A TRUTH TO LIVE BY

Stuart Olyott

Now that we have the doctrine of the Trinity in our minds, what shall we do with it? Shall we just keep it there, and be content that our thinking has been stretched a little? Or is it intended to make some practical difference to our lives? Yes, indeed. Every doctrine in the Word of God has some practical application. Every truth has some way of working itself out in practice.

But first of all it needs to be stressed that this doctrine is primarily something to be believed. The only true God is the One who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, and this is what He has revealed. If we believe something different, then we do not believe in the true God. We are pagans. We worship a god of our own imagining. Tritheists, Arians and Modalists are little different from Muslims or animists. They do not worship the God who has revealed Himself. They call on a god who has no real existence. They cannot be classified as Christian believers, and are still lost, and perishing in their sins.

A belief in the Trinity is essential to salvation. This does not mean that a believer must understand all the intricacies of this doctrine as they have been discussed and debated through the centuries. But he must believe that the God who is, is the One revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that He is one God in three Persons. The Scriptures declare that eternal life is to know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). They insist that if we do not honour the Son as we honour the Father, then the Father is robbed of His honour (John 5:23). Those who believe in God must have a similar faith in His Son (John 14:1). There can be no salvation to those who have a lower view of Christ than they have of the Father (1 John 2:22-23; 5:20).

So it is that those who become Christian disciples are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Where there is no Trinitarian belief, there can be no discipleship. Wherever there is true discipleship, there is also a commitment to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation upon which every distinctive gospel doctrine rests. While the foundation is secure, the gospel remains intact. History shows that whenever the foundation has been weakened or destroyed, the gospel has quickly fallen to the ground and disappeared. Therefore all who love the gospel, and know its power, love the doctrine of the Trinity, and are anxious to uphold it. They know that the gospel they have is the gospel of God. Once it is forgotten who God is, it will be forgotten what His gospel is.

The gospel declares that God the Father saves, that God the Son saves and that God the Holy Spirit saves. God the Father saves, because in eternity He chose certain people to receive eternal life through Christ (John 10:28-30), and eventually sent His Son into the world to save them (John 3:16; 1 John 4:14). God the Son saves, because it was He who on the cross bore the punishment of His people (1 Peter 2:24), and is alive for evermore to secure their acceptance in heaven (Hebrews 7:25). God the Holy Spirit saves, because no one can receive spiritual life, and believe and rest upon Christ, until He works in their minds and wills (1 Corinthians 12:3, 2:14; John 3:5-8). The Scriptures constantly show that salvation is the work of the triune God (1 Peter 1:2). When the doctrine of the Trinity is lost or obscured, the same thing happens to the truth about salvation.

Think also about the truths of justification and adoption. There is a God who is angry with us because of our sins. He sent God the Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, sinlessly to assume human nature, and to keep fully His law on our behalf. Christ, the guiltless, died as our Substitute, bearing the condemnation which our signs deserve, and which God's justice demands. The Holy Spirit brings us to grieve for our sins, and to turn from them. He brings us to rest on what Christ has done for sinners. He brings us into union with Christ, so that His perfect character is reckoned to our account, and our sins are accepted as having been punished when Christ died. God the Father now receives us as His sons and becomes a Father to us. The Lord Jesus Christ stands to us as an elder Brother in God's family. The Holy Spirit is within us, and inwardly assures us that we are the children of God. Each Person of the Trinity is involved.

It must therefore be plain that without the doctrine of the Trinity the whole plan of redemption falls to pieces. The doctrines of justification and adoption cease to mean anything. And the same can be said of any other distinctive gospel doctrine. We love the doctrine of the Trinity, because it is the very bedrock upon which our salvation stands. The triune God is the One who has saved us. The triune God is the God whom we love and adore. It would be impossible to love Him without loving the truth about Him.

May I address a very personal word to you as I bring this short book to a close? There can be no salvation where there is no belief in the Trinity. But this does not mean that wherever there is Trinitarian belief those who hold to it are saved. Believing the truth about God is not enough. It is not even enough to recognize that without the doctrine of the Trinity we have no gospel. We must come to the triune God. Our sins cry out for everlasting punishment. God commands us to finish with them (Acts 17:30). But we must never think that by our own efforts we can put ourselves right with God (Romans 3:20). How could we ever be good enough for a holy God? But God the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14). It is sinners that He saves (1 Timothy 1:15). He freely invites them to Himself (Matthew 11:28-30). All who in true repentance cry; 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' are received and pardoned (Luke 18:9-14), and enter into eternal life and every blessing that heaven contains (1 John 5:11-12; Ephesians 1:3). None is ever turned away (John 6:37). The fact that you come proves that you are one of those whom God the Father gave to His Son (John 6:37). The fact that you embrace the Saviour, and do not reject Him, displays that the Holy Spirit is working in your life (1 Corinthians 2:14). The truth of the Trinity is no longer just a doctrine in your mind. It is a truth that you have come to live by!

The truth of the Trinity should lead a Christian to worship. We worship God for what He has done. We worship God for what He has done for us. But He has only done what He has done, because He is who He is. To use the complicated expressions of chapter 9, He is the economic Trinity because He is the ontological Trinity. We could never have had any insight into His glory and majesty had He not revealed it. What He has told us is too wonderful to comprehend. It is altogether beyond the powers of our reason to understand it. We could never have discovered it, and we cannot explain it. It escapes us completely. We cannot fathom the mystery. We see that we are only creatures, but He is God. No reaction is appropriate, except to cast ourselves before Him, and, humbly, to believe and adore. There is an order in the Godhead, but no ranks. So we adore the Father; we adore the Son; we adore the Holy Spirit. Like the seraphim before His throne, three times we say 'Holy', for He is three. Yet we say 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts', for He is one (Isaiah 6:3). 'This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide, even unto death' (Psalm 48:14).

The truth of the Trinity should regulate a Christian's prayers. The Father is first, and prayer should be addressed to Him. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ commanded, when He said, 'When ye pray, say, "Our Father..."' (Luke 11:2). This is how the apostles prayed. Speaking of his own prayers, Paul writes, 'I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...' (Ephesians 3:14); and when they praise God, both Paul and Peter begin, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...' (Ephesians 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3). The New Testament knows very little of praying to the Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing at all of the constant repeating of 'Jesus, Jesus' which has become so popular today in some circles.

The Son is second, and reveals the Father (John 1:18). No one can go to the Father direct, for the only approach to Him is through the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6; 1 Timothy 2:5). This does not mean that we may not address the Father, for we have just learned that this is what we should do. But it means that in and of ourselves we have no right to approach God. It is on the basis of who the Son is and what He has done, and on this basis alone, that we expect the Father to hear us (Hebrews 10:19-22). Coming to the Father through Christ is much more than reciting 'through Jesus Christ our Lord' at the end of our prayers. It means that all our confidence that we will be heard rests upon the Son of God.

The Holy Spirit is third. Without Him we do not pray, but only say our prayers. Yet often we come to God with heartaches and longings which we cannot express. We do not know what to say or how to say it, but our heart is in our praying. All this is the work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26-27). Whenever we are caught up with Christ, this also is because of the Spirit (John 15:26-27; 16:14). Heart-felt, Christ-centred praying, is 'praying in the Holy Spirit' (Jude 20). If we do not pray like this, we should keep praying for the Holy Spirit's influence until we do! (Luke 11:13.)

Last of all, the truth of the Trinity should give us a new reverence for the Holy Scriptures. The light of reason could never have discovered that God is One-in-Three and Three-in-One. Nature does not declare it. Where, and where alone, is this incomprehensible mystery revealed? In the Scriptures! How did the Scriptures come to be written? 'Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit' (2 Peter 1:21). What is the chief subject of the Scriptures? 'They... testify of me,' said the Son of God (John 5:39). How can the Scriptures properly be described? 'Every word… proceedeth out of the mouth of God' (Matthew 4:4). The first and greatest mystery of all is revealed in a God-given, Christ-centred, Spirit-inspired book! That book teaches us all that we are to believe concerning God. It reveals what duty God requires of us. It is the Word of the triune God Himself.

Let us receive it for what it is, not the word of men, but the Word of God. Let us read it more often, with more care, and with more prayer. And let us live by it. Is there any other way to please Him who is revealed in its pages?

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, Is now, And ever shall be: World without end. Amen.