Trinity (5)
Notes
Transcript
14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Some Christians may be surprised to learn that some of our key theological terms that define our beliefs are not found in the Bible. One such word is the name of this Sunday of the church year. Traditionally, the Sunday after Pentecost has been called “Trinity” Sunday. But the word itself, does not appear in the Bible. Where does this word come from and what does it mean?
Technical Stuff: In order to refer to the one true God of three persons, Tertullian (a theologian during the late second and early third centuries AD) coined the term Trinity. Trinity is now the shortcut we use to describe the facet that there is one God, and yet that one God is three persons. There are not three gods, nor is there only one person who appears to us in three different forms.
This word is a launching pad to discuss a very sublime and deep concept. Who is God and how can we describe him? It is a concept that has been pondered, reflected on, sought after, discussed, believed etc. for as long as the biblical record which is in effect since time began.
To answer this question, we have two sources. The natural knowledge of God and the revealed knowledge of God.
Let’s start with the natural knowledge of God. This is what we know about God apart from the writings of the Bible.
One of the first concepts I teach in confirmation class and review at the final examination is this question: “How can everyone know that there is a god?” — not necessarily the true God but that there must be a being beyond humans who is far superior to us. Although students will often say “The Bible”, I counter with the question, but what if someone doesn’t have a Bible? The answer I’m looking for is from natural means.
Psalm 19:1–4 (NIV84)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
Often when I post photos of a beautiful sunrise (but usually sunset), some will comment on the handiwork of God regarding the beautiful view.
Also, the existence of physical things concludes that someone must have built it.
Hebrews 3:4–5 (NIV84)
4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future.
So people can assume there must be a god from nature.
They can also assume there must be a god to whom we are accountable to because of our own conscience.Romans 2:14–16 (NIV84)
14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Everyone can know there is a god by nature and conscience.
Limitation? Does not tell us who the true God is or what he has done to save us.
We move on to the revealed knowledge of God. Hebrews 1:1–4 (NIV84)
1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
I would say only Adam and Eve had perfect knowledge of God through God telling them directly about himself and how he created them. Having been created in the image of God, they would have shared an intimacy with God that we long to be restored to in heaven. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV84)
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Because Adam and Eve lost the image of God, man’s knowledge of the true God has been limited.
Nevertheless, God has revealed enough of himself to us for our salvation and it is for our comfort and reassurance that we seek him out and appreciate what he has done for us.
This is complicated and in truth beyond our limited human abilities. But we can conclude several important doctrines that are summarized by the teaching of the Trinity.
Trinity means “three in one”. The one refers to the number of gods there are. Believing in one god is know a monotheism - a word meaning “One God”. Modern day monotheists include Jews, Christians, Unitarians, and Moslems. In Judaism, a simple creed spoken at dawn and dusk is known as The Shema. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It is the first verse our pastoral students memorize in Hebrew.
6 “This is what the Lord says— Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. 7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come— yes, let him foretell what will come. 8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” 9 All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.
An interesting note is that even though we refer to him as “God”, he further refers to us by his name which is “The Lord”. Recall how he revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush.
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
Yahweh is the promised proper name of God. It means Lord and Master. By Jewish tradition this name is too holy to pronounce or write. Therefore they just wrote four letters without any vowels: YHWH. Jews stopped saying the name all together in the third century AD. They stopped saying this name because they were afraid of violating the fourth commandment that prohibits misusing, or taking the Lord’s name in vain. Therefore scholars today don’t know for sure if the original pronunciation was Yahweh or Jehovah.
Tradition follows the convention used in the King James Version which translates YHWH by itself as Lord with a capital L and small capital letters for the rest of the word. This is done to set it apart from other uses of the word lord. Then whenever YHWH occurs as a compound name with other words the translators use the word Jehovah instead. This is by far the most common one of the names of God found in the Bible.
Well, if God is one; where do we get the word Trinity from? What are the three that make up one God? Here we talk about the three persons of the Trinity. Father (the one most often meant by the name for God in the Old Testament and when the word God is used in the New Testament), the Son (Jesus Christ) who becomes incarnate in the New Testament but whom many believe is referred to in the Old Testament when “The angel of the Lord” is used — preincarnate Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Lutheranism 101 (An introduction to Lutheranism published by CPH) describes it in this way: “In Scripture, God tells us about Himself, and we learn that while there is only one God, He is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now this whole three-in-one and one-in-three business known as the Trinity is downright mind-boggling. We do not arrive at our understanding of God because it is reasonable or logical or mathematically sound, but because it has been revealed to us in Scripture. Interestingly enough, the word Trinity never appears in Scripture. A long time ago a theologian took the liberty of assigning a name to this concept so that we do not talk in circles whenever we refer to the threeness of the one God. But the Old and New Testaments state that there is only one God. We also learn that the one true God consists of more than one person. Genesis 1:26 says “Let U make man in Our image.” (Although this could just be a ‘majestic’ plural.) The three persons of the Trinity work together. A clear example of this is found at Jesus’ Baptism, where we see
1.God the Son as an in-the-flesh human being.
2. God the Holy Spirit in the from of a dove, and
3. God the Father’s voice coming down from heaven.
Also, when Jesus commands Holy Baptism in Matthew 28:19, He tells the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The one, singular name God includes all three persons of the Trinity.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page: The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son is not he Father or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. They are all God—not three gods, but one God in three persons. The three persons are all equally good and equally important. There are no inferiority complexes or power struggles within the Trinity. All that being said, if you still do not completely understand who God is, you are in good company. The truth is that has not revealed everything about Himself. Numerous errors and false teachings started because people wanted a God who fits their own limited human understanding. But Lutherans are most comfortable in confessing what God revealed to us about Himself—no more, no less.
For a more in depth analysis you can read Koehlers, Mueller’s or Pieper’s dogmatics.
In the early Christian church, those who seem to enjoy answering “What does this mean?” put their minds to the task of summarizing what the Bible has to say about what God has revealed of himself in the Bible. Historical Christianity came to the conclusion that the true God is the Triune God. (By the way, the word processor in Logos does not recognize the word “Triune”.) This is expressed in the three ecumenical creeds. Each creed becoming more explicit and complicated than the one before.
What was the purpose of the Athanasian Creed?
The Athanasian Creed is the most comprehensive of the early church creeds, likely because it was written so late. It was designed to battle the theological controversies that plagued the church. Against Arius' followers, Athanasius and other early church fathers insisted that Christ was begotten, not created.
From this we can see there was a difference in beliefs about the nature of God. Early church leaders tried to silence false teachers and instead of burning them at the stake, they would publicly denounce them as heretics and produce doctrinal statements defending their own beliefs.
It may be interesting to note that even though historical Christians continue to maintain the teaching of the Trinity, some of the concepts of Arius continue to be adapted and adopted by modern day religious groups who speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but are not in fact Trinitarian because of their explanation of the origin of Jesus and/or the person of the Holy Spirit. (A topic worthy of further study.)
Time does not permit to explore these more recent developments. Let me conclude with a statement of how comforting our believing in the Triune God has for our salvation:
Lexham Survey of Theology (The Trinity and Scripture)
Within Scripture the doctrine of the Trinity serves to demonstrate that it is the Triune God who accomplishes salvation—through the calling of the Father, the incarnation of the Son, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This promised salvation, which the Old Testament anticipates, the New Testament proclaims as revelation and accomplishment.
Scripture is the testimony of the Triune God, bearing witness to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as they initiate, accomplish, and apply salvation for an otherwise-lost humanity. Scripture comes from God, and at the same time it proclaims God.
Paul’s claim that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim 3:16) is a well-known dictum that says more about the Trinity than it might initially appear to. The Scriptures are said not only to come from God but are “breathed out,” a term that undoubtedly has pneumatological (Spirit-related) meaning. Furthermore, the verse immediately preceding insists that the Scriptures are christologically oriented: they are capable of making one wise “for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15). The idea of Scripture as coming from a specifically Triune God is reiterated throughout the Bible. The author of Hebrews, for example, identifies God the Father as the one who, prior to the incarnation, “spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days … has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:1–2). In 2 Peter 1:21, the Holy Spirit is described as carrying along those human authors who spoke the divine words that would become Scripture, and elsewhere the Spirit is said to have spoken through the prophet Isaiah (Acts 28:25). In addition to the idea of divine origin we find the relationship between the Trinity and Scripture manifested in the way that Holy Writ serves as a testimony to the Triune God who authored it.
In the Shema (Deut 6:4), we hear the monotheistic cry that dominates the pages of the Old Testament and continues into the writings of the New Testament (1 Cor 8:4; Gal 3:20; 1 Tim 2:5; Jas 2:19), where it flowers into a deeper understanding of what it means for God to be one. The gradual disclosure of the Trinity in Scripture is an epistemological development that begins with the Old Testament emphasizing the oneness of God, all the while placing markers testifying to the reality of the Father, Son, and Spirit, which the New Testament interprets in light of the incarnation.
The doctrine of the Trinity provides the overarching narrative that connects the Old Testament and the New Testament. The same God of Israel who promised salvation to his people carries out that promise in the incarnation. He not only revokes their exile that separated them from him, but he closes the gap himself in order to draw them back into intimacy with himself. Scripture serves as the narrative that weaves the story of the Triune God moving through history in order to redeem humanity.
