The Power of Bubbles

It's hard for us to imagine a doctine such as the trinity as a comforting one, but perhaps Scripture portrays such truths to us not so we will have more to write about in our systematic theolgy books, but that we may be encouraged and given hope.

Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten that the trinity is a team. It's easy for us to pit the members of the trinity against one another, as if each one is completely univolved with or even opposed to the work of the other members. For example, we tend to think, albeit subconsciously, that God the Father was ticked off in the Old Testament, and the loving Son had to come make things right in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit was off blowing bubbles in left field until Acts, where He gets to do fun things like appear as a flaiming tongue and kill people for not telling Him the truth (Acts 2; Acts 5).

But the truth is, each member of the trinity is deeply involved in every act of the redemptive story; each has an active and ongoing role. Granted, each gets the stage at a different moment in history: the Father in the OT, the Son in the NT, and the Spirit in Church history. But each of these could not be accomplshed by only one member of the trinity. We must remember that they are distinct, and yet they are one. In the OT, we see the Spirit in the second verse of the Bible, hovering over what would be creation; we see Him leading the Israelites through the desert and in the Ark of the Covenant. We see Jesus as well in the OT: He is the angel of the LORD that is worshipped, and some have argued that He is the High Priest Melchizadek, to whom Abraham offers his tithes (who else would the patriarch of Israel offer his tithes to but God Himself?) (Gen. 14). In the NT, we see all three at the baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3), and of course, we know that all three are at work in the Church today.

One of my professors at school made a bold statement recently: It was the Holy Spirit who rose Jesus from the dead. It sounds crazy at first, but actually fits quite nicely with concepts presented in the gospels and Acts. The Spirit was active in Jesus' miraculous virgin birth, to be sure; he was present and active in Jesus' baptism (in the form of a dove); he Himself led Christ into the desert to be tempted, and gave Him the strength to resist temptation (Matt. 4); and He was no doubt active in Christ's ministry and miraculous signs. You get this sense that Jesus, as the divine God-man, was truly quite dependent upon the Holy Spirit. I say this not to diminish His divinity, but to stress His humanity. Peter proclaims at the Pentecost, "God has raised Jesus to life, and we are witnesses to the fact" (Acts 2:32).

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ will also grant life to your mortal bodies thorugh his Spirit, who lives in you" (Romans 8:11).

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of feeling like a completely worthless, ever-failing Christian. I'm tired of feeling defeated by sin and by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that are thrown my way. It's all sort of coming to a head for me now, and I'm finally realizing that I am incapable of winning this battle.

But the Spirit of God is capable of anything. And this Spirit who hovered over the unformed earth, who delievered and led His people from Egypt, who made the Jericho walls to crumble, who destroyed the LORD's enemies with Gideon's 300 men, who brought dry bones to life and made them into an army, who was actively involved in the virgin birth, who delivered Jesus from temptation, who led Christ to the cross, who raised Him from the dead, who is described throughout Scripture as a powerful, powerful being-this Spirit lives in me.

There is hope in the trinity, for in Christ, we are ingrafted into the story they are telling together.