The Early Apostolics and the Trinity

Chapter 3 The Early Apostolics and the Trinity The Tenets of the Apostolic Church begin with the Trinity (a feature which curiously sets them apart from most other evangelical and Pentecostal statements of faith).1 While most other evangelical and Pentecostal movements commence their doctrinal statements with reference to Scripture, the Tenets do not mention Scripture until the eighth position (between the Sacraments and Church government, and thus firmly within the context of ecclesiology). This primacy of the Trinity in the order of the Tenets was not accidental. Rath- er, the early leaders of the Apostolic Church were making clear their firm belief that the doctrine of the Trinity was the doctrine upon which all others rest and from which all others derive their meaning. Hence, unsurprisingly, some of these early leaders devoted significant reflection to the doctrine of the Trinity. 3.1 D.P. Williams and Thomas Rees: The Trinity and the Trinitarian Undergirding of All Theology In 1939 D.P. Williams wrote a two-volume work entitled The Trinity.2 The draft was intended as the first in a series exploring the Tenets of the Apostolic Church. However, due to the outbreak of war, it was never published, and when, after the war and ensuing paper shortages concluded, a series of works on the Tenets was finally published, the volumes included in the series were much less substantial. In fact, these works were not published until after the death of Williams, and thus without any contribution from his pen. When a volume on the Trinity was eventually published in the series of ‘Te- net Booklets’, it was a very short work by Thomas Rees.3 However, this work by 1 The statements of faith of the Elim Pentecostal Church and AoG (the other two indigenous British Pentecostal denominations) both commence with a statement on Scripture. The same is true of most American Pentecostal denominations, including AoG, the Church of God, the Church of God in Christ, and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, as well as of many evangelical organisations such as the World Evangelical Alliance, and Affin- ity (formerly the British Evangelical Council). An exception among American Pentecostal denominations is found in the Articles of Faith of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church which (like the Apostolic Church) begins with an article on the Triune God. 2 D.P. Williams, The Trinity, 2 vols, (publisher’s manuscripts). 3 Thomas Rees, The Unity of the Godhead and the Trinity of the Persons Therein (Bradford: Puri- tan Press, 1954). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/978900441��31_004 <UN> The Early Apostolics and the Trinity 69 Rees had originally been included as a supplement to the second volume of Williams’ work, which indicates both that it was written much earlier than it was published and that Williams considered it sufficiently in line with his own thought to include it with his own writing.4 Rees covered the eternal and per- sonal nature of God, his relation to the Creation, his self-revelation, the three Trinitarian Persons, the deity of Christ, the deity and personality of the Spirit, Trinitarian taxis (including the monarchy of the Father), touched on the distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity, countered the ancient Trinitarian heresies, and, drawing explicitly on Origen and Augustine, dis- cussed the question ‘What is the bond of the oneness, or what is the indissolu- ble union of the Three in One?’, which he finds in the Holy Spirit as the bond of love.5 Despite its brevity, Rees’ overview of the Trinity is of great interest. First, it must be borne in mind that this was the work of a Pentecostal pastor; yet, somewhat unexpectedly for an early Pentecostal writer, he draws explicitly and implicitly on the writings of the Church Fathers, as well as more recent theological writers.6 Second, although glancing at the structure of his work one would expect Rees to be moving from the One to the Three, his discussion of the bond of oneness actually does the opposite, moving from the Three to the One. Third, for Rees only the Threeness of God can make any sense of the love of God: For if God were not a Trinity in unity, on whom could His love have been lavished, when there was no-one eternally existent but only Himself as a solitary unit?… Therefore to deny the distinction of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the eternal Being of God is to make the love of God depen- dent on things created, and that would contradict the self-existence and the self-sufficiency of God… But we are not left in the dark as to upon whom the Father lavished His love. For in John xvii:24 we find Jesus de- claring: ‘Father … Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’7 Not only does the Threeness of God make sense of His love, but the eternal fel- lowship of love shared by the Three Persons also constitutes their unity.8 Rees is clear that the Three share one substance.9 However, he does not proceed by 4 Williams, Trinity, 2:98. 5 Rees, Unity, 19. 6 For example, Rees explicitly cites Moule on the Monarchy of the Father. Rees, Unity, 15. 7 Ibid., 18. 8 Ibid., 20. 9 Ibid., 13. <UN>.

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