I am, The Three in One
Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, where we look at the doctrine of the trinity, the three persons in the one God. Any follower of Jesus should have a basic understanding of this subject because this is what Jesus taught his disciples, however this will be an area of faith in which there will be a large element of mystery, this is a subject beyond the capacity of our finite human minds to completely understand, which we have to accept by faith.
What’s in a name we might ask ? Moses when he was asked to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt said to God, “Suppose I go to the people of Israel. Suppose I say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And suppose they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. Here is what you must say to the Israelites. Tell them, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” Exodus 3:13-15
I am is a very unusual name for God, why might this be? In the Old Testament names usually described a characteristic of a person or said something about what the person was like. On the other hand, God’s name I am says absolutely nothing about God or what he is like.
This I believe is to stop people from putting God in a box, or of thinking about God just in terms of any characteristics of a name. God is so much more than this, God is bigger than our imaginations, bigger than our finite human minds can comprehend.
In the same way when we talk about the trinity, we are in the same league of trying to grasp something with our finite minds.
A helpful analogy in explaining the trinity is to think of water. Let us be as open to the truth as that converted Indian who gave the following illustration, imperfect though it is, for his belief in the Trinity: "We go down to the river in winter and we see it covered with snow; we chop through the ice and we come to the water. Snow is water, ice is water, water is water; therefore the three are one." In this way, God demonstrates his triune nature through the natural world.
Let us look briefly at the roles of the three persons in the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The bible tells us that God has adopted us into his family by faith. “So he decided long ago to adopt us. He adopted us as his children with all the rights children have. He did it because of what Jesus Christ has done. It pleased God to do it.” Ephesians 1:5
This tremendous statement means that God the Father is our heavenly Father, also that God the Son, Jesus Christ is our brother and that we are brothers and sisters of each other in the christian faith, we belong to God’s family the church which is made up of all true believers. This is deeper than any blood relationships people have with each other.
God the Father sent his son Jesus into this world on a rescue mission to save humanity by dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus is our Judge on the day of judgement at the end of the world.
Matthew 25:31-32, 41 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
On that day of judgement we will be judged on the basis of our faith in Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, not on the good works we have done.
All of us fall short of God’s standard of perfection which is 100% according to Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross makes us righteous in God’s eyes. On the day of judgement God the Father will not ask Jesus what have we done in our lives but does He know us ?
On that day it will be no good merely to say we have been kind to the poor, given a lot of money to charity, etc. There are people in the world who have done this such as atheists, people of other religions who do not accept that Jesus is God and has risen from the dead and this will not save them.
We get to know Jesus by accepting him as our saviour and walking with him throughout our lives and talking to him in prayer, fellowship with other believers and reading our bibles so he can talk to us.
What is the role of the Holy Spirit ? The Holy Spirit is a person. In the Acts, the Spirit inspires Scripture, is lied to, bears witness, is resisted, directs, informs, commands, calls, sends, thinks a certain decision is good, forbids, prevents, warns, appoints, reveals prophetic truth and gives us wisdom.
Galatians 5:22-23 tells us the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Holy Spirit helps us have all these qualities in our lives and the power to live a better life and to have victory over sin and evil in our lives.
Also through the Holy Spirit Jesus is no longer limited by being able to be in one place at the one time, but with the coming of the Holy Spirit He is now present with all his followers everywhere in the world all at the same time.
There is the story of St. Augustine who greatly annoyed himself because he couldn’t understand the doctrine of the trinity. He was greatly disturbed because he could not understand the essence of God. "I admit there is a God," he mused, "but how can I know of what He consists?" Christ had come down to earth with the claim that He was God. By His resurrection, which He Himself predicted, He proved that claim. He revealed that God is a Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But how could a mind as developed as that of Augustine accept this?
One day as he was walking by the sea, he saw a small boy who, with the help of a shell, was emptying water from the ocean into a hole he had dug in the sand. "What are you doing, son?" asked Augustine. He was impressed by the naive answer, "I'm going to empty all the sea into this hole." Augustine smiled. An inner voice, however, was saying to him, "You are trying to do the same thing by thinking you can understand the depths of God with your limited mind.”
Indeed the real question is not how but why? How is irrelevant at the end of the day but why is supremely important, The answer is Gods love for us. God sent his son Jesus into the world to die on the cross for our sins.