God – three, one or what? (Gen 1:26; 1 Peter 1:1-12; 2 Cor 13:14)
Billy Milton - June 4, 2006
If you take a few minutes to wander down to the far of the dining hall when you’re having your coffee you’ll see a little group of paintings on the wall that some school children have drawn which try to tell us what God is like. I wrote down a few of them. “God is like a hair clip – he can do so many things”; “God is like a mountain – strong and always there”; ”God is like an 8 string guitar – it doesn’t exist”; “God is like a bar of chocolate…”
These are unusual ways to describe what God is like. But because our human brains are limited, it’s hard to understand everything there is to know about God. In fact, we are so limited that it’s actually hard to understand anything about God. Charles Spurgeon, often known as the Prince of Preachers, and a caring Baptist Pastor of the late 18th century said, “I believe a very large majority of church goers are merely unthinking, slumbering, worshippers of an unknown God.”
That’s quite an accusation! Is he correct? Have we just given up grappling with the basics of our faith? Kathleen Norris writes, ‘One often hears people say, “I just can’t handle it”, when they reject a biblical image of God as Father, as Mother, as Lord or Judge; God as lover, as angry or jealous, God on a cross. I find this choice of words revealing, however real the pain they reflect: if we seek a God we can “handle”, that’s exactly what we get. A God we can manipulate, suspiciously like ourselves, the wideness of whose mercy we’ve cut down to size.’ Is that what we think of God? Someone who serves us rather than the other way round?
Here’s an understatement - understanding the Trinity is difficult! I remember studying this subject at college and, after about 45 minutes of speaking, the lecturer stopped and said, “So, have you got it?” Well a little Chinese girl in our class dutifully nodded her head and said, “Yes sir.” To which the lecturer replied, “Well that just proves that you haven’t!” How can we understand something that is way beyond our experience and knowledge? Well a step towards the answer to that is found in the movie ‘Dances with Wolves’! Who saw that movie? EXPLAIN THE MOVIE AND ESPECIALLY THE BIT WHERE KEVIN COSTNER MEETS THE INDIANS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND TRYS TO COMMUNICATE. “TATANKA – BUFFALO”. What he did was move from what they could understand to what they couldn’t. So often when we try to discuss the Trinity that’s what we end up doing in order to get some inkling of what its about.
For instance, St. Augustine tried to use an example from botany:
“The root is wood, the trunk is wood, and the branches are wood, but nevertheless it is not three woods that are thus spoken of, but only one…. [Thus] no one should think it absurd that we should call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, and that these are not three gods in the Trinity, but one God and one substance.” A more recent theologian, A. H. Mollegen, proposed: “The light (the Father) shines through the coloured slide (the Son) to cast an image (the Holy Spirit) on the screen (the church).”
I’ve heard various other suggestions of what the Trinity is ranging from an egg (yolk, albumen and shell) to water, ice and steam to the three musketeers (all for one, one for all)! However, all these examples, whilst mildly helpful, only hint at what the Trinity is. I could no more explain the Trinity to you in simple language than you could explain a computer to a 1st century farmer. But by word association and by moving from what we do know we can perhaps get to somewhere near an understanding? So here’s what I do understand about the Trinity.
Number one: I see the unity of the Trinity. Especially in the creation of the world. In Genesis 1:26, it says, “Let US make man in OUR image.” It doesn’t say, “Let ME make man….” It says, “Let us!” God is involving the other members of the Trinity in the creation of mankind. In Genesis 1:1, you have God creating the heavens and the earth. And in 1:2, you have the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. And in John 1:3, we’ve already seen that Christ (the Word) made the heavens and the earth!
The Trinity working together in unity is a beautiful picture of how things could be in the church. Just as the individual members of the Trinity have their different functions but are completely complimentary so it can be in the church. Each of us doing what God has gifted us to do and getting on with it without jealousy or schisms.
The second thing I see is something I’ve hinted at already. The diversity of the Trinity. The members of the Trinity work together, but they don’t always do the same things. God the Father governs the world. It would seem from the various passages that talk of God seated in majesty, that God is the boss of the Trinity in regards to his function. As we saw a fortnight ago, God the Son’s primary role is to redeem the world (on the cross). And the Holy Spirit gives us the power and grace to live our lives as Christians and intercedes for us before the Father’s throne. (Romans 
Three very different roles, but all for the one purpose of manifesting God’s glory in the world.
I’m beginning to learn how much God loves diversity and how valuable it is in a church as we follow that example. I can’t play the guitar like Ben. I can’t work computers like Stewart. I can’t do admin like Viv. I don’t have Ali’s patience and I can’t dance like Emily. But you know what? Even though I can’t do some of the things that others can do, that’s exactly the way God wants it! Because he deliberately made us different so that each one of us can contribute something unique to society. It works the same way with the Trinity. Each member of the Trinity contributes something special and unique to our lives. Romans 8:28 says that God works for our good. Verse 34 says that Jesus prays for our good. And verse 26-27 says that the Holy Spirit helps US pray for our good. It’s quite a simple example but it shows the diversity of the Trinity in our lives in a practical way.
The third thing I see is the intimacy within the Trinity. In John 3:35, it says that the Father loves the Son and has given Him all things. And in John 14:31, Jesus says that, “I love the Father! I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” This tells me that our God is personal. He’s intimate. He’s a God who exists in relationship. And the beautiful thing is that God wants to have the same intimacy with you that he has within himself.
Have you seen the movie “When Harry met Sally?” At the end, Harry and Sally are separated but Harry runs all the way across town on New Year’s Eve and crashes a party to see Sally. Sally says, “What are you doing here?” And he says, “I’m here to say that I love you.” And Sally says, “You expect to barge in here on New Year’s Eve, say “I love you,” and expect to make everything ok? And Harry said, “Yes!” So Sally said, “Harry, how do you know that you love me?” Harry said, “I love how your nose wrinkles up everytime you ask questions like that. I love how you can’t make up your mind what to order in a restaurant. I love how you’re the first person I want to talk to when I get up in the morning. And you’re the person I want to be with when I go to bed at night.” That’s just a minute comparison of how our loving, Triune God feels about us. Just as Harry traveled across town to pursue a relationship with Sally, God traveled through time and space to pursue a relationship with us.
We’ve seen the unity, the diversity, and the intimacy within the Trinity.
And number 4, we see the oneness of the Trinity. That almost sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? However, the Bible is crystal clear that despite all this talk of three in one and so on, that there is not three separate gods. There is only one God. One divine being. Deuteronomy 32:39 says that, “There is no God besides me.” Isaiah 43:10 says, “before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.” James 2:19 says, “You believe that there is one God? Good!”
The emphasis is on ‘one’ God, not three. And that’s where the mystery comes in this week. Although we see three distinct beings within the Trinity they are also completely one. If you look at Paul’s letters, he starts almost every one by saying, “Greetings in the name of God the Father.” So we know that the Father is God. But there are also a bunch of verses that teach that Jesus Christ is God. You remember the story of Doubting Thomas in John 20? Do you remember what he said when he saw and touched the risen Christ for the first time? He said to him, “My Lord and My God!” And Jesus basically said, “Good answer! You got it right!”
And there are also a few verses that teach that the Holy Spirit is God. You might remember in Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit about how much money they gave to the church? Remember what Peter told them? He said, “You have not lied to men, but to God!” So lying to the Holy Spirit is the same thing as lying to God!”
Let me just caution you again. There is no way that feeble human beings can know all that there is to know about God. You can go to my office and read every single one of my books and you would still barely scratch the surface of what God is all about. 1 Corinthians 13:9 says that, “we know in part and we prophesy in part.” In other words, we only have part of the story now. And we’re not going to get the rest of the story until Christ returns to take us home.
However, as I said earlier on, even although I don’t always understand how it works… I accept it, just because I can see that it is clearly taught in the word of God. The Bible doesn’t stop being true just because there’s something in it we don’t understand. It’s true whether we understand it or not. And I don’t have a problem with this anymore. I’m perfectly all right with the fact that there are mysteries and puzzles in the Bible. Things that I won’t understand until eternity. I’m ok with that.
So, here’s a fact: Once you’ve understood as much as you can about the Trinity, you still need to exercise faith. And here’s another fact: The Trinity is not just a dusty doctrine. What good is it to believe in the Trinity if you’ve never felt the power of the Trinity? Or experienced the love of the Trinity? You have to experience the Trinity. I read about a young boy who became a Christian at a revival service. The next week, his friends questioned him about the experience. One friend asked him, “Did you see a vision?” The boy said, “No.” Another friend asked, “Did you hear God speak?” The boy said, “No.” So they said, “Well, then how do you know you were saved?” The boy searched for an answer. Finally, he said, “It’s like when you catch a fish. You can’t see the fish. Or hear the fish. You just feel him tugging on your line. I just felt God tugging on the line of my heart.”
Here’s a boy who experienced the saving work of the Triune God in his life. Maybe the Lord is tugging on your heart. Maybe he’s saying, “I want to have an intimate relationship with you. Like the one I have with the boy. Like the one I have with myself. Like the one I have with millions of people around the world. Let’s pray.