Often God is looked upon as the God of the Old Testament. Do we not look at Jesus as the God of the New Testament and the Holy Spirit mixed up between the Old and the New? There are some who would like to believe that the Trinity is three different stages of God. This view is rendered erroneous by the presence of God at the time of Christ’s baptism. Matthew says that when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, God spoke from heaven and declared that Jesus was His son in whom God is well pleased (Mathew 3:13-17). At that time the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove (a symbol of the new creation after the flood destroyed all life on the earth Genesis 8). It is also a prophetic voice of David in Psalm 2:7, where God renews his covenant with the people and declares Jesus as his beloved son (Matthew 3:17), the chosen one, who will continue the Davidic line forever.
As the old hymn goes, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity”. This is the understanding of the Trinity, where God is three persons and yet one in substance. Universally, to acknowledge God as the creator is easy since many people see God as the divine architect and creator of the world. The Binitarians see God as two deities and Unitarians see God as only one deity. Liberal theology tends towards the theory that Christ was fully human, while Jehovah’s Witnesses envisage Christ as a created angel. What distinguishes us as Christians is our faith that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God who came to redeem us all from our sins. We love and worship Him just as we do God the Father. The Holy Spirit is equally worshipped and glorified because we encounter Him in our daily lives.
John had been baptizing people with water and he prophesied that God would send someone who was far greater than John. This great man would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Here was John testifying to the fact that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were different. The Holy Spirit was bestowed upon us by Christ to help us to preserve our commitment to God and to preserve us from the never ending fire of judgment (Matthew 3:11-12). The fire would burn away all those who are worthless because they are proud, unrepentant and do not want to change their ways. Baptism into the Christian faith symbolizes our willingness to obey Christ’s commands and to become His faithful followers. It is representative of the purging of our sins by water and the grace of God (1 Peter 3:21). It identifies us with other believers as being part of the Body of Christ. We live in a culture where we are too scared to let anyone be the center of our lives. A commitment of this intensity, to make Christ the center of our lives, could destabilize our own selfish goals and interests. The gospel of Matthew ends with the Great Commission. The gravity of these words had a tremendous impact on the lives of the disciples as these were Jesus’ last commands to them. This was to go out not only to the Jewish nations, but to all the nations of the world. Christ wanted them to teach all the nations to obey the commands that He has given us. He further expressly commanded them to baptize new believers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
From very early on there have been many who question the concept of the Holy Trinity (Arian Controversy). Christ clearly identified the Trinity as being three different entities, and in so doing clearly identified them as one by instructing the disciples specifically to baptize in the “name” and not “names”. We come to see a God who creates through the wonders of His creation, a God who teaches through the life, teachings, and work of Jesus, and a God who is present with us always as the Holy Spirit through our daily encounters with Him. As we live in His Spirit, walk with Christ, and celebrate the love of the Father, we grow in our understanding of the mystery of the Trinity.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. 2 Corinthians 13:14
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