A Digest on the Trinity - Part 12: Trinity and Life

This article is twelfth and last in a series called A Digest on the Trinity.

Over the past twelve articles (including a prolegomenon), we have set out the main contours of the doctrine of the Trinity in (hopefully) simple and accessible language, that we might have the necessary vocabulary to understand and reflect on the doctrine moving forward. This article will shift focus, looking briefly instead at how life is viewed in relation to the triune God that caused and sustains it.

The mirror of creation

Though only Man is said to be made in His image (Gen 1:26), it is equally true that all of creation bears the imprint of the hands of the triune God. Bavinck argues that only a Trinitarian view of God allows for a Trinitarian view of creation which accounts for the presence of unity-in-diversity and diversity-in-unity, in other words, the one and the many.[1]

This philosophical problem has long plagued the old philosophers, who sought to find the unifying principle of existence to account for the unity that exists amidst the vast diversity of the world. Yet, even if they did, another problem arose: is unity or diversity more ultimate?

The Trinity provides the answer to that – both are just as ultimate, for God Himself as the source of all existence is both unity and diversity. In the radically united God in simplicity, there exists just as ultimately, a diversity of three persons. As such, one can look at the entirety of creation, marvel at its unity-in-diversity and then worship its God who is unity-in-diversity in Himself. While the Trinity is unlike anything, everything is like the Trinity.[2] Bavinck:[3]

 

The transcendent God with us

This unity-in-diversity is also what allows the Christian doctrine of God to disavow deism and pantheism. On the one hand, deism insists that God is so far transcendent that He cannot be known or interact with His creation. On the other, pantheism swings the opposite direction, arguing that God is so immanent in His creation that everything is God. As Bavinck puts it, creation must have its foundation in God without being part of His inner Life;[4] how do we confess that God’s Life is not extended as the life of creation when all of creation is founded on Him?

Bavinck’s response would be the doctrine of the Trinity. In the triune God, His Life is abundant and plentiful in Himself. In Himself from all eternity, God is maximally alive, dynamic and active. His is the divine Life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit before time began. Because of the profound immensity of this divine and lively activity, God does not need creation. Creation then, is a free act of His will, not a necessary extension of His being (contra pantheism). Yet, neither must He be far removed from creation that His deity remains unblemished – because the divine Life is already maximally personal and communicative within Himself as Trinity, He is absolutely free to condescend towards His creation (contra deism). Any interaction with His creation causes no change nor movement in the Being who is already absolutely perfect and self-moving. Any movement we note in God towards us is not because of us but flows from the perfect movement of Father towards Son, Son towards Father and both towards Spirit from all eternity.

Communication and revelation

This movement we see most clearly in revelation – precisely because the three persons move towards one another in communication, can the triune God move towards us in revelation with no change in His Being. If God was a solitary monad within whom there is no communication, then He cannot reveal anything about Himself or His handiwork to us, His image-bearers. Furthermore, the argument could be advanced that a monad that needs to communicate must create to do so – on the other hand, a blessed triad in whom there is pre-existent communication is free to create that He might extend this blessed activity already taking place.

Bavinck notes as well, that if in the first place there is no generation in God, then He cannot be creative.[5] Creation is simply an outward act analogising the inward act of generation within the inner Life of God. Without creation, God is still fully generative within Himself, for God is the Father generating the Son. Furthermore, the breath He breathes in His image-bearer (Gen 1:7) is the same breath that proceeds from the Father through the Son, the one called the Spirit. Even the very act of creating is reflective of the divine abundance that characterises the unity of Father, Son and Spirit. In other words, even if there was no creation, God has whatever it takes to be Creator, for in Him is generation and spiration, communication and productivity.

Persons and personhood

The doctrine also secures the necessity for human relationships. If God were a solitary monad from all eternity, then the personhood of His image-bearers would find no ground. Rather, since God is Trinity and is Father, Son and Spirit eternally loving, communicating, moving toward each other, the ones who bear His image in a unique way would have capacity for those things, albeit in an analogical way.

We seek out community because the God in whom we live is Trinity in unity. We love because the God in whom we move is the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father in the love of the Spirit. We have and know personhood and personality because the God in whom we have our being is three persons with distinctions.

The Trinitarian gospel of the triune God

The triune God produces the Trinitarian gospel. I note here and here that the reason the New Testament never argues for Trinitarianism is because it assumes it, with the programmatic example of Paul’s opening in his epistle to the Romans. If the gospel is fundamentally the message of how the triune God reaches down to His fallen creation in its rebellion and reunites them to Himself through His Son and in their Spirit, then it would make sense that the gospel is fundamentally Trinitarian. As Sanders notes,[6]

 

It is crucial for the sake of coherence to note that whatever the Father is said to do in the above paragraph is done through the Son and in the Spirit because of inseparable external acts. Yet, the truth is there: the pronouncement of judgment, exiling of sin and meting out of righteous punishment are all acts appropriated to the Father as the Unbegotten. In the same breath, the taking hold of humanity, repenting on behalf of his siblings and crying out are acts of the Son alone in his humanity. More of this mind-boggling confession here.

Communion and worship

Following a Trinitarian gospel, our communion with the triune God is also necessarily Trinitarian. The 1689 Baptist Confession, Chapter 2.3 insists that the doctrine of the Trinity is “the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on Him”. Clearly the framers of the 1689 Confession did not see the doctrine as ivory tower theology.

“Communion is the mutual communication of good things where the persons in communion are delighted, founded upon some union between them”.[7] Only because God is a communion can we be brought into the communion before all worlds. When we are united to Christ, we are united to the whole Godhead, which is simply an inclusion of us into the pre-existent communion within the inner Life of God. God does not require His creation for communion, but freely and unnecessarily brings them into fellowship with Him, to share in His triune communion.

Only in this triune communion, is worship made possible. In the Spirit, our prayers and worship are perfected (Rom 8:26-27). Through the Son, this religion made perfect by the Spirit is mediated and made acceptable because of His intercession as our Great High Priest (John 14:6; Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25). To the Father, this religion made perfect by the Spirit and mediated by the Son are brought as good and satisfactory offerings. Through the Son of the Father by generation, we are sons and daughters of the Father by grace, who worship Him in the Spirit and in the One who is Truth (John 4:24).

In this communion, the triune God delights in us and we delight in Him. The Father through the Son and in the Spirit rejoices in us and loves us, desiring to give us all heavenly blessings. We in the Spirit and through the Son rejoice in the Father and love Him, finding Him to be our hearts’ only desire.

In all things, the triune God is God above us, with us and in us.

Trinity and Life

The God who is Trinity is Life. Not just solitary and silent Life, but relational and melodic Life. In Him is Life so fecund and maximal, so dynamic and joyous, so plentiful and glorious. Without creation, He would still be who He is: Father, Son and Spirit in magnificent and holy union. The act of creation then, is the pouring out of this divine rapture to form a realm where His image-bearers shall reflect His perfections to the glory of His name. The act of redemption is the pouring out of this divine rapture to restore the communion His creatures had with Him, to bring them back into glorious reunion with Him who is union.

All of life reflects the Life that is God. The life we observe and experience is dynamic and beautiful because the Life it reflects is dynamic and beautiful. Even when sin entered and marred the glories of the old creation, it could not completely obscure the beauties and abundance that it possessed from the One who is thrice beautiful and thrice abundant. The divine persons ground human persons and their divine relations ground human relations – God is love, precisely because He is triune.

We as people of the Trinitarian gospel are people of the triune God. Our lives must be led in submission to and worship of the one God who is three, not an impersonal abstract monadic deity. Rather, our God is the Father, Son and Spirit, who Himself is Life bursting in triune joy, running over into the heavens and the earth, the One whom all of life finds its arche and teleos in.

Because of the Trinitarian gospel by the triune God, we can now join in with the angel song, singing to Him the threefold chorus of praise, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God Almighty!” What a glorious life this is!