We have covered three crucial points concerning the Divine Trinity. Now we come to the fourth point-the creeds which have been highly regarded by the church through the ages for nearly two thousand years. A creed is a rule of faith. When the contents of man’s belief are enumerated and set forth in writing, article by article, these articles of faith are called a creed. Due to man’s inadequate knowledge, the creeds all have some deviations and defects. The outline above shows us one heresy found in the creeds and fifteen items lacking in the creeds.
Today’s degraded and deformed Christianity puts the cart before the horse, so to speak, by taking the creeds instead of the entire body of biblical truths as the standard. This is a grave mistake. Although the creeds are good, they are incomplete and even considerably incomplete. In 1828 the Brethren were raised up by the Lord. After discovering the inadequacy of the creeds, they declared that they wanted no creed but the Bible. The incompleteness of the creeds is primarily due to the inadequate knowledge concerning the Divine Trinity. Following the Brethren, those in the Baptist denomination also declared, “No creed but the Bible.” Then another group, the so-called Church of Christ, also made the same declaration. The fourth group of people to make such a declaration are those who are in the Lord’s recovery. Sixty years ago when we were raised up in China, we also declared, “We do not care for the creeds; we care only for the Bible.”
Concerning the doctrine of the Divine Trinity, there have been mainly three major schools through the centuries. The first school is the doctrine of the Trinity, which regards the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as the Triune God; this is based upon the pure revelation of the Scriptures. The second school is tritheism, which regards the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as three persons respectively with each One being a God; hence, the three are three Gods. The third school is modalism, the doctrine of God being one, which advocates that there is one God with three persons-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-in three different stages. Both modalism and tritheism stress only one side of the truth; hence, both are heretical. The true balanced teaching is the doctrine of Trinity with the correct teaching concerning God’s being uniquely one and yet distinctly three.
After I went to America, I began to release the truth concerning the Trinity according to the knowledge of the truth which we have obtained from the Bible. As a result, this has stirred up great oppositions. Over two hundred sixty publications, including periodicals and newspapers, were used by the opposing ones to attack me. We have been fighting for this truth since 1970. Eventually the opposing parties were subdued because the truth is the truth, and the more it is debated, the clearer it becomes. I have spent decades paying attention to this point. In reading every chapter and even every verse of the Bible, I would always pay attention to the matter of the Divine Trinity. Hence, I can say that we have studied every aspect of the Trinity revealed in the Bible. The most important study is in the Gospel of John and in Revelation. These two books reveal the mystery of the Divine Trinity in a very thorough manner.
Now we will briefly cover the five creeds.
According to church history, the earliest creed is the Apostles’ Creed. This creed originated with a group of church fathers, who were all Bible scholars, in the beginning of the second century shortly after the passing away of the apostles. Based upon the apostles’ teachings, they made a thorough study of the truth concerning the Triune God in the Bible in order to give a definition to the Divine Trinity. They were serious and accurate in their study, and the items they set forth may be considered quite deep, thorough, and detailed. The only shortcoming is the incompleteness of the contents. They should not be blamed for this because although the truth concerning the Divine Trinity has been revealed in the sixty-six books of the Bible in a way that is both mysterious and thorough, the items are scattered here and there; hence, it is not very easy to have an exhaustive study.
Next, in the age of the church fathers, seven books of the New Testament had yet to be publicly recognized as authoritative. These books were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Although these seven books were widely read, there were still arguments concerning whether they could be counted as authoritative among the sacred writings and thus worthy of permanent recognition. It was not until A.D. 397 at the Council of Carthage in North Africa that these seven books were affirmed and recognized as a part of the New Testament.
Concerning the process of the formal recognition of the books of the Bible, the Old Testament canonization began at the time of Ezra and took more than four hundred years before it was finally completed at the beginning of the New Testament age. Then the New Testament canonization took another four hundred years for its completion. Therefore, it took almost eight hundred years for the canon of the entire Bible to be finalized. Today those who fear God, know God, and know the Bible all acknowledge that this recognition was undoubtedly of God’s sovereignty. The apostles passed away before the completion of the New Testament canon. In the second century it was not easy for the first group of church fathers to give a complete definition of the Divine Trinity. Although they knew the Bible, they were still short of seven books in their hands. Nevertheless, they still produced the best piece of work. According to my study and research, all the items they set forth were accurate, penetrating, and thorough.
The main contents of the Apostles’ Creed are as follows: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord....I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.” The Apostles’ Creed declares that we believe “in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into Hades; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
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