An appendix or the heart?
Today is Trinity Sunday. For many, the idea of the Trinity is confusing, and even an embarrassment when it comes to understanding – let alone explaining or defending – what Christians believe. Wouldn’t it be better quietly to sideline the whole notion? Isn’t the Trinity a bit like the appendix in the human body; it’s a good thing to have, but nobody knows what it does, and you can live quite happily without it.
No! On the contrary, the Trinity is more like the heart in the human body. Christianity would be dead without it. The Christian God is a Trinity. Significantly, the very first of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England makes this plain: “There is but one living and true God … And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost [Spirit].” This is who God is. God was a Father before he became a Creator. He has always been Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He only became a Creator when he made the universe.
These three Persons – Father, Son and Spirit – are of the same substance, the same ‘stuff’; they have the same power; they are equally eternal. In other words, they are all fully and equally God. Here, indeed, is a God beyond our comprehension, but not beyond our knowing. And here is a God truly worthy of our worship.