The Forgotten Trinity (6 page)
ONE OF A KIND
Uniqueness. Otherness. It is part of the meaning of the word "holy"
itself, and God makes it plainly known that He is holy. No images, no
likenesses of Him are to be allowed, for such would create a connection
that does not exist. He is Creator, everything else is created. He is infinite, everything else is finite. God asks the questions of anyone who
would compare Him to anything in the created order:
Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor
has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him
understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and
taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and
are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up
the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor
its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and
meaningless. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness
will you compare with Him? (Isaiah 40:13-18)
These questions are rhetorical-there are no answers. If you can come
up with answers to those questions for the God you worship, you have
the wrong God. This tremendous passage continues:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of
the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches
out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to
dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the
judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted,
scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and
the storm carries them away like stubble. "To whom then will you
liken Me that I would be his equal?" says the Holy One. Lift up
your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One
who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name;
because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His
power, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, 0 Jacob, and
assert, 0 Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and the justice
due me escapes the notice of my God"? Do you not know? Have
you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the
ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. (Isaiah 40:21-28)
This is the only God worthy of worship and adoration. And God expects us to know this truth-He upbraids those who have forgotten
by asking, "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" That this has
always been known is plainly proclaimed. There is no excuse for idolatry, no defense for polytheism. This is the true Creator, the Maker of
heaven and earth, and the men who dwell on the earth.
The fact that God rules and reigns over His creation is often placed
in the context of demonstrating God's true nature. Listen to these
words from Scripture:
"Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and
there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring
the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which
have not been done, saying, `My purpose will be established, and
I will accomplish all My good pleasure'" (Isaiah 46:9-10).
None but the true God can say, "My purpose will be established." James
wisely warned us against boasting of tomorrow, for we don't know
what tomorrow will hold. Instead, he taught that we, as finite creatures,
should say, "If the Lord wills I will do such and so" (James 4:13-16).
But God is completely different than man: He can say that His purpose
will be established, and beyond all question, it will be.
Jeremiah ministered to a people who were surrounded by the
pressures of idolatry. They were constantly being enticed to go after other gods. Hear his antidote to idolatry:
But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the
everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations
cannot endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them, "The
gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from
the earth and from under the heavens" (Jeremiah 10:10-11).'
God provides His people with the very words to say to those who
would lead them after other gods: unless those gods created the heavens and the earth, they will perish from the earth. The irony of a god
"perishing" is meant to point out the foolishness of making a god out
of anyone but the Creator himself.
GOD IS SPIRIT
God does not exist in the same mode or way we do. He is utterly
unlike us in many aspects. One truth about God's existence that is very
difficult for us to grasp (but very important for us to struggle with) is
that He is not limited to time and space. Theologians refer to this as
His spirituality, not in the sense of simply being one spirit among many
spirits, but that He exists as spirit and is therefore "omnipresent." It is
best to think of omnipresence more in the realm of "lack of spatial
limitations" than anything else. As with most things, God is far beyond
our creaturely categories. When we speak of His omnipresence, we are
saying something that is primarily negative (He does not have limitations of space, just as His eternal existence is basically a statement
of His not having limitations based in time).
When speaking with the woman at the well in Samaria, the Lord
Jesus ended the controversy regarding the place of worship by pointing
out a basic truth:
"God is spirit,' and those who worship Him must worship in
spirit and truth" (John 4:24).
The worship of God is not a matter of where but of how. Whether
Mount Gerazim (where the Samaritans thought one must worship) or in Jerusalem is not the issue. Spatial location is irrelevant, as space does
not limit God, for He is spirit. The important thing is the how of worship (in spirit and in truth), not the where.
It is not Jesus' intention in this passage to lay out an entire discourse on the nature of God. He is instead addressing the matter of
worship. But in doing so, He bases His teaching upon a belief that was
a given, a truth that had been revealed in the Scriptures long before:
God is not limited to time and space. He, unlike man, is spirit, and His
worship cannot be limited to a particular place. Some of the Old Testament passages that informed the people of this truth include these
words from Jeremiah:
"Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?"
declares the LORD. "Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:24)
Likewise, Solomon knew the truth that no man-made temple could
contain God's presence:
"But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how
much less this house which I have built" (2 Chronicles 6:18).
God's omnipresence flows from the fact that He created all things: how
could His creation be greater than He? How could there be anyplace
in His creation beyond His presence?
God's being is not limited. And since God is omnipresent, another
important truth can be seen: God's being cannot be divided. What is
half of omnipresence? How can the infinite be divided into parts? We
will see why this is important when we consider how all the fullness
of the being of God is shared completely by each of the Divine Persons
of the Trinity.
BEYOND THE REALM OF TIME
We have already seen a number of passages witness to the eternal
nature of God. One of the clearest comes from Moses:
Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting,' You are God.
(Psalm 90:2)
From everlasting to everlasting. Without limitation. God has existed as
God eternally. There has never been a time when God was not God.
For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever,
whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also
with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of
the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).
"Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work
of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; and all of
them will wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change
them and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your
years will not come to an end" (Psalm 102:25-27).
The psalmist here makes the same contrast that Moses made in Psalm
90:2: creation is temporal, passing, and limited. God, the true God, is
none of those things.
We struggle with God's eternity. We cannot grasp it. Our lives are
conditioned by the passing of time. Our language itself is based upon
tenses: past, present, future. We are creatures, and as such, we have
been created to exist temporally, that is, within the realm of time. God
is not a creature and does not exist temporally, but eternally. Rather
than thinking of eternity as a long, long time, think of it here as a way
of existence that does not involve a progression of events and moments. That is how God lives. He defies our categories and our feeble
efforts to comprehend Him. If He didn't, He wouldn't be God. And if
we struggle mightily to even begin to envision the eternity of God,
which is part of the most basic truth He has revealed about himself,
how can we expect to probe all the recesses of His highest revelation,
His Triune nature?
Since God exists eternally He is unchanging. He is not growing,
progressing, evolving, or in any way moving from a state of imperfection to a state of perfection. This is the teaching of the Scriptures. In deed, the very fact that God is unchangingly faithful to His promises
to Israel is based upon the understanding that Yahweh himself does
not change with time:
"For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, 0 sons of
Jacob, are not consumed" (Malachi 3:6).
God says He does not change. Change involves movement over time,
yet God is eternal and does not change as men do. Our very salvation
is dependent upon God's unchanging nature, for His faithfulness is
based upon His being the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
"God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that
He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He
spoken, and will He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19)
What is the solid foundation of God's trustworthiness? He is God, not
man. Man lies. Man changes his mind. Man says many things but
cannot fulfill his promises. But God is not man. There is a fundamental
distinction between God and man on the level of being. The same
theme is struck many centuries later in Hosea:
I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim
again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:9)
CREATOR OF ALL
The Scriptures claim that since God is Creator, He must, of necessity, be the only true God. It's an obvious conclusion: if God made
everything, and is himself not dependent upon anything else, then any
other "god" that might exist would have to be dependent upon Him
and, therefore, would not be true deity.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the
breath of His mouth all their host.... For He spoke, and it was
done; He commanded, and it stood fast. (Psalm 33:6, 9)
All that exists-heaven and earth being exhaustive, in Hebrew thought, of creation itself-does so because God made it.
"Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the
generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, am the first, and with
the last. I am He" (Isaiah 41:4).
God created all things, including "the generations." The Eternal One,
Yahweh, the first and the last, is the Lord of time itself. Later in the
same chapter God mocks the idols who do not exist beyond the realm
of time as He does. He challenges them to do two things that only the
true God can do to perfection. One is easy to see: tell us the future.
This is a common challenge, one God can fulfill because He created
time and is not limited to it. Secondly, God asks the idols to tell us
what has taken place in the past, and, even more importantly, the purpose of what happened. It is one thing to recount past events as a historian, but to know why they happened-only the Sovereign Lord of
eternity itself can do that. He challenges all would-be gods:
Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take
place; as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may
consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what
is coming; declare the things that are going to come afterward, that
we may know that you are gods; indeed, do good or evil, that we
may anxiously look about us and fear together. Behold, you are of
no account, and your work amounts to nothing; he who chooses
you is an abomination. (Isaiah 41:22-24)
We worship the very Lord of time and space itself, the Creator of
both. He alone made the heavens and the earth:
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed
you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things,
stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth
all alone" (Isaiah 44:24).
For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God
who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not
create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), "I am the LORD, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:18).
There is none else. No other God, no other deity, no other Savior. One
God, absolute, eternal, Creator of all things.
The doctrine of the Trinity is based upon this firm foundation. We
are no proclaimers of a plurality of gods. We have no allegiance but to
the same God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. The Trinity
in no way, shape, or form compromises this fundamental truth-it
does, however, fulfill it, bring it to full realization, and reveal to us how
this one true and eternal God exists as three coequal and coeternal persons.