Tucked away in an obscure corner of the University of Texas library is a quiet subsection dedicated to vexillology. Vexillology—the study of flags—isn’t exactly the hottest academic discipline. Its niche status makes sense: most people don’t think about flags unless they’re waving one.
Similarly, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity has become to Christian theology what vexillology is to that library—obscure, underappreciated, and often ignored. Many find the Trinity confusing or overly abstract. It’s hard to understand, seemingly impractical, and easy to relegate to the dusty corners of doctrine and faith.
Yet, the scriptures frustrate any attempt to ignore trinitarian theology. When Jesus is baptized in the synoptic gospels, the Holy Spirit rests on his shoulder in the form of a dove as God’s voice thunders from the heavens. Before Jesus ascends, he commissions his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Some contend that traces of the Trinity are found from the very beginning. Reacting to the idolatrous Tower of Babel, God says, “Let us go down and confuse their language.”[1]
To be sure, forming trinitarian doctrine from scripture does require precise thinking. To fashion God as one who acts as Father, Son, or Spirit is to fall prey to the modalist heresy. Alternatively, to fashion the trio as independent actors runs dangerously close to Tritheism. “God’s way of being God,” teaches Fred Sanders, “is to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simultaneously from all eternity…”[2] While this formula may not satisfy the most rational-minded among us, it certainly did capture the wonder and awe of church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, who declared the Trinity a “ mystic marvel!”
With Holy Trinity Sunday around the corner, now is a good time to dust it off and bring it to the center. We might just find that the Trinity is not merely for intellectual gymnastics or academic musing, but that it is a “marvel” teaching that penetrates the very heart of the gospel by revealing the glory and power of grace.
Grace is favor shown to the undeserving. But God’s grace goes even further, as it bestows favor without any ulterior motive—because God is purely selfless. And he is selfless because he is Triune.
Because God is Triune and exists in perfect Love within himself, he lacks nothing. God is fully satisfied in the eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and does not embark on redemption as some divine adventure. God has no need for friendship and no need for glory- within the Trinity, he has always had perfect fulfillment and satisfaction. “There is a mutual delight in each other in the persons of the Blessed Trinity,” wrote Charles Spurgeon, “so that each divine person delights to glorify the rest.” [3]
This means that God’s act of creating us, redeeming us, and nurturing our lives in faith is purely selfless. God sacrifices his perfect fellowship by sending his Son to die—not because he needs us, but because he wants to share with us what he already possesses in fullness.
An athlete trains to win a trophy that she can display. An actor strives for an Oscar to garner greater fame. A husband dotes on his wife, buying flowers for her affection. None of these acts is purely selfless- they are marred, at least in part, by self-interest.
Not so with God. God gains nothing by drawing us into his fellowship—yet he does it anyway. That is grace. That is glory. That is the gospel.
If the Trinity has collected dust, perhaps so has selflessness and love. Because our convictions about God inevitably spill into ethics and morality, shelving the doctrine of the Trinity risks shelving the virtues it inspires. Professor Donald Fairbairn notes that the “relationship between the person of the Trinity was so valuable that God created people in his image to share in that relationship.” “This sharing,” he continues, “was meant to take place not merely through people’s relationship to God, but also through human relationships with one another.” [4]
Indeed, the book of James calls on Christians to put theology into practice. “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Faithful Trinitarian theology not only stirs the mind but forms the heart for service.
I think Miroslav Volf and others are on track when they say that the doctrine of the Trinity is the “social program of the church.” At least in my tradition, we begin worship invoking the name of God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and end worship with a commission to “go in peace and serve the Lord.” The charge is given to remind the faithful to shake off the dust and mend the world by modeling the selfless love found in the fellowship of the Triune God
Martin Luther is credited with saying that to “deny the Trinity endangers your salvation; to try to comprehend the Trinity endangers your sanity.”
While the finer points of the Trinity may puzzle the mind, the essential dogma warms the heart. In a world dominated by egoism, callousness, and self-promotion, Christians worship a God who elevates and encourages selflessness, altruism, and generosity. And that is why the Holy Trinity doesn’t belong in a dusty corner of doctrine. It belongs at the very center of the Christian faith. Fred Sanders drives the point home: “The gospel is Trinitarian, and the Trinity is the gospel.” [5]
[1] Genesis 11:7
[2] Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).62
[3] Charles H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. 37 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1891), 2226.
[4] Donald Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 64.
[5] Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).10
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