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February 11, 2007
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Relationships
God in Relationship: The Trinity (Part I)
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"The Grammar of the Christian Faith"
Genesis 1: 1 - 2:1
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When I went to my German class as a freshman in high school I had forgotten all the German I had learned in my 7th grade year and was a little shocked when Frau Rector began class by talking to us in German. She said, "Ich Heisse Frau Rector. Wie Heisst Du?" She would address this question to one of the members of the class and then to another and then another.
Eventually we understood that she was telling us her name and asking what our names were and we began to form sentences that first day of class. We did not know how we were forming the sentences, but like children learn language we simply mimicked the sounds she made. We did not know we were using certain endings on the words in those sentences to correspond to the other words but beginning day one we were speaking German.
As the year progressed we had to backtrack to learn the alphabet and numbers in German and then some vocabulary and then began the study of grammar - how the word arrangement in sentences demanded certain endings and those endings on the verbs and objects and articles communicated something particular.
In learning any language there is the need eventually to learn its grammar.
It was the theologian Karl Barth who said that there is a grammar to the Christian faith.
He was not speaking of word order or verb endings or that we all have our own vocabulary, although in many ways we do have a language all our own in the church which we have to continually learn how to share with those with no church experience.
But he said the grammar of the Christian faith is the holy Trinity - that is the idea that God has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and that this God is at once three persons while being One God.
For him to state this meant that he did not think the idea of Trinity was something that could be tossed aside, not dealt with, not looked at because of being too far fetched or too outdated or too hard to understand. As some theological texts put a chapter about trinity as an appendix to the whole of the thought presented. Rather, he believed wholeheartedly that just as you cannot learn a foreign language without understanding the grammar of that language, so you cannot understand the Christian faith unless you come to understand that God has revealed himself to us as Trinity. As another early Christian leader, St. Augustine used to state, we must speak of Trinity not because we are able to fathom it with overweening confidence, but because we cannot keep silence on a matter so central to faith (quoted by Oden, The Living God, Peabody, MA: Prince Press, c.01, p. 181, ubp).
- Now you may be aware of the fact that this idea of the Trinity has come on some rocky times, not just from those who are in movements such as the Jehovah Witnesses which deny aspects of the Christian faith, but from some in the church who claim that the idea of Trinity was thrust upon the early church somewhere around the council of NIcaea in 325 AD. Some will tell you, the word Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible and therefore believe the whole idea false.
To believe the trinity is false because that word is not found in Scripture would be like denying the past tense exists in the English language, because you have not learned to use it.
The past tense would not cease to be just because someone did not believe it to be true, and likewise, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not cease to be who He claims to be just because people do not believe Him. And although the word Trinity is not found in the text, it was a word actually created after that text was canonized, the idea is found throughout the text and has been spoken of throughout the church since the first century. Indeed when people come to faith in Jesus Christ, they often speak of God as the three and one God. They will make allusions to the love of God they have experienced, the fact they were made by God, thus alluding to the Father; and allusions to the saving power experienced through Jesus Christ who saved them from their sins; and then to the work of God's Holy Spirit who abides with them, who speaks to them and leads them into all truth. They may not differentiate between the names of God as they thus speak, but in their speech you can detect each member of Trinity.
So, this grammar of the faith is already evident in the language spoken by those who have met the Lord, but today we will begin to capture this grammar even in the first chapter of the Bible.
Clearly this passage was not written to reveal the triune character of God, but to announce the reality of this God who created all things. But as we read the chapter we cannot help but notice what theologians have pointed to for thousands of years as a place that attests to the plurality and unity of God, so this chapter has much to share with us about the grammar of the Christian faith.
Read Genesis 1:1 aloud with me.
This verse is a kind of heading over this book, indeed a kind of heading for the whole of the Old Testament. For all that is stated began with God who always existed and who alone creates. Indeed, it is God alone who saves and who alone creates.
If you are at all familiar with the creation myths which came out of Egypt and Mesopotamia, then you will know that many ancient civilizations have stories about how all things began. In them however you will not find a God as is here described. In those the gods and goddesses have very human attributes and are created beings. In none is there a sovereign, overarching, supreme, uncreated deity.
So, what a contrast is this piece of literature coming in the same era as those for here God has a plural name, Elohim, but is linked with a singular verb and was not created but existed long before creation. God in this first verse is prior to and independent of creation. It is God alone who created from nothing - indeed this verb create is a word reserved for God throughout this passage and throughout the Old Testament.
- We find in the second verse the "Spirit of God" hovering over the waters of the earth, above the formless, empty and darkness over the surface of the deep upon the earth. From the whole of Scripture, testimony is given about the Spirit of God so this introduction on the very first page of the Bible is an important introduction to this expression of God as Spirit who moves over the earth. The idea of darkness here is an allusion to there being a dark that must be conquered, but notice this is no great difficulty for this God.
Then in the third verse the refrain "And God said" begins. Again and again we are told that God created through speaking not through some other action. And God said means that to create God spoke forth the command. God did not create from something already made but out of nothing and did so by speaking. As Psalm 33 verse 6 states it, "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth."
Here we find the breath of God's mouth speaking forth the Word to bring about creation.
So creation is by the Word of God - who was personified in the Son of God, Jesus.
It was John the Apostle in the beginning of his Gospel that said this most clearly beginning as he does in a similar tone as this passage of Scripture. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without Him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1: 1-3).
Clearly John is saying that from page one and before page one when God existed, Jesus, the Word of God already existed with Him. So here in this "spoken word" is the Word of God, the Son of God reflected.
And God's first spoken word was to bring forth light, so John reflects this action in his prologue saying, "In Him, (in Jesus) was the life and the life was the light of men."
Here in the first verses we have read of God, God the Spirit and heard God's word spoken forth. The power, the sovereign rule, the might and the joy of God is seen in these opening verses where all is declared good by God.
- So this picture of creation in the first chapter of the Bible gives allusions to the unity and plurality of God - yet this God is over creation, not subject to it, He is separate from His creation, yet in relationship to it. The refrain "And God said," climaxes in the 26th verse with "Then God said," and what follows is the creation and the blessing of humankind.
In verse 26 God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule…over all…"
Here we find God in council with Himself - a picture of plurality and unity. And God has in view the creation of Adam - the man from whom the woman will be made. The plan for this new creation is to be made as God says, "in our image, in our likeness".
And what is the image or likeness of God?
First, it speaks of a unique relationship of humans to God - we alone at creation were bearers of the image of God. This is a phrase that places us besides God, as Psalm 8 declares, "made a little lower than God".
The word "likeness" explains that we are made according to a similar but not identical representation. We were made functionally in the image of God, we are given rule and in that rule are God's representatives upon the earth, we are to rule "in God's name" we are to rule in such a way that all creatures will know whose will it is that we enact.
Second, since we were made male and female and given this rule together there is an assumed relationship here we have with one another - as we see explained in chapter two the man and the woman are made for one another, there is plurality and unity in the intended relationship, just as we see in God.
In addition, as those made in God's image and likeness, who are to rule on His behalf, there must be within those God has made the capacity to know, worship and enjoy their Creator.
This is how we were made and you know this good beginning, this very good creation was marred by our rebellion against this God so we needed a way to come back, a means God worked throughout generations to supply in the coming of His Son to earth to live and die that we might regain the life we lost in paradise.
We were made living beings, filled with the life of God, who died, losing that life needing to regain that life, be restored to God's original purpose, be born again into fellowship with our creator, our Father, through Jesus Christ.
- And all that began here in this first scene of the Bible where we find in our Creator not a far off, impersonal God, but One who lives in holy relationship within the Godhead, and one who created all that is beautiful, wonderful and light and named it all good and indeed, very good.
So here we encounter the basic grammar of our faith, found in the Triune God-who is the same God now as then, a God who is supreme over all that is dark and chaotic, who can speak light into the darkness. This is a God who creates out of nothing and can bring shape to our lives. This is the God who made people with a supreme purpose - to be living representatives of God, as in New Testament terminology is expressed by us being the Body of Christ in this world.
There are days however when we do not believe we have much to live for, when we feel like we are in a dark place, when all is chaotic. Then is the time to remind yourself of who is your God. Your God is not a sap who is unable to act, who is changeable as the wind. No, look at your God here at creation: mighty, sovereign, supreme and willing to bend down, form us with His hands and breathe into us life.
Such a God can grant direction to a day.
This week as you encounter something especially difficult, recall to your mind who is the God you claim to follow and believe in - the God who speaks light into darkness and who calls you into relationship with Himself and with others around you. Recall this God to mind and ask Him to take the lead in the situation.
Some notes from The Faith of Israel by William Dumbrell, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, c.'02, pp 1-15 and Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament, by William LaSor, David A Hubbard and Frederic Bush)
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