Matthew 28 16-20 2005
Trinity
Matthew 28:16-20
May 22, 2005
My Head Is Too Small – God Is So Great!
after D. Kastens
Many Christian churches confess, the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday because it teaches the doctrine of the Trinity so clearly. The revealed and saving God is Triune, one God in three persons. This is clearly taught in the Old Testament and the New Testament and especially in the words of our Lord for today, teaching the disciples that they should baptize, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” The three ecumenical creeds are based on this phrase. There are not three Gods but only one. This one God is three distinct persons of the same essence which is God. The Triune God is the saving God. The Father sent the Son, the Son became man and saved us, the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost to bring this message to all nations. For us though, comprehending the greatness of God is no small task.
Perhaps you are familiar with the poem, "The Blind Men and the Elephant," by John Godfrey Saxe. It concerns six men who decide to satisfy their curiosities as to what an elephant is like. Upon arriving where the elephant was, each man approached him from a different stance. The first man, as he encountered the side of the elephant, said it was like a wall. The second, as he felt the tusk, said that the elephant was like a spear. The third, taking the squirming trunk in his hands, offered the opinion that an elephant was like a snake. The fourth, touching the elephant’s knee, said that he was like a tree. The fifth, feeling his ear, said that he was like a fan. The sixth, grasping the tail, countered with the thought that an elephant was like a rope.
The sad thing about the six men in this poem was that, even though they thought they were right, they were completely mistaken. What was even more tragic was that, despite their blindness, they could have gained a visual impression of an elephant by simply listening to someone with normal eyesight who had actually beheld the animal.
Relating this story to our understanding of God, we humans are blind in our perception of him, and we, therefore, need the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom John 1:18 says: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him (unto us)." John 14:9 further states (in the words of Philip to Jesus):
"... Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do now know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works, Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves." (John 14:8-11) (RSV)
Many people, like the blind men with the elephant, claim to know God, but in reality they do not know the real God apart from Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus was the only one to leave heaven, come to this world, and reveal to us the true God. The God he has revealed is vastly different from the 2,000 gods worshiped by the ancient Greeks and Romans, or Vishna and the supposedly 330 million other gods of the Hindus, or the godlike spirits of the animists.
Read about the gods of these and other non-biblical, man-made religions. You will see that they cannot possibly be the same as the true God who is eternal, unchangeable, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, holy, just, faithful, merciful, and gracious. If he were missing even a few of these attributes, he would not be the true God.)
In 1 Chronicles 16:26 we read: "For all gods of the peoples are idols." To the Israelites who were surrounded by the small and great gods of the heathen, God came and said: "Aside from me there is none other God ..." and then he went on to deal with their misconceptions by issuing the First Commandment: "Therefore: You shall have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3) Just as this commandment is the first of the ten, so this truth about God is the premise upon which the Scriptures are based. This God is described in the Scriptures, written over hundreds of years by the pens of many authors and spanning sixty-six books. Throughout these declarations, God is described as the "Triune God," the God of unfathomable complexity and infinite mystery. At the same time, he is a God who entered our sphere in the person of Jesus Christ, as a matter of verifiable history, and who, since Christ’s visible departure, has been operative in the hearts and lives of his people through the power and working of the Holy Spirit.
We may not fully fathom or comprehend this great God, but we can know who he is and we can commit our lives completely to him without getting bogged down like the skeptic who withheld surrendering his life to God because he didn’t understand every detail about him.
A clergyman once asked a skeptic: "Do you mean to say that you don’t believe the Trinity as taught in the Bible?" The skeptic answered: "I don’t know about that, but I know that I can’t get it into my head. And therefore I don’t believe it." "What size hat do you wear?" asked the pastor. "Six and seven-eighths," the skeptic said. "Why do you ask?" "Oh, I was just wondering," replied the pastor, "how you expect to get the full comprehension of the Almighty into six and seven-eighths." This reply may seem simple, but it states our intellectual dilemma with the Trinity quite simply and honestly.
Although the smallest minnow doesn’t understand the vastness of the oceans or the chemical composition of the water, he is at home in the water. A single sparrow has little comprehension of space and aerodynamics but is at home in the air. Our minds, too, simply cannot fathom the magnitude of God. As Romans 11:33-36 states:
O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (RSV)
But what we cannot fully comprehend, the Scriptures, nonetheless, do declare. Isaiah 48:16 clearly teaches the Trinity when recording the words of the pre-Incarnate Christ: "... From the beginning ... I have been there! And now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit." This truth is repeated in the New Testament Gospels where we read in Matthew 28:19: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Over and over this is repeated in the blessings of the apostles… “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
The Athanasian Creed, which liturgical churches generally confess on Trinity Sunday, simply restates the scriptural teaching of the Trinity and emphasizes its importance by saying:
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith ... And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
The primary reason why the church has insisted on the importance of the doctrine on the Trinity is not simply because of her loyalty to the truthfulness of the Bible, although it is certainly that also; it is because this is how she experiences God. This is how she experiences the gift of salvation from God and how God’s eternal plan of redemption is worked out.
Whenever the doctrine of the Trinity is abandoned, such as is done in the various sects and cults, then another way salvation is taught - a way different from the one based solely on the redemption of Jesus Christ who is indeed "God of God and light of Light, very God of Very God." (Athanasian Creed) In fact, every cult which denies the Trinity does so because it denies the sufficiency of what Jesus Christ has done for our eternal salvation. With this, of course, is the denial that he is indeed God! When we deny his divinity, then we are subject to the verdict of the New Testament:
"That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father which hath sent him." (John 5:23). Again in John 3:36 we read: "... he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him."
This, then, is the supreme reason why we cling tenaciously to the doctrine of the Trinity as the Athanasian Creed also correctly states:
For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man ... Who suffered for our salvation ... Rose again the third day ... At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give an account of their own works ... (i.e. their life and allegiance to Christ as Savior and Lord) and they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.
My head is too small to comprehend a God that is so great. God is incomprehensible to us. Yet, He has revealed Himself to us. This is even more incomprehensible, that God would love us and care for us, even though we all have sinned and rebelled against Him. The only attention that small creatures like us deserve is God’s just anger and wrath. Still God is so great that He enters into His creation and contains himself in the smallness of our humanity, in His Son Jesus Christ. In his greatness He takes on human flesh, becoming man, living as we do, suffering, and dying, hiding His glory. Then, in his greatness He overcomes death, making life, even eternal life possible for us. How can this be? I can not understand it all. My head is too small. Like the sparrow that flies in the sky or the fish that swims in the sea, I am at home with the knowledge that I have, that God created me, His Son redeemed me, and His Spirit comforts me. In this I believe. Amen.