list three 'dramatis personae'...a strangely familiar term. Christian baptism,
with its triune recital of names, is a replica in miniature of this scene.
Oil of Gladness
"You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God,
Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions."
(Hebrews 1:9, Psalm 45:7).
The title 'Christ' means 'Anointed'. Kings of Israel were anointed
into office: "Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him
in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came
upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah." (1 Samuel 16:13).
An anointed king, or Messiah, was prophesied in the psalms: "The kings
of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against
the LORD and against His Anointed..." (Psalm 2:2), "I have found
My servant David; with My holy oil I have anointed him..." (Psalm 89:20), and also by the prophets:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."
(Isaiah 61:1-3).
Jesus applied this prophecy of the coming Messiah to Himself in Luke 4:18-21,
"Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit: "...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with
Him." (Acts 10:38). Those of us who follow Him have a lesser anointing: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you
know all things...But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you..." (1 John 2:20-27), not the limitless one
of the Son: "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure." (John 1:34).
Does Jesus anoint Himself...with Himself, as some say? Or, Biblically,
do we have One who anoints, One who is anointed, and the Anointing: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Desire of Nations
"'Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,' says the LORD; 'and be strong, Joshua,
son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,' says the LORD, 'and work; for I am with you,' says
the LORD of hosts. 'According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among
you; do not fear!' For thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the
sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this
temple with glory,' says the LORD of hosts." (Haggai 2:4-7). We sing of this "Desire of Nations" every Christmas-time: "Come,
Desire of Nations, come! Fix in us Thy humble home...Adam's likeness now efface, Stamp Thine image in its place: Second Adam
from above, Reinstate us in Thy love." (Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, Charles Wesley).
Three Conversationalists
The Bible records conversations between Father and Son. Nor are these
conversations always in public, as would be the case if, as the 'Oneness' Pentecostals claim, their purpose was to 'teach us'
to pray: "And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came,
He was alone there." (Matthew 14:23).
A uni-personal God would experience some embarrassment addressing Himself as "You":
"And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath (for they have become
priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: 'The LORD has sworn And will not relent, "You
are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek"'), by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant." (Hebrews 7:20-21);
"Then a voice came from heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'" (Mark 1:11);
"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, 'I thank You,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.'" (Luke 10:21).
"Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: 'Father,
the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.'" (John 17:1-2).
"Then the Angel of the LORD answered and said, 'O LORD of hosts, how long will You not have
mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?' And the LORD
answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words." (Zechariah 1:12-13). (If you do not
believe that the "Angel of the LORD" who addresses Himself to the LORD is Himself also God, keep following
the conversation: "'Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your
midst,' says the LORD. 'Many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and they shall become My
people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent Me
to you.'" (Zechariah 2:10-11).
Here is a conversation taking place prior to the incarnation, the upcoming
incarnation being the very topic of conversation: "Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: 'Sacrifice and offering
You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me...Then
I said, "Behold, I have come - In the volume of the book it is written of Me -- To do Your will, O God."'" (Hebrews 10:5-7).
The Holy Spirit joins in the conversation, making intercession for the
saints before God the Father: "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches
the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans
8:26-27). He thus joins the Son in His work of intercession (Romans 8:34) -- and how would one person intercede with Himself, anyhow?
God is love
The God of the Bible is love: "He who does not love does not know God,
for God is love. " (1 John 4:8); "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in
love abides in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16). John does not say that God once was not love but became love, but that
He is love; because what God is, He is eternally. He does not change: "For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore
you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." (Malachi 3:6).
The Father loves the Son:
"Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles."
(Isaiah 42:1);
"While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud
overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. Hear Him!'" (Matthew 17:5);
"As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If
you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."
(John 15:9-10).
And the Son loves the Father: "But that the world may know that I love
the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here." (John 14:31).
"Then His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal [i.e., jealousy]
for Your house has eaten Me up.'" (John 2:17, Psalms 69:9).
"Then I said, 'Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written
of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.' (Psalm 40:7-8, Hebrews 10:7).
The Holy Spirit joins in this communion of love:
"Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: 'He jealously
desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us'?" (James 4:5 NASB).
"Or do you think it is meaningless when the scripture says: He has
jealous longings over the spirit which he lodged in us?" (James 4:5 Lattimore).
(This is a difficult verse to translate: "'Long unto envying'. A difficult phrase...But even so, with God
presented as a jealous lover, does 'to pneuma' refer to the Holy Spirit as the subject of 'epipotei'
or to man's spirit as the object of 'epipotei'?" (Robertson's Word Pictures).)
How could a uni-personal God be love, before He had created a world
filled with things to love? Love requires a lover and a beloved. This is why the living God is love, now and forever;
because, as Jesus said, "...for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24).
"Embrace the love of God, and by love embrace God...In proportion, therefore,
as we are healed from the swelling of pride, in such proportion are we more filled with love; and with what is he full, who is
full of love, except with God? Well, but you will say, I see love, and, as far as I am able, I gaze upon it with my mind,
and I believe the Scripture, saying, that 'God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God;' but when I see love,
I do not see in it the Trinity. Nay, but thou dost see the Trinity if thou seest love." (Augustine, On the Trinity, Book 8, Chapter 8).
Jesus promised that the very love with which the Father loves the Son would come to dwell in the believer: "And
I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them,
and I in them." (John 17:26). Could this mean that the Holy Spirit who indwells our hearts is the
very love of Father and Son, arising from a perfect act of love just as the Word is born from a perfect act of
self-contemplation? For a vigorous defense of this old idea, I've placed Jonathan
Edwards' 'Essay on the Trinity' in the Thrice Holy library!
The Same God
"Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God
calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities,
but it is the same God who works all in all." (1 Corinthians 12:3-6).
One Faith
"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one
hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through
all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:5).
The LORD Bless You
Moses taught Israel a triune blessing: "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying,
'This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them: "The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD
make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." So
they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.'" (Numbers 6:23-27).
Seal
If the Bible teaches the Trinity, then where is it? A better question might be, where is it not:
"Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed
us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit
in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 1:21).
"For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression
and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if
we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be
spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who
heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and
wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit,
according to His own will?" (Hebrews 2:2-4).
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen." (2 Corinthians 13:14).
"To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,
and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ..." (1 Peter 1:1-2).
"Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord
GOD and His Spirit Have sent Me." (Isaiah 48:16).
"For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling
the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse
your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:13-14).
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought
near...For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father." (Ephesians 2:13-18).
"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length
and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes
knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:14-19).
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me." (John 15:26).
"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying
in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." (Jude 1:20-21).
"Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through
the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me..." (Romans 15:30).
"This Jesus God has raised up...Therefore being exalted to the right hand
of God, and having received from the Father the promise
of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear." (Acts 2:32-33).
"But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved
by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief
in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14).
The God the church of the apostles worshipped and adored was Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. According to the modalists, these oft-repeated triune invocations and doxologies are repetitious stuttering; according to the
Arians, they are lop-sided invocations of the Creator along with two creatures. Why not accept the obvious and allow God to be what He
ever has been and ever will be: Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
In all their Affliction
"I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD
And the praises of the LORD,
According to all that the LORD has bestowed on us,
And the great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies,
According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.
For He said, 'Surely they are My people,
Children who will not lie.'
So He became their Savior.
In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit;
So He turned Himself against them as an enemy,
And He fought against them.
Then he remembered the days of old,
Moses and his people, saying:
'Where is He who brought them up out of the sea
With the shepherd of His flock?
Where is He who put His Holy Spirit within them,
Who led them by the right hand of Moses,
With His glorious arm,
Dividing the water before them
To make for Himself an everlasting name,
Who led them through the deep,
As a horse in the wilderness,
That they might not stumble?'
As a beast goes down into the valley,
And the Spirit of the LORD causes him to rest,
So You lead Your people,
To make Yourself a glorious name...
Doubtless You are our Father,
Though Abraham was ignorant of us,
And Israel does not acknowledge us.
You, O LORD, are our Father;
Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name."
(Isaiah 63:7-16).
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