Father, Son and Spirit
Dear People of St. Boniface,
“Trinity” Sunday. Well, you won’t find that word in my letters, or in the whole Bible. And in the context of talking about God, I don’t even use the word “three”. That is all a later development, but I sowed some of the seeds.
I wrote to the Roman Christians from Corinth in 57. Eight years before, the Emperor Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome because of endless disturbances “provoked by Chrestus”, as the historian Suetonius spells him. So some Roman Jews had become Christians, and the others didn’t like it.
Unlike Galatia, where I had brought the Gospel and others had tried to come in and change my message, Christianity already existed in Rome before my arrival. It was very much Jewish flavoured, and, treading carefully, I wrote to them much more respectfully about Jewish practices and traditions than I did to the Galatians. It was wise to be diplomatic.
By the time I was ready to visit, the Roman community had recovered from the expulsion and was flourishing, being joined by many people whom I knew from my missionary travels [Romans 16:3-15]. So my letter was to announce my arrival and introduce my thought.
From their Jewish background they would know that in the later scriptures God promises to send “the Spirit”, to “pour it out”, to “put it in” [e.g. Ezekiel 37:14; Isaiah 44:3]. But what was the Spirit actually going to do? In my lifetime, the teaching was that the Spirit would enable Jews to keep the Law fully, perfectly.
But I saw it differently. The Spirit was going to give us Christ – in fact, make us Christ! We believers need to receive the “Spirit of God”, the “Spirit of Christ” [Romans 8:9-11]. And then we are Christ. He called his Father “Abba!”, and so can we. He is the Son of God, so we are the sons and daughters of God.
It is true I don’t define things too much – it is a great mystery. But you can see the link: Spirit, Christ, Father. Those are the building bricks for the thought of the early Church.
My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.