The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1894, Page 18

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Holy Ghost.’? Such

18

The Lutheran Pioneer.

The Holy Trinity.

Trinity means three in one. The word sig-
nifies that there are three Persons in the Unity |
of the Godhead. This doctrine of the Holy
Trinity we learn from the Bible only. Nature
and human reason can not tell us who God is.
In the Bible God has revealed Himself to us,
and from the Bible only we can learn to know
Him. ~:

The Bible tells us that there is one God.
‘¢Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one
Lord,” Deut. 6,4. ‘‘There is none other God
but one,”’ 1 Cor. 8, 4. ‘‘One God and Father
of all, who is above all, and through all, and
in you all,’? Eph. 4,6. From these and other
passages of the Bible we see that there is only
one God. - .

The same Bible speaks of God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. From
this we learn that
there are three dis-

tinct Persons in
the one Godhead.
Christ commanded
His disciples to bap-
tize ‘‘in the name of
the Father, and of
the Son, and of the

passages plainly
teach that there are
three distinct Per-
sons.

The Unitarians
‘and others, who
deny the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity,
say that there is one

Person only and
that this one Person
is sometimes called
Father, sometimes

oath-bound societies speak of a God in their |
Forms of Worship, but these societies as such |
do not accept the three Persons in the one)
Godhead, they do not worship the God of the!
Bible, and Christians can not join such socie-
ties; for Christians will not deny the true God
and will at all times beware of the great sin|
of idolatry. :

The doctrine that there are three co-equal|
and co-eternal Persons but only one God, is
above all humanreason. Itis a doctrine which
no man can comprehend, but which we Chris-
tians believe because it is plainly revealed in
the Word of God. A Christian does not belong
to the ‘‘How Family.’’ If he finds a doctrine
revealed in the Bible, he. simply accepts it
without asking, How can this be? He knows
that human reason is blind in all spiritual mat-
ters and must bow to the authority of God’s
Word. There are many things even in this

Private Promenade in Japan.

Son, and sometimes Holy Ghost, just as a doc-| world that we can not comprehend; much less
tor who has been elected mayor of a city may|can we poor human beings comprehend the
be called doctor, or mayor, orsquire. But such| great God with our weak human reason.

a doctrine is contrary to the holy Scriptures,

A teacher one day said to her class: ‘‘Little

and they that teach such a doctrine have not| girls, what do you understand by the Trinity ?”’

the true God, they are not Christians. For

‘«Three Persons in one God: the Father,

from the Bible we learn that there are three|the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’’ answered the
distinct Persons in the one Godhead. This is| children. 3

plainly seen from the history of Christ’s bap-

‘*Do you understand how there can be three

tism. (Matth. 3, 16.17.) There each Person| Persons in one God, and all equal?’’ asked

of the Holy Trinity revealed Himself.
Father’s voice was heard from heaven: ‘* This
is my beloyed Son;’’ the Son was baptized in
the Jordan; the Holy Ghost descended and
lighted upon Him. Here we have three dis-

The | the teacher.

**No, ma’am.’”

‘Do you think any one does?’’

‘tT suppose you do, ma’am,’’ said Sophie.
‘\No,”’ said the teacher, ‘‘I do not under-

tinct Persons. Therefore the Christians in the} stand how the Father, the Son, and the Holy
first centuries would say to those that doubted} Ghost are one. But, dear children, there are

_ the truth of this doctrine: ‘‘Go to Jordan and many things even in this world which you do

you will see the Trinity.” ~ not understand, and yet you know they are
The Triune God is the only trneGod. There|true. You do not understand how the flowers

is no otherGod. Men may worship some one| grow; or how one kind of seed always pro-
that they call God, but if he is not this God| duces one kind of flower. You know the sun

the Bible, they have not the true God, and} and the rain make the grain grow, but how,
sed WOreLuBES simply idolatry. The secret you can not tell. An old lady in one of our

rae ills IY ain Pe a

quiet villages saw the telegraph posts, and the
wires passing througli the village. And she
said, ‘They tell me that thing carries a message
from New York to Boston in no time at all;
but I don’t believe it, and I never will be-
lieve it. It is not possible.” One day a letter
came to the old lady, and on opening it she

| found it was a message by telegraph, saying,

‘Your son Robert is very ill; come imme-
diately.” She asked a great many questions
as to how the message came, and when she ~
heard that the wires brought it, and when she
saw the date only an hour before the time that
she was reading it, she said, ‘It is a hoax.
It isn’t possible a message could come to me
that way.’ So she stayed at home. ‘The fol-
lowing day she got a letter, saying, ‘Robert
has just breathed his last. How he longed to
see his mother! We telegraphed to you to
come, and if you received the message and
had started imme-
diately, you might
have seen him be-
fore he died.’ Sorely
she reproached her-
self! After that,
she did not refuse
to believe a thing
which she did not
understand. Now,
my dear children,
we have the Word
of God telling us of
many things which
our poor, weak
minds can no more
understand than
the old lady could
the telegraph, or
the little fly which
crawls on my book
can understand the
words printed
there; but we know that they are true, be-
cause the God of all truth tells us they are.
We have only to believe, and we must be
contented not to understand, saying with the
psalmist ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me; I can not attain unto it.’”’
+ 6 te 9

Not Afraid of the Weather.

Christians in Greenland very seldom, if ever,
absent themselves from public worship on ac-
count of the weather. When it is so cold that
their breath freezes and forms icicles on their
faces, they go long distances, through snow,
and ice, and storm, to the house of prayer.
Men, women and children go. Through much
greater sacrifice than the Christians of more
favored lands, do the poor Greenlanders obey
the injunction: ‘‘Forsake not the assembling
of yourselves together, as the manner of
some is.’”

<2 +2 <0 +
He who has a God without His Word, has
no.God.—Luther. 2 :

ae TEs