Thoughts on the Trinity
Unique God showers His creation with goodness and grace
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There is nothing in the Bible that tells us to observe Holy Trinity Sunday. Indeed, you are probably aware the word “Trinity” is not even in the Bible. But every Sunday after Pentecost Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and it’s a day we recall the revelation and nature of the one true God.
Unfortunately, there will not be any easy or comparable way to consider the nature of God. For God’s nature is unique. Therefore, there are no metaphors or analogies or images that can help to describe God. If I were to say that God is like a fireman because he is a fireman, a father and a husband, that would not be accurate because God is not one person fulfilling three roles, but He is three persons who share one essence. Or you might say that the Trinity is like an egg, being comprised of a shell, yoke and egg white, three elements that make one thing. But God is not comprised of parts.
You see, that’s the thing about unique things, one-of-a-kinds: there are no adequate comparisons. Therefore, whatever I say about the Trinity and whatever is true about the Trinity will only ever be true for our God. So if you can’t wrap your mind around God, it’s because He is unique, and can only be appreciated as He is, not boiled down into a tidy package like anything else we know, love or understand. There is one other fact about this Trinity that I feel must always be said, however. When non-Christians want to critique the revelation that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we should always push back that we proclaim God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit because we are compelled to by the Holy Scriptures. This is not a conspiracy of the early Church or a strange reading of Scripture. The Trinity, even without that name, is all over the Bible.
Still, what makes God such a joy for us is not just his nature. Rather, his nature is a reflection of His goodness, His mercy and His love. And those qualities make the God of the Bible, the God we worship most unique and worthy of our worship. What the God of the Bible does is unlike any other would-be God. He is involved in His creation. He knows His creation. He is patient and merciful with His creation. His very essence entered creation in the person of Jesus Christ and when
the promised Spirit came, we were promised God would never leave us or forsake us.
So although I suppose there is no other way God could exist — at least in this world — than Father, Son and Spirit, that doesn’t matter as much as that God has saved us and filled these lives with prospects for joy and hope forever. What matters is that the God of the creation has done something about the very real problems that I have and that you have. God created us all, and in His own image, which is sufficient proof that God intends us to a blessed part of this creation. Therefore, from the doctrine of God the Father alone we can establish that human beings are dignified, are valuable and are unique in all the creation.
Psalm 8 says it best: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”
But after our fall into sin, when we forsook all that God had given us in creation, God acted again, this time through Jesus. Paul summed up this blessing the best: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
And for all the times we continue to be tempted into sin, for all the times we feel we cannot confess Christ, for all the times we do not have words to pray, God gives his Spirit. And, as Jesus said during his last night with his disciples: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
These unique actions are what make God the Father, Son and Spirit worthy of our worship. For it is only this God who showers His creation with His goodness and grace.