Matthew 28:19 — Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

This will be the first of (I think) four devotions on a most perilous subject. I am driven to consider God. It’s been bubbling up for a while. Yesterday, in considering worship I was reminded that God is Spirit, and a reading in Psalms today focused my mind on the terror of God and I was reminded of something A. W. Tozer said in his wonderful book “The Attributes Of God”:
“Christianity is decaying and going down into the gutter because the god of modern Christianity is not the God of the Bible. I don’t mean to say that we do not pray to God; I mean to say that we pray to a god short of what he ought to be.”
Tozer wasn’t talking about the blasphemous trivialization and taking in vain of the Lord’s name that is so common amongst non-Christians today. He was talking about us. So we need to talk amongst ourselves about our view of God. I don’t know about you, but I find that a little scary — because I know my eyes don’t open wide enough to see all of Him that I should see. But I’m going to try to say, in these few short pieces, a little of what I think and believe — and hope some of you will add what you know. Maybe between us we can pray to a God who is a little closer to what he ought to be.
Let me start with what might be the hardest and most disputed precept in all of our theology, that of the Trinity. The Baptist Faith and Message says:

“The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.”

Those words pull together intimations of the nature of God from the whole Bible, and represent the best conclusion of four or five hundred years of fierce debate amongst the brightest and best of Christian theologians. And it is still mysterious to most of us. How can one God be three persons? But it is so … There is one God of one essence. But there is the Father, who is neither the Son nor the Spirit. There is the Son, begotten of the Father, who is neither the Father nor the Spirit. Finally, there is the Spirit, who proceeds from the Son, and who is neither the Son, nor the Father. There is a logical order — but we must not infer any inequality between the persons of the Godhead.
This mystery is beyond me, but as I consider it one truth was revealed — I think. When I thought of three persons, it seemed to me that I needed three relationships! How can I relate to an awesome Father, a loving Son, and a wonderful guiding Spirit in the same way? And if I mix them up, how do I pay due honor to each if those three persons. And if I don’t give them due honor, Our God will never be what He should be.
So here’s the first thing I want to offer for this discussion. Let’s remember the separate persons of the Trinity, and their separate works, and give them each their proper due.