The Triumph of the Trinity:
"And these three agree in one"

Could it be that the victory that the Church celebrates in Eastertide is not the type of victory the world appreciates? After all, according to first century accounts, Jesus was nothing more than an obscure Jewish rabbi who was crucified in Palestine during the governorship of Pontius Pilate.

To the pagan world of that time, Christ was merely a footnote. Furthermore, could it be that the victory, the triumph we Christians celebrate, is meant only for a certain group of people? In reality, the answer to both questions is “yes.”

First, the success Jesus had, from a worldly standpoint, is rather dismal. He came, He preached, He healed, and from time to time He clashed with the Jewish high authorities. Yes, He managed to draw huge crowds, to gather “a following,” so to speak, but from a worldly point of view, He couldn’t capitalize on it.  He didn’t become rich and powerful. He didn’t command nations and huge armies. All He managed to do, in the world’s eyes, was to arouse the ire of the Jewish religious authorities and get Himself killed for it.  He wasn’t even the great military Messiah the Good Friday crowd wanted Him to be, so they abandoned Him.

Secondly, to answer the question whether or not the Easter triumph is meant for a certain group of people, the answer is again, “yes.” Although the death of Jesus Christ has universal scope, the triumph we celebrate in this blessed Eastertide is meant only for the Church. We Christians take this seeming dismal failure of Christ’s and exalt it to the skies, quite literally.

Let me be careful here. It is not that we Christians “clutch” Christ closely to our breasts, not wanting to share Him, or that God does not want everyone to be saved.  He does, or He wouldn’t have sent Christ in the first place.  In fact, God calls all men to Himself and to His covenantal family dinner, the Eucharist. Yet despite the universal call of the Lord to all men from the Cross, not all men respond.  Why? This is a great mystery, and there are many reasons for it, most of which we cannot hope to understand in this life.

The fact is, only by being a member of the Family, the covenantal family of the Church, can one really appreciate the significance of the Paschal Sacrifice. Just as those who were not circumcised, or part of a family of those that had this sign, could not eat of the Passover meal, so are those who have not joined the  Royal Household through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Once again, it’s not that we in the Church don’t want all mankind to be baptized and believe, because we do. I would that the whole world was clamoring for baptism and admission to the Church. The fact is, however, that it is not.

Thus, it is the Church that appreciates Christ’s triumph, not his apparent defeat. We, the baptized, the members of Christ’s New Covenant Family, realize that what Christ accomplished on the Cross was universal, even cosmic, in its implications. We know that Christ translated us into a new type of human; that of a Son or Daughter of the Most High God, washed and made clean from original sin and now a privileged member of His Household. For, just as those who were members of a covenant family could eat the Passover meal, so we who are baptized and washed by the blood of Christ may partake in the Eucharistic Feast. St. Paul tells us, ”For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)

The Apostle John echoes and amplifies this statement when he asks, “And who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

John begins to teach us, in about eight verses, of the Triumph of the Trinity. As usual with John, his Gospel and his Epistles are the most theological in nature, while being very simple in language. John has the genius, inspired by the Holy Ghost, to deliver tremendous spiritual truths simply and elegantly. This tremendous genius is simple, but not simplistic, and always filled with hope and joy.

The Apostle John teaches us that there are witnesses to Christ’s existence, His glory, and his Victory. These witnesses are contained in the Holy Community of the Trinity. Thus John tells us: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

We know from Scripture that the Father first bore witness to His Son directly at his Baptism, when God the Father spoke: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father spoke again at the Transfiguration, when Jesus was with Moses and Elijah on the mountain, becoming glistening white. He said, “And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my beloved Son: hear him'" (Luke 9:35).

Next, is the Word. Note that only in the Gospel and writings of John is Jesus Christ constantly referred to as the “the Word,” in the Greek, Ho Logos. The most familiar reference is in John 1:1, where we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Divine Son of God, in His Glory that he had at the beginning before all Worlds, certainly bears witness to His human nature as well as His divine nature.

Thirdly, there is the Spirit of God, who bears witness to Christ constantly in our hearts, through our worship and ingestion of the Blessed Sacrament and through our reading of the Word of God. All of this confirmation comes to us through grace by the Holy Spirit. He is Truth, according to the words of St. John. Just as the Holy Ghost witnessed directly to Jesus at His Baptism, descending bodily upon Him in the form of a dove, we Christians know that the Holy Spirit witnesses to us daily in our private meditations and prayers, as well as in our weekly worship.

The importance of this little section of Scripture cannot be understated: it is proof text for the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Just as these three bear witness to Christ, they witness to us about the nature of God. He is One God in Three Persons, not three Gods, three Fathers, three Sons, or three Spirits. This is precisely why we Anglicans recite the Creed of Nicaea each Sunday to reaffirm this fact and to keep up from falling into heresy and error. We can safely say that the Holy Trinity is probably the most baffling, yet most powerful, truths of Christianity, which bears witness both to itself and to Christ.

St. John echoes this spiritual witness with an earthly one, as he says, “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” Thus we have a wonderful parallel of witness, both in heaven and on earth, to Christ. As many Church fathers have taught us, and even modern writers like C.S. Lewis, things on earth are a faint reflection of things in heaven.

St. John begins to close this discussion by stating that the witness of men is important, but the witness of God is greater. When we see the Scriptures through new eyes, spiritual eyes, and see the overwhelming evidence for the work and victory of Jesus Christ, we receive the witness in ourselves. Anselm of Canterbury once said, “Faith knows.” Thus we have the witness in ourselves that Jesus Christ is Lord. To God’s eternal glory, we can only confess that Jesus Christ is Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we have the grace to confess this, it is well with us.

Those who either ignore or deny the evidence (the “witness”) of God to Himself and to His Son have a bit of a problem. Those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh—that He came, lived and suffered for us—despite the evidence of the Spirit, the water and the blood, are engaging in the sin of unbelief. They are, in effect, calling God a liar because they refuse to believe despite the record of Jesus that God has given us. This is a serious thing, for they refuse to believe to their own destruction.

The record God has given us is quite simple; it is the sum of the Gospel: "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

We give thanks to God that He has seen fit to call us into the fellowship of His Son and the Triumph of the Trinity. We are indeed the most blessed; we are indeed the most fortunate; we are indeed the most thankful.

One last thought from the St. John’s First Epistle sums up our hope, our joy, and our thanksgiving: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN

^"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”