Recently I’ve been reading The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, by Fred Sanders (2017). The author contends that we don’t properly understand the gospel until we recognize the radiant internal life of joy within the triune godhead—Father, Son, Holy Spirit; one eternal God in three persons.
But alas, we’ve often dismissed the doctrine of the Trinity as something abstract and marginal. What’s more, “Instead of teaching the full counsel of God (incarnation, ministry of healing and teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and second coming), anemic evangelicalism simply shouts its one point of emphasis louder and louder (the cross! the cross! the cross!).”
We need to keep the full, biblical picture of God in view: “God’s way of being God is to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simultaneously from all eternity, perfectly complete in a triune fellowship of love.” And the triune God is no mere means to the end of our gladness at being spared judgment and hell: “God the Trinity is the end, the goal, the telos, the omega” (68). Justification, redemption, forgiveness (etc.—you can say it many ways) are glorious not simply for what we’re spared but for the way God gives us access to his magnificent trinitarian presence forever.
It’s true that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but beneath that fact is the infinite delight of Father, Son, and Spirit in the joyful “land” of the Trinity. In fact, “This is what the doctrine of the Trinity helps us to learn with greater precision—that God is love. The triune God is a love infinitely high above you, eternally preceding you, and welcoming you in“ (101).
“The good news that Jesus brings is that God has chosen to accomplish our salvation by being himself for us, by opening up his own life and bringing us into fellowship” (125). Yes, “God has thrown open his heart and turned his inner life inside out to be our salvation” (130). Such amazing love!
