Trinity Sunday 2020
Introduction
I can’t say this for certain, but I’m 99.9% sure of it. I’m confident that every sermon I’ve ever preached – from the very first one here in this pulpit when I was a 19-year-old intern to my last sermon two weeks ago on Ascension, and every thing in between, the two churches in Kentucky, all of it – has had an illustration for an introduction. This is my first ever sermon without an introductory illustration. That’s because some Christians have tried to explain the Trinity using illustrations, usually when trying to explain to their kids, and it’s gone horribly wrong. Whether it’s the H2O illustration (solid, liquid, gas), or the egg, or even like St. Patrick when he brought the gospel to Ireland, using the three-leaf clover to explain the Trinity, none of them work. As Joe Thorn said, “sometimes a bad illustration is worse than no illustration.”
When we try to explain the Holy Trinity with these pictures we lose the mystery of the Trinity. There’s a very real sense in which I can honestly say I do not understand the Trinity. No human being can ever fully understand it. But we can understand enough. And that is a gift because knowing God as Trinity is essential to orthodox Christianity.
In fact we can’t truly be Christian at all apart from the Holy Trinity. Bethany is currently taking a class in her Masters program with Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary. She shared this quote with me from her class reading; there is “…an important sense [in which] there is only one Christian doctrine, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in its inward and outward movements.” Every single Christian doctrine can be boiled down to the Trinity – who God is and what he does. The way we speak about God is crucial and for 2,000 years when speaking of the Trinity, the church has used the language of one God in three persons.
One God
There is only one God. This is no clearer than in Deuteronomy 6.4-9:
Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one. You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Historically this pericope has been called the שְׁמַ֖ע (the Hebrew word, “hear”) and is used in Jewish liturgy to this day. This uniqueness of God is all over the Bible; one spot we see it recapitulated is James 2.19: You believe that God is one; you do well. James is one of the oldest New Testament books so from the beginning, Christianity inherited monotheism – from the Greek μονος (only) and θεός (God).
Did you watch The Last Dance? Everyone was talking about ESPN’s 10 hour documentary on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. The time-honored debate continues, is MJ the goat? There’s one point in the doc when Charles Barkley is talking about when the Bulls played the Suns in the finals and Chuck says something to the affect of, “I didn’t know God was wearing number 23 for Chicago.” Sir Charles is saying that Michael was like no other. But now at the end of the day Michael Jordan is a retired basketball player. He is one among many. God stands alone. He is the only literally holy one. He is God; everything else is not.
We worship the one true creator God. We reject atheism. We reject polytheism. We reject pantheism. We always have and always will believe in the one true God who is the creator of everyone and everything.
Three Persons
But it is not enough to believe in God. Monotheism is essential, but it falls short of the glory of the Trinity. Judaism and Islam will lead someone to hell. Orthodox Christianity is Trinitarian. We believe in one God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
With James, Galatians is one of the earliest New Testament books. In Galatians 4, under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul writes:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal 4.4-7).
In this earliest of Christian writings Paul says God sent his Son to redeem us. And then sent his Spirit to make us sons. So early on Christianity not only taught one God, but also three persons.
When I was in seminary I was a grader for Dr. Chad Brand. Dr. Brand explained how denominations tend toward the different persons of the Trinity. High-Church worship tends to emphasize God the Father, at least in terms of magisterial worship. High-Church liturgy aesthetically accentuates the holiness of God. Low Church Protestants like Baptist and Bible churches emphasize Jesus. Pentecostal and Charismatic churches emphasize the Spirit. These denominations often neglect the other members of the Trinity. A church like ours historically would place greatest emphasis on the Son, but we don’t want to neglect the Father and the Spirit.
This is where a robust Reformed theology guards against Trinitarian discrimination. As Reformed Christians we understand the vocation of the Father. Scripture teaches that the Father leads the Godhead in initiating the eternal covenant and electing all of his saints in eternity past. The Father predestined us; he loved us in advance, through the Son, sealed by the Spirit. A Reformed view of Scripture is where the clearest patriology is found.
As Reformed Christians we also don’t have to be afraid of the Holy Spirit either. In fact, if you were to read the writings of John Calvin you would find that he says a great deal about the Spirit. He has been referred to as the theologian of the Holy Spirit. I would refer you to Pastor Kevin’s Pentecost sermon for a more full treatment on a Reformed view of the Spirit.
Indeed there is distinct work for each member of the Trinity. The Father elects and sends his Son and Spirit. The Son redeems; he is begotten by the Father and sends the Spirit. The Spirit is sent to sanctify those elected and redeemed. This diversity in economy flows from their ontology. This is where illustrations are damaging. This is why statements like what Pastor Kevin read from the Athanasian Creed are the most faithful way the church has found to talk about the Trinity.
By the way, our imago dei anthropology is derivative of our Trinitarian theology. Humans are diverse to the glory of God. Men and women are both equally created in God’s image and yet called to different vocations in the home and in the church. All ethnicities are created equally in God’s image, and yet different in so many beautiful ways. God created this diversity to glorify himself and more accurately reflect his ontology. Trinity Sunday reminds us of the beauty of diversity in how God made his people.
While there is diversity of the Godhead, there is also unity. The Holy Trinity works in concert, even as they have distinct roles. Pastor Kevin read from Genesis 1 where all three members of the Trinity work in creation. The Trinity works in redemption. There is a sort of recapitulation of the Genesis narrative at the baptism of Christ. When Jesus rises from the water, the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove, and the voice of the Father comes from heaven. And then when Christ gives the great commission, he commands the church to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Father’s plan to elect and redeem a people in eternity past is effected by the Son in the incarnation. Jesus lived a sinless life, anointed by the Spirit, died our substitute, bearing the wrath of the Father on the cross. The Scripture says that on the third day the Father resurrected Jesus from the dead (Acts 2.24 among many others), Jesus takes his life up again from the dead (John 10.17-18), and the Spirit resurrected Jesus from the dead (Rom 8.11).
You can see the beauty of the unity and diversity at work in our text from 2nd Corinthians 13.14. The grace we have in Jesus Christ brings us into the Love of the Father. The love is God is that community experienced by the Father, Son, and Spirit from eternity past. Because we’re adopted into the love of God, the Holy Spirit creates κοινωνία fellowship – a community working together for a common purpose.
Last week our Elder Mike Champoux instructed on this fellowship from Ephesians 4:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift (Eph 4.1-7).
Trinity Sunday reminds us that as the family of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are to be unified in the gospel. God saved us from different political and socioeconomic backgrounds, different ethnicities, men, women, and children. We have diversity in opinion and experience and unity in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we hold to liberty in nonessentials, unity in essentials, and charity in all things.
Conclusion
Deuteronomy 29.29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. So much of the Holy Trinity is a secret thing; a mystery that belongs to God alone. And yet, in his kindness God has revealed a glimpse of himself. He is one God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Hoy Spirit. And that belongs to us and our children forever, for God’s glory and our good.