“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV
The work of the Holy Spirit is critical. We can summarize it quickly by saying that He gives us regeneration (John 3:5-8). Not only this but He works to bring us to greater and greater levels of personal holiness through the studying and application of God’s word (Romans 8:13; 15:16; 1 Peter 1:2). This being said, Paul presents a stunning and powerful truth that the Holy Spirit is the Lord; it’s a plain statement of fact that God is a Triune God.
The doctrine of Trinity is, Herman Bavinck said, essential to Christianity. Upon it (as well as the deity of Christ, which is interconnected) Christianity stands or falls. The thing is, we aren’t called to believe a contradiction. That’s the thing to keep in mind as we move forward. But we are facing the incomprehensibility of God here. There’s no escaping the enormity of the intellectual task. None of our minds are up for it. But, again, it’s not contradictory, it’s simply amazing…and it’s spiritually very healthy and good for us to soberly and humbly contemplate the enormity of God.
The doctrine, simply stated is that God is three persons, and that each person is fully God, and that there is one God. Once again:
God is three persons.
Each person is fully God.
There is one God.
We know this because the Bible quite clearly teaches it. It tells us time and again that God is three persons and that these three relate to each other in the story and act of redemption. For example:
“And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” John 16:8-11 ESV
First, don’t worry if your head is hurting trying to make sense of how God is three distinct Persons, and each Person has the whole being of God in Himself, and yet God is one undivided Being. It’s absolutely a brain busting exercise. But, again, it’s not a contradiction. We must be clear on these two points because they’re so important.
It’s contradictory to say, “there’s one God and there is not one God.” Or, “God is three Persons and God is not three Persons.” Or, “God is three persons and God is one Person.”
To say that God is three Persons and there is one God is paradoxical, but not contradictory. This is critical.
One critic, joking, said that only Christians can believe that 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1. Ah, but on the contrary, in this case, it’s more like 1 times 1 times 1 equals 1. There’s no analogy that’s ever going to be perfect to help us here. Some are helpful but they fail in significant ways unfortunately.
For example, we could talk about the three forms of water – steam, water, and ice. But water is never all three forms at the same time. We could talk about me being a husband, a father, and a bible study teacher, but this is a form of modalism and it’s only one person, me, at different times. And this analogy can’t come anywhere near how the members of the Trinity have personal interaction with each other.
Consider how when Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan that the Father spoke from heaven and the Spirit came upon Him as a dove.
There are many times when the Bible uses an analogy to help us understand the work of the Lord. God is like a rock in His faithfulness; He’s the great Shepard. Jesus is the lamb of God. But, interestingly, there’s not a single analogy in Scripture used to identify the Trinity.
We know that the Spirit is a true Person, not just a special force (He can be grieved, He comforts, etc.).
We’re all going to have to be okay with the utter awe that this doctrine should cover us with, lest we become arrogant. God is not illogical, but neither is He human…like us, or part of creation.
The Trinity is a mystery because God is not Someone we can put in a box, in the dock, or under the microscope. He’s meek, but He’s God; He’s our loving Savior, but He’s the lion of Judah. Let’s not get too chummy or flippant; let’s not get careless.
This is God we’re talking about.
A little awe is a good thing when it comes to Him.
Finite creatures are never going to fully understand the omniscient Creator!
Berkhof said, “It is especially when we reflect on the relation of the three persons to the divine essence that all analogies fail us and we become deeply conscious of the fact that the Trinity is a mystery far beyond our comprehension. It is the incomprehensible glory of the Godhead.”
A few points to consider about it and why the Trinity is so important.
First, because if Jesus isn’t fully God then we’re dead in our sin because a created being can’t atone for sin.
One famous heresy about the Trinity was Arianism, which taught that Jesus was created and not wholly and fully God. Of course, the theological mistake of this is quite evident. The Arians focused on the fact that the Bible called Jesus the “only begotten” Son (John 1:14; 3:16,18; 1 John 4:9). They reasoned from a human perspective that begotten meant made and, therefore, that Jesus brought into creation by God.
Naturally, this would apply to the Holy Spirit as well. A further point for them was Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” But Hebrews 12:16 speaks of Esau selling his “first-born” status…that is, his birthright. The Greek word prototokia used there is, as Grudem points out, cognate to the term prototokos in Colossians 1:15 and first-born. That means that Christ has the privileges and authority that belong to the first-born. The NIV, incidentally, translates the passage as “the firstborn over all creation.”
Even still, we must never interpret a passage of Scripture all by itself, but let Scripture interpret Scripture. The weight of Scripture on this issue – the deity of Christ – is so strong that the Nicene Creed in 325 said that our Lord was “begotten, not made.”
A not so obvious danger arises from Arianism and that’s legalism.
Jehovah Witnesses are, for all intents and purposes, modern Arians. Because they don’t recognize the deity of Christ but see Him as a created being by God, there’s no assurance of salvation by faith alone. The logic is cruel in its inevitability. If Jesus isn’t fully God then we must assist our own atonement through works.
Second, if the three Persons of the Trinity aren’t, in fact, real persons but simply different aspects of the same God (the heresy called Modalism) then God’s independence is obliterated. God has, since the beginning, loved and communicated; He is ultimate Personality. But if He’s not three Persons, then to love and communicate He needs us…He needs creation and is, therefore, not independent of creation.
Modalism would reject that Jesus was actually praying to the Father. When Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9),” He’s saying that in Him they see the character of the Father. If not, then His prayers were some kind of weird charade and the Father’s voice from heaven at His baptism was the ultimate ventriloquist con ever.
A fatal flaw of all non-trinitarian philosophy and religion is that they reduce the universe to ultimate impersonalism.
This is no small point.
Our personhood is everywhere taken for granted and we rely on it across the board. If what’s ultimate isn’t ultimately personal, then meaning, love, and rights – among other things – are stripped of their reality. A universe that’s impersonal – governed ultimately by mechanical forces/laws – is an absolutely terrifying place. No wonder we have, despite our material abundance and wealth, a crisis of mental health. Told throughout our culture and education that we exist in an impersonal world we inevitably understand the implication. It means that we’re utterly alone. It means that what’s real isn’t our personhood and that reality is inhuman, pitiless, and without passion.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that our arts – our stories and music – have grown so sexualized and violent? Without personhood we’re all reduced; instead of reaching up to the heavens above, we collapse under the weight of the lie into the mud and mire of animalistic humanism.
Think of the mystery of personhood. If right now you’re thinking about yourself…and now you’re thinking about yourself thinking about yourself…you’re the subject of your thoughts, the object thinking about the subject and the thoughts of that object (you). How’s that for yet another brain-bender? You know that you’re a person and this only makes sense if the universe’s ultimate is a Person…a tri-person in whom there’s ultimately love and relationship.
Yes, this is mysterious to us. It taxes our minds beyond their capacity. But such is hardly a problem because, again, it’s not a contradiction. God asks no one to build their life upon contradictions (lies), for He is the God of truth.
A contradiction is cruel.
A contradiction means that truth doesn’t matter. As Christians, those saved by the God of truth, we can know this: those in the Lord hate being told a lie while those serving the god of this world hate being told the truth (John 18:37). And Jesus Himself is the way, the truth and the life.
It’s an abominable contradiction to tell a teenager that there’s no ultimate truth yet they must find their own truth. If there’s none, then why search for one’s own anyway? The beauty of God is His holiness and otherness. He’s the Creator God who made us…for Himself…and for true fellowship with our families and friends too. And He revealed Himself to us through Scripture and nature so that we discover more and more about Him in all His amazing beauty and, yes, diversity. So, we learn about Him through Scripture and the Spirit moves upon us, energizing us through the Word, as we apply our minds to live in the world He made – which is to say, as we master a craft and apply our talents for His glory.
Such is how a man or woman “finds themselves.”
We’ll deal with the other glorious aspect of the Trinity later, which is the beauty of diversity-unity.
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