Once, twice, three times a God Head...

Can you explain the Trinity?

If someone were to say to you, "don't you guys believe in three Gods?" how would you respond?

Our whole worldview depends on Trinitarian doctrine.  Without the Father we have no life, without the son we have no purpose, and without the Holy Spirit we have no power.  If any of the three were not there, we could not have a relationship with God.  It is as important to be able to share the Trinity with an unChristian person as it is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  If we cannot answer by whose authority we are sinners, and by whose power we can be brought into a relationship with the savior, then salvation, if it truly occurs at all, will remain shallow and non-holistic.

The trinity can be defined as follows (from Mark Driscoll's book Doctrine) - The Trinity is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons - Father, Son, and Spirit - who are fully and equally God in eternal relation with each other.

Why is this important?  Because the Trinity represents everything we believe as Christians.  We know that God is love because of the marrying of the three persons of the Trinity in such a way as to be one God.  Can we even fathom a relationship that is so loving that it is in its essence One.    We know that God provides salvation because the Father has given the law, the Son died to free us from the law, and the Spirit resides in us to allow us to live our lives for God, apart from the law.

To sum it up - (again from Doctrine) - The Trinity is not a doctrine to be philosophized beyond the teaching of scripture but rather a jumble, loving, worshipful, relational, diverse, submissive, and joyful life to be entered into, by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father.

Trev