Today is “Trinity Sunday”, it is a day when many churches celebrate the Holy Trinity of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
St Augustine of Hippo (that’s a great name isn’t it?). St Augustine spent nearly thirty years of his life writing a fifteen volume work called “About the Trinity”.
15 volumes – you will be pleased to know my sermon this evening on the truth of the trinity will not be that long, but I hope it will be beneficial to all of us.
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About one hundred years before the Reformation, an artist named Andrei Rublev painted a depiction of the Trinity. Rublev’s painting is a depiction of part of Genesis chapter 18. When three angelic beings visit Abraham and Abraham presents them with a feast at a table. The painting shows three angelic figures who appear to be in conversation while seated in an equilateral triangle: one at the head of the table, one at the right and one at the left. Throughout the years, theologians have used this painting to explain or understand something about the nature of the Trinity.
The Bible clearly teaches the truth of the existence of the Trinity and while we may not fully understand the mystery - we believe by faith that what God has revealed to us in His word is truth.
The Trinity - The Triune nature of God is difficult for us to comprehend - It is a mystery.
So Here is the question: If the Trinity is such a big mystery, Why is belief in the Trinity foundational to our faith?
Why can’t we just believe in “God” and leave it at that?
Why do we need to know that God is Three in One?
The simple answer is that without the Trinity, we lose the truth and power of the Gospel.
We know the Bible teaches us that by our nature, we are sinful.
We know we deserve the wrath of Father God to be upon us.
We know Jesus, the Son, came to Earth to take the punishment for our sins upon Himself.
We know Jesus gives (imputes) His righteousness to all who believe in Him as Lord and Saviour.
We know because of what Jesus did at the Cross, reconciliation with Father God is possible.
We know when Jesus ascended into Heaven after His resurrection, the Holy Spirit came and now empowers the disciples of Jesus to live for God’s honour and glory.
We know each person of the Trinity plays His own role in our redemption.
No Trinity, no salvation and no possibility of a restored relationship with God.
So, How can God exists as three distinct persons simultaneously and yet still be One God?
It is the mystery of mysteries.
The word, “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, but the Triune Nature of God is taught and demonstrated.
Listen to Matthew 3:16-17: After His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” (Matthew 3:16-17 NLT)
Here we see the Trinity. Each of the Trinity interacting with each other. God the Father speaks. God the Son is being baptised in the River. The Holy Spirit descends like a dove. All three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit together at the Baptism of Jesus.
All three co-exist and are co-eternal. We may grasp the concept of the Trinity – three persons in one God, each fully God.
We can see and feel the effects of the Trinity operating in our lives each day.
By faith we believe but we can never fully understand.
The Mystery of Mysteries, the mystery of the Trinity is beyond our ability to fully comprehend.
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Over the centuries, ministers, preachers and biblical scholars have attempted to understand the Mystery of the Trinity.
People have used various examples and illustrations to try and explain the nature of the Trinity.
Some have said that the Trinity is like water. Three phases of one substance steam, liquid, and ice.
Some use the analogy of a three leaf clover - one leaf three parts.
Some describe the Trinity as the same person with three different titles, for example I am a Husband, a father and a Son.
None of those illustrations or analogies is really an adequate description of The Triune Nature of God.
In the 18th Century the German, Gerhard Tersteegen said this: ‘A God understood, a God comprehended, is no God.’
God is not three beings, God is one.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons yet one God: all equally divine, all absolutely God, one nature, one reality.
There is a story that St. Augustine of Hippo,St. Augustine was struggling to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. So he decided to go for a walk on the beach, where he saw a little boy digging a hole in the sand with a seashell. The boy then ran off to the ocean, filling the shell, and rushed back to pour it into the hole he had made.
“What are you doing” St. Augustine asked. “I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole”, the boy replied. Augustine suddenly realised that this was precisely was he was trying to do…to fit the great mysteries of God into his mind.
Friends, I am thankful that although the Trinity is central to our Christian faith, we do not have to fully understand the mystery of the Trinity to believe in God and be in relationship with Him.
Have you ever tried to solve a mystery? A mystery, in theological terms, is not an enigma, a puzzle or something unknown.
A mystery is a truth which was at one time unknown or unrecognised, but which has now revealed.
Some mysteries are not so easy to explain.
The truth of the Trinity is revealed in the Bible.
Right from the first verses of the book of Genesis, at the beginning of the Bible, the Truth of the Trinity is there. The Father, The Spirit and The Son were there at the moment of creation.
Genesis 1:1-3 says In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:26-27 says: God said, “Let US make human beings in OUR image, to be like US. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
John 1:1-5 says In the beginning the Word - that is Jesus - already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
We have a great privilege, in our Bibles we have both the Old and the New Testaments.
Over the centuries, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the writers of the Old and New Testament books and letters testify to the existence of God,
the fall of man and the way of salvation.
The Word of God was revealed and recorded over a period of 1,500 years from around 1450 B.C. (the time of Moses) to about 100 A.D.
The first five books of the Bible are attributed to Moses and are commonly called the Pentateuch (literally the five scrolls).
Moses lived between 1500 and 1300 BC, but he recounts events in the first eleven chapters of the Bible that occurred long before he was born like the account of creation and the flood.
These earliest accounts were handed on from generation to generation in songs, stories, and poetry.
In those early societies where there was no writing, people passed on oral accounts with great detail and accuracy.
The earliest writing began when symbols were scratched or pressed into clay tablets.
The Egyptians refined this technique and developed an early form of writing known as hieroglyphics.
The Bible tells us that Moses was “educated in all the learning of the Egyptians”, so he would have been familiar with the major writing systems of his time.
In Chapter 31 of the book of Exodus it records that when God had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, the ten commandments, written by the finger of God.
The Holy Spirit inspired and guided the writings of the thirty or so other contributors to the Old Testament over a period of a thousand years.
We have recorded for us God’s interaction with His people from the time of Moses’ successor, Joshua, to the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi in around 450 BC.
Prophecy, miracles, blessings, signs, wonders, poetry and history were recorded for us so that we can read, study and discover our eternal God’s dealings with His people.
Then there is a gap. A period of silence between the old and new testaments.
A blink of an eye in the vastness of eternity - a 500 year period when no writings were contributed to the Bible.
During those 500 years, Alexander the Great conquered much of the world and usage of the Greek language grew.
The books of the New Testament were written using Greek and Aramaic during the last half of the first century AD.
The promise that Messiah would come was revealed in the Old Testament and the fulfilment of that promise in Jesus, the way the truth and the life, is revealed in the New Testament.
One writer from Biblica the International Bible Society describes it like this, “It was the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, which ignited the flame that produced the New Testament, as the new faith swept across the Near East and then westward to Greece and on to Rome.”
Half of the New Testament books were contributed by one man, the Apostle Paul, in the epistles, the letters he sent to various groups of new disciples of Jesus and to his assistants Timothy and Titus.
The Bible closes with The book of Revelation, a book of visions and dramatic views of the future.
Revelation was written by the Apostle John around 95AD and describes the new heaven and the new earth when God’s kingdom will embrace the universe and sin, rebellion and death will be no more.
So, Why did I just give us a history lesson on the inspiration and construction of the Bible?
Because through the writing of the Bible over the period of 1,500 years, The Spirit of God, revealed more about the Triune nature of the Eternal Living God. God did not reveal everything at once. The theological term for this is Progressive Revelation.
Progressive revelation in Christian Theology is the concept that the sections of the Bible that were written later contain a fuller revelation of God compared to the earlier sections.
God revealed knowledge in a progressive and increasing way throughout the Bible from the earliest writings to the later writings.
This does not mean that earlier books of the Bible are inferior or less inspired as latter writings.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.
But The Holy Spirit has revealed more about the Nature of God with increasing clarity as more of the Bible was written.
Even with the canon of Scripture was complete, even with all of the books and letters in our Bibles there are still things about God that have not been revealed to us.
There are things about God that our finite minds simply can not understand.
Final point: We BELIEVE in the truth of THE TRINITY by FAITH
There are things about the nature and existence of God that we will never be able to fully grasp.
The Bible contains the full revelation of God that we need to know and by faith we believe it.
Hebrews 11:1-3 says Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
For now, we trust God’s Word is true.
We cannot completely explain the mystery of the Trinity but by faith we believe in the Triune Nature of God.
By faith we are confident of things we do not see.
By faith we believe in the Triune God.
By faith we know we are loved by our heavenly Father.
By faith we know Jesus is our Lord and Saviour.
By faith we know the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.
By faith we are disciples of Christ.
When Jesus returns and we, His Disciples, are changed and transformed into His likeness, when we are in Heaven in the presence of God; then and only then will the mystery of mysteries, the triune nature of God no longer be a mystery to us.
What was hinted at in the Old Testament and demonstrated in the New Testament will be fully revealed to us when we stand in glory with our Lord.
In Romans chapter 5, the Apostle Paul writes about how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit give us hope.
Paul tells us we are justified with God the Father by faith. Justified means “made in alignment with.”
When we are justified with God, we are brought into alignment, made right, with God by faith.
How are we justified? We are justified through faith in Jesus, through God the Son.
Jesus the Son is the mediator, the intercessor for us with God the Father.
The Son is merciful and loving.
In Christ Jesus, we are able to stand before God the Father as justified.
And by the Holy Spirit, God operates in our lives. Changing, conforming, transforming and empowering us to be Dynamic Disciples.
The Holy Spirit is poured out to equip us with power from on high.
Each of the Three Persons of our One God have different attributes yet the Three work together as One so that we can be Saved.
So that we can be forgiven.
So that we can be assured of salvation and our eternal destiny.
The mystery of the Trinity is something we cannot fully understand but it is true.
As finite human beings we will never fully understand our infinite God.
The mystery of the Trinity demonstrates the unfathomable nature of our God.
He is the God of the possible and the impossible.
God is our Father.
Jesus is our Mediator.
The Holy Spirit is our Helper.
They are Three and they are One.
God is with us and we can know it.
We can feel and know and be encouraged by The Triune God.
I will close with this:
Today on this Trinity Sunday, we may not know or understand everything about the Trinity, but what we do know and can understand is that God is real and He operates in our lives today.
Belief in THE TRINITY is FOUNDATIONAL to our faith.
The truth of THE TRINITY is REVEALED by PROGRESSIVE REVELATION in the Bible.
We BELIEVE in the truth of THE TRINITY by FAITH
It’s a mystery, it’s complex, but it is truth, the three, Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, are One.
Lets pray.
