The word “Trinity” or “triune” is two words put together
into one. “Tri” means three—as in
triangle or tricycle. “Une” is the other
word, which means one—as in the card game Uno.
So “Tri-une” is an adjective that means “three-one-ness.” The Triune God is the God who is
three-one. The Holy Trinity is another
name for the one true God alongside other names like Elohim, Jahweh, the Lord,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The word “Trinity” does not appear in the Scriptures. It is
a word that was invented later by teachers who wanted to describe what the
Bible says about God. Some people get unnecessarily upset by the absence of
this word and think that it is wrong to use it.
But it is not wrong to make up new words in order to describe what the
Bible teaches.
For example, another word that does not appear in the Bible
is the word “sacrament,” which means “a holy thing.” Christians use the word to
describe those things which Jesus instituted for the communication of
forgiveness and salvation. The sacrament
of Baptism and the sacrament of the altar are both holy things that communicate
God’s grace. The word “sacrament” is a way to speak about both at the same
time. We are free to use it or not use it, but we should not say that it is wrong to use the word.
The same thing is true with the word “Trinity” or “Triune.”
It is not absolutely necessary to use the word. We can use it or not use it.
But we are not free to discard the thoughts that are behind the word, because the
thoughts behind it are exactly what the Bible teaches. God being three in one
and one in three is not an invention by any man. It is who God is. It is the
way that he reveals himself to us in his word. Both his oneness, as well as the
persons of the Trinity being distinct, is the way that the Bible speaks about
God.
For his oneness, consider this passage in Deuteronomy: “Hear,
O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” This is a truth that is eternal. There
are not many gods. There are not three gods. There is only one God. In our Old
Testament reading where Isaiah sees the glory of the Lord in the Temple, he did
not see many gods or three gods, but only one God.
Then, on the other hand, we have so very many passages that
speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Think back on the past 5 or
6 weeks worth of Gospel readings that we have had. In these readings from
John’s Gospel we’ve heard about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and
the relationships that exist between them. The Son will send the Holy Spirit,
the comforter, when he has ascended into heaven. Jesus says that he will not
ask the Father on our behalf, but you yourself will ask the Father, because the
Father loves you because you believe that Jesus has been sent by him. Our
Gospel reading today, perhaps the best known Bible passage that exists,
distinguishes between the Father, who is often called simply God, and the Son
who is Jesus: “God loved the world in this way, that he sent his
only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life.” And then there are all the blessings and benedictions that are
scattered throughout St. Paul’s epistles.
We use one of those regularly that goes like this: “The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be
with you all.”
And so we have two things that the Bible says about God. It
says that God is one. It says that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, or that there are three distinct persons. The words “Trinity” or
“Triune” is nothing other than shorthand for what the Bible teaches: three/one;
one/three. It is false and blasphemous
to say that there are more or other gods besides the One and Only true God. It
is also false and blasphemous to deny what the Bible says about that one
God—that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct—and yet, though
they are distinct, there are not three gods, but one God.
The fact that God is both one and three at the same time
without giving up any of the oneness or any of the threeness, has frustrated
human beings for a long time. We like to understand things so that we can
pigeon hole them. We’d like to understand the nature of God so that we could
put him in some category and be done with him. It’s like solving a math
problem. Who would want to do the same math problem over and over again? Once
you’ve come to your solution in math, you set it aside. That is what people
would like to do with the nature of God too. They’d like to have him all
figured out so that they could move onto things that are more to their liking.
Because of this impulse there have arisen countless people
over the centuries who have believed that they have solved the problem of the
Trinity. They solve it in various ways. Some solve it by denying his oneness.
Most solve it by denying his threeness. Something that all these individuals over
the centuries have in common with one another is a fondness for their own
powers of reasoning. But in divine matters our reason cannot do anything other
than lead us astray.
This is something that Luther taught so clearly and
wonderfully. He enjoyed calling this power of reasoning, which the world holds
in such high esteem, as the devil’s whore and other excellent insults. He did
this out of a love for his Lord Jesus Christ whom he wanted more than anything
else. It was not necessary for him to understand everything. He was satisfied
with what the Holy Spirit revealed in the Bible about who God is and what his
will towards us is.
But why is reason so troublesome and blind when it comes to
divine matters? I am sure that I don’t understand everything about the answer
to this question. Sin and pride and rebellion against God are quite mysterious,
and I don’t pretend to understand these things very much. But I think I can say
something about one of the lesser causes for reason’s ineptitude with divine
things. It has to do with the way that our reason works.
The way that our reason works is that over the course of our
life we are always taking in new information and categorizing it. From the
moment we are born we do this, and we don’t quit doing it until we die. From
the moment we are born we begin to learn that milk is sweet, and Mom comes when
I cry. By playing with toys children begin to learn physics and what happens if
you do this or do that. All the sophistication and learning that human being
are able to accomplish is a matter of categorizing things correctly, putting
things in their right boxes, putting together things that are alike.
One of the great problems that our reason has with the
things that have to do with God, therefore, is that these things are absolutely
unique. In that word “unique” you have that word “uno” again. When something is
unique it means that it is the only one there is. We often misuse this word in
our common speech. When we say something is unique what we really mean is that
the thing is unusual or rare. When the word is used in its strict sense it
means that there is only one.
Our reason doesn’t work very well with things that are
unique. Our reason is always trying to put the thing in question together with
other things so that we can understand what is going on. This is what often
happens with the Trinity. And so you might have someone compare the trinity to
a clover, with its threefold leaves. That’s not how God is. That’s actually an
ancient heresy called modalism. Whenever we try to fit God’s oneness and
threeness into some other category, we are letting our reason dictate who God
is rather than letting the witness of the Scriptures speak. The Triune God is
absolutely unique. There is nothing to which he can be compared. We cannot
understand him. We can only worship him. And our reason doesn’t like that very
much.
It would be bad enough if our reason would lead us astray so
that we cannot know the one, true, triune God, but our reason’s troubles with
divine revelation is across the board and even goes to the heart of our hope
for salvation. Another great, divine, and absolutely unique being is the Son of
God, Jesus Christ. He is true God, begotten from the Father from eternity, and
true man, born of the Virgin Mary. He is one person, therefore, with two
distinct natures—the divine and the human. Here we are dealing with a oneness
and a twoness at the same time.
In order to make heads or tails of this, clever people have
come up with all kinds of solutions over the centuries. Some have emphasized
the twoness. They speak of the divine and human natures being joined together
in Jesus Christ as being like two boards glued together. Others have emphasized
the oneness. They speak of the divine and human natures being mixed together
like you might put together water and Kool-Aid together. Now you don’t have
water or powder anymore, but some third substance that combines the
characteristics of both. Likewise it is imagined that Jesus, with his divine
and human natures mixed together, is neither God nor man, but some third thing.
The trouble here is that reason is trying its darnedest to stick Jesus, the Son
of God, into some category that we can understand. But Jesus is unique. What we
can know about him is only what the inspired Scriptures will teach us.
Our reason is also troublesome all the way down to our hope
of being redeemed and going to heaven, rather than being punished in hell. The
fact that God has loved us even though we have been and are sinners, is also
unique. There is nothing else like it. What we know about people who break the
law is that they will be punished. This idea is so strong and certain to our
reason that everybody is busy lying to themselves and to God about their
righteousness. We tell ourselves that we are pretty good people, that we try,
that we aren’t as bad as others. When we mess up we promise to God that we
won’t do it again, but then what happens? Why do we do this? It is because we
operate with our reason—hoping that God will accept us by our making ourselves
loveable—rather than believing that God is the justifier of the ungodly in
Jesus Christ. The truth is that we all deserve to go to hell. Our lying and
excuses only makes it worse and more pathetic. And so give up on justifying
yourself and receive the justification and righteousness that God gives you in
Jesus Christ.
That God should love and justify sinners in Jesus Christ is
absolutely unique. It is totally unexpected. What comes naturally to us is to
expect God to be like the policeman who is going to cart us off to jail. But
who he really is is revealed to us in the Scriptures. He is the heavenly Father
who sacrifices his dearest treasure, his Son Jesus, so that you are forgiven of
every sin and cleansed from every stain by the blood of Jesus. And so that you
may know of Jesus, believe in him as your Lord, and through faith receive the
salvation Jesus has worked for you, the Father and the Son has sent the Holy
Spirit in the word of the Gospel. When and where it pleases him he works faith
in those who hear the Gospel.
And so we might return to the Trinity on this Trinity Sunday
and say that the entire Trinity and Godhead is geared towards you in love. Who
would ever imagine that God should care so much about you—especially when you
are who you are and have done what you have done? And yet that is what God
reveals about himself and his will towards us in his Word. The Trinity, that is
to say, God, is not some idea of thing for you to figure out as though you were
god and could understand things better than him. Be satisfied to be a creature
and to receive in faith what God gives to us. It is not as though God is stingy
in what he gives to us. I think it would be fair to even go to the lengths of
saying that he even gives us his very own self.
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