Trinity in Unity - Rector's Rambling for May 27, 2018

Today we celebrate one of the great mysteries, and yet biblically obvious truths of our Faith – that we believe in One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.

Google is a dangerous place to explore at times.  When I googled TRINITY for images for this newsletter, choices included comics deriding the doctrine, one of which I clicked on out of curiosity.  This lead me on a 30-minute adventure of Web sites set up by various cults and sects claiming to know the actual truth about God and the Bible, all backed up with misquotes and pseudo-historical proofs.  One group has even retranslated the Bible to try to take out any verses that might be construed as biblical proof.  It is remarkable how they believe that God hid the truth from people from 33 A.D. until their group was founded in the 19th or 20th century.

Despite the erroneous claims of some that somehow the Trinity (and the Bible itself) was an invention in the 4th century, we have evidence from the earliest writings of belief in God in Trinity.  The earliest recorded baptismal records tell of baptisms with the Trinitarian formula, as was commanded in St. Matthew’s Gospel, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.“ (28:19)

And Jesus himself speaks of He and the Father being one.  John’s 17th Chapter, called Jesus’ High Priest Prayer, expresses Jesus’ desire to protect his disciples as he prepares for his own death and resurrection.  He prays, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” (17:21)  And how can one not see Jesus’ assertion of Divinity and Unity with the Father when in the 8th chapter of John’s Gospel, after a long discourse on He and the Father, Jesus declares, “before Abraham was, I am” (8:58), for which the Jews sought to stone him for blasphemy.

And last week we focused on God the Holy Spirit and his procession from the Godhead upon the disciples to empower the Church for ministry.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – how Trinity in Unity works may not be definable, but it is believable based on Jesus’ gracious word.