I would like to take this opportunity to show, especially to the young brothers and sisters, that the “orthodox” doctrine concerning the Trinity is unreliable. Orthodox traditional theologians believe in the Nicene Creed, which was established in the council held in Nicaea in A.D. 325. Prior to that time, in the second and third centuries, the debates among the early Bible scholars, the so-called church fathers, reached a peak. The debates were mostly concerning the Triune God, the relationship among the three of the Triune God, and the Person of Christ—who Christ is and whether He is God or man. For two hundred years they argued to such an extent that they were at a stalemate. It was at this juncture, around A.D. 310, that Constantine the Great obtained the Roman Empire and became emperor. He accepted Christianity as the state religion of Rome and encouraged the Roman people to be baptized and join the church. Anyone who was baptized to join the church was given a set of garments and a certain amount of silver. Hence, at that time thousands of the people of Rome joined the church. Formerly the Roman Empire persecuted Christianity, but beginning from Constantine the Great, it changed its tactic and began to welcome Christianity, which then became the most powerful entity in the Roman Empire. At that time, Constantine the Great tried to discourage the Bible scholars from constant quarreling with each other so that he could maintain a proper order within the empire. Thus, in A.D. 325 he issued a decree to gather all the Bible scholars, including the bishops in different places, to Nicaea for a council. The chairman of that council was Constantine himself, and the bishops, the Bible scholars, debated in front of him. At the conclusion of the debates, a creed was decided upon, which is called the Nicene Creed. To this day, it is commonly believed and recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and the orthodox Protestant churches, such as the Episcopalian Church, the Methodist Church, and other large denominations.
The Nicene Creed speaks of the Triune God, referring to the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, but not one word is said about the Holy Spirit being the life-giving Spirit. It was not until A.D. 381 that a further word was added concerning the life-giving Spirit. Despite the addition of this further word, regardless of how we study the creeds, we still cannot find the seven Spirits. Today in the New Testament, there are the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit,” the life-giving Spirit, and the seven Spirits, but in the Nicene Creed there are no seven Spirits.
While fighting the battle for the truth in America, we have said to some, “You say that your basis is the creeds, but we say that the creeds are incomplete. Our basis is not the creeds but the Bible.” The Lord raised up His recovery in China more than fifty years ago. Thank the Lord, at that time we became clear that we should not take any creed as our basis because the creeds are incomplete. We must come back to the Bible, which is complete. We asked certain ones, “Do you have the seven Spirits in your creed?” The answer of course was no. For this reason I quoted to them a Chinese saying: “You have cut the feet to fit the shoes.” The Nicene Creed may be likened to a small pair of shoes made in A.D. 325. At that time, the church’s knowledge of the Bible was like a small pair of feet. Hence, it was quite comfortable to put the shoes on the feet. However, the church’s knowledge of the Bible is always improving. The earth cannot be improved, but mankind’s knowledge of the earth is improving. Before Columbus’s time, people thought that the earth was flat or square; they did not know that the earth is round. The globe does not progress, but man’s discovery concerning the globe is progressing. The same is true with the Bible. The Bible cannot be improved; it has been completed once for all. However, our knowledge of the biblical truths is improving by our discoveries.
In A.D. 325, those Bible scholars, those bishops, who came together knew the Bible, but the measure of their knowledge was small. Therefore, they made a “size-five shoe” for people to wear. At that time, the ordinary people’s knowledge of the Bible was at most “size five,” so they were able to wear that small pair of shoes. But from A.D. 325 to the present time, through the course of more than sixteen hundred years, Christians’ knowledge of the Bible has progressed with more discoveries and more light, not only from Matthew to Acts, but from Acts to the Epistles, and in particular today through the Epistles to Revelation. In Revelation we have seen the seven Spirits. Today the “feet” of Christians’ knowledge of the Bible are “size eight,” yet they try to put them into “size-five shoes.” Therefore, I said to the American theologians, “What you are doing is cutting our feet to make them fit into your small shoes.”
This challenge has gone out, but up to this day I have not yet heard their answer. They cannot answer. They say that we should take the creeds as our basis, but the creeds do not say anything about the seven Spirits. What then shall we do? Should we cut off the seven Spirits? Do we follow the Bible or the creeds? The seven Spirits are not in the creeds but in the Bible. Do we care for the seven Spirits? We do. Do we, then, care for the creeds? We do not. Thank the Lord, none of us cares for the creeds. As early as the winter of 1925 I cast away the creeds. We thank and praise the Lord that we have not only Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and the other Epistles, but also Revelation.
Many say that the three of the Trinity are three individual persons—the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the Son is the Son, and the Father is the Father. Recently, a number of us went to the Holy Land to see Jerusalem, but before that we also went to see Rome and the Vatican. In the Vatican there is a cathedral, inside which, on the walls of every room, are the best ancient oil paintings. One of the paintings is a portrait of the Triune God: an old father sitting down with a long beard, a middle-aged son standing, and a dove flying above. Another picture had an additional figure, Mary, standing in the middle. This is the Trinity in the teaching of the Vatican. The Father is that white-bearded old father, the Son is that middle-aged son, and the Holy Spirit is the dove flying above. They have only a partial scriptural basis for this concept. What they have is seemingly true, but in reality it is false; it is superficial knowledge.
Apparently, this is the doctrine of the Trinity taught by traditional theologians. We would ask them, “Is the rock Christ? Is the living water the Spirit?” If the answer to both questions is yes, then are Christ and the Spirit divided and separated? They are not, because the living water flows out of Christ. Furthermore, the Lamb is Christ, and the eyes of the Lamb are the Spirit. Since the eyes are a part of the body, the seven eyes of the Lamb are a part of the Lamb; the two cannot be divided. The picture of the rock and the water, which is clearer than any number of words can make it, indicates that the Holy Spirit is the flowing out of Christ. When Christ is infused into us, He is the Spirit. How can one person be infused into another person? It is through the eyes. When a person infuses himself through his eyes, he infuses the reality of what he is. In the same way, the Spirit as the reality of Christ is infused into the saints. Hence, there is no way to separate the Spirit from Christ. To separate Christ from the Spirit is like separating the living water from the rock. Once we separate the living water from the rock, the living water is without a source, and the rock is without a flow. The living water is the flow of the rock, and the rock is the source of the living water. The two are two yet one; they are indivisible, just as the eyes and the body are inseparable.