The Deep Things of God

In The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, Fred Sanders explains the need to fully realize Trinitarian reality both in our Christian lives and in ministry, particularly on our understanding of the gospel and its presentation. This is a call to leave the shallowness that has dominated much of the evangelical church and really to realize what God has made possible for us in joining our lives to His Life. The application of this is nothing short of waking up to a fullness of reality. The doctrine of the Trinity is not something to confess in church liturgy but rather to be immersed in daily.  Two things that I find directly applicable on a personal level is this realization gives more depth and meaning to our gospel presentations and brings us to a richer reality in prayer.

The evangelical church believes and upholds the doctrine of the Trinity but has robbed itself in really experiencing and being transformed by all that life in communion with the Trinity offers. Sanders says this doctrine has been “reduced to an issue of authority and mental obedience.” (p. 51) In other words, we believe in the Trinity because we have to. It has become a mindless acceptance. On the other hand, evangelicals acknowledge the Trinity, without any explicit presentation that involves the work of the Father and the Spirit (i.e. Billy Graham crusades). We certainly believe it and we have a difficult time explaining the Trinity and rarely do we address the topic in the regular life of the church. Perhaps we view this as deeply theological and personally irrelevant. This has caused the shallowness within evangelical churches and ironically, as Sanders argues, our belief and foundations are very Trinitarian but lacking the full consciousness of what this reality implies about our life in God.

In presentations of the gospel, our message is centered on the work of the Son on the cross. “We emphasize the big benefit: heaven.” (p. 21). There is a mandate to convert people to escape hell but the invitation into the triune life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is missing. The good news of salvation is often presented as the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior with emphasis on His saving work on our behalf and almost always void of the other two Persons of the Trinity.  “The good news of salvation is ultimately that God opens his Trinitarian life to us.” (104, 198) This statement is definitely worth repeating for Sanders (appears twice in the book) and therefore deserves our attention. Could it be that we need to stop trying to explain how the Trinity works and focus on how the Trinity is relevant to our lives? This is not something to believe as fact but to experience as truth in our daily lives. Sanders declares that the Trinity is the gospel (pg. 170, italics mine). The good news is that God has invited us to be in the same fellowship that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always been enjoying. The work of the Son makes this possible.

 

In speaking of our gospel presentations, the invitation is usually to accept Jesus Christ in our hearts (lives) in a presentation that usually involves the holiness of God, the sin of man and the atoning death of Christ. There is nothing wrong with this, yet how much of a richer invitation and truer reality would we present in an invitation to join into the very life of God through the work of the Son! Sanders points out that he is not proposing an alternative gospel (p. 173), “focusing on Christ logically entails including the entire Trinity in the same focus (p.174). This is what makes the central focus so applicable. We are not shifting our focus, we are zeroing down and looking deeper into the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit in the great work of redemption.  All three Persons are active in our salvation and all Persons make up the God of our adoration and worship. They have invited us to share in this “happy life” that never ceases.

One additional point on the work of salvation is not so much that we accept Christ inside our lives (although as Sanders says, that is not necessarily a wrong way to think about it), the greater realization is that “we are in Christ” (pg. 176). This is an incredible realization as we revisit where our minds go during our time of prayer. Often if our focus is on the fact that “Christ is in us” we are left with an image of “smallness” that we are talking to ourselves or to a Person that has made His home in us. How much more of a glorious realization that we are in immersed in the divine Presence of Father Son and Holy Spirit. They are always in communication with each other and we are invited into the “personal presence of Father Son and Spirit” (pg. 234). Opening up our minds, hearts and focus would bring us so much closer to the bigness of God. The awe-inspiring reality that the eternal God has made possible His Triune Presence every time we enter into a time of prayer. The image we have in our minds will change drastically under this reality and help us realize C.S. Lewis’ observation that “Christian Life… is a matter of being taken up into the life of the Trinity” (pg. 239). This is what has been made possible to all of us, not just for a few select “spiritually strong” folks.

Clearly, as evangelicals, we have a ways to go in taking full opportunity to know and experience the deep things of God. A very real application could be to essentially declare the awesomeness that we have been invited into the happy life of the Trinity and that the Son has made this possible. This could certainly proceed “For God so loved the world…” The big picture is even bigger than we have presented it, our prayer life is entering into a more awesome Presence than we ever imagined. The doctrine that we must accept and confess as evangelical Christians can and should be the new reality that we have been immersed into and can passionately declare to others that they too have been invited into this happy, glorious life of the Triune God.