Reed Mueller

You might be wondering why in the world we would be engaging in a series on the Trinity at Columbia Ridge, let alone spending time studying it. C.S. Lewis in his very popular Mere Christianity provides us with one perspective on why the Trinity is so important:

A good many people nowadays say, “I believe in a God, but not in a personal God.” They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. Now the Christians quite agree. But the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal: that is, as something less than personal. If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market.

Again, some people think that after this life, or perhaps after several lives, human souls will be “absorbed” into God. But when they try to explain what they mean, they seem to be thinking of our being absorbed into God as one material thing is absorbed into another. They say it is like a drop of water slipping into the sea. But of course that is the end of the drop. If that is what happens to us, then being absorbed is the same as ceasing to exist. It is only the Christians who have any idea of how human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves—in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.

How this happens, how God as one being/three persons, can lead us to love, salvation, and worship will be the focus of the next three messages in this series. If Lewis is right, then we must get serious about our study of the Trinity. And of course, to study the Trinity you’ll need to learn about God. How does this knowledge of God as super-personal, as triune, come into human awareness; even more, how did it come to be a central doctrine of the Christian faith?

It was received through the content of the revelation that the Church has held dear for nearly 2000 years. It wasn’t thought up, but accepted as truth revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. Remember, we know what we know about God in his essence because he reveals it to us (link).

What we observe in the biblical record is that God has revealed a little more of himself to us at the threshold of every major covenant or promise that he made to humankind. At his covenant with Abraham, he revealed himself not as God-Almighty (Genesis 17:1). At the covenant with the people of Israel, he names himself “I am” or YHWH (Exodus 3:14; Exodus 6:3). When the Christ comes to this earth to initiate God’s promise of salvation for all, his very name reveals God as the “The Lord Who Saves” (Matthew 1:21). And then, at the apex of God’s work of redemption in the world, at the very peak of his faithful promise-giving, the pattern remains consistent. God reveals himself to us further as the new covenant is offered to us, and he reveals to us his name: ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV)[1]

The… “phrasing is…remarkable. It does not say, “In the names (plural) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”; nor yet (what might be taken to be equivalent to that), “In the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost,” as if we had to deal with three separate Beings. Nor, on the other hand does it say, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” as if “the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” might be taken as merely three designations of a single person. With stately impressiveness it asserts the unity of the three by combining them all within the bounds of the single Name; and then throws up into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (the King James Version). These three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each stand in some clear sense over against the others in distinct personality: these three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all unite in some profound sense in the common participation of the one Name.[2]

Outside of the manner in which God names himself, the Lord has also revealed several other truths about his essence:

• First, God has revealed himself as One and only One God.
  
  Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV) This verse is the beginning of one of the most important prayers in the Jewish faith, the Shema, which grounds them, and us, in the belief that the they have a special relationship with their God, YHWH, and that he is One, rather than many gods, as the nations around them believed. Essentially, both Jews and Christians look to this verse, among many, and find in it the declaration that God is One. Interestingly, the word echad in Hebrew can imply a unity in diversity (the word for one and only one, i.e., unique, is more often rendered as yachid).^[1]

  Then in Isaiah 43:10, the Lord says this of himself (and his people): ¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. ¹¹I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.

  And finally, consider again in Isaiah what he says: ⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, Isaiah 45:5 (NIV)

  So what does this mean? What do these verses, which are simply a few examples from Scripture, say? This: To believe in God as he has revealed himself to the world through his word is to be a monotheist, believing in one God, not two or three or thousands. There is one God and only one God. Anything else goes against God’s self-revelation, the sharing of his knowledge of himself with us.

• Second, the One God, who is One Being, has revealed himself as Three Persons who are all co-equally and co-eternally God.That God has revealed himself as the Father, is evident throughout the new testament. In fact, the phrase, God the Father, occurs in the New Testament 18 times. For example, Jesus himself calls God the Father in ²⁷Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” John 6:27 (NIV)

  But the Father isn’t the only one who is called God. Jesus is also. You see this in Thomas’ confession in John 20 where he falls before Jesus and calls him “my Lord and my God.” But perhaps most clearly we see that Jesus is God in John 1:1,14, where he is referred to as the Word in the passage: ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… ¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1,14 (NIV)

  So we see so far from just a few verses that God is revealing something to us. He is revealing that he is one God and that he is God the Father and God the Son. And beyond that, God reveals to us that the Holy Spirit is God as well.  See if you can pick up the implication here in this account from Acts where someone lied: ³Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing?” Now where does that say that the Holy Spirit is God? So far, it doesn’t. But I stopped short, didn’t I? Because Peter continues: You have not lied to men but to God.” Acts 5:3-4 (NIV)

  Taken together, these passages reveal to us a God who says he is one being, indivisible, eternal and that there are no other gods, and that this one God, this one being above all, is three persons, Father, Son and Spirit. Not one or the other, but all three.

• Finally, we see that these three persons are distinct, not just different appearances or manifestations of the same God changing costumes. We can see this in Jesus’ call for us to be baptized into the Name of the true God: Father, Son and Spirit (Matthew 28:18-19). It would be silly to do so if they were simply masks that the real God behind the name wore. It would also be silly for Paul to write what he does in 2 Corinthians 13:14 if God was simply changing masks instead of one real being and three real persons: ¹⁴May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

  One more example is from Matthew 3:16-17 where we can see all three working in harmony in the baptism of God the Son: ¹⁶As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

• The Doctrine of the Trinity
  
  When taken altogether, these (and many other biblical) observations have led the Church across the ages to the doctrine of the Trinity and the proclamation that God has revealed himself as the Holy Trinity: one Being who eternally exists as three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—who are each eternally, fully and equally God.

  This, as we’ll come to see in the rest of the series, is the very foundation of love, salvation, the Christian life, and worship.

[1] Letham, Robert. (2004). The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, p. 411.

[2] Orr, J., M.A., D.D. (1999). The International standard Bible encyclopedia (J. Orr, Ed.). Albany, OR: Ages Software.

^[3]In the famous Shema of Deut 6:4, “Hear, O Israel … the LORD is one,” the question of diversity within unity has theological implications. Some scholars have felt that, though “one” is singular, the usage of the word allows for the doctrine of the Trinity.  Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. (1999, c1980). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (030). Chicago: Moody Press.