Trinity; a Divine Linkage

                                           Romans 14: 17, 18

 

 

          What do you know that’s three things in one? Three identities that are linked, but separate; together but apart? Is there such a thing? I can think of one from the movies and from the toy world and Marvel Comics. There are Transformers that are called Triple Changers. One of my favorites is Broadside. Broadside starts out as an Autobot, but he can convert into an F-18 Hornet (That’s a military fighter plane) and an aircraft carrier. That’s some pretty serious transforming.

          I’m sure there are other 3 in 1 things, but for the life of me, I can’t think of any more. Can you? The thing is, from one set of joints and parts, they can change and morph into something entirely different. Not separate, but different.

          I do know one other 3 in 1 entity. It’s God. Actually it’s way more mysterious than Broadside or any of his Triple Changer friends. For instance, Broadside and his friends, even though they can be three different things, can only be one thing at a time. Not a problem with God. Broadside has to pick where he is at any given time. Not so with God. In the Trinity, God is community. God can be anywhere he wants to be. The Holy Spirit can be in me and you and you and in Joe Smith in Venezuela, all at the same time.

          God is our one and only God. There is no other. Remember the Shema, the centerpiece of prayer for God’s people in Deuteronomy, that says Sh’ma Yisrael  (Hear, O Israel),  Adonai Eloheinu (The Lord our God),  Adonai Echad (the Lord is one).  But our one God is Trinitarian. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. ECO, our new denomination, states that “with Christians everywhere, we worship the only true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who is both one essence and three persons.” We call that the Trinity.

          All Reformed Protestant traditions recognize a Trinitarian God, but not all Christian denominations recognize God in that way. For instance, among those who do not are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christians Scientists, to name a few. Of course, the other main Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, do not recognize the Trinity either. Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopals, Anglicans, Lutherans and most Baptists acknowledge the Trinity, most often in their recitation of either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds.

          Both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds state the triune nature of God. In the case of the Nicene Creed, the co-existence and co-importance of God and Jesus was hammered out in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Some sixty years later in 381 in Constantinople, the Holy Spirit was given equal status by adding something called the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. In essence, it said that the Holy Spirit emanates from both the Father and the Son. Seminary students study such things in great detail in Church History courses. For us, it’s probably sufficient to realize that the church fathers argued over such details for hundreds of years.

          Why did the church fathers argue? Because they were trying to find the truth and frankly, even today, great world religions divide over what that truth is. For those who find their home in the Reformed tradition and mainline Christianity, the Trinity is well accepted doctrine. And the working understanding behind the language of the Trinity is that the three are one, a single, but Trinitarian, God.

          So let’s take a few minutes to trace some of that line of reasoning. We just looked at the Shema, the line from Deuteronomy that says the Lord our God is one God. Doesn’t that seem to say that God is one? Yes it does, and that theme is uniform throughout the Old Testament. But there are hints along the way that the “one God” arguments don’t completely answer the identity of our Creator. For instance, in Gen, 1: 26, God says to “make man in our image, in our likeness.” In Genesis 3: 22, God says the “the man has now become like one of us.” Or Genesis 11: 7 in the story of the tower of Babel, God says “let us go down and confuse their language.”  There are places that seem to refer to the Spirit as a person (Gen. 1: 2, Neh.9: 20-30, Is. 63: 10). They aren’t conclusive, but they seem to create hints of God as plural in some way.

          In the New Testament, there are clear indications of a Trinitarian God consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here are a few:

 

               2 Cor. 13: 14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of   

                            God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

 

               Luke 1: 35: And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit  

                            will come upon you, and the power of the Most High

                            will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born

                            will be called holy—the Son of God.”

 

               Matt 28: 19: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,

                            baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

                            Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

               Matt 3: 16, 17: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went

                            up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to

                            him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove

                            and coming to rest on him, and behold, a voice from

                            heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well

                            pleased. (Also in Luke 3: 21, 22)

 

               John 14: 16: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

                            another Helper, to be with you forever.

 

              1 Peter 1: 1, 2: To those who are elect exiles in the

                            dispersion…according the foreknowledge of God the

                            Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to

                            Jesus Christ…

 

               2 Cor. 1: 21, 22: And it is God who established us with you in

                           Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal

                           on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

 

          As you can see, the concept of a Triune God is sprinkled regularly throughout the New Testament, and the above list is not exhaustive, just representative. It’s great mystery. We humans have no counterpart for this, unless you want to count Triple Changers Transformers and, as we have already seen, even they come up short.

          ECO refers to our Trinitarian God in “co’s,” saying the three persons of the Godhead are co-substantial, co- equal, co-eternal, such that there are not three gods, nor are there three parts of God, but rather three persons with the one Godhead. Theologian Don Fairbairn puts it this way: “The biblical idea is not so much that there is one divine essence in which Father, Son and Spirit participate. Rather, it is that there is one God, the Father, but there are also two other persons who are equal to him and united to him and each other in such a way that they are one being, one God” [Life in the Trinity, 44].

          If this is heavy sledding for you, don’t feel bad. The great minds of the church argued over these points for hundreds of years. Even then, they only convinced some, for as we have noted, even today the great religions of the world conflict with one another. But for me, perceiving God through the Trinity is fundamental to my relationship with him. I think this is the way he meant it to be. You see, God is already in relationship. He is in relationship, perfect unity, with the other properties of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of those persons seeks relationship with us in profound but different ways. God is Creator, Father, the lover of his creation. God the Son Jesus is begotten but not created. We are the created, created by God and Jesus, and Jesus is also fully man, ascended bodily to the Father, interceding with the Father in our behalf with his unbounding grace. God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, indwells us, guides us, pricks us, holds us, binds us, brings us to God.

          Listen to this. In the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is in the middle of a long, upper room discourse with his disciples. It is Passover, in the future to be called Maundy Thursday. Just a few hours later, Jesus knows he will begin the long night of arrest and interrogation leading to the cross. Jesus talks to his disciples. He says much, and much of what he says is confusing to them. But what he says connects the dots of humanity from the beginning to right now for those who would follow him. Jesus says in part: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love…My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.”  Jesus doesn’t say imitate me. He doesn’t say emulate me. He says remain in me, in my love, just as I have done with my Father. Jesus is in relationship with God. Jesus is in relationship with us. And Jesus asks: Will we be in love? Will we be in relationship with him? To do so is to solve the great mystery. To do so is to cross the bridge from reaching to being. In Acts 2, the Helper that Jesus promised showed up. The Holy Spirit came to rest in the hearts of the disciples. Then they understood! And that is the last puzzle piece. The Father sends the Son. The Son lives in the Father. The Son gives that love to us. The Holy Spirit connects us to the Son, who lives in the Father. And we are one. We are part of God. In the words of my old professor (Fairbairn), “Jesus is tying our human relationships to his relationship with the Father.” I would add that the binding he uses to do this great love act is the Holy Spirit.

          And who is God? He is them and they are he. It is the deepest mystery of Christianity, but it is the warmest: Love, grace and fellowship, all from the most high, sovereign, Creator and ruler of all.

          This is our Triune God: Creator, ruler, lover. Sovereign, father, brother. Forever. Right now. Most powerful. Most meek. Human. Spirit. Trinity! Our divine linkage.