The Trinity

Jn.16:6-9 - Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

And Jesus reveals to us a profound mystery and one in which we can only have a very limited amount of understanding, This does deal with the nature of God, but even further it deals with the very essence of God. The nature of God is love and holiness and wisdom and an infinite number of attributes, but the essence of God, the substance of God, is supernatural and metaphysical. I mean God is a spirit, but who among us can even define a spirit? We can grasp God in a human form because we can see Him, and so the invisible God still is usually captured by our imagination in human form. And God reveals Himself through much human imagery for our benefit.

But God is omnipresent which means He exists and lives everywhere. Even the word “lives” is somewhat misleading since it implies the possibility of death and/or a beginning. God does not think, since that suggests a process or a computation. God knows, and even deeper, God is knowledge. I know, we are soaring in divine air in which our pitiful little minds begin to be starved for oxygen.

But let us also look at the glimpse that Jesus gives us into the doctrine we know as the Trinity. The New Testament gives us glimpses and pieces from which we have constructed this doctrine, and it seems correct. This doctrine teaches that God has always existed in three distinct but intertwined Persons - whatever the definition of a “person” is. I guess you could say entities, or self contained existences. But do you see how difficult it is to even come up with adequate definitions without diluting, compromising, constricting, or even totally misrepresenting God’s supernatural existence? Just to place Him in human words immediately diminishes His colossal - uh - um - Being.

So now that we have established our inability to understand, much less describe, God in all His glorious being, we now attempt to define the Trinity. Preachers use some object lesson like the egg and suggest that the white, the yoke, and the shell are three parts of the same egg. And if that illustration of the Trinity wasn't so tragic it would be humorous. One thing we can glean from these verses and many, many others is that Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. About this there can be no negotiation or com-promise. Jesus was God in the flesh and any suggestion otherwise is heresy of the highest order and in fact is “another Jesus” That is the foundation, the chief Cornerstone, upon which the Christian faith rises or falls.

But the Trinity is more ethereal than the divinity of Christ. I mean when Jesus says that seeing Him is seeing the Father, well that in and of itself is beyond us. I know, we can and do attempt to attach some human understanding about it and to deconstruct the vast and unsearchable mystery so we can neatly place it upon a flannel board, but in reality we can understand what He is saying but we cannot grasp the enormity or the spiritual essence of that teaching. So we are left to define it as another proof of Christ’s divinity, and although that is true and good, if we are honest our interpretation of those verses is painfully wanting.

Even Luther, although still espousing the Trinity, admitted that it was a doctrine based upon some incomplete Biblical evidence. But it still appears to be true even though no one can even define it. But remember, at the core is the divinity of Jesus Christ. And true to form, when man makes a doctrine he is obligated to not only defend it since he strongly suggests he received it through the Holy Spirit’s leading, but he requires it of others. And here is where we fall into trouble.

There are believers who suggest that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and that salvation comes exclusively through Him and Him alone. They believe the Bible to be the exclusive Word of God, and they believe in being born again. But they do not espouse the doctrine of the Trinity. Some even tip toe right up to the doctrinal edge of the Trinity and suggest that God is one and reveals Himself in “three distinct manifestations”. Now that definition seems innocuous, but that is not the doctrine of the Trinity which requires the words “three distinct persons”. Many will pounce upon that as heresy, but to the irritation of some in the orthodox camp I have no real problem with any of that.

I mean, come on. To believe that Jesus is the eternal God, and to believe that God is one but reveals Himself in three ways, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is not enough? And we who cannot wrap our minds, much less our words, around the Trinity require others to present it in the identical way in which men decided long ago? The deity of Christ is the bastion in which we dwell, but the Trinity seems to be a rudimentary way to grasp God in the mind. But we will one day realize that even that falls embarrassingly short of the reality.

The New Testament often interchanges the names of God. Sometimes in says “Christ in us” and sometimes it teaches that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is referred to as the “Spirit of Christ”. And Jesus says that seeing Him is seeing the Father. Oh yea, so simple to explain. But even though the Scriptures give some pieces of convincing evidence to the Trinity, and even though I tend to agree with it, I still will not burn others at the doctrinal stake if they see it somewhat differently.

But a word of warning. Many, if not most, times those who do not hold to the Trinity also have some real and genuine heresies. Some preach a gospel of works, some teach salvation must have other tongues, some teach baptism in Jesus name is the only way to salvation, and others teach other dire forms of error. A man like T. D. Jakes is a “Oneness” preacher believing that Jesus is God and He manifests Himself in three different ways. And although I cannot get all irritated about that, he teaches a Jesus who is a Santa Claus that desires to make everyone (especially him) rich. The prosperity, health and wealth Jesus, is another Jesus. If you come to Jesus because you are poor and believe He will make you rich, you are still lost in your sins.

But there you have it. We serve a God whose very being is eternal in the heavens and whose essence cannot be fully known. But do not fret. The morsels that God has revealed to us provide enough food with which to chew on forever. Before we get bothered about that which we cannot know, let us digest and live that which we already know.