Knowing God the Holy Trinity deeply nourishes our joy and beautifully speaks hope to our lives in the deepest and most practical ways. I truly believe that reflecting deeper on the Trinity changes how we live and experience the ordinary aspects of life, increasing our joy. For in the very process of reflecting on the Trinity, we are enjoying communion with the self-giving loving triune God of the gospel. We are not just knowing God, but enjoying Him. Growing our love for the Trinity leads us to bow our knees in humble worship and adoration of the God we serve, whose very identity from before creation to the cross is self-giving love. And it is in such realization that we can, with deep affection and awestruck childlike wonder, echo the words of Moses, “Who, Lord, among the gods, is like you?” (Ex 15:11)
The Trinity
Confessing God as Holy Trinity is to affirm that God is one (Deut 6:4), God exists as three persons (Father, Son, Spirit), and each person is fully God (1 Cor 8:6, Jn 1:1, 2 Cor 3:18).
Confessing God’s oneness is to affirm that the Father, Son and Spirit are Homoousios, which means of the same substance or essence in Greek (Jn 1:1, Jn 10:30, Phil 2:6). The term Homoousios is very important and was first coined at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to affirm that Jesus Christ is fully and equally of the same substance as the Father, against the Christological heresy of the time. Confessing the homoousios of the Father, Son, and Spirit is to affirm that each person is “of the same substance or being”, that they are each completely God.
There is another integral and beautiful term to know, called Perichoresis or Coinherence, which basically means “mutual indwelling.” The Perichoresis or Coinherence of Father, Son, and Spirit is the mutual indwelling of the three persons of the Godhead (Rom 8:9-11, John 14:10, 10:38). This is very important for it affirms that every person of the Trinity was fully involved in every action of God, showing unity in the acts of God. Although there is distinction with how they were involved, there is unity in the acts of God (Matt 27:46, Jn 3:16).
Confessing the Homoousios and Perichoresis of all persons of the Godhead also establishes unity and rejects all forms of polytheism.
The individuality of the Godhead is to affirm that God is three subsistences/persons: Father, Son, and Spirit (2 Cor 13:14, 1 Pet 1:2, Matt 28:19). While the three persons are equal, there is a relational order in which the Father is prior; the Father begets the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son.
Eternal, Self-Giving, Triune Love
The eternal existence of Father, Son, and Spirit in self-giving love and triune communion is of great comfort and joy.
What joy in knowing God is love (1 John 4:8). Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves, is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I had to read it for a paper for a class last year, and I ended up reading it three times. It’s one of those books that you just can’t put down, and when you finish it, you just need to start it again. It’s incredible! One thing I loved about Reeves’ work in this book, was his reflection on God’s nature before creation. Reeves leads us to think about, since God is love, who has God loved before creation? What is God’s inherent nature before-creation? As Christians, we know that the Father, Son and Spirit existed eternally and equally. Reeves beautifully says, “God is love because God is trinity.” As he unpacks this in the book, he begins by describing the very nature of God the Father, as that of Father before creation. He reminds us that before creator or ruler, the first person of the Trinity is primarily Father, laying this as the framework through which we are to view all of God the Father’s acts and attributes.
We affirm that each person of the Trinity is involved in the act of creation. Although the role and functions of the Father, Son, and Spirit in creation are distinct, they are entirely united. The Father, whose work in creation is primary, creates out of love for the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the words of Michael Reeves, “beautifies and garnishes creation.”
Reeves also reminds us that God does not create out of necessity. As we remember that God first and foremost is Holy Trinity, we see that God doesn’t create because He needed people to love. The love of God the Father in creation is not borne out of necessity or initiated at creation, but rather Fatherly love is inherent to his very nature. He loves because He is love. And “He is love, because He is Trinity” (Reeves). As we come to see God the Father’s very nature as Father before any other attribute, all the acts of God the Father throughout scripture, find their depth and beauty when viewed as orchestrated through the hands of a gentle, loving Father, whose “very identity, before laying the foundations of the earth” as Reeves articulates, is that of Father.
Every act of our triune God is rooted in the communal love of the Trinity. Out of the self-giving sacrificial love of the three persons of the Godhead flows the triune love of God onto us in the act of creating. We know love, because we know God, the Holy Trinity.
The Trinitarian Shape of the Cross: The Son Gives Himself
There is beautiful trinitarian depth to the cross, as the eternally existing Son takes on flesh to dwell among us sinners, and bears the cross to unite us with Him. Our salvation through the cross is not merely an escaping from something or receiving something, but it is receiving God Himself, in Christ Jesus. Self-giving love is seen in the communal love of the Trinity and evidenced through Christ’s giving of himself to us on the cross. Jesus Christ does not merely tolerate the weight of the cross but rather delights to give Himself to us. What a beautiful God we serve, who we can now know, love and enjoy!
Let’s let our hearts be refreshed by the Trinity. What hope and joy we find in the eternal self-giving triune love of the God we serve.
What hope is echoed in these words from the beginning of the Nicene Creed,
“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father.”
Embracing Mystery as it leads to Worship
I remember one particular instance, when a little girl in a children’s ministry looked at me and said, “God is one, and God is three persons? That makes no sense to me.” And the child nailed it, it doesn’t make sense to us. In fact, if our definition of something being true is a removal of mystery, then we’ve missed a couple things. First, that Biblical mystery is not a problem that needs to be solved, and second that our human logic, is not perfect and God is not to be subject to our capacity to reason. After the fall, every part of ourselves has been distorted by sin, including our minds and our ability to reason. On this side of heaven, our human reason cannot grasp the depths of God, and He has graciously revealed Himself to us through several mysteries. Mystery within theology should lead us to child-like wonder and worship; to a humble reminder of our finitude and God’s greatness.
There is depth and beauty to the mystery of the Trinity, how God is one and three persons. And it’s crucial that we do not try to solve “the mystery of the trinity.” In fact, most analogies for the Trinity, just lead us to some aspects of heresy that the church has historically fought against. Rather, than viewing mystery as an issue to solve, we embrace it and affirm that both-God is one and God is three persons who are fully God- are entirely true, and non-contradictory. We affirm this with a posture of humility and worship.
The Beauty of God, the Holy Trinity
Whether in speaking creation into existence or nail-pierced hands on a cross, the way in which God relates with us is the result of His triune communion of love before creation. In drinking from the fountain of knowing God as Trinity, we as Christians are nourished not merely by having intellect strengthened but by having the affections of the heart stirred, enabling us to reflect His self-giving love to those around us.
We can love others because we are loved deeply by God, the Holy Trinity (1 Jn 4:19).
