What to do with the Trinity
33 Oh, the depth of the riches
Romans 11: 33-36 CSB
and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments
and untraceable his ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
35 And who has ever given to God,
that he should be repaid?
36 For from him and through him
and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever. Amen.
We can explore in depth many things within the world using our reason and our senses, using our mind and abilities. That is how God made us. With our reason and senses, we can search and explore the depths of the oceans and the highest points on earth. We can come to understand what created things are made of. We can explore the atmosphere and predict the weather. We can come to know how and why the human body works the way it does. We can see what makes up a living cell, how the human eye and the ear works, and the amazing connection between the brain and every other part of the body. With our reason and senses, we can come to come to know things about the moon, the sun, the planets, the solar system, other galaxies and stars, and the universe. If we have ever watched the Planet Earth TV series, we begin to realize just how much the human mind, reason, senses, and abilities have come to know, and how absolutely amazing this world is. Even the most hardened atheist and unbeliever is awestruck by what is observed and discovered. Like us, they can’t help but say, “Wow!” And still, our reason and our senses have barely scratched the surface. Our knowledge and understanding remain partial.
With our reason and senses, we can also come to an understanding that man is unique compared to all other creatures. Man is set apart, above and beyond every other living being. Even the well-grounded evolutionist reveals that human beings are exceptional by the way he acts. Among all creatures we are those who realize there is transcendent truth, real right and wrong; we understand there is something beyond this life, that we have a soul; we sense there is a real purpose, that there is real beauty and virtue beyond social construction. These sorts of things are generally not attributed to other living things. Man is a creature, but a creature that is distinguished from all others.
Because of our reason and senses, we and all cultures also understand and recognize that something is wrong with this world. Some cultures recognize this more than others. And as a result, people and cultures try to fix it. Sometimes by war and revolution, sometimes by changing rulers or the system of government, sometimes by making new laws, sometimes through education, and most often by some sort of religion. We want to fix it. We try to fix it. But we never have.
So, with our reason we can search out the depth of many things. We can acquire knowledge regarding things in this world, things that are often utterly amazing, and many other things that are unpleasant, ugly, terrible, and even evil.
But what about God? Well, he is a different matter. When it comes to creation, our reason and our senses can grasp quite a bit. But when it comes to the Creator, “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
St. Paul tells us in Romans 1 that our reason and senses can understand some things about God through a study and observation of the natural world: “his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.” (Rom. 1:20). We call this natural knowledge of God. But because of the limitations of our reason and senses, and especially because our reason is fallen and greatly affected by sin, what we can naturally know about God, what we can find out about God, is very limited. Reason runs into a wall when it comes to understanding God in any meaningful way. The depth of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God cannot be searched out and discovered by man. Reason even opposes true knowledge of God in the end.
It is like trying to discover some meaningful knowledge about a person who is on the other side of a glass door, but the glass door is painted over so all we can see is a shadow, and the door is sound proofed, and the door is locked. We know he is there, but that’s about it. At best we are afraid of that being on the other side of the locked door. At worst, we view him as dangerous and an enemy. This is God on the basis of natural knowledge.
Nevertheless, this almighty, eternal, unsearchable, unknowable God, does not leave us in the dark. He does not remain silent. He comes to the door and unlocks it. He gives us knowledge of himself beyond the natural. He gives us a special, supernatural revelation of himself. He hands us a book called the Bible and says, “Read this, and you will know who I am.” He does not give us a complete knowledge of himself and his judgements and his ways, but it is sufficient and it is amazing. We will never plumb the depths of the knowledge of God in this life with our reason and our minds, but still he gives us a knowledge of himself that is ample and must be believed.
On the basis of the Word of God, the holy Scriptures, the Bible, the Christian church has formulated three creeds: the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian creeds. These creeds are based on that special revelation, the Bible. The result for the last 2,000 years has been the Christian church confessing, “This is the true God. He has made himself known. He is not silent.”
The Athanasian Creed, by far the longest and most detailed creed, is divided into three parts. The first part explains there is one God in three persons. There is the person of the Father, the person of the Son, and the person of the Holy Spirit. Not three gods, but one God. And yet the persons are not one another. They are distinct. Reason cannot grasp this. And yet it is true.
The second part speaks to the second person – God the Son, Jesus Christ. The emphasis here is his two natures: that he is both God and man. Ever since the incarnation when he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, the eternal Son of God became true man and to this day and forever remains both.
The third part deals with the work of the Son of God: for the sake of our salvation and the forgiveness of all our sins, he suffered, descended into hell, rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father. And he will come back to judge the living and the dead, who will all be resurrected, at which time he will say to each person, “Come into my heaven” or “Depart into hell.” He will judge us on the basis of our works, works that do not save us, but works that are the evidence of whether we trusted in him – and him alone – while we walked on this earth. As his apostle Paul said, “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” (Eph. 2:8-10).
Three times in this creed – the beginning, middle, and end – we are told this is the true faith in the one true God by which one is saved. It stresses if we do not hold to this faith, we cannot be saved.
This is the holy Trinity of the Athanasian Creed and of the Bible. What do we do with this understanding of this true God, of this Trinity? What do we do with this creed? First, we use it to remind us who the true God is, and to hold up the Creed as a standard by which we can identify all other gods as false.
Second, we use it to remind us to “bow before the Lord and confess our sins,” saying to this one true God, “O almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor miserable sinner, confess to You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment.” We sincerely repent of our sins.
Third, we use it to remind us to trust in this God, who ultimately and always will be a merciful God. To remind us that the Son became man and performed his work for us and our salvation. In him alone there is forgiveness, your forgiveness. It is a forgiveness and salvation that is not only free, not only undeserved, not only by faith, but also something that our reason will never be able to comprehend in this life. And yet it is and remains true. We believe in forgiveness and salvation in Christ alone.
Fourth, we use this creed to boldly, publicly, and clearly confess to one another, to God, to the angels, to Satan and his demons, and to anyone else who might be listening: this is our God, and no other.
Finally, this understanding of the holy Trinity reminds us to enter into the most glorious and heartfelt praise – praising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We praise him in worship, we praise him with our words, we praise him in song and music, and we praise him in each and every step of our lives and with our lives. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.”
Podcast: Play in new window
Subscribe: RSS