A good reminder.
It always surprises me when I get to know a professing Christian to some degree, and then discover that they do not believe the Trinity. Ask around and you might be shocked too.
Lenski:
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is basic for the Christian faith and Church. Without this doctrine the Church, or anyone listed as her member, ceases to be Christian in any sense of the word; with this doctrine the Christian character, at least to some degree, remains. Hence we begin every divine public service “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and close it with the benediction and doxology, both of which name the Triune Name.
All the ecumenical confessions confess most solemnly the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one Essence. All Unitarians are outside the pale of the Christian Church, and that of necessity, for its extreme border line is marked by faith in the Trinity.
Our people need to be told these facts again and again. Their consciousness must be fully alive to them in this age especially when so many are deceived and satisfied with the bare names “God” and “Father,” which so often are meant to deny the Trinity.
Free Masons and other lodge men confess only a Supreme Being, and do it together with Jews, Mohammedans, and other non-believers in the Son of God, and yet claim membership in the Christian Church, perhaps hold high office in her organization. The thing is really monstrous — once to deny by lodge connection and confession this solemn doctrine, the very rock bottom of Christianity, and again to confess this doctrine with true Christians, means a lie one way or the other. Such double, contradictory confession is the palpable mark of the most damnable hypocrisy possible, since it deals with the Lord God himself.
From: R.C.H. Lenski. The Eisenach Old Testament Selections: An Exegetical-Homiletical Treatment: Texts for the Entire Church Year. 1925/2021. LutheranLibrary.org
