Until recently I had apparently been under the unconscious impression that close study of the Trinity was needed only if I encountered some abstract, theological question about it that puzzled me. Otherwise, I was content to affirm the doctrine in faith and go on about the seemingly more relevant aspects of the Christian life. I had been perfectly content with this arrangement until I recently encountered a puzzling question about the doctrine that sent me to my pastor, looking for a quick answer; to my dismay, he gave me two books to read instead! While I never came across the exact answer to the particular question I had, I found both books extremely helpful for my own devotional life.[1]
Although I am still in no position to speak with any eloquence and nuance to the details of Trinitarian theology after reading these books, I would like to document one way in which studying the truth of the Trinity helped me, in hopes that others will be encouraged to study for themselves. I found that meditating on the Trinitarian truths I had learned and been reminded of encouraged me greatly in my prayer life by adding specificity and shape to my prayers and by astonishing me with the privilege and power of prayer.
Specific Prayer
I have always found prayer challenging, and perhaps many other believers feel the same. Prayer can be difficult because we are speaking in faith with Someone we cannot see or hear, Someone we cannot even understand fully! Yet much popular advice in advancing one’s prayer life boils down to the encouragement to simply speak out to God as you would to a friend. Although a certain understanding of that advice can be problematic, it does recognize an important aspect of Christian prayer: We pray to a God with whom we have a personal relationship. Recognizing the persons of the Trinity, and the roles they play, helps us to direct our prayers not just to a concept of god, but to the true and living God, who exists in three persons revealed to us as Father, Son, and Spirit.
God’s triunity is a foundational aspect of His nature; to ignore this aspect in prayer (although Christian prayer is inherently trinitarian, whether we acknowledge it or not[2]) is like refusing to address a friend by her name, or failing to recognize her as a woman. Simply by explicitly addressing the Person to whom we are praying (and the Bible seems to encourage that prayer be directed mainly to the Father[3]), we can already better focus our attention on the character and actions of the one true God, shattering any odd, cultural leftovers that may cling to the bare word god. As Fred Sanders says in his book, The Deep Things of God, “once you have considered the personal presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you may not be able to go back to praying with the undifferentiated word God. It may cease to sound to you like a name once you have given sustained attention to the names of the persons of the Trinity.”[4]
Shapely Prayer
Now that I’ve addressed the Father in prayer, what should I say? What can I possibly have to say to the Almighty? What can He possibly be interested in hearing from me? Recognizing the Trinitarian shape of the gospel naturally springboards us into the content of our prayer. We can be thankful not just for the general idea of our salvation but also for the specific roles that each Person is playing in accomplishing and applying that salvation.
Addressing the Father in prayer naturally turns our thoughts to the perfect provision of our Father (Mt. 7:9), especially exemplified in the provision of His Son as the propitiation for our sins. Turning our thoughts towards the Son brings before our mind His incarnation, along with the ministry He accomplished during His time on earth, His substitutionary death, His victorious rising, His ascension, and His current role interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. And though the Son is not now with us but with the Father, yet we have the Son (and thus the Father) with us always by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Thinking through the roles and gifts of the Father, Son, and Spirit in turn can be a wonderful pattern to help us begin to pray when our prayer time stretches out before us like a long blank. I have found meditating through the truths of the Trinity as revealed in the gospel to be a deep well from which to draw as I seek to thank and petition God more rightly.
Privileged Prayer
Due to the severe nature of humanity’s myopia, it is easy to think that God is not engaged in any type of communication until we reach out to Him in prayer. Realizing that the Trinity is the perfection of unity and diversity, and also realizing that the Trinity is always in perfect, loving, joyful communion with itself: Each of these propositions lowers the seeming importance of our own communication with God and simultaneously heightens its significance. God is already in communication with Himself[5], as we see right from the very beginning (Gen. 1:26). God is perfectly satisfied and joyful in the communion that He enjoys with Himself. He has no need of our chatter to fill up His infinite time.
Yet God has invited us to join that joyful conversation in which He was already and continually will be engaged. In the power of the Spirit, through the work of the Son, we can come before the Father and add, in a “lower, creaturely way,” to God’s own conversation. Realizing this privilege makes me feel like a kid allowed to stay up late and listen in at the table to my parents and a special guest talking about grown-up things, except that, when I chime in, they actually turn and listen! They may even add on to what I’ve said, or apply it to the conversation. Remembering the inner love and communion of the Trinity helps me to “approach prayer . . . with the knowledge that the party already started before [I] arrived.”[6] What a privilege to have our words mediated by the Son, interpreted by the Spirit, and received by the Father!
Powerful Prayer
The realization that our prayers are part of God’s divine conversation with Himself reveals why any human’s prayer could ever be “powerful.” It is not the fact of our having said any particular words or uttered any piece of wisdom but that God Himself adds our petitions to the theme of His own conversation. And as Scripture repeatedly demonstrates, the Word spoken by God has infinite power.
However, praying “with the grain” of Trinitarianism is also powerful because it transforms us, working the shape of the gospel deep into our souls as we continually come to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.[7] The gospel story is replayed every time we pray, pulling back the curtain to reveal our salvation worked out in the distinct Trinitarian shape that now allows us to join His divine fellowship in prayer—our sonship, accepted by the Father because of the work of Christ, His begotten Son, applied to each believer by the Spirit of God’s love. This framework lodged firmly in our minds reminds us again of the extravagant grace of our salvation each time we pray, “Our Father.”
Conclusion
Charlotte Mason tells a parable in her fourth volume on education about Eyes and No-Eyes, who went on a walk together: “No-Eyes found it dull, and said there was nothing to see; but Eyes saw a hundred interesting things, and brought home his handkerchief full of treasures.”[8] Studying the doctrine of the Trinity has helped me to become more like Eyes, seeing the great treasure that lays before me every time I come before the throne of grace. Perhaps a refresher on the trinitarian nature of our God can help you too to see “a hundred interesting things” the next time you enter your prayer closet.
[1]These two books were The Deep Things of God, by Fred Sanders (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), and Our Triune God, by Philip Ryken and Michael Lefebvre (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011).
[2]Sanders, 212.
[3]Ryken and Lefebvre, 74.
[4]Sanders, 226.
[5]Ibid., 215.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid., 216.
[8]Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, 29; https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol4complete.html#4_1; accessed March 3, 2021; Internet.
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