Why The Trinity Is Crucial (The New City Catechism #3)

Where we lived in Colorado for nine years there was a significant Mormon population. As a result, it was not uncommon to run across someone who claimed to be a Christian and who would attend a Bible-believing church, but who would either go back and forth to or fully change over to a Mormon church. The reason this is significant is that LDS churches do not believe in the Trinity. So, for people to make this leap, at the very least, they must think that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is not important.

None of us should be surprised this would take place. After all, the conviction that God is one God in three persons is not thought to be that practical, to have that much application to us, or thus to be that vital among many professing Christians. As a result, we rarely hear teaching on it.

This is why the third question and answer in The New City Catechism is so important: “How many persons are there in God? Answer: There are three persons in the one true and living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory.”

Here are some reasons why this doctrine is so crucial.

1. It is who the true God is and to have any other view of him is to have a false and deficient view. Matthew 28:19; Acts 5:3, 5; Philippians 2:6

2. It makes it possible for one person of the Trinity to take on flesh, become a human, live the perfect life and die the perfect death to accomplish salvation. Hebrews 2:5-18; 7:25

3. On the one hand, the Savior had to be God since salvation is only from the Lord (Jonah 2:9). On the other hand, the Savior had to be human since he was taking the place of sinful humans. Hebrews 2:5-18

4. It enables the Son to be the intercessor and advocate before the Father, to apply his saving work in behalf of sinners. Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1-2

5. In enables the Son to be forever fully God and fully human (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 4:2) and, at the same time, through the ministry of the Spirit, to be present with his people everywhere (Romans 8:9-10).

6. It provides a picture of how there can be different roles and yet at the same time equality in significance and value—providing a model for many relationships in which there are different roles (which include some having authority over others) and yet none are more significant or valuable in God’s eyes just because of those roles. Romans 13:1; 1 Corinthians 11:3-4; Ephesians 5:21-25; 6:1-4, 5-9; Hebrews 13:17

7. It enables God to be, in his very essence, love. 1 John 4:8

This necessitates some explanation. Prior to God creating the world, if he is not a Trinity (as is the case in the Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, and Jehovah’s Witnesses view of God) he would have had no one to love. This means that even if he did start loving with the creation of other beings, he was not a being of love prior to that and as part of who he is. Only the Christian view of God, with its commitment to the teaching of the Bible, can affirm that God is, in his  very essence, love.

These are but a few of the reasons the Trinity is important. But they are enough to show that it is essential for us to hold to and teach this doctrine.

Marveling In The Trinity With You,

Tom