Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Forgotten Trinity

Is the doctrine of the Trinity important? And how important is it? Well, here is the witness of at least one robust trinitarian (with whom I cast my lot). Jown Owen says:
God has revealed or manisfested himself as three in one, and, therefore, as such is to be worshipped and glorified by us—that is, as three distinct persons, subsisting in the same infinitely holy one undivided essence. . . . There are [those], and those not a few, who either reject the doctrine as false, or despise it as unintelligible, or neglect it as useless, or of no great importance. . . . [But as] God hath revealed himself as three in one, he is in all our worship of him so to be considered. And, therefore, in our initiation into the profession and practice of the worship of God, according to the gospel, we are in our baptism engaged to it, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19). This is the foundation of our doing all the things that Christ commands us (Matt. 28:20). Unto this service we are solemnly dedicated, namely, of God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; as they are each of them equally participant of the same divine nature (John Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 66).
So we're not left in doubt how Owen answered the question. How do we answer the question? By default? Do the baptized in our midst even know the first thing about the Trinity in either profession or conscious experience? We are baptized into the name of the triune God, and then off we often go with something else, forgetting God's triunity and tripersonal existence and fellowship, forgetting God's fundamental nature, forgetting our all.

No comments:

Post a Comment