by Marilynn Chadwick
God’s work of salvation requires the interplay of all three Persons of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity calls to mind the staggering wonders of our Creator. Through the lenses of the Trinity, we learn of God as Father. He is the Providential Creator and Savior in the Old Testament, as well as the Father of Jesus in the New Testament.
Creation itself bears witness to the majesty of God as “Father and Origin” of our world and all worlds. The Trinity invites us to contemplate the magnitude of God’s handiwork in the universe. For an example into the majesty of God as Creator, click here to view a stunning glimpse into space from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20 NIV).
The Trinity also compels us to reflect upon the second Person, Jesus Christ. When Jesus referred to God as his “Father,” he was speaking as “God the Son.” In the Cross, we see God’s enormous love—God on a cross—astounding! We must humbly contemplate the cost of God emptying himself. Jesus, “God the Son,” assumed humanity’s garb to suffer and die for our sins, making himself “nothing” and taking on the “nature of a servant, being made in human likeness...and obedient to death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8).
By calling him “Father,” we see Jesus’s relationship with God. He uses a startling term, calling God “Abba,” an Aramaic expression akin to “Daddy” (Mark 14:36). It is only through Jesus that we can call God our Father. The Trinity refutes the argument that Jesus was simply the firstborn of equals. Jesus was the first of all who are raised from the dead, never to die again. But the Sonship of Jesus is superior to those who come after him because he is their Source. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12 NRSV).
Finally, the doctrine of the Trinity turns our attention to God the Holy Spirit—God at work in us, among us, around us, and through us. Walking in the Spirit means walking in the Trinity. The work the Holy Spirit accomplishes—the work of God—defines him as God. The principal work of the Holy Spirit is the confession of Jesus and to provide the way for a saving relationship with God. Our newly born relationship with God as our Father is made possible only because he gave his Son (John 3:16) and sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts (Galatians 4:6).
Paul referred to this relationship as the “Spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15). Perhaps this explains John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, after which he is said to have gone from “the faith of a slave to faith of a son.” Those who accept Jesus as Savior are immediately brought into this same wondrous intimacy with the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.