Tough Topics Trinity
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Intro
Intro
The Trinity is one of those topics that can confuse easily. How in the world does 1+1+1= 1?
Is it really that important? Can’t we simply love Jesus? Just to clarify:
We know God is love, because God is a Trinity
We can be saved because God is a Trinity
We can live the Christian life because God is a Trinity.
The Trinity isn’t the doctrine that confuses. The Trinity clarifies. The better you understand the Trinity, the better you will understand Christianity.
I am following the outline of what I believe to be most helpful book on the Trinity; Delighting in the Trinity: an introduction to the Christian Faith by Michael Reeves. It is only about 125 pages. They’re dense pages, but they’re great pages.
What was God doing before creation?
What was God doing before creation?
Was he making hell? Or was he lonely?
Two paths to understanding God: 1) God is who he says he is and that’s that, he’s unknowable; 2) the second (Better) way is to look closely at Jesus, the Son of God. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father, except through Jesus. That tells us a bundle. God has revealed himself first and foremost as a Father, over Creator and Ruler.
What was God doing before the creation? He was being a Father. He was loving the Son.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
John
Let’s look at this closer.
First, The Loving Father
The most foundational thing we are to understand about God is that he is a Father.
OT references
The Lord refers to Israel as a child (; ; ; ). He carries his people like a father carries a child (). He disciplines them as children (). He is compassionate like a Father (). He intends to have a fatherly relationship with his people (; ; ; ; ; 64:8).
NT references
Jesus refers to God as Father (). Paul and Peter refer to God as Father of Jesus (; ). Paul states God is our Father (; ). God treats us as children (). The Holy Spirit causes us to call out to him as Father (; Rom 8:15).
Calling God “Father” has incredible implications. Father is not a title, it is who he is. God is and has always been a Father. Everything he does, and every thought we have of him, should be guided by the fact that he is a wise and good Father.
Part of being a Father means he is eternally life giving. God is an eternally out-going and life-giving God. He did not give life for the first time at Creation, he has eternally been giving life and giving love. This is who the Father is.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
For all eternity, God has been overflowing with life and love into the Son. Through the Son, he extends this life and love to us!
Love is not something God has, it is something God is. If he did not love, he would not be Father.
Second, the Beloved Son
The Father could not be love if there were no one to love. It is important to note that God did not create so he could love. That would make him dependent upon creation. He was not poor and lonely, needing companionship. He is love.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
Jesus is the eternal Son who has received the love of the Father for all eternity. The Son is not only the recipient of the Father’s love, but he reflects it as well.
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.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Gregory of Nyssa (4th Century Church Father) argued that the heat that comes from the lamp is the exact nature of the lamp and is united to the lamp. As long as the flame exists, there is is never a time when the flame does not put out the heat, or, that there is heat but not flame. Likewise, the Son and the Father are eternally present and together. The Son is the eternal beloved of the Father, radiating the Father.
Gregory of Nyssa (4th Century Church Father) argued that the heat that comes from the lamp is the exact nature of the lamp and is united to the lamp. As long as the flame exists, there is is never a time when the flame does not put out the heat, or, that there is heat but not flame. Likewise, the Son and the Father are eternally present. The Son is the eternal beloved of the Father, radiating the Father.
Notice something very significant:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
The shape of God-driven love, Trinitarian love, is like a cascade. It is a waterfall of love. God the Father begins the cascade as he loves the Son. This love “spills over” into the people of God as well.
The Father is the lover and the Son is the beloved. So the Son becomes the lover and the church become the beloved.
This dynamic of cascading love is replicated in the church, marriage, and parenting.
Third, the Spirit of Love
God the Father loves the Son in a very specific way - through the Holy Spirit
As 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 alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
The Father makes his love known through the Holy Spirit. The love of the Father is experienced through the Holy Spirit.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
God’s love is very personal. Reeves writes, “The Spirit stirs up the delight of the Father in the Son and the delight of the Son in the Father, inflaming their love and so binding them together in the fellowship of the Spirit.” pg. 29
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Consider . The Spirit hovers over the waters. In the work of creation and re-creation (salvation), God’s Word goes out through his Spirit. The Spirit is the one through whom the Father loves, blesses and empowers his Son. Hence the term Christ (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew) indicate the one who is supremely anointed by the Father.
Does this mean the Spirit is impersonal? Absolutely no! He speaks and sends (,); he chooses (); he teaches (); he gives (); he can be lied to (); he can be resisted (); he can be grieved (; ); and he can be blasphemed (). He is God.
Does this mean we have a Heavenly Hodgepodge? Trinitarian Shield
Throwing God into a blender and assuming each are the same is called Modalism. This is the problem with the ice/water/steam illustration.
We appreciate God best when we recognize the beauty of the beauty of the individual persons.
Calvin wrote, “If we try to think about God without thinking about the Father, Son and Spirit, only the bare and empty name of God flits about in our brains, to the exclusion fo the true God.
Three Pictures of the Beautiful Nature of the Trinity:
Three Pictures of the Beautiful Nature of the Trinity:
First, Creation: the Father’s love overflows
First, Creation: the Father’s love overflows
In the false-gods of antiquity, we find several creation stories. In the Enuma Elish the false-god Marduk puts it this way; he will create humankind so he can have more slaves. This type of thinking seems common.
Traditionally in Islam, Allah is said to have ninety-nine names. One of them is “The Loving.” But they believe that before Allah created, there was nothing. Then what did he love? In other words, Allah become dependent upon creation for him to be “The Loving.” No Muslim would dare say that!
All this is different when you consider the Trinity. God the Father is not lonely or needy.
God the Father is by his very nature, life-giving and loving. Remember, that’s why he is a Father! He has been giving life and love for all eternity. So it seems entirely characteristic for him to turn and continue to create so that he might love others as well.
Thus the Son becomes the blueprint for all of creation. He is the One eternally loved by the Father, creation is the overflow of that love. The Father so delighted in the Son that his love continues outward, so the Jesus might be the firstborn of many children (see ).
says the Father created through the Son and for the Son. We are the overflow of God the Father’s love for the Son.
The love of the Father flows through the Son to creation. And it goes both ways. Through Jesus we see the perfect representation of God the Father.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Jesus gloriously radiates out from the Father. No wonder he creates! Consider the powerful prayer of Jesus just before he goes to the cross. Notice the directional love:
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
All creation exists simply because God is love! No wonder the Puritans taught their children; what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Notice that when we enjoy the love of God well and his love envelops us, it changes us and causes us to love others.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Creation is the explosion of God’s love. The greatest joy and love the creation can find is found in the Creator. Since he is love, he desires what is best for his beloved (consider the idea of God’s jealousy).
Second, Salvation: the Son Shares What is His
Second, Salvation: the Son Shares What is His
Creation was good and beautiful, enjoying the love of the Trinity.
Then happens! Understand, it is not simply that Adam and Eve did what is wrong. Sin is much deeper than that. If it were simply a matter of actions, Satan did not sin. We know that can’t be right!
Mankind was created in the image of God, to love him and each other. Adam and Eve didn’t simply stop loving, their love turned.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—
For Adam and Eve, the love of wisdom became greater than their love of God.
Astonishingly, this rejection of God’s love drew forth the extreme depths of his love.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The cross is properly seen in the light of love. Without the cross, we could never have imagined the incredible depths of God’s love or what it means to say that God is love.
Jesus gives his love, and life, freely.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
But we come to the question of, why? quickly comes to mind. Consider Jesus’ words:
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17
So when we ask why, it is not that the Father wanted us to know something about him, but that the love the Father eternally had for the Son might be in those who believe in him, and that we might enjoy the Son as the Father always has.
The Son becomes the Great High Priest for us
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
Hebrews
The Son shares the love of the Father
Consider these two verses:
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
The Son shares the Father’s love.
“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity ver well at all.” J.I. Packer, Knowing God. pg 224.
The son shares the father’s love.
The Son shares his knowledge of the Father.
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
When God the Father gives us his Word, he gives us himself. He didn’t drop a book from heaven, he sent himself so that we might know him.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
In Jesus, we see that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. He came to share the love of the Father and his knowledge of the Father. The Son came so we might know God. Only the Trinity could do this.
Third, the Christian Life: the Spirit Beautifies
Third, the Christian Life: the Spirit Beautifies
We learned that at creation it was the Spirit who breathed life into the creation. Similarly, he breathed life into Jesus as the firstborn of the new creation and into us when be become children of God.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
We do not have life in and of ourselves. We have life because of the Spirit.
This is incredibly important because we were made to follow our hearts (See ). But since the Fall, our hearts are the problem! They have left us dead in our sins. Our hearts are drawn to sin, not to God.
In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
But since the Fall, our hearts are the problem! They have left us dead in our sins. Our hearts are drawn to sin, not to God.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
Since our hearts are our true problem, the Spirit gives us new birth by giving us a new heart (; ).
The surgical tool the Holy Spirit uses give us a new heart is Scripture (; ).
The Spirit Gives Himself
The life provided by the Holy Spirit is, in fact, himself. He gives us himself so that we might enjoy him, the Father, and the Son.
“Not only God doth bless with all other good things, but above all by communicating himself and his own blessedness.”Thomas Goodwin Puritan theologian.
The term “grace” is really a simplified way of communicating the way God in his loving kindness gives mankind himself.
The Spirit is the oxygen of the new life
“The Spirit is not like some divine milkman, leaving the gift of “life” on our doorsteps only to move on. In giving us life he comes in to be with us and remain with us.” Reeves pg. 90.
How does the Spirit sustain this new life? He continually opens our eyes to see the glory of Jesus Christ.
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
Remember how Moses’ face shone as a result of his time with God. The Holy Spirit creates a similar effect in our lives by helping our eyes to see the glory of Jesus.
The Spirit recalibrates our love to its factory settings.
At the fall, mankind turned proper love of God to love of self. The Holy Spirit works in our lives to return our love to its proper object (see ).
If God were only concerned with proper actions, why bother with the heart? Indeed he is always out-going and loving. He is the Father. Thus, he sends the Spirit to recalibrate our hearts because life, joy, and completeness is found in loving God.
Life In the Trinity
Life In the Trinity
“The Father has eternally known and loved his great Son, and through the Spirit he opens our eyes that we too might know him, and so he wins our hearts that we too might love him. Our love for the Son, then, is an echo and an extension of the Father’s eternal love. In other words, through the Sprit the Father allow us to share in the enjoyment of what most delights him—his Son” (Reeves pg. 94).
Genuine Christianity is about love. Perfect love is found in the Trinity. Our religion is primarily about the Trinity’s work of bringing us into that love and sharing that love.
What a life the Spirit provides! He gives us himself and draws us into his fellowship with the Son and the Father. Christianity is never seen properly when it is considered dull, restrictive, and irrelevant. Genuine Christianity is intimate and joy-filled.