God is Who, not What
Oh good, you’re reading this. Because if you gave up after the last few weeks of attempting to describe God, that would put you in a dangerous place.
You could easily walk away from those posts with some new vocabulary – “Simplicity, Impassibility, Aseity, Immutability,” and think, “Man, this abstract, philosophical idea of a supreme being is really quite something.”[1]
That’s dangerous because when we’re simply talking about divine essence, about what God is, we could very well be talking generically about a great whatever from high atop the thing.
But we don’t worship some impersonal, generic deity. We worship a real, true, personal, living God. And the doctrine that keeps us grounded in that reality is everyone’s favorite doctrine to study, understand, and teach – the Trinity.
High-Risk, Low-Reward?
There was an episode of Parks and Recreation back in the day, where delegates from a sister city in Venezuela come to visit Pawnee, Indiana. And there’s a cut scene with Fred Armisen, where he is describing all the reasons you are sent to jail in Venezuela. It quickly turns absurd…
I feel like that’s how most people think of the Trinity. It’s a minefield where every step you take is potential heresy.
Confuse the persons? heresy
Deny the unity? heresy
Use a shamrock? heresy
Confuse substance and essence? heresy
Say made rather than begotten or spirated? Believe it or not, heresy
Many see it as a High-Risk, Low-Reward doctrine. And so most Christians don’t spend time thinking about or meditating on the Trinity. [2] It’s something of an odd relic of Christianity, a skeleton in our closet, an unsolvable algebraic equation, that while we dare not deny it, we’re not really sure the purpose of affirming it – beside, of course, avoiding heresy.
And I find that absolutely tragic. Because in reality, trinitarian doctrine is the capstone, the pinnacle, the most important piece of Christian belief and doctrine.
I would even go so far as to claim – stealing a line from Luther – that the Trinity is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. In fact, every major historical heresy can be traced back to a denial or a misunderstanding of the Trinity. [3] This is the heartbeat of our faith.
We are and we must be trinitarian Christians.
Let me not mince words. To be Christian is to be Trinitarian. You cannot claim Christ and deny the Trinity.
Faithfulness to what is revealed.
Hang on, did I just say that no one can be a Christian apart from knowing and understanding the Trinity? No, I didn’t. You can surely be born of God, and love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, without complete clarity and understanding of the Trinity.
I said you can’t deny the Trinity. But Ignorance or lack of understanding is vastly different than outright denial. [4]
And I think you’ll see this as we progress over the next few weeks. Because I just want to talk a little bit, and hopefully by doing so shift your mindset a little bit. I want you to stop thinking about the Trinity as a problem to be solved. I want it, instead, to become fuel for your worship.
When you think “Trinity”, I don’t want your first thought to be propositions to be worded properly, but persons to be worshipped passionately.
I want to help move your thoughts on the Trinity from worry to worship.
What I’m not doing.
Here’s what I’m not doing. I’m not going to argue that God is Trinity. I’m assuming that.
Pick up any faithful Christian theology book – or google it (carefully) and you can find that. Biblical arguments that God is one. Then scriptures saying the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. And scriptures showing those three are separate, not the same.
Gavin Ortlund has a good video. I really like his YouTube channel. You can watch that for some of those arguments.
Rather, I want to help you to see the goodness and beauty of God through this doctrine. And we’ll proceed with 2 more muddy, overlapping posts on the Trinity.
Next week, How do we get to the Doctrine of the Trinity – and what does it teach us about God?
Then, the following Sunday, what role does scripture play with doctrine that – as some have claimed – is not found in scripture.
But, let me first just give a quick definition of the Trinity and a reminder of the core doctrine, so we have that fresh in our minds.
Trinitarian Triangle and Definition
“God eternally exists as one essence and three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, yet there is one God.”[5]
If you want to see it visually, it looks something like this:
One God, 3 persons
One substance, 3 hypostases.
One will, 3 distinct agents who carry it out.
But in saying that, we have to remember, this is not how God revealed the Trinity to us. That’s just our theological distillation and summary of what has been revealed to us.
In fact, one of the best verses I know of for how God revealed Himself as Triune is quite unexpected (unless you’ve also read Fred Sanders’ book). It’s Galatians 4:4-5. But we’ll get there next week.
[1] Gerald Lewis Bray, God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2012), 135.
[2] Coleman M. Ford, Formed in His Image: A Guide for Christian Formation (Brentwood, Tennessee: B&H Publishing, 2023), 55.
[3] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 2, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2003), 288.
[4] Ford, Formed in His Image, 44.
[5] J.T. English and Jen Wilkin, You Are a Theologian (Brentwood, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2023), 29.