20 January 2022
The truth of the Trinity is the foundation of Christianity: the gospel of salvation through a divine-human mediator and a divine Spirit cannot be true if trinitarianism is false; nor can be such a thing as communion with the three persons of the Godhead distinctly.
God’s plan of salvation is trinitarian in structure: the plan began with an eternal consensus between the Father and the Son – the Father appointed the Son to become incarnate and – as prophet, priest and king – to mediate salvation to a great multitude of sinners. He did this through His atoning death in humiliation on the cross, His exaltation from the grave to the glory of the celestial throne, and His joining the Father in sending the Spirit to bring salvation home to blinded and twisted human hearts.
God established a new relationship of pardon, acceptance, adoption, and protection, through Christ the mediator, with sinners whom the Spirit had led to faith and repentance. On this rests the reality of communion with God, and the enjoyment of God. Communion with God is communication of God to us, with us returning to Him that which He requires and delights in, flowing from the union which in Jesus Christ we have with Him. What we receive from God is the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the life-transforming grace of the Holy Spirit. The model for the church as well as for individuals is the perfect communion of the three divine persons of the Godhead in the Trinity. The outwardly directed actions of the Triune God are from all three persons , who work together in unity. All three persons of the Trinity dwell intimately within those justified by grace.
Hence we see how the truth of the Trinity is indeed foundational in Christianity – without it, the whole foundation collapses. Knowing God, communion with God, loving Him and enjoying Him are all tied up in the truth of the Trinity and in the covenantal plan of salvation instituted by the three even before the foundation of the world.