Trinity
Matthew 28
The lectionary for Trinity Sunday usually picks out a short passage that just contains the words “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” – and suggests, “There you go – there are the three words, preach on the doctrine of the Trinity!”
The verses, or usually very short passages, don’t give us much to unpack the mystery of the Trinity itself; it just picks out where someone says or writes…Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Actually, the bible doesn’t explicitly say anything about the doctrine of the Trinity. What we call the Trinity is just a theological construct that helps us make sense of how God has revealed himself to us….and in truth, I’m sure our attempts are woefully inadequate. How can we fully explain and contain the nature of God? There has to be room for mystery!
So, I’m sorry to disappoint you if you thought you’d get a nice neat theological message tying up all those uncertainties and controversies over what we actually mean by Trinity!
There is peril if we were to try to sum that up in just 20 minutes what we understand of the Trinity! Many have tried, and many have failed, falling into various heresies (Modalism, Partialism, Arianism), that usually happens when a preacher tries hard to use various metaphors or pictures - like a ‘clover leaf’ or ‘an egg’ or ‘water, ice and steam’. All actually lead us down a wrong way of thinking.
But it does leave some questions people ask, or you may ask yourself, when thinking of the Trinity?
· Do we have three Gods, or one? Are they all equal?
· Are they just different aspects of the same God?
· Have they always existed, or did God the Father create the other two?
These questions are not surprising. It was no different in early church times, explaining or understanding the plurality of God was especially hard when you have a new group of people proclaiming a threefold revelation of God.
They, of course, were coming out of a Jewish tradition that has gone out of its way, against the pantheistic Greek and Roman cultures, to proclaim there is just One True God! You can see why it was a hard sell.
Many early church believers, and Jewish converts to ‘The Way’, really struggled with the idea that Jesus was fully God.
Council of Nicaea 325 was the central place where Arianism (Arius - notion that Jesus was created/sent by God, but not fully God himself) was officially quashed as a heresy, and they declared that God and Jesus (and the Spirit) were ‘homousian’ – of the same being or essence – recognise that from the creed (of one being with the Father).
Now the creeds we say are good and unite us around that truth, help keep us on track, and fend off commonly held heresies. They set a clear core doctrine of the Christian faith, as it has been revealed to us.
However, the creed jumps straight from Jesus’ birth to his death/resurrection and misses out great chunks of the content of the gospels, which is where our preaching should be grounded.
So…as it's Trinity Sunday, I’ll say a little more about the Trinity, but probably more important and more life-changing if we also look at the gospel account – especially this one! ‘Cause it’s great!
Briefly… a few more thoughts about the Trinity, with no intent to be exhaustive:
1. We often refer to ‘Persons’ of the Trinity, which is understandable as we want to convey that the Spirit is not some impersonal force. But that personalised way of thinking can sometimes not be helpful, as we tend to map our own ‘person’ characteristics onto God, rather than the other way round.
Remember, we are made in his image, not the other way around. God is so much more than we can comprehend, and there is a danger of limiting him to human qualities.
2. We know the disciples and the apostles spoke the language of the Trinity (as did Jesus; he was clearly fine with this new way of speaking about God). It's clearly there in the bible, most obviously at Jesus baptism where all three are present.
3. The writers of the NT constantly referred to God as Father, Son and Spirit in prayers and blessings and ‘the grace’ (2 Cor) etc. May sound natural to us, but remarkable coming from such a highly monotheistic cultural Judaism that affirmed God is One (after all that’s what set them apart from the pagans), it would have been drilled into them, they said the Shema daily:
Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad: "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is One.
This was one of the great blasphemous controversies that many of the Jewish leaders could not accept about Jesus - that he was indeed fully God. Eventually led to his death.
4. Jesus also refers to his own divinity, most clearly in his response to the Jewish crowds questioning him when he states: ‘Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am!’ (John 8:58) invoking Exodus 3:14, where God solemnly reveals His holy name.
“I and the Father are one”, “ Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”
5. What about Holy Spirit? More than just a Jedi-like force? Or Jesus’ vapour trail?
· Creation: The Spirit was present and active at the dawn of creation in the very opening of the Bible in Genesis 1.
· Resurrection: The Spirit is instrumental in bringing new spiritual and physical life (Romans 8:11). “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you…”
· Inspiration: The Spirit guided prophets to speak God’s words and the authors of Scripture, making the texts divinely authored (2 Peter 1:21 and 2 Tim 3:16)
The Holy Spirit is consistently listed on the exact same level of divinity
as the Father and the Son, sharing a singular divine name.
But preaching on this alone doesn’t really get us very far, other than a deeper understanding that will help us read scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity is just something we need in order to explain the wider narrative message of the gospel.
So… before we close, let’s briefly look more closely at our gospel passage.
This is where Matthew’s resurrection account helps us. Here is a demonstration of the fact that Jesus was, in very nature, God. We have Jesus with the 11 (pre-Matthias) in Galilee after his resurrection.
Jesus says that all authority has been given to him. That could only be, if he himself were of one being (‘homousias’) with God.
They worshipped him…but some of them doubted…? What!? Some of the disciples?
Distazo, a Greek word that means ‘in 2 minds’ ‘hesitated’ – we perhaps get a sense of the weight of emotion, confusion, disorientation in seeing the resurrected Jesus. Nothing can prepare you for an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. Perhaps this is encouragement for us if we haven’t fully got our head around all this.
The only other time this word is used in NT is Peter on the water, out of the boat, when he sees the waves and hesitates and doubts…So real to our own experience. I love Matthew’s honesty in including this, which shows genuine integrity of just how they felt. It's authentic!
They don’t really ‘get it together’ until the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, a week after the ascension. Then we see them empowered, filled with God’s spirit, equipped and gifted to do what Jesus did…to preach, heal and prophecy. And the church grew rapidly!
In Matthew’s words, note also the repetition of ‘all’ – (pan), it’s such a small word, but so powerful.
- He has been given ‘all’ authority, which he confers on them in their ministry.
- He sends them to ‘all’ nations with the good news of the kingdom.
- He calls them to teach ‘all’ people everything he has taught them.
- He will be with them ‘all’ of the days to the end of the age.
Universal authority, universal commission in extent and duration.
The fullness of what Jesus is about!
Note: baptism first – belonging. Then teaching them…we often talk of the important sequence of belong, believe and behave. So often, we expect people to first behave in a way we think appropriate, then believe, before they ever feel like belonging. No, here it’s baptise first, then teach.
Note also: baptising them…in the name (singular) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Phil 2 – God gave him the name that every knee should bow, every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Paul is borrowing the language of Is 45:23 , which asserts that God alone is the one who commands worship in all the earth. Isaiah is saying there is only one name…and Jesus says that name is Father, Son and Spirit.
Often called the Great Commission. It’s what we are all about! It’s our mission, our Co-Mission.
So, we haven’t attempted to fully grasp the doctrine of the Trinity…because it’s a mystery. Of course it is!
More than an intellectual exercise, but where the Trinity is true and relevant for us today is that God meets our every need in whatever situation we are in, because:
- Sometimes we need God the Father, who accepts me just as I am. Who shows me unconditional love and says to me, ‘You are always with me and everything I have is yours’ (Lk 15:31). I need a Father who will stand with me as I journey through this life, picking me up when I fall down, forgiving me when I do wrong and believing in me every step of the way.
- Sometimes we need God the Redeemer. I need to know Christ, who gave himself up for me. Who said I should come to him when I feel low, when I feel defeated by my own self, when I don’t feel worthy of his love and forgiveness – but who loves and forgives me as I am. Who bled and died, but was raised to new life, who defeated death itself. I need to know that same resurrection power is alive and at work restoring me day by day.
- Sometimes we need God the Spirit. I need to feel the closeness of his love, the intimacy of his embrace. I need his life-changing power in my life, and I need equipping to face each day and learn how I, through and with him, can bring more of his kingdom on earth today.
God created us, he redeems us and sustains us. He knows everything about us, and he meets us wherever we are, however far from home we feel, wherever we are in the moment and whatever our need is.
He meets us as Father, Son and Spirit and that is the good news of Trinity!
Richard