Christian Doctrine

There are lots of great reasons for wanting to study Christian doctrine. Here are a few.

First, understanding doctrine helps us understand the Bible. One important principle for reading the Bible is that Scripture interprets Scripture. In other words, grasping the big picture of what the Bible teaches helps us make sense of individual passages. It helps us avoid misinterpreting passages. And doctrine is simply a summary of what the Bible teaches as that’s been understood by God’s people over the centuries. So a good understanding of doctrine equips us to read the Bible well.

The Bible is always our ultimate authority because only the Bible is the written word of God. So sometimes the Bible will challenge and change our understanding of doctrine. But if we think a passage is teaching something contrary to the doctrine held by our church then that’s like a red warning flag. It might mean our doctrine needs revising. But it’s probably best first of all to slow down and check whether we’re understanding the passage in the correct way.

Second, understanding doctrine provides ballast to our lives. Ballast is something weighty that’s put at the bottom of a boat to stop that boat bobbing about on the waves or getting blown off course in a storm. The truth about God, Christ, salvation, and the future is weighty material that stops us bobbing about spiritually. It’s an image Paul uses in Ephesians 4:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Notice the link between “knowledge of the Son of God”, maturity and not being deceived by false teaching. Knowledge leads to maturity and maturity protects us from deceitful teaching. Some people get swept along with every new trend or emphasis. An understanding of doctrine provides a wider viewpoint that puts the latest fad in a bigger perspective.

The same is true of hardships. It’s all too easy for our hardship to fill our vision and cast doubt on our faith. But an understanding of doctrine provides a wider viewpoint that puts our sufferings in a bigger perspective. A good grasp of doctrine helps prevent us getting blown off course when we’re hit by the storms of life.

Third, understanding doctrine is really another way of saying understanding God the Father, Son and Spirit, along with God’s glorious majesty, his loving purposes, his saving activity and the glorious hope that he promises us. Who wouldn’t want to know more about these things? If you fall in love then you want to know all about your beloved. The same is true for Christians who have experienced God’s love. If doctrine ever feels dry and dusty then something is badly wrong. Good doctrine leads to passionate praise.

Who is God? The doctrine of the Trinity

Our look at Christian doctrine begins with God. The opening words of the Bible are: “In the beginning God …” (Gen. 1:1) The Bible immediately goes on to describe how God creates all things along with time itself. But before anything else is made, God is. He is uncreated and eternal. He exists before time and outside of time. And he is the source of everything that exists while he himself is self-existent.

But who is God? Christian doctrine says God is Trinity – one God who is three persons or three persons sharing one divine being.

Is the doctrine of the Trinity biblical?

The word “trinity” is not found in the Bible. But the concept represented by the word is found all over the Bible. It’s sometimes suggested that the Trinity is only found in the New Testament, but not in the Old Testament. That would be surprising if God has always been Trinity. In fact, when you dig down into the text of the Old Testament you find evidence for God eternally existing as more than one person. 

Take Genesis 1:26 for example: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness”. What do the plural verb “let us” and the plural pronoun “our” mean in this verse? There are three options. First, it could be a “royal we” (like Queen Victoria declaring “We are not amused”). Second, God could be speaking to the angels. Third, it could be an indication of a plurality of persons in God himself, that is, the persons of the Trinity are speaking to one another.

The problem with the first option is that in Old Testament Hebrew there are no other examples of a monarch using the plural to refer to himself. The problem with the second option (that God was speaking to angels) is that angels did not participate in the creation of humanity, nor was man created in the image of angels. So the best option is to see that even in the very first chapter of the Bible there is evidence for the plurality of persons in God.

We see something similar again in Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees God in his throne room and receives his commission from the Lord. Then verse 8 says: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” Notice the combination of singular and plural pronouns there. “Who shall I send? And who will go for us?” Here is evidence of both unity and plurality within God himself. God is both one and more than one.

Or consider Psalm 110: “The LORD says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” Who is David, the writer of this psalm, talking about here in Psalm 110? He is referring to two Lords. The first is clearly God the Father. But who is the second? David is King of Israel. He has no Lord other than God. And no one other than God can receive the request from God the Father: “Sit at my right hand”. And yet the second Lord is distinct from the first. Jesus himself noted this evidence of plurality in Mark 12:36-37 where he highlights the difficulty with the Messiah being the Son of David and yet at the same time the Lord of David. The only way to resolve this difficulty is to recognise that Jesus is the Son of David because as a human being he is descended form David and yet Jesus is also David’s Lord because he is the Son of God.

Despite these revelations of God as Trinity scattered throughout the Old Testament, it is fair to say that we have to wait until the New Testament to get a fuller revelation of the Trinity. With the incarnation of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity is clearly seen in the world.

With the coming of the second person of the Trinity (the Son of God), the activity of the third person of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit) is also seen more clearly. Often the church today can give the impression that the Holy Spirit only turned up at Pentecost in Acts 2 and that he functions as a sort of mystical power that enables Christians to do things. What is often missed is the integral role that the Holy Spirit played in the incarnation and work of Christ. How did God the Son become flesh? Matthew 1:18 tell us that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the Spirit came on Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry when he is baptised: “When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:21) Notice how all three persons of the Trinity are active here. Jesus goes down into the water and is baptised. Heaven opens and the person of the Holy Spirit descends on him in bodily form like a dove. Then the voice of God the Father comes: “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” All three persons of the Trinity are active at the start of the public ministry of Jesus. 

They are also active at the climax of his ministry on earth. Who raised Jesus from the dead?

In his sermon on the day of Pentecost Peter is clear that God (that is, God the Father) raised Jesus (Acts 2:24). That’s confirmed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 6:4 where he speaks about Christ being raised from the dead “through the glory of the Father”. But a little bit later in Romans we read: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” (Rom. 8:11). God the Father and God the Holy Spirit worked together in the resurrection of God the Son. It is a trinitarian action.

And the trinitarian action that we see at work in the life and ministry of Jesus is carried forward into the life of the church. We see “triadic formulas” – sayings invoking all three names of the Trinity – all over the place. Here are the two most famous. When Jesus gives his Great commission to his followers, he says: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19) We’re not baptised simply into the name of God the Father, but into the name of the whole Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit. Likewise “the Grace” that Paul gives at the end of 2 Corinthians and which we sometimes say at the end of meetings reads: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Cor. 13:14) Again, all three persons of the Trinity are involved.

So is the doctrine of the Trinity biblical? Absolutely, it is. But what we find is that the doctrine is progressively revealed in the Bible. That is exactly what was noted by the great fourth-century Turkish theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus. Listen to this from his Theological Orations:

The old covenant made clear proclamation of the Father, a less definite one of the Son. The new covenant made the Son manifest and gave us a glimpse of the Spirit’s Godhead. At the present time the Spirit dwells amongst us, giving us a clearer manifestation of himself than before … God meant it to be by piecemeal additions, “ascents” as David called them, by progress and advance from glory to glory, that the light of the Trinity should shine upon more illustrious souls. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations 5.26)

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The Crosslands Foundation courses on Christian Doctrine cover:

Christian Doctrine 1

1. Who is God? The doctrine of the Trinity
2. What is God like? The attributes of God
3. How can we know God? The doctrine of Scripture
4. Where are we? The doctrine of creation
5. Who’s in charge? The providence of God
6. Who are we? The doctrine of humanity
7. What’s wrong with us? The doctrine of sin
8. Who is Jesus? Part 1: Jesus the Christ 
9. Who is Jesus? Part 2: Jesus the God-man

Christian Doctrine 2

1. What did Jesus do? Part 1: His life and death
2. What did Jesus do? Part 2: His death, resurrection and ascension 
3. What does Christ’s work mean for us? The doctrine of salvation
4. Why are we saved? The doctrines of grace
5. Who is the Holy Spirit? The person of the Spirit
6. What does the Holy Spirit do? The work of the Spirit
7. Why join a church? The doctrine of the church
8. Why take bread and wine? The doctrine of the sacraments
9. Where are we heading? The doctrine of eschatology