Worshiping the Triune God
Scripture tells us that the one true God exists in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are equally and eternally the one God. He is Three in One, or triune. We see something of the centrality of the Trinity in worship from Ephesians 2:18, which says: “For through [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” This passage implies that Christian worship is defined and enabled by the triune God. John 4:24 implies something similar. God the Father brings us into relationship with himself through the redeeming work of his Son, and applies that work to our hearts and lives by his Spirit.
“Father” isn’t a term we invented to describe God’s relationship to us. God has been the Father of Jesus for all eternity. And we don’t interpret God’s fatherhood through experiences we’ve had with our own father, whether good, bad, or non-existent. We derive our understanding of what fatherhood is from God himself ( Ephesians 3:14-15). God’s Word makes it clear that the Father is worthy of our worship ( Philippians 4:20).
We come to the Father through the Son because he is the one mediator between us and God ( 1 Timothy 2:5). He came to live a perfect life, to receive the judgment against our sins that we deserved, and and to rise victoriously from the dead. Jesus is the perfect mediator because only he is both fully God and fully Man. As God, he can completely bear God’s wrath against our sin. As one of us, he is able to serve as our substitute both in his perfect obedience and in atoning sacrifice. Because he is God he is worthy of our worship, and the Father is glorified as we honor the Son ( Philippians 2:9-11).
We come to the Father in the Spirit because the Spirit draws our hearts to Christ, to the Father, and to one another ( 1 Corinthians 12:3; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 2:22). The Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, enables us to participate truly in the relationships of the Trinity, for our good and the glory of God. While the Holy Spirit is worthy of worship as God, his primary role is to magnify the Son for the glory of the Father, and to reveal God’s presence to us.
I’m hoping to buy one or more of Bruce Ware’s books on the Trinity. I find it interesting that there are really no worship songs that help us understand the Trinity. So if you are a lyric writer I would encourage we begin to find a poetic/lyrical way of communicating a sound theology of the Trinity.