Thoughts on the Trinity

            This is what I supposed to be the blessed Trinity, as best as I try to understand it.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – all are fully God, yet uniquely individual.  The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.  Their purposes and actions distinguish them from one another.  I think we could gain some fulfilling insight by examining the unity and individuality of the Trinity.

The Father and the Son

            The Father, as He is revealed through Scripture, is the eternal being that resides in Heaven.  He is omnipresent, so there is no singular essence.  Instead, the Son is the singular manifestation of the Father.

            Jesus is the Father’s idea of Himself.  God the Father, in His unoriginated state, saw it fitting to manifest himself in Jesus, who was to reside on the earth for a time and reconcile everything.

 ⁶ Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”

 ⁸ Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

 ⁹ Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. ¹¹ Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.

(John 14:6-11, NLT)

            Jesus’s own disciples had trouble with the idea that the Son was the Father.  They desperately wanted to see and know the Father, yet did not understand that the Father was before them all along.  Every word Jesus spoke and every action he performed was not just his own, but the Father’s also!  This means that when we read of Jesus’s life and ministry, we read of the Father himself.

            Jesus is coeternal.  Although Jesus’s physical life and ministry on earth only lasted for a short time, forever he has been and forever will he be.

  ¹ In the beginning the Word already existed.
      The Word was with God,
      and the Word was God.
 ² He existed in the beginning with God.
 ³ God created everything through him,
      and nothing was created except through him.
 ⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created,
      and his life brought light to everyone.
 ⁵ The light shines in the darkness,
      and the darkness can never extinguish it.

(John 1:1-6, NLT)

            This passage is clearly talking about Jesus’s coeternal existence with God.  Just as Jesus’s work on earth was also the Father’s work, so it the work of Creation also Jesus’s work.  Over the span of eternity, Jesus is eternally God, as is the Father and Spirit.  Jesus was not a half-baked plan after the fall of man, who was to fix everything.  Just as the Father is eternal and eternally committed to His glory, so is the Son.  Jesus’s purpose for coming to the earth, living a blameless life, and sacrificing himself to propitiate for our sin was in the service of God’s eternal glory – it was always to be that way!

The Son and the Spirit

            The Holy Spirit is an act of love, which we benefit greatly from as believers in the Son.  For us, the Spirit is the Advocate to the Father on our behalf.  He is to guide us into the all truth that the Son has for us.  Take a look at this:

 ¹² “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. ¹⁴ He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’

            (John 15:12-15)

            This passage evokes the desire of Christ to share himself and his wisdom (call it truth) with his disciples, but he knows they cannot yet bear it.  The solution is the gift of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the lives of the believers.  If the Son is the manifestation of God in human form, the Spirit is the manifestation of the Son (and also the Father) in the hearts of all who believe the Son’s message!  God has made himself omnipresent, from the heavens to our hearts, by his existence in the Trinity.

            The Spirit is also coeternal.  Although Jesus clearly states that there will be a time when we receive the Spirit as believers, he also makes it clear that the Spirit has always been among us.

 ¹⁵ “If you love me, obey my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate*, who will never leave you. ¹⁷ He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”

(John 14:15-17)

            As Jesus is telling the disciples this, his goal seems to be to comfort them as he unveils his plans.  In the text, the word “advocate” can be translated also as comforter, encourager, or counselor.  So, the gift of the Spirit is an act of compassion toward us.  Just as the eternal Son was sacrificed on our behalf, so was the eternal Spirit promised and given to us in love.  Both of these acts are acts of love that ultimately glorify God in his fullness.  God, desiring to reconcile us back to Him, did so in such a way that we may not boast in anything but the work he has done!

Conclusions

            I draw several conclusions about the Father, Son, and Spirit.

1)    1. All three persons are equally and fully God.

2)    2. All three persons are coeternal but revealed to us at different times and in different ways.

a.      The Father is the heavenly essence of God, and God is love.

b.      The Son is the idea of God, manifest as a man, sent to us for love.

c.       The Spirit is the great and personal communicator, who guides us in truth toward the Son and the Father.  This is as intimate statement of love.

If the chief end of God is to glorify himself in everything and the chief end of man is to glorify God in everything, then the Trinity is the greatest embodiment of love, producing an intimate and glorifying love that reaches from heaven to earth and into our very hearts.