Perhaps one of the most important and powerful truths that
Christianity has given to the world is the simple statement from Saint John, “God is
Love.” It is a declaration that resonates with both Christians and
Non-Christians alike, believers and skeptics. I once had a conversation about
faith with a very kind a gracious woman who described herself as an agnostic.
“I’m not sure there is a God” she said, “but I suppose I do believe in
something greater than all of us that unites us, a higher power.” I pressed her
further, “And what do you believe that higher power is?” She didn’t have to
think long before answering, “Love. Love is the greatest and most beautiful
thing that I can imagine. Love is my religion. I think if there really is a God
he must be pure Love.” Although she is not a believer, she is not far from the Kingdom of Heaven,
for as Saint John
reminds us, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
Sometimes this simple religion of Love is contrasted with the
complicated and obscure religion of dogma, and yet Saint John’s statement is not mere sentiment
but the fruit of a profound theology. How did John come to his realization that
God is love? The foundation of this conviction is his belief in the divinity of
Christ. Not one verse before he tells us, “If anyone confesses that Jesus is
the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (4:15). As a result, “we have
come to know and believe the love that God has for us” (4:16a). We can have confidence in God’s love for us because God’s
very nature is love as revealed in Jesus Christ. From all eternity, before time
and creation itself, God was pure, perfect, unconditional, unwavering, love. If
this is true, we must confess the doctrine of the Trinity.
To some of you that might seem like a stretch, but hear me
out. It is one thing to say that God loves us or that he loves the world, but
it is something very different indeed to say that God—in his very nature and
from all eternity—is Love. Love is a relational concept, it never exists except
between persons. It simply wouldn’t make sense to say that God is love if he
was just a lonely monad with no one to talk to or no one to love. God didn’t
create the world out of loneliness or necessity. He had all the love and
fellowship he needed already in his own nature, before he created anything. Before
creation, before time, God was already a perfect community of persons in
perfect unity. He was Trinity.
In saying this we do not mean to imply that there is a committee
or tribunal of three separate Gods. The word of God is clear in its insistence
that there is one and only one God. Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us, “Hear, O Israel:
The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” We confess three persons, but one God.
There is no contradiction here because we are not referring to the same thing
when we say that God is three as we are when we say that God is one.
Bishop Kenneth Myers—attempting to put the sometimes obscure, philosophical
terminology of Trinitarian theology in more accessible terms—has said that God
is one “what” but he is three “whos.” In other words, when we ask, “what is
God?” We answer, “God is the almighty, uncreated, source, and personal creator
of all things visible and invisible,” but when we ask, “Who is God?” We answer,
“God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” God is one God, but included in that one
God are three persons that exist in a relationship of mutual love.
But why three? Why not just two? You have heard the saying, “Two
is company, but three is a crowd” haven’t you? Understanding the mutual love of
the first and second persons of the Trinity is fairly easy for us to
conceptualize. The image of Father and Son is concrete and deeply personal, but
the Holy Spirit seems to be the odd man out. It doesn’t help that our images of
the Spirit are so abstract: wind, fire, and a dove. The Trinity is often spoken
of in terms of the lover, the beloved, and the act of loving itself. Here again
the Holy Spirit seems impersonal.
I find the work of a 12th century theologian named Richard of
Saint Victor to be helpful on this point. He argued that in order for love to
be perfect there must not only be a lover and a beloved but also a co-beloved. Have
you ever observed a relationship—a friendship, a romance, or familial bond—that
seemed unhealthily insular? One person’s devotion to another can sometimes be
so intense that it is as if nothing else in the world exists. When one person
relies on another exclusively for approval or identity we call that
co-dependence. It is dysfunctional and anti-social and in the end is little
different from selfishness.
This is especially true when it comes to romantic
relationships. Whenever I council couples preparing for marriage, I tell them
that if they rely exclusively on their partner to “complete them,” they will
smother each other. I am convinced that even if a couple never has children, in
order for their relationship to really flourish they need to focus their love
not only on one another but on family, mutual friends, and supremely on God.
This is what Richard St. Victor means when he says that love is perfected in a
co-beloved.
The Holy Spirit is not only the embodiment of the love of the
Father and Son for one another, but he is also that love turned beyond
themselves. The love of God is so perfect that it demands to be shared, it over
flows in creation. The Trinity is always seeking to include others in the
circle of his love.
The doctrine of the Trinity has enormously practical
implications. Those who want a non-Trinitarian God, whether they realize it or
not, enshrine selfishness and tyranny as the highest virtues! If God is a
solitary, all-powerful monarch, fixated on his own glory, than in order to be
like God we would need to aspire to those same characteristics. Godliness would
be about being powerful and having things our own way.
But If God is love, If God is himself a kind of family or
society, devoted to glorifying each other--if God is Trinity--we need to love
one another! When we realize that God is Trinity we see that togetherness,
cooperation, and even sacrifice are grounded in the very nature of God.
When we realize God is Trinity we see also that there is room
for diversity in unity. We don’t all have to be the same, but we can be unified
despite our differences.
If God is love that reaches out to include others, we as his
church should do the same. The Father sent the Son, and together they send the
spirit, in order that we too can be a part of sharing the love of God with the
entire world.
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