Trinity and Humanity

The Trinity is not just a doctrine, it is the doctrine of the Christian faith. Ted Johnston made this point in the seminar he gave for the pastors in my network this past Saturday.

Too many Christian descriptions of reality start in one of two places: with a statement about God’s holiness, power, and intelligence or with a statement about the authority of the Bible.

Yet the only reason that God is holy, powerful, or smart is because he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the only reason the Bible has any authority is because it bears witness to Jesus – who is the revelation of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.

All of our thinking (i.e. doctrine) about the Christian faith and life in general has to begin with the foundational basis of all reality and existence: The One who has always existed, and always will exist, as the loving, embracing relationship of the Father and Son with the Spirit. Here’s a few examples:

How can I be happy in life? By trusting the truth revealed to me in Jesus by his Spirit: that I am liked, loved, and included in the life they share with the Father. Jesus’ Father is my Father and his words to Jesus are his words to me in Jesus: “Here is my son that I love very much and I am very happy with him!”

How can I have a good marriage? By first seeing and believing how my wife and I are included and embraced in the Father’s life with his Son and how we have been immersed in their Spirit.

How can I raise happy children? By cooperating with the Spirit’s work in their lives to help them see that they are included in Jesus’ life and that his Father loves and likes them as much as he loves and likes Jesus.

In fact, the more I surrender to Jesus and let him baptize me in his Spirit – and in the assurance they share with me of the Father’s love for me – the more I realize how needlessly complicated I have made my life in the past! To know that the ultimate reality of the universe is the love and acceptance of the Father, Jesus, and Spirit makes everything else in life much easier to understand.

As a final note: I highly recommend Ted’s seminar to all of you. It’s called Understanding and Teaching Trinitarian Theology and you can read more about it here. He does a fantastic job of explaining, in simple terms, how our whole vision of life changes when we let Jesus give us a Trinitarian vision of God.

If it were up to me all the districts in my denomination (WCG) would schedule this seminar for their pastors and all of our regional conferences this year would consist of an expanded version of this seminar. After all, the Trinity is not just a doctrine, it is the doctrine, and the best thing we can be doing as minsitry leaders is learning how to speak of life in fully Trinitarian terms.

~ by Jonathan Stepp