Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith

by Michael Reeves

So used are we to fashioning God according to our assumptions that our minds simply rebel at the thought of a God who is not as we would expect. We imagine God would be a simpler being—a single-person God. Perhaps, then, it is not so much the seemingly bad math of the Trinity that puts us off as the sheer imposition of an unexpected sort of God.

Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old “God.” It is not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down. Thus all that he does he does as Father. That is who he is. He creates as a Father and he rules as a Father; and that means the way he rules over creation is most unlike the way any other God would rule over creation.

Being perfectly loving, from all eternity the Father and the Son have delighted to share their love and joy with and through the Spirit. It is not, then, that God becomes sharing; being triune, God is a sharing God, a God who loves to include. Indeed, that is why God will go on to create. His love is not for keeping but for spreading.

The God who loves to have an outgoing Image of himself in his Son loves to have many images of his love (who are themselves outgoing).

is not, then, that God needed to create the world in order to satisfy himself or to be himself. The divine majesty of this God is not dependent on the world. The Father, Son and Spirit “were happy in themselves, and enjoyed one another before the world was.” But the Father so enjoyed his fellowship with his Son that he wanted to have the goodness of it spread out and communicated or shared with others. The creation was a free choice borne out of nothing but love.

It is how the Spirit breathes out his life on us: he enlightens us to know the love of God, and that light warms us, drawing us to love him and to overflow with love to others.

That said, normal Christian prayer is something richer and juicier: we join in with the fellowship as the Father, Son and Spirit are already enjoying it. That is, the Son—who is already interceding for us with his Father—brings us to be with him before his Father. Think of the high priest going into the presence of the Lord in the holy of holies: just so the Son takes us before his Father—and there the Spirit helps us (Rom 8:26). And so the Spirit supports us, the Son brings us and the Father—who always delights to hear the prayers of his Son—hears us with joy. With the Son, secure in him, enabled as he is by the Spirit, we pray to our Father. Now, to pray like this—to pray “Abba” in Jesus’ name, empowered by the Spirit—isn’t just the flashy Christian’s way of showing off his theological virtuosity; it is to revel in the shape of God’s own fellowship and beauty.

Jesus is the glory of his Father, shining out from the Father and perfectly enlightening us to see what the Father is really like. And now Jesus himself is to be glorified. That is, we are now going to see his innermost being and weight displayed. What does it look like? A seed, dying to bear fruit.