Download discussion questions:  1 John 3:1-24

After last week’s introduction to the Apostles’ Creed, the next three weeks will be spent on each section of the Creed:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

“God” in 1 John 3

Our discussion of the passage (1 John 3) began by noting all the instances where God is mentioned in the passage.  With over a dozen references to “God” plus the Father and various “He” and “Him” pronouns, the passage should tell us something about who He is and what He is like.  We posed the question, “Suppose you had never heard of God.  What could you learn from this passage?”  Many of John’s first-century readers were from a pagan background.  The Jewish idea of a single God would be mostly unfamiliar to them.  Our group suggested several characteristics that can be gleaned from this chapter:

• He is called “Father” (v. 1).
• He has children (v. 1, 2).
• He will appear in the future (v. 2).
• He has appeared in the past (v. 5).
• He is pure (v. 3), without sin (v. 5), and righteous (v. 7).
• He has a son (v. 8, 23). This “son” is singled out as distinct from His “children.”)
• He is great and knows everything (v. 20).
• He has given commandments (v. 22-24).
• He can interact with us (v. 24).
• He cares about loving relationships (v. 11-18)
• He displays the sacrificial love we should have for each other (v. 16).

“God the Father” in the Creed

With this wealth of information about this God who is known as “Father,” we considered the question, “Why is the section on God the Father the shortest section of the Creed?”  The comments suggested that this was the least controversial topic in the Creed.  Monotheism, the belief in one God, was the alternative to the prevalent paganism.  The expectations of what God is like were straightforward:  the powerful Father of all mankind, somehow responsible for (or at least involved in) the creation of the world.  The beliefs may have been a bit vague (not unlike many muddled modern ideas of God), but they were not generally a cause for disagreements or disputes.  The first section of the Creed affirmed what was generally commonly accepted about God.  (The rest of the Creed, as we will see in the coming weeks, generated plenty of controversy!)

One person in our group suggested an additional reason why the first section of the Creed was so short.  “I believe in God the Father…” is the foundation for everything else we affirm when we recite the Creed together.  Unless there is agreement on that brief section, the rest of the Creed makes no sense at all.  The virgin birth, dying for sins, the church are all arbitrary, unconnected ideas apart from belief in God the Father.

The “Fatherhood of God” is not a particularly controversial idea in Christianity (or in religions in general).  In contrast, perhaps the most controversial Christian doctrine is the nature of God, the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit.  The Apostles’ Creed and the later Nicene Creed both intentionally use a three-fold structure that reflects the three Persons of the Trinity.  Non-Christians, such as Thomas Jefferson[1], often mock the doctrine.  Christians are often confused or baffled.  Believers too often abandon all interest in even attempting to understand the Triune nature of God.  The attitude is often excused with, “It is a mystery beyond our understanding.”

Distinctions – Father, Son, Spirit

Of course, the Trinity is indeed a mystery beyond our understanding.  Exhaustive knowledge of the Three-Personal God[2] is indeed beyond our finite understanding.  However, there is a very good reason for us to recognize the distinctions between the persons and how They relate to each other and to us.  There is an irrefutable reason to study the Trinity to understand God’s nature with as much detail and accuracy as we can.  The authors of the New Testament recognized and recorded their understanding of the three Persons.  If we want to know God as deeply and intimately as possible, we will learn from those writers.[3]

• The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. – Romans 15:33
• The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. – Romans 16:20
• The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. – 1 Corinthians 16:23
• May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all – 2 Cor 13:14
• Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. – Jude 1:21

Our group made several observations about that collection of verses:

• Peace and love are associated with God the Father.
• Grace and mercy are repeatedly associated with God the Son, Jesus Christ.
• Fellowship is associated with God the Holy Spirit.

There is no implication, and no evidence in these verses or anywhere else in Scripture, that those characteristics are associated only with the Person mentioned.  Since all Three are God, each One shares all the attributes.  The New Testament writers are expressing how we most often see and experience the unique roles and functions of each Person in their unified work.

One particular verse is most familiar in communicating the Triune nature of God:

• Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. – Matthew 28:19-20

“The risen Jesus sends us out to continue the mission of the triune God.”^[4]

One function of the Creed was to clarify the uniquely Christian belief.   The New Testament writers clearly described their experiences of a Three-Personal God.  Yet they were writing within the context of absolute monotheism.  “Christianity began as a trinitarian religion with a unitarian theology.”[5]  The Creed was an early effort to express those experiences theologically.

Theology and Knowing God

“Theology” sounds to some as an academic topic that distracts us from a personal, intimate relationship with God.  But as Lewis warned, “if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones – bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.[6]  He compared theology to a map, essential for navigating unknown territories.  And since our finite attempts to know an infinite God are almost all “unknown territory,” we probably want to seek out the best maps available.  A good map provides an overview, comprised of many bits and pieces from personal experience and the experience of others.  Often others contributing to the map have much more experience than we do.  Good theology (like the Creed) provides a similar overview from others and their understanding of God:

It became indubitably clear to the Church in the fourth century that it is only when the Gospel is understood in this fully trinitarian way that we can really appreciate the New Testament teaching about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and appreciate the essential nature of salvation, prayer and worship….The general formula which the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers employed to speak of the Triune God and his one activity was from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, in respect of God-manward relations; and in the Spirit, through the Son and to the Father, in respect of man-Godward relations.^[7]

That helpful extract from Torrance’s book reinforces the fact that all three Persons always act in perfect harmony and unison (the “one activity” of the Triune God) but participate in distinct ways.  The description of God’s “manward relations” reflects the verses quoted above about the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:  The love from the Father is communicated through the Son in the Spirit who draws us into fellowship with the Trinity and with each other.  Theology based on Scripture enables us to grow in our relationship with the God revealed in Scripture.  “Good theology is not the knowledge of theology but the knowledge of God”[8]

Trinitarian Theology

Unfortunately, much of modern Western Christianity does not share the emphasis which Scripture and the ancient church placed on the Triune nature of God:

When the Christians of the early centuries faced the task of saying who Jesus is in terms of the ‘lords many and gods many’ of the classical world, they could only do it by means of the Trinitarian model. It is significant that when the word ‘God’ is spoken in discussions such as the present, few Christians think immediately of the Trinity. The operative model is not trinitarian but unitarian.^[9]

That unitarian perspective is often present in what Lewis described as “The continual and exclusive addressing our prayers to Him [Jesus] surely tends to what has been called ‘Jesus-worship’? A religion which has its value; but not, in isolation, the religion Jesus taught.”^[10]  Another writer describes churches that “tilt toward Unitarianism of the Second Person.”[11]

One person in our group commented on the danger of an inadequate understanding of the Trinitarian nature of God.  In a previous church, the Holy Spirit was minimized, so that Biblical passages that mentioned the Holy Spirit were virtually incomprehensible.  The work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer was considered negligible, potentially leading to a legalistic approach to the Christian life.  The Creed is a short, powerful reminder of the Triune nature of the God we worship.  The Creed summarizes the theology of how each Person of the Trinity operates to accomplish Their work in our lives.

“I believe in God the Father…”

We looked at the first section of the Creed, and a few examples of Biblical passages supporting each characteristic mentioned.  As suggested earlier, there were no “surprises” that would cause disagreement with anyone with even a nominal or superficial belief in God.  Probably even a conservative Jew or Muslim would agree.  The non-controversial nature of this section is confirmed by the fact that the Nicene Creed (about a hundred years or so later) made few changes.  (The second and third sections of the Nicene Creed added considerable detail about the Son and the Spirit, as will be seen in future weeks.)

In thinking of God the Father, we are reminded of the foundation of our belief, the unique one-ness of God, His relational quality as Father, His unlimited power and providence as Almighty, His initiative as Creator.  The remaining sections of the Creed will help us understand that this one-ness is not a one-ness of isolation, but rather a one-ness of unity, a one-ness of relationship among the Three-Personal God.

 

[1] Raymond Cannata and Joshua Reitano, Rooted:  The Apostles’ Creed (Murfreesboro, Tennessee:  Doulos Resources, 2013), Kindle Electronic Edition:  Location 1019.

[2] A term used by C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York:  HarperCollins, 2009), Kindle Electronic Edition:  Location 2054, page 163.

[3] One writer cites “about 120 passages in the New Testament in which, without any explanation whatever, reference is made to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit together.”
Fisher Humphreys, “The Revelation of the Trinity,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 33, no. 3 (Fall, 2006):  292.

[4] Michael F. Bird, What Christians Ought to Believe (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 2016), 59; Kindle edition location 910.

[5] Leonard Hodgson, The Doctrine of the Trinity; Croall Lectures, 1942-1943 (New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), 103

[6] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York:  HarperCollins, 2009), Kindle Electronic Edition:  Location 1949, page 155.

[7] Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith:  Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (London:  T&T Clark Cornerstones, 2016), Kindle Edition, location 649 – 655, emphasis added.

[8] Peter Kreeft, Practical Theology:  Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2014), 2.

[9] J. E. Leslie Newbigin, Christian Witness in a Plural Society (London: British Council of Churches, 1977), 7.

[10] C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York:  Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964), 83; Kindle Edition, First Mariner Books, 2012, Location 939.

[11] Curtis W. Freeman, “God in Three Persons:  Baptist Unitarianism and the Trinity,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 33, no. 3 (Fall, 2006):  323.