There is…one Spirit…one Lord…one God and Father of all. (Eph 4:4-6)
… baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit … (Mt 28:19)
I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me. (Is 46:9)
I and the Father are one. (Jn 10:30)
Now the Lord is the Spirit (II Cor 3:17)
…which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (II Cor 3:18)
Lord Jesus and Precious Holy Spirit, we rightly give you praise and worship. We offer you the same allegiance due the Father, knowing that our worship of you and prayers to you are simultaneously given to the Father, for in your triune nature there is no competition. Praise be to your holy name.
I recall talking to some Chinese Christians about Christmas. They told me that people in China today celebrate Christmas. They shop, give presents, enjoy lights, and know all about Santa Claus.
“What about Jesus?” I remember asking.
“No. Most people don’t know that part of Christmas.”
Suffice it to say that few people in China know about Christmas, for if you talk about Christmas but never talk about Jesus, you have missed Christmas. In Christian theology, something like this is true of God, for we can talk about many attributes of God, but if we never get to the Trinity, we miss God. Today we will talk about the Trinity.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity takes us on a highway that ascends into the clouds. It gives us revealed facts that, when put together, do not seem to fit our limited understanding. To someone with faith, this is not insurmountable, for the doctrine is not irrational. But to someone without faith, the cloud is evidence that the road is false. To this person no amount of clarity would bring faith. If the cloud could be removed, the faithless would remain faithless and the faithful faithful. No one’s eternal destiny would improve if only God were a bit clearer. Thus, we must take God as He has revealed Himself; and if the highway goes into the clouds, we must fight all efforts to detour it into the valley.
The doctrine of the Trinity consists of several truths of Scripture put together much as our view of the solar system comprises many observed facts put together. The first truth about God is that He is One. “I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me,” Isaiah said. The Bible is clear. There are not two or three or a hundred or thirty million gods. There is only one, and He has no equal. Religions that speak of multiple gods are, thus, by definition, idolatrous. Some may think it harsh for me to say that, but the idea is not mine. It is God’s. The Scriptures constantly decry the worship of other gods. In fact, God continually describes it as spiritual adultery. Just as a married woman has only one husband, so did God make us for only one God — Himself. To chase after another is unthinkable. There is only one God.
But the oneness of God means something else as well. It means that God is one. He is a unity. He is undivided. We can never have a part of God as we can have a part of our sandwich, for God cannot be partitioned. The entirety of God is always present everywhere. This oneness of God does not seem to cause people difficulties. But the next teachings do.
The Scriptures plainly deal with the identity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and treat both as equal to the Father. Jesus commands us to baptize in the name of all three. Scripture refers to all three as Lord. It is perfectly appropriate for us to pray to and worship all three as God.[1] They are all divine, but the Scriptures never intend the divinity of Christ and the Spirit to mean that there are three gods. All three — Father, Son and Spirit — are simultaneously and completely God. They are not parts of God. They are not phases of God. They are not aspects of God. They are fully and completely … God. The one and only God, by definition, consists of three distinct persons. If I could describe it as a math equation (crazy right?), it might be something like this: 1God = 3persons. Yet those persons are so united that we cannot divide God into three parts. These persons are distinct but one. Nothing on earth is fully analogous to their relationship. For on earth, when things are put together they either form a part of the whole (like a yolk, a white, and a shell) or they lose their identity when integrated into the whole (like adding cream and sugar to coffee). We know nothing that remains uniquely distinct AND completely whole when combined.
At this point we are in the clouds and are invited not to analyze but to worship. God’s complexity towers over us. We are like computers unable to process data for which we have no known program. Our software cannot handle a task this sophisticated. Here lies the difference between the Christian and nonChristian views of the Trinity. The unbeliever sees the doctrine as contradiction; the believer sees it as mystery, which we do not now have the capacity to fully understand. The one requires the data to fit the software; the other allows the data to outstrip the software. The Christian expects God to be perplexing, and, in that sense, the Trinity does not surprise us. But, of course, in another sense it shocks us. The Trinity is not at all the sort of God anyone would ever invent. Invented gods are far more simplistic. The Trinity is God pulling back the curtain just a wee bit and giving us a slight view of something we cannot fully grasp now. But the important thing is not to explain the Trinity but to bow before the Unexplainable. Be still and contemplate the Triune One. Worship Him as Father, worship Him as Son, worship Him as Spirit.
[1] I will give more details in future blogs when I discuss Jesus and the Spirit more fully.
