One of the things that distinguishes Christianity from the other Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Islam, is Christianity’s unique understanding of God as a Trinity. Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe that there is only one God, but Christians alone believe that, though God is one, God is three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each distinct from one another, each being God in themselves, and yet still being only one God, not three. Even after centuries of contemplation, the Trinity is a belief about God that defies full understanding and explanation. And so the Trinity is seen as an understanding of God that has been born of the Christian experience of God, and one that can only be described as a mystery of faith that can never be fully understood by the human mind, nor explained by human language.
And so, over the years, Christians have tried to describe and explain the Trinity by use of symbols, metaphors, analogies, and similes. One very common symbol of the Trinity, for example, is the clover, which is one plant but has three leaves. The Trinity has also been likened to water which can be a solid (ice), a liquid (water) or a gas (steam) although it’s still the same water. Another attempt to explain the Trinity has been to liken it to the Sun. The Sun itself is the Father, whilst the light and heat it gives represent the Son and the Holy Spirit. But, although these, and other, ways of explaining the Trinity can help us to understand the idea, they can only do so up to a point. The leaves of the clover, for example, are three parts of the plant whereas God has no parts; he is one being who is three persons. The problem with the water analogy of the Trinity is that ice, water and steam are three states or modes of water, and one body of water can’t be in all three at the same time, unlike the persons of the Trinity who do co-exist at the same time. And the analogy of the Sun to describe the Trinity reduces the Son and the Holy Spirit to created properties of the Father, rather than un-created, co-equal persons who have existed with the Father for eternity.
Really, we shouldn’t be surprised that we can’t fully understand or explain the idea of God as Trinity. We live in a physical world, but God is a spiritual being, so it’s only to be expected that there will be aspects of God’s nature that we can’t understand or explain, simply because these things are outside our experience and frame of reference. But there is perhaps one thing we’re all very familiar with that can give us at least some insight, however incomplete, into the Trinity. And that is to look at ourselves. Now that might seem a very strange idea, to look at ourselves to try to understand something so mysterious as the Trinity. But we believe that we’re made in the image and likeness of God, and if God is a Trinity, then we must be able to see at least something of that in ourselves. And I think we can.
As we read through the Scriptures, we find that the source of all things is the Father. It’s the Father’s will that drives everything, and his will is accomplished by his Word, that is, when he speaks, it is done. And his Spirit is present in everything that’s done. We read this right at the beginning of the Scriptures:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.”
Even in those opening verses of the Bible, we see an understanding of God as a Trinity. We see God as Creator, whom we later understand to be the Father. We see God’s Spirit, whom we later understand to be the Holy Spirit. And we see God’s Word, whom St John later identifies as Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, and Son of God. And what we see in those few verses is the basis of our understanding that everything God does comes from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit. That’s how we believe God works, and it’s in the image and likeness of this God, that we’re made. And we can see that in how we work too.
Just like the Father, each of us has our own will. We all have things that we want to see realised, and the way we realise those things, the way we create reality from our will, is through our words and actions. And what empowers us to create reality from our will, what drives us to put our ideas into action, is our human spirit. So, our will is accomplished through our words and actions in the power of our spirit. And that is the same way we believe God creates and his will is realised.
The problem, of course, is that, unlike God, we’re not spiritual beings and we have physical bodies that want, and need, to be satisfied. And so, even when our will is the same as God’s will, and we want what God wants, very often our physical bodies want something else and then the needs of our bodies override our will, and our bodies, the bodies we need to speak our words and perform our actions, put their satisfaction first. And, as Jesus implied in Gethsemane, our spirit, even if it’s willing to empower us to do what God wants us to do, isn’t strong enough to stand up to the weakness of our bodies; our bodies win, and we do the wrong thing. St Paul speaks about this too, in chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans when he writes,
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing….. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Another problem for us, is that we have free will, and so we don’t have to want what God wants, and very often, we don’t. And when that happens, we can give in completely to our physical bodies and simply do whatever they want us to do. And when that happens, our spirits make things even worse because they actually empower us to do the wrong thing.
But that is not how it is supposed to be. We were made in the image and likeness of a God who is a Trinity, and so we were made to do things the way the Trinity does them. We were made to have the same will as the Father, to want what he wants. We were made to use the words and actions of our physical bodies to make his will a reality in our lives, and he sent us his Son to show us what that means and how to do that. And we were given the Holy Spirit to empower us to want and to do these things. And when we do these things, when we want what God wants and do what Jesus taught us to do, we can be sure that our words and actions, and our lives, are being empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then, we’re being what we were made to be, an image and likeness of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And then, we ourselves become an image of the Trinity, and because we’re living and working in the way the Trinity lives and works, perhaps even a way of understanding that mystery a little better.
Amen.
You will find the Propers for Trinity Sunday here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 