The Holy Trinity and Social Relations

The Holy Trinity and Social Relations

By Jay Wegter

INTRODUCTION: The Trinity formula is found in the ordinance of baptism. “Go therefore and make disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). Numerous other passages name the three persons of the Godhead. See: Matt 3:16-17; Jn 14:16-21; 15:26; Acts 1:7-8; Eph 2:18. Christ is the ‘face of God’—Christ reveals the Father. See: 2 Cor 4:4-6; Jn 1:18; Phil 2:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3; Ex 33:14. The saints’ communion with God consists of partaking of the Holy Spirit. See: Jn 7:38-39; 1 Jn 1:3; Rom 8:9; 2 Cor 13:5; 2 Pet 1:4; Heb 12:10; Jn 17:22-23.

The Father loved so much that He gave—the Son loved so much that He gave up Himself (Jn 3:16; Titus 2:14). Jonathan Edwards describes the riches that we have in Christ as: the sum of what Christ purchased for us was the Holy Spirit. God is our portion (Ps 73) and we are Christ’s bride (Eph 5). The purpose of creation is that Christ might have a bride.

Christ is co-equal with the Father. See: Phil 2:6; Heb 1:3; Jn 5:19-23; 1:1-3; 1 Tim 3:16; Jn 10:30; Matt 22:37; Col 1:16; Rev 1:8. It is necessary to honor the Son even as the Father. See: Jn 5:23; 14:1; 17:3; 1 Jn 2:23; 5:20.

Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important for every believer? The doctrine of the Trinity is not a theological refinement or speculative point of faith. The doctrine of the Triune Godhead is essential to salvation. To believe savingly is to believe in three Persons in one Godhead as they are revealed in Scripture. The only true knowledge of our triune God is the self-revelation which He has given of Himself in His Word. Every other conceivable conception of God presents a false god to the mind and the conscience. The Scriptures explicitly state that knowledge of the true God and of Jesus Christ whom He sent is eternal life (Jn 17:3).

The whole plan of salvation in all parts is founded upon the Trinity: redemption; justification; adoption; sanctification; glorification. Everything that makes sense in the gospel is founded upon the Trinity. “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30).

It is a fact born out in church history that whenever the doctrine of the Trinity was abandoned or obscured, the gospel is also abandoned and obscured. The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our communion with God; and the foundation of all of our comfortable dependence upon Him. “For through Him (Christ Jesus) we both (believing Jew and Gentile)have our access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18).

The Trinity is the foundation of our anticipated joy in heaven. Late Puritan Isaac Ambrose, in describing heaven notes that God has willed that in the eternal state God shall commune with us after our human form. In other words, our fellowship with God will be with the glorified Lord Jesus Christ. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:3-4).

Because of the Trinity, perfect unity does not erase precious diversity. Perfect oneness and harmony is not defined by assimilation; it does not remove the wealth of diversity. In all false religion there is a feeble attempt at unity through radical conformity. Distinctiveness and uniqueness are jeopardized. The Trinity preserves both distinctiveness and uniqueness.

We are finite creatures made for fellowship with the infinite. This is a glorious paradox: because of life in our Triune God, perfect endless unity does not jeopardize diversity, uniqueness, difference, and distinction. The activity of the redeemed who make up the Body of Christ have gifts, abilities, and functions which are perfectly complementary and interdependent; just as do the parts of a physical body. See: 1 Corinthians 12.

God is revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes; but without division of nature, essence, or being. The three Persons are revealed distinctly. These three are one God. The doctrine of the procession of the Spirit illustrates the subordination between Persons. This subordination does not threaten equality. The Son proceeds from the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. See: Jn 15:26; 16:28-30; 20:22. There is unanimity and one will and one intelligence among the Persons of the Godhead; yet we may pray to the Persons individually.

Both creation and providence are acts of the whole Godhead. But it is redemption which brings God near to us and clearly discloses God to us. Each of the three Persons of the Godhead sustain a distinct official relation to redemption. The Father’s role in redemption is in its planning and execution (the choosing of the elect; and the sending of the Son; and the justifying of the believing sinner). The Son’s role in redemption is to accomplish it through His death and resurrection. The Spirit’s role in redemption is to apply the work of Christ to the sinner—making that person spiritually alive (regeneration) and uniting them to Christ, and sealing; indwelling; and sanctifying the believer.

God has eternally and necessarily existed as the Trinity (Jn 17:5, 24). God cannot be other than He is—He is immutable—unchanging. The Trinity was present in the work of creation (Gen 1:2; Heb 1:2; Jn 1:1-3; 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:160. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity answers the question, “What is God like in Himself?” We learn that in Himself, in His very being, God exists in Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet one God. This plurality of Persons is taught in the O.T. See: Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Is 6:8; Ps 45:6-7; 110:1. There is a more complete revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament.

Three statements summarize the doctrine of the Trinity—providing a test of orthodoxy and safeguarding the doctrine from distortion. Church history is fraught with heresies regarding the Trinity. In some cases these doctrinal errors did not originate maliciously; but as carnal attempts to make the doctrine simplistic and agreeable to human reason. What began as attempts to make God more understandable to the finite mind wound up denying the great mystery and wonder of His incomprehensibility. In addition, every analogy employed to assist our understanding of the Trinity fails (i.e. the three states of water; the three parts of an egg; etc.)

Each of the following theological errors denies at least one of the three tests of orthodoxy listed below. The error of modalism denies number one. The error of arianism denies number two. And the error of tritheism denies number three.

THE TEST IS: 1.) God is three Persons. 2.) Each Person is fully God. 3.) There is one God.

The unity or oneness of God is clearly taught in Scripture. See: Deut 6:4-5; Is 45:21-22; 44:6-8; 1 Tim 2:5; Rom 3:30; 1 Cor 8:6; James 2:19. In the doctrine of the Trinity there is a distinction between the Persons; but a sharing of glory (Jn 5:23; 17:24).

APPLICATION: At salvation the Spirit of God grants the believing sinner an eternal relationship with the Triune God through Christ. Our walk in the Spirit is to be characterized by diligently caring for this relationship which has been graciously granted. Many believers need to rethink the entire definition of salvation because it is common to conceive of salvation as a kind of spiritual commodity rather than what it really is. To be in possession of eternal salvation is to be a partaker of a relationship graciously granted by the Spirit of God. Sanctification is to diligently care for that relationship given. God’s saving grace is relational from top to bottom—from start to finish. Carnal believers and false professors discount this pervasive truth—making salvation into a body of impersonal merit composed of Christ’s morality and theirs.

This paper unfolds the reasons why the Holy Trinity is the foundation of social relations. The Trinity implies that relationships are NOT created by sheer choice; but are built into the very essence of human nature that is made in the image of God. The cross of Christ applied to the believer ‘kills’ the tyranny and dominion of selfishness which harms the relationships around which true community is built. The power of the gospel of Jesus Christ restores sinners to right-relatedness to the Godhead. Therefore, the saints have true community by common confession of Christ (1 Jn 1:1-3).

The virtues and graces given to believers through salvation are relational graces. Righteousness; love; truth; and meekness are manifested in our relationships—they are relational graces which are to reflect the blessedness of communion within the Godhead.

I. The Holy Trinity is the foundation for understanding sociology from a theistic vantage point.

A. Who or what determines our social order? (Outline points A through C are adapted from Del Tackett’s Truth Project, lesson 7-9).

1. God has given us countless examples of order and systems in the physical creation. God’s order in creation includes social order. This means that the social institutions God has given us are awesome in design; they are permeated with beauty and glory. The social order God has given us are the direct result of divine design and not the result of chance. These social institutions created by God are intended for our good and His glory.

2. The real battleground today is in created social order. To refuse to see created social order is a visceral reaction coming from man’s rebellion against God. Man rejects the truth of created social order because man does not wish to gaze upon the face his holy Creator.

During creation week God kept saying at the end of each day that what He was making was good. This ‘goodness’ bound up in the original creation is joined to the fact that creation is intended to bring honor and glory to God—He has vested it with His wisdom, goodness, and beauty. Modern man subscribes to a naturalistic worldview (explaining things without reference to God) and thereby rejects the role of creation as a worshipping chorus of God.

3. Our triune God is a social being—this social dimension of God is bound up in His very being. Three persons and one essence—this means that unity and diversity are contained in His own being. And, it means that the relationship between unity and diversity are resolved in God’s own being. God did not have to dream up social order—it had already been eternally in existence in the Godhead. When God created social order; He stamped the imprint of His own nature and being upon marriage—the first institution He created.

Submission within the Godhead and submission within marriage are directly related. We go to the source of authority and submission, the Godhead, in order to understand it rightly. Without this action of going to God through the Scriptures; authority and submission are used wrongly by mankind—history is replete with negative examples of their abuse.

4. It is wonderful to consider that the created universe is permeated with tri-unities. I think of the three states of matter: solid, liquid, and vapor; the three states of time: past; present; and future; the three dimensions of our universe: time; space; and mass; and the three dimensions of space: height; width; and depth (Dr. Henry M. Morris).
5. God states that it is not good for the man to be alone. He moves Adam from aloneness to relationship to community. Adam goes from solitary to experiencing intimacy, union, community, fellowship, and love. But it is important to our study to note that these relational virtues had existed eternally in the Trinity. Man’s fall into sin interrupted the perfect relationships granted by God. Separations resulted: man from God; man from man; man from himself; and man from nature. Christ’s death and resurrection is the only solution to these separations.

B. Natural (moral) law is an extension of God’s nature. Natural law is not based upon some abstract principle which is outside of God (R. C. Sproul). Natural law is defined as a rule or body of rules of conduct inherent in human nature and essential to or binding upon human society.

1. To go against God’s blueprint and structure for marriage, family and church is to go against God’s nature. God’s triune nature is the source of social laws which are to govern the structure of marriage, and family, and church. These divinely ordained social laws are the only true source of unity within these social institutions which He has created.

2. We see and behold in awe God’s glory through the lens of the social laws and institutions He has created. When God’s social laws are rejected; pathologies are the consequence. When God says that He hates divorce in Malachi chapter two; He is not just addressing pragmatics alone—or the reality that divorce creates emotional pain. God’s hatred of divorce speaks of His hating the fact that divorce destroys the picture of unbreakable commitment and union in the Godhead and in God’s redemptive covenant with His people.

In today’s world the pathologies of the family are overwhelming. God created the family for intimacy, fellowship, security, honor, unity, love, oneness, respect, and belonging. The pathologies which discount God’s social laws destroy those virtues.

3. The sanctity of divinely created social institutions is captured in a quote from Abraham Kuyper, “If God created . . . [the] social spheres [of marriage, family, and church] for a purpose, then they are sovereign and the state is not sovereign over . . . [these] social spheres.” This has become a critical battle zone in our day and age. Over one hundred years of psychology have convinced our culture that social institutions are a part of man’s problems and therefore ought to be subservient to the state (their God-given sovereignty is all but gone).

C. The Holy Trinity’s eternal communion is the source of the believer’s mystical union with Christ (Jn 14-17; Col 1-2).

1. Jesus declares this mystery, “I am in the Father, you are in Me, and I am in you” (Jn 14:20; 17:21ff.). This is incredible—it means that Christianity is defined by a social sphere emanating from the communal life of the Trinity. Believing sinners are not just being saved from eternal hell; they are brought into the relational life of the Holy Trinity. Through Christ God makes us sons and friends—forever companions who will dwell in the Father’s house. (See the excellent book by Darrell W. Johnson, Experiencing the Trinity.)

This is remarkable—Christ is giving us His own right-relatedness to the Trinity so that we might be invited into the intimacy of the Godhead. When this reality makes its proper impact upon us; we cannot walk in the world anymore without bearing the reality of who we are in Christ.

2. This stunning aspect of our spiritual wealth—that we are adopted by God to experience the life of the Trinity also deepens our discernment of sin. Here is the reason why: when divinely ordained social laws are blurred; there is a radical de-valuing of marriage, family, and church. When the laws which produce the unity within each of these institutions of God are ignored; disunity and disharmony are the result. This fact must fill our preaching; teaching; and counseling.

God has a precise, all-wise plan for unity within these social structures. In marriage the unity is grounded in the two becoming one flesh. God has given us social laws to protect, sanction, and nurture this one flesh unity in marriage. In the church it is one body with many members—we are members one of another. In Scripture God has given us social laws which safeguard and enhance the unity of the body of Christ. Thus to view these social institutions from the perspective of the Trinity provides for us a ‘big picture’ vantage point. Reflect upon this for a moment—the redeemed will ultimately be brought into the life of the Trinity. Therefore, pursuing unity and harmony within marriage and within the church now is inseparable from our sanctification. And, this pursuit of harmony is preparation for experiencing the communal life of the Trinity in the glory to come. This gives us a vantage point which is exceedingly broad and a scope which is eternal, and it certainly puts our sin under a new light of scrutiny.ⁱ

II. The doctrine of the Trinity has profound implications for all reality, and for all social relations including gender relations.

A. To defend the family against state agendas, we need to make a case that only the biblical drama of Creation, Fall, Redemption gives a realistic; yet humane account of human nature and of the structure and purpose of the family in society. Along with the tendency of state-ism, is its companion ideology of reducing all social relationships to individual choice. When one denies Creation; the divine creation structures that govern our relationships are attacked as well.

1. Relationships become ‘social contracts’ made out of convenience and preference. In Ted Peter’s book, For the Love of Children, he suggests that each parent be required to make a legal contract with his or her children. His proposal is intended to shift from the biological family to choice. This would turn the family into a collection of disconnected, atomistic individuals, bound by no attachments or obligations they do not choose for themselves. This is called ontological individualism. It is based on the idea that individuals are the only reality. Relationships are therefore not ultimate (or part of God’s creational design)—only derivative; created by individual choice. Social contract theory suggests that ALL social relationships are a matter of personal choice.

2. The family is caught in a ‘tug-o-war’ between state-ism and individualism. The Holy Trinity provides the divine basis for all social relations. The human race was created in the image of God who is three Persons so intimately related as to constitute one Godhead. The balance of unity and diversity in the Trinity gives a model for human social life BECAUSE the Trinity implies that both individuality and relationship exist within the Godhead. God is “Being-in- Communion.” ⁱⁱ Ethics divorced from God become vices. Consider examples from Western society which have already been legislated, or are about to be legislated: homosexual rights (same sex marriage); state funded abortion (the ‘right’ to kill one’s unborn child); hate speech is to suggest that homosexuality is immoral.

3. The age old tension has been between collectivism (often expressed as state-ism) and individualism. The Trinity is the solution to this tension because the Trinity implies not only unity; but the dignity and uniqueness of the individual. Over against radical individualism; the Trinity implies that relationships are not created by sheer choice but are built into the very essence of human nature that is made in the image of God (who is in communion). We are not atomistic individuals but created for relationships.ⁱⁱⁱ

4. The Trinity has repercussions not only for all social relations (especially the family) but also for every other discipline. In philosophy the Trinity provides the solution to the question of the one and the many. Since the ancient Greeks, philosophers have asked, does ultimate reality consist of a single being (as in pantheism); or in disconnected particulars (as in atomism)? The two views are played out politically in the two extremes of totalitarianism versus anarchy.
5. Trinitarian Christian worldview is the only coherent basis for social theory. The Trinity as the foundation of human sociality is not merely theoretical. In redemption, believers are called to form an actual society—the Church—that demonstrates to the world the balanced interplay between the one and the many; of unity and individuality. In John 17:11, Jesus is saying that the communion of Persons within the Trinity is the model for communion within the Church. It teaches us how to foster richly diverse individuality within ontologically real relationships. Timothy Ware notes, “The Church as a whole is an icon of God the Trinity, reproducing on earth the mystery of unity in diversity.”ⁱᵛ We ought to be intensely aware of the fact that regenerated persons are literally equipped by God for true community: they are indwelt by God’s Spirit and have His enabling power; they have communion with God; and they have His infallible Word – 1 Pet 1:22, 23). The redeemed are called upon to reproduce

on earth the mystery of mutual love that the Trinity lives in heaven.ᵛ

6. The following section on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is adapted from a Winterim Course (by that title) taught by Wayne Grudem, visiting lecturer at The Master’s Seminary. Gender roles and sexuality have become the focal point in the battle of worldviews. At this ‘ground zero’ battle zone, the forces of secular humanism and feminism have sought to relativize all the ethical mandates of Scripture; especially those which apply to marriage; family; sacredness of life; sacredness of sexual relations; and gender roles. The Trinity is the foundation for male and female being equal in dignity and value; yet having different roles. Relations within the Trinity and relations within marriage have a parallel. Communal relations involve listening, deferring, and trusting. There is headship resident in one of the members. There is a difference in roles; yet equality. The Trinity is the model for headship and submission. The difference in roles within the Trinity will continue for all eternity (1 Cor 15:28). Because of diversity with perfect equality; the Trinity forms the pattern for

relationships without inferiority.

The Trinity as unity and diversity in the Godhead is the model for human social life. (Note the unity and diversity in the ‘body’ metaphor in 1 Cor 12; Eph 4; Phil 2; and Col 3). Our defense against radical individualism is as follows: the Trinity implies that relationships are NOT created by sheer choice; but are built into the very essence of human nature that is made in the image of God. Our relationships are designed by God to express the character of our Creator. What is tragic is that the doctrine of the economic Trinity is a threat to the egalitarianism of the Evangelical feminists. As a consequence some evangelical feminist writers have penned articles which are modalistic in nature; suggesting that blasphemous notion that any member of the Trinity could have been incarnated as the Son of God! By working in this manner, they show that their feminism is not a peripheral issue; but is hostile to the doctrine of God. When they insist that roles are anchored in capacity; and not gender; they are severing their view of relationships from the Trinity. The Scriptures teach that the roles within the economic Trinity are eternal.ᵛⁱ

7. (Grudem continued). The differences in male female roles in marriage are part of the created order. See Gen 2 (Adam naming the animals before Eve was created); Gen 3 (Adam responsible for representing the human race); 1 Cor 11:9 (created purpose of each gender); 1 Tim 2:13 (order and source of each gender’s creation). The real issue in gender role is God’s reflected glory on earth. The complementarian view (male and female complete one another by their gender, and by their gender roles) alone preserves the reflected glory of our Triune God in male female relationships (the complementarian view states that in Scripture God has revealed His specific pattern and plan for gender roles).ᵛⁱⁱ Wayne Grudem offers the follow chart to assist us in understanding how the Holy Trinity shapes our social relations, and why we must not deviate from God’s design:

EXTREME LEFT TRINITARIAN COMPLEMENTARIAN EXTREME RIGHT
Political correctness Excellence Strong control the weak
Anti-competition (no differences) Fairness Mayan ball court, losers die
Egalitarian Servant leadership Weak oppressed not protected
Obliterate differences (monism) Diversity with equality Allah god harsh warrior
Emasculate men Reflect Triune Godhead Strict fundamentalism
De-feminize the female Unity that honors differences Enforced religious conformity
Freedom: escape God’s design Freedom by life in God’s design Deny Trinity, lose value of life
Dialectic (deny absolute truth) Loving fathers teach God’s truth Religion advanced by violence
Absence of incarnation love
Islam defines itself by
destruction of the heathen, not
by transforming grace & truth

8. Each Person in the Trinity eternally and equally possesses the whole substance of the Godhead; yet each is distinct from the others. The members of the Trinity differ from one another by the relations in which they stand to each other. Each has absolute personality. The Son is the self-reproduction of the Father (Heb 1:1-3; 5) of whom He is eternally begotten. The Holy Spirit is the reproduction of the Father and the Son; and the Spirit proceeds from both (Jn 14:16, 17, 26; 16:7) (Hoffecker, pp. 86-87).ᵛⁱⁱⁱ Christ unifies all reality. Christ does what the Greek philosophers could not do; He unifies all reality. He links visible and invisible reality; He reconciles singularity and plurality He gives harmony, unity, and order to the cosmos. The Son connects the realms of being (permanence) and becoming (change). The Trinity provides the vision for seeking unity among mankind. Plato could not unite the visible and the invisible; the transcendent and the immanent.ⁱˣ

9. Man made for himself a false ideal of knowledge. It is totally inconsistent with the idea of creatureliness that man should strive for comprehensive knowledge; if it could be obtained it would wipe God out of existence and man would then be God. When man seeks to be his own ultimate reference point; man virtually occupies the place which the ontological Trinity occupies in orthodox theology.ˣ The ontological Trinity is the foundation concept of a Christian theory of being, of knowledge, and of action. “This is the God in whom men must believe lest all meaning should disappear from human words.” Apart from the God of Christianity, all possible human predication is non-existent.ˣⁱ (Predication is defined as postulation: logic, a declaration or assertion of something self-evident; something that can be assumed as the basis for argument.)

10. The importance of the Trinity to apologetics is immense: Anti-Trinitarianism always leads to a “wholly other” God, rather than a God who is transcendent in the biblical sense. Paradoxically, it also leads to a God who is relative to the world rather than sovereign Lord of Scripture (a “blank” God without absolute personality). It makes Creator-creature distinction a matter of degree, rather than difference in being. Because of the Trinity (both three and one), God can be described in personalistic terms without being made relative to the world. The Trinity answers philosophy’s religious quest, namely, “Why is there is no absolute unity (devoid of plurality), nor absolute plurality (devoid of unity)?”ˣⁱⁱ The unitarian god (or non-trinitarian god) is unknowable (blank oneness or utter uniqueness). The God of Scripture is the only absolute, and that absolute is the one and the many. The Trinity has implications for epistemology. God the Lord interprets everything definitively. So when we want to know something, we must think His thoughts after Him. God is the author and origin of truth, the supreme authority for knowledge. (Consider how significant this is—thinking God’s thoughts after Him—in the realm of man and woman in relationship is the only way in which we can know our identity and purpose with certainty.) Authority is part of His lordship—He has the right to tell us what to believe. When sinners try to gain knowledge without fear of the Lord, that knowledge is distorted. The sinner may express many facts accurately in a context smaller than worldview. But his worldview is twisted and unreliable. His most serious epistemological mistake is to assert his own autonomous reason (that is self) as the final standard of truth and right.ˣⁱⁱⁱ The conventional wisdom, with its impersonalism, cannot do justice to moral values. The world’s wisdom cannot account for the trustworthiness of reason. This inability corrupts impersonalist ideas in every field of human thought: science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, the arts, economics, business, and government. It corrupts practical living—after all, in a chance universe why choose moral right instead of self? If we are to go on the offensive against unbelief, we must know more about unbelief from a Biblical viewpoint. The unbeliever attempts to think and live as if the absolute personal God of Scripture does not exist.

To do so is to put the mind of man precisely in the place of God as definer and ultimate interpreter of the creation.ˣⁱᵛ

11. There is an infinite difference between the ontological Trinity and bare monotheism. We teach that the very nature of God exists in one substance and in three Persons. The tri-personal, or Trinitarian doctrine of God is the only possible monotheism. The way in which ‘monotheism’ is used in the academy is not really describing the God of Scripture; why? BECAUSE there is no such God as a God who is mono-personal (only one person)! Islam and Judaism are committed to the proposition that God is mono-personal (Note the terminology used by the religious leaders who rejected Christ’s divinity, “He deserves to die—He made Himself equal to God by calling God His own Father” (Jn 5:18; 10:33).ˣᵛ So called, ‘monotheists’ (in reality, unitarians) are only worshipping the figment of their imagination (in reality they are atheists or idolaters). Christians are the only true worshippers of God on the face of the earth (Judaism is a religious organization based upon the common rejection of Christ’s deity and Messiahship—John MacArthur.) The ontological Trinity refers to God as three Persons, one substance, equal in power and glory. The economic Trinity refers to God in respect to His relation to us; especially redemption. We must understand the ontological Trinity in order to understand the economic Trinity. Only 20% of professing Christendom believes in the redemptive work of all three members of the Economic Trinity: the Father allocating redemption; the Son accomplishing redemption; the Holy Spirit applying redemption. The other 80% plus of Christendom worldwide still places their hope in the sacraments—namely that the sacraments constitute the application of salvation (John Gerstner).ˣᵛⁱ

B. Are moral requirements an imposition on our freedom; or are they the expression of our true nature as coming from the hand of our triune Creator?

1. The ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau inspired many of the ‘butchers’ of the 20ᵗʰ Century. If you grasp Rousseau’s thinking; you will understand much of the modern world. Rousseau described what he designated a “pre-social” condition or “state of nature.” In this ‘pre-social’ condition, all social relations are not real; but choices. He envisioned man in a state of nature stripped of all social relationships, morals, laws, customs, traditions—civilization itself. All that exists are disconnected autonomous individuals whose sole driving force is desire for self motivation. Rousseau viewed society (and the social relations proscribed by God in the divinely ordained institutions of marriage, church, and family) as oppressive, confining, and contrary to our nature.ˣᵛⁱⁱ

2. For Rousseau, what was oppressing man’s natural freedom was the ‘chains’ of relationships such as marriage, family, church, and workplace. His line of thought represented a radical break from the traditional Christian social theory which regards the Trinity as the model for social life (in Genesis, the original man in nature was blessed with the institution of marriage).

The implications of the doctrine of the Trinity is that relationships are just as real and ultimate as individuals. Relationships are part of the created order; thus ontologically good

and real. The moral requirements they make upon us are not impositions on our freedom; but

expressions of what it means to be human (our true nature). Participating in institutions of family, church, state, and society are part of the Christian’s development of moral virtues that prepare us ultimately to be citizens of the heavenly city.ˣᵛⁱⁱⁱ

3. Rousseau spelled out a vision in which the state would destroy all social ties; the individual would only have to be loyal to self; since the state was the ‘liberator’, each person would be dependent upon the state (no wonder this inspired so many totalitarian regimes). Thomas Hobbes and John Locke proposed the concept as well (each of these three men wrote before Darwin’s time). Darwin’s creation myth would someday supply the theory that would give credence to the idea of the indeterminate, ‘happy’ beast; namely prehistoric; or early man. These pre-Darwin thinkers suggested that the reason social relationships are bad is because they interfere with the individual’s ‘freedom’ to create himself. Relationships that are not the product of choice are oppressive (biological bonds of family, moral bonds of marriage, spiritual bonds of the church). The only bond which retains autonomous freedom then is the social contract (traditional social ties would be dissolved and then reconstituted on the basis of choice).ˣⁱˣ

C. Every worldview based on faulty views of Creation; the Fall; and Redemption, will ultimately be hostile to true freedom (and instigate rebellion against God). Why was the 20th Century the bloodiest in history? Answer: Whole cultures adopted worldviews based upon faulty definitions of Creation; Fall; Redemption; and Restoration. Thus they fell into false definitions of the nature of man; false definitions of man’s predicament; and false solutions to man’s problems (false definitions of human flourishing and thus false visions of utopia).

The autonomous individual with his false view of freedom is actually the most vulnerable to totalitarian control. Students today who have never read Locke can parrot the atomistic notion of social contract; they have bought into the liberal idea of the ‘unencumbered self’ (marriage, family, and church may be ties they have not ‘chosen’—therefore these ties can be viewed as standing in the way of democratization). The core of personhood is our ability to choose our own identity—to create ourselves. This is why relationships and responsibilities are often considered hostile to essential identity.ˣˣ

III. The implications of the Trinity for Christian ministry

A. It has been said that the doctrine of the Trinity is the ‘grammar’ of the Christian life and faith.ˣˣⁱ “In all of His dealings with us, personal, corporate, social and cosmic; God goes the way of His Trinitarian being.”ˣˣⁱⁱ Our problem is that we so easily divorce theology from ministry practice. We need to ask the question, “What differences would it make in our efforts if we joined Christ in His ministry instead of trying to get Him to join our ministry?”

It is natural for us to gravitate more toward ministry strategies instead of abiding in Christ. As a consequence, we are carrying burdens Christ never intended that we carry. And, the reason we do so is because we forget that we are co-workers with Christ—it is His ministry more than ours.ˣˣⁱⁱⁱ Oswald Sanders has stated that, “we slander God by our very eagerness to work for Him without knowing Him.”ˣˣⁱᵛ

B. Human beings, created in the image of the triune God, are constituted for relationship.ˣˣᵛ Sinners are broken by sin and fragmented by the separations sin produces: separation from God; from others; and from self. The gospel of Jesus Christ ‘heals’ these separations through the Spirit. But this conquest of separations caused by sin takes place in relationships. God saves us by bestowing and imparting an eternal relationship with Himself. The Christian life involves translating this vertical relationship into our horizontal relationships.

Author Stephen Seamands comments on the vital role of community,

Groups tend to emphasize accountability when they don’t know how to relate. Better behavior through exhortation is not the solution, though it is sometimes part of it. Rather than fixing psyches or scolding sinners, we must provide nourishment for the disconnected soul that only a community of connected people can offer.ˣˣᵛⁱ

[In authentic Christian communities, the gospel] heart of God is home where the humble and wise learn to shepherd those on the path behind them, where trusting strugglers lock arms with others as together they journey on.ˣˣᵛⁱⁱ

C. Our tendency as pastors is to send the message that the intake of the Word through preaching and Bible studies is all our parishioners need to be transformed and move forward in a timely fashion toward spiritual maturity. But, the relationships in the gospel community itself are needed for the healing and nurture of souls. In our Western mindset “persons as typically conceived can exist apart from relationships. That is why we generally define human dignity in terms of self-sufficiency and self-determination.”ˣˣᵛⁱⁱⁱ

Culturally, we live with the societal impression that “identity is conceived in self-referential terms, so that the authentic self is the inner self. Persons are autonomous and distinct from one another, determining their own goals and desires.”ˣˣⁱˣ

The cross of Christ breaks into our self-protective agendas and deconstructs our self-referential notions of personhood. Our complacency about our hyper-individualism must be addressed by the gospel. For in our nation, the essence of self tends to be defined as pure undetermined choice, freedom from tradition, obligation, and commitment. However, when we begin with the triune God we arrive at a far different concept of personhood. Colin Gunton notes that, “God is not more than what Father, Son and Holy Spirit give to and receive from eachother in the inseparable communion that is the outcome of their love. . .There is no ‘being’ of God other than this dynamic of persons in relation.”ˣˣˣ

D. Trinitarian personhood is the key to understanding our identity and role as the image of God. For, “[it] is in our relatedness to others that our being as humans consists.”ˣˣˣⁱ “But the Trinity not only reveals that persons are essentially relational, it also discloses characteristics that define healthy interpersonal relationships.”ˣˣˣⁱⁱ

Author Mark Shaw in his portrait of the Trinity in the gospel of John identifies four characteristics which describe the relations between the members of the Godhead: 1.) full equality, 2.) glad submission, 3.) joyful intimacy, and 4.) mutual deference.ˣˣˣⁱⁱⁱ Throughout the Gospel of John we see Jesus manifesting these qualities in His relationship with the Father (Jn 1:1; 3:35; 5:18; 14:13, 16; 17:21-26ff.). What a powerful diagnostic this is the church. Our sociality frequently is not characterized by the intentionality necessary to reflect these traits. Our smug independence, self-reliance and self-protection prevent us from going out of ourselves in self-giving behaviors.

Chiding believers won’t produce real substantive change. Only the gospel has the power to take us off of ourselves and deliver us from the carnal agenda of attempting to carry our own worth and identity (the self-referential error). And only life in the Spirit can enable us to reflect but a tiny ray of triune relations. “Still, the triune relations are the essential paradigm, our basic model for human relationships and relationships within the church.”ˣˣˣⁱᵛ

E. The four characteristics of triune relations are to be lived out in our relationships in the church. 1 John 1:3 stresses that our fellowship (koinonia) involves not only sharing in fellowship with other believers; but also together in the triune life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our unity and diversity mirrors that of the Trinity. “Equality, intimacy, submission, and deference ought to characterize relationships in the Christian community as well.” The church’s life together is to be patterned after, (and participate in) the divine “life together.”ˣˣˣᵛ

A mindshift is required in order to move away from our individualistic ways of thinking which show up in reductionistic forms of private piety. A reformation is needed in our ecclesiology. Church members need to hear, “When you believed in Christ . . .you entered into the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, AND the fellowship of every other Christian who is a part of that triune fellowship.”ˣˣˣᵛⁱ

Our obese comfort zones that stem from our self-protective strategies can only be overcome by the gospel. The gospel drives out fear and transforms our relationships so that we can be “perfected in love” (1 Jn 4:18). There is no other trajectory for spiritual maturity. These controlling truths have the power to blast us out of our spectator mentality so that we form concrete relationships for the purpose of pursuing holiness together and doing spiritual good to one another.

F. God has given us the Spirit of His Son so that through sonship we might live out our relationship to the Trinity and to one another.

CONCLUSION: Is mankind free IN design, that is, he is most free when operating by God’s design? Or, is man free FROM design—does he have the most liberty when he sets aside God’s design? We know from Scripture that God’s design for us guards our humanness and the dignity of life. Anti-Christian worldviews suggest that liberty is NOT based on teleology (God’s design)—thus man is free to choose a form of liberty which is based upon his passions. Our young people are being exposed to this philosophy at an alarming rate. Lives are ruined by the popular notion: “Reality is what you make it—fill it with what you want (drugs, tattoos, sexual immorality, revenge, etc.)—for you alone are the ‘architect’ of your own identity.”

God’s creational pattern for our relationships is not simply ‘advice’—His social laws are the means by which we acknowledge His Kingship over us. Our willingness to conform to His order is our calling as redeemed individuals and it is our wisdom for living unto God.ˣˣˣᵛⁱⁱ God has determined that all of our social relations are to be governed by His creational design. Therefore, Christians must seek to develop a missionary mindset in order to stand against the idolatry our culture. This mindset involves discerning God’s creational design.

Idolatrous worldviews set aside creational design and then reshape the categories to their own desires. To ignore God’s all-wise order (even by choosing an imagined position of neutrality) is the very cause of unintentionally accepting the idols of our culture. God’s creational structures for our relationships are like coiled springs. Compress them and they will eventually spring back with very great force. Certainly we see this in the tragedy of latchkey single parent kids; we see it in suicide, in depression, in domestic violence; in AIDS, in abortion; and in a host of other pathologies which stem from violating God’s laws for social relations.xxxviii

God’s truth suppressed does not go away. When it is pushed down below the horizon of reason and conscience; it resurfaces as lying cultural forms which take men and women captive (Grant Horner). So many of the ‘idols’ of our culture constitute wholesale perversion of God’s gifts and categories. “Perversion of a virtue” consists of taking something God has graciously given to us in the creation and removing it from its moral context. Thus, work, reasoning, ownership, authority, pleasure and sexuality when wrenched from God’s plan, can be easily twisted into a soul-damaging idol (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

Without an absolute standard of freedom which comes from our Creator, a person will ineffably move toward bondage. Christian author Vishal Mangalwadi makes the following observation: to attempt to break free of teleology (God’s design for us as the image of God) is to amputate the soul of man and to fall naked and headlong into a black cesspool filled with razor wire.

The liberal agenda of the progressives is intent on replacing the fathers with another source of authority (the state). There is an antipathy toward the patriarchal family structure of authority; toward a patriarchal view of truth; and toward a patriarchal didactic view of teaching God’s truth (Deut 6).

Christian scholar Peter Jones has pointed out the great danger of seeking to undermine the role of fathers, “Gender relationships and roles are a sovereign act of God at creation, not an imposition of the church’s ideas upon society—Satan gains loyalty when man blurs God-given distinctions.” Jones’ comment highlights the fact that gender and sexual anarchy is a pointed attack upon God’s nature from which His blueprint for mankind originates. Salvation in Christ alone renews the mind of man so that we welcome God’s pattern for our relationships and gladly bring our thinking and acting under the mind of God found in His Word (‘old ways of thinking have passed away’—2 Cor 5:17).

The whole purpose of Christ’s incarnation is to restore man to the image of God. Our worth, value, and dignity (intrinsic in our being the image of God) are fully restored in Christ. This recovery of our true humanity in Christ is not a totalizing ‘cloning’ process in which differences are eradicated. No, the restoration of our humanity preserves our individuality and uniqueness as men and women. The incarnation does what no human resource can do—in Christ God reconciles humanity, bringing peace and communion with God. This peace and fellowship with God is the purpose for which we were originally created. Thus our true self-knowledge, value, and uniqueness are inextricably tied to knowing what God is doing in His self-revelation (the Word) and in the incarnation of Christ.ˣˣˣⁱˣ

Endnotes:

i Del Tackett, Focus on the Family, “The Truth Project,” Lessons 7-9,
ii Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 132
iii Ibid., p. 132
iv Ibid. p. 133
v Ibid. pp. 133-134
vi “Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” is adapted from a Winterim Course by Wayne Grudem, visiting lecturer at The
Master’s Seminary, Sun Valley, CA.
vii Ibid.
viii Andrew Hoffecker, Ed., Building a Christian Worldview, pp. 86-87
ix Ibid., 88, 95.
x Cornelius Van Til, Apologetics, pp. 10-11
xi Ibid., pp. 12-13
xii John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, pp. 47-49
xiii Ibid., 50-51
xiv Ibid., pp. 191-193
xv John Gerstner, audio message, “The Work of the Trinity in Man’s Redemption”
xvi Ibid.
xvii Nancy Pearcey, p. 138
xviii Ibid, p. 138
xix Ibid., pp. 138-140
xx Ibid., pp. 140-141
xxi Stephen Seamands, Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service, IVP Books, IDowners
Grove, Illinois, 2005, p. 19
xxii Ibid., p. 15
xxiii Ibid., pp. 20-23
xxiv Oswald Sanders in Seamands, p. 25
xxv Stephen Seamands, p. 32
xxvi Ibid., p. 32
xxvii Ibid.
xxviii Ibid., p. 33
xxix Ibid.
xxx Ibid., p. 34
xxxi Ibid., 35
xxxii Ibid.
xxxiii Ibid.
xxxiv Ibid., 38
xxxv Ibid., pp. 38-39
xxxvi Ibid., p. 39
xxxvii Michael Goheen, Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, pp. 38-39
xxxviii Ibid, pp. 100, 105, 108, 138-140
xxxix Norman Klassen, Jens Zimmerman, The Passionate Intellect, pp. 149-151