Fred Sanders (1)

Having completed The Deep Things of God by Sanders only recently, I was encouraged by that to continue with The Triune God, a book I was having a hard time getting my head into.

Sanders has a very large brain. In a bid to apply the Trinity to those of us whose brains are smaller and in a practical way, Deep Things was written. For those who want a bit more of the philosophy and history of Trinitarian thought, The Triune God was written.

Had I not already completed Deep Things, I might have simply given up on Triune God and, sadly, perhaps have retreated from what I think are truths that lay more bedrock down under the practicalities Sanders outlines in his former work.

I think I read them in the right order. Start off with Deep Things. Then, if you fancy a taste of something deeper than… er… Deep Things, get hold of Triune God. In it, Sanders will help you understand things like ‘procession’ and grapple with old chestnuts like what term to use for each ‘person’ of the Trinity.

But although there is a lot of technical stuff in here, there are two standout things that I appreciated in Sanders’ approach. Firstly, he begins with praise, he starts with a doxology to the Trinity itself. He then points out that the purpose of Trinitarian study should be to help us fully understand God as he has revealed himself and that the purpose of this is praise. Definitely preaching to the choir here. Right up my street.

Secondly, he makes clear the distinction between the Old Testament adumbration (shadowing) of the Trinity and its New Testament revelation (showing). This was when I started to have thoughts which brought a lot into clarity. He takes some time to unpack the fact that, to those in the Old Testament period, God would, from the outside, appear to be a monolith and thus convey the essential nature of God as one.

Once the Son and the Spirit had been sent, we were therefore allowed a glimpse into who God is in himself. We’ve spent our time ever since trying to get our heads around the immensity of this.

This also provides great clarity into why both Jewish and Muslim followers cannot bear us Christians going on about the Trinity. Their faiths allow no glimpse into God. For them, God has never approached them, come near and given them the right to become his children. They view him as outsiders. It’s no wonder then that, to them, God appears inscrutable and that, to us, he has characteristics we describe as Father, Son and Spirit. As Sanders put it himself:

The only way to “view God” from an inside perspective is if the eternal relations of origin, in which the one God subsists these three ways, have been graciously made open to us in their salvation-historical extensions—the sendings of the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father. Because that is what has happened, we confess three persons in the one God.

There’s an awful lot packed into Sanders’ book and, if you can get hold of the audio lecture series that accompanies it as I did, then you’ll have a great deal to chew over. This is a not a book that you read once and then put away to gather dust. It should be a reference and I should return to it again in years to come to further bed in these truths. Otherwise, I might just not be giving the God who has revealed all of himself to me all of the praise I can.… (plus d'informations)

The vast majority of us Christians aren’t as informed on the character of the God we worship as we should be. Neither are we adept at moving out of our comfort zones into situations where our beliefs are challenged and thereby strengthened.

I found myself challenged concerning the origins of the doctrine of the Trinity by a friend of the Muslim faith. It is commonly assumed (certainly among Muslims at least) that the doctrine of the Trinity is an invention not even of the early church fathers but rather theologians writing hundreds of years after Jesus walked the earth. I realised that I was very ill-equipped to respond to this and therefore went in search of something to help me get at the truth.

Sanders’ book wasn’t quite the right tool for that job. It’s not designed to be a description of the history of Trinitarian thought. Rather, it’s designed to be a reflection on why the Trinity must form the central core of our belief and, thereby, inform every area of our Christian lives. That’s not to say it wasn’t useful. Quite the opposite. I came away from it with a much deeper appreciation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit I’ve given my life to worship. For that, the experience was invaluable.

As I got deeper into the book, I realised that I was in the presence of someone who has spent a long time thinking very deeply about the one subject of the Trinity. Sanders writes with pathos and care. He very wisely leads you by the hand through some of the deepest theology that’s ever been devised. He has a very broad grasp of how thinkers across the centuries have crystalised this area of thinking.

Written with a completely difference pace and style from his much more theoretical The Triune God (which I’m still wading my way slowly through!), I never felt left behind in Deep Things. Considering the complexity of the subject matter, that is a fine testimony to his skill as a teacher.

Subtitled How the Trinity Changes Everything, the book challenges how evangelical practise simply doesn’t leave much room for consideration of the Trinity let alone actively attempt to reflect upon it. Thus, we fail to ensure that the roles of all three persons are understood in areas such as worship, salvation, prayer and scripture.

It’s a rebuke that we definitely need to hear. From my experience, evangelical thought is far too often something of an oxymoron. Sanders’ humble and gentle chastisement is exactly what we need to get us stirred to go deeper into the things of God.

To summarise, in Deep Things, Sanders does a very good job of helping the layperson navigate the often rough waters of Trinitarian theology. If you’re looking for a place to start, you’re not going to find much better than this. Make sure you get at least the 2nd edition; the study guide added to the original is excellent.… (plus d'informations)

"The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything" is written by Fred Sanders and reflects upon the nature, work, and interaction of the Trinity. Not only does the work seek to examine the interaction of the Trinity within the nature of God, but also looks to the interaction of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with the Christian. As Sanders notes in the introduction, an examination of the Trinity can often seem a daunting task, but “evangelical Christians” must witness to the “personal salvation that is experienced as reconciliation with God the Father, carried out by God the Son, and in the power of the God the Holy Spirit” (9). As can be seen by those terms set off by quotes, Sanders is writing specifically for that segment of Christendom that is typically referred to as Evangelicals, and more than once uses verbiage that is connected to that denominational sub-set; yet, the insights that Sanders brings to the theological table should not be quickly discarded because of this bias.

The major premise set forth by Sanders is that Christians should recognize that they are already involved in the triune nature of God, and as such one should reflect upon the deep things of God. When speaking of “rightly reflecting,” Sanders qualifies that idea to mean that one can accurately understand and articulate the nature of the Trinity. Further, if one’s understanding of the Trinity is not also paired with an experiential and culturally significant setting, that understanding will not become meaningful for the individual. Here is where Sanders lays down an important and key thought that runs the length of the work: the gospel and the Trinity are linked together. The problem, as defined by Sanders, stems from the loss of the ability to perceive this link, and because of this the Trinity is reduced to merely an issue of authority and mental obedience. Sanders is not attempting to introduce any new theological issues or ideas, but is attempting to direct one’s thoughts into the depth and richness that is already present in the gospel-Trinity relationship.

In chapter 2 Sanders begins to explore the question: What is the Trinity for? Remarkably, although the answer should have been obvious, Sanders makes the basic assertion that the Trinity isn’t for anything, but is part of the very nature of God. The doctrine of the Trinity is part of the basic understanding about who God is, which leads to a second obvious observation – “God the Trinity would have been God the Trinity whether he had revealed himself to us or not, whether he had redeemed us or not, whether he had created us or not” (62). As Sanders notes, one is on solid Biblical ground when speaking of God as Trinity from all eternity, and that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit regardless of the creation of time and space. Even more obvious, though perhaps somewhat frightening, is the fact that God as Trinity would have existed regardless of the redemption of mankind; but, it is through the understanding of the Trinity that Christians begin to understand and grasp the size and shape of the gospel.

When one begins to think about the size and shape of the gospel, the first thing to recognize is that the center of the gospel is God, and it is God sized because God has put himself in it. “We are saved by the gospel of God to worship the God of the gospel” (117). This means that since God gave a part of himself (God the Son) to affect our salvation, this then indicates an index by which one can tell how much God loves mankind and how much he gave to accomplish that common salvation. It is in this economy of salvation that the Triune nature of God is so expressed that one begins to see God’s character and identity. “The center of the economy of salvation is the nexus where the Son and Holy Spirit are sent by the Father to accomplish reconciliation” (133).
Sanders continues by examining the more specific work of the Son and the Spirit, and does a fine job distinguishing between the work using two words which describes their individual aspects: incarnation and indwelling, respectively. The main thought as presented is that God, who is in himself eternally God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has become an adopting Father, the incarnate Son, and one’s indwelling Spirit. This then is the ultimate shape of the gospel, that all three persons of the Trinity have acted together in our salvation; God the Father purposing mankind’s redemption, God the Son securing that redemption, and God the Holy Spirit applying that redemption. If there is any problem with this thought, it only occurs on the human side of the equation when Christians lapse into placing Jesus in the place of the Father or the Spirit. Sanders makes it quite clear that he believes that there is no such thing as being too Christ-centered in one’s life and thought, “but it is certainly possible to be Father-forgetful and Spirit-ignoring” (171).

In the last two chapters of the work Sanders takes on two other topics of discussion that have a distinct Trinitarian emphasis. First is the authoritative nature of the Scriptures. One reads the Bible as the word of God because it is precisely that, but the Scriptures are not merely a written authority. The Scriptures are also a record of the divine action, and the agents of that action are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Scriptures should always be viewed as propositionally centered and the focus of authority, but the personal encounter aspect should not be laid aside as an unused coat or avoided as an unwelcome guest. One would do well to recognize that both the authority and personal encounter of the Scriptures have a holistic impact on the Christian, and that impact results from the presence of the Trinity. The second topic is the relationship of the Trinity to prayer. As Sanders rightly points out, one does not have to have pass a theology test before God hears prayers; the Father knows what one needs before he is even asked, the Son acts as high priest and gives one confidence to approach the throne of grace, and the Spirit is able to intercede with groaning too deep for words when one doesn’t even know what to pray for. If there is a “grain” to the idea of our prayers, it is seen in Ephesians 2:18. One prays to God the Father, through God the Son, in God the Holy Spirit – each member of the Trinity is engaged when communicating with God.

One certainly doesn’t agree with all that Sanders presents in this work. Sanders writes from a perspective that is an obvious attempt to appeal to the Evangelical community, even though the bulk of what he examines and discusses stems from what appears to be a strong Biblical foundation and thus applicable to un-hyphenated Christians; i.e., Evangelical-Christians, Fundamental-Christians, Liberal-Christians, etc. Because of the scholarly nature, one feels confident in recommending this work as a quality examination of the nature of the Trinity with the caveat that some sections should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

Some quotes from the book:

“When evangelicalism wanes into an anemic condition, as it sadly has in recent decades, it happens in this way: the points of emphasis are isolated form the main body of Christian truth and handled as if they are the whole story rather than the key points” (16).

“As is the case with so many of the deep things of God, it is possible to consider the depth of God’s being behind his acts at two levels: in a preliminary way, without yet invoking the doctrine of the Trinity, or in a more concrete way, with explicit reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (70).

“A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small. A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small” (106).

“The real insight into God’s plan and purpose awaits us when we learn to see specifically how the persons of the Trinity are distinctively at work in salvation: the Father sends his two emissaries, the Son accomplishes salvation, and the Spirit applies it” (149).

“The most subtle idolatry and image-worship is when the soul rests in doctrine, however true. When delighted with the profound and comprehensive scheme of Scripture truth, it forgets that this is but the abstraction, the theory, the shadow of great and living realities” (196).

“Vagueness in prayer is to be avoided, and 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” (226).… (plus d'informations)

Sanders writes a book on the doctrine of the Trinity seeking to show that the experience of every Christian is Trinitarian whether we know it or not. He encourages us to explore the deep things of God rather than succumbing to what C.S. Lewis calls the “recurrent temptation to... only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth” (p.239).

Sanders spends the majority of his time looking at more popular evangelical writers from church history (Susanna Wesley, Oswald Chambers, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis etc) to show how thoroughly trinitarian their thinking and writing was. He seems to be defending evangelicalism from the charge that we’ve ignored the trinity. He proves that this is not the case.

I found the book a bit tedious and I got bogged down in places and lacked the desire to finish the book. I felt the sections in the book when Sanders was interacting with evangelical authors did not really advance his teaching on the trinity, though it did provide proof that evangelicals historically have made much of the trinity. At many times I wrote in the margin, “What is the significance of this?” I felt that a lot was asserted about the trinity, but there wasn’t much explanation of the significance of the ideas presented. One clear exception was in the final chapter on prayer and Sanders’ commentary on C.S. Lewis’ “mere trinitarianism”. This was excellent and was a fitting summary of Sanders overall message in the book, as Lewis shows the the trinity is not a problem to be solved but the way we experience God.

Other highlights were Sanders’ definition of modalism as moodalism. The heresy that God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is God with three “moods”.

While the book was helpful at points, I found Michael Reeves’ book, “Delighting in the Trinity” a more helpful introduction. Reeves manages to go deep and remain accessible. He writes beautifully and affectively about God. Bruce Ware’s book on the trinity is also a helpful introduction. He defines the persons of the trinity in their relation to each other. So, God the Father is the Father of our Lord Jesus who loves and delights in all his Son is and does. Likewise, the Son is the Son of the Father who delights in bringing his Father glory by obeying his will in all things. Ware unlocked for me a lot of the teaching on the trinity in the gospel of John.

For those looking to explore the doctrine in greater depth, Sanders book has a place alongside Robert Letham's, “The Holy Trinity”.… (plus d'informations)