May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
2 Corinthians 13:14
Linus and Lucy were watching the rain through their living room window. “Boy, look at it rain,” Lucy exclaimed with a frown. Then she mused about the possibility of the storm causing a worldwide flood. In response, the ever confident Linus assured her that such an event could never happen. He explained that in Genesis 9, God promised Noah that he would never again bring a flood upon the whole world. He added that the rainbow is the sign of God’s promise. Upon hearing these reassuring words, Lucy broke out in a big grin. Looking again at the torrential downpour outside, she thanked Linus for taking a great load off her mind. Linus seized this teachable moment. “Sound theology has a way of doing that!” he announced to his young companion.
Indeed, an understanding of God and his purposes for creation does take a great load off our minds. And it affects the way we live as well.
At the heart of the Christian faith is a unique understanding of God. This picture of God is marvelously sublime—intellectually eloquent, yet retaining a deep sense of mystery, because our intellectual capabilities can never bring us to understand the fullness of God. What we have come to know about God provides solace for our hearts and a motivation for our conduct. Theology, therefore, appropriately begins with a discussion of God.
In this chapter, we explore three grand affirmations central to the Christian conception of God:
These affirmations help clarify the mystery of the God we have come to know in Christ.
The Triune God
It has been said, “Deny the doctrine of the Trinity and you’ll lose your soul; try to comprehend it, and you’ll lose your mind.”
No dimension is closer to the heart of the mystery of our faith than our confession, “I believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Above everything else, this conception of God sets Christianity apart from the religious traditions of the world. Consequently, no teaching lies closer to the center of Christian theology than does the doctrine of the Trinity.1
The Foundation for Our Affirmation of the Triune God
We must be clear at the beginning of our discussion that the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly spelled out in the Bible. There is no single verse of Scripture that reads, “The one God is three persons.” Instead, this doctrine is the product of a lengthy process of theological reflection that arose from the experience of the early Christians.
The first followers of Jesus inherited from their Old Testament background the strict allegiance to the one God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But they had also come to confess Jesus as the risen and exalted Lord. In addition, they were conscious of the ongoing divine presence within their community, a presence provided by the Holy Spirit.
Christians throughout the ages have shared this experience of the early believers. Therefore, three nonnegotiable aspects of Christian faith and experience provide the building blocks for the understanding of God as triune:
One true God. At the heart of the Old Testament faith was the belief in one God. This monotheistic belief entailed the rejection of the worship of many gods found among the surrounding nations. The Old Testament prophets asserted unequivocally that there is but one God. And this God demanded total loyalty (Deut. 6:4–5; see also Deut. 32:36–39; 2 Sam. 7:22; Isa. 45:18).
As Christians we view ourselves as the spiritual descendants of the Old Testament people of faith. Consequently, we resolutely remain loyal to the theological treasure inherited from the Hebrews. The God we worship is none other than the God of the patriarchs—the one and only true God.
The Lord Jesus. Like the early Christians, we also believe that God has revealed himself in Jesus. Because he is the Christ, Jesus is both the head of the church and the Lord of all creation. For this reason, we confess that he is the Lord of the cosmos (e.g., John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13).
At the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325), the church unequivocally affirmed the full deity of Christ. And we affirm that decision today. At the same time, Jesus is not the Father, for he clearly distinguished between himself as the Son and the One whom he called his Father (e.g., Rom. 15:5–6).
The indwelling Spirit. Beginning with Pentecost, the church has enjoyed the ongoing presence of the personal, divine reality within the fellowship. This reality is neither the Father nor the Son, however. He is yet a third person, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to his followers (John 14:15–17).2 The Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity consists of the same substance as the Father and the Son (homoousios) and thus is representative of the active presence of the Father and the Son in the life of the followers of Jesus (14:23).
The church officially acknowledged the full deity of the Holy Spirit at the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 381).
The integration of the three. Their confession of God as Father, Son, and Spirit demanded that the early believers integrate these foundational aspects of their understanding of God into a unified picture.
After many years of debate, the efforts of three theologians—Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the “Cappadocian fathers”)—gave birth to what became the classic formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.3 These thinkers declared that God is one “essence” (ousia) but three “centers of consciousness” or “independent realities” (hypostaseis). The three trinitarian persons share the same will, nature, and essence. Yet each also enjoys special properties and engages in unique activities.4
Aspects of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Christians have repeatedly sought to understand the mystery of how God is triune by devising analogies from the natural realm. Some suggest that just as the one chemical formula H20 can occur in three forms—ice, water, or steam—so also the one God is three persons. This analogy, however, falls short. Ice, water, and steam are simply three modes in which the one chemical formula can appear. Father, Son, and Spirit, in contrast, are not merely three appearances of a God who stands behind them; they are the one God.
Other Christians may point to such physical objects as trees or eggs. The one tree consists of three—root, trunk, and branch. And an egg is yolk, egg white, and shell. In a similar manner, the analogy declares, the one God is three persons. But as we will see, these analogies fail to reflect the dynamic movement by which the three trinitarian persons form the one God.
As helpful as they sometimes can be, analogies can only take us so far. In the end, we cannot adequately visualize the doctrine of the Trinity. Nevertheless, we can declare what it entails.
Four statements summarize the contents of the trinitarian understanding of God:
God is one. Christians are not polytheists—we are neither bitheists nor tritheists. Rather, we are monotheists; we confess that the God whom we know through Christ is the one God whom the Old Testament people called “Yahweh.” Indeed, there is no other God.
God is three. Yet this one God is three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of the three is divine, for they share together in the one divine nature or essence.
The one God who revealed himself in the Old Testament, therefore, is not an undifferentiated, solitary oneness. Instead this God is a multiplicity—the three members of the Trinity. In fact, God is none other than Father, Son, and Spirit.
The divine threeness is not simply a declaration about how we experience God. Nor is God’s threeness merely the way God appears to us. Rather, the one God is eternally three persons. God actually is the Father, Son, and Spirit. Just as God is characterized by oneness, therefore, threeness also belongs to the way God actually is.
“Three-in-oneness” also indicates the way God acts in the world. The three persons together compose the one God throughout all eternity. In the same manner Father, Son, and Spirit are at work—and work together—in the divine program for creation.
God is a diversity. The doctrine of the Trinity means that the one God is a diversity-within-unity. The Father, Son, and Spirit are eternally different from each other. And the three carry out different tasks in the one divine program for creation as well.
The early church theologians explained the differentiations among Father, Son, and Spirit by relating them to a double movement within the one God. They described this movement by two picture words: “generation” and “procession.” “Generation” provides a means to distinguish the Father and the Son: the Father generates the Son, and the Son is generated by the Father. “Procession” leads us to distinguish the Spirit from the Father and the Son: the Spirit is the one who proceeds from the Father (and from the Son).
These two words, therefore, help us understand the multiplicity within the eternal God:
Similarly, each of the three trinitarian persons fulfills a specific role in the one divine program. The Father functions as the source or ground of the world and the originator of the divine program for creation. The Son functions as the revealer of God, the exemplar and herald of the Father’s will for creation, and the redeemer of humankind. And the Spirit functions as the personal divine power active in the world, completing the divine program. Hence, we can summarize the role of each in the work of the one God in the universe:
God is a unity. Finally, the doctrine of the Trinity affirms that the three trinitarian persons compose a unity. Despite their varying functions in the one divine program, all are involved in every area of God’s activity in the world.
Although the Father is the ground of creation, the Son and the Spirit act with the Father in the task of creating. The Son is the Word, the principle of creation, the one through whom the Father creates (John 1:3). And the Spirit is the divine Power active in bringing the world into existence (Gen. 1:2).
Likewise, the Son is the Redeemer of humanity, yet the Father and the Spirit are involved with the Son in the program of reconciliation. The Father is the Agent at work through the Son (2 Cor. 5:18–19). And the Spirit is the active divine Power effecting the process from the new birth to the final resurrection.
And although the Spirit is the Completer of the divine program, he is joined in this work by the Son and the Father. The Son is the Lord who will return in glory. And the Father is the one who will be “all-in-all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
In our theological reflections, we will be exploring these central aspects of God’s work in the world. As these examples indicate, the work of the Triune God follows a specific order. In each divine work
The unity of the three trinitarian members in the world points to the parallel truth about the eternal God. The three members of the Trinity build an eternal unity-in-diversity. Father, Son, and Spirit together compose the one divine reality and share the one divine essence.
The Loving God
Throughout all eternity God is none other than the Father, Son, and Spirit bound together in an eternal dynamic relationship. But what is the bond that unites the Triune God we have come to know? The key to the answer to our query lies in the biblical declaration, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).
God is love. The New Testament word “love” (agape) speaks about the giving of oneself for the sake of another. Jesus, for example, spoke about the good shepherd who gives his life for his sheep (John 10:11).
Active, self-giving love builds the unity within the one God. The unity of God is nothing less than each of the trinitarian persons giving himself to the others. This unity is the dedication of each to the others. Through all eternity the Father loves the Son, and the Son reciprocates that love. This love is the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the relationship of the Father and the Son.5 Through all eternity, therefore, God is the social Trinity, the community of love.
The dynamic within the one God has a glorious implication for our understanding of salvation. When we become believers, the Spirit makes his abode in our hearts. But this indwelling Holy Spirit is none other than the Spirit of the relationship between the Father and the Son. When he comes to live within us, therefore, the Spirit brings us to share in the love the Son enjoys with the Father. No wonder Paul exclaims, “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:6).
“Love” describes God’s nature throughout eternity. But “love” also characterizes the manner in which God responds to the universe. Indeed, the God who is love naturally acts toward the world in accordance with the eternal divine essence, which is love. With profound theological insight, therefore, John bursts forth, “For God so loved the world that he gave . . .” (John 3:16).
There is a dark side to God’s love. God always responds to creation in accordance with the divine nature, which is love. But his love is not a soupy sentimentality that indulges creatures to do as they please. Rather, God is characterized by “tough love.” God’s love has a dark side. Or to use the older theological term, God’s is a holy love. In this sense, our God is also a jealous, wrathful God. Our God is an awesome God!
One cautionary note is in order here. In our reflecting on God’s holiness, we ought not separate God’s love and wrath as if they were two contrary characteristics. Instead, “wrath” is the best description we have for the way in which God’s love encounters sin. It is our description of the way sinful creatures experience God’s love. Simply stated, the presence of sin transforms the experience of the divine love from the bliss intended by God into wrath.
To understand this, consider how wrath naturally arises out of the nature of love itself. Bound up with love is a protective jealousy. Genuine love is positively jealous or protective, for a true lover seeks to defend the love relationship whenever it is threatened by disruption, destruction, or outside intrusion.6
Perhaps we can understand this dimension of God’s love by thinking about human marriage: I love my wife. But being a loving husband does not mean that I would simply stand idly by and watch should another man seek to lure my wife into a relationship with him. On the contrary, in such a situation the meddling third party would experience the dark, jealous, protective side of my love. He would see my love in the form of wrath.
In a similar manner, those who would undermine the love God pours forth for the world encounter the dark side of the divine love. They experience the wrath of the divine Lover.
There is another aspect of the dark side of God’s love as well. As we have noted previously, God’s ultimate goal for his creation is community. God desires that we enjoy fellowship with him, with each other, and with all creation. Whoever rejects the divine design and seeks to undermine the community God wants to establish suffers the outworking of this wayward course of action. God continues to love them. But if they spurn that love, they experience God’s love in the form of wrath. And the spurning of the love of God eventually leads to the irrevocable, never-ending experience of the wrath of the eternal Lover. We call this situation “hell.”
The Trinity and Christian Discipleship
The doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a theological construction that we acknowledge with our intellects and confess with our words. It also forms a vital foundation for true Christian living. Our understanding of God as the Triune One ought to transform the way we pray, for example, and it ought to revolutionize the way we act in the world.
Trinitarian praying. The way we pray ought to reflect that we know the Triune God. In fact, our realization that the God who calls us to pray and who responds to prayer is the Father, Son, and Spirit is one key to the enjoyment of renewed meaning and power in our prayer life.
Some Christians simply address all prayer to Jesus. After all, we naturally sense a closeness to our Lord, because he walked the earth and experienced life as a human. Other believers address all prayer to “God.” This too is understandable, for prayer is communication with God. But our knowledge of the Triune God ought to motivate us to address our prayers to the Father, Son, and Spirit, in accordance with both the purpose of the specific prayer we are voicing and our understanding of the activities in which each trinitarian person engages.
Let’s look more closely at how this works. As the New Testament itself confirms, we generally address the Father in prayer. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray, “Our heavenly Father.” And James reminds us that “every good and perfect gift is from . . . the Father” (James 1:17). Indeed, as we have noted, the Father functions as the originator of the divine plan. He is the ground and source of creation and of salvation. Consequently, we ought to bring our praise and our requests to him (Rev. 4:8–11).
Yet we may also want to address certain prayers to the Son. It is only right that we would praise our Lord for who he is. We also thank him for the salvation he has won (Rev. 5:11–14), for his ongoing intercession on our behalf (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25), and for his soon return, which we anticipate. In so doing, we become the advance chorus of all creation that will one day publicly pay him homage as the Lord of all (Phil. 2:9–10). While bringing prayers of adoration and thanksgiving to Jesus, we do well to address most of our petitions to the Father. In so doing, we follow the pattern our Lord himself taught us (Matt. 6:9–13).
The Spirit is the Completer of God’s program. His activity in the divine work spans the ages from creation to Christ’s return. Therefore, we can also properly address prayer to him. Of course, because he is divine, we may offer him our praise and thanksgiving. In addition, however, we may petition the Spirit in areas of his work in the world. We may invoke his presence to comfort, strengthen, illumine, or convict of sin. Or we can petition the Father to send the Holy Spirit to engage in such work.
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.7
While we may want from time to time to address the Spirit, we must keep in mind that the Spirit acts as the “silent” member of the Trinity. Rather than drawing attention to himself, the Spirit shows his presence by exalting the Son and the Father. Spirit-filled prayer, therefore, moves from the Spirit through the Son to the Father. The Spirit prompts us to address our heavenly Father in the name of Jesus.
In short, trinitarian prayer generally addresses the Father, in the name of the Son, by the prompting of the Spirit.
Trinitarian living. Knowing the Triune God should not only affect the way we pray; it should also influence the way we act. Indeed, the Triune God is the ultimate model and the standard for Christian living (Matt. 10:39).
When we pray, we come before the Father in the name of the Son and by the prompting of the Spirit.
As the doctrine of the Trinity indicates, the one God is the social Trinity, the community or fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Because God is a plurality in unity, the ideal for humankind does not focus on solitary persons but on persons in community. God intends that we reflect the divine nature in our lives. This is only possible as we move out of our isolation and into godly relationships with others. Consequently, true Christian living is life in relationship or life in community.8
The doctrine of the Trinity also reminds us that God is love. The God who is love within the relationships of Father, Son, and Spirit also loves all creation. This God is concerned about all creatures and wills the best for each of them.
Knowing that God is love ought to motivate us to seek to reflect God’s loving concern for all creatures. Consequently, Christians ought to be at the forefront in both practicing and promoting the genuine stewardship God has entrusted to humankind (Gen. 1:28; 2:15).
Stewardship according to God’s own example includes living in fellowship with our environment, of course. But humans are the special recipients of God’s love. Therefore, modeling our lives after the example of the loving God leads us to focus on other humans. Because God loves each human being, God demands that we act justly. And God calls us to be instruments in bringing about the divine vision of love, justice, and righteousness for all humankind.
The Relational God
Knowing the Triune God lies at the heart of our Christian experience. Affirming the doctrine of the Trinity—the one God is Father, Son, and Spirit united in love—forms the heart of the Christian understanding of God. God’s triune nature means that God is social or relational—God is the “social Trinity.” And for this reason, we can say that God is “community.” God is the community of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who enjoy perfect and eternal fellowship.
We must take this central Christian doctrine a step further, however. The God who is relational within the eternal divine being enters into relationship with creation.
How should we understand this great Christian affirmation? And how does God enter into relationship with us? To this divine relational dynamic we now turn.
God Relates to the World as the Transcendent and Immanent One
From the beginning, Christian theology has used the terms “transcendence” and “immanence” to characterize the foundational aspects of the manner in which God enters into relationship with creation. Unfortunately, these words are often misunderstood. Therefore, let’s look more closely at them.
First, God is transcendent over the world. “Transcendence” means:
The Scriptures forcefully declare God’s transcendence. The Teacher cautions, “God is in heaven and you are on the earth” (Eccles. 5:2). Likewise, the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord “high and exalted, seated on a throne” (Isa. 6:1).
But God is also immanent in the world. This means:
The Bible celebrates this dimension of God’s relationship to the world as well. The Old Testament writers repeatedly sound the theme that God is the sustainer of creation through the divine Spirit (Job 27:3; 33:4; 34:14–15; Ps. 104:29–30). Jesus credited the natural processes such as sunshine and rain, the feeding of the birds, and the beauty of the flowers to the agency of his Father (Matt. 5:45; 6:25–30; 10:29–30). And in his well-known speech to the Athenians, Paul declared that God “is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27–28).
God is both transcendent and immanent. These two aspects of God’s relationship to the world carry far-reaching significance for the way we think about God. On the one hand, we dare not place God so far beyond the world that we devise a God who cannot enter into relationship with creatures. Our God is not a distant deity who cannot see, hear, or know what happens in the universe.
On the other hand, we also dare not collapse God so thoroughly into the world processes that our God cannot stand over the creation that he made. God cannot be reduced to the “divine spark within each of us” nor to the great “Matrix” that connects all living creatures together.9
God Relates to the World as Spirit
The God who is both transcendent and immanent is also “spirit” (John 4:24). This too refers to how God relates to the world.
Basically the biblical word “spirit” means “breath” or “wind.” Because breath is the sign of life, “spirit” also refers to the life principle in all living creatures, but especially in humans. The biblical writers consistently acknowledge that God is the source of life in each human. Indeed, when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils “the breath of life . . . man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). Because God is the source of life, as “Spirit” God is able to create and sustain life.
By declaring “God is Spirit,” therefore, we are affirming a vital dimension of the relationship of God to creation. We are acknowledging that God is the source of life. God bestows life on us. In turn, we are dependent on God for our very lives.
Yet “God is Spirit” carries a deeper meaning as well. At the foundation of his relationship to the world as the Giver of Life stands a more fundamental, eternal relationship within the Triune God. “God is Spirit” means that the God we worship is no static being. Rather, God is the Living One. Throughout all eternity God is alive; God is dynamic, active.
Jesus himself spoke about the vital internal divine activity: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). The divine life is the eternal activity of the Father who, as the fountain of deity, generates the Son to share in his own deity. The Father’s love for the Son, in turn, is reciprocated in the Son’s love for the Father. This relationship between the Father and the Son is the third trinitarian member, the Holy Spirit.
To say “God is Spirit,” therefore, is to speak about the relational God. Throughout eternity the Triune God is a vital dynamic. This vitality, in turn, overflows to creation. The God who is dynamic activity within the eternal trinitarian life is the source and sustainer of the creaturely life he freely creates.
God Relates to the World as Person
The God we have come to know is also “person.” Indeed, God enters into relationship with creation as person.
First, we acknowledge that God is person because God relates to the world as the Incomprehensible One.
To be a “person” is not always the same as being “human.” There can be nonhuman persons. There may, in fact, be human beings who are not fully persons (although every human being is a potential person). To be a person is to be incomprehensible, willful, and free.
We use the word “person” to describe humans because we experience each other as incomprehensible beings. No one is totally transparent to the knowing eyes of another. Nor can we ever fathom the depths of another’s being. In the end, we all remain mysterious or hidden from each other.
In an even greater sense, the God who enters into relationship with us remains ultimately mysterious to us. God lies beyond our ability to understand completely (Rom. 11:33–34). In his relationship to the world, God remains incomprehensible; God is therefore “person.”
Second, we acknowledge that God is person because God relates to creation as “will.”
We speak of each other as persons, because we are self-determining, active agents. We have goals, purposes, and plans that color how we act in the world.
To an even greater extent, God is “will.” God has a goal for creation. And God acts in the world to bring his purposes to completion. God, therefore, is person.
Third, we declare that God is person because he relates to the universe in freedom.
We designate each other as persons, in that we are all free to act. Our actions are beyond the total control of others. In fact, those who are controlled by another (such as through forced slavery) often cease to be persons in our eyes.
God is free in relationship to the world. God is totally beyond our control. In fact, God is the source of our finite human freedom. For this reason, we speak of God as “person.”
God confirmed his personhood when he announced his name—Yahweh—to Moses (Exod. 3:14–15). This name speaks of God as the great “I AM”—that is, the “one who will be.”11 The God who called Moses into his service is the one who will show his identity by being active in human history.
Jesus invoked this divine name when he boldly declared, “Before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58). Although his enemies took our Lord’s assertion to be blasphemous, we know that the Master’s claim is true. In Jesus of Nazareth we do indeed encounter the great “I am,” the ultimate reality who is active in history from beginning to end. In Jesus, we see God as fully personal.12
The fact that God relates to the world as person means that God is personal. But this has important implications for us as well. By relating to each of us as persons, God affirms us in our own unique personhood. And by relating to us as person to persons, God confirms the distinction between him and us.
God’s personhood is also critical for the importance of personal human dignity. This aspect of Christian doctrine forms a striking contrast to religions that acknowledge an impersonal deity. Because those religions view God as impersonal, they denigrate human personhood as well. They teach that the ultimate goal of life is to lose one’s personhood and merge into an all-encompassing Absolute. The God we know, in contrast, enters into a person-to-person relationship with us. In so doing, God eternally honors our unique personhood.
God Relates to the World as the Eternal One
The God we know is not only the personal source of life; he is also eternal. Theologians often characterize the “eternality” of God by appeal to the three great “omnis”: God is omnipresent (“present everywhere”), omniscient (“all-knowing”), and omnipotent (“all-powerful”). Although easy to state, these theological concepts are difficult to understand and therefore open to misunderstanding.
“Eternality” means God is faithfully present through time.
The Greek philosophers contrasted the changeable realm of time with a static, changeless domain above the flow of events. These thinkers viewed static changelessness as more “real” than change. Consequently, for them God’s eternality meant that he exists totally beyond the temporal realm and therefore remains untouched by events in time. This Greek conception of a timeless, static God does not square with the God we know.13 The biblical God sees, knows, cares, and responds to the plight of creatures. The Bible speaks of a God who is not untouched by time but who is faithfully present through time.
This leads, however, to a difficult question: How does the God who is faithfully present through time relate to time? Our experience of time offers a beginning point in speaking about God and time.
To us, time has three aspects: past, present, and future. Although we can speak of events that are past and future, we are immediately cognizant only of present events. Our awareness of the past is limited to memory. And our only connection to the future is our ability to anticipate events. Because we directly experience only what is immediately present to us, we live in a realm we call the “present.”
Our experience of direct cognition of the present provides us with a limited participation in eternity. And by extension, this experience of our relationship to our world gives us a window into God’s relationship to the processes of the universe. Just as we are aware of present events in our own personal world, so also God is cognizant of what occurs in the universe. God is immediately and simultaneously aware of all events. Whether they are in what we call “past,” “present,” or “future,” they are all in God’s “present.”
Perhaps an analogy can help us understand this concept. Suppose I want to see the Rose Bowl parade. On January 1, I make my way to Pasadena, California, and successfully find a curbside spot along one of the streets on the parade route. My limited height and the size of the throng crowding around me means that my view of the parade consists of watching each individual float as it passes by the point where I am standing. But suppose I had a friend who invited me to join him in the blimp. Traveling high above the ground would give me a far more encompassing view of the parade. Rather than being limited to a direct sighting of each passing float, I could see the entire parade in one breathtaking look.
Without pressing the analogy too far, we might suggest that we view time from a position “on the curb.” We experience each event that moves through our present. But God sees all of time from a cosmic blimp. All events are simultaneously in God’s encompassing “present.”
This understanding of God’s eternality provides a context in which to speak about his omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence.
Often Christians declare that God is near or present to all things. But it would be better to turn the definition around: all things are present to God. God enjoys a direct view of every occasion in the universe.
Some Christians speak of God’s omniscience as if it were a statement about the divine being rather than about God’s relationship to the world. Consequently, they debate whether God knows not only all actual events but also all possible events.
Omniscience, however, refers to God’s perfect and complete cognition of the world. God knows all occasions in the universe. God knows all things because God perceives all events simultaneously.
Some Christians suggest that omnipotence, like omniscience, refers to God’s being apart from the world: God is able to do anything he chooses. But speaking about God’s omnipotence in an abstract sense, as referring to some theoretical power, only leads to nonsensical problems and apparent dilemmas. It leads people to debate whether God could make a rock so heavy that even he could not lift it.
In contrast to such misguided discussions, to say “God is omnipotent” is to acknowledge that God is able to bring to completion the divine design for creation.
God is not a disinterested observer of the world. Instead, God relates to the universe as the eternal One, the one who is faithfully present to the world throughout time. God acts in the world as the one who knows all events from the perspective of the final purposes for creation. And all God’s actions in human history contribute to that final outcome. Cognizant of his own purposes, God is able to overcome every evil for the sake of the good that he intends to do for creation. And the omnipotent God is able to replace the old order with the new, which he will do completely at the end of the age when Jesus returns in glory.
Because God is omniscient, we can be confident that our God knows what is best for us. Because God is omnipotent, we can trust our God to do what is best for us. And because God is omnipresent, we can entrust ourselves to him in every moment of life, knowing that he is with us en route to the end.
Because God is eternal, we can pray boldly and live confidently.
The God who is faithfully present through time invites us to cooperate with him in the completion of the divine program for history through fervent petition and obedient action. In both of these activities we rebel against the status quo; that is, we refuse to acknowledge that the present state of affairs in our world is wholly in keeping with the divine plan. Through prayer and action we seek to allow ourselves to be instruments of the hands of the Holy Spirit to open the present to the in-breaking of the power of the future kingdom.14
God Relates to the World as the Beneficent One
Finally, the eternal God we know is completely good in all he does. That is, God is morally upright in the ways he relates to creation.
We can pinpoint two aspects of God’s goodness:
In this context “God is holy” means that God is completely upright, fair, just, and righteous in his treatment of creatures. Not only is God morally perfect, but he is also the standard for morality. God’s disposition toward creation is the standard by which he will judge us and, therefore, by which we are to appraise all human conduct.
“God is compassionate” means that God is gracious, benevolent, and long-suffering with us. The authors of Scripture glory in this dimension of God’s relationship to the world (e.g., Exod. 34:6; Neh. 9:17; Pss. 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 116:5; 145:8; Isa. 54:10; Joel 2:13; Jon. 4:2). According to the New Testament, the supreme act of divine compassion is the coming of Jesus Christ for our salvation (Eph. 3:4–5; Titus 3:5). And awareness that God is compassionate provides a biblical foundation for faith in him.
Knowing a God who is holy and compassionate ought to lead to joyful and awe-filled praise to this glorious God. But in addition it ought to revolutionize the way we live.
God’s holiness has crucial considerations for human living on both the personal and the social levels. It means that we must look to God and how God acts, rather than to human opinions, if we want to gain a clear understanding of such foundational concepts as “justice,” “fairness,” and “righteousness.”
But above all, the God of all compassion calls us to emulate him in our relations with others. John, the apostle of love, reminds us of the connection between God’s character and our conduct: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).
The Creator God
The Bible opens with the simple yet profound declaration, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). This statement boldly declares the glorious truth that the Triune God brings the cosmos into existence and enters into relationship with what he makes. In so doing, the eternal God becomes the Creator of the universe, and the world exists as the creation of God.
The declaration that the biblical God is the Creator of the universe means that Christians espouse a unique understanding of the cosmos that we inhabit. Because the God we know is the Creator of the world, the universe did not come into being on its own. Instead, it exists by the will and action of God.
But what kind of “act” is God’s creation of the world? In raising this question we are not intending to investigate any specific scientific hypothesis about the beginning of the universe, such as the big bang theory. Rather, we are looking into the implications of our confession “God is the Creator” for the relationship between the Creator and creation.
Let us pursue five lines of response to our query:
God Creates the World by an Act of Freedom
The God we know as Creator creates the world freely. This means that God is not driven to bring the universe into existence. Were God forced to create, God would need the world to exist in order to be who he is. But the God we know is transcendent, complete in the divine reality apart from the world. God remains eternally God, whether or not the universe exists.
God’s triunity helps us understand how this is so. As we saw earlier, God is the social Trinity bound together by mutual love. Consequently, God is fully who he is—the loving God—within the eternal, divine life. God does not need the world to exist in order to be the God of love. Instead, throughout all eternity the Father loves the Son, the Son reciprocates that love, and the love they share is the Holy Spirit.
The universe exists, therefore, because God graciously chooses to create a cosmos with which to share God’s own existence.
God Creates the World by an Act of Love
Not only does God freely choose to create, but the act of creation also arises out of God’s love.
Here again, God’s triunity assists us in seeing this. As we have seen, God is love—a love manifest between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The act of creation, in turn, is the outflowing of this eternal love relationship within the heart of God. Because it is created as an outflow of God’s own nature (love), creation exists as both the recipient and the mirror of God’s eternal love.
The Triune God Creates the World
The Father, Son, and Spirit are all involved in the act of creation. Specifically:
The Father is the direct Creator of all that exists (1 Cor. 7:6). His will forms the foundation for the existence of all things (Rev. 4:11). Hence, all creation owes its existence to the Father (Acts 17:28).
In addition, the Father’s glory is the goal of all things. The purpose of every creature is to praise him. Creation around us quite naturally fulfills this divine intention (Ps. 19:1). But the Father invites humans, his highest creatures, to glorify him willingly and consciously, and therefore most fully.
The Son is the Word or ordering principle through whom the Father creates (John 1:3, 14; Col. 1:16a). This means that only by their connection with Jesus and his story do all things in our world find their meaning (Col. 1:16b). This means as well that Jesus exemplifies the way creatures ought to relate to the Creator—namely, by living in humble dependence on, and obedience to, the one whom Jesus called “Father” (John 5:26).
As the one who broods over the void (Gen. 1:2; cf. Job 26:13), the Spirit is the power who gives form to the universe. And he is also the power who gives life to all living creatures (Gen. 6:17; 7:22; Ps. 104:30) but especially to humans (Gen. 2:7; 6:3; Job 33:4).
The role of each of the trinitarian persons in creation is not arbitrary. Rather, their involvement in this act arises out of their function in the eternal dynamic within the one God. The Father, who eternally loves the Son, creates the world so that creatures might reciprocate his love after the pattern of the Son’s love for the Father. As the Spirit of the relationship between the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is the power by whom the one God fashions the world.
Creation Is an Act of a Sovereign Creator
Sovereignty means that ultimately God alone has the right to declare what creation should be.
As Creator, God rightfully enjoys a special status in relationship to the universe. Specifically, God is sovereign over creation. Sovereignty means that ultimately God alone has the right to declare what creation should be. God’s will alone should be universally obeyed. We must keep in mind, however, that the sovereign God always acts in accordance with the divine character, which is love. In all he does, God seeks only what is best for the universe that he fashioned as the outflow of the divine love.
Yet the undeniable presence of evil in the world leads us to wonder to what extent God is truly sovereign over creation. Two vantage points provide us with a response:
Strictly speaking, sovereignty refers to God’s ability to bring to pass the divine goal for the world. Seen from this perspective, we anticipate the glorious display of God’s sovereignty when Jesus returns. Then God will be fully and clearly sovereign.
In the meantime, however, there is much that calls God’s sovereignty into question (e.g., Ps. 73:3–14). Yet according to the Bible, God is not idle; God is at work in all of history, directing creation to its intended purpose. Because God will be sovereign when he completes the divine program, we can also affirm that God is sovereign each step of the way. Even before the end of the age, God is at work directing creation and overcoming evil for good.
When viewed from the perspective of God’s status as Creator, God alone may rightfully both claim and exercise sovereignty. Only God is sovereign de jure. In the actual situation in the present moments of history, however, God’s complete will is not always evident. Nor do God’s human creatures always live in accordance with God’s design or will for them.
Is God not only de jure but also de facto sovereign of our lives?
Yet this is not the end of the story. One day God will bring all creation into conformity with its glorious design. Then God will not only be sovereign de jure but also de facto. Then future sovereignty will become present sovereignty, and the distinction between these will disappear. In the meantime, God is actively bringing creation to its intended goal. And many creatures do acknowledge, reflect, and obey the divine will. Whenever and wherever this occurs, God becomes de facto sovereign presently as he will fully in the future.
Creation Is a Future Act
Finally, we raise another crucial question. When does God create the world?
After all, the world obviously exists. And the Bible begins with the clear declaration, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Therefore, creation was an event in the distant past.
Of course, the creation of the world did occur in the primordial past, “in the beginning.” In this sense, “creation” refers to God’s free act in calling the world into existence.
“Creation” can also refer to God’s completion of the divine work in bringing the universe to its destined goal. “Creation” is God’s act in shaping the cosmos according to its design. In this sense, the creation of the world does not merely begin the temporal sequence but also stands at the end of history. The act of creation, in other words, is not yet completed. Instead, God remains active in history bringing about God’s world-creating work.
This understanding of creation lies at the heart of the Bible. Prophets in both Testaments anticipated a day when God will transform the present universe into the perfect reality God plans for it. Through Isaiah, for example, God announced this intention: “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create” (Isa. 65:17–18). Centuries later John reiterated Isaiah’s prophecy. In his vision of the glorious future, he saw “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1).
One day God will fashion the universe in accordance with the divine design and purpose. In the meantime, the world eagerly anticipates that great day (Rom. 8:19–25).
Be who through Christ we will one day become.
If creation is God’s future act, then we must look to the future and not to the past to determine who we are. Our true nature is not given through our connection to Adam in the primordial past. Rather, it lies in our future participation in the resurrection, as our risen Lord has disclosed to us (1 Cor. 15:48). Our ultimate identity, therefore, is the complete Christlikeness that will be ours when through the resurrection we come to “bear the image of the heavenly man” (v. 49).
One future day we will share completely in the glorious goal the Creator God has for his handiwork: community on the highest plane. On that day, as we have emphasized, we will enjoy eternal fellowship with our God, with each other, and with the new creation that God is bringing to pass. This alone is our true home and our ultimate identity.
Our hope that one day the Triune God will complete the divine work in fashioning the world and us as children of God ought to move us to renewed praise for the Triune, relational, Creator God whom we have come to know. And it ought to challenge us to live even now in the light of that glorious future reality.
Having Read This Chapter, You Should Know:
For Connection and Application