The Trinity - Just a Doctrine?

Ask ten average Christians in ten average churches to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, and you’ll probably get ten different explanations. Most Christians “accept” the Trinity as orthodox Christian doctrine. But they would be at a loss to explain why the doctrine matters or how it affects their Christian lives.

On the one hand, the doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to be the center of faith. On the other hand, one could dispense with the doctrine of the Trinity as false and the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unaffected.

And no wonder. The doctrine is hard to understand, and most discussions about it are…well…kind of boring. For the average Christian, the kind of people who have families to feed, jobs to get to, and lives to live, what difference does an ancient doctrine make anyway? God is God, isn’t He? Isn’t that enough? If He happens to be Father, Son and Spirit instead of just Father, well, fine, but that doesn’t really change anything from our end, does it?

Actually, it does matter. It matters a lot – which is exactly what you’d expect me to say since, after all, why else would I be writing an article about an ancient, kind of boring doctrine?

First, let’s dispense with going through all the biblical proof that the doctrine is correct. You can find that elsewhere. Instead, let’s spend some time talking about why the doctrine of the Trinity matters, and especially why it matters to you.

Let’s start by taking a look at the common idea that God is a single, solitary being “out there” somewhere, looking down on Earth, watching us, judging us. Bette Midler put it to music in the chorus to her tune “From a Distance” with the lyrics, “And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance.”

This God comes in three main flavors: first, vanilla, the one who just kind of wound up the universe and then stretched out in the heavenly gazebo for a few-billion year nap. (Who knows, maybe He wakes up once in a while and does something nice, kind of like the part George Burns portrayed in the film “Oh God”).

Second, red hot cinnamon, the one who keeps careful tabs on everything everybody does, and since everybody blows it now and then, He gets madder and madder. His worshippers say He takes joy in watching people who offend Him slowly roast but never quite get done.

Third is apricot, the one who might or might not like you depending on many things, none of which are all that clear to anybody. He’s the one that the St. Louis Rams fans pray to for touchdowns.

Sometimes this God comes in an alternate flavor, water. You might think water isn’t a flavor. The variety of colors is endless, but it always tastes watery. This God is more of an abstract principle than a supreme being, kind of a “spirit of everything” that you can try to get in touch with if you empty your head of all thoughts and sit still long enough without going to sleep.

The God of the Bible is not like any of these descriptions. The God of the Bible is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three divine Persons share perfect love, joy unity peace, and fellowship. And the reason that’s important to know is that when the Bible talks about us being “in Christ” it means that we get to take part in that divine kind of life by being born again with a new divine nature because Jesus has come to live right within us. Just as Christ is the beloved of the Father, so are we too, because Christ is in a living union with us.

That means that you are included in the household of God. It means you’re not an outsider or a stranger. You’re not even a respected guest. You’re one of the kids with free run of the house, the grounds, and the fridge.

The trouble is, you probably have a hard time believing that. You know that you do @#$%&* things. You know even if Christ lives in your human spirit, your soul has so much junk left to clean out that you think God doesn’t like you. How could He, you figure. You don’t even like yourself. So based on your assessment of your “goodness/badness” ratio, you determine that God is more than likely mad at you and FAR more than likely mad at all those other @#$%&* types you meet in traffic every day.

But the whole point of God letting us know through the Scriptures that He is Father, Son and Spirit, and not just “God out there somewhere,” is so we’d know He really does love us and we really are on the ins with Him. The Son of God now lives in every true Christian. And as one of us, but still God, only God in the flesh now, He dragged this whole ragged army called the “Church – the Body of Christ” home to the Father right through the front door.

No, we didn’t deserve it and no, we didn’t earn it. We didn’t even ask for it. But He did it anyway, because that’s the exact reason He made us in the first place – so He could share with us the life He has shared eternally with the Father and the Spirit. That’s why He tells us He made us in His image (Genesis 1:26).

Salvation isn’t about a change of location, floating off to some secret set of coordinates in the Delta Quadrant called heaven, as if that would solve all our problems. And it’s not about a new super government patrolled by angelic cops who never miss an infraction of the divine penal code.

Salvation is about getting rebirthed into God’s family and learning how to live in it. And the Trinity is at the heart of it. The Father (Let’s get technical – the First Person of the Godhead) loves us so much in spite of our screw-ups, that he sent the Son (the Second Person of the Godhead) to live in our human spirit and direct and empower us, and He sent the Spirit to live in our souls and teach us how to trust Christ so that we can live in God’s family and enjoy it like we were created to do instead of being screw-ups forever.

In other words, the God of the Bible is not three separate Gods, where one, the temper challenged, unpredictable Father, is so furious at humans that He just has to kill somebody in order to calm down, so the sweet, loving Son, seeing Dad about to lose it, steps up and says, “Okay, if you’ve got to kill someone, then kill me, but spare these people.”

The doctrine of the Trinity is important precisely because it keeps us from seeing God in such a ridiculous way, and yet, that is how a whole lot of people DO see God. And they wind up with all kinds of messed up, funky and scary ideas about who God is and what He might be cooking up to do to them some day.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” When we think of God in any other way than the way He revealed Himself in the Bible – as the Father, Son and Spirit who created us and redeemed us and have made us to share their joy through our living union with Jesus Christ – we’re going to find these words of Jesus daunting and discouraging.

That’s why the doctrine of the Trinity matters. Without it, we might as well join the Hittites wondering whether Baal will flood out the crops with storms this year or burn them out with lightning. In Jesus Christ, God has taken up our cause as His own. We have been birthed as children of the Father, brothers and sisters of our older Brother and full members of the household of God.

With Paul, we can only say, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”

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