Today is a day in which we take joy in the life and mystery of God.
Properly speaking every Sunday is a day in which we take joy in the life and mystery of God,
for we do not worship a different God on other Sundays,
but this day
we give ourselves to consider what it means to know God
as God has made himself known.
The church names today Trinity Sunday
and it is the day given to saying why
we say these three – Father, Son and Spirit – are one.
As Christians have read the Bible
they have found it testifies that
God remained all powerful and transcendent, and yet
Jesus, who died and was raised by God, was somehow God;
moreover the Spirit, poured out on the Church, is also God, and yet
there is only one God.[i]
One God, three persons.
I want to ask this morning,
what is God’s name?
How do we address God?
I want to suggest we answer it in three ways: [ii]
theologically – in other words, we listen to what God says;
christologically – in other words, we listen to what Jesus says;
and pnuematologically – in other words, we listen to what the Holy Spirit says.
To begin with God,
we turn to Moses before the burning bush
and his question to God,
when I’m asked what is his name who shall I say sent me?
God answers,
‘I AM WHO I AM’
or
‘I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE’
God gives us his name.
In Hebrew it is Yahweh.
God says this is his name for ever.
It is his proper name.
This name is so holy that Israel would not speak it or write it,
instead they used the word LORD.
Whenever you read in the Old Testament LORD in capital letters,
remember this means the name God gave to Moses, Yahweh.
If this is God’s name,
we find it is the name that he gives to Jesus.
For Jesus is given the name Lord.
The Psalmist says ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’
And the gospel writers say this is Jesus.
Jesus is given the name that is above every name …
and every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil 2.8)
In Jesus we meet God himself.
The God of Israel is the God of Jesus,
who is the only God.
And we find that we can only confess Jesus is Lord
through the work of Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12.3),
who Paul says in 2 Corinthians is also the Lord (2 Cor 3.17).
In the Holy Spirit we meet God himself.
The God who declared his name is Yahweh,
in the New Testament he is known thrice over
as God, as Jesus and as the Holy Spirit.
The song in heaven is ‘holy, holy, holy is the LORD almighty’ (Is 6.3).
This name – Yahweh, which is substituted by Lord – distinguishes God as unique,
God as present – God is ‘I am’
And as one who delights in blessing,
as the LORD says to Moses:
‘where I cause my name to be honoured,
I will come to you
and bless you’ (Exod 20.24b).
When we turn to Jesus,
we find that Jesus addresses God as Father.
It is from Jesus we learn to speak of God as the Father, the Son and the Spirit:
‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me …’ (John 14)
and ‘I will send the Holy Spirit from the Father’ (John 15.26)
We know that God is Father, Son and Spirit,
because we are invited into this mystery.
Through the Spirit we are drawn to Jesus,
and we too cry ‘Abba Father’ (Gal 4.6)
and the Father is conforming us by the Spirit into the image of the Son (Rom 8.29)
We live in Christ.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not abstract theology,
but the gift of language to speak to and about God.
The Baptist theologian Paul Fiddes speaks
of our ‘participating in God.’[iii]
We are baptised into the name of God,
what is called elsewhere ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Cor 13.13).
The gift of the Holy Spirit is to find abundant ways to speak of God.
The breath of languages and tongues,
are enabled by the Spirit to praise God,
to speak of God and to name God.
We consider the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus which name God as bread, life, shepherd, gate, truth.
Or the different names given to God in the Old Testament.
Jesus is named as Word, Image, Imprint, firstborn of all creation.
And the Holy Spirit is named as a dove, wind, tongues of fire,
the Spirit of holiness, of life, of wisdom, of glory, of grace,
as advocate, pledge and seal.
No one image or name is enough.
Here are some ways Christians through history have spoken of God as Trinity:[iv]
Lover, beloved and love (Augustine)
Source, wellspring, and living water (David Cunningham)
Root, tree, and fruit (Tertullian)
Glory, image and light (Basil of Caesarea)
Sun, ray, radiance (John of Damascus)
Speaker, word, meaning (Karl Barth)
Revealer, Revelation, Revealedness (Karl Barth)
Playwright, actor, and producer (Wesley Vander Lugt)
Womb of life, word in flesh, brooding Spirit (Ruth Duck)
Awesome judge, healer of souls, distributor of gifts (Armenian Orthodox)
Creator, redeemer, sustainer (Iona)
Truth that sends, truth that comes, truth that is conferred (Charles Wesley)
We are always finding new language to address God.
What all these different ways of speaking God’s name
demonstrate is that God is beyond reduction,
our grasp of God is inexhaustible.
To speak of God, inspired by the Spirit,
‘is to gather up the language of the everyday,
often meagre and unpromising in itself,
and transform it into praise of the everlasting Trinity.’[v]
Our songs and prayers are an opportunity to declare
The breath and depth,
The wonder and majesty
The joy and delight
That is God.
In the gift of the Spirit we experience the blessing of God
and as we share in God’s blessing
we return it too him in praise.
The first way of speaking of God in the name revealed to Moses,
is a reminder that God is God and so we are not.
God is unique in that God alone is creator and all else is creation.
God is beyond us.
The second way of speaking of God as seen in how Jesus prays to the Father
is to find ourselves, as those saved,
sharing in this relationship.
We have been adopted as God’s children
through Jesus our brother.
To be is to be in communion.
God is with us.
The third way of speaking of God in the multitude of words and images,
Under the Spirit’s inspiration,
teach us a new language
and to call others to join the song of praise:
Praise and glory,
And wisdom and thanks and honour
And power and strength
Be to our God for ever and ever.
Great and marvellous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
Hallowed by thy name.
For thine is kingdom the power
And the glory for ever and ever. Amen
[i] David S. Cunningham, These Three Are One, p.55.
[ii] I borrow this from R. Kendall Soulen, Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity and much of what follows.
[iii] Paul Fiddes, Participating in God (DLT, 2000).
[iv] For a longer list see Soulen, Divine Name(s), pp.249-50
[v] Soulen, Divine Name(s), p.251.
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