The Impact of God on the New Testament Folk

Now let us jump across many centuries, to about A.D. 55 or 60. We find Paul ending a letter to the Corinthians with the words, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" ( II Cor. 13: 14). This is curious talk! Is Paul referring to one God, or three? Are God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, all the same, or are they different?

We are treading upon formidable ground here, ground that goes by the name of the doctrine of the Trinity. There is no formal "doctrine of the Trinity" as such in the New Testament. But it is out of the experience of New Testament Christians that the doctrine of the Trinity was later formulated. Let this fact be underlined: The doctrine of the Trinity is not an attempt by theologians to make things tough for the average Christian by introducing a celestial mathematics which says 3 = 1. The doctrine of the Trinity is an attempt to describe, as systematically as possible, the content of the Christian experience of God.

FATHER

Take one of these early Christians like Peter. He has grown up in a Jewish home. He knows the God of his fathers, the God and Lord of history to whom his Jewish people stand in special relationship. Through the worship of the synagogue, through studying the law, and through the experiences of his own life, this God has been a reality for Peter, one with whom he has had personal relationship. He knows with countless other Jews that God pities those who fear him, "as a father pities his children" ( Ps. 103: 13). Perhaps Peter has even called this God "Father."

SON

But then one day Peter meets a man who is more than a man. This man confronts Peter as he mends nets, or fishes all night without luck. Peter makes himself the follower of this man Jesus and lives in close relationship with him. He finds that human categories won't explain him. So when Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter replies, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" ( Matt. 16: 16). When Jesus confronts Peter, Peter cannot escape the conclusion that God is confronting him. This man is God -- and yet he is still man.

AND HOLY SPIRIT

But the time comes when Jesus is no more physically present with the disciples. In spite of this fact, they do not feel that God has left them, for he has sent "the Holy Spirit." This is not another God, this is the same God, making himself known to them as a constant abiding presence and the source of their power. Peter has known God as Father, he has known God as Son, now he knows God as Spirit, and his life becomes a constant surrender to that power which is not his own, but rather God active and at work in him. God isn't to be talked about in the past tense -- he is active and at work right now in the present, with the promise that he will continue to be so in the future.

Thus the New Testament writers talk about God in these three ways. They are not constructing an intellectual puzzle; they are simply describing how the living God works upon their lives.