Do You have to Believe in the TRINITY to Be a Christian?
by Angela Moore
Recently, I had a woman tell me the following: “To be a Christian is to be a Trinitarian. To deny the Trinity is to deny Christianity.”
I question the validity of this statement when nowhere in my Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, does it state this.
This is an age old debate – whether God is one God (the Heavenly Father) which is called “Unitarianism” or He is a triple God in one (triune) - a three-person “who” in one “what” Godhead (called the Trinity).
Those who profess the Trinity doctrine basically adhere to believing that either you accept by faith this doctrine, or you’re not even a Christian. They believe it’s the litmus test for Christianity: accept by faith that Jesus is God, that he is “Deity,” or you’re not a Christian. I find that rather harsh, wouldn’t you say, when the Scriptures, and even God, does not require this to be saved? Romans 10:9 tells us “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” Wouldn’t that have been an awesome time to have put in the Trinity requirement? Romans 10:9 states that Jesus didn’t raise himself from the dead. God raised Jesus and brought him back to life! To believe in the Trinity, you would have to believe that the man-part of Jesus died, but the God-part of Jesus did NOT die, because we all know that Scripture says that God cannot die, that he alone has immortality.
With just one verse, we can open up a can of worms for the Trinitarians that is hard for them to explain and still make logical sense.
In Luke 10, a certain lawyer asked Jesus, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (which would be asking the same thing – how can I be saved from the second death – the lake of fire, and instead receive eternal life?). Jesus answered him with a question – “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” and he answered, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
The requirement to believe in the Trinity in order to be saved and considered a Christian, is blatantly missing from the Scriptures, over and over again, although Jesus is given many opportunities to bring it up and explain it. The Apostle Paul has to deal with issues about Jews not requiring Gentiles to live by the law, (i.e. circumcision, what foods to eat, etc.) yet, does not have to explain to the Jewish people that God is no longer one God, like they thought, but revealed to him now, that God is three who’s in one what. The Scriptures are amazingly silent on this debate, that would surely have taken place, had the Jewish-Christian apostles been preaching Jesus, “the second person of the Godhead.”
It is amazing to me that today’s Christians do not seem to be bothered by this, and basically use a few “proof texts” to attempt to prove their doctrine, when those same Scriptures could also be used to defend that Jesus is who he said he was – the Messiah, who was exalted to the Right hand of God. Yet so many people cling tenaciously to the Trinity and defend it with such a defensive, pit-bull attitude. I can't help wondering why. Why is this such a big deal to them, despite their doubts, despite the inability to completely understand or explain this doctrine that has so many issues with Scripture? Why do they want to believe in it? Because most want to continue believing in this, despite nagging doubts or unanswered questions that nibble on their consciences, if they allow it.
Where it originated
The belief that one must believe in the Trinity to be saved comes from the Athanasian Creed that states “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic [universal] faith; Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly; And the catholic [universal] faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.”(for more, see http://lhim.org/blog/2008/11/09/can-anyone-be-saved/).
The majority of the churches went through a period of reformation and dropped many of the Catholic church’s creeds, yet have hung onto the Trinity doctrine, for fear if they lose this tenet of their faith, that they would no longer be a Christian. This is preached and taught in most churches, so people are afraid if they question or doubt this doctrine, they will no longer be followers of Jesus Christ. What a false teaching that is, that has crippled the church and made it a stumbling block for those who may have considered Christianity, yet found the Trinity doctrine mind boggling, confusing, and basically too far-fetched to want to accept by faith. Most people with whom I talk with about this subject are typically in two categories:
1) Relieved to know that they don’t have to believe that God became a baby, in order for them to be saved, and that they can use their brains & intellect that God has given them, to understand the plan He had for us before the creation of the world. That when their Bibles tell them that God is one, it really means that there is only one living God, not a 3-in-1 God that is not even defined in the Scriptures as such.
2) Clinging to the doctrine of the Trinity, to the point of debating it with me, yet somewhat resigned to admit that it isn’t something that they will truly understand until they face God someday.
The truth of the matter
If you are a Trinitarian, or if you just attend a Trinitarian church and aren’t sure of what you really believe about who God and Jesus are, then my question to you today is this: If your definition of Jesus ceased to be defined as “fully God”, does your Christian faith fail?If you found out that Jesus is not God and in reality, he never was God, and never will be God, would you no longer have faith in Christ Jesus? Would the religion and faith of Christianity crumble and disintegrate at your feet? Would your hope be gone?
My Christianity does not depend upon Jesus being proven to be part of a godhead 3-in-1 “WHAT.” I don’t have to say that Jesus had a “dual nature” - sometimes acting as “man” and sometimes as “God” in an effort to explain discrepancies in my theory as the Trinitarian must.
(Nowhere in the Scriptures does it tell me that Jesus had a dual nature.)
My God is a “who.” He is not a ‘what’ nor a “they.” My God is Adonai - YaHWeH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Jesus. God did not promise Abraham in Genesis [Chapters] 15-18 that his ’seed’ would be "God." God promised Abraham that he would have a descendant – a man. God prophesied to Moses in Deut. 18 “a prophet from your countrymen.” This promised seed is Christ Jesus and through belief in him, I receive eternal life in the kingdom of which this Jesus will be the Anointed King.
It does not change my hope or downgrade my faith. God asks me to have faith in the promises made to Abraham, and declares me as righteous for that faith. God makes it very clear what and who I am to believe in. I don’t have to check my brain at the door, nor be ashamed that Jesus was who he said he was -
“I am he, the Messiah” and his Father is the only true God.
If I choose not to follow the words of Jesus, not to listen to him as God instructed (”Listen to my son!“), not believe in the God that Jesus believed in, prayed to, submitted to….then the question springs forth: “Am I really a true follower of this man Jesus, while I ignore what he believed?” Why can’t we go back to the words of Jesus, rather than defend a doctrine (Trinity) that wasn’t even fully developed until [451] AD?
I think you will find that the truth will set you free! I believe when we “get it” ~ that God doesn’t change, and that He is still the same God today, as the God of the Old Testament; and that Jesus is His Son ~ it will open up your understanding of the Scriptures so much more than you ever dreamed possible! Once you climb over the hurdle that you: "have to accept man’s creeds to be saved," and realize that you must rather simply believe in Jesus and the God-breathed Scriptures as your source of truth - then your study will come alive!
It’s exciting stuff. It’s not easy to question what you’ve always believed to be true. It’s not easy to go against the majority. But, I strongly encourage you to ask yourself - am I trying to attempt to prove and defend something that is a lot more complicated than what God and His Son Jesus ever intended for me to accept by faith? Am I clinging to something merely because I was taught that to not do so, made me cease to be a follower of Christ? Hog wash! To be a follower of Christ is to listen to him when he says in Mark 12:29 “The LORD our God is one Lord.” Jesus could not have been any clearer or plainer than that.
Conclusion
So let me rephrase the woman’s quote above to a correct understanding:(1.) To be a Christian is to believe what Jesus believed and taught.
(2.) Jesus taught that YaHWeH our God is one Lord.
(3.) To deny what Jesus said and insist that YaHWeH is three lords in One - is to disregard the words of Jesus.
(4.) How can one be a true follower of Jesus when you don’t even listen to him?”
The above article was taken from:
"Do You have to Believe in the TRINITY to Be a Christian?"Some editing has been done on the above article.
