Posted by Trinity Sunday/First Sunday after Pentecost
All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.
Today, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, as well as commemorating the First Sunday after Pentecost. The doctrine of the Trinity is often seen as a product of abstract theological speculation unrelated to everyday life. In fact, as today’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew shows it is fundamental to the Christian understanding of God. St. Matthew records a resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee in which he said that all power had been given to him in heaven and earth, in other words he fully shared in the divine sovereignty over all things. He told his disciples to teach all nations the good news of salvation through his life, death and resurrection, to baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that he had commanded them and promising his abiding presence with them to the end of the age.
In the commandment to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is implicitly contained the doctrine of the Trinity. The early Church had a great deal of difficulty in finding an adequate terminology to explicate this doctrine, but it was necessary to do this, not for the purposes of abstract theological speculation, but to guard the deposit of the faith once delivered to the saints. Christianity was first and foremost a way of life rather than a system of dogmas, but some dogmas were necessary to safeguard the basis of the Christian life, and to prevent the Church from falling into error. There was only one God, the maker of all things and judge of all men, but he had taken our human nature upon himself in the coming of Jesus into the world and revealed his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Against Arius it was necessary to state at the Council of Nicea that the Son fully shared in the nature of God, being of one substance with the Father. But, as St. Athanasius also affirmed, the Father is different from the Son solely in that he is Father and not Son. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Church at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fully shared in the nature of God, but the Holy Spirit was also distinct from the Father and the Son. There were not three Gods, but one God, but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were really distinct, being three Persons in one substance, for that which we believe of the Father, the same we believe of the Son and of the Holy Ghost without any difference or inequality.
It is important to emphasise this point today because it is sometimes supposed that we can replace the language of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with that of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. However, the problem this creates is that it does not give us a language where we can clearly distinguish three Persons in one God. If we speak just of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier, we are either left with describing three different gods, the creator, the redeemer and the sanctifier, or we are reduced to simply describing three aspects of the one God and have no way of clearly distinguishing them. Speaking of one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as the Holy Trinity, three Persons in one God, enables us to safeguard the Christian doctrine of God from error.
Having said all this, it is also important to recognise that all our human language about God is limited and imperfect, for we can never truly comprehend God in this life. St. Paul emphasises this point when he speaks in today’s epistle of the “depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever.” The doctrine of the Trinity is necessary to safeguard the distinctive nature of the Christian doctrine of God, but we must be humble enough to recognise the limitations of all our language about God and that we can never fully comprehend God.
It is fitting that the Gospel for the First Sunday after Pentecost (which we are commemorating today) is from St. Luke, when Jesus warned his disciples about the danger of judging others. Our fallen human nature leads us to look at the mote in our brother’s eyes, when we often do not address the problem caused by the beam in our own eye. It is important to speak the truth in charity. We cannot pass any final judgment on another human being because we cannot fully see into their hearts, for the heart of man is known only to God. When we discern that by the standards of the orthodox Christian faith others have fallen into error, we must be clear that if say we cannot follow their principles, we cannot judge their persons, because we ourselves are also fallen and fallible human beings. Throughout Christian history there have been those who have been so convinced that others are in error that they have harshly condemned and persecuted them. They have thought in so doing they were being faithful to the Triune God, and they may well have technically been more orthodox than their opponents. However, the nature of the Triune God is charity, and we ourselves are being unfaithful to the Triune God if we do not ourselves manifest the spirit of charity in our Christian witness. It is all too easy to see the mote in our brother’s eye and be blind to the beam in our own eye. God has declared his divine power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, and we must pray for grace to forgive others as we too have been forgiven. There is an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. The best way for us to manifest our faithfulness to the orthodox Christian faith is by showing charity in our dealings with one another, praying that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.