“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth“ (Genesis 1:1). That’s the first sentence of the Bible. But who created God? The answer is that nobody created God. The Lord has always existed. He had no beginning and will have no end.
But that just raises more questions. What did God do before he started creating? Was God all alone before creation, with nothing to do and nobody to relate to? Wouldn’t that get to be boring and lonely? Children wonder about questions like that, and so do some grownups.
A child who asks what God did before he made the world is onto something important. The child senses that there’s a problem with thinking of God as a single, solitary individual who just happens to be stronger, smarter, purer and infinitely older than everyone else. If we picture God simply as the great, divine individual who made everything, then we can’t help thinking that that if he weren’t dealing with creation, he’d be doing nothing; and that if he didn’t have any creatures, he’d be all alone.
Then we might take the next step and conclude that God made himself a world to escape boredom and to give himself something to do; and that he made other individuals so that he’d have someone to relate to. What else would there be for God to do if he weren’t dealing with his creation? And how could a single, solitary God love and be loved apart from created beings?
Well, the true answer to all this is that God does not exist as a single, solitary individual. God is a union of three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three divine Persons are eternally united in love and in the very essence of their being. Father, Son, and Spirit eternally have one another to love and to enjoy. Each one has such an infinity of wisdom, beauty, goodness and vitality that it would be impossible for Father, Son, and Spirit to feel bored with one another. Each gives and receives such an infinity of love that it would be impossible for Father, Son, and Spirit to feel lonely or in need of love.
What was God doing before he made the world? If I may say so reverently, God was busy being God and enjoying it immensely. From eternity Father, Son, and Spirit share a richness of being so full that no other being can add to it. From eternity Father, Son, and Spirit share such a mutual love that no other love is needed.
God Is Love
That puts the creation and all of God’s dealings with his creatures in a whole new light. God created all things and relates to his creatures not to address some lack in his being but to express a great overflow of his being. God formed this vast and varied creation not because he would otherwise be bored but because he is bountiful. God takes a personal interest in his creatures, not because he would otherwise be lonely but because he is love.
“God is love“ (1 John 4:16). Those are perhaps the most beautiful words in the Bible. But to sense the full impact of those words, and to be in touch with the reality those words describe, we need to know how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to one another in the being of God, and how Father, Son, and Spirit relate to us.
The Bible doesn’t just say that God loves, but that God is love. Love is who God is, even apart from the creatures he has made. God is love, and that can’t be true unless the being of God involves more than one Person. “Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love“ (C.S. Lewis). But God is love, and so God is more than one person. God is love because God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons united in mutual, eternal love.
It was out of a surplus of love——not a shortage of love——that this great God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness“ (Genesis 1:26). God created us for love: to be loved by him, to love him in return, and to love one another.
With our fall into sin, however, we messed things up. We cut ourselves off from God: we broke the rhythm of love and became self—centered. So what has God done? Has he simply cast humanity away? No, he loves the world so much that he’s gone to the trouble of rescuing us. Father, Son, and Spirit each play a distinctive part in this great rescue, and at the same time are fully united in accomplishing our salvation.
The final goal of creation and salvation is this: that we be caught up into the love and life of God——Father, Son, and Holy Spirit——and become “partakers of the divine nature“ (2 Peter 1:4). It’s a staggering thought, but it’s true. Believing in the Trinity of love and being drawn up into the eternal life of Father, Son, and Spirit——this is the very heart of Christianity. [There is no doctrine more important than the doctrine of the Trinity; no relationship more important than fellowship with the Father, through Jesus the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; no reality more important than the infinite being and the eternal life and the boundless love of God triune, the great Three in One. Before I say more, let’s pause for a song praising the Trinity.
Maybe you’ve heard of the campus chaplain who often had to deal with unbelieving students. Many a student would come to him and say, “I don’t believe in God.“ The chaplain would smile calmly and say, “Tell me, what kind of God don’t you believe in? I probably don’t believe in him either.“
There are a lot of different ideas about God floating around, and there are many I don’t believe in. But I do believe in God the Father Almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit. And because I believe in this holy Trinity, I believe that God is love. So whatever God you do or don’t believe in, I invite you to meet the God who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Difficult Doctrine
You may be thinking to yourself, “That sounds complicated. Why bother with a confusing idea like three in one? Why bother with doctrine at all? Don’t get me wrong: I’m a spiritual person. I believe in God. I’ve even felt him. But I don’t need a bunch of dry, difficult doctrine. Experience is better than doctrine.“
Well, there’s a measure of truth in that. I’d rather be in touch with God than merely bat around certain ideas about him. But look at it this way. Suppose there’s a really great person you want to get to know better, and so far you’ve only had the opportunity to shake hands with him. Should you focus only on how you felt in that electrifying moment when you shook hands? Shouldn’t you also listen to what people say who know the person better than you do? And even more important, shouldn’t you listen to what the person says about himself, and take note of the things that he does? That may do more to help you really know him and develop a relationship with him than simply feeling aglow about the fact that you once shook his hand.
Or look at it from another angle. If a person has an experience of God’s majesty in nature, the experience may very well be real, and if he then turns from his experience to Christian doctrines, he is in a sense turning from something real to something less real. “In the same way,“ says C.S. Lewis,
- if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experiences just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to [cross the ocean to another land].“
Doctrines aren’t God. They’re just a map. But let’s remember two things about that doctrinal map. First, it’s based on the experience of many people who were in touch with God. In fact, their mighty encounters with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would make any experience of yours or mine seem small and confused. Second, remember that if you want to get any further in your relationship with God, you need the map.
A certain experience you’ve had may be real, and even exciting, “but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact,“ says Lewis, “that is just why a vague religion——all about God in nature and so on——is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach.“ But you will not set sail or reach another land by watching the waves, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. You need the doctrines, the truth about God, to map out the way, and you need to be caught up into the life of God.
Of course, if you only talk about God and never meet him, you won’t have fellowship with God and eternal life——doctrine without personal involvement leads nowhere. But neither will you have true fellowship with God if all you do is cling to a feeling you once got when you met him briefly. You must get to know him better. You must learn who he is, what he’s like, what he’s done, and what he wants to make of you.
Listen to the words of Jesus himself. After he rose from the dead and before he ascended to heaven, Jesus told his followers, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you“ (Matthew 28:19). Jesus doesn’t just want people to “have experiences.“ He wants people to belong to him, to be his disciples, to obey him. Also, Jesus doesn’t people to muddle along with an indefinite sense of the God they belong to. He wants them to be baptized and marked with a definite name——the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus doesn’t say “in the names“ of Father, Son, and Spirit, but “in the name.“ The threefold title Father, Son, and Holy Spirit——is the name of the one true God.
What God Reveals
The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t something that anybody could have dreamed up. It is a response to God’s self—revelation. It’s the church’s best effort to map out what God reveals about himself. God reveals his nature as Trinity in the coming of God’s Son in human flesh and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into human hearts. God’s nature as Trinity is displayed in these actions of God, it’s written in the Bible, it’s professed in the church, and it’s experienced in the lives of Christians.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit——that’s who God is and always was and always will be. God was Trinity before the creation of the world. The Son of God was conceived in Mary’s womb and born in a stable, but that is not when he began to exist or when he became the Son of the Father for the first time. That’s when God took on a human nature, but the Bible makes it plain that, before coming into the world as a baby, God the Son existed with God the Father from all eternity. Likewise, the Spirit of God did not begin to exist on the day of Pentecost. That is when he came upon Jesus’ followers with great power and filled them with the life of God, but the Bible makes it plain that the Holy Spirit has forever proceeded from the union of Father and Son and that the Spirit is from eternity the third person in the being of God.
The Bible shows how Jesus claimed authority to forgive sins, which only God can do. The Bible tells how Jesus was convicted of blasphemy and crucified for claiming to be equal with God. The Bible tells how Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God“ (Matthew 16:16). And Thomas called Jesus, “My Lord and my God“ (John 20:28). The Bible leaves no doubt that Jesus is indeed God.
The Bible also reveals that the Holy Spirit is God and that he is a Person. The Bible often speaks of the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of God.“ Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as a Person, an advocate whom he would send and who would carry on his work and connect people with the Son and the Father. Peter said that lying to the Holy Spirit was lying to God (Acts 5:3—4). So the Bible leaves no doubt that the Holy Spirit is God. The inspired writings of the Bible explain and confirm what the actions of God in history have shown: the reality of one God in three Persons.
In response to God’s actions and his Word, the church professes and celebrates the triune God. Every time a person becomes part of the church through baptism, that person is baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,“ as Jesus commanded. When Christian people receive God’s blessing in the church, the person leading the worship pronounces the blessing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Often it’s a direct quote from a blessing in the Bible, which says, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all“ (2 Corinthians 13:14). The Christian church declares, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God“ (Athanasian Creed).
More Than Personal
We’re used to thinking of persons as separate individuals, so we can hardly imagine how three persons could be one being. But why should we suppose that God can be reduced to our level and understood in our terms? As C.S. Lewis puts it,
- The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings… On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine.“
A good many people nowadays say, ’I believe in a God, but not in a personal God.’ They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. And in a sense they are right about this. But although they say God is beyond personality, they end up thinking of him as something impersonal, as a vague sort of power, or as a great void: that is, as something less than personal.
Christians are the only people with any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. Christians know that God is more than a person; God is a superpersonal union of three divine Persons. And therefore God is not just a power; God is love. It is out of the overflow of God’s love that he created the world. It is out of the overflow of God’s love that he redeemed his people by sending his Son to live a perfect human life, die a terrible death, and rise again for their salvation. It is out of the overflow of God’s love that his Holy Spirit comes into the hearts of believers and floods them with the love and life of the Holy Trinity.
Even after we know something of the reality of the Trinity, we still confront a great mystery. The being of God is a blazing light that we can’t look at directly or figure out completely. We’ll go blind if we try. But, like the sun, this blazing light of God enlightens and warms everything it touches. The Trinity is hard to explain; the Trinity is hard even to imagine——and yet the Trinity is the one true God, the only God worth worshiping.
You may ask, “If we can’t understand a three—personal Being, what’s the good of talking about him.“ Well, the point isn’t just to talk about him. The most important thing is to be drawn into the three—personal life. You can enter into relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit——even though you can’t understand the deeper mysteries of the Trinity. That relationship can begin right here and right now.
How? In prayer. When you pray, the one you’re trying to get in touch with is God. But if you’re a Christian you know that what is prompting you to pray is also God: God inside you. But you also know that all your real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who is God——that Christ is standing beside you, helping you to pray, praying for you.
See what’s happening? God is the one to whom you’re praying——the goal you’re trying to reach. God is also the One inside you who is pushing you along. God is also the road or the bridge along which you’re being pushed toward that goal. The whole threefold life of the three—personal Being is actually going on every time an ordinary Christian says a prayer.
Praying to the Father, prompted by the Holy Spirit, through the Son, Jesus Christ——this kind of prayer is nothing less than fellowship with the Trinity of love. It’s partaking of the divine nature. Would you pray with me right now?
David Feddes
Dr. David Feddes is pastor of Family of Faith Church and provost of Christian Leaders Institute, which supports mentor-based ministry training through online courses. David is also adjunct missiologist for Crossroad Bible Institute, which provides biblical distance education to more than 40,000 people in prison. Previously he served as broadcast minister for the Back to God radio program, reaching people in more than fifty countries. David earned his Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL and is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Wendy, have nine children (one in heaven).
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