Trinity Sunday
Isaac Newton once wrote in a letter,
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.[1]
What he meant was that he was building on the thinking and discoveries of those who have gone before him. This is ultimately what education should be. We should be learning from those who went before us, so we can benefit from their struggle, so that we can then build on that knowledge.
Imagine someone who has an old pair of binoculars, and they set out to become a world class astronomer, but they want to start from scratch. They don’t want to be influenced by anyone else who came before them. They refuse to read any astronomy books, or take any classes on astronomy. They just go into their back yard at night and start looking at the sky. … Even if that person is a genius, they will only be able to get so far. … If that person is willing to learn from those who came before them, however, then they will be able to start closer to where the previous generation of astronomers left off.[2] And those astronomers built on those who came before them, who learned from the previous generation of astronomers, and so on.
We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us, and that allows us to see a bit further. … This isn’t to say that they didn’t make mistakes, but we have an incredible wealth of knowledge available to us because of what we have inherited from those who have come before us.
This is the value of tradition at its best. At its best, it allows us to stand on the shoulders of giants. We can benefit from the faithful study and thinking of those who have gone before us. We can benefit from the intellectual and prayerful wrestling of the community that came before us as they tried to understand the experiences of those who wrote Scripture and experienced Jesus.
Tradition also recognizes and honours our spiritual mothers and fathers. The writer GK Chesterton once wrote,
Imagine someone who has an old pair of binoculars, and they set out to become a world class astronomer, but they want to start from scratch. They don’t want to be influenced by anyone else who came before them. They refuse to read any astronomy books, or take any classes on astronomy. They just go into their back yard at night and start looking at the sky. … Even if that person is a genius, they will only be able to get so far. … If that person is willing to learn from those who came before them, however, then they will be able to start closer to where the previous generation of astronomers left off.[2] And those astronomers built on those who came before them, who learned from the previous generation of astronomers, and so on.
We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us, and that allows us to see a bit further. … This isn’t to say that they didn’t make mistakes, but we have an incredible wealth of knowledge available to us because of what we have inherited from those who have come before us.
This is the value of tradition at its best. At its best, it allows us to stand on the shoulders of giants. We can benefit from the faithful study and thinking of those who have gone before us. We can benefit from the intellectual and prayerful wrestling of the community that came before us as they tried to understand the experiences of those who wrote Scripture and experienced Jesus.
Tradition also recognizes and honours our spiritual mothers and fathers. The writer GK Chesterton once wrote,
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about”.[3]
Tradition recognizes that we are a part of a chain. We receive from those who have gone before us, and we have the responsibility of faithfully handing on what we have received.
When we talk about tradition and doctrine, this is what we mean. Modern astronomers who learn from Isaac Newton, and Galileo, Copernicus, and Stephen Hawking are all leaning on a tradition. They are leaning on the wisdom of those who came before them, and they build on that legacy.
Tradition also means that we don’t have to use a lot of energy trying to answer questions that have already been dealt with. We can look at what those before us have found. We can look at the map they left us, and we can see where the various paths lead us. We can see which ones are dead ends, and which ones lead us on further. We don’t have to go and explore them all on our own. We can trust the map that was left to us. … And we have the added benefit of the promise that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. In some mysterious way, we aren’t doing this merely by our own power.
When we deal with a doctrine like the Trinity we are dealing with a map that has been left to us by those who have come before us. And that map can seem strange to look at until we try to make a number of passages of Scripture sit alongside each other.
Take our Gospel passage, for example (Jn 16:12-15). Jesus says that the Spirit of truth will come and tell the disciples things that he would like to tell them, but they aren’t ready for those things yet, so the Spirit of truth will come to tell those things when they are ready. This Spirit speaks what he hears. He doesn’t speak on his own. The Spirit will glorify Jesus. Jesus says, “All that the Father has is mine”. The Spirit will take what belongs to Jesus, which is also the Father’s, and he will declare that to the disciples of Jesus when they are ready.
So, we have this interweaving of Father, Spirit, and Jesus. The Spirit is called a “Him”, which says that this is a person and not an impersonal power. There is an intimacy between the Spirit and Jesus such that Jesus knows what the Spirit is going to do. The Spirit doesn’t act on his own, so there is a kind of community. He says what he hears, and glorifies Jesus. And a similar intimacy exists between the Father and Jesus. “All” doesn’t leave much out. “All” that the Father has belongs to Jesus. … What are we to make of this relationship between Jesus, Spirit, and Father? It’s also important to consider this alongside the original context into which John is writing.
The first Christians were all Jewish. They never actually believed they were a part of a new religion. They believed they were a part of a further development of Judaism. They were in a new era- a new covenant. Just as the covenant on Mt. Sinai with Moses was a development from the covenant with Abraham. … To them, the Messiah has now come, but they still considered themselves Jews. … One of the things that set Judaism apart from other religions that surrounded them was that they believed in the worship of only one God. The Ten Commandments begin with
When we talk about tradition and doctrine, this is what we mean. Modern astronomers who learn from Isaac Newton, and Galileo, Copernicus, and Stephen Hawking are all leaning on a tradition. They are leaning on the wisdom of those who came before them, and they build on that legacy.
Tradition also means that we don’t have to use a lot of energy trying to answer questions that have already been dealt with. We can look at what those before us have found. We can look at the map they left us, and we can see where the various paths lead us. We can see which ones are dead ends, and which ones lead us on further. We don’t have to go and explore them all on our own. We can trust the map that was left to us. … And we have the added benefit of the promise that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. In some mysterious way, we aren’t doing this merely by our own power.
When we deal with a doctrine like the Trinity we are dealing with a map that has been left to us by those who have come before us. And that map can seem strange to look at until we try to make a number of passages of Scripture sit alongside each other.
Take our Gospel passage, for example (Jn 16:12-15). Jesus says that the Spirit of truth will come and tell the disciples things that he would like to tell them, but they aren’t ready for those things yet, so the Spirit of truth will come to tell those things when they are ready. This Spirit speaks what he hears. He doesn’t speak on his own. The Spirit will glorify Jesus. Jesus says, “All that the Father has is mine”. The Spirit will take what belongs to Jesus, which is also the Father’s, and he will declare that to the disciples of Jesus when they are ready.
So, we have this interweaving of Father, Spirit, and Jesus. The Spirit is called a “Him”, which says that this is a person and not an impersonal power. There is an intimacy between the Spirit and Jesus such that Jesus knows what the Spirit is going to do. The Spirit doesn’t act on his own, so there is a kind of community. He says what he hears, and glorifies Jesus. And a similar intimacy exists between the Father and Jesus. “All” doesn’t leave much out. “All” that the Father has belongs to Jesus. … What are we to make of this relationship between Jesus, Spirit, and Father? It’s also important to consider this alongside the original context into which John is writing.
The first Christians were all Jewish. They never actually believed they were a part of a new religion. They believed they were a part of a further development of Judaism. They were in a new era- a new covenant. Just as the covenant on Mt. Sinai with Moses was a development from the covenant with Abraham. … To them, the Messiah has now come, but they still considered themselves Jews. … One of the things that set Judaism apart from other religions that surrounded them was that they believed in the worship of only one God. The Ten Commandments begin with
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me…” (Ex 20:2-3, 5).
We read in Isaiah 45:21-22,
“…there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other”.
Monotheism was foundational to what it meant to be Jewish. The early Christians had no sense that they were giving up on worshipping one God and one God alone.
But then we have passages like our Gospel reading for today and we see that there is a unique relationship between Father, Spirit, and Jesus, that makes monotheism seem a bit more complicated. They seem to be alongside each other in a very unique way. And this isn’t the only place they saw this. For example, In the letter to the Colossians we read that Jesus
But then we have passages like our Gospel reading for today and we see that there is a unique relationship between Father, Spirit, and Jesus, that makes monotheism seem a bit more complicated. They seem to be alongside each other in a very unique way. And this isn’t the only place they saw this. For example, In the letter to the Colossians we read that Jesus
“is the image of the invisible God… all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col1:15, 16-17).
Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
“though [Jesus] was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited” (Phil 2:6).
At he beginning of John Jesus is described as “the Word”, we read,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1).
And there are many other places we could point to, including hints towards plurality in God in the Old Testament such as in the creation of human beings and the Lord visiting Abraham in Genesis.
The Holy Spirit is also equated with God. As I pointed out earlier, the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a person, rather than an impersonal force. The Spirit also does the things that God does- participating in the creation of the world, making human beings holy, giving light and life, dwelling in the saints as in a temple, joining believers to Jesus, being internal to God as a human’s “spirit” is to a human being, and doing all that God does in general.[4] If the two options to choose by are ‘creature’ or ‘God’, His actions all seem to point to God.
From the beginning there was a threeness about Christian Worship. While not defined in detail, the concept of the Trinity really seems to have come from the experience of the early Christians with God. God was revealing himself to these followers of Jesus, and as they encountered God they saw both a unity (in that they were not giving up on monotheism), and also had this threeness about their understanding of the God they worshipped. … It took Christians years of reflecting to try to understand this oneness and threeness working together. What they came up with was the doctrine of the Trinity. It was the map they shaped from their experiences in worship and faithful reflection. And that map has been handed onto us so we can use it as we come across passages like our Gospel reading today. We don’t necessarily have to wrestle through this the same way those early believers did. We can benefit from the faithful work they have done and use the map that they handed onto us. The map doesn’t give every detail. There is still much more to explore, but it shows us the roads that aren’t dead ends.
Really what the idea of the Trinity does is it gives us language to talk about God. It helps us to know when we are talking about God and when we have stopped talking about the God Jesus showed the early disciples. The language of the Trinity gives us language to talk about God. It is a guideline for speaking about God. When we ask, “what is it?” We say “God”. When we ask, “Who is it?” we say “Father, Son, Spirit”. God is both one and three- One in nature, and three in persons. This guides us as we read through the Scriptures, and as we approach God in worship. AMEN.
[1] Newton wrote this in 1675 to a fellow scientist Robert Hooke. While this phrase is popularly attributed to Newton, it actually predates him and likely originated with Bernard of Chartes in the 12th century.
[2] CS Lewis uses this image in his book Mere Christianity for a different reason- “like a man who has no instrument but an old pair of field glasses setting out to put all the real astronomers right. He may be a clever chap-he may be cleverer than some of the real astronomers, but he's not giving himself a chance.”
[3] From his book Orthodoxy
[4] Yeago, Apostolic Faith (not yet published) 144-145.
The Holy Spirit is also equated with God. As I pointed out earlier, the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a person, rather than an impersonal force. The Spirit also does the things that God does- participating in the creation of the world, making human beings holy, giving light and life, dwelling in the saints as in a temple, joining believers to Jesus, being internal to God as a human’s “spirit” is to a human being, and doing all that God does in general.[4] If the two options to choose by are ‘creature’ or ‘God’, His actions all seem to point to God.
From the beginning there was a threeness about Christian Worship. While not defined in detail, the concept of the Trinity really seems to have come from the experience of the early Christians with God. God was revealing himself to these followers of Jesus, and as they encountered God they saw both a unity (in that they were not giving up on monotheism), and also had this threeness about their understanding of the God they worshipped. … It took Christians years of reflecting to try to understand this oneness and threeness working together. What they came up with was the doctrine of the Trinity. It was the map they shaped from their experiences in worship and faithful reflection. And that map has been handed onto us so we can use it as we come across passages like our Gospel reading today. We don’t necessarily have to wrestle through this the same way those early believers did. We can benefit from the faithful work they have done and use the map that they handed onto us. The map doesn’t give every detail. There is still much more to explore, but it shows us the roads that aren’t dead ends.
Really what the idea of the Trinity does is it gives us language to talk about God. It helps us to know when we are talking about God and when we have stopped talking about the God Jesus showed the early disciples. The language of the Trinity gives us language to talk about God. It is a guideline for speaking about God. When we ask, “what is it?” We say “God”. When we ask, “Who is it?” we say “Father, Son, Spirit”. God is both one and three- One in nature, and three in persons. This guides us as we read through the Scriptures, and as we approach God in worship. AMEN.
[1] Newton wrote this in 1675 to a fellow scientist Robert Hooke. While this phrase is popularly attributed to Newton, it actually predates him and likely originated with Bernard of Chartes in the 12th century.
[2] CS Lewis uses this image in his book Mere Christianity for a different reason- “like a man who has no instrument but an old pair of field glasses setting out to put all the real astronomers right. He may be a clever chap-he may be cleverer than some of the real astronomers, but he's not giving himself a chance.”
[3] From his book Orthodoxy
[4] Yeago, Apostolic Faith (not yet published) 144-145.
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