ON TRINITY SUNDAY

On Trinity Sunday God's people, with awe and respect, ponder the amazing truth that the God of our salvation is one, and yet in this one God there are three Persons. Such knowledge of God we ourselves cannot attain. God Himself has revealed it to us. God is so great, so far above our ability to comprehend, that we are forced to confess our own limitations when it comes to understanding the depth of His being. We can only depend on what He has revealed about Himself.

The Bible contains a unified picture of God. Moses says: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one'" (Deut. 6:4). Paul confesses: "There is no God but one" (1 Cor. 8:4). Jesus gives the command to baptize "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19-20). There is therefore only one name of God, which is the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God's name is not the same as a designation. It rather reveals God as the kind of a God, He has proclaimed Himself to be.

Although God is one, there are nevertheless three Persons in the Godhead. The Apostle John calls Jesus "true God" (1 John 5:20). The Apostle Peter admonished Ananias for trying to deceive the Holy Ghost, and said: "You have not lied to men, but to God" (Acts 5:3,4). The Bible ascribes God's name, God's works and God's glory to each Person.

In the Athanasian Creed the Christian Church confesses its unmovable faith as follows:

"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic (i.e., universal, Christian) faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal... And yet they are not three Gods, but one God."

This is what the God of our salvation is like. He has created us and desires that we, who have rebelled against Him and fallen away from Him, return to Him. This is why God's Son became a human being and atoned for our sins. Jesus says: "I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6).

When the Holy Ghost calls, let us not reject His call, but let us rather receive the forgiveness of sins Christ earned for us. Only in this way can we return to the living God.