Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13: v 5-14
A story is told of a little girl drawing, when her mother asks what it is she is sketching. ‘I am drawing a picture of God’ she said. The Mother tells her this is impossible, as no-one knows what God looks like; when the girl says ‘Well they will when I’m finished!’
That in a sense, is what religion & theology is all about, trying to understand what God is like. It is what one of our most particular, most defining, and most confusing doctrines is all about—the doctrine of the Trinity
John Wesley once said about the Trinity ‘Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God!’
Yet we have to think this through, not simply dismiss it, & not just because today is Trinity Sunday. ‘God in three persons, blessed Trinity’ as our hymn said (HP 7) puts it & the Bible though never talking overtly about the Trinity alludes to it, teaching that God is 3 persons - Father, Son & Holy Spirit - each equal in stature & fully divine & a fully distinct person.
The Trinity is not about God simply changing roles like an actor in a play, but there is no denying that this whole thing is more than a little confusing.
I have heard many questions about the Trinity. Questions like:-
How can God be three and one at the same time?
To whom should we pray?
Is Jesus less than Father in terms of His status?
If not, why did Jesus say that the Father was greater than Him?
Is the Holy Spirit kind of like God the Mother?
People who raise such questions often seem to conclude that the Trinity doesn’t matter & is an hindrance & obstacle to real faith. What matters is that we understand God is about love as long as we are sincere about it.
Maybe that is you today, not feeling the Trinity is important?
But sincerity is no substitute for truth.
We cannot reject things just because they difficult. Indeed we are called by our God to worship Him with all of our faculties, including our intellect, & even though in a real sense we can never truly understand the Trinity, we cannot dismiss it either.
The Trinity is important because our image of God determines what our faith will look like. Sincerity is not the be all & end all of life, for some of the most misguided people are often also most sincere. If our thinking on the Trinity is way off beam, so too will be our faith.
Today I hope together we will understand the Trinity is a theological concern is not just for those in ivory towers, by thinking about 3 errors in the way we see God.
Spirit-Only
It is of course a well known fact that several modern movements in the Church have placed great emphasis on the work of Holy Spirit. In particular they have emphasized the filling or baptism of the Spirit & prioritised the gifts of the Spirit. This has had a much needed positive effect on the Church as it has reintroduced into Christian worship many things that were once forgotten.
I have been personally greatly blessed by such movements - coming to faith in a Pentecostal Church & being filled with the Spirit & able to speak in tongues since.
However, excessive &/or exclusive emphasis on the Holy Spirit is always dangerous. When we speak of the Holy Spirit only & neglect the Father and Son, we develop a lopsided form of Christianity that always descends in emotionalism & loss of order. We risk also becoming about feelings & can end up confusing our own human spirit with the Spirit of God.
Someone once described the Spirit to me as the shy member of the Trinity, meaning He doesn’t draw attention to Himself, but brings Jesus into focus.
A solid Trinitarian theology will avoid the excess of a ‘Spirit-Only’ approach.
Jesus-Only
If some put all their emphasis on the Spirit, others, a larger group commit a different error, placing an exclusive stress on the person of Jesus, meaning that the work of the Father and Holy Spirit is ignored.
This group of people think nothing else matters but ‘my personal saviour’ & everything is about ‘Jesus and me’, which is kind of reinforced by some of the modern songs we sing in worship like ‘My Jesus, My Saviour’ for instance.
I often hear people say they can only every imagine God as Jesus & that it is ok to relate to God in this way. But it isn’t ok. It leads us to a place where Jesus is so personalised that he seems to lose any sense of divinity. Jesus is just my pal, my buddy, my friend.
Billy Graham’s daughter published a book in 2000 called ‘Just give me Jesus’, & when I saw the title I worried that perhaps this was another case of a less than full Christianity. I am sure it’s not, but the title just sounds so wrong.
Christianity is not just about Jesus. It is not just about a personal Saviour.
When people came to Jesus he pointed them away from himself to the Father, just as the Spirit points away from himself to the Son. John 12:49 ‘For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.’
Of course as Christians our central focus has to be about Christ Jesus. The New Testament is firmly focused on Jesus for sure. We do not need to ditch that emphasis, but instead we see that Christ in His fullness is only found in His relationship to the Father & the Holy Spirit.
God/Father-Only
The final Trinitarian error for us to focus on today is found in my experience more often found in traditional Churches, & is a faith that is only about God / God as Father.
Here faith can become excessively male in orientation and thinking, indeed a good deal of female abuse has been justified in the name Father God. Those who wish to exclude women from positions of leadership in the Church do it by this distorted ridiculous view of God, & please don’t think that is just a Catholic or High Anglican problem for it is for some Methodists, Baptists & Pentecostal’s too.
God is Father therefore for some leaders should be male, & women in general should submit to male authority.
When will we understand that these male terms are not to contain or limit God but to enable us to understand? God is not a man. He is not sexed, & both women & men are created in the image of God.
There is also the added problem that God becomes impersonal & far removed from us, hence the old gross characture of God teh old inept man sitting on a cloud observing humnaity. It is the person of Jesus & the counsel of the Holy Spirit that makes our faith personal.
Without Jesus we don’t see the humanity in God, & without the Spirit we can never come to personal joyful relationship with God. All we will have is an academic assent to God & in my experience a sterile fear based faith.
Conclusion
I hope you understand that this is anything but an irrelevant doctrine. It might be beyond our complete understanding, but that doesn’t mean we can have a rounded faith with it. The way you think about the Trinity & picture God will directly determine the kind of Christianity you have.
Without the Trinity holding us accountable we will end up worshipping a one dimensional God, instead of the true & living Community God that has been revealed to us.
God does not exist alone but in community. Not like the multitude of gods like Hinduism but a Trinity in constant & powerful community.
Not a single sometimes vengeful God of Old Testament in competition with the loving God of New Testament. No a community at the heart of God. How exciting & encouraging that at the heart of what it is to be God is same principle we have in our life.
Our God is a Community God. The Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, Christ gives us the Spirit; the Spirit leads us to the Father, who then gives all things over to the Son.
We need as Church to keep working together & loving together so that we can be community like that with each other.
But please don’t feel that you have to understand it all – I don’t!
Indeed St. Augustine one of the intellectual giants of the 1st century early Church didn’t ether. The story goes that he was struggling to understand the Trinity & went for a walk on the beach & saw boy digging in sand with a seashell. Augustine watched puzzled while the lad began running to the ocean, filling the shell, and rushing back to pour it into the hole he had made. When he asked him what he was doing the lad replied ‘I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole’. Then peace came to Augustine as realised was what he had trying to do…to fit the great mysteries of God into his mind.
We do not need to understand everything about the trinity, just to be shaped in our faith & understanding of God by it. I hope you too will have peace & assurance like Augustine & that you will gaze in wonder & worship at this God – this Trinitarian mystery who was, & is & is to come. One God without end.
Now & always.
Amen
