By Pastor Chad
Last Sunday morning, I gave a hard message. It wasn’t that the message was hard to accept, it is just a difficult topic to discuss. There is nothing more complicated in all of Christian theology than the doctrine of the Trinity. The Christian view of God is distinct from all other world religions. In fact, it is the doctrine of the Trinity that invites so much pushback and consternation from non-Christians.
Christians claim the Bible describes God as follows:
God is One (1 Timothy 2:5-6 & Deuteronomy 6:4).
The Father is God (Genesis 1:1 & Isaiah 45:5). The Son is God (John 1:1-4 & 20:28). And the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4 & John 3:5-7).
Furthermore, the Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is not the Father. All three are addressed as distinct in Scripture (Matthew 28:19).
Christians of the past, acting as good theological detectives, have used these truths taught in Scripture to claim that God is three persons in One Being (essence). Probably one of the most articulate Christian confessions of the Trinity is the Athanasius Creed. It states, “For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one…Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord.” This fundamental belief about God impacts all other Christian doctrines. That’s right! If you get the Trinity wrong, it is likely you will err in other places of Christian belief as well. The Oxford theologian, Alister McGrath, writes, “ The doctrine of the Trinity, like the doctrine of the incarnation, is not some arbitrary and outdated dictate handed down by some confused council—it is the inevitable result of wrestling with the richness and complexity of the Christian experience of God.”
Another fact we can deduce from Scripture is that each person of the Trinity takes on different roles within the working out of the redemptive plan. This doesn’t mean one person of the Trinity is subordinate or is more important, but it does mean each person took on a unique responsibility in the salvation of the world. For example, as we discussed Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit is the person that gets the credit for teaching Christians the truth of Scripture and the gospel. Additionally, it was Jesus that died on the cross–not the Father or the Spirit. And the Father is the One that sent the Son and the Spirit to accomplish important redemptive work within history.
Trying to comprehend the truth of the Trinity is like trying to understand quantum physics. It is complex and difficult, but the Christian understanding of the Trinity is not contradictory. It makes logical sense. And as I noted above, it is the clear testimony of Sacred Scripture. Thus, whether is be easy or hard to understand, all Christians are obligated to believe that which is clearly taught in Scripture.