Is the Trinity True?

Some sect of Muslims, they believe in trinity. You have to believe Jesus is not born. It's come from the spirit of God.

I think it's a different version, you know, but there is some version in Muslim Islam as well. So I think it is in Christian where they may be right.

That's what they think. Every religion is different. The Christian religion, they think in their way. Muslim people think in their way. So no one knows the truth.

It's confusing?

Yeah, a little bit confusing.

I can't tell you. I can't answer to this question.

The Trinity and the Charge of Shirk

Hi and welcome to Midnight Cry, a program that is committed to speaking the truth in love. I'm your host, Romuald Gossein, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us the subject of the trinity.

First of all, welcome to the show, James.

It's honored to be with you.

Now, do Christians commit shirk by worshipping three gods? Is that the Christian position?

Well, it's certainly not the Christian position. That is the Islamic conclusion based upon Quranic categories. But the real question, first of all, we need to define shirk, the concept of association, idolatry, associating anything or anyone with God.

And the question is, are Christians associating someone who is not divine with God? The problem is the Muslim defines God in Unitarian categories, that there is only one person who is deity. One God shared by one person.

Christians recognize that all of us function on a distinction that Islam really denies for Allah. And that is, you and I recognize that while we share a common humanity, we are different persons. We understand the category of being in which we exist.

We are both human beings. But we also recognize that we are individual persons. Well, if God can create a universe that has that kind of distinction in it in our case, why can't that distinction exist in God as well?

And so the Bible teaches us that there is one true God. But the Bible also reveals to us three divine persons. And so while we are monotheists and we worship only one true God, we recognize the biblical revelation that there are three divine persons who share that one divine being.

So, to answer the question, do Christians commit shirk, requires that the Quran accurately define the Christian doctrine and identify it as shirk. And the fact of the matter is the Quran nowhere shows any accurate understanding whatsoever of what the doctrine of the Trinity is.

And in fact, when it does seem to try to address the concept, such as in Surah 572, 575, 516, it does so errantly. For example, it asks Jesus, did you ever teach men to worship you and your mother as gods in derogation of Allah?

And it says, say not three, there is only one God. Well, what's the three? If you say, do not say three, say there's only one God, what you're obviously saying is you Christians are saying there are three gods.

Well, we don't believe in three gods. And so there is confusion on the part of the author of the text of the Quran as to what the doctrine of the Trinity is. And so to answer the question, are we committing shirk?

Well, what defines what shirk is? The Quran. Does the Quran show an accurate knowledge of what the doctrine of the Trinity is? No, it shows a confused knowledge of what the Trinity is. And so on that level, we'd have to say there is no answer to the question.

And on another level, we can say, no, Christians are not committing shirk because we are not associating any created thing with God. We believe that the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a revelatory distinction.

It is part and parcel of what took place between the Old and New Testaments in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so we do not believe in any way, shape, or form that we are associating any created thing with God.

We're not worshiping a lesser God along with God. And so our worship is not divided between God and creaturely things. So we're not committing shirk.

The Trinity as a Biblical Doctrine

So, but I mean, is the Trinity a biblical concept? I mean, is it something that was developed post Christianity? I mean, sorry, post the canon of Scripture, the New Testament, because we don't even find the word Trinity anywhere in the 66 books of the Bible.

Well, and interestingly enough, you don't find the specific Arabic word Tawhid in the Quran either, but that doesn't keep the Muslims from viewing that as a central aspect of their theology because it accurately defines something about their faith.

In the same way, just because the term Trinitas or Triunity or Trinity is of later provenance doesn't mean that what it's representing is not clearly biblical. I like to emphasize the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is based upon three biblical revelations.

There are three foundations. The first is the concept of monotheism. We are monotheists. We believe that there is one true and eternal God. He's dependent upon nothing else. He's the creator of all things.

One infinite and eternal being of God. Then we also recognize that there are three divine persons presented to us in Scripture. The Father is described as God. The Son is described as God. The Spirit is described as God.

They do things that only God can do. They're identified as Yahweh. The Father is identified as Yahweh. The Son is Yahweh. The Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. Each is involved in creation. Each is involved in the resurrection of Christ.

Each is involved in giving life. These are all indications of their divine nature. And yet we also, the third divine revelation is the equality of these persons. That is, their participation in the divine nature is not something where one is greater than the other.

Though we can recognize an order in the doctrine of salvation, the Father being the origin, the Son being the one who works it out, the Spirit being the one who comes and applies, we can see distinctions between the persons.

We find out that they are equal with one another. These are the texts in the Bible that teach the deity of Christ, the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. So if you have these three foundations all found in Scripture, then you have to deny some element of Scripture to not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

That's why when I wrote my book, The Forgotten Trinity, I started off saying, I love the Trinity, which most people don't say. They'll say things like, I love prophecy, or I love Jesus, and like that.

Most people don't say, I love the Trinity, because most people don't really understand it, and therefore they sort of stand off from it. But I also defined and defended the Trinity on the basis of Scripture, because I am a biblical Trinitarian.

The reason I believe the doctrine of the Trinity is because I believe in sola Scriptura, Scripture is the sole and valid rule of faith for the Church, and tota Scriptura, all of Scripture. I can't get to ignore the parts that present Jesus as God.

I can't ignore the parts that present the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit. I have to bring all of this together. And though it would be much easier and simpler to dismiss these things and to ignore this part of Scripture or that, I have to honor God's Word.

And so I want to believe all that the Scripture says. So the Trinity, the term then, describes for us what all of Scripture together teaches. And it's much more important to preserve the entirety of the teaching of Scripture than it is to limit yourself to only using the words of Scripture.

If the term describes the teaching of Scripture, then it's an appropriate term, and the Trinity is.

The Godhead, the Shema, and the Deity of Christ

That's right. And I think sometimes some people say that the equivalent is of the usage of the word, the Godhead. We often do find that in the New Testament. And it was good that you pointed out that this is a revelation of God throughout time.

I mean, we're able to see the Godhead in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. And it was simply God revealing Himself to man, to finite man. One accusation that a Muslim would bring to the table would be that if Jesus was God, then why wasn't He so clear about expressing it?

Why didn't He just simply say in simple terms, I am God?

Yeah, that they want a specific formula, and in the process reject the constant conflict that was Jesus' with the Jewish leaders. There were so many times when Jesus said and did things that the Jews picked up stones to stone Him.

Well, you don't stone people for disagreeing with you. You stone them for adultery. It certainly wasn't adultery they were accusing of. Or for blasphemy. And in John chapter 5, they pick up stones to kill Him because He said, My Father is working until now, and I am working, making Himself equal with God.

John chapter 8, when He used the I am language of Himself, where Abraham was, I am. And in John chapter 10, I and the Father are one in the salvation of God's people. If you want clarity, then all you have to do is listen to Jesus' words in the context in which He spoke them.

When you do, you will see very clearly that Jesus is making claims that Jews would not accept because they recognized that He was making claims to deity. And even outside the Gospel of John, you have so many references to this.

Jesus says and does things in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that no mere man could ever do.

Such as?

Well, not only the forgiveness of sins, but saying, Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Where did Moses ever say something like that? Where could Isaiah ever say anything like that?

It's not possible. In Matthew chapter 11, He thanks God that God has hidden these things, the Father has hidden these things from the eyes of the wise, and that no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father.

There's this interpenetration and the fact that the Son has the right and the ability to choose who to reveal the Father to. All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

That's back to John, but yeah. In all of these texts, Jesus says and does things that simply could not be done by a mere rasul or a mere human being. And so when people say, Well, why isn't it clear? What they're asking for is some kind of a creedal statement rather than the clarity of Jesus's actions that fulfill God's purposes in His life.

If He just showed up and said, I am God, worship me, and then struck everybody dead that didn't, you wouldn't have redemption, first of all. And remember, the primary purpose Jesus came was not to fulfill our desire for clarity of thought, but to bring about redemption.

And so if Jesus had just shown up glowing white and throwing thunderbolts, there never would have been a cross. So there's a purpose why Jesus even told people, Don't tell anyone I'm the Messiah. Now, it's funny.

The Muslims do believe Jesus is the Messiah. And yet Jesus said, Don't tell anybody I'm the Messiah. So you could turn the question around and say, Well, if He was the Messiah, why not be more clear about it?

But they believe He was the Messiah, and yet He told people, Don't tell anybody I am the Messiah. So you have to think about what God's purposes were.

The Shema and the One Name of Yahweh

Yes.

Look, Jesus said, and I want to go through some of these things. Jesus said, Hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. He did not say, The Lord your God is three gods. So what did Jesus mean by saying that the Lord your God is one God?

What did He mean by that?

Well, the Shema, which you just quoted, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad, is the prayer that every Jew would pray every morning, and I'm sure Jesus and the disciples did as well. We are monotheists.

And to the people of Israel, Yahweh is your God. Yahweh is one. Now, there is, as I said before, we recognize every single day the distinction between being and person. And I believe that the only consistent way to interpret the entirety of the Bible is to see that when we say Yahweh is one, we're talking about one God, and that's what we believe.

We don't believe in three gods. We don't believe in three Yahwehs. And yet that one name of God is applied to the Father, to the Son, and to the Spirit. So they must be united in such a way that that does not violate biblical monotheism, and hence another reason why I'm a Trinitarian.

Whenever I meet with Jehovah's Witnesses, they say, You know why I'm a Trinitarian? Because I believe in Jehovah God, which is the English anglicized way of slaughtering the name Yahweh. I believe in Jehovah God, and therefore I'm forced to be a Trinitarian.

If you want to wake a Jehovah's Witness up, tell them that. And they'll go,. Well, why is that? Well, because the Father is clearly Jehovah. It's Jehovah that lays our sins upon the Messiah in Isaiah 53.

That's the Father. Jesus is identified as Jehovah in John 12 and Hebrews 1. I go through them more slowly, obviously. And the Spirit is the Spirit of Jehovah. So if I have three distinct persons that identify with the name Yahweh, then I must believe the doctrine of the Trinity.

And it's a very effective way of reaching out to those folks as well. So you have to allow the entirety of Scripture to speak on those issues.

The Triune God and Salvation

Someone once said that without having a Trinitarian God, a Trinity, there would be no creation, in the sense that the God that we have is a relational God, and that relationship preexisted creation. Would that be a fair enough statement?

The normal argument is put this way. If we did not have a triune God, there would be no means of identifying God as loving, because if you have a Unitarian concept of God, then before creation, if we can even use that term, before creation, who was God loving?

How could God have expressed love when he alone existed? And this was an argument that was developed in the early church, especially by the early church writer Augustine, who argued that the nature of God is that of love, and therefore there had to be an expression of love within God even before creation itself.

And that expression of love existed between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Could there be salvation without understanding the God who is a triune God?

Let me put it this way. The gospel is a triune gospel. What I mean by that is it finds its origin and source in the Father. Blessed be God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in all the heavenly places.

Ephesians chapter 1. It is worked out and accomplished in the redemptive work of the Son, and then is applied by the Holy Spirit. And so the gospel is a triune gospel. We have to understand that to understand what the Father does at the baptism of Jesus or what Jesus does on the cross when he commits his soul into the hands of the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit and regeneration.

All of these things point us to the doctrine of the Trinity. And so the gospel is trinitarian. And when we talk about can we have salvation without understanding that, I'm not going to say that a person has to have a perfect knowledge of the Trinity to be saved because when I, as a young child, accepted Jesus, I'm not sure I could have passed one of my own systematic theology quizzes on the subject.

Perhaps if I'm a little bit more clearer, were all three persons of the Godhead necessary to acquire our salvation?

Well, all three persons of the Godhead voluntarily took particular roles in the accomplishment of salvation. And that was freely chosen in the council of heaven before time itself began what we call the eternal covenant of redemption.

Each of the divine persons took the role that they voluntarily chose to take in the accomplishment of salvation.

So if there was no Son, if there was no Holy Spirit, what would that mean?

There would be no Christian salvation in any sense of the term at all. Everything would have to be completely different than it is.

Reverence Before the Mystery of the Trinity

Yes, definitely. And so when we do approach the doctrine of the Trinity, should we approach this with great awe and great respect? I mean, this is a huge subject, isn't it? It is a difficult subject. I think I would be foolish to turn around and say that it is quite easy.

I mean, I remember that when I first became a Christian, someone said to me that, yes, look, the Christian concepts can be understood definitely, but there's also great depth to them. If you want to understand salvation, you can read the book of Romans and you will get an understanding, but you'll also really stretch your mind in being able to fully understand what God had to do to save you.

You'd have to read Romans and Exodus to understand. If you want to understand who God is and what God is like, I mean, you're reading the canon of Scripture and really you're at a marvel as to what this God is like, how He is so great, and how it is that He represents Himself and chooses to reveal Himself to us.

I mean, how should we approach this subject?

Well, you know, when people want a God who is small enough to fit into our back pockets, you're not going to get that from the Bible, okay? And I can't even understand how God is eternal. I cannot understand timeless existence.

And so if that kind of basic level revelation of God is beyond my capacity, what we're talking about here is the highest revelation of God's being, and that is the doctrine of the Trinity. So I think it's at least worthwhile to put out as much intellectual effort to try to start understanding the basic definition of this as it is that most of our kids put out to learn their new video game or something like that, you know?

I mean, let's be serious. There is a mindset among some people that this all should be just very simplistic and very easy and just something you can just lay out in a few moments. And we're talking about the culmination of God's entire self-revelation.

Yes, that's right.

That's a rather important thing.

What the Trinity Is Not and the Quran's Misunderstanding

So for the Muslim, if you could challenge them with a few key things of what the Trinity isn't and what it is, what would you say to them at this point?

Well, it is not what is described in the Quran. Now, I've had Muslims who have disputed that even the primary text in the Quran are actually referring to the doctrine of the Trinity. And so I've had Muslims disputing that Surah 5, verse 116 or 5, verse 72 to 75.

One point of it.

You know, it's not really dealing with the doctrine of the Trinity. I struggle with that because if those are not dealing with the Trinity, then the Trinity is not dealt with anywhere in the Quran. I just do not see an accurate interaction with the doctrine of the Trinity.

So the things to avoid is, well, the main thing is still being promulgated because of the distribution of the videos of Ahmadinejad. And that is that the sonship of Jesus involves the lower animal sexual instinct and that this sonship is a begotten sonship in the sense of a child with a wife.

And that, unfortunately, is so very widespread amongst Muslims. They actually think that we are saying that God got together with a woman and had a child. And nothing could be farther removed from the truth.

And I sometimes wonder how my Muslim friends who know Christian theology and have read Christian theology cannot read the Quran and go, there's a fundamental disconnection here. This author does not understand what I understand of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And if these are the inviolable eternal words of Allah, didn't Allah know what the doctrine of the Trinity was? I mean, seriously, it's difficult to see how that is. So we need to set aside those things and need to set aside any idea that we are identifying Jesus as the Father or the Spirit, any type of modalistic concepts.

I've run into a lot of Muslims who have that idea, that they think that we are one person who masquerades as the Father and then he masquerades as the Son and he masquerades as the Spirit. No, we're talking about three eternal persons, co-equal, co-eternal.

They speak to one another as Jesus does in his high priestly prayer in John 17. And yet we believe in only one God. We do not say three gods, we say three persons. If the Quran would just come out and say three persons and show that the author had some knowledge, then we could at least have a debate.

But when you don't even have that basic level definition, it really is difficult to come to the conclusion that the author of the Quran understood what he was saying.

And it really goes to show exactly the way you put it, that you really need to come to the Bible. If you want a clear understanding of what the Trinity is, you need to come to the Bible. You use the key word, and I love this word, you said unique.

And God is unique. The biblical God is unique in every single way. And unless we understand that, we will find it very difficult to be able to approach this triune God. Or else what we will do is we'll end up describing him as something in creation.

We'll end up violating the uniqueness of God and the uniqueness of the revelation he's made of himself by limiting him to human categories, which ironically is one of the main things that my Islamic opponents say we actually are doing.

That's right. James, thank you once again for your time.

It's been great to be with you.

Thank you.

Closing Exhortation to Worship the Triune God

We really hope and pray that you've been able to see this episode and listen to this episode and learn a little bit about the triune God that we worship. It's one thing to understand who he is, but it is another thing certainly to bow down to who he is and to come and to say that you are a sinner and that you need to be forgiven.

In all these episodes that we record, our true objective is that you would come to him in poverty, that you would realize that there is no worth in yourself, that you need a Savior. You need God's Son, Jesus Christ, and that you need him to be able to save you.

We hope that you would discover this for yourself and that you would realize that he is the true God. Please stay in tune for the very next episode to be continued on the Trinity. And may God bless you.