God Is One

What defines Christianity in contrast to every other religion? We might point to the Bible, but Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses use the Bible; even Muslims accept parts of the Bible. Others might say Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection define Christianity, but again these are things that both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses would hold; in fact, they even believe that Jesus died for human sins. What differentiates Christianity from other religions is the Trinity. No other religion believes in the Trinity. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Pantheism, and Mythology all deny the Trinity. Some of these hold to one god alone (Judaism and Islam), while others hold to multiple gods, but none of them hold to the Triune God of Christianity. The Athanasian creed states that the belief in the Trinity is the core of the universal faith of Christianity, “That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the essence.” This might sound like an overstatement, especially since the word Trinity is never used in Scripture and Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” Are we making too much out of our Trinity belief, or worse yet, are we making it up? The Trinity is core not only to the identity of God, but to the nature of man. For example, C. S. Lewis says, “We learn from the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity that something analogous to ‘society’ exists within the Divine being from all eternity—that God is Love.” The Trinity is also essential to the gospel. The death of Jesus Christ was not the death of a mere man, but of the God-Man, He who is eternally begotten of the Father. And the Trinity is essential to our everyday lives, for the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ who promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us (Josh 1:5; Heb 13:5). The implications of the Trinity impact all of Christianity because it is the essence of Christianity. This is the God we worship; this is the faith we hold. – Pastor Rory

Sunday at Liberty