There's Beauty In The Complexity Of The Trinity

6.12.22 Romans 5:1-5 / Trinity Sunday

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. 3 Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4 and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5 And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.

There’s Beauty in the Complexity of the Trinity

The Trinity is a complex and yet a simple doctrine. Three Persons. One God. How can this be? We don’t know, but we still believe it and profess it. It’s what separates us from the Jewish religion and the Muslims. Yet it’s so much more than just a doctrine. God describes each person of the Trinity in a unique way, a way that makes us appreciate what each person of the Trinity does. In today’s text Paul draws this out for us.

When we think of God, we initially think of POWER. Most people would agree with that. God is powerful. It’s that power that trips people up, because power brings responsibility. People look to you for help in times of trouble. Think about the responsibility that comes with being President. In response to the Uvalde shooting many people were saying that they wanted government officials to “do something.” So President Biden and other government officials went to the mike and vowed to do something about the school shootings. But then you get to the question of what exactly you want them to do. If they try to do too much, it usually ends up infringing on our rights. If they do too little, then they run the risk of being accused of not caring. The first one to blame usually ends up being the President, even though he may not have much he can do in the situation. He’s supposed to be limited in his power. He’s not supposed to make the law. That’s the legislation’s job.

God is not limited in His power. He can do anything He wants, this is true. But He still respects our humanity. He doesn’t over-rule our decisions - good or bad - by divine fiat. Yes, the God who walked on water can upend the laws of nature, but He usually tends to let the world roll according to the laws He set in place. So if bad people want to do bad things, He usually lets them. He lets us be evil and do harm, simply warning of the Final Judgment. This is what angers people about God. When you listen to the atheists of today, you sense a lot of anger at God as they describe death and destruction in our world. George Carlin was a popular comedian twenty years ago who used to go off on God for how bad this world was. If He’s all powerful, then why doesn’t He use His power to stop wickedness and sin and death in this world? It’s because of this that God has an uphill battle in order to win us over and save us when we are born with a natural anger at God because of His power.

Paul shows us what the Triune God does to win us back. (And that’s a neat thing in and of itself. God doesn’t NEED us in order to complete Himself as God. Yet He chooses to do His work in order to get us back.) Look at the last verse of this text. Paul writes that, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.” Paul pictures us as an empty vessel that is lacking love, but in other verses he shows how it’s even worse. We are filled with anger and hate towards God. So God comes and pours love into our hearts, the seat of our emotions, in order to conquer our hatred of Him.

The verb “poured out” reminds me of baptism, where water was used in the name of the Triune God, and the Holy Spirit was given to us. The Holy Spirit is just full of love. So when the Holy Spirit is poured into our soul, God’s love is poured into our hearts, the seat and center of our emotions. There are some people in life who are just very loving people. They smile a lot. They give out hugs. They will bend over backwards for you and act so happy to see you. Those are the type of people who make you happy to be alive. They are so nice that they make it almost impossible to hate them. When the Holy Spirit moves into our souls, He brings love. But this love is not just an emotion or a feeling. This love is connected to Jesus. You can’t have the love of God without Jesus.