THE ONE AND TRIUNE GOD AND THE LIFE OF HIS PEOPLE*

I suppose there might be the thought in the minds of some that the subject of the Trinity is hardly the one that is suitable to our present need. It might be regarded as of absolutely no practical value.¹ Or another might say, "This is 'high' doctrine, difficult for even the best minds. Is not a rousing call to faithfulness and service the need of the hour?" But faithfulness to whom? and service for what end? As ministers and elders we are all aware of how easy it is for professionalism to characterise our activities, to be so immersed in the work that has to be done that we forget why we are doing it or for whom we are labouring.

Many of you will know of a little book by Tom Wells entitled A Vision for Missions.² At first you think the book will be about mission strategy with lots of graphs and analysis, but in fact it advances the thesis that "God is worthy to be known and proclaimed for who he is..." and spends most of its space in speaking about the character of God and what God has done for us in Christ. There lies the true foundation and impelling motive to missionary endeavour. Similarly, I wish to relate the nature of God as Triune to the life of the church since this is the most basic means of addressing the problems of the church as we near the beginning of the 21st century.

To conceive of God other than as the Trinity is to imagine a god who has no existence. John Calvin (1509-64) writes:

But God also designates himself by another special mark [in addition to his infinity and spiritual nature] to distinguish himself more precisely from idols. For he so proclaims himself the sole God as to offer himself to be contemplated clearly in three persons. Unless we grasp these, only the bare and empty name of God flits around in our brains, to the exclusion of the true God.³

This witness is true. I am convinced that while the church can use graphs and statistics, as I did myself in addressing the 1995 Synod, our basic need is to recover and deepen our knowledge of God. Our consideration of this subject will embrace biblical, theological and historical aspects, but I trust you will also come to see the very important and practical nature of the subject as well.

Trinity as a word
The use of the term Trinity immediately reminds us we are not using a word found in Scripture. However, it is an uninformed, sectarian or latitudinarian spirit which mouths the cry, "The Bible, I say, the Bible only is the religion of Protestants."⁴ In no case is this a true claim, for every group (Protestant or otherwise) claiming "the Bible only" has its own interpretation. We do not wish to quibble over words but we do wish to adhere to the true meaning of Scripture. Hence the necessity and honesty of declaring our understanding of controverted teachings of Scripture in a public Confession of Faith.⁵ As Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) put it: "For the Holy Scripture was not given to the church by God to be thoughtlessly repeated but to be understood in all its fulness and richness...."⁶

Tertullian (AD c160-c220), the Roman advocate who became a Christian about AD 197, contributed the term 'trinitas' to the doctrine of God as it was formulated in the 4th century. He used this term in his writings against Praxeas (AD c215), who had taught that it was the Father who suffered on the cross. But neither Tertullian nor the Councils of the 4th century supposed that they were doing other than setting out and clearing of misrepresentations the teaching about God found in the pages of Holy Scripture. That they used the language of their time was inescapable; that there were many unholy political skirmishes and worse in the conflict which raged on the subject is acknowledged; that they advanced speculations to account for the facts of Scripture is also true; but that they did correctly discern the leading points of Scripture is also our belief, and this has been succinctly incorporated in our Confession of Faith.

The essential doctrine
Well then, how do we state the doctrine? Our Shorter Catechism reminds us: "There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory."⁷ Such a statement is seeking to do full justice to the data of Scripture and may be otherwise expressed in three propositions:⁸
(i) there is only one God;
(ii) the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is each God;
(iii) the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is each a distinct person.
Now our language about God is of necessity accommodated to our capacity, and its inadequacy has always been recognised. We speak of three persons not because this language is adequate but because the Bible describes the relations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in ways analogous to relations among human persons.⁹

God is one in being or essence but within the singleness of his being there are three personal distinctions. Put plainly, we may say that God's life is not a solitary, lonely one, but has a richness and fulness reflecting the fact that God is a fellowship. Now to say God is a fellowship is not to say he is a committee, for a committee implies various individuals each with their distinctive origin, and might easily lead us to tritheism, belief in three Gods. To say God is a fellowship is to say that there is an intimacy of loving relationship, and reciprocity in the nature of God.

Some Biblical illustrations
John beautifully expresses it: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was face to face with God and the Word was God."¹⁰ Here is distinction and here is identity: distinction of person, identity of being. Or again, referring to the incarnation of the Son, we read: "The only God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."¹¹ Commenting on this passage, J.C.Ryle writes,

As one who lies in the bosom of another is fairly supposed to be most intimate with him, to know all his secrets, and possess all his affections, so is it, we are to understand, in the union of the Father and the Son. It is more close than man's mind can conceive.¹²

Likewise the Spirit is referred to in terms of this intimacy and fellowship. Jesus says:

If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth....When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me...He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears...He will bring glory to me by taking what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.¹³

So singular and essential is the Spirit's work in making known Christ that we have a virtual identity affirmed in the striking expression "the Lord is the Spirit" in 2 Corinthians 4:17.

While it is proper to see anticipations of the doctrine of the trinity in the Old Testament,¹⁴ it is really only as we see the redemptive action of God disclosed in the New Testament that the distinctions in the very depths of deity itself are appreciated. By the same token, the truth of the Trinity would never have gained hold if it had not been intimately connected with the Christian understanding of salvation. Thus, the strictly monotheistic disciples have no embarrassment in affirming the deity of the Son and the Spirit in such a manner that we might well call the New Testament a distinctively trinitarian volume.

Again, it was the contribution of Athanasius to the debate over the person of Christ in the 4th century that he made people see that our salvation depended on Christ's deity. "The logic of his argument goes something like this: Only God can save. Jesus saves. Therefore Jesus is God."¹⁵ The subsequent creedal recognition of the deity of the Spirit was inevitable.

Trinitarian vocabulary
Theological discussion of the doctrine has produced a distinct vocabulary. Some distinctions are not helpful and are overly speculative. Still, four points are worth noting here, points which safeguard the co-equality and co-eternity of the persons in the unity of the divine essence and protect from an imbalance which produces subordinationism on the one hand or modalism on the other.

1. Autotheos (God-of-himself): This refers to the self-existence of the Son as to his divine essence as maintained with much emphasis by Calvin¹⁶ and the generality of Reformed writers since. The aim is to vindicate the Nicene formulation and free explanations of it from overtones of subordinationism which might suggest, for example, that the divine essence of the Son and the Spirit was derived from the Father.

2. Idiomata: The traditional way of stating that the persons have in common the divine essence but differ from each other by personal properties of Fatherhood, Sonship and Procession is to affirm that the Father is of none neither begotten or proceeding, the Son is eternally generated or begotten of the Father and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. This is the kind of language used in our Confession of Faith¹⁷ but is very liable to be misunderstood once we seek to explain it,¹⁸ particularly because of the Nicene Fathers' speculation that eternal generation is a constant process rather than an eternal and completed act.

Without entering the labyrinth of discussion, the important point is that the role of each divine person in redemption reflects distinctions which go back to the inner life of God himself. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each distinguished by a personal property whose nature is such that we are reminded that "God lives from all eternity as self- communicating, self-giving love and communion."¹⁹ God wills himself to be called by these names since they reflect real and eternal relations.²⁰ The Father eternally possesses fatherhood in relation to the Son, the Son is eternally the Son of the Father, and the Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son.

3. Filioque (and the Son): The famous 'filioque' clause in the confession of the Western church ultimately refers to the role of Christ in eternal relation to the Spirit. The Western Church (Roman and Protestant) confesses that the Spirit proceeds 'from the Father and the Son.' The Eastern (or Greek) Church, in its interpretation of John 15:26, refuses this 'double procession' clause both because of the way it was promulgated and because the more ardent objectors suppose that it implies two sources of deity in the Godhead, the Father and the Son.²¹

Not all Greeks accept this argument, and perhaps we have some confusion of thought, for even the Father's deity is not caused nor does he give deity to the Son or to the Spirit. The One and Triune God simply is. His essence is one and underived, but there is an eternal distinction of persons, the Father being first in order.

4. Perichoresis: This term refers to the mutual indwelling in love of the divine persons, perhaps reflected most strikingly in Jesus' statement "I in the Father and the Father in me," or again, "All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you."²²

One does not expect every believer to be able to articulate the nuances of trinitarian theology, but every healthy part of the church has convictions of trinitarian character since the Christian experience of salvation is never satisfied apart from recognition of the Father as the author of salvation, the Son as the purchaser and the Spirit as the applier. Indeed, we might say that only in the Reformed conception of salvation is justice done to the doctrine of the Trinity. This is as much as to say that where there is not this conception the doctrine of the Trinity is imperilled in practice if not in theory also.

Trinitarian theology today
Liberal theology rejected the Trinity along with other dogmas it believed to have been imposed on the simple religion of Jesus. But classical liberalism is virtually dead now. Beginning in the 1920s with Karl Barth (1886-1968), the Swiss neo-orthodox theologian, there has been a steady increase of interest in trinitarian theology in all sections of Christendom. The first volume of Barth's Church Dogmatics was published in 1932. In 1944 the Russian Vladimir Lossky (1903-58) wrote an influential volume from the Eastern perspective, while Karl Rahner (1904-84), influenced by Barth, although a Roman Catholic, published in 1967. Since then many other names must be added, including Thomas Torrance, the Scottish theologian.

Characteristic of much recent theological discussion is a reluctance to discuss the person of Christ in terms of his pre-existent life, but a readiness to affirm a purely functional view. In other words, Christ is not regarded as God the Son from eternity but is regarded as functioning on earth as God's agent or representative in whom God is revealed.²³

Insofar as this approach stresses the importance of special revelation to our knowledge of God, and thus reasons from the facts of redemption as disclosed in Scripture, it is welcome, but it is too generally associated with a rejection of any validity in what has commonly been termed natural revelation and, more especially, an unwillingness to accept all the Biblical data as authoritative and normative. The influential Jürgen Moltmann describes his view as "trinitarian panentheism."²⁴ Apparently, following the process theology, he is not prepared to accept that God's trinitarian life has any existence in eternity but is to be regarded as constituted solely within history. In this way God is subject to limitation and suffering in a manner which does not agree with Biblical teaching.²⁵ Nevertheless, there are passages of considerable insight in writers such as Rahner, Moltmann and La Cugna.

The Gender of God
Of recent years we have heard much about the gender of God, and of the efforts of the more extreme feminists to legitimise the addressing of God as our Father-Mother God or the like. While the terms 'Father' and 'Son' are metaphors yet it does not follow that they are without significance. In this connection the words of Bavinck a century ago are relevant:

The name of God in Scripture does not designate him as he is in himself, but in his manifold revelation and relation to the creature. Nevertheless, this name is not arbitrary, but God reveals himself as he is...In Scripture 'to be' and 'to be called' indicate the same thing from different angles. God is that which he calls himself, and he calls himself that which he is.²⁶

The Son had glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:5). While some feminist theology involves reaction from inadequately expressed teaching about God, its fundamental approach can be characterised as one which does not take proper account of what is revealed in Scripture. The attempt by some to ascribe gender to God is quite misguided.

The Biblical presentation
The Biblical presentation of the Trinity is both specific and pervasive. There are succinct statements of the doctrine (e.g.: 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Timothy 1:2-5; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20-21), extended passages which presuppose it and interweave it into practical instruction, as well as all those passages which affirm deity of the Son (eg. John 5:18) or of the Spirit (eg. 1 Cor 2:10-11).

1. A specific passage: Matthew 28:19-20 (The Great Commission)
Several points may be made in reference to the Great Commission passage:
(1) In response to the argument that this must be a later addition, since elsewhere baptism is administered only in Jesus' name (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 1 Cor 1:13,15), it must be said that the textual witness in Matthew is not in any doubt.

(2) In any event, I would argue that Matthew 28:19 in its original intention does not prescribe a formula so much as succinctly sum up the fact that through the work of redemption the character of God has been declared definitively and he is to be recognised accordingly. Hence the initiatory rite of baptism as well as the teaching conveyed is to occur in just such a trinitarian context. This explanation fully corresponds with the situation in the early church as reflected in Acts and the Epistles. Where the gospel is rightly preached, people believe Jesus is the way to the Father, and rely upon him through the work of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).

(3) The passage shows the importance of the truth of the Trinity. Bavinck correctly affirms that

the confession of the trinity is the sum of the Christian religion. Without it neither the creation nor the redemption nor the sanctification can be purely maintained....We can truly proclaim the mighty works of God only when we recognise and confess them as the one great work of Father, Son and Spirit. In the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is contained the whole salvation of men.²⁷

In line with this approach we find very pervasive teaching throughout the New Testament.

2. An extended passage: The Ephesian Letter
Ephesians strikingly employs the truth of the Trinity. Chapter 1 verses 3-14 forms one sentence in the Greek, and was written by a man who had not separated 'amazing' and 'grace'. Verse 3 - "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing [ie. blessings which come from the presence and power of the Spirit] in Christ" - is expanded in verses 4-6 in reference to the Father's election; in verses 7 to 12 in reference to the redemptive work of the Son, and in verses 13-14 in reference to the sealing work of the Spirit.²⁸

It is important to note the tone of doxology and devotion throughout the passage. There is nothing cold, hard and rationalistic about it. Similarly, although there is very strong emphasis on the sovereignty of God it is the sovereignty of the Triune God and not of some despot or arbitrary deity.

The action of the Triune God for our salvation is regarded as involving a new creation (1:3-2:10), the fruit of the incomparable riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus (2:8), a bringing from death to life. It results in a new community (2:11-3:21) which transcends barriers of race and background and, as the church, is the Heavenly Father's family on earth, characterised by new conduct ((4:1-6:20). This new humanity in Christ, this new community, lives a life worthy of its calling (4:1), and imitates God in its life of love (5:2), with Christ as the great exemplar (5:2).

Characteristic, therefore, is unity in the truth (4:1-16 cf. John 17:20-23), a unity which allows for the diversity of gifts implicit in the metaphor of the body (4:16 cf. 1 Cor 12-14) and the pursuit of holiness (4:17ff): the old self put off and the new self put on (4:22-24). This is applied particularly to truth-telling, anger, stealing, purity of speech and behaviour.

In further application (5:15ff), the rejection of the drinking which results in uncontrolled, unwise and ungodly behaviour is contrasted with the Spirit whose constant infilling is seen in controlled, wise and godly conduct. The presence of the Spirit is seen from the four key imperatives which depend on the exhortation "Go on being filled with the Spirit": speaking, singing (5:19), giving thanks (5:20), submitting (5:21), the last-named being expanded and applied in marriage, family and economic areas (5:22-6:9). In short, we have fellowship, worship, thankfulness and right relationships as a result of the work of the Triune God for and in his people.

Personhood
The truth of the Trinity helps us understand the nature of personhood. The modern world thinks in terms of self-contained individuality and thus of the separation of one person from another. However, the Biblical presentation would encourage us to understand personhood as individuality realised adequately only in community. God is supremely personal, and his own trinitarian life is characterised by fellowship and communion, an intimacy of loving relationship and reciprocity.

We are made in God's image and thus made for communion in relationship with God and with others who bear his image. It was not good for the man to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and the communion of marriage and family reflects a fundamental requirement of real human life. Ephesians 3:15 suggests that God is not merely like a human father but "the pattern and archetype of all fatherhood".²⁹ Over against the individualism which promotes the ego, alienates and separates, we must affirm and demonstrate the life that is self-giving, which reconciles and includes, while at the same time recognising the distinctiveness of each individual.

Already we are implying the fall that progresses to utter isolation in hell, and the redemption that leads to the embrace of God's people in the fellowship of God's trinitarian life here and now (cf. 1 John 1:3) with its climax in the world to come, "a world of love".³⁰ Peter affirms the believer's participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) not as if the Creator/creature distinction is lost, but to affirm that the unbegun and unending circle of the divine life is, as it were, opened to embrace his people.

Despotism and Coercion?
The correct understanding of the truth of the Trinity balances our belief in the sovereign power of God so that we see most clearly that it is not of a high-handed or arbitrary character. The God who predestines is the God who is love, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God and so he readily may represent God as a "standover merchant".³¹ However, believers should not contribute to harsh and unloving portraits of God, or even to a tendency to regard Biblical predestination as fatalism, let alone disregard the call to community and self-giving relationship in the body of Christ. We need a focus on God himself, on the God who wills that we are eternally embraced in his fellowship so that we might share in the glory the Son had with the Father before the world was. The Son has given us the pattern (Philippians 2:1-18). Well might we say that lovelessness is the most contradictory aspect of the Christian life.

The belief in God as Triune, and thus in mutual self-giving and reciprocity, is also fundamental in anchoring a proper doctrine of atonement. Any suggestion of coercion on the part of the Father towards his Son is completely ruled out. There is never any conflict of will or purpose but a perfect harmony of love: it not only pleased the Father to put his Son to grief, but it was the delight of the Son to drink the cup the Father had given him (John 18:11), because it was the loving desire of both Father and Son, together with the Spirit, to bring many sons to glory. Sometimes we can give the impression that redemption is a mere legal arrangement of almost impersonal character, when it is the loving purpose of God who himself is the way back to himself.

Abraham was stopped from sacrificing his son, his only son, whom he loved, by the voice of God from heaven (Genesis 22), and the Genesis account is noteworthy in indicating no resistance on the part of Isaac. But God the Father's love was so great and the Son's love so great that the Father did not stay the knife from his Son, his only Son, whom he loved, and the Son, because of the joy that was set before him - the joy of fellowship with redeemed sinners! - endured the cross, despising the shame. While the Son knew terrible fear as he anticipated his suffering, and his sweat was like drops of blood (Luke 22:44) he did not resist but willingly and lovingly went to the cross. Instead of a voice from heaven or a legion of angels, there was a loud cry from the earth which still resonates through the ages and expresses the impenetrable mystery of the immeasurable love of God: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

It is that mysterious breach in communion, that utter isolation, that endurance of hell, if you will, in an intensity that cannot be fathomed, which constitutes the ground of our reconciliation, our inclusion, our assurance of eternal life with God. We are called to realise our life in communion, a communion of love through him who loved us. Whatever disagreements we may have, may it be said: "Behold how these Christians love one another!" We love God and we love one another because God first loved us with a love so amazing, so divine that it demands my life, my soul, my all.#

End Notes