June letter 2026

image: Daiga Ellaby via unsplash.com

Dear Friends,

Trinity Sunday is 31st May this year, and we will mark it, because it is more important than ever that people understand why we worship the one true God in three persons. The Holy Trinity is the fulness of God. This may be a challenge to wrap your mind around. But there are different ways of getting there.

First, the Bible describes God as three in one.

The baptism of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel describes the voice of God saying ‘This is my Son’ and the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon Jesus: Father, Son and Spirit.

The second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians finishes with this greeting: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Revelation of John (chapter four) pictures the throne of heaven. One is sat on the throne. The Sevenfold (holy) Spirit is immediately in front. Then the Sacrificed Lamb takes his place, standing in the centre of the throne. The throne of heaven is the throne of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is important to see that the Bible describes God as three in one, because some suggest that the trinity emerged later, at the first Christian general council: the Council of Nicea 325AD. But that is wrong. God was described as trinitarian in Jesus’ life time, in the writings of the generation who knew Jesus face-to-face. God the Holy Trinity is not a later invention. It is how the one true God is revealed to those in the New Testament, which was written in the lifetime of the apostles, in the first century AD.

Second, our belief in the Holy Trinity comes from the way God has shown himself to humanity. The Holy Trinity makes sense of how God revealed himself. The trinity is the logical outworking of God’s revelation. God spoke to many different people over the centuries before Christ, but at the start of the years AD he revealed himself personally in Jesus Christ. Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus showed himself to be God. His followers acknowledged him as God and worshipped him. So Jesus is God and his Father in heaven is God. Then, when Jesus prepared to return to heaven, he promised to send the Comforter, his Spirit. God is Jesus, his Father, and his Spirit. The Trinity is how we can make sense of the way God has shown himself to us humans.

Third, on a very basic level, if God is God, we would expect him to be bigger than our minds can conceive. If we had the brains to understand everything about God, we would be His equal. God is much bigger than us. God is much bigger than our minds could conceive. These statements come from acknowledging that God is God. It is not so big a step to describe God as three-in-one. The Trinity may be hard to get our heads around. But it is surely consistent with the right expectation that God is beyond our ken.

You can be confident in your belief in God the Holy Trinity. Come to St Luke’s and celebrate Trinity Sunday on 31st May. Come and proclaim your faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit every Sunday.

Yours in Christ,

Rob