The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-15, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 1994 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

A Mormon asked me this question a number of years ago, and through the years here at church, I’ve asked a number of people this question, and there seems to be a divided opinion on it, and I wanted to get your opinion. She asked me--it was a Mormon lady--asked me, when I was witnessing to her, “Do you have to believe in the Trinity to become a Christian?” And I didn’t know how to answer at the time.

Answer

I would answer yes. If you don’t believe in the Trinity, then you don’t understand who God is. You may say the word “God” but you don’t understand His nature. Secondly, you couldn’t possibly understand who Christ is. I know what I’m saying when I say that. It’s going to not only impact people that you may have witnessed to, but there are even people in one form of the Charismatic or Pentecostal movement, called United Pentecostals, who are called the "Jesus-Only" who believe in a kind of modalism, where God is God for awhile, and then He gets to be Christ for awhile, and then He gets to be Holy Spirit for awhile, but He’s never all three at the same time. It is my conviction that true salvation is built upon an understanding of the deity of Jesus Christ, that He is both God--fully God, and that God at the same time is fully God, and that that’s the whole point of what He did in the gospels. I mean, Jesus was never satisfied with having people accept Him as anything other than God. I think that was the whole thing that He was demonstrating, was the Trinitarian nature of God. So, I think not to understand the Trinity is not to understand who God is and it’s not to understand who Christ is and therefore, it’s not to understand the gospel properly.

The same question arises about the virgin birth. I would say a person could become a Christian if they didn’t know about the virgin birth because they would assume that Jesus Christ must have had a unique birth if He was both God and man, right? But, if someone says, “I would deny the virgin birth,” then all you’ve got is a man. You’ve got something less than the incarnate God. It is conceivable that somebody would say, “No, He wasn’t born of a virgin; He was born of Joseph and Mary and God just infused the “logos” spirit into Him… And it could get a little confused that way. But, basically, I think you need to believe that God is expressed fully in Christ and yet exists as God, and that the Spirit of God was doing the work through Christ--that’s what He said--and anything less than that… He said, “If you don’t see the Spirit working in me, what is that? Blasphemy.” So, I think the Trinity is inherent to the gospel understanding.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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