The Forgotten Trinity (2 page)

8. Carmen Christi: The Hymn to Christ as God
............. 119

9. Jehovah of Hosts
..................................... 131

10. Grieve Not the Holy Spirit
............................ 139

11. Three Persons
....................................... 153

12. A Closer Look
....................................... 163

13. From the Mists of Time: The Trinity and Church History
...................................... 177

14. Does It Really Matter? Christian Devotion and the Trinity
...................................... 193

Notes
.............................................. 197

Index
.............................................. 221

I love the Trinity. Does that sound strange to you? For most people, it should sound strange. Think about it: when was the last time
you heard anyone say such a thing? We often hear "I love Jesus" or "I
love God," but how often does anyone say, "I love the Trinity"? You
even hear "I love the cross" or "I love the Bible," but you don't hear
"I love the Trinity." Why not?

Someone might say, "Well, the Trinity is a doctrine, and you don't
love doctrines." But in fact we do. "I love justification" or "I love the
second coming of Christ" would make perfect sense. What's more, the
Trinity isn't just a doctrine any more than saying "I love the deity of
Christ" makes Christ just a doctrine.

So why don't we talk about loving the Trinity? Most Christians do
not understand what the term means and have only a vague idea of
the reality it represents. We don't love things that we consider very
complicated, obtuse, or just downright difficult. We are more com fortable saying "I love the old rugged cross" because we think we have
a firm handle on what that actually means and represents. But we confess how little we understand about the Trinity by how little we talk
about it and how little emotion it evokes in our hearts.

Yet we seem rather confused at this point because most Christians
take a firm stand on the Trinity and the fundamental issues that lead
to it (the deity of Christ, the person of the Holy Spirit). We withhold
fellowship from groups like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses because they reject the Trinity and replace it with another concept. We
hang a person's very salvation upon the acceptance of the doctrine, yet
if we are honest with ourselves, we really aren't sure exactly why.

It's the topic we won't talk about: no one dares question the Trinity
for fear of being branded a "heretic," yet we have all sorts of questions
about it, and we aren't sure who we can ask. Many believers have asked
questions of those they thought were more mature in the faith and
have often been confused by the contradictory answers they received.
Deciding it is best to remain confused rather than have one's orthodoxy questioned, many simply leave the topic for that mythical future
day "when I have more time." And in the process, we have lost out on
a tremendous blessing.

THE BLESSING OF THE TRINITY

A true and accurate knowledge of the Trinity is a blessing in and
of itself. Any revelation of God's truth is an act of grace, of course, but
the Trinity brings to us a blessing far beyond the worth normally assigned by believers today. Why? Because, upon reflection, we discover
that the Trinity is the highest revelation God has made of himself to
His people. It is the capstone, the summit, the brightest star in the
firmament of divine truths. As I will assert more than once in this
work, God revealed this truth about himself most clearly, and most
irrefutably, in the Incarnation itself, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son
of God, took on human flesh and walked among us. That one act revealed the Trinity to us in a way that no amount of verbal revelation
could ever communicate. God has been pleased to reveal to us that He
exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since God feels it is important to know, we should likewise. And since God went through a great deal
of trouble to make it clear to us, we should see the Trinity as a precious
possession, at the very top of the many things God has revealed to us
that we otherwise would never have known.

When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he indicated that he was praying for them. He did not pray that they would obtain big houses and
fancy chariots. He prayed that they would be blessed by God in the
spiritual realm with spiritual wealth. Note his words:

That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the
full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of
God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)

How is one "rich" spiritually? One is rich spiritually who has a "full
assurance of understanding." How many people today can honestly
claim to have a true understanding of God's nature so as to have "full
assurance"? Or do most of us muddle along with something far less
than what God would have for us? A person who has such spiritual
wealth, seen in a full assurance of understanding, has a "true knowledge" of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself. The goal of the Christian life, including the goal of Christian study and scholarship, is always the same: Jesus Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge." Do we long for a "true knowledge" of Christ?
When we sing, "Lord, I want to know you," do we really mean it, and
then take advantage of the ways He has given us to attain this "true
knowledge" of Him? To know Christ truly is to know the Trinity, for
God has not revealed himself in such a way as to allow us to have true
and balanced knowledge of the Father outside of such knowledge of
the Son, all of which comes to us through the Spirit. A person who
wants to "know Jesus" must, due to the nature of God's revelation,
know Him as He is related to the Father and the Spirit. We must know,
understand, and love the Trinity to be fully and completely Christian.
This is why we say the Trinity is the greatest of God's revealed truths.

WHY "FORGOTTEN"?

Why has the Trinity become a theological appendage that is more
often misunderstood than rightly known? I believe there are many reasons. There is the utterly false idea that God does not want us to use
our minds in loving and worshiping Him (anti-intellectualism), as well
as the idea that "theology is for cold, unfeeling people. We want a living
faith." This last reason is the most irrational because a living faith is
one that is focused upon the truths of God's revelation. The deepest
feelings and emotions evoked by the Spirit of God are not directed
toward unclear, nebulous, fuzzy concepts, but toward the clear revealed truths of God concerning His love, the work of Christ, and the
ministry of the Holy Spirit. It makes no sense whatsoever in human
relations to say "I love my wife" while doing our best to remain ignorant of her personality, likes, dreams, etc. And even worse, if my
wife has put forth the effort to make sure that I can know these things
about her, and I go about ignoring her efforts, what does that say about
how much I really love her? The idea that there is some kind of contradiction between the in-depth study of God's Word, so as to know
what God has revealed about himself, and a living, vital faith is inherently self-contradictory.

Whatever the reasons for the general ignorance of the specifics of
the Trinity, the result is plain. Most Christian people, while remembering the term "Trinity," have forgotten the central place the doctrine
is to hold in the Christian life. It is rarely the topic of sermons and
Bible studies, rarely the object of adoration and worship-at least worship in truth, which is what the Lord Jesus said the Father desires (John
4:23). Instead, the doctrine is misunderstood as well as ignored. It is so
misunderstood that a majority of Christians, when asked, give incorrect
and at times downright heretical definitions of the Trinity. For others,
it is ignored in such a way that even among those who correctly understand the doctrine, it does not hold the place it should in the proclamation of the Gospel message, nor in the life of the individual believer in prayer, worship, and service.

THE SOLUTION

Thankfully, the solution to this problem is near at hand. The Holy
Spirit of God always desires to lead God's people to a deeper knowledge
of God's truth. This is the wonderful "constant" that every minister
and teacher can rely upon: every true believer is indwelt by the Holy
Spirit of God, and the Spirit is always going to fulfill the promise to
lead us into all truth. Any believer who honestly seeks God's truth, and
is willing to lay aside any preconceptions and traditions that might
stand contrary to that truth, will find strength and encouragement for
the work (yes, "work") that is required to come to that true knowledge
and full assurance of which Paul spoke. We do not just sit back and
expect God to zap us with some emotional surge. Instead, the Spirit
drives us into His Word, enlightening our minds and filling our hearts
with love for the truths we discover.

Many theological works flow from an intellectual, scholarly stance.
There is nothing wrong with such works, for there is a need for them.
However, this work, while incorporating necessary elements of scholarship, is written from a position of "passion." Passion, not in the sense
of unordered, chaotic feelings, but passion in the sense of a burning
love for something-in this case, the truth about God we call "Trinity."
This book is not meant to be a handbook of all the "arguments" you
can use to "prove" a point. There are plenty of such works in existence.
Instead, this work is written by a believer for other believers. While I
must explain and teach, illustrate and document, I do so to achieve a
higher goal.

I wish to invite you, my fellow believer, to a deeper, higher, more
intense love of God's truth. It is my longing that when you complete
this work, you will not simply put it down and say, "I got some good
ammunition to use the next time I debate the Trinity." Instead, I hope
that God, in His grace, will use this to implant in your heart a deep
longing to know Him even more. I pray that longing will last the rest
of your life, and that it will result in your loving Him more completely,
worshiping Him more fully, honoring Him with the totality of your
life. I desire that you will join with me in being able to say, "I love the
Trinity." A person who loves this truth of God will likewise be able to explain and defend it, but the motivation for doing so will be so much
richer, and the end result will be the edification of the believer and the
church at large rather than a mere "victory" in a particular debate or
argument. And one thing is for sure: a person who speaks God's truth
from conviction and love does so far more convincingly than the person
who lacks such motivations.

True worship must worship God as He exists, not as we wish Him
to be. The essence of idolatry is the making of images of God. An image
is a shadow, a false representation. We may not bow before a statue or
figure, but if we make an image of God in our mind that is not in accord
with God's revelation of himself, then we are not worshiping in truth.
Since sin and rebellion are always pushing us toward false gods and
away from the true God, we must seek every day to conform our thinking and our worship to God's straight-edge standard of truth, revealed
so wonderfully in Scripture. We must be willing to love God as He is,
and that includes every aspect of His being that might, due to our fallen
state, be offensive to us, or beyond our limited capacities to fully comprehend. God is not to be edited to fit our ideas and preconceptions.
Instead, we must always be asking Him to graciously open our clouded
mind and reveal himself to us so that we may love Him truly and worship Him aright.