The Trinity

A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick


Today we want to discuss one of the very important doctrines of the Christian church, and one which is among the most difficult to understand, and therefore somewhat controversial.

But first, let me give you a language quiz.

    In the English language, there is a word spelled "T-R-I - p-o-d" - how is this pronounced?

    There is the word, "T-R-I - a-n-g-l-e" - how is this word pronounced?

    How about the word, "T-R-I - c-y-c-l-e"?

    How about the word, "T-R-I - n-i-t-y"?

Most people know that this word is almost exclusively used in religious, more specifically, Christian vocabulary.

Actually, the word itself seems to be a Christian invention, coming from the Latin, "trinus," which means "threefold, or triple". Anyone who knows anything about Christian theology knows what it means - "three in one". That's the easy part.

We easily understand "tri" when it is together with "pod" - three feet; or when it's attached to "angle" - three angles; or "cycle" - three wheels. But how does this work when it refers to God? Christians, following the teaching of the Jews before us, claim to be "monotheists". We believe, "The Lord our God is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4); we're not "polytheists" - we do not believe in many gods.

We say we believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the three in One, or as the songwriter put it, "God in three persons." How can we explain this? Isn't this really three gods? Or, because God is a personal being, does it mean that He is afflicted with multiple personality disorder?

Some Christian teachers have tried to explain it by using analogies.

    They say, for instance, that when you hold in your hand an egg, you see eggshell, but you also have in your hand, egg yolk and egg white. All are egg, but the egg is not complete without all of them. (The analogy of an apple is similar.) Or, let's say I have a candle - there is the candle wax, the candlewick, and the candle flame. Eggs, apples and candles are trinities.

    But these analogies fall short because all of the parts are visible, they're all physical in nature, and in addition, the various parts can exist apart from the rest. With these analogies we fail to get an accurate picture of God. Except for the 33 years Jesus spent on earth, God is spiritual, and therefore invisible. Furthermore, there is no division with God, He is perfect unity. Or, to say it another way, when you have any one of the members of the Trinity, you have them all.

    Others have tried to explain that God, as Trinity, presents Himself in three forms - kind of like "H2O" which can be in liquid form (water), solid form (ice), or gaseous form (steam). The problem with this image is that when H2O changes from one form to the other, it ceases to hold on to the previous form - liquid is no longer liquid when it is frozen; ice is no longer ice when it is boiled. This idea has lead to the error that in the Old Testament we have one form - Father, in the Gospels we have another - Son, and from Acts on, we have the third - Spirit.

To help with visualization of the trinity, this sketch has been offered:

An added problem for us is that the word we use, "trinity," was invented after the Bible was written; the actual word, "trinity," is not in the Bible. "Google" your Bible with the word "trinity" and you'll get the message, "Your search - 'trinity' - did not match any documents." However, this shouldn't be a big stumbling block, because other important words are not specifically included in the Bible, such words as "Eucharist", "Christmas", and "Easter" - none of these are in the Bible. Even the word "Bible" isn't in the Bible! By the way, there's no word in the Bible for "retirement" - our retirement is out of this world! And, in case you hadn't noticed, the word "email" isn't there either, although one little girl was heard praying a modern version of the Lord's Prayer - she prayed, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from email."

So is this concept of "trinity" something cooked up by bored and boring theologians with nothing better to do than spin off strange ideas so as to give Christianity a distinctive flavor? Or is it a necessary and accurate understanding of who God really is, and by knowing this about God, our present and future lives will be much improved?

On the other hand, the fact that this aspect about God the trinity being hard to understand, should not be hard to accept. Why? Because He is so greatly superior to us, it should not surprise us that we cannot, in our limited capacities, fully wrap our minds around Him. Listen to how Isaiah expresses this:

    "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8, 9)

    Paul states a similar idea when he writes: "No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." (I Corinthians 2:11)

    And long before either Paul or Isaiah, Moses' farewell speech included this: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." (Deuteronomy 29:29)

So we will accept some elements of truth even when we cannot fully understand with our limited human, mental capacities. But why should we accept this particular idea, that God is a trinity - the Three in One?

The simplest answer is that in the Bible we have mention of God in these three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In what we call "The Lord's Prayer," Jesus taught us to address God as "Our Father," and Paul includes the Fatherhood of God in his greeting to the church at Rome: "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 1:7) We also have mention of Jesus being God (John 10:30; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:8), and also the Holy Spirit being God. And yet the Bible is very clear that there is only one God - the only way to frame this is to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all One.

    To support the idea of the Holy Spirit being God, we only have to point out that very often God is called the "Holy One," and the Spirit is most often also referred to as "Holy." Certainly Peter understood the Holy Spirit to be God when he confronted Ananias. He first asked why Ananias had lied to the Holy Ghost, and then said, "You have not lied unto men, but unto God." (Acts 5:3, 4)

There are three important occasions where we see the full Trinity in action.

First, in creation. Even a casual reader of the Bible can't help notice the similarity between the opening verses of Genesis and John.

    "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Genesis 1:1, 2)

    "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (John 1:1-3)

    Clearly, in Genesis we learn that God created, and yet the Spirit of God was also explicitly involved. Then in John we learn that Jesus, the Christ, was also involved, for unmistakenly, when John speaks of the "Word" he is referring to Jesus ("The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." - John 1:14).

    This also helps us understand why the plural form is used in the Genesis passage when God says, "Let us make man in our image."

Secondly, at the baptism of Jesus we again have all three persons of the Trinity involved. This is how Matthew tells it:

    "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 lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'" (Matthew 3:16, 17)

    So we have the Father's voice from heaven, Jesus, the Son being baptized, and the Spirit expressing approval through the visual sign of the descending dove.

The third place where we have a reference to all three persons together is when Jesus, after His resurrection, sent out His disciples before His return to the Father. Again from Matthew's Gospel, we learn:

    "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" (Matthew 28:18-20)

    In this regard, Christ Himself includes the three persons of the Trinity when He tells His disciples, "I will pray the Father . . . He will give you another Comforter." (John 14:16)

    It is in connection with this commission that we have the fulfillment of the promise of the Holy Spirit, not only to give power for holy living, but also power for evangelism and service.

It's this power that we want to focus on. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that we have been given power, and the source of that power is the Trinity - all three members of the Trinity. Although there is much overlapping as to how this works, when looking at the specific references to the members of the Godhead as they relate to power, we can affirm the following:

    First, there is a power that comes from God the Father to sustain us during times of external opposition.

      "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." (II Corinthians 4:7-9)

      Remember, it was to His Father that Jesus prayed, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me."

    Second, the power of Christ is given to enable us to overcome personal weaknesses.

      It was Paul, a model Christian who wrote, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it [my thorn in the flesh] away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 12:8-10)

      This only makes sense because we know that, because Jesus was fully human, He has been "touched with the feelings of our infirmities." (Hebrews 4:13)

    And last, the power of the Holy Spirit is there to make possible the successful preaching of the Gospel.

      Again, this is Paul's testimony: "Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done -- by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ." (Romans 15:17-19)

So by now we're far away from viewing this doctrine of the Trinity as a mere exercise in theological debate. If there's a sadness today about the condition of the church in America, it's due to the fact that we have lost the power.

    When even mild opposition comes our way, instead of running for the prayer meeting, as did the first Disciples - instead of praying to the Father, we run into our homes and hide behind television screens.

    When personal attacks are made on our personal well-being, instead of trusting in Christ's sustaining grace, we gripe and complain about how hard it is, and accuse God of being unfair or uncaring because we're not immediately healed of our afflictions.

    And when we're faced with the overwhelming task of bringing the Gospel to our own generation, instead of tarrying for the power of the Holy Spirit to give us what we need to accomplish the ask, we intone, "Sorry, that's just not my gift."

On this Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. But we pray that we will not merely remember the birthday of our church, but renew our vows to follow the examples of the first members, and earnestly pray for the fulfillment of the Promise in our own day.

When it comes to birthdays, in our family we have a simple ritual. At the birthday meal, the person whose birthday is being celebrated is asked two questions. The first is, "What is the best thing that happened in your life this past year?" The second is, "What do you hope will happen during this coming year?"

As a church, how would these questions be answered? I'm afraid that to the first we would probably say, "The old green pews and ragged carpet have been replaced with new comfortable seating and beautiful carpeting." If that's our only answer, we should be sad. But what about the coming year? What do we hope will happen this coming year? We pray it will be a new infusion of the power of the Holy Spirit, energizing us to reach our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Discussion Questions
The Trinity

1. What is the meaning of the word "trinity"?

2. How is Trinity compatible with monotheism?

3. What are some possible, but inadequate analogies that try to help us understand the Trinity? Why are they inadequate?

4. Why do we not accept the idea that the Trinity is organized historically: God the Father in the OT, God the Son in the gospels, and God the Holy Spirit in Acts and Epistles?

5. Should the doctrine about the Trinity be rejected because the word is not found in the Bible?

6. Why are we not uncomfortable with the idea that Trinity is not fully explainable?

7. Can you cite places in the Bible where each of these are referred to as God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit?

8. How can the three persons of the Trinity be seen at work in these three events: Creation, Jesus' Baptism, Disciples' Commission?

9. The Trinity is also involved with the impartation of power for Christian living, witness and service. Specifically, what power does the Father give (II Corinthians 4:7-9); what power does Christ give (II Corinthians 12:8-10); and what power is given by the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:17-19)?

10. What do we often do in these circumstances?

When persecuted for our faith - instead of going to the prayer meeting, we . . . . When being afflicted physically, or even emotionally - instead of trusting in the all-sufficient Grace of Christ, we . . . . When faced with the overwhelming task of bringing the Gospel to our own generation - instead of tarrying for the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit, we . . . .

11. As individuals, and as a church, what do we hope will happen this coming year?

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