Through the Trinity or Through Jesus’ ‘Name’?

trinitysymbolChrist says in John 4:24 that those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” It is simply not enough to say you believe something but not put it into practice, especially the practice of worshiping God – the very starting point of all of our practice.

The Trinity is woven through the entire Orthodox form of worship, whereas it is not within modern worship. In fact, modern Christians do not even pray through the Trinity. The modernists believe that when Christ said “when you pray, pray in my name” he meant that to be a liturgical command; that his personal name is to be used after every prayer. They wont use the term “liturgical command” but that is essentially what they are saying when they insist on ending their prayers with “in Jesus name.”

First, the name of Christ is not Jesus but rather Yeshua, so this modern pursuit of prayer is wrong in more ways than one.  Second, when Christ said “pray in my name” he did not mean to pray using his personal name but rather he meant to pray through him – the God of the New Covenant (see Hebrews). The God of the New Covenant is Trinitarian in nature! He is not “Jesus only.” That is the heresy of Oneness Pentecostalism as well as many ancient heresies, including Modalism. When we pray, as Classical Christians, we pray through the Trinity, “IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.”

Orthodox Christians pray through the Trinity by naming the Trinity through “the sign of the cross.” We make the sign of the cross at the end of our prayers and in many parts of the service – “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

Why are modern Christians so ashamed of the Trinity? The only explanation that I can think of is that they have been conditioned by their pastors and modern traditions, because certainly neither the Scriptures nor the ancient apostolic traditions, or even reason itself, supports their mishap. I would even venture to say that it is only a matter of time that they admittedly reject the Trinity due to its “lack of Bible support.”  After all, although the Trinity is derived from the Scripture, it is a position of Creed and Modernists are not Creedal.