Highlighted Text: Matthew 28:16-20

Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion is that such churches, in an honest and appropriate effort to emphasize the single saving lordship of Jesus and preserve a sufficiently high Christology, have done so at the expense of lifting up the role of the Holy Spirit.  Such criticism may be fair to an extent, so the opportunity to follow Pentecost with Trinity Sunday is an invitation to reiterate the role of the Holy Spirit while also emphasizing God’s triune nature. 

The downside is that it is very difficult to explain the Trinity without wandering into one or more heresies that have plagued—or at least vexed—the church for the past two millennia, as the quotes on The Pastor’s Workshop’s Trinity quote page remind us.  This can be intimidating for a preacher and should be acknowledged by anyone who makes such an attempt, but it is not an excuse to shy away from the job.  Thankfully, Jesus himself endeavored to speak of his own relationship to both the Father and the Spirit, and we can safely assert that Jesus is not a heretic.  Moreover, Jesus’s “Great Commission” in Matthew invites us to bring the articulation of the triune God straight into the church’s work and worship, so we know that we can handle a topic of great power and mystery faithfully by staying close to Scripture.  While this summary will stick to the day’s Matthew passage, it is also worth reading John 14-17 in preparation for the sermon to get a refresher on the Lord’s own language in the matter.

It is appropriate that in telling us what to do, Jesus gives us the trinitarian formula for baptism.  Pondering baptism and the Trinity’s role in the life of the church may be enough for a whole sermon, but there are some good contextual implications to consider.  The first is that Jesus pairs the commission to baptize with the charge to make disciples.  He is speaking to his own disciples, of course, but is doing so after his resurrection and presumably before the events of Acts 1, or at least Acts 1:12-26.  Luke presents a different commission in Acts 1:8 (“be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth”) prior to describing the Ascension and the casting of lots for Matthias to replace Judas. 

Going back to Matthew’s commission and Jesus’s charge to make disciples, Matthew explicitly states that there were only eleven disciples present (v16).  As such, with 12 being a biblical number that often represented fullness, the roll of disciples was incomplete.  Thus, there is a sense from Matthew that there is always room for another disciple.  Jesus tells us to go out and make them and baptize them.  Just as football teams refer to the home crowd as their “12th man” (see Texas A&M for perhaps the best honoring of this tradition by bringing in students to wear #12, started by a coach whose last name was Bible), the suggestion is that the next disciple always makes the church more complete.

Matthew points out that some doubted (v17), and since the 11 were noted as present, this is not the same “doubting” that is referred to elsewhere in Scripture when some—even hundreds—saw the resurrected Jesus, but still didn’t believe.  This is doubt among the 11, all of whom we know from history to have been faithful, most to the point of martyrdom.  Since these are Matthew’s last words to us, we can assume that this charge and commission was critical to their faithfulness, as Matthew’s hearers and readers would have known.  While we proclaim that faith is the Spirit’s gift, we also know that as people, we long for something to do, and evidently this charge to “do” by going out and proclaiming the Triune God was crucial in retaining the eleven’s faith.  When Jesus delegated to them his own authority (v18), they apparently went from being uncertain understudies to faithful facilitators, charged to complete the roster of disciples themselves.

Yet it is not they or that next baptized disciple who would bring completeness, but God Himself.  This is where Jesus’s authority, the trinitarian formula, and the magnitude of John 14-17 can help us.  If they were just given a job, the disciples would have likely gone out and perhaps been a bit rash in their evangelism and evaluation of potential disciples, but there were some standards.  Verse 20 is helpful here, because Jesus draws them close to his own commands while assuring them of his—and the Father’s and Spirit’s—presence with them. That presence is naturally embodied by the Spirit now, but it is also Jesus’s and the Father’s presence.  This provides both accountability and encouragement, focus and freedom.  Since we cannot understand either the Spirit or the Father outside of Jesus (see Hebrews 1:1-4 and John 1:1-5), we know that sticking to Jesus means sticking to the Trinity.  Still, we can feel free to go out, knowing that the Spirit leads and the Father authorizes faithful work. 

And perhaps this is the proper way to consider the Trinity, not in metaphysical pondering but in practical following.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not static but active.  Pondering them and their relationship is helpful.  As most commentators have said throughout history, the key to understanding the Trinity is understanding their relationship in love.  Still their relationship is active, and action on this trinitarian articulation is the charge that Jesus has given us.  As with many things in our lives, understanding often comes more through doing than through knowing; and faith grows through experience and not just through knowledge.  We can spend significant and worthwhile time pondering the Trinity, but as one of the protagonist in The Babylon Bee’s The Postmodern Pilgrim’s Progress, Faith, asked when faced with a theological inquiry, “Isn’t it more important to, you know, actually walk the Road than to just study a bunch of facts about it?”

Allen Thompson is senior pastor at Fairview Presbyterian Church in North Augusta, South Carolina.  Allen attended Pittsburgh Seminary (M.Div.) and Fuller Seminary (D.Min.)  His wife, Kelsey, is a Marriage and Family Therapist, and they have two children.

Allen enjoys golf, hiking, camping, cooking pigs, ice climbing, and live music.  He loves to imagine being in the story and culture of the Bible, wondering how we might have responded to God then and how we can follow Jesus now.  As an “ideas” person, Allen is passionate about working with others to find out how God is calling us to use the many gifts and resources the Holy Spirit provides.  

Allen holds a Doctor of Ministry (Fuller Theological Seminary) and a Master of Divinity (Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).