A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, May 30, 2010
Isaiah 6:1–8; For the Psalm: Canticle 13; Revelation 4:1–11; John 16:5–15
We’ve just finished singing hymn #362, which goes like this:
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty,
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee:
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
This very familiar hymn (in the second verse) goes on to recall the saints who cast “their golden crowns around the glassy sea,” an obvious reference to the images that our reading from the Book of Revelation paints for us this morning.
That same verse also goes on to mention the heavenly hosts, the cherubim and seraphim, who fall down in worship before the Holy God, a theme we hear in our reading from Isaiah, chapter six, this morning.
Well, have you ever wondered just what we mean by the phrase, “God in three Persons”?
Since we find ourselves this morning celebrating the Holy Trinity, and – might I say – this is our “Name Day” feast, for our parish is named in honor of the Trinity, let’s consider the matter of God in three Persons, or – put another way – God, who is the three-in-one.
We begin with an observation: If you check a good concordance of the Bible, you won’t find the word “Trinity” anywhere in it. That’s because at no time in Holy Scripture does the term “Trinity” ever get used.
To be sure, however, there are some verses in the Bible, which mention all three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The clearest mention of the three persons is found in Matthew 28: 19, which reads, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….” If you remember, that is the formula which is used at every baptism here at Trinity Church. Another verse which mentions all three persons is found in II Corinthians 13: 14, which reads, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”1
However, the use of the term “Trinity”2 didn’t emerge until about the year 180 AD.3 And, it is the theologian Tertullian (whose dates are c. 160 – 225 AD) who makes use not only of the word “Trinity”, but also of the words “person” and “substance” when talking about the nature of the Godhead.
Now, let’s acknowledge another aspect of our discussion about the Trinity: Its mystery.
Our opening hymn this morning realizes the fact that we human beings cannot know the fullness of God, who is One, the same God who is three. Verse three states this fact quite well:
Holy, Holy Holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see.
Only thou are holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.
And, yet, we must admit that we can know God, and least to some extent.
It is to the aspects of God that we can know and understand (at least in part), that we turn.
We will consider, in turn, the following:
- How did the Church come to understand that God is the Three-in-One?
- What prompted the Church to hammer out its understanding of the Trinity?
- How do we understand God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit with respect to:
- God’s very nature, and
- God’s acting in human history? - How should our understanding of God as we see this understanding in the answer to question #3 inform our knowledge of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
Our examination of the mystery of God now turns to these four questions:
How did the Church come to understand that God is the Three-in-One? The short answer is, “Certainly, the Church didn’t come to that understanding overnight.” On the contrary, though the apostolic witness of the faith acknowledges the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (recalling what we said about Matthew 28: 19), it took about four centuries for the Church to fully flesh out its understanding and its teaching about the nature of the Holy Trinity. We mentioned a moment ago Theophilis of Antioch’s use of the term, and Tertullian’s application of the words “person” and “substance” to the matter of the Trinity. Beyond these and other early theologians, however, it was the formulation of the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed which more fully articulated the doctrine of the Trinity, for both creeds are Trinitarian in outline, since each person of the Trinity has a paragraph devoted to it in each creed. And, along the way, many early theologians explored the nature of the Godhead and the relationship between each of the three persons of the Trinity.
What prompted the Church to hammer out its understanding of the Trinity? Here, there are two answers:
- It was the coming of Jesus Christ, and the things that He taught about Himself, and His relationship to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit, which provided the window into the nature of God. Notice, in our reading from the Fourth Gospel this morning, what He has to say about the unity which exists between the Father and the Son: He says, “All that the Father has is mine.”4 Now, notice a little earlier on in that same reading, what He has to say about the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says, “..for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”5 (This “sending” is a point we will come back to shortly.)
- The challenges that the early Church faced in the form of the heresies prompted the Church to clearly state its orthodox understanding of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We can enumerate the most serious challenges that the Church faced in those early centuries: Marcionism (2nd century),6 which challenged the understanding of God the Father as being constant throughout Old Testament and New Testament history; Gnosticism (first through the third centuries), which maintained that Jesus was fully divine, but wasn’t fully human; and Arianism (fourth and fifth centuries), which denied Jesus’ divinity. It was in response to these understandings of the nature of the Father and the Son that the Church was forced to articulate clearly and forcefully the orthodox understandings that were consistent with the faith that had been received from the Apostles.
How do we understand God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit with respect to God’s very nature and God’s acting in human history?
Here, we tackle to different aspects of the Trinity, and we do so using technical terms that theologians use:
- God’s very nature: This has to do with God’s very being, and this is usually referred to as the ontological Trinity. (Ontology has to do with the very essence, or being, of something). In this respect, all three persons of the Trinity are equal. All are eternal, all are without ending. The Athanasian Creed7 (which may be found on page 864 of the Book of Common Prayer, 1979) addresses the very nature, the very being, of God. A sampling of this creed will illustrate the point:
And the catholic8 faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity
(The creed with continue in this fashion, describing each person of the Trinity in equal terms.)
in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. - God’s acting in human history: However, when we examine the record of the Bible, we see that there seems to be some sort of a hierarchy of action, each person of the Trinity undertaking a certain sort of work. That would seem to be the case with the Father, who sends the Son (a frequent theme in John’s gospel account), and the Son, who sends the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, as we heard in our gospel text for this morning. Theologians call this aspect of the Trinity by the technical term the economic Trinity.9
How should our understanding of God as we see this understanding in our answer to question #3 inform our knowledge of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? We turn, finally, to the practical aspects of our relating to God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And, as we do, we should note two things about our thinking and our relating:
- We often think of God in relationship to the functions that God in the various persons exhibits as we encounter Him. For example, when we look at the created order of the world around us, we might give thanks to God the Father for the wonderful gift of creation. When we come to God the Son, seeking a new life with Him, we think of God the Son as Redeemer, as Savior. When we seek inspiration, we might call upon God the Holy Spirit to enliven and enlighten our hearts and minds. It is this approach, the practical (or, in the word we used a minute ago, the “economic Trinity”) that we most often think of God, it seems to me. At least, that is my practical experience: I tend to think of one person of the Trinity at a time. Theologians have a word for this approach: It is called modalism, a word that refers to the various “modes” in which we experience God. Putting this in human terms, I can say that I am a father to my children, a grandfather to my grandchildren, and a priest to my congregation. I am one person, but I operate in three different “modes” of acting. I suspect many of us fall into the modal understanding of God.
- To counteract this modal tendency, we would do well to remember the ontological Trinity, that God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all three who are co-eternal, co-equal, almighty, God and Lord. For whenever we encounter one person of the Holy Trinity, the other two are also always present. We enjoy, therefore, the fullness of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit at all times and in all circumstances, even if we think of only one person of the three.
Well, how did we do in trying to understand the mystery of God, the Three-in-One? Trying to understand this mystery is a bit like something we used to say about the business of learning to sing: Once you think you’ve figured it all out, you realize there’s more to learn.
May God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, guide and enlighten us to see God in His fullness, God in His actions in human history, and in our lives today.
AMEN.
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1) This is known in its liturgical use as “The Grace”, and it is the verse which closes Morning and Evening Prayer.
2) The word “Trinity” derives from the Latin (trinitas), for it is a combination of the word “trinus”, indicating “three” and “unitas”, indicating “one”.
3) Theophilis of Antioch is the first to use the term
4) John 16: 15
5) Verse 7
6) Named for its founder, Marcion (who died about 160 AD), this movement regarded God the Father as being a vengeful, punishing God in the Old Testament. This Old Testament God wasn’t the same God that Jesus referred to as “Father”, for this God is a God of love and forgiveness.
7) Though named for the great fourth century bishop, Athanasius (c. 296 – 373 AD), this creed probably dates from about the year 500 AD.
8) “Catholic” meaning “universal”
9) The word “economy” here is used in the sense of a “plan”, which is the original meaning of the Greek word oichonomia
