Clayton Presbyterian Church
June 11, 2006—Trinity Sunday
Doctrine
I want to take on a potentially boring subject this morning. I want to talk about doctrine. Just the word alone causes some people to start feeling drowsy. However, it can actually cause a strong reaction in other people. These people only see doctrine as something that causes arguments and feuds, and so they avoid it altogether.
But I don’t want you to be scared. When I say doctrine, what I mean is correct teaching or understanding. And what I want to look at today is our understanding about God. For Christians our doctrine of God, that is our understanding of God, is that of the Trinity. We believe that God is Three in One and One in Three. This is another way of saying that we believe in one God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Now the Trinity, as much as any teaching of the church, makes people scratch their heads for a while, and then all to often, just forget it.
But I recently read a quote from Vernon Grounds on the Trinity. He said,
Explain the Trinity? We can't even begin. We can only accept it--a mystery, disclosed in Scripture. It should be no surprise that the triune Being of God baffles our finite minds. We should be surprised, rather, if we could understand the nature of our Creator. He would be a two-bit deity, not the fathomless Source of all reality. (“Radical Commitment,” Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 4.)
His point is that if God is really God, then why should we expect him to fit in our little mental boxes. He warns us of danger whenever we are tempted to think of God in any other way than he is presented in the Bible, just because he doesn’t conform neatly to our pre-made mental categories.
So with that warning, I want to explore with you this morning the questions of why we say that God is triune, and what difference it makes. And I think that you will discover that this doctrine is actually a great treasure trove, one that you won’t pass over so quickly next time. And maybe, just maybe, you won’t think of “doctrine” as a bad word.
Our text comes from the same chapter as last week, John 14. Jesus has just told his disciples that he is going away to his Heavenly Father and that he is going to prepare a place for them.
Scripture: John 14:4-11; 16-20
4 And you know the way to the place where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves...
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (NRSV)
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
God or Lunatic: You Decide
In this passage Jesus is painting a picture of his relationship with God and it is incredible close and intimate. He twice says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Now some religious holy man might say, “God is in me.” But, no one has ever said, “I am in God.” It is too preposterous if it were not true.
I had a conversation this week with someone and they were relating a something that they heard that it was really Paul that made Jesus out to be the Son of God. But we see here in this text that it is Jesus himself who is making these audacious claims. Over and over again in the gospels he claims to have God’s own authority.
C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, wrote about how we understand Jesus:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Lewis’ point is that if we want to cast Jesus as if he is just a moral teacher we have to do away with so many things which he said. Then, how great of a teacher can he be if you have to do away with all of the things that he said about himself?
Really God
From the very beginning, Christians worshipped Jesus—that in and of itself says that they saw Jesus as God. Because the first Christians were Jews and if there is one rock-solid belief for Jews is that there is ONLY one God. So when the early Christians worshipped him they were declaring him to be God.
But after a couple of centuries there other people who said, “Well, Jesus is LIKE God.” Or, “Jesus is semi-divine, but not fully God like the Father is.” And so, the early church came together in a great church council at a place in present-day Turkey in a place called Nicaea. They deliberated and thought and discussed the question, “How important is it for us to insist that Jesus was as fully God as the Father?” They concluded that they had no choice, because the whole of the Christian faith depended upon it. And some of the reasons appear right here in our text this morning.
Jesus is telling his followers that he is going away to his Father and he will prepare a place there for them. Then he tells them that they know the way to this place. Thomas, who seems to be the critical thinker, and possibly skeptic, of the group objects, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how could we possibly know the way?”
To this Jesus utters a famous response, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This is the clearest expression of a truth that is found consistently throughout the Bible, that Christ is the only way to God. Now, why do we say this? Is it because of our great pride? Is it because we want to have a corner on the truth? Is it from an innate desire to be imperialistic and obnoxious? Perhaps at times we might be guilty of some of these things, but the real reason is far more factual and significant.
We see this reason clearly if we look back at the text. After Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus continues in verse 7 “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Jesus is equating knowing him to knowing the Father.
This time, Philip jumps in and says, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Philip is not really understanding what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying that he is the full expression of who God is and what God is about.
But to clarify, Jesus responds to Philip and says in some exasperation, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” He says it plainly, when you look at Jesus, you see God. This is an audacious thing to say, but then again it is true.
At the heart of this issue is the question, do we really know about God or not? Can we really know what God is like, or not? If you say that we can’t, then you are an agnostic, because that is what the word ‘agnostic’ means, being without knowledge. But if you say that we can know about God, how do we learn about him?
The heart of the Christian gospel is that God came in person that we might meet him and encounter him and know him. It is SO important that you understand this one point, because Christianity rises and falls on this single issue of God becoming incarnate, that is ‘in the flesh’, and living among us.
An Internet Analogy
Let me give you an analogy from today. Imagine that you are single and are looking for a spouse. You have no luck with the people that you know, so you go on the internet and look to meet someone. You sign up for a service who matches you with someone who shares all of your interests. This person lives far away and so you strike up an ongoing email conversation. You learn a great deal about this person and find that they are very interested in you and your life, and not just about theirs. Things progress to the point where you decide to take the momentous step of meeting face to face. This is a big step because you can tell so much about another person when you are face to face that you never know when just reading their words or even talking on the phone. There is body language that relates their sense of confidence and comfort. There are all of those non-verbal clues that tell you how the other person is responding to what you say. You are excited.
The day finally comes and you are sitting at restaurant waiting, when someone else sits down across from you. They explain that your internet friend could not make it, but this person is here as their personal representative. So, you should think of them as if it were your friend sitting there, since this person has known your friend a long time.
How would you feel about this? Would it work? Of course not! No one can stand in for someone else fully. We might have a lawyer stand in for us to represent us in a legal situation. Or a spokesman is a representative for someone position to the public. But all of these things are about narrow matters and specific issues, not about close, personal relationships, which depend upon the presence of the whole person.
Do you see the parallel? God is the one whom we have known from a distance. We have writings from him. We have seen some of his handiwork. But if we are to know him personally and fully, we must meet him in person, and not just hear from a friend of his. If Jesus were just a moral teacher, or anything other than God himself, then he would not be a reliable source of knowledge about God. For only God can represent and reveal himself.
This is who Jesus is: God in person, God in the flesh, whom we can meet and encounter and know personally and fully. God gives himself to be known and loved by us in Jesus Christ. For, it is not just about knowing God but loving him, and being loved by him. This is what God wants for us. He wants for us to be in a fully engaging, consuming, and fulfilling relationship with him. It is anything but a long distance affair.
But not everyone believes this.
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
Two researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion, right here at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, interviewed over 3,000 teenagers about their religious beliefs and have written up their findings in a new book. The social scientists summed up the teens' beliefs in five points:
(1) A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on Earth.
(2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
(3) The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself.
(4) God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
(5) Good people go to heaven when they die.
Commenting on the study, Gene Edward Veith writes, "Even these secular researchers recognized that this creed is a far cry from Christianity, with no place for sin, judgment, salvation, or Christ. Instead, most teenagers believe in a combination of works righteousness, religion as psychological well-being, and a distant, non-interfering god. Or, to use a technical term, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." (Gene Edward Veith, "A Nation of Deists," World (6-25-05)).
They say “moralistic” because most teens, and likely most Americans, think that what God mainly expects us from us is to be good. “Therapeutic” because we tend to believe that the goal in life is to be happy and not to have problems or to suffer, even if that suffering benefits others. “Deism” means that God creates the world, but he is not all of that involved. He might help, but it is help from a distance.
This is not the God that Jesus paints. In this passage Jesus not only says that if we see him, we see the Father, but something even more astounding. In verse 20 he says, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Jesus is saying that just as the Father in him and he is in the Father, so we too will be in God.
United with God in Christ
When Christ lives in us and we are united with him in this mystical union, we will be united with God, because Jesus is fully God. In Jesus God takes us up into his divine life! Just thinking about his should make your head swim and your heart soar.
This is what the doctrine of the Trinity has been about—trying to capture the truth that Jesus is fully God in such a way that the Father is no less God. And the reason it is so important is because if Jesus wasn’t who he said that he was, then he was a lunatic. If he was who he said that he was, however, then we have the full expression of what God is like in Jesus. He is firm, but loving. He is our judge, but he is forgiving. He is cut to the heart by our disobedience, but he is faithful ever still. And, he wants us to know him personally and fully.
Theologian Alister McGrath has said, “Christianity is not, and never has been, about finding the right combination of words! It is about encountering the living and loving God.” (Understanding Doctrine: What It Is. Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 3.)
God did something irrevocable and irreversible in Jesus. Jesus’ witness to God is irreplaceable. He was one of a kind. Hopefully you find him irresistible. Because that is what he thinks of you.