We have seen that the recovery of the church is typified by the return of the children of Israel from their captivity and that it is indicated in some of the later New Testament writings. Now we shall go on to see what it means for the church to be recovered. In this message we shall consider the matter of being recovered from the divisive and apostate ground with its deviation from the truths concerning the person of the Triune God and the person and work of Christ. In the following message we shall see the significance of being recovered back to the unique and pure ground of the oneness of the Body of Christ with its truths concerning the New Testament faith and God’s economy, the person and work of Christ, the person and the dispensing of the Triune God, the church as the Body of Christ, and the universal and local aspects of the church. Then we shall go on to cover the building of the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the house of God, and the establishing of the kingdom life.
We need to be recovered from the divisive and apostate ground with its deviation from the truth concerning the person of the Triune God. During the centuries, three main schools of teaching concerning the Trinity have emerged: modalism, tritheism, and the pure revelation according to the Bible. Modalism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not all eternal and do not all exist at the same time, but are merely three temporary manifestations of the one God. Tritheism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three Gods. We should have nothing to do with modalism, for that extreme view of the Trinity is a heresy. It is also a great heresy to teach that there are three Gods.
According to the natural law in God’s creation, there is the law of balance. Nothing can exist without having two sides. The principle is the same with the truths in the Bible: all the truths in the Scriptures have two sides. Therefore, in order to hold a truth properly, we must hold both sides of it.
The pure revelation of the Triune God in the Bible occupies a central position between the extremes of modalism and tritheism. Because the truths in the Scriptures have two sides, there are two aspects to the Trinity: the aspect of the one-in-three and the aspect of the three-in-one. Modalism is an extreme on the side of the three-in-one. There is, of course, ground in the Scriptures for the side of the three-in-one, but modalism, going to an extreme, far beyond the confines of the Bible, neglects and even annuls the side of the one-in-three. Modalism has gone beyond the confines of the Scriptures concerning the aspect of the three. Hence, it is a heresy on the extreme of the one. Tritheism is the opposite extreme. Tritheism stresses the side of the three and neglects the side of the one. It also has scriptural ground because the Father, the Son, and the Spirit certainly are three. But tritheism, like modalism, also goes beyond the confines of the Bible and becomes a heresy. Therefore, both modalism and tritheism, being extremes, are heresies. The following diagrams will help us to visualize this: