GospelDrivenLife

Blogging the Trinity, the size of the Gospel, 2

We need a Gospel large enough in its end to disorient us, to sweep us up into its glory.  So, if we all like to take a part and make it into the whole, if we all like to think our viewpoint is the right one, if we all tend to avoid differences, if we need a large Gospel, big enough to extend from the beginning of the Christian life to our glorification, what is it?

That, says Sanders, is the Trinitarian size of the Gospel.  Let me give some quotes:

The good news of salvation is ultimately that God opens his Trinitarian life to us.  Every other blessing is a preparation for that or a result of it, but the thing itself is God’s graciously taking us into the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to be our salvation.  (98)

Opening his Trinitarian life sounds an awful lot like 1 John 1:3, what we have seen and heard we declare unto you, that you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the father and with His Son Jesus Christ.  The eternal Son was made man for us, and through his work, we are brought into the fellowship of the Godhead.   

Justification, adoption, propitiation, reconciliation, redemption, indwelling, and the rest are all to this end – that I might share in the life of God in Trinity.  That is, after all, what Jesus prayed in John 17, that they may be one even as we are one. I am not given the front row box seats on the first base line, I am on the field observing the game, participating in it.  I am not watching the play from the audience, I am brought into the action.

Sanders notes that the Gospel outstrips all measurements and can only be measured against God Himself. (99) He goes on to show that this is exactly what Ephesians says. Letham’s great work on the Trinity supports this view – that our salvation in bounded by the breadth of the Godhead. 

Citing Thomas Goodwin, Sanders insists that God does not bless us with all good things; he blesses us with Himself. (103) This is not novel theology.  It is what Protestants have held for hundreds of year.  It has just been buried under the rubble of user-friendly, self-help rubbish or under a pile of “Jesus loves you just as you are” therapy.  God, in Christ, gives us Himself, through redemption and indwelling and glorification. He is the bread of life.  He gives us himself.

I stood in front of hundreds of people 31 years ago and gave myself to my wife.  She gave herself to me.  That was a radical act.  It was all I could give her.

In redemption God says, “I will be your God and you will be mine.”

The Triune God has undertaken in the fullness of his glory to bring men and women -- created in his image, fallen into sin, redeemed -- into the fellowship of the Godhead.  All the resources of the thee persons are put to use to make this happen.  That is large enough Gospel for all of life and death and eternity.  Father, Son, and Spirit by grace giving themselves to us, to me -- and inviting us into the circle of glory.

Blogging the Trinity, the size of the Gospel

Every so often there is a renewal movement in the church.  Someone sees the glory of God or the freeness of the Gospel or the call to follow Christ with fresh clarity.  They proclaim their message.  Historically, Catholics absorb them and consecrate them.  Protestants bludgeon their brothers with their new insights and form sects.  That may seem to be a cynical view of history, but then again, maybe not. 

After reading Sanders, Chapter 3, So Great Salvation, I am persuaded that it is certainly one aspect of Protestant fragmentation.  Without diminishing real theological differences, I think he makes the case that what is needed most is a large Gospel, a Gospel measured by the Godhead.  That, by itself, will rescue us from sectarian pride. 

It all goes back to a tendency in us all to diminish the greatness of the Gospel. What do I mean by that? 

We are, or I am, endlessly self-centered, not just sinfully, but humanly.  What else am I to be?  After all, I only have one point of view and it is the one from where I sit.  I may momentarily walk in your moccasins, but pretty soon I slip back into my own.  The Gospel is not such a thing that can be seen fully from the lowly valley where I live.  I simply find it hard to keep a firm grasp on its grandeur. 

Add to that the effects of sin on my imagination and affections, and we have a formula for dim views of Christ, at least until the Holy Spirit brings fresh sight to our dull eyes.  This he has done in the flow of history.  He renews us.

Then we start proclaiming the “full gospel” as opposed to the partial gospel.  By full gospel I do not mean, and Sanders does not mean, a particular denomination.  He means that we see a more complete picture of what God has done in salvation, how it has been lost or at least wandered off the center of our vision, and how we may correct that error. 

When this happens, Sanders notes, that these people “have discovered that the gospel is a great thing, and that it includes whole regions of insight and experience that beg to be explored.” (104-105) With such renewed clarity also comes a temptation to censoriousness and to broad generalizations about the state of the church as a whole.  When someone climbs up onto a new mountain and sees a view that is partially hidden from me, the temptation is to engage in theological King of the Hill, to assert that my view is the correct one, and theirs is not. 

I am not saying that all theological differences are simply a matter of perspective.  Not at all.  Truth is truth and error is error.  God is not an elephant and we are not all grabbing a hold of different parts of him. But emphases within those who hold to orthodoxy are another issue. Renewal sadly becomes a basis for contention and division.

Perhaps there are contradictory statements being made.  It is very hard to reconcile Trent with Calvin.  But perhaps they are a corrective voice.  Perhaps pride has entered the scene.  And saddest of all, perhaps the new insight then becomes the sole insight and we reduce the Gospel once more. 

Perhaps we need a larger statement of the Gospel, a Gospel whose edges are the edges of the Trinity.  That is what Sanders asserts.  It makes sense to me. We need to locate all the blessings of redemption in its ultimate end, and not confuse ultimate with penultimate.

That is difficult. I am also part of a culture that Sanders wisely diagnoses as impatient with theology, quick to dismiss anything that seems impractical or complicating, and seems intent on reducing salvation to less than it is. (97-98, 107-11)  We are quick to ignore our differences and focus on what we agree on, which, it turns out, is pretty insipid.

I also like to take a part and magnify it for the whole, even when it comes to how we engage with the Gospel.  Is justification the center of the NT?  Or is it union with Christ?  Is propitiation the center of the Gospel or substitution?

I am reading Sanders with a critical application here.  The point of the chapter is not critique but assertion – and he does indeed assert a Gospel so grand and glorious that it absorbs all these various components within it.

We will consider that in the next post.

Blogging the Trinity, worship and the song

I am blogging on Fred Sanders book pictured here.

Today I want to reflect on one of the implications of his exposition of the nature of God in Trinity.

Sanders notes, 

 

“God the Trinity is the end, the goal, the telos, the omega.  In himself and without any reference to the created world or the plan of salvation, God is that being who exists as the triune love of the Father for the Son in the unity of the Spirit.  The boundless life that God lives in himself, at home, in the happy land of the Trinity above all worlds, is perfect.  It is complete, inexhaustibly full, and infinitely blessed.” (62)

 

I was thinking about this the other day and realized that it shapes my understanding of worship.  As a matter of fact, many liturgists figured this out a long time ago!

 

What do I mean by that?

 

When God's people gather on Sunday for worship -- or when we kneel in prayer for worship -- what is going on?  There are times I have the impression that the worship leader is engaging in a pep rally for God.  "Lets here it for Jesus.  J-E-S-U-S ."  He is stirring up the affections of the people, calling them to raise their voices to God so that God will be pleased with their worship.  It sounds like worship in some sense starts with us.

 

People with a sense of God's great glory rightly revolt against this debasing activity.  Surely worship is not a pep rally.  Coaxing people to sing louder somehow misses the point.

 

But so does retreat into formal and expressionless worship.  God did not make us to express delight with our hands in our pockets.

 

Sanders points to a different path.

 

If the assertion above is correct, then there is an eternal song of worship in the Godhead.  That song of love and joy and glory between Father, Son, and Spirit is constant, fervent, unchanging, and will never end. Think about this.  It is going on right now.  They cry out day and night, "Holy, Holy, Holy."  That is the cherubim -- if that is a reflection of God's delight in God in Trinity, what sort of intensity is there in God himself?

 

I have been in the Arizona wildat basketball arena when the team was on a tear in the 90's.  There were times when i could not hear my own voice shouting.  It was electric enthusiasm. 

 

If that is what goes on for basketball, what is the fervency and loudness and joy in the Godhead?

 

Here is the implication: when we gather for worship, our first step is to recognize by faith that the song is already started, that we are turning our hearts to that song, and that we are tuning our souls to the complete, inexhaustibly full, and infinitely blessed life of God in the happy land of the Trinity.  The Father is delighting in the only begotten Son, whose wounded hands and side bear witness to the depths of his love and the Son's sacrifice.  He delights in the Spirit who calls, indwells, and unites his redeeemed people to the Son.  The Son delights in his love and obedience to the Father.  The Spirit relishes being sent by the Father and Son intot he world.  Etc etc

 

That is what we enter when we worship.

 

I do not have to conjure up joy.  I need to engage with their joy by faith through Christ.  I do not need to strive to access this circle of love and delight.  I need to lay hold of Christ by faith for his purpose is to bring us into this circle of love as adopted and exalted sons.

 

I have been to football or basketball games where the team is not so good and the cheerleaders are working really hard to stir up the crowd.  They jump and leap and somersault themselves into a sweat to get the smallest response.  But let there be a touchdown or an interception or a rally from behind to win the game and their efforts are drowned out by an exhuberant crowd.

 

Worship leaders are not leading a pep rally for a losing team.  The team on the field is so triumphant that those who see it by faith are swept into its glory. Worship leaders simply tell people of the glorious song that is already being sung and the Savior who has ushed us into the best seats in the house to enjoy it.

 

 

The Trinity and the End of All Things

And finally,

The Triune God and the End of Salvation: a seat in the circle

This also relates to the end of salvation.

 

Most of us hear the Gospel as an opportunity to be forgiven by God, to be loved by God, to be made God’s sons and daughters.  All of those are wonderful.  Along with propitiation, justification, adoption, regeneration, and all the blessings that flow from Christ the Savior’s work for us – there is more.  Those are means to an end.

 

The good news is more wonderful than I can imagine.  Let me explain.

 

For years I puzzled over these words at the end of Jesus prayer in John 17 where Jesus prays for all believers in history.  He says,

 

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us . . .  (21)

 

So, Jesus says that the end game is that we are brought into the unity of the Godhead.  That is BIG!  But then he adds,

 

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (22-23)

 

Not only brought into the unity, but perfectly brought into the inter-relationships of the Godhead, and there is more. He gives us glory, the same glory the Father gave him before there was time. And we are loved in the same degree as the Father loves the Son.  This is unspeakable.

 

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (24)

 

We are to see the glory of the Son, eternally begotten of the Father, and to stand in the eternal love of the Father for the Son.  Words are failing me here.  Then he ends,

 

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. (25-26)

 

This sounds to me like we are brought into the circle of his love and immersed in it fully. To cite one of Sanders sources, the good news of the Gospel is that through Christ, created men sinners are “admitted into the inner life of God.” (81).

 

Did you hear that?  Brought into the inner life of God.  The happy land of the Trinity is the land into which we will be brought through the free grace of God showered on us through the redeeming work of God the Son and the calling of the Holy Spirit.

 

The circle of the Godhead will be opened up, and the bride of the God-man, redeemed by his blood, will be brought into that circle.  We shall always be creatures, but we shall have the best seats in the cosmos to behold the glory of God in the happy land of the Trinity.

 

How much this calls me from my self-centered, self-pitying, self-absorbed manner of heart.

 

On the next post I want to reflect on how the Happy Land of the Trinity relates to worship.

 

 

Tangents, sidebars, and the making of conflict

I was recently speaking to a good friend, who told me they were engaged in an extensive and heated discussion about the merits and demerits of a particular school of scheduling a baby. They said it seemed to be getting nowhere.

I shared with them a verse that is very helpful.

Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. (2 Timothy 2:23 ESV)

That's a very strong exhoration. Whatever Paul is forbidding it is absolute.  It is "do not entertain" these items for discussion.  Do not take steps into these debates or controversies. 

But what is he referring to?

I think he is talking about theological or practical matters for which there is either no possible resolution or no possible unanimous agreement -- debates about the best theory of scheduling a baby would be one of those.

The list of topics is long: health food or organic food?  home school vs. public school? Add to that the "right way" to schedule a baby, the practice or non-practice of Halloween, the evils of rock n roll, whether a wife can ever work outside the home, should girls go to college, appropriate hemlines for women, total abstention or drinking in moderation, should drums be played in worship, the superiority of natural child birth, the inferiority of bottle feeding, and the list goes on world without end, ad nauseum.

Foolish, ignorant controversies that breed quarrels do so because there is not sufficient clarity in the Word to come to a set conclusion for all. There will be disagreement in the end.  Quarrels will abound.

Paul says have nothing to do with these endless debates. 

But why?

First, this is so much fuss and feathers, a diversion from what God has called us to. We are to flee from it.  Clear enough?  Here is why I say that: Paul, writing to Timothy, warns of getting pulled into these cesspools of debate about things that simply are not going to be resolved.

What is it about "nothing" that is hard for me to understand?

Second, our hearts (my heart) are drawn to be passionate about things that do not matter and sleepy about things that do.  After 4 years of blogging, I can assure you I know how to generate blog traffic.  It is not by speaking of the steak with baked potatoes and a salad truth of Scripture.  It is by dealing with topics of contention.  If you want to generate a crowd, start a fight.

We love a fight because we 1. love being right in our own eyes, 2. love convincing others we are right, 3. love thinking that this sidebar issue is really so very very important.  In other words, we love to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

It is not just on moral issues either.  There are theological subtleties in sufficient number to bring us all to contention.

Third, there is not one whit of nourishment for our souls in these sidebars. Jesus did not save us to make us all Halloween non-observers, or rock n roll haters, or whole grain advocates. Here is what he saved us for:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17 ESV)

I have seen those beautiful graces in abstainers and partakers, nursing moms and bottle feeding moms, homeschool and public school families -- but I have never known or seen those graces in people or families who make those issues the center of their souls.

Romans 14 gives us simple direction:

1. Do not judge and do not despise those with whom you have differences in these matters.

2. Welcome those with whom you differ as your brother or sister since Christ has already welcomed them.

3. Do not welcome them for the purpose of disputing these things.

4. Keep you convictions to yourself.  God is pleased that you have them and you live by them.  He is not pleased when you make them points of contention or self-assertion.

5. Serve each other in love despite these differences.

6. Be of one mind about the main thing!

Let us flee from tangents and sidebars and pursue agreement on the main thing.

The Trinity in Creation and Redemption

Now for the second and third implication,

The Triune God and Creation: an overflow of free goodness

This means that God did not create because there was a need in Him. God did not have a deficit to fill.  He was not lonely or sad.  God is not bored, needing something to do. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to add to the perfection and fullness and happiness of God.

 

As Sanders notes, the Trinity is not useful, it is simply how God is God. 

 

One of the sweet sections of this chapter is the quotation from the journal of Susannah Wesley, a home school Mom is early 18^th century England (66-68).  Susannah understood that if God is infinitely sufficient and happy in Himself, then creation was an act of free grace.

 

I think Sanders, as well as a host of theologians of history, is dead on.  If God is utterly perfect and infinitely happy, then the only reason he created and redeemed is out of the overflow of his goodness.  The glad and holy dance of the Godhead (what theologians call the perichoresis) spills over into creation and redemption. 

 

The Triune God and Salvation: an expression of abundant grace

It also means that salvation is not God’s action to fill his lonely heart with the company of friends.   Sanders is apt with the extended metaphor.  He notes,

 

It is unworthy to think that God without us is lonely and bored.  God is not looking for something to do in the happy land of the Trinity.  God did not create the world in order to fill the drafty mansion of heaven with the pitter patter of little feet. (95)

 

God created and God saved to reveal his infinite goodness and grace.  That is exactly what Paul says in Ephesians.  He chose us to present us faultless before him (1:3-4) and so that in the ages to come he might show the riches of his grace through kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (2:7)

 

This is not very ego affirming to me.  But the Lord knows my ego needs little affirmation.  It is already bloated.

 

This is very assuring to me though. The “life of God in itself is the source of all the riches that find the economy of salvation.” (83)

 

God is bigger than you and your salvation.  There is a fullness to God’s Trinitarian life that infinite, boundless, and inconceivable. (74)  It means that God’s infinite fullness is the guarantee of the Gospel.

 

 

The Happy Land of the Trinity

 

Continuing these reflections . . . how is it necessary for our good to know these things? Let me suggest four different ways this applies to me.

 

First,

 

Before the Beginning, the Triune God: a world of love and happiness

Before there was time, God in Trinity, was perfect and complete in himself.  God is love because the Triune God, who was always and ever Father, Son, and Spirit, loved and delighted in each other in perfect unity.

 

Before there was time, there was God, and in God there was love and life and joy.  The incarnation too the life of the Father and Son and made it visible.

 

Francis Schaeffer was given twenty minutes to preach at the Princeton University Chapel service.  While he was not within my sectarian camp, I respected him.  I went to hear him.  In twenty minutes he took us back before the foundation of the world.  He told us that God, being three persons and One God, lived in love and joy and relationship.  Relationship and love were eternal.  That is why we knew love and relationship. 

 

Sanders says, 

 

God the Trinity is the end, the goal, the telos, the omega.  In himself and without any reference to the created world or the plan of salvation, God is that being who exists as the triune love of the Father for the Son in the unity of the Spirit.  The boundless life that God lives in himself, at home, in the happy land of the Trinity above all worlds, is perfect.  It is complete, inexhaustibly full, and infinitely blessed. (62)

 

Or take this quote,

 

The inner life that God lives, in the happy land of the Trinity above all worlds, is a livelier life than any other life. (81)

 

This means that for the Christian, the true God is a reason for joy and love and relationship.  If God were an infinite mind (Vulcan-like for you Star Trek-ies) then there would be no song at creation.  Love would be a creation of God.  Relationship would be a thing dreamed up by God.  But neither love nor relationship would be expressions of God himself.

 

When I was a boy I would sometimes consider how long eternity was.  I would think back to before there was time.  I was not a theologian.  I probably had a child’s version of the big bang.  But I remember this, when I thought back that far I had an overwhelming sense of loneliness.  If there was a God he was there – formless, inactive, present to himself.

 

It is not so.  Such a God is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The Monotheism of the Christian is Trinitarian.  It is lovely.  It is categorically different than the Monotheism of Islam. 

 

God being Triune creates and redeems coherently.  Creation is sacramental.  It is a work of God consistent with the being of God.  Man in the image of God is consistent with the being of God.

 

Redemption is consistent with the being of Gpd.  To say that God is love is not a phrase describing our Savior, it is a description of the eternal relationships within the Godhead.

 

Blogging the Trinity: This makes good news amazing news

 

I am blogging through my reflections on the book pictured  by Fred Sanders.  I cannot say all I wish to say, but I can reflect in some part on what he says.  This entry reflects on chapter 2: Within The Happy Land of the Trinity.

 

In this chapter Sanders insists and demonstrates that the Trinity is the reason the Gospel is Good News.

 

More than practicality

As I read Sanders, the first questions that occurred to me are these: Why all this fuss?  Isn’t the Trinity a doctrine for specialized theologians?  What does it have to do with the common Christian?

 

I am inclined to think that the Trinity is a doctrine for advanced studies. I am a pastor! Moreover, I am inclined to think that unless a doctrine is overtly practical, it is not of much value. 

 

In brief, this means that I place myself over the Word of God as judge, determine what portions or sections of God’s gracious gift to us are of value, and then dismiss the rest. 

 

How utterly arrogant!  All Scripture reflects the wisdom of God.  All Scripture is profitable.  God did not jabber.  He spoke intentionally and wisely.  If he revealed it and inscripturated it, it was for my good. 

 

More than that, I must remember that the Bible is not a theological textbook for advanced studies.  It is a book written to common people, illiterate people, people in the daily course of a life that was nasty, short, and brutish.  It is all practical.

 

Is the Trinity Practical and Basic?

What does the Bible tell us about the Godhead?  Is the Trinity a subject for advanced theological study?  Not at all!

 

I pick up the book of Matthew and find the Trinity in its opening chapters. It is not so much defined as active. Jesus is God with us, conceived by the Spirit.  Jesus is anointed with the Spirit at his baptism and a word from the Father is spoken over him. The list of texts that are clearly Trinitarian is LONG.  Mark and Luke are the same.  Apparently this is a doctrine for new Christians and old Christians.

 

Then I come to John’s Gospel.  It is written as an evangelistic tract!  And John begins with the Trinity. Genesis goes back to the creation. John goes back before the creation to the eternal relationship of the Word to God (1:1-2). 

 

John is the Gospel where eternal Sonship becomes incarnate Sonship (1:14). 

 

John is the Gospel where we get expansive descriptions of the relationship of the Son to the Father (see especially 5:18-30). 

 

John tells us of the relationships within the Godhead.  Jesus tells us that the Father loved him before the foundation of the world (17:24), the Father gave him glory (17:22), that he is in the Father and the Father is in Him (17:21).  Jesus says he was sent by the Father and is returning to the Father (16:28). 

 

John indicates that Father, Son, and Spirit have been eternally Triune as Father, Son, and Spirit.  And that now, in redemptive history, God reveals the internal relations and persons of the Triune God.  The Trinity is the only conclusion possible after men experienced the Incarnation and Pentecost.

 

Apparently God did not think the Trinity to be impractical or advanced study.  He includes it in the basic evangelistic message of the NT.  The Gospel is a message rooted in the Triune God’s eternal existence as Father, Son, and Spirit.

 

Now on to implications . . .

Blogging the Trinity, Loose Ends

 

I grew up in a Presbyterian church.  Each week we recited the Apostles Creed and sang the “Gloria.”  They made no sense to me.  The liturgy created a bad taste.

 

When I came to real faith in Christ in high school, I mistook prejudice created by that bad taste for educated conviction.  Ignorance fed my perspective. I became a sectarian (mistaking a small tributary for the whole river).  Church history began with Paul and James and Peter.  The next significant figure was Billy Graham. There was not much to learn in between. 

 

I was a member of the “holy fellowship of reinventing the theological wheel.” Neither written prayers, nor creedal affirmations, nor common liturgy could find entrance into our appointed rounds of worship. Indeed, I was suspicious of them.  And where I was not suspicious, I assumed they agreed with me.

 

That can produce very little but loose ends.  I was theologically rootless, drifting on the sea of history without a family tree.

 

As an elder, I studied my Bible. But in study and preaching I found texts that did not fit my sectarian system.  I tried to make them fit, but they did not. My allies within my school of thought seemed awkward around these passages.  I became desperate at times. I would venture into reading those “outside the camp.” How humbling it has been to find the best and clearest help in those theologians and exegetes I once despised and held in suspicion.  They addressed my loose ends.

 

One of those loose ends is the doctrine of the Trinity. I was orthodox, but it was a bookshelf doctrine for me. It did not function in my life.  I saw no relation between it and my worship or prayers.  I was a tacit Trinitarian but not an explicit and practicing Trinitarian.

 

I could say I was a functional modalist.  I loved learning about the nature of Christ, the God-man, and resting in his finished work.  I loved considering and calling upon God as my Father.  I increasingly delighted in fellowship with the Spirit.  But I treated them as isolated individuals. I did not relate to the Godhead as the Godhead.  I related to them serially not in parallel. I did not consider I was in fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit at one and the same time.  I was not consciously Trinitarian.

 

There were Trinitarian passages in the Bible that stood on their head and begged for attention.  I preached through John multiple times. John 17 blocked my path repeatedly.  Jesus view of salvation is explicitly Trinitarian, but mine was not, except in passing.

 

The greeting portion of NT letters was of little interest to me, except that they were usually Trinitarian.  There were multiple key texts in the epistles that were clearly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit texts, but I treated them as persons in isolation rather than in relationship. Today I am trying to figure out how I missed them!

My doctrine was what theologians call the Economic Trinity, a description of what each member of the Godhead does in creation and redemption.  I had no clue as to meaning of the eternal relation of Father, Son, and Spirit world without end (the Immanent Trinity).

 

Here is where Sanders has helped.  In his Introduction, he states that his goal is to show is that in the Trinity we find the deep things of God.  The Gospel is the Trinity and the Trinity shapes the Gospel.  He wants to show sectarian Protestants like myself that our own Protestant tradition is rich with Trinitarian reflection and application.

 

He insists that the emphases of evangelicalism only have meaning when set against the grand truth of the Eternal Triunity of God.  When we miss the Trinity our emphases on creation, sin, redemption, justification become only that – emphases.  They lose the deep structure of the Godhead. When we forget the deep structure of the Gospel in the Godhead, our emphases becomes reductionistic, and our simplistic reductions become a very small thing (19). 

 

Sanders wants someone who is Trinitarian in theory to see that they are immersed in Trinitarian reality (34).  He wants a functional Trinitarianism.  Those who are in Christ know about the Trinity and may assume the Trinity – but “not everybody in this position knows they know the Trinity.” (45)  I did not.

 

So what difference does it make?  Let me give one at the outset. 

 

I have always begun the Gospel with, “There is a God and he is your Creator.”  I now think that is the second thought.  The first is, “There is a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  They have lived in love and joy and delight forever.  They have acted to bring us into this fellowship of love and joy. That is the reason what I am telling you is good news.”

 

That may sound ethereal.  But not really.  If Christ died to bring us to God, it makes a difference what that God is like.  And if God is alone, a monad as the Muslims say, then to know him may be overwhelming but it is not a relationship, nor is there joy or love in Him. 

 

But if God is and always has been One God in essence but three persons, who live in love and delight forever, then the end of salvations is entering into the happy land of the Trinity, being lifted up into this circle of fervent love and joy.  And that is good news. But more on that in the next post.

Blogging the Trinity, Introduction

My mind is full of loose ends.  Its not that I am 55 and for the life of me cannot recall why I just walked into the kitchen.  Or why I asked a friend the other day, "Hey, what was the name of that movie with the guy in it?"  Those are loose ends of an aging brain. 

I am talking about theological loose ends.  Theological loose ends describe texts of Scripture that float outside my theological system, texts that seem to be weighty, but have not yet become integrated conclusions. There is nothing worse than a text wrestled into submission to my system. These texts refuse to be manhandled.

Occasionally God sends a book to tie those loose ends together and bind them to the great themes of Scripture.  Such a book is a gift of grace.  Such a book is Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God.

Dr Sanders work is utterly unoriginal.  Thanks be to God.  None of us is called to be original. There is not room for pride of insight here. He is not advocating a new thing.

But though unoriginal, he is faithful.  God has given his grace to be faithful to the things that matter.  In this case the things that matter are not a what but a who -- The Triune God.

Dr Sanders wants to help move evangelicals from tacit Trinitarianism to explicit Triniatrianism.  He wants to do so because the Bible is explicitly Trinitarian.  More than that, he believes the Gospel is Trinitarian.  Moreover, a grasp of the Trinitarian nature of the Gospel moves the "goodness" of the "good news" from amazing to unthinkable.

It has been many years since I have read a book which took my loose ends and bound them together in such a way that I was left in wonder at the greatness of God and his grace.  In the last month, I have often ended my reading of Sanders, with a Bible open, with a heart of wonder.  There were times when silence before this God who is my Father seemed the only right response.

I want to do some reflection on his work, on the Trinity and the Gospel,  I want to think out loud because it is a form of accountable meditation.  What he argues changes my perspective on the Gospel.  It changes it for the good and for truth.  I want to see and believe and taste all the goodness and glory of the Good News that I can.