The Triune God of Love

This week on Things Unseen, we’re trying to think together about the Trinity, and one of the questions we need to ask is this: Does this doctrine of the Trinity make any difference to us?

I suspect it’s the case that one barometer of our theology and our Christianity is found in the themes of the hymns and songs that we sing together in church. I wonder how many modern Christian songs are obviously Trinitarian. Compare that with the way, for example, that Paul just loves to weave references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit into his teaching. Shouldn’t we do the same in our singing?

But back to the question, Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important today? I want to mention one theological reason that I’ve hinted at already, and I want to do it first by talking about a theologian with whose name you may not be wholly familiar: Richard the Scot of Saint-Victor. Yes, he was actually Scottish, although most of his life he didn’t live in Scotland. He eventually became prior of the Abbey of Saint-Victor, on the outskirts of Paris, around the second half of the twelfth century. He died in 1173.

Now, you probably know that theologians and theological traditions have their own particular emphases, don’t they? Sometimes we know that something is a special burden, a kind of God-given emphasis to a preacher. Like me, if I were to mention Ligonier’s founder, Dr. R.C. Sproul, I think many of us would think of the burden he had to communicate the holiness of God. Well, Richard the Scot belonged to the Augustinian Order of monks, and one of the big emphases in the Augustinian Order—going all the way back to Augustine himself—was the love of God. So, it’s not surprising that Richard himself loved to think about the love of God and what it meant.

Now, we tend to think about the implications of God’s love for us: “God so loved the world.” But Richard began to think about the implication of God’s love for Himself; I mean, the implications for God of the fact that God is love. He thought this way: If God is love, as the Apostle John tells us, what does that imply about God Himself? And here is Richard’s answer: If God is love, while He is one God numerically, He must also be three persons. Now, of course, he already knew that the Bible taught that God was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He wasn’t saying that apart from the Bible we can work out that God is Trinity; he was saying the fact that Scripture tells us God is love helps us to see why it is that God is three persons, God the Trinity.

Now, what was his reasoning? It was really quite simple: if God is love, then He must love, but by its very nature, love isn’t self-absorbed. I sometimes say this is why I could never be a unitarian. I think the thing unitarians always insist on is that God is love, isn’t it? But if I can put it this way: the unitarian god is like someone who is all dressed up, but he doesn’t have anywhere to go. He has an attribute, love, but there’s absolutely nothing he can do with it. He becomes dependent on creating us in order to have someone or something to love. Otherwise, he’s, well, totally self-absorbed. And that’s the point: the unitarian god needs me in order to be happy and, therefore, by definition isn’t really God.

So by contrast, you can see why Richard saw great beauty in the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father loves His Son and loves the Holy Spirit. The Son loves the Father and the Spirit. The Spirit loves the Father and the Son. Not only is there mutual love here, but there is a dynamic love here. And you can’t help wondering, since God made us as His image, male and female, if this is something that God kind of echoed into our existence—that when a man and a woman are bound together in love, their natural instinct seems to extend the love they share towards another. And so there is the birth of a child. And so there is in the created order of our own lives, a kind of reflection of what is eternally true in God Himself.

And this is something I think that helps us to adore God, the Trinity. He doesn’t need to become love. He’s always been love. He doesn’t need to be satisfied by the created order because He’s always satisfied in Himself—God—Father, Son, and Spirit—dwelling in love. And of course, the marvelous thing, the truth of the gospel is that God loves us and in Jesus Christ has acted to save us and sends His Spirit to bring us to Himself. It’s no wonder we love God the Trinity, and it’s no wonder we love the fact that God is Trinity. And more of that tomorrow.