Simple Theology: Trinity

How would you describe the Trinity in one word? This has puzzled theologians for millennia. In fact, it took the early church a few hundred years to figure it out for themselves. Thankfully, it can be simplified.

Transcript

EVERYONE’S A THEOLOGIAN

You’re all theologians. Because you have beliefs about God. The only question is whether you’re a good theologian. With this series, Simple Theology, I want to help you become better theologians and understand God more accurately and deeply.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

But before we dive in, I want to remind you that after the sermon, we’ll have time to process the sermon aat your table. Here are the four questions:

Summarize the sermon in 1-2 words.
What do you hear the Holy Spirit saying to you?
What are you going to do about it?
How can we help you?

So, listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice and get ready to share it.

DEFINING THE TRINITY WITH ONE WORD

The goal of this series is to define complex theological ideas with a single word. And today, we’re tackling the most complex idea: the Trinity. How would you describe the Trinity in one word?

I would use the word: UNITY. The Trinity as unity. God exists as three distinct persons, yet he is one God. Trinity as unity.

To explain this, I want to talk about

A picture of unity
A theology of unity
The importance of unity

A PICTURE OF THE TRINITY AS UNITY

Throughout the centuries, it has been notoriously difficult to create a picture or metaphor for the Trinity. People have tried:

The Trinity is like an EGG. It consists of yolk, white, and shell, all of which make up the egg.
The Trinity is like WATER. It can be solid, liquid, or gas, but it’s all water.
The Trinity is like a 3-LEAF CLOVER. One object with three parts.

But there’s a problem with all of these. They’re all wrong. Each one denies a fundamental truth of the Trinity.

There is, however, one picture that properly captures the Trinity as unity.

This is called the Shield of the Trinity, and it dates back to the 1200s. In it, you can see the relationships between God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This simple picture describes 12 different essential truths.

The Father is God
The Son is God
The Holy Spirit is God
God is the Father
God is the Son
God is the Holy Spirit
The Father is not the Son
The Father is not the Holy Spirit
The Son is not the Father
The Son is not the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is not the Father
The Holy Spirit is not the Son

This brings us to our next topic: the theology of the unity of the Holy Spirit.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE TRINITY AS UNITY

What does the Bible teach about the Trinity? There’s the rub. The Bible never uses the term Trinity, and it doesn’t have a clear explanation it. However, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist throughout the entire Scriptures.

The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery that we will never fully understand. And yet, theologians widely agree that there are three statements that represent the Biblical truth about the Trinity.

God is three persons.
Each person is fully God.
There is one God.

1. God is three persons.

The baptism of Jesus in Matthew chapter 3 is one of the clearest demonstrations of three distinct persons of the Godhead—the voice of the Father, Jesus the Son, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:13-17)

God is three persons. What does this mean?

The Father is not the Son.
The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not the Father.

This is where the water analogy fails. “Solid, liquid, gas” – says that God is not three distinct persons, but merely three forms of the same substance. That’s the heresy of modalism. False. God is three distinct persons.

2. Each person is fully God.

The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.

FATHER: All throughout the Old and New Testaments, God the Father is clearly viewed as the sovereign Lord over all and the one to whom people, including Jesus, pray.

JESUS: John 1:1-4 describes Jesus as co-eternal with God.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

HOLY SPIRIT: In Acts 5:3–4, Peter asks Ananias,

“Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit …? You have not lied to men but to God.” According to Peter’s words, to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God.

Each person of the Trinity is fully God. This is where the clover analogy fails. This is the heresy of partialism, where the Father, Son, and Spirit are each part of God, like leaves on a clover. False. Each person is fully God.

3. There is one God.

Scripture is abundantly clear, in the Old and New Testaments, that there is one and only one God. [21]

The most important verse of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4, says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
The Prophets and Psalms are full of statements like this one: “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5)
First Timothy says, “For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. 2:5)

There is one God.

God is the Father.
God is the Son.
God is the Holy Spirit.

This is where the egg analogy fails. It denies the unity of the Godhead. This is the heresy of tritheism. False. There is only one God.

And that, friends, is the theology of the unity of the Trinity.

God is three persons.
Each person is fully God.
There is one God.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRINITY AS UNITY

So far, with the Trinity, we’ve seen a picture of unity and a theology of unity. The last part is the importance of unity. Why does the Trinity as unity matter so much?

Because most of us don’t actually believe it. I would argue that most of us believe in some type of hierarchical tritheism.

Here’s what that looks like:

Jesus, the Son, on top
God the Father below him, maybe off to the side.
And the Holy Spirit as a distant third.

That’s not unity.

When you pray, who do you pray to? I’m guessing Jesus or maybe the Father.
When you think about the divine, who do you typically think of? I’m guessing Jesus. That’s because most of you grew up in Protestant, evangelical churches here in America.
Which of these three do you know more about? I’m guessing Jesus. That’s because a lot more sermons are preached about Jesus.

That’s not unity.

CLOSING

The Bible is full of the Holy Spirit, but often our lives are not.

What would it look like for you to have an equally balanced relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

It begins with understanding the unity of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In the words of the Athanasian Creed,

“And in this Trinity, none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal and coequal. So that in all things, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.”