Our Trinity https://youtu.be/NkerMA3eEvg
Introduction
Mention of “the Trinity” draws out wildly different responses from Christians, some people think the whole issue is too difficult, or plain irrelevant[1], whilst others fly into raptures of mystical love. One source of confusion about the Trinity is the mistake of trying to understand it on the basis of human comparisons[2]. Another common dead-end is to take the language we use about ourselves and apply it to the life of God literally. When we speak of the 3 Persons of the Godhead, we do not mean God is three individuals, when we speak of Father and Son we do not mean that at some time[3] God became a Father by having a Son, and when we speak of the Holy Spirit we do not means he is some sort of super ghost[4].
The Doctrine
We can say some things about God which are fully compatible with biblical revelation. Like this diagram placed on the Power Point[5]. Its value is to show that we should never confuse the Persons of the Trinity with each other,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not interchangeable terms[6]. More difficult for us to understand is that the three Persons of the Trinity are completely defined by and dependent on one another[7]. The Son has always been Son because the Father has always been Father in the Spirit and so on. The power, presence, wisdom, goodness, glory of each Person is contained in the other Persons[8]. Each exists only because of the Others in absolute pure love. This is totally incomprehensible at an intellectual level.[9] To really to understand the Trinity we don’t need to master a host of technical terms[10] but to be caught up into the dynamic history[11] of the trinitarian life revealed in scripture[12].
Since all intellectual approaches to understanding the divine nature all fail, the only one way forward[13] is for God to reveal himself for us to have any accurate understanding of his being[14]. This revelation began with the fact of creation itself (Rom 1:19-20).
Creation
God the Father made all things through God the Son (1 Cor 8:6; John 1:3; Col 1:1; Heb 1:2) and by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gen 1:2; Ps 104:30). The Lord created because he only ever wanted to flood humanity made in his image (Gen 1:26-28) with his life. How then have we ever come to a world broken like it is?
Adam
The scriptures bear clear enough witness to the Trinitarian basis of the creation of Adam. We read in Luke 3:38, “Adam (was) the son of God” i.e. he had God as a Father. Then “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7), this is language used of the Holy Spirit (Job 33:4). Finally, when Adam heard God’s word (Gen 2:15) he was in the presence of the eternal Word of God, Jesus (John 1:1ff.)[15]. The first human was embedded existed in the living presence of Father, Son and Spirit[16].
The devil accused God of creating for his own selfish interests[17], suggesting that the Lord had held back from fulling giving to Adam/Eve the fulness of his likeness. When the first couple believed this lie they abandoned the glory of God and were plunged into a state of complete self-concern and self-glory (Rom 1:22; 3:23). A new type of human being had came into existence, one whose central focus is self-identity and self-preservation[18]. A fierce focus on personal and group survival was born, Satan had successfully murdered (John 8:44) pure loving other-centred relationships. Self-emptiness had become unnatural. We just take it for granted that parents love their own children more than those of others and that people love themselves first of all (Matt 22:38; Eph 5:29). Every human heart is full of idols which make it impossible for us to relate to God as Trinity[19], Only Jesus, only God as a human being (John 1:14; Rom 8:3; 1 Tim 3:16) can fully image God as God is. Understood in this light, the whole life of Jesus manifests God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus restores our lost glory by immersing us[20] in the wonders of the trinitarian life.
Jesus
When Jesus says, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father.” (John 6:57), he expresses insight into the inner dynamics of the Trinitarian life unknown to anyone before him. Christ uniquely lived out the reality that no-one can be a true human being without depending on the presence of the Father in the power of his Spirit[21]. Father, Son and Spirit were working together in perfect harmony during the whole of Jesus life, for us. [22] Let me highlight a few key instances.
For example, at Christ’s baptism, “when Jesus …was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:21-22). On the threshold of the cross as he offered himself as a sacrifice “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14), Jesus prayed with perfect intimacy, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:36). This perfect three-fold dynamic intensified on our behalf when Jesus ascended to heaven. “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” (Acts 2:33). Today Jesus shares the single throne of God with his Father (Rev 22:1, 3) and has “the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Rev 5:6) i.e. he sends the Holy Spirit in his fulness for his Church (Eph 1:22). All these things are wonderful but how do they deal with the obviously dominant anti-Trinitarian/anti-Love character of everyday reality? The cross is the only possible answer.
The Death of Jesus
The first words of Jesus from the cross are the foundation for every other word. “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) are the words of a man fully united with the Spirit of God as Father. This was the climax of the revelation of the love of God to the humanity of the Son of God himself and enabled him to endure what was yet to come.
Nothing ever seemed so opposed to the unity of Father, Son and Spirit as God as when “Jesus cried with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). The dereliction of Jesus is the place where he most obviously takes into himself all the anti-glory powers in the universe (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 2:24)[23]. At this moment Jesus is taking into himself all our lostness, alienation, brokenness, suffering and death (Luke 19:10; Eph 2:12; Col 1:21). Everything which creates separation between humans and God is absorbed into the consciousness and conscience of Christ. The cry of abandonment gives us unparalleled insight into the heart of who God really is. Let us hear a sonnet by a well-known scholar (Don Carson) on this:
The darkness fought, compelled the sun to flee,
And like a conquering army swiftly trod
Across the land, blind fear this despot’s rod.
The noon-day dark illumined tyranny.
Still worse, abandonment by Deity
Brought black despair more deadly than the blood
That ran off with his life. “My God, my God,”
Cried Jesus, “why have you forsaken me?”
The silence thundered. Heaven’s quiet reigned
Supreme, a shocking, deafening, haunting swell.
Because from answering Jesus, God refrained,
I shall not cry, as he, this cry from hell.
The cry of desolation, black as night,
Shines forth across the world as brilliant light.[24]
Beyond his experience of desolation, at the actual point of death of Jesus boldly exclaims, ““Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46)[25], and Christ’s resurrection by the Spirit of the Father (Rom :4; 8:11) proclaims that the Trinitarian unity was not undone by evil in the cross, but Father, Son and Spirit had worked together in an agony of supreme love to destroy every power of evil forever. Hallelujah.
What the cross teaches us is that in the end the power of Love which holds the Trinity together from first to last[26] is a love willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the greater glory of another. Father and Son were willing to lose the everlasting blessedness of communion with each other so that the Father might have a family (Eph 2:19; 1 Tim 3:15; Heb 2:10), the Son might receive a Bride/Body (Eph :2-27; Rev 19:6-9) and the Holy Spirit inhabit an eternal Temple (1 Cor 3:16; Eph 2:22; Rev 13:6)[27]. All to their eternal glory, and ours.
Conclusion
The extraordinary wisdom of the plan of the one God to restore humanity to its exalted place in creation is the fullest exposition of the life of God the Trinity. It is something that becomes real to a believer, as Luther unforgettably put it, “Not (by) understanding, reading, or speculation, but living—nay, dying and being damned”. The Trinity is so obscure to so many believers not because they lack intellectual power, but because they are unwilling to lovingly sacrifice everything for God’s greater glory. To the degree you decide to follow Jesus, whatever the cost, to that degree you will have a revelation of “Abba! Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), luxuriate in being loved by God as Jesus is loved by God (Eph 1:6; 1 John 4:17) and the Holy Spirit will flood your own heart (Rom 5:5)! This is why we were created. Difficult as this may be, it is amazing beyond words.
[1] The father of liberal theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), famously placed the doctrine of the Trinity at the end of his major work The Christian Faith. This is because he considered salvation a state of religious self-consciousness.
[2] We should reject all the standard trinitarian analogies e.g. the shamrock, 3 states of water, yoke/white/shell of an egg, or the memory, understanding and will of an individual and so on. If there is a valid analogy to the Trinity it is humanity (plural) in the image of God.
[3] Since God is timeless.
[4] In using gendered language about God, talking about “he”, we do not mean this literally or biologically.
[5] For a fuller theological diagram see, https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=7183.0
[6] Which is why prayers that, within themselves, alternate between Father, God, Lord etc. reveal the disordered heart of the speaker.
[7] This is known as perichoresis. This maintains that you cannot have one Person of the Trinity without having the other two, and you cannot have any person of the Trinity without having the fullness of God. The inter-communion of the Persons is reciprocal, and their actions are inseparable. “Each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all are one.” (Augustine) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/theological-primer-perichoresis/
[8] See the Athanasian Creed, https://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html
[9] One “knows” God only by being in relationship with God e.g. John 17:3, 1 Cor 13:12.
[10] Many of which have been highly significant in the history of the Church to protect her from entering into heresy, and so falling under the judgement of God!
[11] The so-called “economic trinity”.
[12] The following are merely a few highlights of salvation history, all that God does he does as Father, Son and Spirit.
[13] The assertion that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity derives from other religious systems, especially the three major Gods of Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, is totally confused at multiple levels.
[14] Which means that non-revelatory religions e.g. Buddhism are all false.
[15] So Adam had no excuse for lacking the eternal submission of the Son of God.
[16] If Adam had never sinned his end-times destiny would have been to become just like Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to know God as “Abba! Father!” (Col 3:10).
[17] “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5), as though God-likeness was a competitive reality.
[18] Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was the father of modern Western philosophy. His famous, “I think therefore I am”, has become foundational for all subsequent analysis of one’s own existence. This individual self-concern is the exact opposite of a trinitarian understanding of what it means to be in the image of God i.e. truly human.
[19] The true God is absolute unity in total diversity, therefore false religions emphasise either unity e.g. Islam, or diversity. Their adherents are ignorant of the spiritual mystery of God revealed only in Jesus.
[20] Hence the baptismal language of the New Testament e.g. “baptized into Christ” (Rom 6:3; Gal 3:7), “baptized in the Spirit” (Acts 11:16).
[21] E.g. “the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (John 14:10).
[22] The conception of Christ is another example of the creative harmonious power of the Trinity. E.g. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High (Father) will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”
[23] Traditionally, these are sin, Satan and death.
[24] No “gods”, ancient or modern, ever sacrificed themselves for sinners. The agony of the cross proclaims an entirely different sort of God than the one of human imagination.
[25] Certainly, a victorious breath full of the Holy Spirit which prophetically signified a new creation of humanity far greater than that of Adam, ““The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor 1:45 cf. Gen 2:7).
[26] From first, “the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8) to last “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.” (Rev 22:3). See also 1 Pet 1:19-20; Rev 1:17; 22:13.
[27] Understood comprehensively, in terms of a trinitarian event in the life of God, Father giving his Son as the supreme sacrifice of love, is why John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”, is so powerful.