Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
It is my intention to embrace all the Bible texts for today, (proverbs 8: 1-4 &22-31 – Romans 5: 1-5), but focus primarily on the Gospel reading John 16:12-15:
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
In the ‘Athanasian Creed’ we confess “And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in three Persons and three Persons in one God, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the substance.”
Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the last of the festival days. It’s the day we dust off that esteemed Athanasian Creed, named after St. Athanasius, the great confessor and defender of the Nicene orthodoxy, who was banished from his own pulpit five times defending the great truth: that God is three and one at the same time. Three distinct persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet only one God in essence - and there is no other god than this God.
The Tri-unity of God is a paradox. A paradox is finding truth in two seemingly contradictory things at once. The word “triune” itself is paradoxical. Three - yet one; (or) one - yet three.
At first glance the Holy Scriptures continually present us with seemingly contradictory statements God is three and one. Jesus Christ is true God and at the same time true man. A justified believer is both sinless and sinner. It’s all paradox (contradictory). In a world that demands a neat and tidy either/or answer for anything, Christianity comes with a “both/and.”
Three divine Persons, one divine Being called God. Let’s be honest. If we were inventing a god and a religion, we wouldn’t go this way. We’d keep things simple and straightforward. Religion is hard enough to promote in a secular world. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? The trouble with that is we don’t make up our ideas of God. God tells us who He is.
We must take the tri-unity of God seriously for this one reason: Jesus revealed it. He’s the One who died and rose from the dead, and so whatever Jesus says, is gospel truth. Jesus is the one who prayed to His Father and yet said, “I and the Father are one.” Jesus claimed to be sent by the Father as the only -begotten Son of God, and yet He said that to see and have Him was to see and have the Father. He promised that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit who would take what He received from the Father and hand it on to Jesus’ disciples. He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all the nations by baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything He had entrusted to them.
Three divine Persons, one divine Being called God. Let’s be honest. If we were inventing a god and a religion, we wouldn’t go this way. We’d keep things simple and straightforward. Religion is hard enough to promote in a secular world. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? The trouble with that is we don’t make up our ideas of God. God tells us who He is.
We must take the tri-unity of God seriously for this one reason: Jesus revealed it. He’s the One who died and rose from the dead, and so whatever Jesus says, is gospel truth. Jesus is the one who prayed to His Father and yet said, “I and the Father are one.” Jesus claimed to be sent by the Father as the only -begotten Son of God, and yet He said that to see and have Him was to see and have the Father. He promised that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit who would take what He received from the Father and hand it on to Jesus’ disciples. He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all the nations by baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything He had entrusted to them.
Friends, this is the source of Holy Trinity Sunday and the three creeds we confess. That’s why confess the somewhat cumbersome Athanasian Creed with all its eternals, and uncreateds and incomprehensibles and threats of hellfire to all who don’t believe it. It’s because this is the God that Jesus revealed to the world. Three distinct Persons and yet only One, undivided God. A paradox.
If you want to see an artist’s attempt at capturing the paradox, spend a little time on the ‘Net’ and do a Google search for ‘Artists impressions of the Holy Trinity’. You will see virtually hundreds of expositions of the doctrine of the Trinity by famous artists throughout time. (Example Above) You see it gets people thinking and talking and discussing. How do you illustrate this paradox without slipping into the old trap of having three gods or having a god with three faces? What the creeds try to do with words, the artists try to do with paint and canvas. It isn’t easy. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church forbids members from even attempting it, though people still do. There’s a deep drive in us to try to make some visual sense out of it.
This may all seem like so much doctrinal hair-splitting to some. The Athanasian Creed might seem like an exercise in hair-splitting. Doesn’t the Bible keep things nice and simple? Is this all really necessary? Couldn’t we “just believe in Jesus” and let it go at that. Rational nonconformists claim “Doctrine divides”.
If you want to see an artist’s attempt at capturing the paradox, spend a little time on the ‘Net’ and do a Google search for ‘Artists impressions of the Holy Trinity’. You will see virtually hundreds of expositions of the doctrine of the Trinity by famous artists throughout time. (Example Above) You see it gets people thinking and talking and discussing. How do you illustrate this paradox without slipping into the old trap of having three gods or having a god with three faces? What the creeds try to do with words, the artists try to do with paint and canvas. It isn’t easy. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church forbids members from even attempting it, though people still do. There’s a deep drive in us to try to make some visual sense out of it.
This may all seem like so much doctrinal hair-splitting to some. The Athanasian Creed might seem like an exercise in hair-splitting. Doesn’t the Bible keep things nice and simple? Is this all really necessary? Couldn’t we “just believe in Jesus” and let it go at that. Rational nonconformists claim “Doctrine divides”.
Friends in Christ, it’s never a healthy sign when the church, or baptised believers for that matter, abandon any interest in Christian doctrine and turn to their own spiritual experiences. It’s a sign of the church grown lazy and distracted. The creeds didn’t (and don’t), cause divisions; they identified, labelled, and diagnosed the divisions. Doctrinal indifference weakens and divides Christ’s church on earth.
GK Chesterton, the eminent Christian writer and apologist who died in 1936, said this about his own modern-day disinterest in doctrine: - “In all the mess of modern thoughtlessness, that still calls itself modern thought, there is perhaps nothing so stupendously stupid as the common saying, “Religion can never depend on minute disputes about doctrine.” It is like saying that life can never depend on minute disputes about medicine. The man who is content to say, “We do not want theologians splitting hairs,” will doubtless be content to go on and say, “We do not want surgeons splitting filaments more delicate than hairs.” It is a fact that many a man would be dead today, if his doctors had not debated fine shades about doctoring. It is also the fact the European civilisation would be dead today, if its doctors of divinity had not debated fine shades about doctrine.” (The Resurrection of Rome, in For All the Saints, II, 27-28)
We might add to Chesterton that our own civilisations are dying and may already be dead, because we no longer take an interest in the fine points of doctrine. What Chesterton called “the mess of modern thoughtlessness” has become a culture of “dummies.” There are even books with the titles “Christianity for Dummies” and “The Bible for Dummies.” When you no longer believe anything faithfully and firmly, the fine points of doctrine are no longer worth fighting for.
So what do we do with this paradox of God’s tri-unity? What does it mean for us beyond the fact that God can’t easily be pictured, and the best we can do are triangles and St. Patrick’s three leaf clovers?
First, it means that God Himself is never alone, personally speaking. He is in communion - the Father in communion with the Son in communion with the Holy Spirit. When God made man in the beginning, He said, “Let us make man in our image.” You might say that creation is a divine committee job, a collaboration of the Father’s ideas, the Son’s Word, and the Spirit’s breath and life, all working together.
GK Chesterton, the eminent Christian writer and apologist who died in 1936, said this about his own modern-day disinterest in doctrine: - “In all the mess of modern thoughtlessness, that still calls itself modern thought, there is perhaps nothing so stupendously stupid as the common saying, “Religion can never depend on minute disputes about doctrine.” It is like saying that life can never depend on minute disputes about medicine. The man who is content to say, “We do not want theologians splitting hairs,” will doubtless be content to go on and say, “We do not want surgeons splitting filaments more delicate than hairs.” It is a fact that many a man would be dead today, if his doctors had not debated fine shades about doctoring. It is also the fact the European civilisation would be dead today, if its doctors of divinity had not debated fine shades about doctrine.” (The Resurrection of Rome, in For All the Saints, II, 27-28)
We might add to Chesterton that our own civilisations are dying and may already be dead, because we no longer take an interest in the fine points of doctrine. What Chesterton called “the mess of modern thoughtlessness” has become a culture of “dummies.” There are even books with the titles “Christianity for Dummies” and “The Bible for Dummies.” When you no longer believe anything faithfully and firmly, the fine points of doctrine are no longer worth fighting for.
So what do we do with this paradox of God’s tri-unity? What does it mean for us beyond the fact that God can’t easily be pictured, and the best we can do are triangles and St. Patrick’s three leaf clovers?
First, it means that God Himself is never alone, personally speaking. He is in communion - the Father in communion with the Son in communion with the Holy Spirit. When God made man in the beginning, He said, “Let us make man in our image.” You might say that creation is a divine committee job, a collaboration of the Father’s ideas, the Son’s Word, and the Spirit’s breath and life, all working together.
That still doesn’t quite catch the fullness of the paradox, I know. But at the level of our human language, it’s the best we can do. It’s one reason, I believe, that it was not good for the man to be alone when he was created, and why God separated male and female and made them two separate beings. We are made to be in community and in communion as God Himself is in communion.
Secondly; the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that it is the Wisdom of God, the Word, that orders everything. In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom takes on a person and speaks (in a female voice, because the word for “wisdom” is feminine). Wisdom was with God in the beginning, appointed from eternity, from before the creation. Wisdom was the craftsman at God’s side, His right hand, rejoicing in His whole world, delighting in mankind.
You might say that all of science and mathematics is a celebration of this Wisdom that made all things and gave everything order and place. The laws of science exists because the Wisdom of God brought order out of random chaos. The whole reason we can even speak of scientific laws and principles is that the universe operates by divine Wisdom. God is a God of order, and He makes things in order.
In the New Testament we meet God’s Wisdom face to face in the person of Jesus. He is the Word Incarnate, the Word made flesh, the Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together and have their being. He’s called the “first-born” of the creation, the image (icon) of the invisible God, the fullness of God dwelling in human flesh. To know Jesus is to know the ordering Wisdom of the universe in a personal way.
Imagine seeing a magnificent building, a structure that commands your attention. It makes you want to know who built it, who designed it. Take a long, meditative look at your hand. Wiggle each finger. Flex each joint. Take note of the muscles and tendons and blood vessels. Notice the shape and size of each finger. How do you think that hand came to be? By accident? A quirk of nature? Luck? Of course not! It’s the Father’s design, the Son’s execution, the Spirit’s life that made this hand and keeps it going.
Jesus told His disciples, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” And those men spent three years of “quality time” with Jesus. Literally walking and talking and eating with Him, and they still can’t bear all that He has to say. It’s a nonsense to think that we’ve exhausted everything. We may have read the Bible a dozen times all the way through from Genesis to the Revelation and we still don’t know everything there is to know. We may have memorised the catechisms, gone to Christian schools, studied under the best teachers, have enough degrees to wallpaper a small room, but we’re still only scratching the surface. Jesus promises more to come. There’s always more with Jesus, until our last second is past, when we inherit the fullness of what the Father has given to the Son who gives us by His Spirit.
Thirdly; the doctrine of the Trinity describes our relationship with God. It’s a triune relationship in union with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That’s how it began at our baptism “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The apostle Paul says, “Thanks to Jesus and the justification that came through His death and resurrection, we now have peace with God through Christ and access through faith.”
God has made peace with the world, with each and every one of us, in the death of Jesus His Son. In trusting that peace, we have access to the Father through His Son. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me”, and in His death on the cross, He drew all things to Himself and in His resurrection He presented the whole redeemed creation to the Father. The disaster of human sin, including the contribution each of us makes, has been answered in the blood of Jesus, and now by that blood, we have access to the Father. We can come to Him as dear children coming to their dear Father, with boldness and confidence. In Christ, we are part of the family. Father God has poured out His Spirit on us, in our Baptism and whenever we hear His Word. The Spirit reveals the love of God to our own hearts, so that we are able to say “our Father.”
Every prayer is about the tri-unity of God. We pray to the Father. We pray through the Son, through His priesthood, His sacrificial death, His blood. We also pray in the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus Christ to us, who works faith in our hearts, and who delivers our words to the ear of God.
The tri-unity of God is our life with God. We are children of the heavenly Father. We are brothers and sisters of God’s only-begotten Son, Jesus, our Saviour. We have the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, our Advocate, our Guide. We are always surrounded by the three Persons of our one and only God who made us, who saved us, who restores us and makes us holy in Himself.
This isn’t some theological abstraction in a book. The practical consequences of this are that we can rejoice that we will share in the glory of God, and already do by faith, and we rejoice even in our sufferings. That’s right, even in suffering, because God is in the middle of all of it. He made us, He redeemed us, He keeps us going. He’s not going to abandon us when things get rough. He will see us through. Not around, but through. Through whatever it is we’re asked to face, whether sickness or persecution or hardship or struggle, the Triune God is at work producing patient endurance, building character, and creating hope in our hearts that will never abandon us
Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity. Amen
Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity. Amen
The peace and love of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment