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‘Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, Who is the faithful Witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.’
Rev_1:4-5
There is not an instance upon record in which the Three persons stand together without an intention of grace. And it is a magnificent thought that the completeness of Deity, in all His essence and all His operation, is never mentioned but for mercy. It is the separations of God that are His severities; but the whole and perfect Being is ‘love.’ So that creation, redemption, resurrection, adoption, benediction—all lie in Trinity.
I. It is interesting to trace how every great pronunciation of blessing, in the Bible, has in it, either intimated or declared, the Threefold Personages of Deity. From Aaron’s blessing, ‘The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace,’ to the usual apostolic form, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,’ etc.—to this solemn aspiration, standing at the foot of the Apocalypse. And not only this, not only in the direct formulas of benediction, but in every stirring appeal, in all the most animating passages of the Bible, we shall find the same. As, for example, in that conclusion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that glowing passage, ‘Now the God of peace,’ etc., or that earnest appeal of Jude, ‘But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith,’ etc.
II. From these considerations I draw one plain conclusion, that whoever would be very happy in his religion, whoever wishes to be very holy in his religion, must have large views of the Holy Trinity: not so much allowing his mind to rest, as we are wont to do, on one or other particular attribute or work of either of the Divine Persons, as endeavouring to take in, in all its wonderful harmony and proportion, the whole compass of that cardinal doctrine, the Trinity. I am persuaded that this is the truest wisdom, and that this is the nearest path to all comfort and all peace.
(a) The Father, by Himself, is an eternal, invisible Spirit. Man has heard His voice; but ‘no man hath seen God at any time.’ Yet it was necessary for God’s purposes of holiness and peace, and for His own glory, that God should be known to man. And thus He did it. One Who shared His being, ‘the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person,’ came. In His character, in His conversation, in His work, in His glorified person, He showed all that is communicable, all that mortal man can receive, of Godhead.
(b) As the light which mantles this earth is the sun, so was Christ the Father. He came from Him—He was one in essence with Him—He manifested Him—He was only just not so glorious here in His humanity but that man could look upon Him, and man did look upon Him; and when man looked upon the Lord Jesus Christ, he ‘beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’—for ‘no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him’; and ‘He that hath seen Me,’ saith Christ, ‘hath seen the Father.’ Or, take it in another way. As a word represents the thought in utterance, so Christ, the Living Word, manifested the invisible Father. This Living Word was declared in the written word.
(c) Then the Holy Spirit worked. He makes us to understand the Bible, that the Bible may make us understand Christ, that Christ may make us understand God. To this end, the Spirit ‘takes of the things of Christ and shews them to us’; and the end of all is the knowledge; that from the knowledge there may be the love; and that from the love there may be the likeness of God the Father. And that is effected by Trinity.
Rev. James Vaughan.