The Treasure of the Trinity - Part 4 or 5

Welcome marathoners in and for Christ. (1 Corinthians 9:24; Hebrews 12:1; 2 Timothy 4:7) Exhausted, depleted from running the Godly, good, and being-a-blessing-to-others race? Welcome. Sit. Relax. Let’s feast.

Feast of the Heart exists to help bring about Christ-centered “reformation, revival, and constructive revolution” (Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City) so that God will be glorified and people blessed.

Reformation… we seek to abide by and serve up the true truth, pure doctrine of the Bible

Revival… we seek to model biblical Christians living in word and deed

Constructive Revolution… we seek to spread the true gospel right where God has planted us with urgency, compassion, and radical self-abandonment

The Doctrine of the Trinity Brings Comfort — Do You Desire God’s Full Personage and Armament of Comfort in the War of a Lifetime? Do You?

“The Lord Jesus, on the night of His betrayal, is doing the very thing that we contemporary Christians would never dream of doing. What is He going to say to help these beleaguered, frightened disciples? And the answer is, you’ll see this if you read even casually through John 13-17, He’s teaching them about the Trinity—that’s what He’s doing.

[Please read Sinclair Ferguson’s first three sentences again. Christian, do you believe this form of comfort offered by your namesake is pertinent to your own life… to other Christian lives… today?]

There are these spasmodic references to the ministry of the Holy Spirit earlier in John’s Gospel. There’s an emphasis on the ministry of the Father in John’s Gospel. But it’s only in this hour of crisis, in their time of deepest need, it’s as though Jesus is saying to them, ‘If you’re going to survive through this and other times of deepest need, then I need to bring you to a deeper knowledge of who God is.’

[Does this specific intervention, “triage” by the Son of God not knock your socks off in its simplicity and profundity? Does knowing The Triune God of the Universe better occupy a significant portion of your time, talent, treasure? Or not?]

And you remember how He says to them, ‘I’ve had so many things to say to you but you wouldn’t have been able to take it in, or even bear it?’ But now He begins to unfold the glorious mystery of the inner relationships of the blessed Trinity. And He brings in this marvelous triangulation as it were of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the unity of their mutual fellowship and in-being, and in the way in which they mutually share in the strengthening, comforting, and redeeming of God’s people, and ultimately in the salvation of sinners throughout the world because when the Spirit comes He will convict men of sin and righteousness and judgment.

[The unity and individuality of the Trinity is so staggering it will take an eternity to gaze into and unpack! And then we will sense we’ve only just begun, Beloved.]

Actually, that’s the reason why the early Christians spent so much time thinking through what it means that God is Trinity. Not because they were given to scholasticism, but because they had a passionate love with their minds for the LORD their God and they wanted to describe Him biblically and rightly. And I think it would be true today to say that for many Christians the Trinity is the most speculative of all doctrines and therefore the most irrelevant—whereas for the Lord Jesus it is the least speculative of all doctrines and by far the most relevant and practical. But we don’t find that unless we’re digging into the scriptures to pursue the knowledge of God as He’s revealed to us in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Sinclair Ferguson: In this excerpt from our 2012 National Conference, Sinclair Ferguson reminds us that the doctrine of the Trinity brings comfort—especially in times of crisis. Emphasis added.)

I love The Trinity. And pray every day the Spirit will help me love the Father, the Son, and Himself more every day.

Consider then…

How are you pursuing #1 burning passion of the born-again Christian: A living and breathing reflection of God’s inspired Word.

“Why do you want a letter from me? Why don’t you take the trouble to find out for yourselves what Christianity is? You take time to learn technical terms about electricity. Why don’t you do as much for theology, doctrine? Why do you never read the great writings on the subject, but take your information from the secular ‘experts’ who have picked it up as inaccurately as you? Why don’t you learn the facts in this field as honestly as your own field? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as the language of the church, when any handbook on church history will tell you where they came from?

Why do you balk at the doctrine of the Trinity - God the three in One - yet meekly acquiesce when Einstein tells you E=mc2? What makes you suppose that the expression “God ordains” is narrow and bigoted, while your own expression, “Science demands” is taken as an objective statement of fact?

You would be ashamed to know as little about internal combustion as you know about Christian beliefs.

I admit, you can practice Christianity without knowing much theology, just as you can drive a car without knowing much about internal combustion. But when something breaks down in the car, you go humbly to the man who understands the works; whereas if something goes wrong with religion, you merely throw the works away and tell the theologian he is a liar.

Why do you want a letter from me telling you about God? You will never bother to check on it or find out whether I’m giving you personal opinions or Christian doctrines. Don’t bother. Go away and do some work and let me get on with mine.” (Dorothy L. Sayers)

A crass and hard-hearted assessment of run-of-the-mill disciple of our day? Or truth spoken in love. Only you and I can be the judge; and we should seek to judge honestly.

JohnDoz