The Significance of the Trinity
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[VIDEO]
At the very heart of Christian belief is a concept called the Trinity.
It’s so central that one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Karl Barth, said, “Trinity is the Christian name for God.”
God is a Trinity of three in one, co-equal and yet distinct, called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Identify the Current Issue
The Trinity is not simple. But, if you think about it, most of reality isn’t simple.
For instance, every one of the trillions of cells in your body is incredibly complex. Even the proteins in your cells are complex.
Family relationships are complicated.
Football is complex.
Most of us can’t figure out our $20 digital alarm clock.
And yet, for some reason, when it comes to God, we want simple answers; we don’t want to think. But do we really want a God who is less mysterious than an alarm clock?
The 19th-century philosopher Kant once said that the idea of the Trinity “has no practical relevance at all … whether we are to worship three or ten persons in the Divinity makes no difference” in how we live our life. Is that true?
Absolutely not. Understanding and experiencing—and please notice that word experiencing—the Trinity has enormous implications for our everyday life.
Questions to answer:
How would you explain the Trinity?
What difference do you think it makes that God is triune?
Why must we accept the truth of a triune God to understand God?
God is one.
God is one.
The Trinity isn’t just a concept. The triune God is present among us and ready to meet us. It’s easy for us to approach God as if we’re approaching a frog for dissection—something we can place on a table, cut apart, and explain with detached objectivity. God isn’t like that. God is alive.
What do Christians mean when they talk about a triune God?
First of all, we believe that God is one—we are not bi-theists or tri-theists.
Thus we can and should pray with our Jewish friends the great prayer called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5).
And although every follower of Jesus breathed the air of radical monotheism, they also met Jesus. And when Jesus said things like “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and when they saw Jesus do things that only God could do—forgive sins, control the forces of nature—they knew that they had met God in the flesh.
And then, as Jesus had promised over and over again, they also experienced the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
Christians did not start talking about the Trinity because they liked the number three; they did so to make sense out of the way God had come to them as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
30 The Father and I are one.” 31 Once again the people picked up stones to kill him. 32 Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?” 33 They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.”
God is three—diverse, yet unified.
God is three—diverse, yet unified.
God is not a solitary monarch but a community of three.
The three are one, yet the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally different from one another.
Language is our frail but necessary way of talking to and about God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the names that God has given us to describe the relationships between the three in one.
The idea of the Trinity is like a complex and elegant math equation that holds all of these truths in perfect tension. All kinds of smart people have developed analogies to try to explain how God can be three in one:
God is like the spring that flows into the stream that flows into the lake (according to the church father Anselm).
God is like a plant, with the Father as the deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks into the earth, and the Spirit who flowers forth to spread beauty and fragrance (according to the church father Tertullian).
That God is a Trinity of love means that God is the lover, the beloved, and love itself all at the same time (according to St. Augustine).
The Trinity is like three torches in which the light of the first passes to the second and then is relayed to the third, until they are all burning in one blaze of holy fire.
Yet all these pictures break down.
That’s why Christian thinkers have always said that if we tried to grasp the Trinity, we would be “frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God” (Gregory the Theologian).
This is beyond rational thinking, but that doesn’t mean it’s irrational. We can’t fully understand the concept of the Trinity, but that doesn’t make it nonsensical.
The Trinity does not mean that God is like a pizza cut into three big slices.
Nor is God like the three parts of an egg.
It does not mean that God has three modes or three disguises—so God puts on a Father hat and creates the world, and God puts on a Jesus hat and goes out to save the world, and then God puts on a Holy Spirit hat….
No, they truly are three in one. When you meet the Father, you meet Jesus and the Spirit.
They all come together.
When God created the world, the Son and the Spirit were also intimately involved in creation.
When Jesus redeemed the world and saved us from sin, he was resurrected by the Father, and we are born anew through the Holy Spirit.
And when the Spirit helps us grow spiritually, it is the very work of the Spirit of Jesus by the Father who sustains us.
When we come to faith in Christ, we experience the triune God coming to us: a loving Father who embraces us, a Savior Son who died for us, and the Holy Spirit working in us to help us grow and mature in our faith.
They exist and work together in perfect unity and oneness. There is a perfect sense of giving honor to one another. Jesus gives glory to the Father and the Father gives glory to Jesus. The Spirit gives glory to Jesus. There is not a trace of jealousy, insecurity, hostility, or selfishness.
31 As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. 32 And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once.
26 “But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.
The Trinity Transforms Us.
The Trinity Transforms Us.
Let’s fast forward to 11:00 p.m. tonight. It’s dark and quiet; the day is ending. You’re just finishing your book, reading a blog, listening to your children snore, or eating your last bowl of Wheat Chex.
For the past 16 hours as you’ve lived your life, what difference has the doctrine of the Trinity made?
There are at least five profound and practical ways that belief in the triune God can change your life:
Transforms the way you view God.
Transforms the way you view God.
The Trinity increases our sense of the depth and mystery of God’s nature, which is full of beauty and wonder. God is not boring, and he is not bored. God is bursting with life, love, and activity. God is the most holy, loving, living, creative, and fascinating being in the universe. God is a party or dance of love that has been going on for all eternity.
List the ways Paul viewed God in
33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! 34 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? 35 And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? 36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.
Transforms the way you worship.
Transforms the way you worship.
We think of worship in terms of a worship service, but worship is the gift of participating in Jesus the Son’s offering to the Father in the power of the Spirit.
Or to use less precise language, God is a party of praise and honor and glory. God is a worship service. Jesus offers his life to the Father. The Father gives glory to the Son. The Spirit leads the Son and gives glory to the Son. So whenever we gather together in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are invited into that eternal service of praise and worship.
16 I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.
How does this verse describe how all three persons of the Trinity lead us into knowing and worshiping the true God?
Transforms the way you pray.
Transforms the way you pray.
The Trinity is already praying for you.
26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Transforms the way we love one another.
Transforms the way we love one another.
—your spouse, friends, neighbors, and fellow pilgrims in Christ.Because God is triune, followers of Jesus believe and live their lives in the love of God.
5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
What does it mean to you that God is love and has enabled you to love?
The Trinity tells us that God was and is love from all eternity, because God is a community of love. And then that love spills over into our hearts.
At the end of this day you may consider yourself broken and insignificant.
You may be at the end of your rope.
You may feel small, dirty, and ashamed.
You may feel lost and empty.
But you are loved by a three-fold cord of love. Jesus the Son left the glory of heaven to come to Earth—living, dying, and rising again for our sake. The Father has said, “I will offer my only son to save my fallen and wayward people.” The Spirit has been poured out on the Earth and into your heart. And you are invited into the presence of God.
Apply Your Findings
God is a party of love, and you’re invited into the party. Jesus the Son has opened the door, the Father stands ready to embrace you, and the Spirit is there to guide you. Do you know yourself as loved?