God = Grace, Love and Fellowship – Greg Albrecht

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May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).

God is love. That’s the most concise biblical definition given to us. God IS love… which is infinitely beyond love being one of many of his attributes. Love is his essence, his totality and center of his being.

It seems that God as Triune is embedded within this passage in Corinthians. However, while I believe the best biblically-based explanation about God is a Trinitarian definition, I also believe it is “the best possible human explanation.”

Let’s not get too focused on or proud of a doctrine. The doctrine of the Trinity is a human attempt to get a handle on eternity, based on a study of all biblical references to God, but because it is human, it is an interpretation at best, and subject to being imperfect and flawed.

That said, I believe all other perspectives and beliefs about God are even more flawed—so the Trinity doctrine is the best human attempt to perceive the fullness and mystery of God. We do not worship a humanly created creed, but rather the God the creed attempts (inadequately given human involvement) to describe.

The Bible says and teaches God is one, yet he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit—perfectly united without any division, existing eternally and in perfect harmony as one God in Three Divine Persons.

One might respond (maybe “one” is “you”), “I know how to count. How can one plus one plus one equal one while at the same time being three?” Good. You (or “one”) can count. But the fullness of God, who he is and how is not accountable to our limited abilities to count.

God never subjected himself to our arithmetic (“maths” for the British). God is greater than our abilities to compute, add, subtract and calculate. The sum total, to use an expression of numerical addition, is greater than what we can humanly perceive—spiritual reality is not all that it may seem to be on the physical level.

I do not believe it is necessary and required of a Christ-follower that they memorize a formulaic
definition about God. I believe it is entirely possible that Christ followers can follow Jesus Christ and not fully (or even partially) grasp, understand and believe that God is one essence eternally existing in perfect, united harmony as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Extending this discussion to the hyperbolic extreme, I certainly do not believe that Saint Peter will stand at the Golden Gates of Heaven insisting everyone who enters must sign a document accepting the creed and dogma of the Trinity. How foolish we become when we pretend to subject and limit God to our physical attempts to comprehend him.

Grace, Love and Fellowship

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).

This verse is not a definitive explanation of all that God is… it is a benediction (an expression of good wishes, a blessing, often offered at the end of a sermon). This benediction is not a doctrinal statement or a creed that we must memorize in order to properly understand God.

Grace, love and fellowship is not the Trinity, but rather the best hopes Paul has for his readers. While the words are a summary of Christian faith, they are not a knock-down argument that proves the Trinity doctrine beyond a shadow of a doubt. For that we must study many passages, which is not my purpose in this short article.

Let us however consider the three constituent parts of 2 Corinthians 13:14: grace, love and fellowship.

1) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

Grace separates the gospel of Jesus Christ from Christless religion, whether that religion calls itself Christian or not. Grace elevates the gospel from Christless religion to Christ-centered faith.

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