Words of Encouragement:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

When we talk about the person and nature of God it is immediately apparent that we have moved into very deep waters.  How can we possibly know such things?  Are we talking about God as he is or God as we have imagined him to be?

Biblically speaking, there is reason to take heart.  First, in less than a page from the opening of scripture God creates men and women in his own image, and then we read as God speaks directly to his new image bearers, commissioning them to be fruitful and rule over the earth. (Gen 1:28)  At that seminal moment it was not Adam trying to figure out what had just happened and how he got there, but God was speaking directly to him about his purposes.  From the beginning God has been communicating himself, his purposes and his will to human beings, and we can rest in that fact.

However marvelous this divine self-revelation may be, we would remain quite vulnerable in our fallen world if there were no reliable standard by which to judge any revelation we receive.  We need only recall a few of the monstrous ideas perpetrated in the name of God to realize that without an objective standard, all hope of knowing anything about God with any certainty would be lost.  Everything becomes subjective and transient—hardly noble traits as regards a revelation of the eternal God.  This is why scripture is vitally important.  It is the progressive and covenantal revelation of God in the human context.  Early generations followed an oral tradition, aided greatly by the fact that Adam and Noah would each recount their walk with God to so many generations owing to their long lives.  Moses recorded this history, and since then his book has been the cardinal standard for admitting texts into the cannon of scripture.  Praise God we do have an objective standard by which to measure any purported truth: The Bible.  Even these words you are reading now must hold fast to that standard or they are worthless as regards the things of God.

Because God has revealed himself faithfully and progressively in scripture, we can learn about God as he truly is in his nature and person as we study scripture.  Here Christianity differs from many religions and worldviews, for the Bible reveals a God more glorious and complex than any human could imagine:  One God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Holy Trinity, as theologians express it, is a truth that defies human reason.  As the one being created in God’s own image, humans have a unique capacity to commune with and understand God, yet this truth lies flatly beyond our comprehension.  All analogies break down.  The Trinity is among the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith, and it has that status precisely because it is in scripture.  From creation where God says, “Let us create them in our image” (Gen 1:26), to the baptism of Jesus accompanied by the voice of the Father from heaven and the Spirit descending in the form of a dove (Luke 3:21-22), to the threefold salutations of the epistles (2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2) to Jesus command to baptize in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19), all three persons of the godhead are actively engaged in God’s great purposes in human history.

It would surely be easier to hold to a lesser doctrine.  It would be simpler and more rational if Jesus were not God.  But such a view cannot be reconciled to John 1:1 which says of Jesus that the Word was with God and the Word was God, nor to Colossians 1:16 which says that all things were created by him and for him.  It would be less confusing if the Holy Spirit were a spirit from God and not God himself, but Job confesses “the Spirit of God has made me” (33:4), and when Peter confronts Ananias about lying to the Holy Spirit he concludes with, “you have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:4)  While our difficulty in understanding or explaining these things rationally may tempt us to adopt a simpler solution, the Bible reveals Father, Son and Holy Spirit all three as God himself, yet not three Gods but one God in three persons.  We will never know how that works.  But what we do know is that each person of the trinity acts in complete union and harmony with the others, all together, each being credited with accomplishing all that God has done.  From creation to redemption, miracles to providence over history and even to receiving worship, various scriptures attribute each of these specifically to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively.  We simply cannot extricate ourselves from our intellectual problem without abandoning the testimony of scripture.  So what are we to do?  Simply this:  Admit that we have encountered God, and worship.  Our God is truly captivating.

By Jeff Crooks

Jeff Crooks (MATS, Covenant Theological Seminary, 2002) is a member of New Covenant Church, he is married to Chrysanthy and they have two children, Michala age 6 and Demetri age 2.