28th November 2025

Trinity Theology

In the church’s history, the theology of the Trinity has from time to time caused major difficulties; for Baptists, for example, the lapse of many in the General Baptist tradition into Unitarianism. But thinking positively here is a helpful summary of Christian theology.

Thus in God the Father we have God before us; in Christ our Saviour, God for us; and in the Holy Spirit, God with us forever. Here in the one Godhead the nature of fellowship is perfectly manifested in the way that the creator God relates to the Redeeming God, and to the God who sustains all life, all together in perfect fellowship.

Some reflection on this doctrine is probably appropriate this year as we celebrate the anniversary of the Early Church expressing its faith in the Nicene Creed in AD 325. Its first affirmation is of God as the source of all being, so affirmation is made of ‘God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible’, and that not just a one-off event but an ongoing process of care and development.

In this work of creation, the Son partners his Father, but in distinctive action. Born of the virgin Mary, the Son models the life of love of God and neighbour, surrendering his life for a broken world through his body broken in cruel crucifixion upon the cross. Conquering sin and evil, his death is not the end, but in resurrection, he becomes the living Lord of all who will put their trust in him.

In the creed the Holy Spirit is described as the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Diverse Christian traditions emphasise the work of the Holy Spirit differently. ‘Those who see the Spirit at work in exciting and ecstatic and emotional events’ it has been well said, ‘should not suppose that the Spirit is not at work in the humdrum ways of ordinary life and in rational existence as well as emotional.’ Thank God that our God is the God of the ordinary as well as the extraordinary.

John Briggs