Prelude to the Trinity.

Today I want to look at a couple of different perspectives of God as an introduction to the next blog looking at what the bible tells us about the nature of God – today I want to look at the old testament perspective through the eyes of Asaph, and look at who he was and why his perspective is interesting.  I will then look at the post biblical perspective and see some of the misconceptions that arose after Jesus died and how the doctrine of the trinity developed and next time will look at the statement of beliefs and what we know about God from looking at Jesus.

So for the first section lets look at Asaph.  He is a little known character however he wrote 12 chapters and there is mention of him in many more so even though he didn’t have a book of his own, he is an important biblical character.   In Ps 73, you get a good insight into him.  Basically this chap almost fell away… he said that its not fair when the wicked prospered … then God revealed the truth that the wicked were on a slippery slope and that he was right to stay faithful.   

Who was Asaph? He was originally one of King David’s court – he was a chief musician so he would have been close to the King right at the heart of the administration.  He saw the reign of David and Solomon and afterwards, the slide of Israel into wickedness and then captivity at the hands of Egypt.  He lived through the highs and lows of the nation. 

Where do we find reference to him?   

1 Chron 15v16-17 refers to King David commanding the Levites to appoint musicians and Asaph son of Berechiah is included amongst them.  v23 is interesting, his father was a door keeper for the ark – he was a guard right at the heart of the nation so Asaph would have been brought up in the thick of things. 

1 Chron 16v4-5 gives an insight into his job. v7-12 sounds like David would write songs and poems and let Asaph and the other musicians set it to music.  This is the starting point of Asaphs career and lets read what it says. 

1 Chron 16v7-12  7. "That day David first appointed Asaph and his associates to give praise to the Lord in this manner: 8. Give praise to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations hat he has done. 9. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. 10. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 11. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. 12. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgements he pronounced."

David was humble and praised God – gave God the glory and sought his face which meant he tried to do his will.   v34-37 says "34.Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. 35.Cry out, "Save us , God our Saviour; gather us and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, and glory in your praise." 36. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Then all the people said "Amen" and "Praise the Lord." 37. David left Asaph and his associates before the ark of the covenant of the Lord to minister there regularly, according to each day's requirements."   

Despite his flaws, David was a man after God’s own heart and he was blessed for his attitude.  Asaph would have been at his right hand recording these psalms and setting them to music. 

He was around through Solomon’s reign, then 2 Chronicles 10 shows that when his son Rehoboam took over, the 10 northern tribes revolted and Chapter 12 shows that Egypt invaded.  2 Chronicles 12v6-8 says "The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, "The Lord is just." 7. When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the Lord came to Shemaiah: "Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance.  My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak. 8. They will, however, become subject to hi, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands."  So they went into captivity rather than being destroyed to teach them a lesson.  It was in the context of the Egyptian captivity that Asaph wrote Psalms 73 – 83.

Ps 73 I referred to earlier was the first of a series of Psalms written by Asaph and they form a potted history of the nation of Israel.  It’s worth reading to remind ourselves of what a rotten bunch of ungrateful so and so’s they really were.  God showed great love and mercy on Israel and time after time they rebelled and turned their backs on him.  Under the old covenant they would be blessed for doing good and punished for doing bad and that’s the way it went on.

I want to follow on with Ps 74 as this raises several issues and interesting thoughts about the nature of God and our relationship with him that I’ll expand on again.

1-2  says "O, God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? 2. Remember the people you purchased long ago, the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed - Mt Zion where you dwelt."

He reminded God that Israel was his chosen special nation asking why God had rejected them.  The basis of the old covenant was that when Israel was good they were blessed and when they were bad they  were not. 

3-8 says "Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary. 4. Your foes roared in the place where you met with us; they set up their standards as signs. 5. The behaved like men wielding axes to cut through the thicket of trees. 6. They smashed all the carved panelling with their axes and hatchets. 7. They burned your sanctuary to the ground; they defiled the dwelling place of your Name. 8. They said in their hearts "We will crush them completely!" They burned every place where God was worshipped in the land."

What a mess – we have a description here of the devastation of Jerusalem.  Not only were they invaded, the fabric of the society and temple was destroyed – this is truly God turning his back on them, even his earthly dwelling place was destroyed, although he didn’t let them destroy his people completely as we read in 2 Chron.

9-10 says " We are given no signs from God; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be.  10. How long will the enemy mock you God? Will the foe revile your name forever?"

Asaph is pleading for God to reveal himself and deliver them.  It shows that they were lost and confused, no one was there showing them the way or when it would end.  A far cry from “The Lord is My Shepherd…  Notice though in v10 he asks how long will God let the enemy mock him… this turns things around from it being punishment on the nation to it being about God being disrespected – I think he’s missed the point here – the troubles were as a result of their

weakness rather than God’s weakness.

V11-17 says "Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them! 12. But God is my King from long ago: he brings salvation on the earth. 13. It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters. 14. It ws you who crushed the heads of the Leviathan and gait it as food to the creatures of the desert. 15. It was you who opened up springs and streams; you dried up the ever flowing rivers. 16. The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and the moon. 17. It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.

This gives us a glimpse of Asaph’s perception of history to that point.  He remembered the mighty interventions between God and mankind, creation, waters splitting of course being the escape from Egypt.

V18 says "Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord, how foolish people have reviled your name."  

Finally he acknowledges that it was because of the nation’s foolishness that the enemies were scoffing at God – but again notice that it’s shifting the focus – help us because you are being mocked rather than forgive us because we’ve been wicked and now we are in trouble.

Rest of the chapter is a plea for God to intervene. 

v19 "Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts; do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever. 20. Have regard for your covenant, because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land. 21. Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace: may the poor and needy praise your  name.  22. Rise up, O God, and defend your cause; remember how fools mock you all day long. 23. Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries, the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually."

The over whelming message that comes through is that Asaph could remember the good times and wanted God to intervene, smash the enemies and take them back to the glory days of old.  On one hand he was praising God for all the good things and on the other he was begging him to intervene and save them. 

The next few chapters go though Israel’s history of rebellion and obedience with Asaph’s songs of praise mixed in.  What it shows is that Israel was a bit like a naughty toddler who would rebel and be put on the naughty step – if anyone’s seen Super Nanny you know what I mean.  Their relationship with God was that of distance and detachment.  The nation had to obey him for him to take notice of them, otherwise his back was turned and that was the basis of the old covenant.

The Psalms show that there was deep respect for the law and trying to please God, however this was from a distance.  By looking at it from Asaph’s perspective we get a fly on the wall view of things – he was not the King or one of his advisors but he was a musician, recorder of the Psalms, a bit like a scribe, or a biographer these days – who would have access to the subject person and observe what’s going on.  He was also present through the highs and lows so he had a longer term perspective when he wrote late on than the people who were writing as they go along.  To summarise we see the Old testament view of God as being detached – you had the great interventions such as creation, the flood and the exodus but for the most part, God was perceived to be shut away  in the tabernacle or temple and there was a barrier between him and his people.  That’s before Jesus.

For the rest of the message I’m going to briefly take a look at the perceptions of God and some misconceptions historically after the bible was written.  This is the background to the doctrine of the trinity.  Next time we’ll have a look at what is revealed about God when we look at Jesus.

There is a misconception that God in the old testament was a strong deliverer, a mighty God on one hand who smashed Israel’s enemies and on the other hand who could be controlled by obedience, so people could claim their blessings by being good.  The new testament by contrast has a God who was born in weakness as a baby and who died – defeated by the enemy, and then rose again defeating death, but instead of smashing the Roman Empire, gave a message of love.  Then there is the Holy Spirit, is it a power or force you can summon to help you, or is it, or he something or someone else?  The bible clearly shows that God has three elements, Father Son and Holy Spirit.  Confusion arises over the terminology used to describe God and there is no way for us to accurately describe him. 

Imagine if slugs could communicate with each other – imagine two slugs trying to get their heads around what a human is and how one works!  They may be able to understand that a human is one entity, but it has arms and legs that move around independently of each other, how does that work?  They would see the human as a person who’s created a wonderful environment and provided them with lots of delicious plants to eat.  Of course the slugs are only interested in getting into our green houses, but you get my point. 

Us understanding God is like a slug understanding humans – we have a very sketchy understanding, so we have to look at what’s revealed to us and interpret it within the our own limited understanding.  Next time I’m going to look at what is revealed but now lets set the scene by looking at what others have got wrong and how our understanding has developed.

After Jesus death there were those who said that he could not have been God, because God is good, people are evil therefore either he wasn’t human or he wasn’t God – the two could not coincide.  These people were known as the Gnostics.  They believed in Jesus but fitted him into their Greek philosophy and their way of thinking so tried to steer Christianity away from the truth that Jesus was God in the flesh, both divine and human.  They believed that if He was God, he could not have been human, and he was a kind of hologram that appeared but was not real.  A bit like Rimmer in the comedy show Red Dwarf who was there but was not real. 

Others believed that God could not express emotion as this would suggest that he could change and react, a contrast to the distant God of the Old testament that they were familiar with, and therefore Jesus could not have been God because He clearly did show emotion.  They thought that he was a human who was somehow blessed by God but was not God.   These were people who followed a chap called Arias.

So in the 2^nd century, Christianity fought the Gnostics who had been around for some time before Christ but had embraced Christianity, and 3^rd century they fought the Arians who were from their own people. 

In the end there were different Christian groups believing different things and there was a chance that the whole religion was going to implode because they were following different thoughts and philosphies rather than looking at what had been revealed though Jesus.  Along came the Roman Emperor Constantine who converted to Christianity and saw it as a way of uniting the Empire, so he saw the in-fighting and got scared that it would help tear the already faltering Empire apart.  He therefore called a conference of all the leaders.  The teachings of Arias were read and they realised that this was not what they’d learned from the sayings and writings that had been passed down from the disciples so they had to figure out and agree what the bible actually said about God.  Of course they didn’t have a neat little book as we have today, they would have had the old testament scrolls and a collection of letters and books written by the apostles. 

The result was a creed, that was drafted and took 56 years of refinement to be agreed as the basis of the Christian faith.  It was written to counter the false teachings of the Gnostics and Arians in the hope of uniting Christianity and defining what was revealed about God.

The Nicene Creed (A.D. 381)

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy, all-embracing and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

(Translation based on The Book of Common Prayer, 1979)

The term trinity is used as there are three elements to God.  It’s not found in the bible as it is the word used to describe what’s revealed in the bible rather than a word used in the bible itself.  God is a mystery so we can’t explain or express in words what he is – we just can’t do it.

We can however look at what is revealed in the bible, God’s word and what’s revealed by Jesus.

So what can we say, what does the bible say about God? - God is the Creator. God sent his Son Jesus, the word became flesh as shown in John 1 and Jesus sent his Spirit into the world, who dwells in us, and so when we talk about our experience of God we can’t separate it from talking about God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. We can’t separate it. That’s how it’s come to us.  The Holy Spirit is God living in us, and as a result we live in him and are sat in heavenly places – this means that we are in his presence right here right now.  How? It’s a mystery!!

We had an insight into the detached relationship between God and Israel by looking at another of Asaph’s Psalms, Disobedience against the law resulted in God turning his back on them and they were punished by the other nations invading them, and this was a recurring theme throughout their history.  Individuals had the Spirit of God rest upon them and they ruled and prophesied etc but again God’s spirit inspired and guided from the outside.  We’ll see next time that Jesus changed this relationship by becoming human, and taking humanity to himself.  He then sent his Spirit into the world evidenced dramatically at Pentecost, and we see the fruit of his spirit in the world.  The difference is that it’s coming from within us.  We are commanded to love God and love our neighbour, but where does love come from?  As I went through last time on Pentecost, Love comes from God as it says in 1John 4v7.

To conclude, Asaph’s Psalms are pretty much gloom and doom as they were written in bad times, however he lived through the highs and lows of the nation and always praised God for what he’d done previously and what he was capable of doing.  The old testament reveals the relationship between God, individuals and the nation of Israel and prophesied about Jesus, it also reveals the Holy Spirit, although we need to look back through the lens of Jesus to understand it better.  Although God punished Israel when it disobeyed him, He still loved them and never let the other nations destroy them completely.  That’s been a recurring theme throughout history and is even evidenced within living memory with the holocaust.  The relationship between God and Israel however was from the outside, however we have a different relationship with God, and since biblical times we see that man has been struggling to explain exactly how this works.  The concept of Trinity, three in one, father son and spirit, a community of three interacting elements of one God bound together in love is the best attempt to try to explain it, but at the end of the day God is a mystery.  Next time I’m going to see how much of the mystery can be unravelled by the word of God when we see what the word, Jesus reveals about God.

Scriptures are quoted from Today's New International Version (Zondervan)