Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. After Pentecost the Church enters into an ordinary season organized around the revelation of the Trinity. Traces of the Trinity are found throughout the entire Bible, beginning in Genesis 1, and the fingerprints of tri-unity are ubiquitous throughout creation. But it was after the resurrection and ascension of Christ and outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Triune nature of God began to be clearly and consistently proclaimed.
God is One in Three and Three in One. As the Church confesses in the Athanasian Creed:
Now this is the catholic faith: that we worship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confounding their persons nor dividing the essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being. (3-12)
This confession of God’s Triunity sets Christianity apart from every other religion and defines the difference between orthodox Christianity and sub-Christian, adjacent traditions (such as Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses/Watchtower Society). We worship one God, and that one God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in simultaneous and co-equal glory, power, and substance.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the solution to the philosopher’s problem of the one and the many, debated since ancient times. Which is most basic? Which serves as the foundation of all reality? Is it one or many; monism, dualism, or pluralism? The answer is: none of the above. The Triune God is the foundation of all reality, and his Triunity establishes and explains the relationship of the one and the many observable throughout creation and human history.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a great mystery, but it is not irrational. We do not close our eyes and leap into the dark, hoping the Christian faith is true. It is by means of this truth that we are able to recognize and understand all other truth. We do not establish Christian truth by means of neutral science. We establish scientific truths and the process by which we discover it through the order and rationality of a Triune Creator who has made us in his image.
When the celestial creatures in heaven and translated saints surrounding the divine throne sing praise to God, they do so in a triune way. Holy! Holy! Holy! Yahweh is the holiest of all. The Father is holy, the Son is holy, and the Spirit is holy; these Three are One, the holy God over all! So tomorrow the Church will sing the trisagion with our brethren and non-human fellow worshipers above. The Bride of Christ will be lifted into the heavenlies to join the chorus that sings God’s praise day and night. Worship is an encounter with the living God, an experience of the noumenal. It is participation in the living communion of redeemed creation, the new heavens and earth that is growing until this present, sin-cursed world is fully eclipsed. O come, let us adore Him! --JME
