Why the Sabbatarian Churches of God Don’t Believe in the Trinity Doctrine While I generally feel the doctrine of the Trinity is probably valid, I want you to understand why the Sabbatarian Churches of God and some other genuine Christian groups do not believe in the Trinity doctrine, and what makes it at best a secondary doctrine. One key thing to consider is that the doctrine itself wasn’t even developed in a rudimentary way until Tertullian (150-225AD) and Origen (250’s AD), and before and even after this time early Judeo-Christians either believed the Holy Spirit was a part of God in some unexplained way, or they simply believed the Holy Spirit was ‘the power of God’. The doctrine of the Trinity didn’t develop amongst the Judeo-Christians of Asia Minor, but amongst the Greco-Roman churches that became the Roman Catholic Church. Early post-apostolic fathers (90-140AD) did not embrace the idea of a trinity in their concept of God. That historic fact doesn’t necessarily make the doctrine of the trinity wrong, but by the simple fact that it took close to 300 years to “tease out” the doctrine from the Scriptures definitely puts it in the realm of secondary doctrine at best. It is the Greco Roman churches under Constantine’s reign that made it a “primary doctrine” (some think, in their attempt to label the Judeo-Christian churches as “heretic”). A real primary doctrine would be one that the apostles, like John, would clearly teach in the Scriptures, like the Divinity of Jesus Christ. John says in 1st John 2:18-27 that he who denies the Divinity of Christ is not a believer. He who teaches that Christ is not God the Son, come in the flesh is an antichrist. Now that is a primary doctrine. But nowhere in John’s or the other apostolic writings is a similar statement or teaching made about the Holy Spirit. So to judge the Sabbatarian Churches of God as heretic because they hold to an earlier belief is very unbiblical and very unsound apologetics. That said, let’s learn a little more about the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit’s powerful effect on believers. For as Paul said, to have the Spirit is life, and to not have the Spirit is death. Dwight L. Moody Moody
at the New York Hippodrome, he preached this: “Now I
want this thing clearly understood.
We believe firmly [if] any man…has been cleansed by the blood,
redeemed by the blood, and been sealed by the Holy Ghost [i.e. Holy
Spirit], that Holy Ghost dwells in him.
And a thought I want to call
your attention to is this, that God has got a good many children who
have just barely got life, but not power for service. You might say safely, I think, without exaggeration,
that nineteen out of every twenty of professed Christians are of no
earthly account so far as building up Christ’s kingdom; but on the contrary
they are standing right in the way, and the reason is because they have
just got life and have settled down, and have not sought for power. The Holy Ghost [Holy Spirit] coming upon them
with power is distinct and separate from conversion. If the Scripture doesn’t teach it I am ready
to correct it. “Let us look and see what God says, and if you will look in the third chapter of Luke you will see that all these thirty years Christ had been in Nazareth He had been a son, but now the Holy Ghost come upon Him for service, and He goes back to Nazareth and finds a place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, to recover sight to the blind, and set at liberty them that are bruised.’ And for three years we find Him preaching the kingdom of God, casting out devils, and raising the dead, while for thirty years that He was at Nazareth, we hear nothing of Him. He was a son all the while, but now He is anointed for service; and if the Son of God has got to be anointed, do not His disciples need it, and shall not we seek it, and shall we barely rest with conversion? “In the
7th chapter of John and 38th and 39th
verses, Jesus says, ‘He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath
said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
(But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on
Him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because not
yet glorified.)’ Now, do you tell me that Peter and John and
James and the rest of those men had not been converted at that time?
[In Reality they received the Holy Spirit for conversion in John 20,
right after Jesus’ resurrection.] Had
they been three years with the Son of God and had not been born of the
Spirit? Had not Nicodemus been born of the Spirit, and
had not men been converted before them?
Yes, but they were saints without power, and must tarry in Jerusalem
until imbued with power from on high.
I believe we should accomplish more in one week than we should
in years if we had only this fresh baptism… Here’s where he gets real honest and gives us Christians
a reality check: “Three Classes
of Christians”—which are you? “It seems
to me we have got about three classes of Christians: [1.] the first
class, in the 3rd chapter of John, were those who had got
to Calvary and there got life. They
believed on the Son and were saved, and there they rested satisfied. They did not seek anything higher. [Being an old Navy man, I would call this your
equivalent of a Seaman Recruit, lowest of the lowest level of sailor.]
[2.] Then
in the 4th chapter of John we come to a better class of Christians.
There it was a well of living water bubbling up.
There were a few of these, but they are not a hundredth part
of the first. [So in a congregation of 100, perhaps one is
this 2nd class Christian, perhaps this means the pastor,
or maybe one sitting amongst the 100. Think
about that. I would call this
your 2nd class petty officer.]
[3.] But the best class is in the 7th
chapter of John: ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ That is the kind of Christian we ought to be… [and in my Navy terminology, this would be your
1st class petty officer.]” “A great
many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be
full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under
the fountain all the time in order to keep full. If we are to be used by God we have to be very
humble. A man that lives close
to God will be humblest of men. I
heard a man say that God always chooses the vessel that is close at
hand. Let us keep near Him.” Do you
want to be a mere 3rd class Christian, just barely alive
in the spiritual sense, or do you desire to reach higher and be one
of those who will genuinely make a difference for the kingdom of God
in a spiritually decaying and dying world?
If so, you need to learn more about the Holy Spirit.
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