Why Love The Trinity?

Three Reasons to Love the Trinity

The reasons why we should love the Trinity can be summarized by three statements.

First, the Trinity is the very definition of who and what God is. In many ways, saying "the Trinity" and saying "God" are synonymous statements.

Second, correct doctrine is the safeguard of the Christian soul. Having the right doctrine—being sound in doctrine—is what protects the Christian from temptation and sin.

Third, our greatest worship and worship experience comes from correct doctrine. We can derive joy and satisfaction from worshiping God as He intended. The only way to have a good, solid, enjoyable worship experience is to offer the greatest worship we can give, which requires sound doctrine.

Correct doctrine is most important when it comes to the nature of God. If we cannot get God right, we cannot get the gospel right. If we do not have the right God, other areas of soundness are irrelevant. We could not even derive correct theology without the right theology of God.

It is crucial to recognize that we worship the right God—the God revealed in Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity gives us the right God. It displays the Bible's presentation from Genesis to Revelation of who God is.

To love God rightly and live rightly, we must believe rightly. The doctrine of the Trinity is central to the Christian faith, to our lives, and to experiencing eternal life.

John 17:3 – “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Jesus' role was revealing the Father, accomplishing the Father's will, and sending the Holy Spirit to indwell believers and bear witness to Jesus, confirming knowledge of the Father. This is eternal life.

We cannot continue in acceptable worship without seeing God as He has revealed Himself in His word.

This three-part series examines the Trinity through Christ's high priestly prayer in John 17 (two nights) and John 16 (one night). To rekindle our love for the Trinity, we must understand three things from John 17:

1. The Father and the Son are distinct persons.
2. The Father and Son share fully divine realities.
3. God's people come to know and are truly saved in the reality that they have been given to Christ by the Father.

1. The Father and Son Are Distinct Persons

They interact and communicate in ways that demand distinction. This avoids serious errors like thinking the Father and Son are the same person—a heresy known as Sabellianism or modalism.

Modalism teaches God exists in three successive modes: Father in the Old Testament, Son in the New Testament to die on the cross, then Holy Spirit after. Others say simultaneous modes. In modalism, the Father sent Himself, prayed to Himself, died to appease His own wrath, and sent Himself to dwell in His people.

Listen to prayers—even our own. People often start, "Our Father in heaven," then thank Him for dying on the cross—a heresy called patripassianism (the Father died on the cross). Not understanding the Trinity affects prayer life, which is worship. Offering incorrect statements is strange fire to God.

Romans 8:26 does not mean pray heresy and the Holy Spirit cleans it up. It means in weakness we do not know how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes. John 17:8 says we know in truth that the Father sent the Son; the Holy Spirit guides into truth, not falsehood.

Some agree Father and Son are distinct but claim this passage teaches the Son is not God—the Father alone is the true God.

2. The Father and Son Share Fully Divine Realities

Jesus never had to explicitly claim "I am God" because of what He did claim. Soldiers arrest Him; He says "I am," and they fall back—the divine "I AM" of the Old Testament.

Jesus is addressed as God, receives worship as God, and never stops it (unlike angels). He is worshiped from His nativity.

John 17:3 seems crux: Jesus calls the Father "the only true God." But this assumes Jesus is not God beforehand (a presupposition). People reject Jesus because their deeds are exposed, rebuked, convinced as evil, and corrected (John 3)—they love sin.

Thus, they fabricate a different Jesus. Loving "Jesus" is insufficient for salvation. Which Jesus? Islam venerates Jesus as prophet ("peace be upon Him"). Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses believe in a Jesus who died for sins. The difference: Jesus is the second person of the triune God.

No other religion has one God in three co-eternal, co-equal persons, where the second person enters creation to accomplish salvation by bearing His people's sin penalty.

Hinduism's multiplicity (Brahma, Krishna, Vishnu) is modalism-like, not Trinitarianism. Christianity is unique.

People create palatable gods to perpetuate sin while claiming salvation.

What does John 17:3 mean? If the Father is fully God, how else would Jesus address Him? In monotheism (one God), one person addressing another as "only true God" fits Trinity—it affirms monotheism (Deut. 6:4, Shema: "The Lord our God is one"). Jesus was a monotheist.

1 John 5:20 – “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”

John calls Jesus "true God." Father and Son are both true God, yet one God. Eternal life is knowing both (John 17:3).

Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him with the glory they shared before the world existed.

Isaiah 42:8 – “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.”

God shares glory with no one. Jesus pre-existed ("Before Abraham was, I am"—present tense in past).

3. God's People Are Given to Christ by the Father

John 17:6-8 – “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.”

The Father gave His people (elect) to the Son, who manifested the Father's name. Without distinction, this is meaningless—one person giving people to himself.

If the Son is not God, salvation is in creature hands—ineffective for eternal life. Yahweh promised to save His people Himself; a creature cannot fulfill that.

Jesus prays for future believers (including us) as high priest—specific people given by the Father (John 6: no one comes unless drawn; raised on last day).

Before we existed, our names were on Christ's mind as He interceded for protection from the enemy.

If Son prays to Himself, the prayer is meaningless. Jesus speaks incarnationally as human, but must be fully God to accomplish God's purpose.

Moses mediated as creature but failed. Jesus, greater Moses, succeeds: fully human (without sin) to represent us, fully God to represent God.

God cannot die, so Jesus took human nature. Finite creature death cannot satisfy infinite wrath—only infinite God-man's death does (hypostatic union: 100% God, 100% man, natures unified not mixed).

John 17 demands Trinitarian understanding for salvation. Eternal life is knowing God as revealed in Scripture.

John 17:3 – “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Every Christian must be a theologian, knowing Father through Son by Spirit. We cannot excuse "Trinity is too hard." Any simple doctrine of God makes Him finite, equal or less than us.

God's incomprehensibility (infinite, perplexing) confirms truth. He reveals across 66 books; we labor to know Him (2 Peter: everything for life/godliness through knowledge of Him).

Lazy Christians forget cleansing from sin, become unfruitful. Grow in knowledge: test teachings against Scripture. Ask not just "What would Jesus do?" but "What did Jesus do as revealed?"

Thrive by knowing the right God, right Jesus—who promised joy and peace.

Stay rooted in God's self-revelation as triune God. This is eternal life: knowing the one God and the divine Savior He sent.