14.
The Three-In-One
The concept from the end
of the last chapter – that the Lord somehow suffered through the crucifixion
from BOTH perspectives, as Father AND Son, is on the surface not only bizarre
but counterintuitive for humans to grasp with our mortal, linear way of
thinking.
One
of the hardest things for humans to grasp is the very concept of the Holy
Trinity – the Three-In-One Godhead, the
Father/Son/Holy Spirit. There are false sects of Christianity which don’t know
how to deal with this difficult Reality, and so they don’t – those who
try to argue that Jesus must have been mortal, or that God existed solely within Christ’s body instead
of on high for the length of Jesus’ earthly ministry, or (here’s the wildest one to me) that somehow Jesus’ “God-hood”
departed Him moments before He “died” on the cross. OR, they’ll blaspheme the other direction, and argue that there
are simply three separate entities ruling the cosmos – that God the Father
is completely separate, distinct and discrete from God the Son, and from
God the Spirit. Both positions are not only inaccurate but deny one of the most
basic tenets of Christianity, and as such neither can rationally be called
Christianity at all.
But just because we don’t completely understand
something doesn’t mean that it’s not true. (See: Physics, Quantum.) God
is Three, and God is One.
Many analogies have been put forth to
help our poor mortal minds cope with this seemingly contradictory concept, but
in keeping with the purpose of this book, let me give an example that I think
is not all that far from reality:
Think of a husband and wife.
An aside: Don’t try to stretch this analogy too far, or it’ll snap – I’m not
saying that either God or Christ are filling the male or female roles
per se, nor is God Almighty strictly speaking anthropomorphic and gendered at
all, even though we almost universally refer to “Him” as male.
Here’s the analogy: Within a
marriage, a husband and wife are individuals,
two people who work together for usually common and agreed-on purposes. But outside
of the marriage, the married couple is often treated like a single entity – “Mr. and Mrs. So-And-So”. In a strong
marriage, working with either spouse should be much like working with the other
– “Whom
God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.” Our children used to
honestly claim that my late wife and I were somehow symbiotic, because anything
they told one of us, even in passing, the other one seemed to automatically
know. In a court of law, in fact, not only are you not required to
testify against yourself, your spouse is similarly not required to
testify against you, so seriously do we take that legal bond of marriage.
In Genesis 2:24, the Lord says
of the first marriage, “Therefore a man
shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they
shall become one flesh.” Far from being the first dirty joke, God means
that the two of them are literally to be considered as one unit. The
wife is to obey the husband’s every decision, BUT the husband is to make every decision with his wife’s interest foremost in his
mind, so that the couple’s decisions are going to be made in harmony with both
individuals’ beneficial interests. (At
least, in a good, Godly marriage. Not every human marriage fits that
description, I realize.) Here’s the passage in Ephesians 5:22-31
where Paul addresses this very subject – notice the parallel he draws
between the marriage of husband and wife, and the marriage of Christ
and the church – very much along the same lines of our present discussion:
22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the
husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his
body, and is himself its Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives
should submit in everything to their husbands.
25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her, 26that he might
sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he
might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28In the same way husbands should love their wives as
their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one
ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does
the church, 30because we
are members of his body. 31“Therefore a
man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh.”
This giving-receiving nature of the marriage partnership, this sacrifice for one another quality holds
Biblically even in matters of the flesh, as we see in First Corinthians 7:2-5
à
2But because of the temptation to sexual
immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3The husband should give to his wife her
conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4For
the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife
does. 5Do
not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that
you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that
Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
How
does this relate to the Trinity?
From the outside, we see the
Godhead as more or less indivisible – if you didn’t live in first
century Samaria, you probably never saw Jesus Christ in the flesh, and so to
you (and to me), the members of the Holy Trinity are all “out there” and
“inside me” and “all around us”, more or less indistinguishable from each
other. We pray to all three (or at least
I do), and while we credit different faces for different aspects of our
lives – for example, we might praise God the Father for the magnificent
sunrise, Christ for intervening in a difficult situation for us, and the Spirit
for guiding us through a rough meeting at work – we’re still likely to describe
all three events to friends as a “God-thing”.
But within the Godhead, we see
countless examples throughout the Bible of the different “aspects” of God communicating
and interacting with each other, the most striking example being at the baptism
of Jesus in (among other places in the Gospels) Matthew 3:16-17 à
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up
from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like
a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well pleased.”
All three
members of the Trinity appear (settling the question, by the way, of the
existence of three separate entities). You and your spouse are separate
entities as well, of course. But we treat the Trinity as one
interconnected God in virtually every situation. Your children need to treat
the two of you as one interconnected partnership, and you need to work together as one interconnected partnership.
If your
child(ren) can play the “if Mommy says it’s okay, can we?” game against
the two of you? You two have some work to
do.
If your
child(ren) know which one of you to ask to get the answer they want?
You two have some work to do.
If your
child(ren) don’t get essentially the same “fear/love” vibe from both of
you? You two have some work to do.
If either
of you has a reason to vent to someone besides your partner about
your partner? You two have some work to
do.
If either
of you has more interest in your hobby or job or outside
interest than in your partner? You
two have some work to do.
If either
of you cares more about your child(ren) than your partner? Believe it or not, you two have some work to
do.
If either
of you has any interest in other partners outside the marriage? You two have some serious work to do.
Any conflict
between you and your spouse takes place outside of your children’s sight – the
two of you are a team with a unified
goal.
The successful
raising of your children.
As partners.
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