Experiencing the Trinity
Lord’s Day past (4th June) was Trinity Sunday (if you follow such things). The week before (Pentecost as it happens) some JWs knocked on my door. It struck me that Christians get very upset by denial of the Trinity, or any aspect of it, yet most church services are quite JW friendly! Christians shy away from the doctrine as a horrible hybrid of Theology and algebra. Think about it: there is one God in three persons, not three Gods. Each person is God himself, but they are also distinct. The Spirit is God, so is the Son, but the Spirit isn’t the Son and so on. Too hard. So, Evangelicals slip into a functional modalism or patripassionism or say nothing for fear that someone like me will accuse them of modalism or patripassionism.
Christians tend not to be bothered. On the one hand, I can be sympathetic! But good news, you don’t have to understand every detail. Rather you experience God, as he is, in Trinity. The Trinity is an experiential doctrine. Did you think you’d read that on GRUK? But, put your josh sticks away, we’ve not quite gone mystic yet. So, how do we experience God in Trinity?
Chill out. That probably should say: rest in God. Calvin in his Institutes (1.13.17) quotes Gregory Nanzianzen, “I cannot think of the unity without being irradiated by the Trinity: I cannot distinguish between the Trinity without being carried up to the unity” (Serm. de Sacro Baptis.), Gregory adds, “and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me”. Calvin’s comment on this is that it “greatly pleases him”. That’s to say, if great minds ran out of words, relax. Don’t worry about not getting the finer points at once. But notice a couple of things that flow from Gregory’s observation and experience:
Reach. Christians are put off by things that are hard. Don’t be! We’re talking about God! Many things of God are straight forward and easy, one does not have to be clever to be a Christian. But, he is big… rather infinite. That means we are always reaching upwards without ever having complete knowledge. Be stretched; God’s worth it. Gregory and Calvin were content to just sit and ponder the oneness and threeness of God, despite that it was beyond them.
Meditate. Notice that it brings Gregory to tears of joy and Calvin approves of that emotional response. The Trinity is hard to explain and understand. Many explanations take the form of what it isn’t. But in the Bible the strongest Trinitarian texts are about how God is experienced. Look up Ephesians 3:19-22 (especially 19 & 22), then look up Romans 5:1-2, 5. Meditate on them a little. In both there’s a pattern: the Holy Spirit joining us to the Son and pouring God’s love into our hearts, then in the Son we come confidently to the Father, the Spirit making us sons/heirs calling out “Father”.
As we gather in worship or to pray, this is what happens. We experience God as Trinity. Some traditions, for example Anglicanism, historically has rich Trinitarian prayers to draw on. However, it seems that has not been enough to keep some from wondering away from orthodoxy on this very issue. However, Ministers especially, can model experiencing the Trinity in our prayers and our worship, so approaching God that way, how we think about what we are doing becomes second nature to us. Choose a few overtly Trinitarian hymns (not just on Trinity Sunday).
For the Christians in the pew, don’t stress if your prayers are not yet like John Owen’s. But, be encouraged by Gregory, to just ponder who God is. Chew over Ephesians 3:19, 22 and Romans 5:1-2, 5 and experience God in Trinity.
