For many Christians, the Trinity has become something akin to their appendix: it’s there but they’re not sure what its function is, they get by in life without it doing very much, and if they had to have it removed they wouldn’t be too distressed.
It is important that we think rightly about the Trinity. American Bible teacher John Macarthur says this: ‘The Trinity is a doctrine where error is especially deadly’. Especially deadly, because if we get the Trinity wrong, we get God wrong; if we get God wrong, we get salvation wrong, and if we get salvation wrong, we ourselves cannot be saved. And it is for that reason that Christian churches do not share fellowship with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or Christadelphians, because they are all fatally wrong about the Trinity.
Article I can help us to get things in a truly biblical perspective. It says:
‘There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’
Article I is saying, firstly, that there is only one true sovereign God. This means that the gods of all other faiths are not gods at all – as Psalm 96:5 puts it, ‘all the gods of the nations are idols’. Other gods are idols, not real gods; entities which human beings have made up for themselves, and which they falsely worship.
There is only one true God. To be God is to be Almighty, it is to be sovereign over everything and everyone else. So there can, by virtue of logic, only be one God. If there were many gods, then none of them would be truly God. The Bible opens with ‘In the beginning God…’
In the beginning of all things, there was only God. Before there was there was a universe, before there was an earth, before there was any-thing, there was just God. No-one made God, he is everlasting and eternal. He has always been there, and he will always be there. He is the maker and preserver of all things – he is in charge of the world.
And if there is only one true God, we need to know him! It is utter folly to ignore him, if he is truly almighty and sovereign. We should not waste our time on gods which are not the true God. And we should meditate in wonder on God himself, who is everlasting, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness.
And Article I then goes on to tell us that this one true sovereign God is knowable in three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity.
That truth is seen throughout the Bible. At creation, the Spirit of God is mentioned hovering over the waters. In John 1, the eternal existence of Jesus is taught: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.’ Long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Jesus existed, was with his Father. And at the end of time, described in the book of Revelation, the Lamb, Jesus, is depicted in the new creation.
And the three Persons are of one substance, or essence. Jesus says, ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘If you have seen me, you have seen the Father’. The three Persons are also one one power – no one Person is more powerful than another, they do not have a ranking or pecking order, they are equal. Hebrews 1, for instance, tells us that Jesus was involved in creation. So we must be careful not to over-divide the persons of the Godhead, lest people think we believe in three gods.
Finally, remember that these truths about the Trinity shape our Christian experience all the time. We pray to the Father through the Son. In fact, we can only be heard in prayer by the Father because of the Son, because of his death for our sins, and because we pray by means of the Spirit.
Because God is Trinity, he is knowable. If there was no Trinity, we could not be saved. If there was no Trinity, there would be no equipping, no empowering for us to live for God. May we be encouraged by the glorious doctrine of the Trinity, and wonder and worship and rejoice in our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.