Episode Details

We often start in the wrong place with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The immediate problem presents itself: How can God be one and yet, at the same time, also three? And then we invent comparisons which we are subsequently told involve us in some kind of ancient heresy – God is like an egg with shell, yoke, and the white part. God is like water that is variously ice, water, and steam. God is like a shamrock with three leaves. And so on.But what if, instead of trying to work out an answer to the mathematical question, we start somewhere else? What if we start with Jesus and what he shows us about the nature of God?Consider the baptism of Christ. When Christ came out of the water, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended from heaven and rested upon him. A voice came from heaven, the voice of the Father, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:10-11). We see here that the Father loves the Son and takes delight in him. We see the Holy Spirit sent from the Father as a sign of this love like a visible representation of the Father’s word of affirmation and approval.There are many other moments in the New Testament in which something of the mutual delight, joy, and love of the Holy Trinity is revealed to some degree. Another can be found in the words of Christ’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).Consider the implications of Christ’s words: there was a time when the world did not exist. God was not the Creator then. But he was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He was a Trinity of love, delight, and mutual affection.The Holy Trinity is not, therefore, best thought of as a mathematical conundrum that must be solved. The American Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards said that God is in fact best thought of as ‘a society or a family’. And that God’s joy consists in ‘love and society’.Just ponder that for a moment: outside of his creation, God is not solitary, or lonely, or in need. But he is infinite delight, joy, love, and harmony. The most vibrant, welcoming, love-filled family home that you have ever entered is but a pale reflection, a small echo, of the love of God in the Holy Trinity through all eternity.A very simple way of putting this – and please forgive me if the language here seems childish and unsophisticated – is that God is happy. Or, we could even say, that God is happiness itself.The Happiness of God in CreationWhy then did the Holy Trinity create the world? There was mutual delight, joy, abundance in God already. What was the point? It cannot have been that God needed creation to do something for him. He did not need slaves to serve him. He did not need creatures to meet some need in him. It can only have been because creation is itself an extension, a going-forth, of the very life and love of God as he is in himself. The English Puritan writer, Richard Sibbes, put it like this:If God had not a communicative, spreading goodness, he would never have created the world. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were happy in themselves and enjoyed one another before the world was. Apart from the fact that God delights to communicate and spread his goodness, there had never been a creation or redemption.God had a communicative, spreading goodness, and he delighted to shed abroad that goodness in creating the world. Sibbes and many other theologians have compared God’s joy in creation to a fountain that overflows because it is in nature to do so.Perhaps some images here may help. Consider the decision that human beings make to marry and have children. Why do we do such a thing? In a sense, we could say that there is a biological imperative to do so. However, we know that there are ways of avoiding th