Trying to Understand the Trinity
One of the best-known theological statements is one we all know: ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.’ It seems a very simple statement, although it is also a challenging one. Our main aim in life, after all, is to glorify God. Yet there is also a wonderful compensation in that we can enjoy him forever. Nevertheless, there is a factor to understand, which is ‘who is the God we have to glorify and enjoy?’
Whenever we wish to interact with someone, we usually say to the other person what our name is. If we don’t do so, the other person does not know what to call us. We remain detached from that person, and not a human level it would be very hard for us to show devotion to him or enjoy his company. But God is not like that type of person. When we turn to the Bible, we see that God has revealed that he has several names or that he was addressed by specific names at particular times. In telling us his names, it means that God wants us to know who he is.
We may wonder what that has got to do with the gospel. Yet when we ask ourselves about what the gospel involves, its contents say something about God. Forgiveness says something about God, adoption says something about God, heaven says something about God, resurrection says something about God.
For example, he revealed himself as Yahweh to the nation of Israel, a name that indicated he was in a special relationship with them. This name also points to God’s self-existence and unchangeableness. He is also called God Almighty (El Shaddai) and Sovereign Lord (Adonai) in the Old Testament, as well as being addressed with the general name for God (El). In the New Testament, however, God reveals himself by a special name. That divine name, as Jesus stated to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This name reveals more about God than previous names did, although all his names were and are true revelations about him. As we think about how God used different names about himself, we realise that he is telling his creatures about features of his identity, of who he is. In this way of introducing himself, God was revealing himself progressively. Moses knew more about God than Abraham did, although both knew truthful details about the Lord. The amazing aspect of all this is that God wanted his creatures to know about him in order that they could glorify him and enjoy him forever.
Here we are, living in the period in which we are told wonderful truths about God and we are told them with greater depth and clarity than was told to others who served God before Jesus came into the world. We should react to this reality with a sense of wonder. Whenever we say, ‘I know about the Father, the Son and the Spirit,’ we should say the sentence with an exclamation mark at its end. Those who served God before Jesus was born would have been so glad to have lived in our day.
There are several reasons why we should attempt to appreciate the Trinity and here are some of them:
1. The doctrine is revealed in the Bible and we are called to learn what is said there.
2. It was taught by Jesus and the New Testament shows that it was precious to Jesus, and therefore it should be precious to us.
3. We are called to worship the Trinity; therefore, we need to know how to do so.
4. We were created to know God, and salvation recovers this knowledge for us.
Theologians and others have wrestled with trying to explain who God is and what it means for our God to be the Trinity. One way in which many have explained truth about the Trinity is to speak of the essential Trinity and the economic Trinity. As the adjectives indicate, the essential Trinity refers to who they are and the economic Trinity refers to what they do. We can use those two descriptions as we try and appreciate who our God is.
At the Reformation it was customary in Scotland for a doxology to be sung at the close of a psalm, probably to indicate that the God they were praising was the Trinity.
To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God who we adore,
Be glory, as it was, and is,
And shall be evermore.
The practice ceased in the middle of the seventeenth century, but one famous minister David Calderwood, the author of a famous multi-volume history of the Scottish church, objected to the cessation of the practice because he believed that he would sing the doxology in heaven, or at least its sentiments.
Who they are
As just mentioned, this way of speaking is a way of saying who God is. We only have one God because there only is one God. Yet this one God exists as the Trinity, which means that the one God is composed of three persons or agents. Yet while each is fully divine, they are not three separate Gods. We can list what the Bible reveals about the three persons.
First, the three persons are eternal. There has never been a moment when there were only two persons or only one person. Jehovah Witnesses teach that there was a time when only the Father existed, and at some stage he created the Son and the Spirit. Others regard the Spirit as a kind of influence sent on God’s behalf. All such views are wrong, but they are more than wrong, for they are heresy. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are eternal persons in the Godhead.
Second, the three persons are equal to one another. A common way of imagining the Godhead is to picture three thrones, with the biggest one occupied by the Father and two smaller thrones for the Son and the Spirit. That illustration denies the equality of the persons. Our catechism says that the persons of the Trinity are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. They possess the same divine attributes. They are almighty, all-knowing, everywhere present simultaneously. Each possesses self-existence.
Third, the three persons are together. It is often said that the Trinity is like a family. Yet we know that family members can be separated from one another. That is not the case with the Trinity. They are together intimately, not only with but in one another. The three persons are never isolated from one another, but are in continuous fellowship, acting towards, on and in one another.
Fourth, each of the three persons has a specific name. The name of the first is the Father, the name of the second is the Son, and the name of the third is the Holy Spirit. Those names reveal to us how they relate to one another. This means that the Father acts as the Father, the Son as the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit. What that means in its fullness would take a long time to explain. It does have wonderful implications for us because it means that we can know each of them in their own way.
The church has had to use words to explain the relationship between the three persons. Words usually have limitations to their meaning. The word that has been used to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son is begotten – the Father begets the Son and the Son is begotten by the Father. Initially, this word can give the impression that the Son is inferior, but that is because we are using a human relationship which has a beginning to think about how an eternal relationship without a beginning works. There never was a moment when the Father existed without the Son, but there never was a moment when the Father did not relate to the Son as Father, and vice versa.
How does the Spirit relate to the Father and the Son? Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Again, we have to think of this procession as eternal without beginning. We could ask, where did the Spirit proceed to throughout eternity? He proceeds to the Son. Using human language, we can then observe that the Spirit does not remain there, but proceeds from the Son to the Father. This procession is eternal and unlimited.
We can make two deductions from these details. The first is that God is the source of life. He has eternally existed, which means that life comes from him. Second, God is the source of love and this divine love is seen in the manner by which the Trinity responds to one another. Each of the divine persons loves the other two fully and permanently.
What they do
The first detail to say about their activities is that they are never isolated from one another. Everything they do is connected. Nothing they do is haphazard.
The next detail to remind ourselves of is that whatever they do is done for the glory of the Trinity. Sometimes a text says that everything is for the glory of the Father, but another text says that Father wants all to honour the Son even as they honour the Father.
The third detail concerning what they do is to recognise that they had a purpose or a plan. This plan was in existence before time. Sometimes, it is called the covenant of redemption. Should we wish to call it that, we must keep in mind that this covenant is not the equivalent of a committee meeting at which various options were discussed by the three divine Persons. Rather, the agreement and its contents were known by the Trinity from eternity.
The fourth detail is that all we can know about what they do is limited to what the Bible says that they did and do and will do. It is possible that the Trinity does lots of things that we don’t know about.
We know about their work of creation and their provision of salvation, and we will think about them in future sermons. In the meantime, we can consider briefly what is said about the Trinity in John 3:5. I would suggest that this verse is a reminder that the Trinity can appear in unexpected places in the Bible and perhaps when we read this verse we did not think it described the Trinity.
As we look at the verse we can see three persons are mentioned. Jesus the Son speaks with divine authority, he mentions that there is a kingdom that belongs to the Father, and he mentions that a sinner needs new life from the Spirit in order to understand the kingdom. After all, Jesus is speaking to a religious expert called Nicodemus and it is obvious from his response that he had not a clue about the teaching of Jesus here.
What should be our response to what Jesus said on that occasion? If we understand what salvation is about, we should express our gratitude to the three persons of the Trinity specifically. There are many ways in which we can do that, but it is sufficient here for us to thank Jesus for coming into the world to be the Saviour, to thank the Father for bringing us into his kingdom, and to thank the Holy Spirit for giving new life to us.
If we have not tasted personally the salvation provided by the Trinity, what should we do? The answer is that we should speak to them specifically. Such can speak to the Father about his sending of his Son, they can speak to Jesus about what they know about the reasons for his coming, and they can ask the Holy Spirit to give them new life. If they do so, they will discover that the Trinity has many blessings in store for them.