The Trinity: In Defense of the Correct Definition of God in the LCMS

By: Rev. Jack Cascione
Are there three different works or actions in God or one? A growing number
of LCMS officials and Pastors are supporting Doctor Waldo Werning's claim of
three revelations, communications, experiences, realities, and "manners of
being" in God.  Those who disagree with Werning are being charged with
breaking the Eighth Commandment. However, Luther claims that God's actions
are one work not three, as follows:

"He [Jacob] does not say: 'May They bless,' using the plural number. Nor
does he [Jacob] repeat.  No, he joins the three Persons in the one work of
blessing - God the Father, God the Shepherd, and the Angel.  Accordingly,
these three are one God and one blesser.  The Angel does the same work that
the Shepherd and the God of his Father does." (Footnote 12 This Trinitarian
interpretation of the Gen. 48:15-16 goes back in the exegetical tradition at
least as far as Athanasius, Discourse Against Arians, III, 12.) (Luther's
Works AE Vol. VIII, Page 164)

"As shown above, each Person possesses the entire divine essence as well as
the divine attributes and works, which do not exist in three 'sets,' but
only one 'set.' In other words, each Person in the Deity is the entire God,
and not a third of God.  Luther:  'Of these Persons each one is the entire
God, outside which [Person] there is no other God.'  And the Christian
congregation sings with Luther in the 'battle hymn of the Reformation':
'Jesus Christ it is . . . And there's none other God.'" (Pieper Vol. I:390)

Werning claims that the Catechism divides the work of God into God the
Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sanctifier.  He does not comprehend
the difference between the "opera ad extra" (external works of the Trinity)
and the "opera ad intra" (internal works of the trinity). South Wisconsin
District President Ron Meyer and now Texas District President Lindermann
agree with Werning.  God's identity is no longer primary issue for the
operation of these districts.

However, Pieper explains as follows: "Does not the Apostles' Creed ascribe
to each Person a special "opus divinum ad extra": (divine external work) to
the Father, creation; to the Son, redemption; to the Holy Spirit,
sanctification?  Does not the second part of Luther's Small Catechism
actually mislead Christian people to a 'naive tritheism' by dividing the
divine works among the three Persons?  This objection to the Church's
terminology does not rest on fact.  In the first place, no orthodox teacher
speaks of a division and distribution of the opera ad extra unless the
tongue or the pen has slipped.  Furthermore, while the Church uses the terms
attribution and appropriation, it does not use the term distribution."
(Pieper Vol. I:422)

Again Pieper explains: "The 'opera ad extra' (external works) are common to
all three Persons because each of the Person has the divine essence entirely
and indivisibly.  In relation to the creatures (ad extra), each Person has
the same attributes and the selfsame works." (Pieper Vol. I: 423)

The following quotation alone proves that Werning is a false teacher.
"Viewed absolutely, the works of creation tell us nothing of a Triune God
because every work is the work of the one God." (Pieper Vol. I: 423)

"When we confess in the Creed, 'I believe in God the Father,' etc., we do
not mean to say that only the Father is almighty, the Creator, because we
believe that also the Son and the Holy Spirit are the Creator.  Yet there
are not three Almighties, as little as there are three Saviors, or three
Sanctifiers, though the Father the Holy Spirit are also our Redeemer, and
the Father and the Son are also our Sanctifier." (Pieper Vol. I: 424)

Werning teaches that there is more of God out side of Jesus Christ.  In
other words, Jesus is not the whole, complete, entire God.

If Jesus Christ is not the entire, whole, complete God, that the following
verse is false and the Jehovah Witnesses are correct:  "'The Son is the one
and only God' 1John 5:20": (Koehler "A Summary of Christian Doctrine" page
32)  "Each person of the Godhead is the entire God (totus Deus)." (J.T.
Mueller "Christian Dogmatics" page 148)  According to Cassell's "New Latin
Dictionary" (1960) "totus" means "whole."

How much of God is in Christ? Luther writes: "The entire Holy Trinity is
known in the Person of Christ." (LW 23:89)

Pieper tells us that every person of the Trinity is fully God, not one third
of God, yet there is only one God (Vol. I: 385, 386, 390, 405).  Thus, we
read in TLH hymn 154, verse 3, 'When God the Mighty Maker died' not 'When
one third of God the Mighty Maker died!'"

"Of these Persons each one is the whole God, besides whom there is no other
God." (Luther, J. T. Muller Christian Dogmatics CPH page 148).  According to
Merriam Webster's "New Collegiate Dictionary" (1949) the first definition of
"all" is "the whole of."

"Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, that God was
manifest in the flesh." 1Tim. 3:16, (not a part of God manifested in the
flesh).

The Athanasian Creed states, "There is one Almighty, not three Almighties."
The Son is Almighty and we may not divide the substance.  God can never be
less than all of God.

"That is to say, Scripture bears witness that the three persons and the
entire Trinity are the one true God, and that each person is perfectly and
in all respects that one true God." (Martin Chemnitz, "Loci Theologici" CPH
1989, Page 74, and 75)

"Next to the article of the Holy Trinity this is the greatest mystery in
heaven and on earth, as Paul says: 'Without controversy, great is the
mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh, 1Tim. 3:16.' For
since the Apostle Peter in clear words testifies (2 Peter 1:4) that we also,
in whom Christ dwell only by grace, on account of that sublime mystery, are
in Christ, 'partakers of the divine nature,' what kind of communion of the
divine nature, then, must that be of which the apostle says that 'in Christ
dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,'(Col. 2.9) so that God and man
are one person?" (The Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl. VIII. Of the Person of
Christ, par. 33-34 Concordia Triglotta, page 1027.)

What if Werning is correct when he claims that God did not die on the Cross?
The Confessions say: "But if I believe that only the human nature suffered
for me, then Christ would be a poor Savior for me, in fact, He himself would
need a Savior" (Solid Declaration of Lutheran Confessions. Trig. Page 1027)

"Dr. Luther says also in his book Of the Councils and the Church: We
Christians must know that if God is not also in the balance, and gives the
weight, we sink to the bottom with our scale. By this I mean: If it were not
to be said [if these things were not true], God has died for us, but only a
man, we would be lost. But if 'God's death' and 'God died' lie in the scale
of the balance, then He sinks down, and we rise up as a light, empty scale.
But indeed He can also rise again or leap out of the scale; yet He could not
sit in the scale unless He became a man like us, so that it could be said:
'God died,' 'God's passion,' 'God's blood,' 'God's death.' For in His nature
God cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person, it is
correctly called God's death, when the man dies who is one thing or one
person with God. Thus far Luther." (Formula of Concord, Article VIII, Par
44, Concordia Triglotta pages 1029-1030)

"Now, since He [Christ] is such a man as is super naturally one person with
God, and apart from this man there is no God. . ." (Formula, Thor. Decl.
VIII Of the Person of Christ Concordia Triglotta Par. 81, 1045)

The Lutheran Confessions also speak of Christ as: "God," "the Son of God,"
"Jesus Christ," "The Word," that is the Second Person of the Trinity, etc.
All of these descriptions about Christ are correct and not contradictory.

The Athanasian Creeds states: "So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the
Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God."

"That is to say, Scripture bears witness that the three persons and the
entire Trinity are the one true God, and that each person is perfectly and
in all respects that one true God."  (Martin Chemnitz, "Loci Theologici CPH
1989, Page 74 and 75)

Pieper, Chemnitz, and the Lutheran Confessions quote Luther's Treatise on
the Last Words of David (LW15).  Again and again they support Luther's
teaching that apart from any Person of the Trinity there is no God.

"You may say very correctly of the Dove: That is God, and there is no God
beyond that one." LW15:304

"You may say very correctly of this Voice: That is God, and there is not God
beyond that."
LW15:305

"You can say very correctly of the Man: That is God and there is no other
God beside him."
LW15:305

"However, it is also correct to say that God died for us, for the Son is
God, and there is no other God but only more Persons in the same Godhead."
LW15:310

As Lenski says: "'The fulness of the Deity' can, of course, never be
divided.  Wherever it dwells, 'all' of it dwells." (Commentary on Colossians
page 101)

As I conclude this document, the tragedy is that most a many LCMS will ask
the themselves, "I wonder who is right, Werning or Cascione or does it
really matter?"

However, if you read the Athanasian Creed, there is no excuse for ignorance:
It states: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that
he hold the catholic [i.e., universal, Christian] faith.  Which faith except
everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish
everlastingly."

June 7, 2003