This text affirms that the Spirit will continue Jesus’ ministry and lead the disciples “into all the truth,” meaning the full understanding of God’s act in Christ. The Spirit will also “declare to you the things that are to come” (16:14), that is, the promises of God for the future. The fullness of God is Christ’s, and so as the Spirit reveals Christ, the disciples will come to know God. Trinity Sunday commemorates a doctrine which seeks to define the mystery of God’s nature. Christian experience has asserted that the God of mystery and might has revealed himself in his Son, the historical Jesus. However, God is more than a person. God is alive, empowering, saving—this is the Holy Spirit. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one God! Do not try to reason it out as a logical statement. Rather, it is a statement of faith based on experience. If all attempts at explanation end in the confession of the mystery of the Godhead, so be it! Our hope can lie only in a deity beyond our feeble understanding. Ultimately the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be explained but to be accepted in awe.
| john_16_vs_12-15_pentecost_1_trinity_sunday_bible_study_2016.pdf |
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