SS Philip and James
John 14:1-11
Trinitarian Christianity
We commemorate two apostles today, St. Philip and St. James. Philip elicited from Jesus some statements having to do with mansions in Heaven and His deity. They are recorded in our Gospel passage in John 14. We will study James at another time.
Actually, there are two Philips in the New Testament; the disciple, and the deacon. The disciple, one of the Twelve, is our subject. Phillip was the third disciple Jesus called to follow Him. Andrew was first, and Andrew brought number two, Peter. The next day Jesus ran into Philip and said, “Follow Me” (John 1:43), and he did. He dropped everything to be with Jesus, Andrew and Peter. Philip then went and told his good friend Bartholomew (Nathaniel), “Come… We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Bartholomew joined them as well.
Philip stands out several times in the Gospels. You will remember that Jesus asked Philip where they could buy bread to feed 5,000 hungry men (John 6:5-7), not to mention the thousands of women and children. Philip said, “there is no place to buy that much food around here, and even if there were, we don’t have enough money.” Jesus fed the multitude anyway. The symbol on the front of the bulletin is Philip’s. The two loaves refer to his part in the multiplication of bread on that day.
Next, a group of Greek God-fearers attempted to get an audience with the Lord (John 12:20 ff.). They approached Philip to arrange it. This was an awkward situation: Gentiles to see Jesus? The Lord had already made it clear that His ministry was first to the House of Israel. Philip seemed to waver, but after talking it over with Andrew, the two went to the Lord on behalf of the Greeks.
Philip also interjected himself into the farewell address of Jesus. John is the writer who gives the fullest account of that departing speech. Some of the best teaching of Jesus comes from it. On Maundy Thursday Jesus washed the feet of the disciples and He instituted the Lord’s Supper. Then Judas skulked out of the room to contact the Jewish leaders. In return for thirty pieces of silver he would show them whre to arrest Jesus. The Lord remained in the upper room with the faithfull eleven and launched a lengthy discourse. It is called His farewell address; He knew He would die the next day. This discourse begins at John 13:31 and concludes at John 17:26, about four chapters. Many of the biblical prophets and patriarchs gave similar speeches. Jacob proclaimed his last words in Genesis 49. Moses uttered a departing address in Deuteronomy 31-34.
Our text today, John 14:1-11 is part of Christ’ farewell discourse. Toward the beginning, Jesus, surrounded by His most intimate friends, comforted them, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you…” This statement speaks to the mansionization of Heaven. Some commentators think that the mansions have nothing to do with material buildings. They hold that the preparation of mansions that Jesus does is merely a symbol for heaven, or a metaphor for the Second Coming. Those things may be true, but why limit this teaching to a mere metaphor? Could those mansions not be literal places that the redeemed will inhabit after the Final Judgment? To spend eternity in a physical place called the New Heavens and New Earth would hardly contradict the notion of mansions scattered over the global garden. It is reality we can look forward to.
Then Jesus made a statement that Christians around the globe memorize: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me…” This sentence has motivated evangelism and Christian mission for centuries. Jesus is saying that He is, to the exclusion of everyone and everything else, the way, the truth, and the life. Access to the Father’s presence in Heaven is through Him and no other. For that reason many miss salvation. Jesus ruled out universalism, the notion that every single person goes to Heaven.
In general our age views many ways leading up the mountain to God. There are about three or four trails to the summit of Mount Baldy, the big snow-capped mountain we see while driving around Orange County, at least when the air is clear. Some of the paths going to the top are steep and hazardous; others more smooth and steady, but they all get you there, if you have enough stamina. That is how modern man views religion. Judaism is one trail to God, Islam offers another path, Hinduism another, Christianity has a path too, as well as Taoism, Mormonism and all the rest. There are different routes, yet many of them, if not all of them, get you to the goal, which is God, salvation, Heaven, Nirvana, or eternal life. But such a picture is contrary to the Gospel of Christ. Jesus does not merely point the way to the Father, He is the Way. He does not just teach us truth, He is the Truth. He does not represent one avenue to Life, He is the Life. This is an exclusive claim that we are tempted to compromize in our religiously pluralistic culture, but we can’t. It is too clear. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but by Me” (14:6).
Jesus continues: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father…” Philip piped up at this point: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Philip probably wanted to see some kind of theophany, perhaps the dazzling Glory-Cloud. Jesus responded, “Philip, he that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9). In other words, “Philip, I am fully human, and simultaneously fully divine. The divine life of God the Father resides in Me in such a way that I am One with God. He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” Based on statements like this the Holy Spirit guided the Church to formulate the divine nature of Jesus Christ. In the divine nature of Christ there is no subordination to God the Father. They are of the same substance and essence. Philip’s comment caused Jesus to state this plainly.
Jesus’ claim, “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father” arises from the truth that God is One God who exists eternally in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is that Second Person, God the Son. All three Persons are the same in substance, equal in power and glory; and yet all three are distinct, eternal persons. This is God’s nature; He has always existed as three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and always will. And since God is truly Three Persons, He is a community of holy, undivided fellowship.
When Athanasius battled the Arians in the Fourth Century he used to great advantage Jesus’ response to Philip. Arias, the subordinationist, the opponent of Trinitarian doctrine, claimed that Jesus was less than God, a created being. “There was a time when he was not,” Arius repeated. Our modern-day Arians are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Holy Spirit led the Council of Nicea to side with Athanasius. Later Church councils would formulate the deity of the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed accurately reflect the Bible’s teaching on this.
Do we take for granted the doctrine of the Trinity? In an age when objective truth is little appreciated, some may be tempted to think, why keep the Trinity? Wouldn’t our worship and thinking and living be the same if we were to drop that doctrine? No. Everything would change, and change for the worse. How? Without the notion that Three Divine Persons exist eternally as One God our idea of god would become cold, abstract, and impersonal. In unitarianism, the unitarian god loses personality. For God to have a personality at all implies that He experiences relationships within Himself. The Trinity acknowledges that the Three Persons of the Godhead are personal and have relationships. Unitarianism turns god into an impersonal force, an abstraction, an idea.
Polytheism is no better. Polytheism is a multitude of gods. The ancient Greeks, and many animistic tribes set up dozens of gods to venerate. In their system no god can be absolutely sovereign or ultimate. Inevitably, polytheism results in rivalries among the gods. In the end, all of them must be subject to some ultimate defining principle. This means that the impersonal is ultimate and we end with the same problem as before. It is only in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that these pitfalls are successfully avoided. [For some of these insights see Steve Wilkin’s article in The Federal Vision, “Covenant, Baptism and Salvation.” pp. 47 ff.]
The Trinity is foundational for many areas of life and thought. R. J. Rushdoony saw the Trinity making a philosophical breakthrough. In his book, The One and the Many, he mentions nominalism and realism as competing philosophical systems. Realism stresses the one, and nominalism the many. Eastern thought gravitates toward the one; Western thought toward the many. Realism sides for oneness, that ultimate reality resides in the one; nominalism is the system that emphasizes the many, that ultimate reality resides in the parts and particulars. Rushdoony explains the problem like this, “Nominalism ends by dissolving the world into an endless sea of unrelated and meaningless facts or particulars, whereas realism progressively denies the validity of particulars, of the many, and absorbs them into an undifferentiated and shoreless ocean of being. At either end, definition, meaning, and truth disappear; at one end total relativism and anarchy, and, at the other, total authoritarianism.” [Close quote.]
Some of you will understand this vocabulary better than I do. But I can at least grasp the idea that, if Rushdoony is correct, the one, that is, belief in a unitarian god, eventually leads to a world of totalitarian and obliterating unity. On the other hand, the many, that is, belief in the many, a multiplicity of gods, leads eventually to a world of anarchistic atoms or particulars. So the problem has to do with avoiding either anarchy on the one hand or socialism and communism on the other. The doctrine of the ontological Trinity offers an answer: both the one and the many are equally ultimate in the Triune God. The one does not cancel out the many nor does the many cancel out the one, for they are equally ultimate concepts. Western Civilization rests on this trinitarian assumption. If the Trinity is abandoned, then society will either move toward a radical libertarianism and anarchy which reflects the many; or society will move toward a socialistic totalitarianism, which reflects the one. This is merely one implication of the doctrine of the Trinity. There are probably many others.
Think of the positive impact of Christianity. A good historian could probably connect the dots between the Trinity and the contributions of Christian civilization. True, Christianity has had its sins: the inquisition, anti-Semitism, the Salem Witch trials, the televangelists. But the accomplishments far outweigh the sins. Let’s list a few:
The establishment of hospitals and universities.
Literacy and education given to the masses, not merely to an elite.
The emergence of capitalism and entrepreneurship.
Representative government.
The abolition of slavery.
The advent of modern science.
The discovery of the New World and the civilizing of barbarian and primitive cultures. The elevation of women.
The formation of benevolence and charitable works to help the poor, the helpless.
The stigmatization of incest, beastiality and sodomy.
The high regard for human life.
The setting to writing of many of the world’s languages.
The development of art, architecture and music.
The transformed lives.
The list could go on. Is it a coincidence that the greatest blessings the world has enjoyed came from Trinitarian Christianity? No. It is no coincidence. Other religions may have been able to create a few of these developments, but not the whole package. Jesus Christ made the difference in the world; not Jesus the prophet, not Christ a created being, not Christ subordinate to the Father, but the Lord Jesus Christ, “God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God…” That is the Jesus that turned the world upside down. He is the way, the truth and the life. So let us treasure the trinitarianism of our creeds, our baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let us prize the trinity implicit in many of our ceremonies. The Prayer Book liturgy is saturated with trinitarianism. And the Lord Himself told us in the Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
Let us pray.
