The God of the Creed
May 15, 2008
'I believe in God...!' So what? - don't most people? The number of real atheists in the world and throughout history is pretty small. So what's so special about these opening four words of the Apostles' Creed? The answer, of course, is what lies behind them.
If you met a woman in the street who was dressed in black from head to toe, with only a slit in a veil for her eyes to look out, and heard her say, 'I believe in God', you would know exactly which god she had in mind. The same would be true for a troupe of saffron-robed, drum-beating, Krishna-chanting hippy-types. The context controls the words.
The Christian context in which the wording of this creed evolved immediately colours the way we understand what it says. The God of the Creed is the God of the Bible. So, as we skim through the way the creed goes on to articulate who God is and what he is like, it becomes immediately apparent that he is the God who is Trinity. The comma after 'God' in the first line paves the way for the precise nature of God to unfold in what follows: namely that he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Starting Point
All this raises the question of where we start as we try to articulate the Christian Faith. Many great statements of faith - the Westminster Confession being the greatest of them all - begin with a statement about the Bible; but others begin with a statement about God. Is one to be preferred above the other?
Those that begin with a statement about the Bible do so in the conviction that God cannot be known apart from the Bible. So, before we can have a meaningful doctrine of God, we need a meaningful doctrine of Scripture. Theology is not a construct of man's ideas about God, but rather an expression on what God has made known about himself. To try to piece together an understanding of God in the abstract as a mere philosophical exercise is a mission doomed to failure. As Zophar says to Job, who 'by searching can find out God?' (KJV). Christianity is at its very core a religion of revelation.
Of course, those who framed the other classic statements of faith that begin with God and not Scripture would not for a moment disagree. The reasoning behind their order is equally valid and compelling: namely, that you cannot have a Bible without the God who gave it. But what is clear is that the God they confess is the God who has made himself known in the Bible and who can neither be defined, nor understood apart from it.
In that sense the issue of where to start in our formulation of what we believe as Christians is something of a moot point between friends! The framers of the Apostles' Creed opted for the latter starting point in the knowledge that their source is not human reason, but the divine self-revelation in Scripture.
Beyond all Comprehension
Whichever starting point we choose, it is clear, as we have said, that the God who is there and the God who has made himself known in the Bible is the God who is Trinity. He is one God in three Persons. This is the quintessential distinguishing mark of the Christian religion and what is so striking about it is the fact that it is beyond all human comprehension.
That in itself is telling. If the Bible was of merely human origin and the God of the Bible an elaborate invention of religious minds, then why come up with such a view of God? The very notion of a God who is simultaneously one in three and three in one borders on the absurd and takes us beyond the realm of what is naturally believable. The only explanation for such a view of God being at the very heart of Christian theism is that it reflects what he reveals about himself in his Word.
The sheer difficulty of formulating the doctrine of God as he is revealed in the Bible is seen in the fact it took almost four centuries of debate within the church for a consensus to crystallise. But what was clear as that debate unfolded and in the challenges its conclusion has faced subsequently is that it isn't merely the Bible's view of God that is inescapably Trinitarian, but its entire message.
Given the weight of importance attached to this doctrine by the early church and even more so its pervasiveness throughout the message of the Bible, it seems strange that it has such a low profile in Christian understanding and so much preaching today. But then again, perhaps that explains something of the 'weightlessness of God' bemoaned by David Wells in so much contemporary evangelicalism.
God's Fingerprints
Having said what we've said about the Bible's being the source of Trinitarian theology, when we begin to understand it, we realise that this Trinitarian God has left his fingerprints all over his creation. Rather like the way in which someone who has just been inducted to the nuances and subtleties of the world of fine art is suddenly able to recognise a Matisse or a Renoir from their brush-strokes, so too for the person whose eyes have been opened to see God made known in his Word. They begin to see the world in different light.
David captures it eloquently in Psalm 19 when he says, 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.' Or again in Psalm 29 - reworked, apparently, from an ode to Baal - 'The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.' Even pagans perusing the world and universe in which they live are confronted with hints and glimpses of the God who is their maker. David goes further again in Psalm 139 to speak of the mystery of his own humanity: 'I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' There is no true self-understanding that can be separate from an understanding of God. It's that thought picked up by Shakespeare in the words he places on Hamlet's lips:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
Or, to use John Frame's expression, 'We live in a sacramental universe.' It points us to God; but does it lead us to anything more than mere theism?
Paul says that it does. In his exposition of general revelation from which he goes on to expound the gospel in its fullness, he speaks of God's making himself known in the created order to such an extent that his 'invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made...so that they are without excuse' (Ro 1.20). It's hard not to infer from that final caveat that Paul has more than bare theism in mind in terms of where general revelation leads. There is sufficient knowledge of God that can be gleaned from the book of creation that sets him apart from the multitude of pagan deities that have come and gone through history.
That means that there is more than a hint of God's Trinitarian character in the world and universe he has made. As suggested in the previous article, the scientific quest for a 'theory of everything' - something that explains the unity within diversity that surrounds us in the cosmos - resonates with what the Bible says about the God who created all things and the inevitable stamp of his character impressed on all he has made.
This facet of the doctrine of the Trinity has massive relevance not only for how theology interacts with science; but more significantly, how the gospel engages with the world. The Trinity is a vital key to mission in terms of how it challenges false views of God that abound and also provides a credible answer to the unity-diversity conundrum that so vexes the postmodern mind.
The Unfolding Mystery
Bob Letham, in his magnum opus on the Trinity, compares the unfolding mystery of God's nature and character in the Bible to a detective novel. Only when the reader has progressed some way through the book does he or she find themselves drawn back to details that both struck and baffled them at earlier stages so that now they can actually understand what they mean. So it is with what we see and learn of God in the progress of revelation in Scripture.
The oddities of the language used in relation to God in the opening chapters of Genesis - plural nouns used with singular verbs, a singular God saying, 'Let us make...' - leave any student of the Bible wondering what kind of God this is. These bizarre ascriptions continue throughout the Old Testament in ways that unsettled even Jewish rabbis; but it's only when we enter the realm of New Testament revelation that the lights begin to come on.
As Jesus steps into our world in human flesh - the One in whom the 'fullness of the godhead dwells in bodily form', who could say, 'whoever has seen me has seen the Father' and who could speak of sending the Holy Spirit - so the revelation of God reaches its zenith as far as this present world is concerned. So when he sends his disciples into the world to do his work, he tells them to baptise the nations 'in the name' that is simultaneously one, yet three. And when his apostles bless his people it is with that same formula.
It has been rightly said that there is no fully developed theology of the Trinity in the New Testament; but there are enough clues not only there, but throughout the whole Bible, to compel the church to this doctrine as being the only way to express what God is like as we meet him in his Word. The Creed is a judicious expression of that truth that has served the church well for most of its history.
The God of our Salvation
Two big questions hang over any doctrine that we glean from Scripture: 'Why is it important?' and 'What difference does it make?' There is probably no doctrine where these are more pertinent than that of the Trinity.
At one level the answer to the first of these questions is simply, 'Because it's there and because it's true!' Just as we must accept our fellow men as they are and not as some projection of what we would like them to be, so too we can do no other than accept God as he has made himself known in the Bible. Even though we often hear people say, 'Well, this is how I like to think of God...', their wistful imaginings are a total irrelevance alongside the realities God has revealed.
When it comes to the second question, its relevance is most pertinent when it comes to understanding salvation. In a broad sense there is a Trinitarian flavour to all that is said about salvation throughout the New Testament. The great confession of Jonah - 'Salvation is of the Lord' - opens up into its full splendour of its being a salvation intricately bound up with the planning, accomplishment and application of the triune Father, Son and Spirit. That's what puts the 'great' into the 'great salvation' found in Hebrews!
The God in whose image we are made is the same God by whom we are remade so that his image will be perfectly restored in our collective as well as individual identity.
So when the architects of the Creed chose to begin with the words, 'I believe in God' - with all that implies with regard to the God of the Bible - they were simply pointing to the God who is most worthy of our trust and confidence as we look to him for salvation. More than that, the God who is uniquely able to help us make sense of ourselves and of the world and universe in which he has placed us. The more we know him, the more we are liberated to not only honour him, but also to enjoy him forever!
Mark Johnston is the Senior Minister of Grove Chapel in Camberwell, London.
If you met a woman in the street who was dressed in black from head to toe, with only a slit in a veil for her eyes to look out, and heard her say, 'I believe in God', you would know exactly which god she had in mind. The same would be true for a troupe of saffron-robed, drum-beating, Krishna-chanting hippy-types. The context controls the words.
The Christian context in which the wording of this creed evolved immediately colours the way we understand what it says. The God of the Creed is the God of the Bible. So, as we skim through the way the creed goes on to articulate who God is and what he is like, it becomes immediately apparent that he is the God who is Trinity. The comma after 'God' in the first line paves the way for the precise nature of God to unfold in what follows: namely that he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Starting Point
All this raises the question of where we start as we try to articulate the Christian Faith. Many great statements of faith - the Westminster Confession being the greatest of them all - begin with a statement about the Bible; but others begin with a statement about God. Is one to be preferred above the other?
Those that begin with a statement about the Bible do so in the conviction that God cannot be known apart from the Bible. So, before we can have a meaningful doctrine of God, we need a meaningful doctrine of Scripture. Theology is not a construct of man's ideas about God, but rather an expression on what God has made known about himself. To try to piece together an understanding of God in the abstract as a mere philosophical exercise is a mission doomed to failure. As Zophar says to Job, who 'by searching can find out God?' (KJV). Christianity is at its very core a religion of revelation.
Of course, those who framed the other classic statements of faith that begin with God and not Scripture would not for a moment disagree. The reasoning behind their order is equally valid and compelling: namely, that you cannot have a Bible without the God who gave it. But what is clear is that the God they confess is the God who has made himself known in the Bible and who can neither be defined, nor understood apart from it.
In that sense the issue of where to start in our formulation of what we believe as Christians is something of a moot point between friends! The framers of the Apostles' Creed opted for the latter starting point in the knowledge that their source is not human reason, but the divine self-revelation in Scripture.
Beyond all Comprehension
Whichever starting point we choose, it is clear, as we have said, that the God who is there and the God who has made himself known in the Bible is the God who is Trinity. He is one God in three Persons. This is the quintessential distinguishing mark of the Christian religion and what is so striking about it is the fact that it is beyond all human comprehension.
That in itself is telling. If the Bible was of merely human origin and the God of the Bible an elaborate invention of religious minds, then why come up with such a view of God? The very notion of a God who is simultaneously one in three and three in one borders on the absurd and takes us beyond the realm of what is naturally believable. The only explanation for such a view of God being at the very heart of Christian theism is that it reflects what he reveals about himself in his Word.
The sheer difficulty of formulating the doctrine of God as he is revealed in the Bible is seen in the fact it took almost four centuries of debate within the church for a consensus to crystallise. But what was clear as that debate unfolded and in the challenges its conclusion has faced subsequently is that it isn't merely the Bible's view of God that is inescapably Trinitarian, but its entire message.
Given the weight of importance attached to this doctrine by the early church and even more so its pervasiveness throughout the message of the Bible, it seems strange that it has such a low profile in Christian understanding and so much preaching today. But then again, perhaps that explains something of the 'weightlessness of God' bemoaned by David Wells in so much contemporary evangelicalism.
God's Fingerprints
Having said what we've said about the Bible's being the source of Trinitarian theology, when we begin to understand it, we realise that this Trinitarian God has left his fingerprints all over his creation. Rather like the way in which someone who has just been inducted to the nuances and subtleties of the world of fine art is suddenly able to recognise a Matisse or a Renoir from their brush-strokes, so too for the person whose eyes have been opened to see God made known in his Word. They begin to see the world in different light.
David captures it eloquently in Psalm 19 when he says, 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.' Or again in Psalm 29 - reworked, apparently, from an ode to Baal - 'The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.' Even pagans perusing the world and universe in which they live are confronted with hints and glimpses of the God who is their maker. David goes further again in Psalm 139 to speak of the mystery of his own humanity: 'I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' There is no true self-understanding that can be separate from an understanding of God. It's that thought picked up by Shakespeare in the words he places on Hamlet's lips:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
Or, to use John Frame's expression, 'We live in a sacramental universe.' It points us to God; but does it lead us to anything more than mere theism?
Paul says that it does. In his exposition of general revelation from which he goes on to expound the gospel in its fullness, he speaks of God's making himself known in the created order to such an extent that his 'invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made...so that they are without excuse' (Ro 1.20). It's hard not to infer from that final caveat that Paul has more than bare theism in mind in terms of where general revelation leads. There is sufficient knowledge of God that can be gleaned from the book of creation that sets him apart from the multitude of pagan deities that have come and gone through history.
That means that there is more than a hint of God's Trinitarian character in the world and universe he has made. As suggested in the previous article, the scientific quest for a 'theory of everything' - something that explains the unity within diversity that surrounds us in the cosmos - resonates with what the Bible says about the God who created all things and the inevitable stamp of his character impressed on all he has made.
This facet of the doctrine of the Trinity has massive relevance not only for how theology interacts with science; but more significantly, how the gospel engages with the world. The Trinity is a vital key to mission in terms of how it challenges false views of God that abound and also provides a credible answer to the unity-diversity conundrum that so vexes the postmodern mind.
The Unfolding Mystery
Bob Letham, in his magnum opus on the Trinity, compares the unfolding mystery of God's nature and character in the Bible to a detective novel. Only when the reader has progressed some way through the book does he or she find themselves drawn back to details that both struck and baffled them at earlier stages so that now they can actually understand what they mean. So it is with what we see and learn of God in the progress of revelation in Scripture.
The oddities of the language used in relation to God in the opening chapters of Genesis - plural nouns used with singular verbs, a singular God saying, 'Let us make...' - leave any student of the Bible wondering what kind of God this is. These bizarre ascriptions continue throughout the Old Testament in ways that unsettled even Jewish rabbis; but it's only when we enter the realm of New Testament revelation that the lights begin to come on.
As Jesus steps into our world in human flesh - the One in whom the 'fullness of the godhead dwells in bodily form', who could say, 'whoever has seen me has seen the Father' and who could speak of sending the Holy Spirit - so the revelation of God reaches its zenith as far as this present world is concerned. So when he sends his disciples into the world to do his work, he tells them to baptise the nations 'in the name' that is simultaneously one, yet three. And when his apostles bless his people it is with that same formula.
It has been rightly said that there is no fully developed theology of the Trinity in the New Testament; but there are enough clues not only there, but throughout the whole Bible, to compel the church to this doctrine as being the only way to express what God is like as we meet him in his Word. The Creed is a judicious expression of that truth that has served the church well for most of its history.
The God of our Salvation
Two big questions hang over any doctrine that we glean from Scripture: 'Why is it important?' and 'What difference does it make?' There is probably no doctrine where these are more pertinent than that of the Trinity.
At one level the answer to the first of these questions is simply, 'Because it's there and because it's true!' Just as we must accept our fellow men as they are and not as some projection of what we would like them to be, so too we can do no other than accept God as he has made himself known in the Bible. Even though we often hear people say, 'Well, this is how I like to think of God...', their wistful imaginings are a total irrelevance alongside the realities God has revealed.
When it comes to the second question, its relevance is most pertinent when it comes to understanding salvation. In a broad sense there is a Trinitarian flavour to all that is said about salvation throughout the New Testament. The great confession of Jonah - 'Salvation is of the Lord' - opens up into its full splendour of its being a salvation intricately bound up with the planning, accomplishment and application of the triune Father, Son and Spirit. That's what puts the 'great' into the 'great salvation' found in Hebrews!
The God in whose image we are made is the same God by whom we are remade so that his image will be perfectly restored in our collective as well as individual identity.
So when the architects of the Creed chose to begin with the words, 'I believe in God' - with all that implies with regard to the God of the Bible - they were simply pointing to the God who is most worthy of our trust and confidence as we look to him for salvation. More than that, the God who is uniquely able to help us make sense of ourselves and of the world and universe in which he has placed us. The more we know him, the more we are liberated to not only honour him, but also to enjoy him forever!
Mark Johnston is the Senior Minister of Grove Chapel in Camberwell, London.
