• "The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the Key to Knowing God"
• Sermon for Trinity Sunday
• June 6, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

Today we celebrate the cardinal doctrine of the Christian revelation. There is one God who exists in three persons. As the Creed of St. Athanasius says:

"Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith... 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...The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals: but one eternal...So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods: but one God...."

Now, many hear this and say, "This is hard to understand." And so it ought to be. For we would expect God, who created all that we can see and all that we cannot see, to be glorious and mysterious beyond human comprehension. Therefore, it is not an argument against the Trinity that we, with heart and mind blinded by the Fall, cannot grasp the fullness of God's being.

In fact, we can only begin to understand the Trinity because God has revealed himself to us. As Jesus said in the gospel today, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 31f.). We grow in our understanding as we pray for increased knowledge. St. Paul prayed for the Ephesians, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him" (1:17). As St. Augustine said, "I believe in order that I might understand."

The doctrine of the Trinity leads us into worship. The point of Trinitarian doctrine is not to try to get the fullness of the glory of God to fit into our limited human understanding. The point of Trinitarian doctrine is to get us to lift up our eyes and see the Triune God in all his glory.

It is most apt, therefore, that the epistle lesson for Trinity Sunday comes from Revelation (Chapter 4). It is a scene of worship. John is invited to enter through a door into heaven where he receives a vision of God. The images John sees are drawn from the Old Testament images of God in the holy of holies in the temple.

God sits on a throne. He is described as being without form but glorious like unto the most precious of earthly gems. This fits with the Old Testament teaching that God the Father has no form. There are "seven Spirits of God"-taken from the sevenfold candles of the lamp stand in the temple-which represent the Holy Spirit. There are four glorious "living creatures" who are the cherubim described in Ezekiel, whose wings overshadowed the ark of the covenant in the temple. As Benedicite says, "Blessed are thou that beholdest the depths and dwellest between the cherubim." In chapter 5 of Revelation, John sees, "a lamb as though it had been slain." Thus, John sees the glory of the Father who has no form, the burning presence of the Holy Spirit and the Lamb, the Son of God who died for us. John sees the glory of the Trinity.

John also sees twenty-four elders, who represent the redeemed people of God. They wear crowns and they worship. This illustrates the kingly and priestly vocation of the people of God. As Revelation 1:7 says, Jesus has "washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father" (cf. also Exodus 19:6).

The response of the cherubim to the vision of the triune God is the three-fold Sanctus-one for each divine person. "They rest not day and night saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come." In the liturgy of the Eucharist, we are invited to take our place in this scene; we are invited to lift our hearts to the holy of holies in heaven and join in the eternal Sanctus; we are invited to get a glimpse of the beatific vision; to see as in a glass darkly the God whom we will one day see face to face.

Revelation provides a commentary of modern theories of worship. For about a generation now, the popular idea has been that worship should be dressed down so as to be accessible to the typical unconverted or uninstructed person. Pictures and symbols of heavenly things have been removed. Symbolic furniture has been rearranged or thrown away. Poetic language has been reduced to a more banal form. The worship of God has been brought down to the level of ordinary human activity.

Revelation suggests that the movement in worship should be in the other direction. As Ephesians says, God "raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (2:5). The worship of heaven is, as Revelation reveals, a bit strange and awesome and it is different from what is typical in human communication. Just so, the church's historical liturgy, which unites us with the heavenly worship, is just a bit strange; it reflects an appropriate awe and is different from what we may see on television.

Through a lifetime of worship, we grow in our enjoyment and appreciation of the Holy, and we develop a greater detachment from the lesser things of earth, which are but shadows and foretastes of the eternal. This is why the church's liturgy, which at first seems a bit curious and alien, comes to be more and more the very vehicle of union with God. We begin as Christians with lingering attachments to earthly things. We grow over time, by grace and prayer, to be more at home with the Holy.

There is one God who exists in three persons. But knowing right doctrine about God is only the first step to truly knowing God. If we only know about God, we do not know God. To know God as Trinity is to experience the love of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. To know God is to worship the glorious nature of eternal being. The doctrine of the Trinity begins with a theological description, with many words. But it ends in contemplation, with fewer words... "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."