Practicing the Trinity

If I told you I spoke perfect English, you might be inclined to believe me. If, and only if, every word and statement I spoke followed a precise and perfect sounding diction, or at least as far as you understood perfection of the English language. As long as you never heard me speak otherwise, you might be inclined to believe me. If I built on this perfection expectation of yours, claiming my own heritage of English as the perfect definition of the language, claiming it was part of a geographic region you shared in, you might believe me. If we then heard people within our geographic region speaking errantly, you might start to doubt me, but if I rationalized that certain people within our wider area did not understand the true beauty and perfection of the English you and I share, and shrank our region by a fraction, you might still believe me. In fact you might believe me, even though I continued to shrink the region of perfect English, until it only contained a few perfect specimens, as long as you and I were included in that group. As I long as I maintained that you and I remained in the perfect group, you might never doubt my words. As long as I maintained that you and I had a special place in the world, you would want to believe me because you would have been included. But if I outright claimed that only Americans from Vancouver, Washington living in Hazel Dell spoke perfect English you’d call me crazy and rightly so. Unless you were from Hazel Dell. You’d want to believe what I said is true.

The truth about language and Christianity is that there’s no such thing as perfection, only time-worn practice and clear standards. Just as the English language has grammatical rules defining coherent thought, vocabulary and diction, so too does Christianity have its own formative standards. There is a defined standard of what is and what is not Christian. But what is that standard? What sits at the core of Christianity? Is it Jesus? The Bible? Community? A geographic location? A culture? Is it possible that it is all of these things, and yet none of them? For the past several years I’ve been asking myself these questions, “What sits at the core of Christianity that defines the rest of its practice? What is the least reducible part upon which to build the rest? Once we find that irreducible part how does it change and challenge us to live as Christians?” At University I tried to find the answer through research and history. In my years outside the classroom I’ve been watching Christians of various kinds, looking at what they practice, not just what they preach. It is here in the reality of the conflict between Word and People I’ve found my answer. The answer has always been with us. From the first chapters of Genesis to the last words of Revelation, it’s always been there. It’s just taken me twenty-five years to see it and understand it impacts every aspect of what Christians believe and practice. It has also taken the study of Christian history for me to see it at work on a grand scale, to see how this one thing has been used to correct the Church in its darkest hours, bringing light to dark situations, which is still the desire of Christians today. This single thing is the Trinity: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The first thing I notice about my singular statement is that it’s not just a plural, it’s a triple. The Trinity is one thing. Even though the Trinity is technically not a thing at all, it’s a someone. Or perhaps it would be better to explain that the Trinity, AKA God,  is so unlike all other things and someones we know that God is hard to define, not because we haven’t tried hard enough, but because our language and thoughts are insufficient to describe something that is not definable. We cannot fully contain God with our words, that is why God is undefinable, yet knowable. We have enough descriptions to know who God is and who God is not. Although we may not be able to completely and separately define all aspects of the Trinity, we can describe the three basic parts, learning much about who God is and how we practice who God is in the process. Recognizing that God is greater than we are is the first step on this path, that we cannot change who God is, but He can change who we are. Our natural resistance to the nature of God is that we want him to be like us, which is understandable, and why the Trinity includes God becoming like us. God gave us a complete description of Himself in the person of Jesus, or at least a description we can wrap our minds around.

Jesus is God. Let me say that again. Jesus is God. Jesus is not like God, Jesus is God. This is what Jesus claimed about himself. Not that he was a firstborn, or the first child, or some other kind of offspring, but fully God incarnate. When the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God, it means Jesus is the inheritor of the throne, which means Jesus is of the Father and is the Father. In Greco-Roman culture only a Son can inherit, and only a Son which is fully and legitimately of the Father. Which means that Jesus, although fully human, is fully God. I say is, because as fully God Jesus is alive. God made himself a man to bear the sin of humanity. As we read in the Law only perfection can atone for imperfection. Imperfection is sin. As such the reason God became man was to redeem humanity: to heal our imperfection. The life of Jesus shows us how to live out the Law. The purpose of the Law is to show us what is good and right, and the fulfillment of the Law is Jesus: the redemption and healing of broken humanity. The life of Jesus shows us that there are some things only God can do, and as hard as we may try unless God works on our behalf, which He has, we will always come up short. This shortness is coming up short of the way God designed creation to be. Good. The design of creation by the Creator is good. The reality is that all of creation is no longer good, but broken. This brokenness can be restored through Jesus and living out the fullness of God’s Law. This is the living example we see in Jesus, and the living example we see practiced by those who follow him.

Where did this Law come from? For there to be a Law there has to be a Law giver. A designer, an architect, the someone who put it all together. This is God the Father. God the Father is the architect, and the best way to understand the architect is to study his designs. His greatest readable, digestible design is His Word. God the Father has authored all of creation, but it is through his Word we get an accurate picture of who He is. For in His Word we see plain descriptions and historical accounts of how God has interacted with Humanity. It is by studying His Word we come to understand who He is.

The history of God’s interaction with humanity is not limited to reading and acting out the Law, but there is another component that is necessary to understanding God. The Holy Spirit. Throughout the Word we see God interacting with humanity through raw displays of power. I say raw, because there’s something about the Holy Spirit that defies logic and reason, going beyond our religious habits and behaviors, tapping into the experiential knowledge that God is real. This is the Holy Spirit. The raw experience and presence of God. The uncooked, unaltered, unexplainable, palpable touch of God. It is only through connection to God, we see his Spirit at work. We do not have to believe in the Holy Spirit to see its effects, but those who are connected to God rightly recognize his raw power at work.

These three descriptions of God form the basis of what I believe it means to practice the Trinity. Looking over my descriptions, I still see something lacking, something I can’t put into words. There’s a fullness not present in my descriptions, not only because there’s more to God than a few short words, but because I will never be fully able to describe God. There is more to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Even as I try to write separate descriptions of the Trinity, my descriptions still bleed into one another. This is how it’s supposed to be. Even though the Trinity is a triple, it’s still a single. For was it not the Holy Spirit working through men that the Word of God became Holy Scripture and Bible? Was not Jesus an author of the dawning of creation? Does not the Father make himself manifest through Spirit and Son? On and on we could go, listing how the Trinity intertwines, informs, and enriches our definitions of each part. This is why the Trinity is a single entity: we cannot pull it apart.

How is it then, that we should practice this Trinity? If the Trinity teaches us anything about the life of a Christian, it is that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit need to be present in an inseparable way. As such there are three essential disciplines a Christian should practice. These disciplines inform each other, shape each other, and mold the person and people putting them into practice. These disciples are simple, practicable, and in their basicness ordinary, but when they work together and are practiced as part of relationship with God the results are incredible. They transform nations by transforming people by transforming persons for God’s work: the healing and redemption of humanity. For the practice of God is not just about self-actualization, but communal change, and not just communal change, but the restoration of all humanity. It’s a grand scale practice found on an individual and person-to-person level.

The practice of the Trinity comes from these three things: prayer, study of Scripture, and living in community. Studying Scripture is the practice of knowing God the Father. Prayer is the practice of knowing the Holy Spirit. Living in Community is the practice of knowing the Son. Too often we elevate one part of the Trinity over the other, instead of letting all parts of the Trinity transform us. When we neglect one of the practices of the Trinity, we lose the power of the whole thing. For without the communal practice of living out our faith, our prayers and Scripture readings become anemic. Without study of the Scripture we forget how to pray and how to live out our faith. Without prayer studying Scripture and living like Jesus lack power and purpose. We cannot pick and choose the parts of the Trinity we want to practice; we must practice the whole thing.

Looking backward through history we can see times and places where people neglected or overemphasized pieces of the Trinity. Times when the community of Christ forgot the importance of living the Word. Times when sharing and living by the Word became legalism. Times when the overemphasis of the Spirit drowned believers in unpracticeable nonsense. These historical issues, and many more just like them, are the same reasons the Church flounders today. Yet it is also because of the practice of the Trinity the Church flourishes. For while we may neglect important pieces of who God is, when we bring these things back into practice believers and churches flourish because they are rightly relating to God and practicing that relationship. This is the core of the Christian faith: practicing our relationship with God. Our practice is molded and shaped by who God is; it is when we forget who God is that we forget how to practice.

My goal for the rest of our series is to look at the persons of the Trinity, and how they shape our practice. In my next blog I will look at the practice of the Holy Spirit: prayer.