Still a Mystery

Romans 8:12–17 NRSV

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

The Sunday that follows Pentecost is one of the most difficult to preach. Not because there is a text that is not well commented upon or one that brings up something uncomfortable. Well, maybe the uncomfortable part. It is a Sunday in which we celebrate another mystery of our faith. It is the mystery of the Trinity.

Now there are some places where the senior pastor will hand this Sunday off to an associate. The senior minister has something else to do or has an “important conference” to attend and therefore can skip out on preaching about this doctrine. It might be because this person does not feel up to the job or it might be that they have preached a mystery already for Pentecost. Whatever the reason, there is a reluctance to preach the Trinity in many places.

One of the issues with preaching the Trinity is that there is no explicit biblical text to affirm this doctrine. Sure, there are many that imply the Trinity, but there is nothing that tells us outright that this is a doctrine to be believed. It is with this that we turn to the text for this morning.

Paul wrote to the Romans the difference between the life in the flesh and the life in the Spirit. In this text he makes explicit that they are no longer under the control of the flesh. If they live according to the flesh then they are destined to die. If they live according to the Spirit they will live. It is as simple as that. Life and freedom come from the Spirit, slavery and fear come from the flesh. Those listening to this letter would understand of what Paul was speaking. The Roman economy was based on slavery. Slaves were all around, in every place and some of those listening may have even been slaves. So, for them to hear that there is freedom from what keeps them slaves would have given them a sense of gratitude and, well, freedom. They no longer needed to live in fear of what slavery brought to their lives.

Paul then tells them that they were led by the Spirit to become children of God. One thing to notice here is that all of this is not communicated to individuals but rather to the community at large. They were being made children of God because they received by the Spirit the spirit of adoption. God called them children because God adopted them. This was another familiar concept in the life of the Romans. There were always those in the upper classes who were adopting those family members they deemed worthy or even those outside of the family to be the heirs to the fortune of the family and all the rights and responsibilities thereof. These were made the children of the one adopting them.

But there is a difference in adoption here. This is God doing the adopting. And not only that, they are to be heirs who will call on God with the very intimate word of Abba. One did not use this term unless on knew the person as intimate as family. It is love that brings the use of this term. Aristotle said that no one would claim to love Zeus. Yet here is a God who is loved on terms that we all, I hope, will understand.

With this love and adoption, they are made to be heirs with Jesus in all his glory. they will share the sufferings of Christ as well, but these will pale in comparison to all the glory that will come.

So, what has a text like this have to do with the Trinity? Throughout the Trinity is implied. There is the Father who adopts us into the family. The Son who is the heir to all that the Father has. And there is the Spirit who moves through all the believers to make them a part of the family.

It is this that makes this text imply the Trinity. God working in three separate areas yet as one. There have been many who are much smarter and wiser than I who have had difficulty with this doctrine. It is a tough thing to wrap one’s mind around but I will try to explain as best I can without committing too much heresy.

The first thing to understand is what the Trinity is not. The biggest three heresies that exist that are applied to the Trinity are Arianism, Tritheism and Modalism.

Arianism says that God the Father was, is and will always be eternal, while Jesus and the Holy Spirit were created by the Father; “there was a time when he was not” as Arius was fond of saying in regards to Jesus. Tritheism is what it sounds like, three gods who perform different roles but who work together. Finally, there is Modalism which is God fulfilling purposes in three different modes. Each of these is trying to preserve the divinity of God or the distinctiveness of the Trinity, but wind up denying the other part. And even today we have this issue Shirley Guthrie has this to say in his book Christian Doctrine: “Because everyone tends to emphasize either the unity-oneness or the distinction-threeness of God, we all tend toward one or another of these heresies. Which tends to be your heresy?” (Guthrie, 81). Because we are humans, we all fall in to a heresy of the Trinity. As Guthrie states which one is yours?

But that is not the end of all this discussion. We can now move on to a more positive note and discuss what the Trinity is. One of my favorite definitions is from Dr. Philip Cary. I have used this example before and it is worth using again: The doctrine of the Trinity is the distinctively Christian conception of God. It is not about how God is three and one, but about how the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Trinity and Incarnation are the two fundamental doctrines of Christian theology. Both arise because of the uniquely Christian insistence on the divine identity of Christ. Hence the doctrine of the Trinity does not often use the human name “Jesus” but rather speaks of his divine identity using the terms “Word” and “Son of God.” Unlike the doctrine of Incarnation, the doctrine of the Trinity focuses strictly on the divinity of Christ, not his humanity.

As Augustine showed, the fundamental logic of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity can be stated fairly simply, in seven statements. The first three statements about the Trinity are “the Father is God,” “the Son is God,” and “the Holy Spirit is God.” Three more statements differentiating the Trinity are “the Father is not the Son,” “the Son is not the Holy Spirit,” and “the Holy Spirit is not the Father.” Then to cap it off, the seventh statement says, “There is only one God.”

I find this definition one of the most helpful that I have read. But there is something more. The Trinity is not a mathematical equation to be figured out and explained. It is a personal experience with the one God. John Leith said it this way: “God is one personal subject, and within the personhood of God there are three personal existences. The unity of God is personal, not mathematical.”

One of the stumbling blocks that the doctrine of the Trinity poses is that we as monotheists worship three gods (see tritheism). The reason for this is because we say three persons for the Trinity. This did not originally mean what it means today. Today we see the person as an individual. What the original meaning was that they were three who were of the same substance (everybody confused now? Good, so am I). But Karl Barth takes this and explains it as well as Cary does. His statement is that God is not three “I’s” but one I three times over.

But how can this be so personal? In trying to explain this, Augustine used this analogy: He said that the Father is a lover, the Son is the beloved, and the Spirit is the love that binds them all together. I like that because then the love is extended to us by the Love of God, the grace of Jesus and the communion of the Spirit. Therefore, we know the love of God and the persons of the Trinity.

There is one more definition to give and that is from the Second Helvetic Confession found in our book of Confessions which is part of the Constitution of the PC(USA). After stating that God is one the Confession states that:

GOD IS THREE. Notwithstanding we believe and teach that the same immense, one and indivisible God is in person inseparably and without confusion distinguished as Father, Son and Holy Spirit so, as the Father has begotten the Son from eternity, the Son is begotten by an ineffable generation, and the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from them both, and the same from eternity and is to be worshipped with both. Thus, there are not three gods, but three persons, consubstantial, coeternal, and coequal; distinct with respect to hypostases, and with respect to order, the one preceding the other yet without any inequality. For according to the nature or essence they are so joined together that they are one God, and the divine nature is common to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

These definitions are all from the Western Church where we find our tradition. But there is another way to understand the Trinity that comes from the Eastern tradition. This known as This is known as perichoresis. The term means this: Peri (around), Choresis (dancing, choreography). Think of the Trinity as three dancers holding hands and dancing in a circle together with joy and freedom and you have the image that the Eastern Church has of the Trinity. The oneness of God is contained not in individuals (as we so often in the West think of the “person”) but in community. The personal side of God is inter-personal as one cannot be personal alone but only when in relationships with others. Guthrie states this about the Trinity in this this model: “They are what they are only in relationship to each other. Each exists only in this relationship and would not exist apart from it. Father, Son and Holy Spirit live only in and with and through each other, eternally united in mutual love and shared purpose.” (Guthrie, 92)

Even after studying and learning more about the Trinity it is still a mystery to me. How do we apply this to our everyday lives is one of the most difficult issues that I have had to face. The only way that I can apply is to remember that God is love, that Christ showed us that love and the Spirit unites us in love. Because of this love we are in the family of God and there is nothing that can separate us from that love. Even when we go through hard times, we have the love of God to uphold us in the grace given through Christ and in the Comforter of the Holy Spirit.

The mystery is still that, a mystery. What we are called to do is lean on God and hope that one day it will all be revealed to us. In light of that, let us love God and one another as Christ loved us. Amen.