Chapter 7
Trinity
As I continue to read the Gospels, I start to notice that I don’t understand the trinity like I ought to understand it. I’ve always been taught that you have three-in-one, but it never gets any deeper than that. It seems like I’m back in Algebra class asking how something works and all they can tell me is that it works.
We all agree that God is one. We all agree that God is three. It is the doctrine of the trinity. However I think part of my failure and part of the failure of the Church is to realize that we are not monotheistic. We are Trinitarian. There is a huge difference. The Jews are quick to mock us in our view of three persons. And maybe that wording is a set up. Maybe we welcome that kind of attack when we have three distinct persons of the Godhead, but we don’t have the understanding that they are still one.
And maybe it is our fault for not understanding the trinity that we open wide this attack. Are they three distinct persons? It sounds like they are all different and distinct gods – as though we hold to pagan beliefs. I would like to suggest that we don’t hold to a belief in three persons, but rather a belief of three modes or forms. There are three personal distinctions in the one God, not three distinct persons.
Jesus on the cross cannot be understood without the trinity. Jesus suffered as a man, yet suffered “through the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14). We find in the crucifixion of Jesus the personality of the Holy Spirit that no other place can really display it. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon Christ. If you know anything about doves, you’ll know that they are easily offended. It is only in dying to the flesh that the Spirit can abide and reside.
This translates to you and I. The Spirit can only work through a person when they empty themselves of their own abilities and talents and trust solely on the power of the Spirit. I don’t care if you have a natural talent of speaking. If your speaking is not done in the Spirit (which might cause you to fumble over words and feel slightly stupid), then your speaking is only of man.
Jesus’ emptiness of human ability is what caused the Roman centurion to cry out, “This is the Son of God!” In Jesus’ death there was an actual display of God – more than Caesar Augustus ever displayed. We can subscribe to the teaching of the trinity, but our actual understanding will be tested in whether our lives are really governed by the Spirit, or if they are governed by our own flesh and ability. We can agree with doctrine and miss the point entirely.
Jesus IS God
It isn’t difficult for us to see the Old Testament stories and read about this God who delivers mightily and performs wondrous works and realize that that God is God. It isn’t difficult for us to believe in the Old Testament God. We (including myself for much time) do, however, have a hard time believing that Jesus is God. I cannot tell you how many times I have read my New Testament and said, “Yes!” to all of the terminology, yet missed entirely that Jesus really is the same God as the Old Testament.
That might sound funny. What I do not mean to say is that the Old Testament God is a God of wrath and judgment, where the New Testament God is a God of love and mercy. They are the same God. Jesus is the same God that provided for Elijah and the widow. Jesus is the same God that sent hailstones down on Ur while Joshua battled. Jesus is the same God that delivered Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego out of the furnace.
This past time that I read through Mark, I started reading and just got caught up in it. I read about this Jesus who casts out a demon in the first chapter, and the next thing I know I’m reading about a Jesus who walks on water in chapter 6. As I read through it, I had the realization that I would be a disciple who asked, “What manner of a man is this?” I would be that guy who is in awe that someone could actually cast out demons. I would be that person who is flabbergasted when Jesus heals chronic diseases and conditions.
This brings me to my first point. When Jesus came to the Jews, the Jews had been schooled heavily in a monotheistic God. “Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God is one,” Deuteronomy 6:4. Even the Messiah was considered to be a man like Moses. Moses was not God. Moses was a man, but he delivered Israel. They waited for another man.
We, too, have been schooled in a monotheistic mentality. In trying to witness to the Jews, and in trying to be one of the main religions of the world, we have maintained the stance that we are monotheistic. This has done damage. Our thinking is no longer that God is three; God is one. So there are now crazy ideas like the Father was of the Old Testament, Jesus came in the Gospels, and now the Holy Spirit exists. They separate the three and claim that each one has His own place in history.
I have suffered from the same mentality. There is the Father, then there is Jesus, then there is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father. I and the Father are one.” When you read through the Gospels, you find that time and time again Jesus says, “According to your faith will you be healed,” or, “Your faith has made you whole.” What is He getting at?
It has been taught to me that their faith is in God and that Jesus is able to do these things. I don’t think so anymore. I think Jesus is saying, “If you can believe that I am God, and that God is here with you, and that I am not like what the system of religion tells you I am like, then you have faith indeed.” I think that this is the faith that heals. Jesus IS Lord.
Mark chapter 1 Jesus heals a leper. The man seems to acknowledge something deeper about Jesus than anyone else: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” It isn’t God though you, but instead you can make me clean. In chapter 2, 4 friends cut a hole in the roof of a house to let their paralytic friend in to be healed. Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” How can a man say that? He had to be God. Jesus then heals the man when he hears that others are saying that very thing, and everyone is amazed. Why? People don’t possess the power to heal. Even Elijah and Elisha didn’t perform those kinds of works.
We get to chapter 4 and Jesus crosses over the Sea of Galilee. Everyone gets in the boat and a big storm picks up. The waves are crashing over the sides of the boat. I’ve seen enough disaster movies to know that this isn’t good. They wake Jesus up (how can you sleep through something like that?). He then says, “Oh you of little faith!” He rebukes the wind and the waves, and they stop. Why did Jesus say, “Oh you of little faith?” They still don’t get it that Jesus isn’t just Messiah. He is God – Emmanuel.
In chapter 5, there is this Roman named Jairus. He believes that Jesus is actually able to raise a girl from the dead. He is Roman. He doesn’t know the Old Testament stories of Elijah raising the widow’s son. Mankind just doesn’t have that power. Yet he comes to Jesus asking that Jesus would raise his daughter. Do you see what is happening here? Do you see how Jesus is struggling with Israel because they won’t believe in Him?
In the midst of this story, another story emerges. A woman with an issue of blood says, “If I could just touch the hem of his garment…” She touches it and “immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up.” What happened in this story? Well, lets do a quick culture study… Rabbis would wear prayer shawls. On the ends of the prayer shawls, there were “fringes.” We would know them as tassels. These tassels were considered the rabbi’s “wings.” In Malachi 4:2, it says there will be healing in the Messiah’s wings. Isaiah 8:8 says that the Messiah’s wings shall stretch out over Judah. In Psalm 91:4, it mentions that we should trust under the Messiah’s wings. Psalm 63 gives reference that Jesus’ wings are the very wings of God – thus equating Him with God.
What does this story with the woman teach? She somehow knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the Messiah wasn’t only a man. She somehow knew and had faith that Jesus was God in the flesh. This is why Jesus so badly wanted to know who touched Him. He says to her, “Your faith has made you whole.”
In Mark chapter 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Now, there are a ton of cultural references that I would love to go into. After He feeds the 5,000, the disciples go on a boat and cross the sea. Jesus stays behind and eventually walks out to the disciples on the sea. The disciples see Him and think He is a ghost. He tells them to be of good cheer, “It is only I.” They then marveled amongst themselves because, “They had not understood about the loaves,” Mark 6:52.
So the back-story of the 5,000 being fed is really interesting. The story actually starts in Mark 4. Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee to the “land of the seven.” What is the land of the seven? This was a nickname given to the area where the non-Jews lived. It was a land of trade and commerce among the nations. The nickname comes from Deuteronomy 7:1 where God says that Israel will possess the land of “seven nations mightier than you.”
It is already controversial that Jesus would cross the sea to the land of the seven. Devout Jewish men never went here. When he gets there, he finds a demon-possessed man. He casts the legion of demons into the pigs, which then throw themselves into the sea. Isn’t it interesting that a human could live under such conditions, but pigs (which are unclean) would not live for a moment with a demon in them?
Now, this people – the land of the seven – heard of these things and kindly asked Jesus to leave. The previously demon possessed man asked to follow Jesus. Jesus then tells him no, and to go testify to his people. (That will come in handy later.)
In Mark chapter 6, Jesus is back where good religion tells you you’re supposed to stay. In His own land, there is a multitude that gathers and He feeds them. His own land is considered the land of the twelve – the twelve tribes of Israel. Instead of sending them away, He feeds them with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. When the disciples gather up the leftovers, they gather up 12 baskets of bread. So in the land of the 12, 12 baskets of bread are gathered up.
The disciples didn’t understand the loaves. We then are catapulted into chapter 7. In verse 24, we have the story of a Gentile woman who asks for Jesus’ help. Jesus tells her, “Let the children be first fed, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” What in the world? In the land of the seven, whom does Jesus think is going to ask Him for help? Yet, there are indeed people of Israel in the land of the seven.
According to the story, 4,000 people gather (not counting women and children) to hear Jesus teach. Once again, Jesus asks how they are going to feed so many. The disciples are once again not able to conceive how Jesus could possibly do such a thing. How much bread do they have? They have 7 loaves… in the land of the seven. They feed the people. They gather up the leftover bread to gather 7 baskets of bread… in the land of the seven.
In the land of the twelve, 12 baskets of bread are gathered, and in the land of the seven, 7 baskets of bread are gathered. What is being said here? The Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign. Jesus has it out with them. They get back in the boat. Now they are leaving the land of the seven. What are devout Pharisees doing in the land of the seven? Why are they there in the marketplaces where sin is rampant? Aren’t they supposed to be in Jerusalem?
Jesus gets back in the boat to cross over the sea again. He then says to his disciples, “Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” Remember that these are people who use power and strength and force to oppress people and get richer and richer off of the oppression of the poor. The disciples think that Jesus is saying this because they forgot the bread… They still don’t get it.
Time and time again Jesus reveals that He isn’t just a man. He is God. God has spoken and revealed Himself, but the people of Israel have been hardened to it. They have been taught and they have heard what God is like. In being taught, they have preconceived notions of how God is going to perform His acts and what the Messiah will be like. Jesus destroys all of our categories. He just takes all of what we thought we knew smashes it to pieces.
Maybe this is why we have the story of Simon Peter being the one to exclaim, “Thou art the Christ! The Son of the Living God!” What is it that Jesus asked for that response? He asked who people say that He is. The answers are: a prophet, Elijah, the Messiah, etc. What do you say about Jesus? Is He a prophet? Is He the Messiah? But when Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” it is Peter that cries out, “You are the Son of the Living God…”
Why is this important? Peter goes one step further than calling Jesus the Messiah. He goes one step further than equating Jesus with a deliverer. How many times have I heard this passage references, or read this passage in the Bible? How many times have I heard someone say that Jesus’ death on the cross delivers us from sin? How many times have I heard it equated that Jesus is the Messiah because He sacrificed Himself for our sakes? All of these statements, as true as they might be, were shallow clichés that missed entirely the point. Jesus wasn’t some man upon the cross. Jesus was God on the cross.
He is more than deliverer. And how many times do we think that we have to pray in Jesus’ name because we’re talking to the Father, and Jesus sits next to the Father, and we need Jesus’ approval before it will be accepted? Why do we pray in Jesus’ name? What does that even mean? We looked earlier at how the word shem means name. But it is more than the name of someone. It is their character. When Jesus said to pray in His shem, He was telling us that anything we ask in His character – the core identifying character of who someone is – His Father will hear it in heaven and it will be done.
What is Jesus saying? Is Jesus telling us that we have to put, “…in Jesus’ name,” at the end of our prayers? No! Jesus is telling us that our hearts and our attitudes and our characters – everything within the deepest depths of who we are – should be in alignment with His essential character. Anything we ask out of selflessness, it will be given. Anything we ask out of love, it will be given. Anything we ask out of the same thing that drove Christ – namely, the glorification of the Father – that prayer will be answered.
When we’re talking about whether Jesus is God, we’re talking about a topic a lot deeper than simply checking the box to say we agree. We can agree with the statement that Jesus is Lord, and yet totally miss the implications in our daily lives. Do you really believe that Jesus is Lord? Was it God the Father that performed those miracles that Jesus gets attributed for, or was it the Holy Spirit, or was it Jesus and only Jesus?
How can someone answer that question? The question itself would categorize God. God is one. Jesus performed those miracles; at the same time as the Father performed them; at the same time the Holy Spirit performed them. All three are present and completely accounted for in the Man Jesus Christ. There are not any miracles that God has ever done that He didn’t do with all three aspects of the trinity being fully present in that moment.
In one sense, our minds can’t comprehend this. In another sense, we can fully understand it because marriage is the exact same way. When my wife makes a decision, it doesn’t matter whether I was there and she consulted me or not. We both made that decision. We have been made one. To see her is to see me. You can’t understand my wife apart from understanding me. You can’t understand me without understanding my wife. If you ever get to know a couple that have been married for 30+ years, and then one of them passes away, what happens? It is obviously a time of sorrow. But you start to notice in the remaining person just how much of them you didn’t know. The other person now being gone affects the way that they act and live. Without their spouse, they are incomplete. Without their spouse, they now act “different.”
One can blame this on “coping.” But I think something even deeper and more profound is happening. That person that survives is no longer whole. The other person that completed them is gone. And so you can’t have a whole being when the two have become one, and now their apart. This is why divorce is so terrible. It actually changes the person forever. In this way, God is.
Ruach HaKodesh
When we’re trying to describe the Holy Spirit and it’s role in the Godhead, we’re coming to the place where words and philosophy fail. If you read the Bible, it is plainly displayed how God the Father and Jesus the Son go together. But how does the Holy Spirit fit into all of this? I think that maybe the easiest way for me to understand the Holy Spirit in relation to God is to understand it in relation to myself. Francis Chan has concluded that He is the forgotten God. Many people and sermons preach of Christ and on the Father, but neglect to ever mention the Spirit.
We find in Genesis 1 that God was the creator, that His Spirit hovered over the waters, and that by His Word He created all things. We have three, but we have one. The Spirit’s role was that energy that stirs up the creation. It was that wind or breath that brings life to all things. We also looked at how the Spirit is likened to wisdom. By wisdom, God made the foundations of the world. The Spirit is not neglected in the Bible. For answers as to why He is neglected in many people’s theology, we’re asking something else entirely. Because I have previously gone through the Holy Spirit, I am going to spend this section speaking about why it is that many people don’t acknowledge or understand how the Spirit fits in.
At the end of the chapter on ruach I mentioned that I believe the Holy Spirit is deeply tied to wisdom. In fact, I believe that when it mentions that by wisdom God created the world that that is a direct reference to the Spirit. Wisdom and the Spirit are related in a way that we cannot separate the two of them. When the Spirit is poured out, we gain wisdom and insight that we did not know before.
Lets look into Proverbs 2. “My son, if you receive my words, and store my commands within you, inclining your ear to wisdom, and applying your mind to reason; if you appeal to intelligence, and lift up your voice to reason; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures – then will you understand reverence for the Lord, and will discover the knowledge of God; for the Lord gives wisdom, out of His mouth comes knowledge and reason; He has help in store for the upright, He is a shield to those who walk honestly; He guards the paths of justice, and protects the way of His pious ones; then will you understand rectitude and justice, and will keep to every good course; for when wisdom finds a welcome within you, and knowledge becomes a pleasure to you, discretion will watch over you, reason will guard you – saving you from the way of evil men, from men who use perverse speech; who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in ways of darkness; who delight in doing evil, exult in wanton wickedness’ who are crooked in all their ways, and tortuous in their paths – saving you from the wife of another, from the adulteress who plies you with smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets her pledge to God; for her paths lead down to death, and her tracks descend to the Shades; none who go to her come back again, or reach the paths of life – helping you to walk in the way of good men, and to keep to the paths of the righteous; for the upright will live in the land, and the honest will remain in it; while the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the faithless will be rooted out of it.”
Okay… So lets learn from the way this chapter starts that there is a conjuncture between character and wisdom. “If you will receive my words and store my commands within you… then you will understand reverence for the Lord and discover knowledge.” A couple things come to mind. First, the Holy Spirit is likened to a dove. Anyone who knows a little bit about doves knows that they are easily offended. For a dove to rest upon someone would mean that there is nothing within that person or on that person to offend it. So for the Holy Spirit to rest upon us, we must have such a character that we are blameless and upright.
Second, we can see examples of even the pagans recognizing this in the Old Testament. One of the easiest to point out is in the life of Daniel. Time and time again we find that Daniel’s character is known, and by this they relate him as being a man who has the spirit of the gods. Daniel can interpret dreams that no one else can interpret. Daniel interprets writing that no one else interprets. Daniel survives the lion’s den when the others are consumed instantly. All of this is equated as him being a man who has the spirit of the gods.
What we need to recognize is that the wisdom that Daniel seems to exude, and the wisdom that many of the prophets seem to have, does not come from some sort of attribute or ability in the prophet himself. This is external. Even the pagans recognized that this man Daniel must have a spirit of the holy gods, for no other man has this kind of wisdom. We in the contemporary Church can’t even seem to acknowledge nor distinguish that much.
It is also mentioned in verse 6 that God gives wisdom. This is also mentioned in the book of James. Yet, the context from Proverbs 2 is that we must cry out (in my version it reads lift up our voice) for wisdom. We must seek wisdom as one would seek silver. We must search as one search for treasure. But what constitutes that we are indeed raising our voices and searching and seeking?
I think the first disposition is that we must be willing to receive God’s words – whatever the implication or requirement. How many times do we read stories of someone having profound understanding and insight, yet when they speak it seems like they speak of destruction and disaster? Samuel’s first prophetic statement was against Eli, who had raised him from his youth. Isaiah is sent from the throne of God to speak of a coming judgment. Daniel interprets the writing on the wall as judgment.
There is something intrinsic to our willingness. If we are not willing to hear a word that will require or challenge our faith and perception, then we are no longer candidates to receive wisdom. When our motives and our ministries and our dreams and aspirations are counter to what the Lord will speak, then we won’t hear from Him.
Many times when I talk with people, they will agree and nod their heads with what I am saying. Then they will open their mouth and say something completely counter to what I just said. They hear my words and put them through a filter or grid. “He used this word, and that means this, so he must mean this.” Suddenly they don’t hear my words any longer, but instead come up with their own ideology and say that I agree with them. This isn’t truly hearing. How many of us do this to God by having our own precepts and theology filter that everything has to line up with?
“If you will receive my words, and store my commands within you,” suddenly goes from simply applauding the use of Scripture to a demand and challenge. If you will fight vigorously to not come with a grid, filter, or closed mentality, then you are going to hear wisdom and receive instruction. Otherwise, you will take the words of God and transform them into your own words. I think this is why we lack such understanding and power in the Church. We all have our divisions and preconceived theology filters. “Baptists teach this, Lutherans teach that, Pentecostals are heretics, and I am the one with all the answers.”
In fact, I would even say that God doesn’t say much. He doesn’t speak to fill our ears with fluff and clichés. It seems like when He speaks to me it is always a challenge. I can’t take it through a subjective grid that allows me to get off the hook with a wrong mentality or heart issue. When God speaks He requires and challenges.
So understand that if we’re going to hear the words of God and receive wisdom – which is to say receive the Spirit – we need to be of a certain motive and have a certain heart and disposition to hear from God objectively. So how do we avoid sublimating the word of God into the existing framework of our values and interests and not accommodate it to that?
The answer is to simply not have a framework. You simply don’t subscribe to theologies that you think are correct. You read the Scripture without filtering it. You have an open heart and mind. It really is that simple. Take away the vested interest and you are left with the ability to truly hear. You have nothing to defend and nothing to fit the Scripture into. If the Bible says it, you believe it.
The way that we can do this is by guarding our hearts and making sure that nothing takes a stance above the word of God. We could have learned something from God at one point, but because of our cherishing that one thing, we now have skewed our theology and the whole picture that God paints. It is something like the state of the Church. It has become some sort of self-promulgating institution that has to continue to do the same thing over and over again. People expect a certain performance when they go to church, and if it isn’t delivered, then people find somewhere else to go.
How many times has it been that someone will start a church with the heart to truly live and teach others to live the apostolic lifestyle, but after a certain point in growth and after gaining a certain amount of property, they suddenly change. I’ve seen it. A church gets a new building and suddenly they don’t have the same unction and anointing. A church in that condition can no longer hear God as it did in the first.
This is at our disposal. We have the ability to come to God without any baggage. The question is our willingness. Are you willing for the potential word that will shake and challenge your beliefs? Are you willing to possibly have to change?
So I guess the question is our willingness to perform the words of God. There is practical advice given in the book of Proverbs. Are we willing to do it? It doesn’t matter our background. “Oh, I’m black and I’m a victim of society…” “Oh, my father was an alcoholic…” So what? It simply comes down to this: do that which God says to do and you will prosper. Righteousness exalts a nation.
This first disposition is about character. If you want the Holy Spirit on your life, then you need the character and the backbone to accept it. If you are willing to walk by the Spirit, and you are willing to live by the Spirit, then you are now a candidate for the filling of the Spirit. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life.” If you have a heart, then you can do this.
So we’re talking about coming to full humanity. We all have hearts. Simply keeping our hearts and guarding them with diligence is the issue. Can we be stewards of even that? Can we guard the locus of who we are? This is the first issue of the Holy Spirit being poured out upon us. It comes down to easy application daily life.
Lets look at the next point. It mentions that we need to treasure up the commandments. Why would it be mentioned to treasure up the commandments? We usually hear about obedience to commandment. Yet treasuring them is something altogether different. We do more than obey. We esteem them as with great worth. We reverence them. We count them as being precious.
Since when has it been taught that God’s law and commandments are precious? Far too often it is quite the opposite. We’re taught that any mention of the Law is legalism. We’ve created our own morals and our own interpretations of what the different laws mean. We’ve decided which laws are applicable and which are to toss aside. There is little to no respect for the commandments and law and teaching of God.
If you want proof, I just need to mention the kosher diet. How many Christians follow the dietary laws in Leviticus 11? Oh, it was mentioned in Peter’s vision that we don’t have to obey that anymore. Jesus even said that it isn’t what goes into the stomach of a man that makes him unclean. Yet how many evangelists’ stomachs look as though they have eaten plenty – whether clean or not? This is an issue that we need to note and understand. Sure, maybe because of modern technology we don’t need to follow the kosher diet. Lets discuss that as a community who actually engages and practices it, because how many Christians will say there is no more dietary law only to stuff their face with prepackaged garbage and high fructose corn syrup?
Don’t think that the orthodox Jews labor and are weighed down by the Law either. They delight in it. They relish it. The Law is the Word of God, and it is life.
What about wisdom is so desirable that it is worth such a sacrifice? Wisdom is what God Himself gives out of His own mind and will in the appropriateness that only He can recognize and answer for a situation that has not previously come and cannot be answered by any past experience but needs the present now understanding of God to resolve. What is at stake is not the issue of convenience or even success. What is at stake is the issue of life and death and eternity, which is in the last analysis the issue of the glory of God. If we do not have the appropriate wisdom for those moments we will not just lose life, but will also profane the eternal glory of God and mare His image.
This explains a situation that most of us cannot conceive. Most of us don’t think it would ever come up in our lifetime. And there lies the problem. Our conception and perception leaves something to be desired. We lack wisdom and the Spirit to the degree that we lack the understanding that all things are precious and all moments are once and for all.
Even if such a moment does not occur, we ought to be giving ourselves to this. We should all understand that the last days bring about scenarios that no one has ever had to overcome before. That in itself constitutes that we should gain the wisdom of God and learn to hear that Spirit so that when/if the moment should come