Confessing Trinity

The point of Trinitarian theology is not simply that there are three instead of one. We can’t just plug our pre-conceptions about God into the Trinity, and say that now we are Trinitarian. We can’t assume Deism, the idea that God is a watchmaker who leaves the world to run on its own, and then say that we are Trinitarian because we believe in three watchmakers. We can’t assume that God is sheer power like Allah, and then say we are Trinitarian because we believe in three Allahs and not just one. 

To confess the Trinity is not merely to confess a number, but to confess that the true God is a certain kind of God. What kind of God?

For Paul, the answer to that question has everything to do with Jesus. Paul cannot speak about God except in relation to Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of God. For Paul, God is Father because He is “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is not that they would know a God who is blank, faceless power, but the “God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” (1:17). Paul wants the Ephesians to know God’s power, but specifically that power is the power that raised Jesus from the dead (1:20), the power of God that triumphs over all death and evil.

Paul is God-centered, and for Paul that means He is Christ-centered. From the beginning of history to its end, Paul sees nothing but Jesus. Before the world was, God the Father had chosen us in Him (1:4), in Jesus Christ, so that the Father loved us before we existed because He saw us in His Son. It is not as if the Father chose a collection of individuals to be adopted, and then implanted them in the Son. It’s the opposite: God chose Jesus, His Beloved, and we are chosen and adopted because we are in Him.

Jesus is the means by which the Father’s plans are realized: We reach our predestined end of being sons of God “through Jesus Christ” (1:5), the Father’s favor comes to us “in the Beloved” (1:6), and redemption and forgiveness come to us “through His blood” (1:7). 

Jesus the Crucified is the Last Adam exalted above all authority and power and dominion, above all human rulers and kings, above Caesar and Caesar’s lackies. The phrase “in Christ” or its equivalent is used numerous times in the passage. It is rich and varied and is the subject of much debate. It means at least that we have no life or health or blessing from God except through Jesus His Son. And it also means that all the blessings we can hope to have come to us only because we have communion and fellowship with Jesus.

And Jesus is the goal toward which we are heading. God chose us to be holy, as He is holy; to be sons as He is the Son (1:5); to sum up all things in Jesus (1:10); and to set our hope for the future solely on Christ (1:12). We were with Jesus as we set out on our journey, and He has already arrived at our destination, to await us there.

All history is thus the story of Jesus; He was at the beginning with the Father, and the Father’s plans for the human race and for the world were planned “in Him.” He will be at the end with the Father, for He is the One in whom all things will be “summed up.”