Three In One Series

The Significance of the Trinity

• [VIDEO]

• At the very heart of Christian belief is a concept called the Trinity.

• It’s so central that one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Karl Barth, said, “Trinity is the Christian name for God.”

• God is a Trinity of three in one, co-equal and yet distinct, called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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• The Trinity is not simple. But, if you think about it, most of reality isn’t simple.

• For instance, every one of the trillions of cells in your body is incredibly complex. Even the proteins in your cells are complex.

• Family relationships are complicated.

• Football is complex.

• Most of us can’t figure out our $20 digital alarm clock.

• And yet, for some reason, when it comes to God, we want simple answers; we don’t want to think. But do we really want a God who is less mysterious than an alarm clock?

• The 19th-century philosopher Kant once said that the idea of the Trinity “has no practical relevance at all … whether we are to worship three or ten persons in the Divinity makes no difference” in how we live our life. Is that true?

• Absolutely not. Understanding and experiencing—and please notice that word experiencing—the Trinity has enormous implications for our everyday life.

• Questions to answer:

• How would you explain the Trinity?

• What difference do you think it makes that God is triune?

• Why must we accept the truth of a triune God to understand God?

God is one.

• The Trinity isn’t just a concept. The triune God is present among us and ready to meet us. It’s easy for us to approach God as if we’re approaching a frog for dissection—something we can place on a table, cut apart, and explain with detached objectivity. God isn’t like that. God is alive.

• What do Christians mean when they talk about a triune God?

• First of all, we believe that God is one—we are not bi-theists or tri-theists.

• Thus we can and should pray with our Jewish friends the great prayer called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5).

• And although all Jews are monotheistic, they also met Jesus. And when Jesus said things like “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and when they saw Jesus do things that only God could do—forgive sins, control the forces of nature—they knew that they had met God in the flesh.

• And then, as Jesus had promised over and over again, they also experienced the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

• Christians did not start talking about the Trinity because they liked the number three; they did so to make sense out of the way God had come to them as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

John 10:30–33 NLT

30 The Father and I are one.” 31 Once again the people picked up stones to kill him. 32 Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?” 33 They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.”

God is three—diverse, yet unified.

• God is not a solitary monarch but a community of three.

• The three are one, yet the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally different from one another.

• Language is our frail but necessary way of talking to and about God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the names that God has given us to describe the relationships between the three in one.

• The idea of the Trinity is like a complex and elegant math equation that holds all of these truths in perfect tension. All kinds of smart people have developed analogies to try to explain how God can be three in one:

• God is like the spring that flows into the stream that flows into the lake (according to the church father Anselm).

• God is like a plant, with the Father as the deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks into the earth, and the Spirit who flowers forth to spread beauty and fragrance (according to the church father Tertullian).

• That God is a Trinity of love means that God is the lover, the beloved, and love itself all at the same time (according to St. Augustine).

• The Trinity is like three torches in which the light of the first passes to the second and then is relayed to the third, until they are all burning in one blaze of holy fire.