“I Believe in the Trinity, Part I”

The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, March 19, 2006
Genesis 1:1-3, 26-27
John 16:13-15

Question 24
Q. How are these articles [of the Apostles' Creed] divided?
A. Into three parts: The first concerns God the Father and our creation; the second, God the Son and our redemption; and the third, God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.

Question 25
Q. Since there is only one Divine Being, why do you speak of three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
A. Because God has thus revealed himself in his Word, that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God.

Come, O ye people, let us worship the Godhead in three persons, the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit. For the Father before time was, begat the Son, who is coeternal and is equally enthroned, and the Holy Spirit who was in the Father, and was glorified together with the Son; one Might, one Essence, one Godhead. Adoring the same let us all say: O Holy God, who by the Son didst make all things through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit: O Holy Mighty One, through whom we have known the Father, and through whom the Holy Spirit came into the world: O Holy Immortal One, the Spirit of comfort, who proceedest from the Father, and rest-eth in the Son: O Holy Trinity, glory to thee.
     From the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (pp. 245, 249)

INTRODUCTION
     The questions this morning from the Heidelberg Catechism take us into the teaching of the Apostles Creed. This just so happens to be a bonus for us because the Creed also just so happens to be a part of our Book of Confessions and the confessional statement that we declare together as a congregation each Lord's Day. If I could put it tritely, we now get two confessional perspectives for the price of one sermon!
     Question 24 serves as an entrée into to the heart of the Creed, asking how the Creed is divided up? That is to say, what is its structure or how is it put together? The answer teaches that there are three major sections: "The first concerns God the Father and our creation; the second, God the Son and our redemption; and the third, God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification."
     Of course, this answer presents us with the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity. While this doctrine initiates us into what I believe is the bedrock of Christian faith; it is also, at the same time, a perplexing, mysterious, thorny, vague, obscure, opaque and some might say a disturbing aspect of our Christian profession!

AUGUSTINE'S DILEMMA
     Will Willimon, a well-regarded pastoral theologian in the United Methodist Church, noted in one of his sermons on the Trinity, that Saint Augustine, "one of the greatest minds of the Western World, put his head to thinking about the Trinity. Augustine, a master of words, took fifteen books to talk about the Trinity, fifteen books that took him over a decade to write…. [The books, collectively called] On The Trinity, continues to be helpful in thinking through that which is difficult to think about, and talking about that which is difficult to describe, namely [that] God…comes to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. [Willimon continues,] Early on in his massive treatise, Augustine [listed] seven statements about God: [1] The Father is God. [2] The Son is God. [3] The Holy Spirit is God. [4] The Son is not the Father. [5] The Father is not the Holy Spirit. [6] The Holy Spirit is not the Son. And then, after these six statements, [he] adds one more. [7] There is only one God. This is the thinking that is tough to get into our brains."

BECAUSE GOD HAS THUS REVEALED HIMSELF IN HIS WORD
     The second question this morning, question 25, is where I want to spend the remainder of the message, and even into next week! This simple question recognizes the apparent conflict in speaking of God as Trinity: "Since there is only one Divine Being, why do you speak of three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
     This is an obvious reference to one of the defining texts in the Old Testament: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6:4). The answer given seems to contradict this straightforward confession of God's one-ness: Because God has thus revealed himself in his Word, that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God."
     And so, before we go further, I want to lay out my plan for the time remaining this morning: I want to address the first part of this answer today. Next week, we will tackle the second half of the answer - the part of the answer that says, innocently enough, "These three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God." That, as you might well imagine, is a loaded answer that demands more time than we have to give to it today! So, we look now at the first half of the answer to Heidelberg question 25. It says, "God has thus revealed himself in his Word…."
     We speak of the one Divine Being as Triune, at the most basic level because the Bible itself testifies to this reality, being replete with references to the three-ness of the one, true God. Mention of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together in the same context is called a triad. For example, Paul's request in Romans 15:30, "I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God [the Father] on my behalf…."

IN THE BEGINNING….
     Here's what intrigues me about these theological triads: They occur numerous times in the New Testament, making God's three-ness undeniable, but, and here's the rub, while rarely, if ever going into much explanatory detail about it. The New Testament seems to just presume the Trinity, without bothering to satisfy our curiosity!
     However, in the Old Testament, while it's certainly not as direct as the New, drops hints here and there that there is more to God than a casual read might reveal at first glance.
     Theologians of the early Church perceived that in the opening chapter of Genesis that the Trinity was revealed in such a way that the Church could see their footprints only as a consequence of two historical invasions: The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In other words, with the New Testament story familiar to us, we can now see the presence of the Trinity in the Old Testament in hindsight!
     Listen again to the reading from Genesis 1:1-3: [1] "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. [3] And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."
     Genesis 1:1 speaks of God the Father purposing to create the heavens and the earth - all that we know about through science and technology as it now stands, and perhaps some things that we don't yet know about in this vast, created universe!
     Genesis 1:2 speaks of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, brooding over the waters of creation. The sense of the wording pictures a bird hovering over and protecting its own nest eggs.
     Genesis 1:3 begins a long series of God's creative speech in action; the words issuing forth from God being His Word; the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Son: "Let there be light…."; "Let the earth sprout vegetation…."; "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures…."; "Let the earth bring forth living creatures…." (Gen 1:3, 11, 20, 24).
     You can't help but hear the echoes here from the majestic prologue of John's Gospel (cf. John 1:1-18): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."
     The apostle Paul in Colossians 1:16-17 affirms this understanding that Jesus is the eternal Word of God: "For by Him [that is Jesus Christ, the Word] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
     And so, the early Church understood and cherished, that the Trinity was introduced, albeit in a veiled way, in the very first words of the Bible.
     But then, it gets much better! As you get to the pinnacle of creation week in Genesis 1:26 with the creation of Adam and Eve, there's this strange language coming from the one, true God: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…." This verse would keep the rabbis scratching their heads for a long time! There are numerous scholarly arguments advanced to explain this use of this first person, plural pronoun. I won't burden you with those arguments!
     However, I think the simplest and the best interpretation, is the one that takes account of the full sense of the Scriptures -- Old and New, Genesis right down through Revelation. What we have here is a dialogue between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It may be that angelic host is a party to this conversation, as some have speculated - but they are merely spectators in this cosmic drama!

PERSONALITY UNFOLDING
     In considering the New Testament reading from John 16:13-15, I selected it because I wanted you to hear a snippet of a major teaching moment between Jesus and his twelve disciples. The larger context is John chapters 14-16. Here is the place where Jesus reveals the dynamic, intimate relationship and workings between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although the reading focuses almost exclusively on the work of the Holy Spirit, it still works as a good example of the reality and personality of the Godhead: "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth….He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it [the truth of the Gospel] to you. All things that the Father has are Mine…."
     The masculine pronoun emphasizes that the Spirit is a person, not an "it." Further, John teaches that God the Spirit comes from God the Father; sent at the request of God the Son. The Spirit reveals and glorifies the Son, initiating faith; edifying and bringing to God's people to completion. The Son, for his part, is shown to be worthy to receive all honor and praise, a distinction reserved for God alone. And of course, the intimacy of the Father and the Son is shown in these powerful words: "All things that the Father has are Mine…." The reality and personality within the Trinity is explicit and illuminating in the Gospel of John. "Since there is only one Divine Being, why do you speak of three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Because God has thus revealed himself in his Word…." [!]

A FINAL WORD
     Next week, we will ask some harder questions about the Trinity: What does it mean to say that "that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God"?
     I close with a portion of that same sermon quoted earlier from Will Willimon: "Sometimes you hear people say, 'Well you are a Christian, and I am not, but the important thing is that we all try to believe and serve God. Right?' 'Wrong.' Christians are not those who believe in some amorphous, vague concept of 'god.' Christians are those who believe that God's name is Trinity. God is not simply God, God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. We might have been able to say, at some early point, 'well we all believe in the same God.' However, we believe that God came to us as Jesus. We believe that Jesus is God. And after experiencing that, all of our notions of God had to go back to the drawing table. If Jesus Christ is God, then we have a challenge in talking about God."

That, my dear congregation, is where we will pick this up next week! Amen

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID...

"The truly extraordinary thing about the emergence of the early Christian belief in the one God who is known as Father, Son and Spirit is that this belief doesn't seem to have emerged, or been hammered out, as the intellectual answer to those two options. It was born, as I said, out of the passionate and compassionate white heat of the gospel, as it changed lives and effected costly reconciliation. But it nevertheless answers completely the major questions the world has come up with. The Trinity speaks of a God who is at the same time utterly other than the world and richly present in the world; of the creator who, having created the drama that we call world history, has himself come to play the leading part in the play; of the passionate God who has placed his own warm, life-giving breath in the innermost beings of all who will trust him and follow him."

"The God of Love and Peace," NT Wright. A sermon at the Eucharist on Trinity Sunday, 2002, Westminster Abbey.

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"St. Augustine is reputed to have said that the concept of this word 'Trinity' was a little better than saying nothing when one had to say something. Because we must speak of God, we must use words naming God even though the God of whom we speak is beyond human language and beyond human comprehension. We dare to speak of him thus, however, for he has spoken of himself in this way."

The First Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, May 22, 2005. A Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20 by Hubert Beck

"Sometimes you hear people say, 'Well you are a Christian, and I am not, but the important thing is that we all try to believe and serve God. Right?' 'Wrong.' Christians are not those who believe in some amorphous, vague concept of 'god.' Christians are those who believe that God's name is Trinity. God is not simply God, God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. We might have been able to say, at some early point, 'well we all believe in the same God.' However, we believe that God came to us as Jesus. We believe that Jesus is God. And after experiencing that, all of our notions of God had to go back to the drawing table. If Jesus Christ is God, then we have a challenge in talking about God. When God came to us as the Son, Incarnate in Jesus, God did not have to say, 'Call me by my proper name, Trinity.' God didn't have to. We did. That is, on the basis of our experience of God as complex, ubiquitous, and over-flowing with love as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we just naturally started speaking of God as Trinity. We experienced God in these three ways. Though it was the same God that we had experienced as the great Creator of the world, the Father of Israel, now we also experienced God in the flesh as Son, as the power flowing from God, the Holy Spirit. Augustine, one of the greatest minds of the Western World, put his head to thinking about the Trinity. Augustine, a master of words, took fifteen books to talk about the Trinity, fifteen books that took him over a decade to write. Augustine's On The Trinity continues to be helpful in thinking through that which is difficult to think about, and talking about that which is difficult to describe, namely the nature of God who comes to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Early on in his massive treatise, Augustine had seven statements about God: The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Son is not the Father. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Son. And then, after these six statements, Augustine adds one more. There is only one God. This is the thinking that is tough to get into our brains. We have experienced three rather distinctive modes of God's presence. God is the Father, the Creator of us and the world. God is the Son, the One who comes to us as Jesus, living, suffering, dying, and rising among us. We experience God as Holy Spirit, that power that has intruded into our world as the near presence and power of God. And yet, we are not trite theists, we don't believe in three gods. We know, with Israel, that is only one God. These names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three names for the same thing. They are three names of one God. And how to make sense of that?"

"The Extravagance of Trinitarian Faith," Dean William Willimon, Duke Chapel, 1999.

"Martin Luther knew that the truth of the Triune God was based on revelation and not reason. Let me give you an illustration of this. I am going to ask you to do something which is impossible for you to do. Would you imagine that there has never been any Christianity? There has never been any Christianity and there has been no Jesus Christ. In that situation, what do you believe about God? There is no Christianity. There is no Bible. There are no creeds. What do you believe about God? You answer, 'Well, there must be something that began it all. That something that began it all must be incredibly large. That something that began it all must be incredibly intelligent. That something that began it all must have a mind of beauty because there are so many beautiful things in creation. There is a sense of mystery to it all.' So these are the conclusions that your mind in all of its intelligence can come to about God. But based on the revelation in the Scriptures, you come to the differing conclusions about God: The God who created the heavens and earth is the God who loves you infinitely more than any earthly father or mother. You don't come to such conclusions by your reason, intellect or brain. You don't find such conclusions about God in your brain. You discover those conclusions through the revelation in Scripture. Similarly, that God loves you so much that he was willing to suffer and die for you on the cross, you don't find that truth by your reason or intellect but you find it in the revelation in the Scriptures. That this God is fully present in your heart and my heart and is with us this day, such truth is not discovered in one's own brain but is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. We find the truth about God and the truth about the Trinity, not through reason, but through revelation."

Trinity Sunday, Matthew 28:16-20, Eight passages on the Trinity. Sermons from Seattle, Pastor Edward F. Markquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle, Washington.