1. If a man has been to visit his friend, and you see him leaving the gate, it is pleasant to notice in his hand a basket of fruit or a bunch of flowers. It would be very embarrassing, however, if the proof of friendship were always an outward gift. If a friend visits us, we place ourselves at his disposal; and if we visit a friend, we are delighted to receive the overflow of his life into our own. Now suppose under the old law a man had offered a lamb in sacrifice to God, and had found that his flocks did not increase according to his hope, and had then said, “I will offer Him no more lambs.” Might we not next suppose a wise friend saying to him, “God has done this to try your love. If you loved God, you would offer Him even the last lamb, feeling that it is better to have the heavenly Friend than to have only His property.” God invites us to His presence, and desires that we should have great pleasure in coming to see Him; and it is very certain that if we have come in the true friendly temper, we shall go away, taking something in our hearts, though nothing in our hands. No man that rejoices in God’s grace complains much of God’s providence.
2. Now, when we come to church God entertains us and sends us sway with a benediction. It is the benediction of the Church also; i.e., the Church desires that God may grant its members His blessing, and expresses its faith that He will. We will render the text, “May your faith, hope, and love be replenished.” We come in different states.
(1). There are persons who come in quest of truth. Suppose, then, in the sacred service something is said which the heart feels is sure. The heart cries out to itself gladly, “Whatever is doubtful, that is true.” Then the man has received a gift.
(2) There are others that believe, and yet are confounded. Well, suppose a person very tired in body and soul, almost hopeless, and something is said that excites hope. In the springtime the effect of the shower is perceived within a few minutes of its fall; and there is that in the soul a thirst for God that causes the season of drought to be indeed a springtime when once the shower descends. Hope enters this weary breast, and is not hope a gift?
(3) Then there are persons, not without belief or hope, that still yearn for sympathy. Now if the spirit of truth breathe itself forth as love, and the heart is comforted by love, then, too, it has received a gift.
(4) Faith, hope, love! Need we so distinguish them? No. You can never believe a little more, without beginning to hope too, and without feeling the glow of affection. When either of these three become prominent the two others are seen beside it as in shadow; and sometimes they take sisterly hands, and with a common brightness appear as equals. These three states of our spirit are an equivalent expression for the blessing uttered in the words of our text. Let me show this.
I. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
1. Recollect instances in which our Lord showed grace. When He had been speaking amongst His own townspeople “they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth”; such sincere and kind words no one had ever heard before. A leper said to Him, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” Jesus touched him; what nature loathes grace can love. On another occasion the only son of his mother was being carried forth to the grave. Jesus laid His hand upon the bier. Was this presumptuous handling? No; this was the hand of grace. The young man arose, and his mother received him by the hand of God’s grace. We remember how our Saviour said, “Sin no more,” and yet pronounced no word of doom for the sin that had been committed. His life abounded with gracious words, cures, and pardons, that showed the tender, compassionate favour with which He regarded us all in our weakness, sorrow, and sins. This is grace. Through such grace love makes us believe in it.
2. Now we might say, why not place the love of God first? Which is first, the door or the house? If God has a great mansion of love, He must provide a door to it, or we shall never get in. Grace is the door into love. Love is greater than any one of its own acts. There is more in a mother’s love than there is in her gentle touch. There is more in the father’s love than there is in his gift to his child on its birthday. In like manner, the love of God is more than any of His acts, more even than His grace--its own chief and most expressive instance; and why are we introduced through the grace into the love, but that we may trust that love and trust it always. So we may apply the Baptist’s words, “He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.” Grace wins our faith, and then through its trust we have a love of our own which responds to the great general love of God. That which “comes after” our faith, then, is love, which, though coming after it, is “preferred before it,” for “it was before it.”
II. The love of God. Assume, now, that we have faith; what is our state? I have seen a little child perplexed at losing on Hampstead Heath--not a very great and terrible wilderness--her sister, and crying because sister was a few paces off concealed by a bush. So it may be with our feeble heart; for in our times of loneliness we are all children, and we cry out for God, “Where is He?” Now, “the grace of God” is His answer to our cry. God says to the lost world, “Here I am.” When we have found Christ, then we have found God; we have found our Father; we now rest in our faith. But what have we found our Father for? If the child has found its sister or its mother, they will go away together home, and there will be many a happy work of affection then. If a man has found God as his Father through Jesus Christ, then that man is introduced into all the length and breadth of human participation in Divine benefits. The love of God will be bountifully manifested in all that he learns and all that he does. Out of this faith, then, will spring a hope. He cannot be received into union with God without continuing united in such a sense that he will constantly look onward with hope, feeling that all is right, that here and hereafter all necessary instructions and blessings will be given.
III. “The communion of the Holy Ghost.” If God’s grace in Christ is trusted, and God’s love, so broadly revealed in Christ, is hoped in, then we receive into ourselves a life which leads us on by progression towards all the fulness that is in God. God, through Christ, breathes into us His Spirit; this we receive, not alone, but conjointly one with another. God, through Christ, begins by imparting to our heart faith in His grace, and hope through His grace in all His goodness; and knowing and hoping in that; we abide in His love. Christ gives us His gracious Spirit, and all the onward motions of the leading Spirit are in harmony with the “grace of God.” The communion of the Holy Ghost is, in other words, the sharing of a common life of sacred love by which we feel brotherhood with one another, and by which we progress onward led by our purified inward motives, and traversing according to our ability the length and breadth of that kingdom of affairs which God has given to exercise and to enrich us. Such is the communion of the Holy Ghost; the fellowship of love, in a hope reposed on God, through faith created and nourished by His grace. (T. T. Lynch.)
The triune blessing
Consider the particular blessing from each person of the Holy Trinity St. Paul desires for the Corinthians.
I. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” By the “grace” of the Lord Jesus Christ seems meant His goodwill, His gracious favour in practical and perpetual exercise. When St. Paul desired and prayed that the Corinthians might be blessed with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, he meant just this: May all the blessings of Christ’s incarnation, redemption, and intercession ever be with you Corinthians. The blessing of Divine pardon, of spiritual cleansing, of reconciliation with God; the blessing of union with Christ and thereby union and communion with God; the blessing of progressive sanctification, etc. When the grace of Christ is with a man, it means that all heaven is with that man; that every blessing which is possible and good for a man is granted to him, according to his capacity to receive it. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is mentioned first, because all heaven’s blessings to man begin with Christ’s grace, favour, or good will towards man. Christ is man’s starting-point in all his relations with God, He being the Mediator between God and man. Unless our Mediator be first graciously disposed towards us, how is it possible to receive any of those blessings from God which are the result of His mediation? “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” Is it not true that by Christ we have access into every grace of God?
II. “The love of God.” The love of God is the fountain source of the threefold blessing mentioned in the text. All heavenly blessings proceed from the love of God, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. By the love of God in the text is meant, not simply the love of benevolence which God has for all His creatures in common, but what theologians call the love of complacency, which God has for those only who are the living members of the Son of God, who are the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ, through spiritual union with Him. It is this love of God, the love of the Divine Father for His adopted children, who are the members of His dear Son, that St. Paul desires and prays may be the blessing of the Corinthians. The love of God truly comprehends all blessings. St. Paul might have said, The power of God, the protection of God, the guidance of God, the peace of God, be with you Corinthians; but instead of that he said what comprehends all, The love of God be with you. If the love of God be with us, all is with us that it is possible for man to have from God.
III. “The communion of the Holy Ghost.” By this is meant the fellowship, the partnership, the companionship of the Holy Ghost, or, in other words, the indwelling and inworking of the Holy Ghost. It is by means of the communion or indwelling and inworking of the Holy Ghost that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is conveyed to us. The Holy Ghost is the Divine Agent or Vicegerent by whom God the Father and God the Son carry on and carry out their Work in man. When St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you,” it is as though he said, “I pray that you Corinthians may always have the Holy Ghost within you as your Divine Guest and Companion, to enlighten you, to strengthen you, to comfort you, to guide you; to fill you with God’s love, and joy, and peace; to form in you a holy character like unto the character of Christ; to fit you for your admission to the heavenly glory of Christ.” Such, then, is the triune blessing of the Triune God. Were there not a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, this apostolic blessing would be utterly unintelligible, and its language utterly misleading. Behold in this blessing the blessing of all blessings, in comparison of which all other blessings are absolutely worthless. Let the words of this apostolic blessing be regarded as a reality. When they are being pronounced, let all believe that the blessing they set forth is verily conveyed to all who devoutly receive it. Let them not be listened to in a formal spirit. (H. G. Youard.)
The Divine Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches us how the Infinite God has made Himself known to men. God, as He is in Himself, no man can comprehend.
I. Men have always believed in some power higher and greater than themselves. In old times they peopled the unseen world with innumerable deities, who presided over human affairs. But above all others one deity was supreme--Jupiter, the father of gods and men. Like children who have lost their way from home, they wrestled and prayed and sought to discover a God and Father, to whom they could yield filial obedience. In these later days we have been told that all such efforts are useless. Law, force, order--these are the ultimate discoveries of research; these are the gods of our modern Pantheon. But no such doctrine can ever satisfy the soul that has once begun to long for God. I am sure that my personality cannot be the result of blind law and force. The first cause from whom I come must be, like myself, a person, only infinitely greater. Thus there is nothing mysterious in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, as it relates to the everlasting Father. Rather does it clear up mysteries, by telling us that the laws and forces at work in the world and in ourselves are the operations of that Divine and gracious Father to whom it is our most blessed privilege to yield filial obedience.
II. But we need not only a Divine Father, but a Divine Son. We require the revelation not only of a perfect law and a supreme will, but also the revelation of a perfect and Divine obedience. We know the perfect fatherhood of God; what we want is a perfect sonship to bridge the gulf between us and God, a sonship in which the will of God and the obedience of man shall be blended into one beautiful and blessed life. We want, not only the love of the Father, but the “grace” of a perfect Son. Must there not be somewhere a perfect Ideal of what man ought to be; and where can this Ideal be found but in the mind of God? But mark how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity comes down to the utmost needs of fallen man. To redeem us from sin the Divine Sonship was clothed in flesh; passed through all the changes of mortal life, from the cradle to the grave. Here, then, towering above the ruins of our race, is the perfect manhood of Jesus Christ. Ever living to make intercession for us is this Divine Son, who has conquered sin and death and hell by patient submission and by filial obedience to the Father’s will.
III. If, then, we are thus brought nigh to the Father through the Son, it must be our highest privilege to hold constant communion with the ever present Spirit of God. (F. W. Walters.)
Communion human and Divine
The great benediction of the Christian Church never grows old and never becomes monotonous. It is like the sunshine, which rises on us every day of our lives with a fresh beauty; or like our truest friendships, which are for ever new. There is no blessing more continually needed than “the communion of the Holy Ghost.” We go, then, first to the perpetual and universal facts of human life, for Christianity always uses them and is in harmony with them. And one of the deepest of these facts is man’s perpetual need of intercourse and fellowship. A life of solitude is never satisfactory to a truly healthy man. He needs some fellowship. And for his whole satisfaction he needs various fellowships: with those above him, on whom he depends; with those beside him, who are his equals; and with those below him, whom he helps. All three of these relationships furnish the life of a completely furnished man. And the essence of all these fellowships is something internal; it is not external. It is in spirit and sympathy, not in outward occupations. It is communion and not merely contact. This goes so far that, where communion is perfect, where men are in real sympathy with one another, contact or outward intercourse may sometimes be absent. What a man really needs, then, is a true understanding of other men; community of intelligence producing community of sentiment, interest in the same things producing the same feelings. This is communion. And then the second fact is that the communions or fellowship of men are seldom direct, but come about through a medium. They are not the mere liking of men for each other for qualities directly apprehended, but they are the result of a common interest in something which brings the men together and is the occasion by which their sympathy is excited, the atmosphere or element in which their communion lives. Is not this so? Two children in the same family grow up in cordial love for each other; but their love is a love of and in the family. They did not deliberately choose each other for friends, but their hearts were drawn out in the same direction, towards the same father, the same mother, the same home life, and so they met and came to know each other. So two scholars find their element of communion in their common study. Two business men reach each other and become friends through their common business. And two reformers enter into each other’s life in the indignation or enthusiasm of a common cause. In every case you see the union of men is made through a third term, an element into which both enter, and in which they find each other as they could not without it. This is the way in which men come to be gathered in those groups which make the variety and picturesqueness of human life. Now it is in the application of this same idea that there lies, I think, the key to this phrase, “the communion of the Holy Ghost.” Once more there is an element, an atmosphere, in which men are brought close together--brought together as they come under no other auspices, in no other way. That element is God. Men meet each other, when they meet in Him, with peculiar confidence, dearness, frankness, and truth. Just as there is a certain character which belongs to the intercourse of men who are met as the pursuers of a common business, and so are met in the communion of that business; and as there is another character which belongs to the intercourse of men who are met as the disciples of a certain study, and so are met in the communion of that study, so there is yet another deeper and completer character which belongs to the fellowship of men who come to have something to do with one another as the servants of God, and so whose communion is the communion of God. And now take one step farther. Who is the Holy Ghost? He is the effectively present Deity. He is God continually in the midst of men and touching their daily lives. He is the God of continual contact with mankind. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost is a continual protest against every constantly recurring tendency to separate God from the current world. Wherever the fellowship and intercourse of men has a peculiar character because it is born of the presence of God among men; wherever men’s dealings with each other, or men’s value of each other, is coloured with the influence of the truth that we live in a world full of God; wherever our communion with each other takes place through Him, the sacredness and usefulness of what we are to each other resulting from what He is to all of us, then our communion is a communion of the Holy Ghost. I doubt not there is a deeper philosophy in this than we can understand. The Bible truth is that the Holy Ghost is “the Lord and Giver of Life.” The power of life is the power of unity everywhere. It is the presence of life in these bodies of ours that keeps them from falling to pieces. The moment that life departs dissolution comes. And so life, which is the gift of the Holy Ghost--nay, which is the presence of the Holy Ghost in society or in the soul--is the power of unity in society or in the soul. The society in which there is no presence of a living God drops into anarchy and falls to pieces. The soul in which there is no presence of a living God loses harmony with itself, becomes distracted. Again, our idea finds its illustration in the different characters of different households. Lift the curtain, if you will, from two homes, both of them happy and harmonious, neither of them stained with vice nor disturbed with quarrels. One of them is a household of this world altogether. The domestic relationships are strong and warm. The loves of husband and wife, of parents and children, of brothers and sisters, are all there. They prove themselves in all kind offices. Each helps the other, and there are no jealousies, no strifes. There is the best picture of the communion of the family affection. Now look into the other home. All is the same, but with this difference: that here there is an ever-live, strong, vivid, loving sense of God. As real as father or mother, as real as brother or sister, God is here. No act is ever done out of His presence. He is felt in the education of the children. The children are His gifts. The love of each member of the household for the rest is coloured all through with gratitude to Him. All of that love is deepened because each desires for each sacred and spiritual mercies. All these loves which were there before move on still, but they are all surrounded by and taken up into one great comprehending love; and he who enters in at the door of that converted house hears them all in deepened, richened music, the same strains still, only full of the power of the new atmosphere in which they are played. And so it is with friendship. Two men who have known each other for years become together the servants of Christ. His Spirit comes to them. They begin the new life of which He is the centre and the soul. How their old friendship changes! How it is all the same, and yet how different it is! It opens depths and heights they never dreamed of. Where they used to do so little for each other, now they can do so much. Where they used to touch only on the outside, now their whole natures blend. One of the most valuable changes which come to a human friendship when it is thus deepened into a communion of the Holy Ghost is the assurance of permanence which it acquires. There is always a lurking distrust and suspicion of instability in friendship which has not the deepest basis. No present certainty answers for the future. This must be so to some degree with an affection where each is held to each only by the continuance of personal liking. But when friendship enters into God, and men are bound together through their communion with Him, all the strength of that higher union authenticates and assures the faithfulness and perseverance of the love that is bound up with it. The souls that meet in God may well believe that they shall hold each other as eternally as He holds each and each holds Him. And the same power which insures the perpetuity of friendship must also secure a wider range of sympathy and fellow-feeling among men The more the associations of men come to consist in what is essential, and not in what is merely formal, the larger becomes the circle of a man’s fellow-creatures with whom he may have relations of cordial interest. So much of our communion with men is a communion, not of spirit, but of form. We associate with men because we happen to be thrown in with them in the mere circumstances of our lives; because we live in the same circle of society, and so our habits are the same; because we are seeking the same ends of life in the same kind of actions. And very often our sympathies are bounded by the same narrow lines which limit our associations. But the communion of the Spirit, the communion of the Holy Ghost is something deeper, and therefore something wider, than that. Wherever any human soul is loving the God whom we love, feeling His presence, trying to do His will, though it be in forms and ways totally different from ours, the communion of the Holy Ghost brings us into sympathy with Him. There is no influence of the Christian life more ennobling, more delightful than this. It takes you out of the low valley of formal life. It sets you upon the open summit of spiritual sympathy, close to the sun. Thence you look out into unguessed regions of noble thought and living, with which you never dreamed that you had anything to do. But meanwhile is it not a very lofty and inspiring ambition to offer to a man, that the more he knows and loves God the more he shall see the noble and the good in all his brethren? We should like to believe in men so much more than we do! We are almost ready to give up in despair; the meanness, the foulness, the cruelly of humanity crowd on us so. “If you will earnestly try by obedience and love to enter into communion with God, these brethren of yours, who are like sealed books with stained covers, shall open to you, and you shall see goodness, nobleness, truth, devotion, all through them.” Here is the difference between religious and secular philanthropy. Secular philanthropy loves and helps men directly, for themselves. Religious philanthropy loves and helps men in God. (Bp. PhillipsBrooks.)
The apostolic benediction
I. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is mentioned first, not that it stands first in the order of these great blessings; but it is most obvious, most immediate, to the view of a Christian: Jesus Christ naturally came foremost before the apostle’s mind, as the procurer of all Divine blessings. And “grace” is mentioned as the peculiar property of Jesus Christ. Grace denotes free and sovereign favour. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” The grace of Jesus Christ includes--
1. All that He has done and suffered for the Church. His grace drew Him down from above into our world and nature: “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc. All that He endured during His sojourn among men, and especially in Gethsemane and on the Cross, proceeded from His grace; all the peace, hope, confidence, and strength of His people are so many streams that flow from this fountain.
2. All that He still does for His Church. He sits above as its High Priest and Intercessor. He has all power given to Him for the interests of His people, and they receive all that they need out of His fulness. We shall never know, on this side of eternity, the full amount of our obligations to Christ; the manner and extent in which He guards, directs, sanctifies, and comforts His people.
II. The love of God. As the grace of Christ is the meritorious, so the love of the Father is the original cause of all spiritual blessings. The Father is represented in Scripture as originating the salvation of man, as giving and sending His Son. Love is the principle from which all redemption proceeds, and the apostle prays that his brethren might feel themselves the objects of this love. This is dignity, this is felicity, and there is none beside; to be embraced in the arms of the Divine Father as His beloved children! St. John stands astonished at this love, and exclaims, “Behold, what manner of love,” etc. But let it be remembered that, if we would enjoy the love of God, we must keep His commandments. None of the consolations of Divine love are to be found in union with disobedience.
III. The communion of the Holy Spirit. As the Father originates, and the Son executes, it is the part of the Spirit so to communicate Himself as to change and form His subjects. As Christ purchased all Divine blessings, so the Spirit dispenses the things of Christ. As Christ glorifies the Father, so the Spirit glorifies Christ. He is the Vicegerent and Deputy of Christ, as Christ of the Father, Let it be remembered that a suitable walk is required of those who would enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit. We must be careful not, by resistance, to grieve Him; if we sadden this Comforter, where shall we hope to find comfort? Conclusion:
1. In the text we have a distinct mention of three Divine persons. None will deny that the Father and the Son are Persons; it is reasonable to conclude that the Spirit is also such. Here the “grace of Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit,” could never have been placed in such a close juxtaposition with the “love of God,” if, as some have supposed, there were an infinite distance between them.
2. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a mere speculative mystery. Each of the Divine Persons has His office in the economy of redemption; and this gives us an idea of the grandeur and dignity of that redemption, in the economy of which there is such a co-operation; the Father devising it, the Son executing, the Spirit applying. How solemn and august the work of preparing a soul for glory, when each person of the Godhead has His own peculiar part in that work to execute. What manner of persons, then, ought we to be? (R. Hole,M. A.)
The threefold benediction
It is remarkable that this, which is one of the two most explicit recognitions of the Holy Trinity, should be in the form of a benediction. The fact is in itself a sermon. It tells us, above all, that the doctrine is not an object of speculation, but a living truth. It recalls us from metaphysics to life. God reveals Himself to us as a trinity of persons: the eternal Father, of whom we are the children; the eternal Son, who brings back to us our lost sonship; the eternal Spirit, by whom we and all things live. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. It is a trinity of benedictions. The love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit, come each of them round us, and enfold us in the wings of blessing. And yet they are not three benedictions, but one. The love and the grace and the fellowship are not different and apart; but one and the same.
I. The apostle begins with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, because that seems to be nearer to us; it is, as it were, the doorway through which we pass to the sense of the love of God. Grace means “gift.” It was the word which seemed best to sum up that which Jesus Christ did for us, and includes at once redemption, the knowledge of God, and the hope of eternal life. The world had been seeking for redemption, light, and hope; it had struggled with its pain, with its sorrow, with the problem of its disappointment and its failure, and it could not always beat the air in a fruitless battle; and there was coming over man, as the slow mist creeps over the fair landscape in an autumn afternoon, the sense of a supreme despair. And to men came grace, a sure and certain faith that God was in the world, and had not left us to be the struggling but inevitable prey to passion, and darkness, and death.
II. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was also, and was thereby the love of God. There are many Christian men who lose the conception of fatherhood. They tend to speak of the Almighty, or of Providence, as though He were not a person, but an abstraction. Many think of Him as the Supreme Judge and Ruler, and forget the infinite depths of love. He reveals Himself to us as a Father. He loves us in infinitely greater degree, but in some way like the way in which we love our children. He forgives us when we go back to Him. He helps us on our way when we tend to stumble, He gives us a Father’s arm upon which to lean and a Father’s hand to guide. The love of the Father is like the sun which shines in heaven, it shines upon one field and another; but upon one there is a crop of grain, upon another there is a crop of baleful weeds, the difference lies not in the sunshine but in the preparation of the ground. So it is with human souls. The love of the Father comes to us all, but the blessing of the love comes to us in proportion as we till the soil of our soul. It is dependent so far upon our effort; it comes not to supersede our work but to call it forth and to bless it.
III. And so the love of God becomes the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The eternal Father has not placed His love in some infinitely distant space, to blaze and burn like Sirius in some field of the universe which we can only see in the distance, which touches us with no warmth, which enlightens us with no knowledge, and which only reveals to us the unimaginable vastness of His power. He does not mock us with a panorama of sunlight, and the luxuriant growths that come of sunlight, passing as it were like a vast moving spectacle before our eyes. He comes close to us; He holds communion with us; He touches us with warmth; He enlightens us with His light. Conclusion:
1. The sense of a gift of a Divine Sonship, of the love of a Divine Father, of a Divine communion, are the prismatic colours of one perfect light. If you ask me to translate the text into the language of philosophy; if you tell me that no ray of that Divine light can reach my soul until I have told you of what chemical elements it is composed, I answer, Nay. The sun was shining in the heavens, revealing to the world the infinite beauty of form and colour for untold ages before its rays were analysed by the prism. It was bringing forth verdure by its warmth for untold ages before it was found out that oceans of hydrogen served upon his surface, and that heat like light is a mode of motion. What you and I want, and have, is not the bare truth that there is a sun, but the sense of his warmth. What you and I want, and have, is not an analysis of the idea of God, but the sense that there is a Father who loves us, the sense that there is a God who holds communion with us.
2. I will ask you thus to think of the Trinity to-day. Let the thought of God, as He is revealed to us, be with you not as a dogma, but as an ever present benediction. Let each pray for himself the prayer which the apostle prayed for himself and all the world. It is not a selfish prayer. The benediction of God is like the sunlight which must radiate back again for all upon whom it shines. The love of the Father cannot be in our hearts without shining. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be hid. The fellowship of the Divine Spirit is a sharing in His Divine activity in an unresting and untiring life, always moving because motion and not rest is the essence of His nature. (E. Hatch, D. D.)
The Trinity in unity
I. To lay before you what the Scripture teaches us respecting the doctrine of the Trinity in unity.
1. That there is but one God.
2. That this one God subsists under three relations or, as we commonly say, in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
3. That these three Persons, though in a manner inconceivable by us, are distinct from each other.
4. It is to be observed, in the fourth place, that the Scriptures teach us that each of these three Persons is truly and perfectly Divine.
II. To deduce from it some practical inferences. We infer from this subject--
1. How great is the happiness, how exalted the dignity, and how elevated the hopes of the real Christian.
2. How vain is the religion of those who refuse to admit this essential truth of Christianity.
3. How vain the religion and how fearful the state of those who, while they speculatively admit the doctrine of which we have been speaking, yet practically deny it, and live in the indulgence of worldly and sinful tempers and habits.
4. What abundant ground is there for the consolation of the real penitent!
5. Much of the nature of the Christian’s duty. Has God revealed Himself as subsisting in three distinct Persons? The Christian is bound to offer his thanksgivings to each of these Persons for the share taken by Him in the economy of redemption.
6. How highly we ought to value those Holy Scriptures, which alone contain a discovery of this inexplicably mysterious yet unspeakably important doctrine! (J. Natt, B. D.)
The Trinity
The inner nature of the Deity is an impenetrable secret, which the human mind cannot explore; and the Trinity is, in one aspect of it, a name for this unfathomable mystery. We therefore freely concede at the outset the difficulties of the subject. To these difficulties those who reject the doctrine urgently appeal. On the basis of them they declare it to be inconceivable and irrational. In regard to this claim I would say that the intellectual difficulties which beset a truth are not necessarily a bar to belief in it. Nor is the credible always limited to the conceivable. The primary question respecting the Trinity is whether there are adequate grounds for belief in it. The essence of the doctrine of the Trinity is, that God exists in a threefold mode of being, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of these is, in the strict sense, Divine, that is, partakes of the nature of Deity. All three of them together constitute the one only God. There is a unity of nature or substance in God, and there is, at the same time, a threefoldness or trinality which represents eternal distinctions in the Divine essence. God is one and God is three, but not, of course, in the same sense. He is one in substance or essence; but there exists within this one essence three persons or subsistences, which are revealed to Us under the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are many notions of God’s nature which stand in contrast to the Trinitarian idea. One of these is the Unitartan doctrine. On this view God is one and solitary; He is in no sense three There is no room, according to this conception, for interrelations or intercommunion within the nature of the Divine Being. Another contrasted view is the pantheistic. On this view God is at once the One and the All. The universe itself is taken up and lost in God; or, stating the idea from its other side, God is identified with the universe and lost in it. This mode of thought almost necessarily surrenders the personality of God. Still another view is the polytheistic, which admits the existence of many gods, and assigns to them various limitations of nature and function. The great fact which occasioned the development of the doctrine was the incarnation. The claims which Christ made for Himself, and the claims which the New Testament writers make for Him, compel the admission of His eternal pre-existence and His Divine nature (Joh_17:5; Joh_8:58; Joh_1:1; Php_2:6). If Christ is Divine, and yet, at the same time, can speak of the Father in distinction from Himself, these two facts, taken together, give us both the idea of the unity and that of the distinction between Him and God. But a further fact meets us. Christ speaks of the Holy Spirit as distinct both from the Father and from Himself, and yet ascribes to Him Divine prerogatives and powers. He is “another Advocate,” distinct from Christ (Joh_14:16). He bears witness of Christ (Joh_15:26); and His coming to the disciples is conditioned upon the Saviour’s departure (Joh_16:7). Personal pronouns are used in referring to the Spirit, and personal activities are constantly ascribed to Him. The doctrines of the deity of Christ, and of the Trinity, cannot be denied except upon grounds which involve the surrender of the historicity and truthfulness of the New Testament. Some persons who have acknowledged that the teaching of Jesus and of the apostles involved the doctrine of the equal Divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have avoided the acceptance of the commonly received doctrine of the Trinity by holding that these three terms designate three phases or modes of the Divine self-manifestation, and not essential and eternal distinctions in the nature of God. This is the so-called Sabellian doctrine. It holds to a Trinity of revelation only, a moral as opposed to an immanent Trinity. It is, however, an unsatisfactory explanation of the facts with which it seeks to deal. It does not accord with the New Testament teaching respecting the eternal pre-existence of the Son of God in a form of being distinct from the Father. Moreover, if God is revealed as a Trinity, it is reasonable to suppose that He exists as such. He is revealed as He is. I have already alluded to the objection so often made to the doctrine of the Trinity, that it is inconceivable, and therefore irrational. It is necessary to weigh this objection more carefully. If, when it is said that the Trinity is inconceivable, it is meant that the mind can form no mental picture of it, the statement is quite true. The truth of the Trinity transcends the reach and power of the imagination. But so also do thousands of truths for which the evidence is commonly deemed to be overwhelming, and which are therefore generally accepted among men. We cannot imagine, that is, form any definite mental concept, of the human soul. We cannot picture to ourselves the various faculties or powers of our own mysterious personalities. Our powerlessness to conceive of these things does not overbear the testimony in their behalf. We also accept many inconceivable facts for which the evidence is found outside our own mental life. Such are many of the truths of science. The nature and action of natural forces, and especially the marvellous phenomena of psychical action--such as the influence of mind over body, and of one mind upon another--are utterly beyond the power of the imagination to construe. The truth is, that when we come to reflect upon the matter, we find that the province of the imagination is very restricted. It can never be made, in any sphere of knowledge, the measure of our convictions, or the final test of truth. That we cannot conceive of the Trinity is, therefore, no real evidence against its truth. But when it is said that the Trinity is inconceivable, it is sometimes meant that it is contrary to reason. If the doctrine of the Trinity were that God is one and three in the same sense, it would be absurd, and belief in it would be stultifying. But this is not the doctrine. The truth of the Trinity is not contrary to reason although it is above and beyond reason. What mental law forbids us to believe that there is an external trinality in the one absolute Being? With the acceptance or rejection of the doctrine the evangelical system of theology has commonly stood or fallen. The doctrine of the Deity of Christ, and the significance of His saving work, are involved in the truth of the triune nature of God. The denial of the Trinity on account of its mysteriousness has usually carried with it the denial of some of the most characteristic doctrines of Christianity on account of their mysteriousness. If men are too impatient of mystery to accept the Trinity, they will probably be too much so to believe in the incarnation, the atonement, and related truths. We have always carefully to distinguish between the acceptance of a truth upon adequate evidence, and the satisfactory explanation of that truth in itself. If the doctrine of the Trinity is approached directly, and is taken up as a problem for solution, the mind will probably be baffled and repelled. The true method of approach is along the line of those facts of Divine revelation which lead us at length to the heights of this mystery, where we can no longer define and describe, and where thought must acknowledge its bounds and find its resting-place. If it is urged, as it sometimes is, that the doctrine is not taught in the Bible, the answer is, that, while it is not explicitly and formally taught, the elements of truth which compose it, such as the Deity of Christ and the Personality of the Spirit, and the facts which require it, such as the incarnation and atonement, are fundamental factors in all biblical revelation and teaching. It may fairly be said, in the first place, that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Absolute exists in a mode of being to which finite nature furnishes no adequate analogy. The Deity does not belong to any class of beings whose attributes can be made determining for the conception which we are to entertain of His nature. He stands alone and unique. It cannot be urged that because nature and human life furnish no examples of such a Trinity in Unity as we believe to exist in God, the belief is contrary to reason and experience. It is above and beyond all experience; it may be, in important respects, above and beyond reason, but it is not on that account contrary to it. There are, moreover, some suggestive facts which present themselves to our view in contemplating the universe, with which the idea of the Trinity in God does strikingly accord. We find, for example, that as we ascend the scale of being, life becomes diversified and complex. Not only do we observe this general fact in the world of matter, but in the world of mind as well. The mental life of the lower orders of creation appears very simple. Their souls act in but a few directions and in but a very limited sphere. The mental organisation of man, on the contrary, is very complex and diversified. I lay no stress on the threefoldness of this well-nigh universal analysis of man’s mental constitution, nor do I urge the complexity of mental life in the highest form of being which we immediately know as, in any strict sense, an argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. I do, however, claim that it would be according to analogy to expect that in the Supreme Being there should be a manifoldness and complexity of life surpassing those which we find to exist in the highest forms of finite being. Considerations like this which I have presented are not strictly a part of the evidence for the truth of the Trinity; but they do fall into line with that evidence, and serve to confirm it from the side of reason and observation. I turn now to a brief consideration of the argument for the doctrine of the Trinity which is derived from the nature of God as love. We must suppose that there was once a time when this finite world did not exist. If God alone is uncreated and self-existent, then the entire universe, including all men and angels, must have begun to be. Let our thought now travel back to the time when God alone existed. Shall we think of Him as absolutely single and solitary, dwelling in eternal silence and self-contemplation, or as having within Himself the conditions of a social life? Which conception best befits the notion of His inherent perfection? If God is truly the absolute Being, as theists commonly suppose; if He is not dependent upon the world in respect to His own existence and perfection, but has freely created the same--then must His nature be perfect in itself, and in this nature all the conditions of blessedness must be realised. It seems to me that the Trinitarian doctrine of God, which affirms distinctions and relations as eternally existing in His essence, best answers to the idea of His inherent perfection, because it supposes the Divine life to be, by its very nature, social and self-communicating. If this seem an abstract method of presenting the subject, let us approach it by saying that there is an eternal Fatherhood in God. He is not merely the Father of men and of all higher orders of created beings. He did at some point begin to be a Father. The relations of Fatherhood and Sonship which concretely express to us what we count most dear in the nature of God, are eternal and constituent in His very being. It is commonly agreed among Christians that the most perfect description which can be given of the Divine nature is that which is contained in the Scriptural statement--“God is love.” If this means, not merely that God, as a matter of fact, does love, not merely that He may be or that He has love, but that love is an eternal quality of His moral nature which is absolutely fundamental and constitutive in His being--then it would seem that there must be within His nature itself occasion and scope for the exercise of love, apart from His relations to finite existence. Love is a social attribute, and the conditions and relations which love implies must exist in the very essence of God. In the Trinitarian view of God these conditions have for ever existed in the eternal personal distinctions and reciprocal relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God did not begin to love when He created, nor is His love a mere potentiality which in the silent depths of eternity looks forward to creation for its satisfaction. Love is the very core and essence of God’s moral nature, and as such is ceaselessly active within the internal relations of Deity. Love is eternally in full exercise, since God is love, and love ever found in God’s own perfect being the full fruition and blessedness of its exercise in self-communication and fellowship. We thus see that, despite the difficulties which the Trinitarian doctrine presents to the imagination, it has the great advantage of according with the highest conception which revelation yields us of the moral nature of God. It enables us to maintain that God eternally is what He is revealed to be. The Trinity is a practical truth. High as it is above reason, baffling as it is to the imagination and to thought, it accords with the demands and deliverances of the Christian consciousness. It conserves the truth of Christ’s essential Divinity and that of the reality and power of the work of the Spirit, which He described as the sequel and completion of His own work. It accords with belief in the incarnation, and makes the redemptive work of Christ a Divine work. All this the Christian consciousness craves and requires. We want to know, not merely that God has sent us a message, not merely that in Jesus He has raised up an exceptionally pure and holy member of the human race, but that in Him God has come to us, and that His work of revelation and redemption is a work of God. Our sense of sin is met and answered only by the knowledge of a Divine Redeemer. Mystery as the Trinity is, it is a mystery which is full of heavenly light. The doctrine of the Trinity conserves the idea of the richness and fulness of the Divine life and love, and of the amplitude of their manifestation. According to its terms, God is revealed to us as our Father, and His eternal nature is shown to be fatherly; Jesus Christ is presented to us as a true incarnation of God in humanity, a Redeemer whose Divine person and work are a veritable revelation of God; and the Holy Spirit is conceived of as an actual Divine agent who dwells and works in human life, influencing and moulding it into the Divine likeness. According to the Trinitarian doctrine, we have to do, in Christianity, with Divine realities. Our religion is not a subjective play of fine ideas, memories, or aspirations. Our religion is intensely supernatural. It is fitted to quicken and foster in our hearts a living sense of God. The forces that provide and complete our salvation are truly Divine. It is God that has wrought for us and in us; our life is ensphered in Deity, and filled with the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. (George B. Stevens, D. D.)
The Trinity a practical truth
1. The distinction between doctrinal and practical exists rather in popular impressions than in reality. Doctrine simply means what is taught: practice what is done. Christian charity, as delivered in 1Co_13:1-13, is a doctrine; as it enlarges souls and sweetens life it is a practice. In general, Christian practice is simply Christian doctrine gone into the life of mankind.
2. The Trinity is the meeting-point of the doctrinal with the practical elements of our faith. For, on the one hand, it represents facts lying far above us, in the inscrutable Being of God; but it also lays the foundation for the personal faith which brings peace to the heart and for the duties which give use and honour to life. The Trinity has just the mysteriousness which belongs to, say, the connection of your mind with your hand, or the growth of a tree from a seed. Much about these things you may well understand; but much more, which you cheerfully accept because it is familiar, is just as completely inexplicable to reason as the Trinity. Yet you may traverse every field and you will find no form of goodness that has not its origin in this Trinity of God--in the parental providence of the Father, the renewing grace of the Son, the sanctifying communion of the Spirit. For the proof, we may look to three different regions of revelation in order:
I. The inspired Scriptures.
1. There is no Divine quality which is not ascribed to each of these Persons. Each is separately declared to be eternal, almighty, perfect in holiness, knowing all things, and worthy to be worshipped. Yet with equal emphasis they are not only, as in the text, associated together, with no suggestion of degrees of rank, but they are explicitly declared to be one in substance, power, and glory.
2. These three are so set before us that the entire Christian system could not be complete or even consistent without them all. Each refers to the others as co-equal Persons--the Father to the Son and the Spirit, the Son to the Spirit and the Father, the Spirit to the Father and the Son.
3. Taking up the Scriptures in their historic order--
(1) The Holy Ghost appears with the Father from first to last. Amidst the miracles of creation He broods upon the face of the waters; holy men “spoke as they were moved by” Him; it is by His power that the Messiah is miraculously conceived, and that His mission is attested at His baptism. The Spirit’s more manifest coming forth is at length made ready as the Saviour departs, till, after Pentecost, all the preaching of the apostles, and all the upbuilding of the Church, and all the conversion of the world, are effected by the same Spirit.
(2) With corresponding measure moves the revelation of the Son of Man. In the beginning He was with God, and was God. Not without Him too, says the apostle, the worlds were made. In Eden we foresee Him “born of a woman,” bruising the serpent’s head, and atoning for the Fall; known to Job as the Redeemer that shall stand upon the earth; blessing all mankind in Abraham’s seed; the Shiloh that should come of the family of Judah; wrestling with Jacob; worshipped as the Jehovah-angel; leading Israel in the burning column; foretold as the everlasting High Priest in the Psalms of David; the Emmanuel, Wonderful, Counsellor and Mighty God, of Isaiah’s prediction; “The Lord our Righteousness” named by Jeremiah; the glorious appearance of a Man on the sapphire throne, before whom Ezekiel fell in adoration; Daniel’s “Messiah who should be cut off, but not for Himself”; Haggai’s “Desire of all Nations “; Malachi’s “Sun of Righteousness.” He is the theme of the whole Bible, the Bond of living unity between Old Testament and New.
II. The moral constitution and history of man. Outside the Bible there are three different regions for the manifestation of God to man.
1. Nature. In it the one God has a peculiar work, creating. But as we commonly apply the term “creating” to the originating of things, that process by which He preserves and so ever re-creates nature is named Providence. God is a Creator, and creatorship is the first work of personality in His threefold Being.
2. Christ.
(1) Nature was not enough for man’s spiritual education and salvation. He needs a supernatural mediation for the unfolding and ripening of his religious powers, and for rescue when the choice has been wrong and the forces of sin have brought him down. As a conscious soul man has thoughts that the whole natural world cannot interpret, desires that the natural world cannot fill, aspirations that the natural world and even natural religion cannot meet. Nay, it is just when the world does its bravest for us that our supersensual life is most oppressed with the feeling of its insufficiency, and the homesick heart feels out into infinitude for the light that never was on sea or land.
(2) Man is lost till the Son of Man comes forth from the Father. The palace of nature is empty till the King enters.
(a) If it is moral excellence that the world is seeking for, the Second Person of the Trinity not only carries up all ideas of character to their loftiest pitch, by saying, “Be ye therefore perfect,” but He matches the precept by an actual embodiment.
(b) Is it some vision of self-sacrifice that the higher thought of humanity is feeling for? Then in the same Person God sets up the Cross, planting its foot in the very core of the world’s heart, and binding about it the reverent affections of all ages.
(c) Is the world yearning for reconciliation with God? None less than He, no daysman of baser rank, can make the necessary atonement, at once magnifying the law, and yet the justifier of the sinner. It must be both God and man, the God-man, who redeems. Nature is fair and orderly, for it is the workmanship of God. But can it atone for this lost soul that has gone down under the powers of sin, and is now in the terror and the punishment of a separation from its God? It says, “Obey and live. Hast thou, O foolish child, disobeyed? Then be wrecked against our iron necessity; perish amidst our pitiless magnificence!” Man sees no cross in nature till the Saviour rears it at Calvary.
3. By the very conditions of the visible Incarnation, however, it must be limited and temporary. For here the Eternal comes into history, and thus is made subject to limitations of time and place. Jesus, the Son of Mary, wears a human body, which must pass from the world. It is expedient for us that He should go away. Hence the third development of the Trinity-mystery. There is a third realm where the one God is also to be revealed--the inner world of the believer’s heart.
(1) Christ saw the deep necessity for that, and made careful preparation for it in the promise of the Holy Ghost. Like the Eternal Word, that Paraclete has been from the beginning, and was with God, and was God. But now, in the heavenly order, the Spirit shall appear; He shall proceed both from the Father and the Son, for Christ expressly says both, “I will send Him,” “Whom My Father will send.” The symbol is shown when Christ breathes on the apostles before His ascension. The august reality is seen when the day of Pentecost is fully come.
(2) Henceforth--
(a) When the weary and heavy-laden heart comes home repenting to the Father’s house, through faith in the Son, it is known to be the Holy Spirit that quickens it.
(b) When the secret mercy of peace tranquillises the sorrow of troubled breasts, it is the same Spirit that is the Comforter.
(c) When a hidden inspiration bears on advancing Christians from one degree of sanctity to another, it is by the same “Spirit of the Lord,” the Sanctifier of the faithful.
(d) When new tides of consecrated feeling rouse the Church to her aggressive work, it is the coming, again and again, of the same blessed Paraclete.
III. The gospel kingdom or Church of Christ.
1. Just on the eve of Christ’s departure His accredited apostles are gathered about Him. Now the ambassadors shall be told what is of supreme importance in the work they are to do, and the message they are to bear. He speaks: “Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature,” “teach all nations, baptizing them.” But teach them what? Baptize them into whom? This is the last and highest question to be answered. The doctrine ye are to proclaim, the threefold cord with which ye are to “bind,” the covenant names into which ye are to baptize--hear these: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. The three names send out their light over Christendom with co-equal, co-eternal, and blended beams. They are one. By the power hid in that truth the world was to be saved: by no other.
2. See then how, in the very terms of the office assigned to His Church, there is an exact correspondence with this fundamental doctrine of the faith.
(1) There is action--“Go ye.” This answers, on earth and in men, to the creative work of the Godhead. The natural power must work; natural means must be employed.
(2) There is the continued presentation of the fact of redemption, under its due sign and sacrament, coupled with the preaching of the gospel. As the Second Person was the embodying of the Word and redeemed the world, as that Word was made flesh, so the living Word must still go forth, beginning at Jerusalem, to all the earth. The new covenant, superseding that of the elder Testament, is to pledge the blessings of propitiation, gather and bind in one the Catholic family of Christendom, and, by the sanctifying of water to the mystical washing away of sin, bring back clean blood into the disordered heart of the race.
(3) But, finally, that this Christian system should take effect, create a real regeneration, and yield the Lord a bride without spot or wrinkle, the energy of the Spirit must attend it. The Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, must accompany the preaching. God’s flock must be fed by men whom the Holy Ghost hath made overseers. Conclusion: What is remaining but that in the simplicity of a searching and earnest faith we should put the question to ourselves and to one another: Has this wonderful and blessed doctrine entered in, to bear its gracious fruit in our own lives? (Bp. Huntington.)
And the communion of the Holy Ghost.--
The communion of the Holy Spirit
I fear that our familiarity with these words serves in a great measure to veil their meaning. They become more associated with the closing up of the service than anything else, as is the case with one of the grandest choruses in the Messiah, the “Amen Chorus.” It is the last in the whole Oratorio, and every one takes it as a signal to begin to depart. Paul is here pouring out his heart’s love in the very best wish that he can think of. What do we understand by the communion of the Holy Ghost? What is the meaning of the word “communion”? I do not know any better way to explain the meaning of that word than is given in the following verses of the Bible (Gal_2:9): “When James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship.” That is, they took Paul into their communion as a sharer in the concern; they gave him the right hand; he became partner with them in the work. That is the meaning of the word “communion.” In Luk_5:10, we read that James and John “were partners with Simon.” You see that it would mean part-ownership in that boat; they would no longer speak of that boat as my boat, but our boat. So, I think, that the best meaning of the word “communion” is “partnership.” Thus the text will read: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the partnership of the Holy Ghost be with you all.”
I. Partnership with a glorious person. First of all we must realise the personality of the partner; we must grasp the personality of the Holy Ghost by practical experience. Do we know much about this? Hundreds of you could say, “I know what the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is.” But do you know what is partnership with the Holy Ghost? Partnership implies a partner, and we cannot be long in partnership without knowing the partner. The Holy Ghost is a living personality as much as the Father, whose love we receive; a living personality as much as Jesus, whose grace we delight in, and whose name we adore. It is not an “it” we have to do with. All the attributes of a Person are His. He h
