The Trinity
From the Series—Creed
April 23, 2004This evotional continues our Creed series. We’ve explored the Bible, the Creation, the Cross, and the Resurrection. This evotional focuses on the Trinity.
Mindset
Here’s a personal conviction: how you think determines how you live. Another way of saying it is this: your lifestyle is a reflection of your mindset or your behavior can be traced back to beliefs.
Romans 8:5 says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires.” That is the key phrase—“minds set.” Lose the “s,” combine the words and you’ve got one word—mindset.
“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
I think everything in life comes back to our mindset. What you think about is what you become. Every once in a while my kids will get in a funk because they get focused on whatever they’re unhappy about so I pull a Starwars. I’ll say, “Kids, remember what Qui Gon said to Anakin, ‘Your focus determines your reality’.” My kids will be like, “Huh?” And I’ll remind them that how they feel is a result of what they are focused on! What you focus on will determine how you feel and how you act. That is just another way of saying what you think about is what you become. And that is the message of Romans 8:5.
What does that have to do with the Trinity? A.W. Tozer said, “What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” That is so profound and so true. How you think about God will determine who you become.
Tozer says, “The most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes to your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”
In other words, how you think about God will determine who you become. Tozer says, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” That is why this evotional is so important. If we get this wrong we get everything wrong. Kurt Bruner says, “How we define God determines how we define all other subpoints.”
Mono
The Nicene Creed says, “We believe in one God.” The technical term is monotheism.
Let me hit the rewind button and go back 3500 years to Deuteronomy 6:4. This Scripture is known as the shema and it is the centerpiece of Jewish and Christian theology. It says, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.”
That one sentence is so simple yet so radical. I think we read it and think nothing of it because we’re reading it in the 21st century when monotheism is in the majority. But this belief was a radical departure from the ancient norm. Polytheism was in vogue.
In 1500 BC, the dominant belief was not in one God with a capital “G.” The dominant belief was in lots of gods and those gods were territorial. In other words, they were geographically oriented. Different gods had different territories—there were Egyptian gods and Babylonian gods and Canaanite gods. And the prevailing opinion was that the gods were powerless outside their jurisdiction.
I think part of it had to do with the fact that the average person living in that day and age never traveled outside a thirty-five mile radius of their home. They couldn’t even conceive of the size of planet earth. All they knew was a few square miles of dirt.
With that in mind, think about Exodus 33:15. Israel is camped at Mount Sinai and Moses prays an amazing prayer. “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
This is a radical request—a God who goes with you wherever you go, a God who isn’t geographically confined to a piece of real estate known as Mount Sinai. It’s so easy for us to accept this, but this was a radical concept 3500 years ago. And God makes a radical promise in verse 14. “My presence will go with you.”
The Place
One of my favorite names for God in rabbinic literature is The Place with a capital “P.” Isn’t that cool? Jewish scholars used to debate why God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. A thunderclap or lightning bolt would have been more impressive. They concluded that God appeared to Moses in a burning bush to show that no place is void of God’s presence—not even a bush on the backside of the desert.
God is everywhere you want to be. The Psalmist put it in poetic terms. “Where can I flee from the presence?” The answer is no place because God is the Place.
“If I go to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
Here’s the bottom line: we’re monotheists. We believe in one God. But here is where it gets interesting. We believe in a God who has revealed himself in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Trinity
In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image.” God is a plurality. And even through the trinity isn’t spelled out in Scripture, it is self-evident. The work of creation is attributed in different parts of Scripture to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The resurrection of Christ is attributed to all three. All three play a role in redemption. And salvation is the work of all three members of the Godhead.
Here’s the challenge: three doesn’t equal one and one doesn’t equal three. The Trinity makes no sense in four spacetime dimensions. And I think a lot of people get hung up on that: if it doesn’t make sense or if I can’t understand it then how can I believe it? I think the exact opposite is true. If you could understand it you shouldn’t believe it because if God is comprehensible then He isn’t God.
A.W. Tozer said that the fact that the Trinity is unexplainable is evidence of its truth. “Such a truth had to be revealed; no one could have imagined it.”
C.S. Lewis said, “If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no fact to bother about.”
Jazz
I recently read Donald Miller’s book Blue like Jazz. This is a rarity, but my favorite part of the book was the author’s note. I think that one page is worth the price of the book. When I read it, it was like the metaphor was one I had been searching for to describe the incomprehensibility of God. Miller says, “I never liked Jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked Jazz music.” Then Miller says, “I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve.”
What a great description of God. God is like Jazz—He doesn’t resolve everything this side of eternity. And that causes lots of angst. It can be frustrating and confusing. The Trinity is theological jazz at its best. It is full of unresolved chords.
At some point in our spiritual journeys, we need to simply embrace and enjoy the incomprehensibility of God.
Rational Mystics
There are two basic approaches to God—rationalism and mysticism. Throughout the history of the church, there has been a schism between them. Rationalists place a high priority on reason—what can be understood. And mystics place a high priority on mystery—what can’t be understood. At different times throughout church history, one or the other has ruled the day.
During the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, mystics like Thomas A Kempis, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila were often persecuted, but their mystical writings helped revive the medieval church. During the age of Enlightenment, rationalism asserted dominance.
For what it’s worth, I think the 21st century will mark a return to mysticism. I think Karl Rahner is right. He said the Christian of the future will either be a mystic or not exist at all.
The schism between rationalism and mysticism can be traced all the way back to Judaism. The Jewish Rabbi’s tended to be rationalists—they placed high priority on law and reason. And the Prophets tended to be mystics—they placed high priority on mystery and revelation.
Now let me make an editorial comment. I think we ought to be both/and. We ought to be rational mystics. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive endeavors. I think a well-rounded relationship with God necessitates both/and.
Here is the challenge when it comes to the trinity. It’s not something that the rationalist can comprehend. It is something that the mystic can apprehend. Calvin Miller says, “It is futile to make a purely sensual run at God, for it inevitably collides with his fullness. It is like trying to measure the cubic volume of the Pacific Ocean with a thimble and a teacup.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” I think the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold three “opposed” ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t fully comprehend the Trinity. But let’s not dumb it down. During the modern era, reason ruled the day. Anything that could not be explained by reason was explained away. And therein lies the fundamental conflict between science and religion, rationalism and mysticism. Gary Zukav says, “Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of western religion. Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of western science.”
For centuries, theologians tried to resolve the paradoxes of Scripture to make them palatable. Mystery dissipated, but something intangible was lost.
Carl Jung said, “A religion becomes impoverished when it cuts down its paradoxes; but their multiplication enriches because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Nonambiguity and noncontradiction are one-sided and thus unsuited to explain the incomprehensible.”
Jung concludes that paradox ought to afford us the highest degree of religious certainty. “Spiritual weaklings make paradoxes dangerous.” It is the “petty reasoning mind which cannot endure paradox.” The greatest mistake we can make is to dismiss everything we can’t understand!
2/3 Christians
Here is the danger we face: some denominations and churches tend to emphasize one or two members of the Trinity to the exclusion of the others.
I’m a denominational mutt—I went to a bunch of different church brands growing up including the Covenant church, several different Baptist churches, a Bible church, an Evangelical Free church, and an Assembly of God church. And I think each denomination, like each person, has its strengths and weaknesses. It often boils down to what they emphasize and what they deemphasize.
This is almost hard for me to believe, but I heard very little about the Holy Spirit until our family started attending an Assembly of God church when I was in High School. I knew that when we put our faith in Christ the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us. But I didn’t know the full extent of the Holy Spirit’s role in empowering me via the gifts of the Spirit. The Spirit was ignored and I paid the price spiritually.
What I’m trying to say is that we need to develop a relationship with each member of the Trinity. If you only relate to two members of the Trinity you’re missing a third. Let me explain in human terms.
I wear lots of hats and play lots of role s on a human plane—husband, father, pastor, friend. Balancing my different roles is one key to staying happy and healthy and holy. In the same sense, balancing your relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one key to staying happy and healthy and holy.
360 Degree
I was recently online checking out a few homes and there was a cool feature offered by one of the websites. It was a virtual tour of the home. Using my mouse I could literally do a 360-degree turn and get a “panoramic view” of the house.
If you only take into account one-half of Scripture—the Old or New Testament for example—you end up with a 180-degree view. If you only develop a relationship with two members of the Trinity you get a 240 degree view.
We need to be 360 degree Christians!