The Trinity, Practically Speaking

Frank D. Macchia

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780830857753
• eBook ISBN: 9780830859610
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Three Gods, or One, or Three-in-One? Since the word Trinity does not appear in the Bible, many people wonder whether the doctrine is anything more than an intellectual puzzle created by theologians. This book takes readers on a guided tour of the logic leading to understanding God as a Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Bible (and in Christian experience) are all vital to the reality of salvation. All three save. This point may not seem to be very significant until seen in the light of the basic premise of the entire Bible, namely, that only God can save (Hosea 13:4). There are benefits involved in understanding God as a communion of persons, a circle of love. God is no longer viewed as a distant judge removed from the sorrows of earthly existence. Salvation can be seen as more than mere forgiveness of sins. It also involves a life-transforming communion of divine love. A robust understanding of the Trinity fosters a more full and transformed Christian life.

1
OUR TRAIN TO WEST BERLIN
The Logic of Faith

Logic begins with a basic premise and then proceeds to a conclusion. For example, if my premise is that only a college graduate can get a job that pays well, I would then have to conclude that everyone with a job that pays well is a college graduate. It would not take very long to realize, however, that this premise is not valid, making the conclusion also invalid. But if a premise is valid, then the conclusion drawn from it is valid as well. For example, if my premise is that God loves all human beings, and I am a human being, then it follows of logical necessity that God loves me. Moving through a reasoning process can be compared to taking a journey by train and passing through various stations. I will explain this comparison more precisely as we proceed.

This introductory chapter is about the inherent logic of Scripture when it comes to the crucial issue of God’s identity. Who is God? The average person might immediately respond that “God is God! There is simply no more to say than that!” This is an understandable response, but surely such an answer is not satisfying. So we would be justified in asking again, “Who is God?” If pressed further, someone might answer that God is loving or gracious or sovereign. But these are characteristics or attributes of God. It would be like saying that my father is kind or strict. If someone were to ask, “Who is your father?” I would want to say something more than what he is like. I would want to identify him by his name.

So when we say what God is like (loving or sovereign), we still have not said anything directly about God’s identity. The biblical answer to God’s identity is complex and multifaceted. For example, God is named the great “I AM WHO I AM” (or “WILL BE”) in Exodus 3:14, from which we get the name Yahweh or Jehovah. God said to Israel that he “is” (or “will be”) what he has promised to be as Israel’s liberator from bondage, especially in the exodus from Egypt (see Exodus 6:2–8). That God “always is” who God is (“I am who I am”) as Savior witnesses to God’s unchanging faithfulness.

God’s name is future oriented (God always will be what God is), because it is tied to a divine pledge to fulfill a promise to be the Liberator and Savior in the exodus and beyond. The future of this promise is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, for there is now no other name by which we are saved but his (Acts 4:12). The name Jesus refers to God’s role as Savior: “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). So the name of God is now tied decisively to the story of Jesus, where the great “I Am” (or “Will Be”) is decisively revealed (Hebrews 1:1–3). God is revealed in the story of Jesus not only as the Son, Jesus Christ, but also as his heavenly Father and as the Holy Spirit who comes from the Father to rest on Jesus. But then the Spirit that is poured out through Jesus fulfills God’s saving identity in the context of a promise of a future new creation. God is ultimately identified here as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” This is at the base of what it means to say that God is a trinity. But there is more to say. We need to show that God is indeed named as a trinity in the Scripture before we can probe the necessary logic (premise and conclusion) that necessitates this doctrine.

Is God Really Named as a Trinity in Scripture?

I was in the middle of a lecture on the Trinity at the university where I teach when a young woman with a look of concern on her face raised her hand as though she had something urgent to say. I was in the process of explaining that the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most important doctrines of the Christian church, since it summarizes so well other key doctrines, such as salvation by grace and the deity of Christ. I thought that I was gaining momentum, about ready to bring home an important point, when her hand went up. Upon my calling on her, she immediately protested that the term Trinity is not found in the Bible. “Yes, I know,” I responded, and then tried to explain to her that the concept is biblical nonetheless.

Not satisfied, she pressed on, “But aren’t you using a term from outside of the Bible to distract attention away from the simple gospel, causing a lot of needless confusion?” I then asked her if John 3:16 would qualify as a statement of the simple gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I could tell by her nod that she did. I then noted that according to this text the Son was sent into the world by his heavenly Father in order to impart the eternal life given in the gift of the Holy Spirit. “So it seems that the simple gospel is about the cooperative work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” I added. “That sounds like a fairly good description of the Trinity to me.” I could see a smile begin to form on her face, as though it were making sense to her.

Indeed, the simple gospel is a story that involves not only Jesus but actually three major players: the heavenly Father, Jesus as the one and only Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit who comes forth from the Father and is given to us through Jesus so that we might have new life. So who are these three players? If the good news of Jesus Christ celebrates a salvation that they provide for us, I think it is extremely important to discover who they are. This is precisely what the doctrine of the Trinity attempts to do—to identify them for us.

The term Trinity is not in the Bible, but the meaning of the term is there throughout the New Testament and is inescapable in any summary of the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not the term that is important but rather what it points to. The fact of the Trinity usually seems apparent to anyone who has read the New Testament or gone to church for any length of time. After all, we cannot read the New Testament without coming across numerous references to the heavenly Father or to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, or to the Holy Spirit. We cannot pray, worship, or witness without naming God in this way. We pray to the heavenly Father, through the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Or, we pray to the Son, Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit and to the glory of the Father. Either way, prayer compels us to name God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The reason we are so compelled to name God in this way is because God has willed to be named this way. This naming is authentic, because it is how God is self-revealed. It is faithful to who God is eternally. God is revealed in the story of Jesus as the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ and as Jesus, the one and only Son of the Father, and as the Holy Spirit sent forth from the Father through the Son into the world. Acts 2:33 notes concerning Jesus after his ascension to heaven, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” After the resurrection, the Son ascended to the right hand of the heavenly Father in order to receive the Holy Spirit and to pour forth the Spirit on us. God is named in the story of Jesus as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Actually, every event in the story of Jesus identifies God in this way, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three are present and accounted for, cooperating and interacting, in every event of Jesus’ life. Jesus was the Son sent from the Father and conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). Later, at his baptism, Jesus heard the voice of the Father speaking, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” and at this moment, the Holy Spirit was seen descending on him (Luke 3:22). At his crucifixion, Jesus offered up his life to the Father by “the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14), as the Father offered up the Son out of love for the world (Romans 8:32). At the resurrection, the Father vindicated the condemned and crucified Jesus as the favored Son by raising Jesus from the dead according to “the Spirit of holiness” (Romans 1:4). Jesus then ascended to the right hand of the Father in order to receive the Holy Spirit once more and then to pour forth the Spirit on the disciples (Acts 2:33), much like the Father had poured forth the Spirit on Jesus earlier at his baptism.

So God is defined in every event of Jesus’ life as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Loyal to the story of Jesus, the New Testament speaks of God throughout as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Romans 15:30; 1 Corinthians 12:4–6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 1:17, 4:4–6; 1 Peter 1:2). When asked who God is, someone faithful to the Scriptures and to the life of the church will simply have to answer, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” This is what we call the divine Trinity. This is who God is.

Someone might say at this point, “Hold on! Not so fast! Though the New Testament speaks a lot about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, how do we know that all three are being defined as God? After all, doesn’t the Bible clearly state that there is only one God? Deuteronomy 6:4 says, ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.’ How can we now say that according to the New Testament, God is three?” Traditionally, the church has answered this question by noting that God is one in one way and three in another. God is one as to God’s very being (or nature) and is three as to persons.

Let’s explore this a little. We know that God is one. There is no possibility that there are three separate gods. Speaking in the first person singular (“I”), God said, “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5). God spoke as a singular “I” (and not a “we”), and clearly said that there is no other God. There is no possibility for divided loyalty when it comes to faith in God, for there is only one God, one Lord, who commands our allegiance (see Deuteronomy 6:4–5). The biblical assumption concerning God is that only the God (singular) of creation or of the exodus (or, later, of Jesus Christ) can save. There are no other divine beings to appeal to. There are no other possibilities.

But we also know that God is three distinct persons. This threeness of person in God is shown in the interaction that takes place within God, in the fact that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit personally interact in Scripture, an interaction that has existed for eternity. Note the first person plural in Genesis 1:26, as God said, “Let us make human beings in our image” (TNIV, which may be viewed as a conversation internal to God rather than externally with us). The Son and the Father have loved each other throughout all eternity and shared the glory of deity with each other even before the worlds were made (John 17:5, 24). The Son said to the heavenly Father, “You sent me into the world” (John 17:18), meaning that the Son was sent by the Father into the world—obviously referring to the divine Word’s becoming flesh (John 1:14) or to the Son who was at the Father’s side and who came into flesh to make the Father known (John 1:18). The action of the Son’s entering the world involved the Father and the Son long before the Son was conceived in Mary’s womb as the baby Jesus. As the Son was coming into the world, he said to the Father, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.… Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:5–7).

The Son is even said to have been the agent in the Father’s act of creating all things (John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Similarly, the Holy Spirit was there at the creation, too, active with the Father and the Son in creating the world (Genesis 1:2). The Spirit was also there active in the sending of Jesus into the world to be conceived by the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35). The Spirit rested on Jesus and sent him out into the wilderness to be tempted (Mark 1:12). The Holy Spirit interacts with the heavenly Father, as well (Romans 8:26), and will testify about Jesus, according to John 15:26. Clearly, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interact with each other and love each other and have always done so throughout eternity. Though one being, God is also three distinct persons, inseparable but distinct.

This answer has not satisfied everyone. Some will say that this concept of the eternal God as three who is also one is still difficult to understand. But consider this: Is the fact that the Trinity is difficult to comprehend a reason for not believing it? Anyone who has gone through a class in physics or calculus will have to admit that something is not false just because it is difficult to understand. After all, we are talking about God here, an infinite mind that limitlessly exceeds our minds in greatness and complexity. Is it any wonder that we should find it difficult to understand the identity and existence of such a being? Of course, with the help of God’s Spirit we are able to grasp some things about God. But there is also a depth that goes beyond our capacities to fully understand.

Still, some insist that before we can really say that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there must be a compelling reason for believing it. A difficult concept like this must have strong evidence to support it before we can insist that people accept it. In response to this challenge, the church has typically tried to prove from Scripture that all three persons of God are divine. First, the Father spoken about in the New Testament is God: Ephesians 4:6 refers to “one God and Father of all.” Second, Titus 2:13 refers to Jesus as “our great God and Savior.” Third, Acts 5:3–5 equates lying to the Holy Spirit with lying to God, implying that the Spirit is also a divine person. (By the way, the personhood of the Spirit is shown here in the fact that it is possible to lie to the Spirit, whereas it is not possible to lie to an impersonal force.) So it seems that all three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are distinct persons of one divine nature, and all three are called God. So far, so good; but even this argument is not sufficient. More must be said in defense of the Trinity.

Some are still not satisfied that God is a trinity. For example, in the fourth century, a church leader named Arius and his followers tried to argue that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not really divine. Only the heavenly Father is the almighty God. The other two are subordinate to him as lesser beings that were created in time. There are people today who hold a similar view. The church calls them heretics, because they have strayed from truths that are vital to the Christian faith. Such folks will seek to alter the verses mentioned above so as to prove that either Jesus or the Holy Spirit is not divine. For example, they might take Titus 2:13, which speaks of “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” and try to make it appear that “God” and “Savior, Jesus Christ” are not both referring to Jesus, but one to God the Father and the other to Jesus the Savior. Is this possible?

No, it is not. Not only is such a reading unjustifiable grammatically, but it contradicts one of the most basic concepts in biblical theology. I will try to show in this book that the above effort to separate God from the Savior Jesus Christ in Titus 2:13 is theologically impossible. There is in fact no way that there can be a Savior besides God. If Jesus is the Savior, he must also be the God referred to there as well. The “great God” and “Savior” in Titus 2:13 must both be references to Jesus. I will explain the inseparable link between God and Savior by using the metaphor of a journey, compelled by the fundamental logic of Scripture. It seems that basing a large concept like the Trinity on a handful of isolated verses is not sufficient. We must probe deeper into the underlying assumptions of Scripture and the conclusions that they demand in order to understand the necessity of belief in the Trinity.

The Logic of Scripture:
Making the Journey to the Trinity

When folks travel nowadays they have all of the aids necessary to find their way to their destination without getting lost. We can receive precise directions to any destination from the Internet or by simply entering an address into a global positioning system (GPS) and allowing the robotic voice to guide every turn until a destination is reached. I can still recall, however, when finding precise directions was not so convenient. We had to struggle with large maps and tiny lines and symbols difficult to detect with the naked eye. Our destination was often located just beyond the margin of a map. After locating the appropriate map through difficult maneuvering, we still had to use mental skill and imaginatio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue — Concerning a Practical Necessity
• 1 — Our Train to West Berlin: The Logic of Faith
• 2 — Preparations: Mapping the Trip
• 3 — Station One: Only God Can Save
• 4 — Station Two: The Son Saves
• 5 — Station Three: The Holy Spirit Saves
• 6 — End Station: God Is a Trinity
• 7 — Touring the Area: The Trinity and Salvation
• 8 — Postcards to the World: Trinitarian Practice
• About the Author