‘Knowledge of the triune God’

Last Thursday, I gave a fourth (and final) Bible study in Nunspeet on the subject of ‘the one God’. A visitor that evening sent me an article in response, which was published this week in De Saambinder, the weekly magazine of the Dutch Reformed Congregations. In the article, Rev. Labee addresses the question: Why is there so often talk in preaching about knowledge of the triune God? The person who sent me the article asked me to respond to some of Labee’s claims. I will not discuss everything he puts forward, but will limit myself to a few main points. Labee begins his article as follows:

The answer can be very brief: this is the very core of true faith!
By nature, we lie in our state of death, condemnable before God. Or we are accounted to Christ, incorporated in Him, by a true faith. The great Prophet and Teacher spoke: “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou dost commission, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3)

Remarkable that the first Scriptural justification Labee provides from John 17:3 is immediately fatal to the idea he wishes to defend. In this prayer, Jesus addresses His Father and says (literally translated):

Now it is eonian life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou dost commission.

Read carefully what is written here. The essence of the life of the coming eon (= the eon-ian life; Luke 18:30), is that one knows “the only true God.” Who is that? That is the Father whom He addresses in His prayer. Jesus does not merely call Him “God” but “the only true God.” Whom He then explicitly distinguishes from Himself. For Jesus Christ is (as He Himself says) the One Who was commissioned by “the only true God.” So Rev. Labee makes a false start. He continues:

We receive the same teaching from Lord’s Day 7 of our Heidelberg Catechism. First, we find there that not all people are saved but only those who, through true faith, are incorporated into Him (that is, Jesus) and accept all His benefits. Then we hear what true faith actually is, and finally what a true Christian needs to believe. When Ursinus (1534–1584) then points to the twelve articles of faith as the core of the Evangel, we hear what the core is of the confession of faith of a child of God: God the Father and our creation, God the Son and our redemption, God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.

Instead of providing Scriptural “receipts,” the preacher appeals to the Heidelberg Catechism. In the Lord’s Day 7 he references (Question 20), the issue is whether all people will be saved, as they were also all condemned in Adam. The interesting part is that this very question is explicitly answered positively by the apostle Paul—twice! (Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:22): through one act of one man all are condemned, and thus also through one act of one man all shall be justified and made alive. Crystal clear! The Heidelberg Catechism, however, flatly denies this with an emphatic “no”…

The same Heidelberg Catechism to which Labee appeals, in turn refers for the core of the Evangel to the “Twelve Articles of the Faith.” A very old document, but nonetheless a human tradition, and as an argument certainly not in line with the Reformation adage: sola scriptura, Scripture alone! Moreover, the so-called “Twelve Articles” do not, as Labee suggests, speak of “God the Son” and “God the Holy Spirit,” but that aside. Much more important is that these phrases are entirely unknown in Scripture. The Bible speaks dozens of times of “God the Father” and of “one God, the Father” (1 Cor. 8:6), and of Him as “the only true God” (John 17:3; Jude:25; Mark 12:29). But we never read of “God the Son,” which is completely logical, since the Scriptural teaching precisely emphasizes that there is “one God, the Father.” The Son is therefore consistently and dozens of times called in Scripture “the Son of God.”

To his appeal to the Heidelberg Catechism and the Twelve Articles, Rev. Labee now adds the Belgic Confession.

Our Belgic Confession teaches instructively in Article 9 about that ‘mystery’ of the three Persons in the one Divine Being: “All this we know from the testimonies of Holy Scripture, as well as from Their operations, and chiefly from those which we feel within ourselves.”

Once again, an appeal to a human writing—about which the Belgic Confession itself states the following noteworthy words in Article 7 (bold lettering is mine; AP):

“One may not even compare any human writings, however holy they may have been, with the Divine Scriptures, nor custom with the truth of God (for the truth is above all), nor the great multitude, nor antiquity, nor succession of times or persons, nor councils, decrees or statutes; for all men are liars in themselves, and more vain than vanity itself.”

In other words, human writings may very well speak of “the three persons in the one Divine Being,” but if Scripture itself does not contain such terminology, then we are to reject these as “more vain than vanity itself.” Amen!

Note that Rev. Labee thus far has appealed to only one Bible verse (John 17:3), which by itself already proved devastating for the doctrine he seeks to defend. Apart from that, he has relied exclusively on confessional writings. And now he adds a quote from an English preacher…

To explain what that experiential knowledge is meant to convey, let us read along with a quote from J.C. Philpot (1802–1869) on the words, “For three there are who are testifying in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one” (1 John 5:7). We read there:
“All of God’s children are led to the knowledge of the Trinity, certainly not through speculative reasoning or cleverness of the intellect. The Spirit teaches them not by mere intellectual reflection, but by the power and dew of Divine truth in the heart. All of God’s children learn the doctrine of the Trinity in their soul.”

Aha, J.C. Philpot finally does appeal to a Scripture text: 1 John 5:7.

For three there are who are testifying in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

This verse indeed seems quite relevant to the subject—if it weren’t for the fact that the text is clearly corrupt. The sentence is known as the so-called Comma Johanneum and is a rather explicit reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. But Rev. Labee, as a theologian, surely knows that this sentence is nowhere to be found in the Greek manuscripts of the “New Testament” and is an unmistakably medieval (Latin) addition. On Wikipedia we read about this (taken from the Dutch Wikipedia page and bold lettering is mine; AP):

The text is not found in the oldest Greek manuscripts. Nor is it quoted by the early Church Fathers when they cite this section of the Johannine letter. Apparently, the verse entered the Latin text of the New Testament somewhere during the Middle Ages, perhaps first as a gloss in the margin and then, through copying, into the actual text. Modern Bible translations omit the Comma, place it in a footnote, or enclose it in parentheses…

Rev. Labee ends his response to the aforementioned question with some ‘experiential’ notes, which I will leave aside here.

I conclude by noting that in his response, the preacher relies almost exclusively on human writings. And insofar as Scripture is cited, it is either a text that actually argues the exact opposite of what Labee claims, or it is a text that is clearly and universally acknowledged to be a textual corruption. How sad it is when church people are sent away with such a smokescreen! When the testimony of Scripture gives way to the word of men. And when simple (“one God and Father”) and radiant teaching (“Saviour of all mankind”) is replaced by ‘mystery’ and darkness. Indeed: “… more vain than vanity itself.”

Delen: