1 John 3:16


"By this we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

Tuesday 31 August 2010

The Trinity

God exists in trinity. The trinity is one of the mysteries of God. The Bible does not explain where God comes from. The Bible just claims that God “was, is and ever will be” (Rev 22:13). This is a mystery to the human mind. It cannot be understood intellectually. We believe it because the word of God declares it. The trinity is likewise a mystery.

“Let us make man in our image” is not the “royal we” as the British monarch uses, for the Hebrew monarchs did not use it. The phrase is not referring to God and the angels, for the angels were not involved in God’s creation (Gen 1:26). Man was not made in the image of angels. “Us” refers to Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament says that God made all things through Christ and Genesis 1 shows the Holy Spirit was present in creation. At Jesus’ baptism and again later in the discourse of Jesus in John 14-17 the Father, Jesus and the Spirit are all individually identified. The trinity means one God in unity, in three persons. It is not polytheism, for the three are one God. The creeds say one substance. The creeds speak of the hierarchy in the trinity. Jesus claimed the Father was greater than He (John 14:28).

The Hierarchy

This is a voluntary hierarchy, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all equally God. The Spirit’s submission to Christ enables us to test the spirits, for any spirit that does not place Christ at the forefront is not the Spirit of God (1 John 4:2). Trinity in hierarchy serves to the benefit of the redeemed.

Jesus’ submission to the Father likewise demonstrates to us a faithful heart. “The Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28). Jesus is called the true and faithful witness (Rev 3:14, where “beginning” means Head). He had no personal agenda. Jesus’ prayer, “Not My will but Yours be done”, shows the fellowship that exists in the trinity (Matt 26:39). It is not a relationship of control.

God is love and love cannot exist on its own (1 John 4:8). Love must exist in relationship and in sharing. Love must give. Just as we cannot love God on our own, but in fellowship with the church, so God always existed in fellowship. God must exist in trinity – in fellowship.

God’s creation is for the same purpose, to share His life with others. He created because love must share. God wanted to share the fellowship He had in the family of His Godhead with His people. Creation and redemption are to the praise of His glory and to call us into His eternal fellowship (Eph 1:6, 1 John 1:3).

Trinitarianism

There is a form of trinity that takes a separation of the persons of the Godhead too scientifically. The Holy Spirit in a believer is the Spirit of Christ. It is wrong to treat the Holy Spirit in any way, even as a fuller second experience, as separate from receiving Christ.

We do not believe in oneness theology that denies the trinity. But the concept of the separability of the persons is also dangerous to theology. Deut 6:4 claims “The Lord our God is unity.”. The Hebrews knew of the trinity, but they expressed it as a unity.

Hellenistic Christian theology has departed from this. This is another example of the early Hellenisation of the church that we have not yet recovered from. The Hebrew were Trinitarian, but not in the Greek sense. The Hebrew knew of the Son, the Seed of woman. The Pharisees rejected the Son, but witness to Him is throughout the Old Testament. They knew of the Spirit.

Isaiah 9 claims among the titles of Christ mighty God and everlasting Father. Yet Jesus clearly related to the Father as a distinct person. All we can say is that it is a mystery. The relationship is too dynamic to be separated. The truth is somewhere between Western scientific separation and oneness theology. We have not looked into Tertullian’s Trinitarian theology, but here we might find roots of Pentecostal thought.

Jesus said, “I send you another comforter.”. In Greek the word means another the same. The unity is more than one mind, purpose and substance. The Hebrew did not have to explain it scientifically, rationally or philosophically. They just accepted the biblical revelation. Hebrew thought is holistic. The Three are One! It is the same with the nature of Christ. He is human and God. But He is one inseparable nature.

It is not possible to have Christ without having the fullness of the Spirit. In Christ the fullness of the Godhead dwells (Col 2:9). “Of His fullness have we all received.” (John 1:16). “You are complete in Him.” (Col 2:10). This does not mean that all the manifestations will happen at once when we are born again. But we cannot receive Christ without receiving the Father and the Spirit in His fullness.

No comments: