(Last week I referred to an article I wrote in which I expressed my concern at the drift towards non-Trinitarian worship and preaching today. It is now a year since that article appeared, so I thought I would re-post it here. The following was also reproduced (condensed) in print, in AP, a worthwhile magazine (the National Journal of the Presbyterian Church of Australia), last November.)
From the earliest days of the church Christians wrestled with the wonderfully mysterious nature of our triune God.
The truth, as taught in the Bible, is clear enough: 1) There is one God 2) There are Three Persons: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit 3) The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God 4) The Father is not the Son is not the Spirit.
But how to reconcile these truths has always been a challenge.
Some have tried and gone seriously astray.
In the 4th C, Arius tried to resolve the mystery of the Trinity by teaching that the Son (Jesus) is not God; and implied the Spirit is not a person, just a force.
Arius was seeking to counter another error: that of Sabellius in the previous century. Sabellius taught that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are all God; but they are all just different forms of the one Person.
In recent times a more subtle form of Sabellianism has appeared. This is where a church – that may even hold to a doctrinal statement that pays lip-service to the doctrine of the Trinity – yet in its practice, focuses on “Jesus only” as God. Chris Balzer (one-time moderator PCNSW) has noted: “In my church experience, I have noticed a discernible trend for many Evangelicals perhaps to be Trinitarian in theory but ‘Jesus only’ in practice.”
Jesus Himself declared that His purpose in coming was to bring us into an intimate relationship with God the Father, as well as with Himself, by means of the indwelling Spirit. He said: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God [addressing God, the Father], and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Saviour’s name…
He has washed us with His blood,
He has brought us near to God. (John Newton)
Let me outline a few areas where I believe we are seeing this subtle form of Sabellianism emerging.
WORSHIP
Iain Murray (in his biography of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Vol II, p.239), notes how, as far back as 1951, Lloyd-Jones warned that:
…in their anxiety to present salvation in terms of the person and work of Christ, evangelicals had become unbalanced and tended to forget God the Father. There was a danger of ‘Jesusology’. The worship of God as three Persons must always be remembered. In particular, the emphasis, ‘I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth’, needed to be restored — not simply God the Saviour, but before that, God the Creator. He pointed out that modern hymns , and choruses had encouraged the tendency which he criticized, a tendency which had reached a point at which evangelicals would rather have talks on ‘Personal Work’ than on the character of God.
One wonders what Lloyd-Jones would have made of what is happening today!
One church has, as its four Core Values: “Worship Christ, Live in Community, Get Trained, Make Disciples”. Concerning the first of these they say:
Above all else, we are about Jesus. Everyone worships something. We worship what we treasure, what we value most. As believers, we worship Christ because He is the only One truly worthy of such a high level of devotion and affection.
[A number of other churches on the web have exactly the same wording.]
A church here in Australia (which confesses faith in the Trinity in their brief doctrinal statement) posted this:
When you think going to church is an event, and you view yourself as an audience member watching a show – it is time to repent. Going to church is not based on how good the music is, how funny are the sermons or how great is the building…
…all of which I agree with. But then they told us:
…but it is all about Jesus. We meet to hear about Him, worship Him, pray to him and express our love for Him.
It is right to worship Jesus. But it is wrong if in practice He has become “the only One truly worthy of such a high level of devotion and affection.”
PREACHING
In recent years, with a renewed emphasis on biblical theology, there has been a resurgence in (what is termed) “Christ-centred” preaching. On the whole this has been healthy.
But it is abused when a preacher uses this as an excuse to squeeze a Scriptural passage into saying what it is not.
Ralph Davis, the well-known commentator, says:
I have no problem in preaching Christ from an Old Testament narrative so long as this can be done legitimately and it frequently can… However, I am convinced that I do not honour Christ by forcing him into texts where he is not.
Carl Trueman (The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historical and Contemporary Evangelicalism) has also observed how the more recent focus on biblical theology (and the consequent stimulus to “Christ-centred” preaching) may be abused to obscure the wider scope of Scripture. He says:
We all know the old joke about the Christian fundamentalist who, when asked what was grey, furry, and lived in a tree, responded that ‘It sure sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer to every question is “Jesus”.’ One of the problems I have with a relentless diet of biblical-theological sermons from less talented (i.e., most of us) preachers is their boring mediocrity: contrived contortions of passages which are engaged in to produce the answer ‘Jesus’ every week. It doesn’t matter what the text is; the sermon is always the same.
(And he too warns that we are in danger that: “Trinitarianism will dissolve into modalism. [i.e Sabellianism]”.)
Even in preaching the cross it is misleading to ignore the Trinity. Patrick Shreiner (10 Things You Should Know about the Cross) rightly observes:
The cross must reveal the Trinity. God the Father sent the Son to save the world, the Son submitted to the Father’s will, and the Spirit applies the work of redemption to Jesus’ followers. Redemption is predestined by the Father (Eph 1:3–6), accomplished by the Son (Eph 1:7–10), and applied by the Spirit (Eph. 1:13–14). God did not withhold the Son, and the Son surrendered to the Father. Yet the Father is not sacrificing the Son. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit all possess a single will. The sacrifice, while uniquely the Son’s work, is also the will of the three persons.
HYMNS
Hymns have a profound influence on shaping the theology of the church. Since many in churches today unfortunately don’t study theology (I mean, even in reading the Bible, not necessarily in college) they learn their theology from the hymns they sing.
There are many good hymns that are being written today, praising Christ. But, disproportionately few praising the Father; or praising God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Then there are those hymns that are based on scriptures that specifically praise God, even specifically the Father, but are turned into praise of “Jesus only”.
Some such I might still sing (unjumbling the meaning in my mind), though I would feel uncomfortable in that they skew the meaning of Scripture. Others are forgettable and best left unsung.
Even an otherwise good hymn can stumble here. Consider Stuart Townend’s “O my soul, arise and bless your maker.” Personally I love most of what Townend has written. But while this hymn overtly references Psalm 103 and Psalm 3 which clearly address God the Father (or, at least, the triune God), each verse concludes directing us only to the worship of Jesus. Far better is the The Psalter, 1912, version of Psalm 103 (Trinity Hymnal #10); even Matt Redman’s “10,000 Reasons” (“Bless the Lord”) is more faithful to Psalm 103 in this regard.
What is the cumulative effect of hymns written in this vein? More and more those who sing these songs are being trained to see only Christ in the text of Scripture, while the Father and the triune God disappear from view.
Imagine if a zealous charismatic, wishing to exalt the deity of the Spirit, wrote lyrics like: “Oh Holy Spirit, You are my God, thank You for paying the penalty for my sin…” – and justified this by saying, “But the Holy Spirit is God; and it was only in the power of the Spirit that Jesus went to the cross”.
What he says is true; but the message being conveyed skews the truth.
PRAYER
Chris Balzer notes how “Jesus only” practice “can often be seen in the prayers in public worship, and in a neglect, almost an avoidance, of mentioning the Trinity in any way in the sermons.”
Ron Clark (of the PCQ) also observes:
We have replaced Christology with what I would term ‘Jesus-ology’. This seems to be evidenced in the way the vast numbers of people these days will pray to Jesus, rather than through Jesus to the Father.
When Jesus was asked by His disciples to teach them to pray, Jesus Himself said, “In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven…’”
It is not wrong to pray directly to Jesus; there are a few (though very few) instances of such in Scripture.
But normally, if we are following Jesus, we would direct our prayers to “our Father in heaven”, praying “in Jesus’ name”.
THE LOVE OF GOD
Why do so many churches that confess the Trinity, ignore the Father and the triune God in worship and song?
I believe that, at least in part, it is because, while we crave intimacy, we have lost sight of the purpose of salvation being to bring us into an intimate relationship with the Father, as well as with the Son, through the Spirit; instead we have focused solely on intimacy with the Son – or a watered-down, man-centred version of “Jesus”.
This leads to unbiblical views of God, i.e.:
– The only possibility of an intimate relationship with divinity is seen to be with Christ, but not with the Father, contrary to what Christ Himself taught (eg. John 14:21, 17:3), and what the rest of the Bible (eg. Romans 8:15-16) – including the Old Testament (eg. Psalm 103:8-14) – teaches.
– God the Father is seen as remote, even unloving, who only favours us now because of Christ’s sacrifice, contrary to John 3:16, Romans 5:8 etc.
There are many references in the New Testament to the love of Christ:
Mark 10:21, John 11:5, 13:1, 13:23, Rom 8:35, 8:39, 2 Cor 5:14, Gal 2:20, Eph 3:19, Eph 5:2, 5:25, 6:23, 1 Tim 1:14.
I personally delight in the precious truth which assures me of Christ’s personal and intimate love for me: that, “the Son of God… loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20) – I can never get over that.
But equally, I find great comfort in the loving relationship I have with God my Father, and the many references to that:
John 3:16, 14:21, 14:23, 16:27, Rom 5:5, 5:8, 8:39, 2 Cor 13:11, 13:14, Eph 2:4, 6:23, 2 Thes 2:16, 3:5, Titus 3:4, 1 John 3:1, 4:8, 4:9, 4:10, 4:11, 4:16, Jude 21.
A TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY
Ron Clark comments on the “Jesus-only” trend:
It is my opinion this is creating a possible weakening in our understanding of the Trinity even though we may hold to that theological position.
It is now almost 70 years since Loraine Boettner warned against this trend:
The history of doctrine shows quite clearly that those who have attempted to organize the system of theology around the person of Christ, regardless of their good intentions, have tended to slight other vital truths and to drift into a superficial system. Their system is unstable and tends to gravitate downward, relinquishing one doctrine after another until it becomes anthropocentric.
We see this happening today: “Jesus” becomes more and more just a personal friend.
As a result, worship loses a sense of the true wonder that is God and is becoming increasingly man-centred.