More Than We Can Grasp: Worshiping the Triune God

In this post, we wrap up our look at the Trinity. We said that there are four building blocks in this truth, and now we’ve seen all four in Scripture:

1. There is one true, living God. God is One.
2. This one God eternally exists in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. These three persons are completely equal in attributes, each possessing the same divine nature. They are each God.
4. While each person is fully and completely God, the three persons are distinct from one another and eternally exist in relationship with each other.

The logical result from these truths is what we call the doctrine of the Trinity. One simple definition is:

The doctrine of the Trinity states that God eternally exists in three persons in perfect relationship who are each fully God, and he is one God.

That simple sentence is staggering. But how are we supposed to understand something like this? There is nothing in our universe that compares to it. No analogies can be used to explain it properly. One of the great theologians of the past, Lewis Sperry Chafer, summed up his teaching on the Trinity like this:

“A simple confidence in the Word of God and what it affirms, even if it does not conform to patterns of thought that are common in human thinking, is essential to true Christian faith as it relates to the doctrine of the Trinity.”

We can’t fully understand or explain the Trinity. We accept it in faith, because God teaches us this doctrine in his Word, and we trust his Word.

We worship a God who is so far beyond us. Do we really think we’re supposed to understand all there is about God? Do we want a God so easily figured out? I, for one, do not. I want an Almighty, All-knowing God whose existence I can never comprehend.

All this talk about the Trinity leaves us with one question.

So what?

Why is it important to accept or know about the Trinity? There are many reasons, but I’ll focus on just a few.

God has revealed himself to his children, and he calls us to know him. If we’re to truly know our God, then we must know who he says he is. The Trinity is both who God is and how he works. When we worship God, we’re worshiping all three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We praise all three, we adore all three, and we depend on all three. Each person is worthy of our attention, worship, and praise. God has chosen to reveal this truth about himself, so it should be important to us.

The Trinity is also important because without it, salvation is at stake. All three persons are involved in our redemption:

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:14)

Our salvation was accomplished by all three working in unity.

Also, if Jesus wasn’t God, then he never could have been our substitute. If he were only a man, he would not have been able to take on the full wrath of God on the cross. It was not simply a man who died that day; it was God.

Third, without the Trinity, we wouldn’t have the blessing of prayer. All three persons are involved in prayer. Speaking of Jesus, Paul said this:

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:18)

Through Jesus, we have access in the Holy Spirit to the Father. Prayer involves all three.

Not only would salvation and prayer be at stake without the Trinity, but so would God’s revelation of himself. Both the Son and the Holy Spirit are involved in communicating God’s truth about himself to us:

No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)

Finally, recognizing the Trinity shows us the perfect example of love. God has existed from all eternity in a loving relationship among the three persons of the Godhead. When John tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he doesn’t just say that God loves, but that God is love. It’s part of the very nature of God. Love isn’t just something God does; it’s who he is.

God has always existed as love. He didn’t start loving when he created mankind. He has always existed in love within the Trinity. At the core of the doctrine are three persons who have always existed and who always will exist in a loving relationship with one another.

This is one reason why Jesus was in such agony in Gethsemane. Yes, he was facing great physical suffering and death. But he was also facing the moment his Father would turn his back on him. The thought of that separation put Jesus in agony.  But he was willing to experience it to save us from our sin.

He loves you. He gave his life for you. He forgives you and is with you every day to walk through life with you, all because that’s who he is: love existing eternally within the Trinity.