We read in the Word that Jehovah God dwells in inaccessible light
[ 1 Timothy 6 : 16 ]. Who then could turn to him unless he dwelt in acces-
siblelight, that is, unless he came down, took on a human manifesta-
tion, and in it became the Light of the world (John 1 : 9 ; 12 : 46 )? Surely
anyone can see that turning to Jehovah the Father in his own light is as
impossible as taking Dawn’s wings from her and using them to fly to the
sun, or feeding off the sun’s rays instead of proper food. It would be like
a bird flying in the ether or a deer running through the air.177 6. The Nicene and Athanasian views of the Trinity led to a faith that has
perverted the whole Christian church.On the Nicene and Athanasian Trin-
ity being a trinity of gods, see the evidence from those creeds given above
at § 172. Those creeds gave rise to the faith in the modern-day church,
which is a faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The faith in God the Father is that he assigns and ascribes to us the justice
of his Son the Savior. The faith in God the Son is that he intercedes and
bargains for us. The faith in the Holy Spirit is that he actually instills the
justice of the Son that has been assigned to us and seals it as an established
fact by justifying us, sanctifying us, and regenerating us. This is the mod-
ern faith, which is enough evidence all by itself to prove that the church
acknowledges and worships a trinity of gods.
[ 2 ] In any church, not only all its worship but also all its dogma ulti-
mately go back to that church’s faith. You could say, then, that the nature
of a church’s faith determines the nature of its teachings. It follows that
the faith in question, because it is a faith in three gods, has perverted
every aspect of the church. Faith is an origin; teachings are derived from
it. What is derived receives its essence from its origin.
If you carefully examine the church’s individual teachings—for
example, on God, the person of Christ, goodwill, repentance, regenera-
tion, free choice, the selection of the chosen people, the purpose of the
sacraments of baptism and the Holy Supper—you will clearly see that
there is a trinity of gods in each one of them. If some teaching does not
make the Trinity completely apparent, it still flows from the Trinity the
way water flows from a spring.
I cannot present an examination of this kind here, but it would be
worth presenting at some point, to open people’s eyes to the relationship
between teachings and faith. Therefore I will show this relationship in an
appendix to this work.
[ 3 ] The church’s faith in God is like a body’s soul. The church’s teach-
ings are like the body’s limbs.