We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
The Most Beautiful Truth
Image by GlasgowAmateur via Flickr
Jesus was God incarnate. Yet he continually referred to, and prayed to, God the Father as someone who was distinct from himself. He also continually referred to, and claimed to be empowered by, God the Holy Spirit as someone distinct from himself. And yet Jesus, along with all Jews of his time, believed there is only one God.
Put all of this together and you arrive at the revelation that the one true God somehow exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is, in some profound sense, eternal loving community. This is what is traditionally referred to as the Trinity, and while this term is never used in the New Testament, one finds evidence of the communal nature of God throughout the New Testament.
To me, this is the most beautiful and profound truth revealed in the NT. In fact, I’d argue it’s the most beautiful and powerful concept in all of history! For the doctrine of the Trinity magnificently expresses the truth that God is love (1Jn 4:8,16). Love isn’t merely an attribute God has. Nor is love merely an activity God does. Love is what God eternally is.
Love can only exist between persons, which is why only a God who eternally exists as a community of persons can be said to be love in and of himself. A God who existed as a single consciousness in the midst of absolute nothingness before creating the world could not be said to be love. Love could not be the essence of this solitary God. This solitary God would need to create other persons in order to begin to love. But this is not the case for the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ.
The Trinity is the only view of God that can claim that God never started loving and that God will never stop loving, for this is the only view of God in which God is intrinsically and eternally loving—whether he decides to create a world outside of himself or not.
The revelation that God is triune is the revelation that love is not merely a verb that God does; it’s the noun that God is. God always does the verb because God always is the noun. God is and always has been love. And therefore God is and always has been loving.
Category: General
Tags: God, God is Love, Jesus, Love, The Holy Spirit, Trinity
Topics: Trinity
Related Reading
What Power Do You Trust?
Governments and nations have always relied on fighting to survive. They punish criminals who threaten their welfare. They go to war against enemies who attack their borders or stand in the way of their agenda. This is how the kingdoms of the world maintain law and order and advance their causes. By contrast, the Kingdom…
What About the Contradictions Found in the Gospels?
It’s quite common for people to question the veracity of the Gospels because there are contradictions between them. In fact, an interaction between Steven Colbert and Bart Erhman, a scholar who makes a big deal of these contradictions, has become quite popular. While Colbert’s comedic response is entertaining, we must say more. And Greg has done…
Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?
One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt 21:18-19). It’s the only destructive miracle found in the New Testament. What’s particularly puzzling is that Mark tells us the reason the fig tree had no figs…
Penal Substitution View of Atonement: Did God the Father Just Need to Vent?
In this video blog, Greg outlines the penal substitution view of atonement which says that the Father poured out his wrath on Jesus instead of us so that we could be forgiven. This view is very common and you might even be nodding your head in agreement with that description. However, this view creates some…
How to Interpret the Law of the Old Testament
While there are multitudes of passages in the OT that reflect an awareness that people are too sinful to be rightly related to God on the basis of the law, there is a strand that runs throughout the OT that depicts Yahweh as “law-oriented.” This label is warranted, I believe, in light of the fact…
Are We Supposed to Balance Love and Truth?
Often people say, “Yes we must love. But we must balance love with truth.” “Love has its place, but we must not forget God’s wrath.” “Love must never take the place of correct biblical doctrine.” Two points need to be made. First, if we take seriously the biblical teaching that the love command is the…