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SAINT PATRICK’S DAY: THE TRINITY
Scott Bayles, pastor
First Christian Church, Rosiclare, IL
Saint Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and, of course, in our modern-American celebration that basically means lots of drinking and the occasional pinching of those who forgot to wear green. It’s really disappointing that Saint Patrick’s Day has regressed in many parts of the world to a celebration of Irish beer, but in Ireland itself it is still celebrated as a religious holiday by both the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. What’s really disappointing is that many people, even Christians, don’t have a clue what Saint Patrick’s Day is really all about.
Patrick was born in Berniae. Since his father was a deacon and his grandfather a priest, Patrick had a very religious upbringing. But when he was about sixteen, he was out working in his father’s field when Irish militia raided the land. Patrick was kidnapped and carried off as a slave to Ireland. There, he worked as a herdsman, remaining a captive for six years. During that time he writes that his faith grew and that he prayed daily. After six years he finally escaped by stowing away on a ship, traveling more than two-hundred miles, and finally returning home. When he was of age, he followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, eventually becoming a Bishop in the church. But in the latter half of his life, Patrick felt called to become a missionary—to go back to the land in which he had been a slave and share the message of the Gospel. In latter part of the fifth century, just four hundred years or so after the death of Christ, Patrick became instrumental in bringing Christianity to Ireland.
Part of his success came through the simplicity of his message. Where others had struggled to explain the concept of the Trinity, Patrick relied on a simple illustration. Legend says that he used the shamrock, or three-leaf clover, which was a symbol of national pride in Ireland at the time, to explain the nature of the Triune God of the Bible. Each leaf is separate and distinct, yet part of a whole. It’s just one clover, yet with three individual leaves. By making that simple comparison, countless Irish men and women were able to accept the basic concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Saint Patrick’s Day is supposed to be a celebration of the life of Saint Patrick himself, who died on March 17, as well as a celebration of the birth of Christianity in Ireland.
So, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, I thought I would try my best to do what Patrick himself did—unpack the most complicated doctrine of the Christian faith. And just as there are three leaves to a shamrock and three Persons in the Trinity, I’d like to break this intricate teaching into three basic questions: (1) Is the Trinity Scriptural? (2) Is the Trinity Sensible? (3) Is the Trinity Significant? So let’s begin with the first leaf of our clover:
• IS THE TRINITY SCRIPTURAL?
One of the reasons that understanding the Trinity is so difficult is that the Bible never really explains it. While the apostle Paul wrote a practical dissertation on justification by faith and Luke filled reams of papyrus with historical information about Jesus and the birth of Christianity, none of the Biblical writes ever takes the time to educate or enlighten us concerning the nature of the Trinity—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact, the word Trinity itself is never used in the Bible. But, what the Bible does make very clear is that there is one God and three individuals who are called God.
The evidence for the Trinity goes all the way back to the first verse of the first book of the Bible. The unforgettable opening words of Genesis declare, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Now, in English this verse doesn’t really seems to provide any evidence for a Triune God, but in the original Hebrew it does. You see, the word translated God is actually the Hebrew word ′elōhim, which is the plural form of the word ′el (which means God) and is a word used for God often throughout the Old Testament (occurring about 2600 times). The word is unique because it’s plural in form, but singular in meaning. An English equivalent might be the word news. News is plural, but you wouldn’t say, “Those News are on at 6:00.” Rather, we say, “The News is on at 6:00.” It’s plural in form, but singular in usage. Just as there is more than one item of news in the News, ′elōhim may indicate a plurality of persons within the God of Creation. In fact, just a sentence later, the Bible says, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NLT). So already in the first two verses of the Bible, we have a reference to God and the Spirit of God.
Then, toward the end of the chapter, God says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26 NKJV). This is actually one of the clearest indications of the Trinity. Some Jewish and even Christian commentators have concluded that the “us” of Genesis 1:26 must have been the angels of heaven, but that’s simply not possible. First, God alone has creative power, not angels. So while the angels were certainly present at creation, they didn’t participate in creation. All they could do was sit back and watch, they didn’t make anything. Secondly, human beings are not made in the image of God and the image of angels; we are made in the image of God alone! God makes that abundantly clear when he says, “For God made human beings in his own image” (Genesis 9:6 NLT). The Us and Our of Genesis 1:26, consequently, can only refer to God—but clearly it refers to a plurality of persons. It must have included God the Father and God the Spirit, and John fills in the third person for us saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1 NKJV). For those unfamiliar with the Messianic title, the Word, the Living Bible clarifies: “Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God” (John 1:1 TLB). In the beginning, when God made the heavens, the earth and man, Jesus was there. He was with God and he was/is God. We may not be able to apprehend the full meaning of the statement yet, but we can surely comprehend what John is saying. Jesus is God, but he is also with God. There is a duality (or rather, a tri-ality) to God’s nature.
We see this when Jesus told his followers, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19). Jesus didn’t say, “names” but “name.” In other words, the Father, Son and Spirit are co-equals both in name and authority. Jesus tried to explain this somewhat to his followers when he said, “Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:11 NLT). And he said, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30 NLT).
What Jesus says here correlates very well with what the Hebrew Shema said thousands of years earlier, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Literally, this says, “Yahweh is our ′elōhim. Yahweh is one.” Notice, it doesn’t simply say, “There is one God.” Rather, he says “God (′elōhim which is plural) is one.” It’s as if God were saying of himself, “We are One.” So, I don’t pretend to fully understand the relationship between the Father, Son and Spirit, but the Bible says each is God and together they are One God.
Now, over the centuries people have come up with a whole host of ways to grasp the notion of the Trinity, so let’s look at the second leaf of our shamrock:
• IS THE TRINITY SENSIBLE?
In other words, can we make heads or tails out of this or is it just beyond us? Well, my answer to that question is—yes and no.
Many hundreds of years ago, Augustine set out to fully understand the concept of the Trinity. He spent several years of his life studying and contemplating the nature of God and almost drove himself insane until one fateful day. He was walking along the beach and he saw a little boy dumping buckets of water into a hole he had dug in the sand. Augustine asked the boy, “What are you doing?” And the boy replied, “I’m putting the ocean into this hole.” It was only then that Augustine realized his quest to understand the Trinity was like that little boy trying to put the ocean into a small hole in the sand. There is more to the nature of God than our small minds can possibly contain.
That being said however, I do believe that God really wants us to know him. And I think that there are some examples and illustrations that help us to better comprehend his Triune nature. The shamrock is a great example, perhaps more than Saint Patrick had ever realized. Because, believe it or not, the three-leaf clover actually only has one leaf. It is what botanists refer to as a composite leaf—three leaves in one, one in three. That’s the nature of God.
We also find a good example in our federal government. How many governments run this country? Just one. We have one national government. However, within our government exist three distinct branches, separate but connected—the Legislative Branch (Congress), the Executive Branch (The President) and the Judicial Branch (the court system). These three branches make up our one government. It’s a complicated system and I don’t always understand how the government works. But I accept the fact that we have one government with three branches. It’s the same thing with the Trinity. I don’t always understand how it works. But I accept that it does. A single government that consists of three distinct branches makes sense to us. I suppose the difficulty is in transferring that notion to a living entity. But that’s essentially what the Trinity is—One God that consists of three distinct personalities.
C.S. Lewis, who was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, compared the Trinity to the three dimensions of physical space. He writes:
“You know that in space you can move in three ways—to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a combination of them. They are called the three dimensions. Now notice this. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two, you could draw a figure: say, a square… If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body, say a cube…
“Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings- just as in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.” (Mere Christianity, p. 142-143)
Like I’ve already mentioned, we may never be able to fully apprehend the nature of God—he’s simply too vast for our finite minds—but it’s essential that we at least comprehend that the God of Creation eternally exists in three dimensions—Father, Son and Spirit. This leaves us with just one last question—the third leaf on our clover:
• IS THE TRINITY SIGNIFICANT?
In other words, what difference does the Trinity make in my life? In my opinion, the Trinity is infinitely significant! Our Triune God makes all the difference in the world!
First, belief in the Trinity separates Christianity from any other religion in human history! We live in very pluralistic, multi-cultural world and there are innumerable views of God. One view is atheism—that is, the belief that there is no God. And even though less than 10% of the world claim to be atheists, their numbers are growing. Another view is polytheism. The Greeks and the Romans were polytheistic, meaning they believed in many gods. But polytheism isn’t simply a thing of the past. Hinduism is polytheistic and so is Buddhism which are dominate religions in the Near East. There is also pantheism, the belief that nature itself is god. Many wiccans and spiritualists are pantheistic. Then there is traditional monotheism—belief in one and only one God. Muslims and Jews are both monotheistic, and most would say that Christians are monotheistic. But, while it’s true that Christians believe in one God, it isn’t the same as other monotheistic religions. Christianity is unique in our understanding of God’s Trinitarian nature.
Some have said that Jews and Christians, for example, worship the same God—which is true in a sense. But they don’t know God like we do. It’s like looking at a three-sided pyramid. They may be looking at the same pyramid we are, but they only see one side of it. Without the other two sides, all they have is a triangle with no depth or dimension. They aren’t seeing the whole picture. Only in Christianity do we experience God as he really is.
Moreover, the acceptance of the Trinity gives us a standard by which we can separate Christianity from cultism. Almost every heresy in Church history began with a misunderstanding of the nature of God. And, in spite of the fact that the Trinity is seen as essential Christian doctrine, lots of so-called Christians deny it. Let me give you some examples:
The Mormon Church rejects the idea that Jesus is the eternal God. They believe that Jesus was created before the world was created and holds a special place, but he is not God.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses ridicule the idea of the Trinity. They believe that Jesus was, in fact, the Arch Angel Michael in human form. They will point out that 1+1+1 does not equal one. And that’s true. But, if we’re talking dimensions, it is accurate to say 1 x 1 x 1= 1.
Oneness Pentecostalism holds to a heretical doctrine known as modalism. They believe that in the beginning God was the Father, then he became the Son, then he became the Spirit. As T.D. Jakes puts it, “God just kept changing into stuff.” But if that were true, then who was Jesus talking to when he prayed to the Father? Modalism just doesn’t make any sense and it’s inconsistent with what the Bible actually teaches.
Someone once said, “If you try to explain the Trinity, you will lose your mind. But if you deny it, you will lose your soul.” When examining teachers and churches this is the place to start. Find out where they stand on the doctrine of the Trinity.
Finally, the doctrine of the Trinity points us to the greatness and all-sufficiency of God. It used to be popular, and probably still is, to say that God created the world because he was lonely. But that’s nonsense. There is and always has been perfect fellowship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is not lacking in any way. He did not create us because of his need. God needs nothing! He is perfect and complete in every way. In John 3:35, Jesus says, “The Father loves the Son” (John 3:35 NIV). And later, Jesus says that “I love the Father!” (John 14:13). This tells us that our God is personal. He’s intimate. He’s a God who exists in relationship.
The beautiful thing is—this same fathomless God has chosen to seek a relationship with you and me. He chose to create us. He loves us. He wants us to love him. He desires it so much that in some mind boggling way, God the Son took on human form, subjected himself to the limits of humanity, and came to earth to invite us to receive his love. Christ chose to step out into the darkness in order to reach us and to make it possible for us to know God as he really is.
Each person of God was involved in making that possible. The Bible says, “God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2 NLT).
I hope pray this talk about the Trinity leads you to put your faith in the Father who reached out to you, the Son who died to save you and the Spirit who is here to change you. If you haven’t turned to Him . . . please do so today.
And to those who do believe, I urge you to think about the greatness of our privilege. Think about the vastness and depth of His love. If you think about it long enough you will be led to a new depth of worship.
Invitation:
Let me leave you with the same words Paul left the Christians in Corinth: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV).
