'Trinity' is a concept that is beyond human understanding, and so human beings could not have made it up. But we know it because it has been revealed to us by God in the Bible. The word itself is not used in the Bible, but its reality and operation are seen all over the Bible. But since it is a spiritual concept not amenable to physical interpretation, no representation that people have devised, including the one above (from Felix Just), is a complete representation of the facts as we understand them! But we use the above picture in order to understand the concept of authority and submission within the Trinity.
In simple terms, Trinity refers to the one and only God revealing Himself as three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These three Persons are equally God, and there is no intrinsic difference among them or any gradation of value, worth or power. Yet they work together in perfect harmony, having instituted among themselves a certain order of authority related to the different roles they carry out.
The Son is not really a physical son of the Father, but rather one who has been 'designated' as one by the Father (Psa.2:7;Acts.13:33). We can guess that this was done in order to teach us something about Father-Son relationship when, in the fullness of time, God was going to bring out a Father-child relationship between Him and us.
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force but a Person equal in every way to the Father and the Son with all the attributes of personality that we can connect with the other two.
Following a certain order of 'authority' among them, while the Son was on earth as a Man, He submitted to the Father praying to Him and doing His will, and the Holy Spirit does not do His own will now but seeks always to glorify the Son.
We can take two examples from the Bible of how the three Persons work. The first was at creation. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Gen.1:1-3).
Even though Christians are used to saying that God just spoke and it got done automatically, a detailed look at how it was done shows us the scenario where the Father announced what was to be done, and the Son executed it with the power of the Holy Spirit. That the execution was not automatic but carried out by the Son can be seen from the alternative name of the Son as the 'Word' (Jn.1:1) and the statement that "apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (v.3;Col.1:16)). The presence of the third Person of the Trinity, the Spirit of God, is also seen in Gen.1:2. This is not to deny that God spoke and it was done, but only to expand the description of how exactly it got done.
The other example is in the plan of salvation. God the Father sent the Son to the earth to die for the sins of people and to be their Saviour. The Son submitted to the Father, lived the whole time on earth in total dependence on the Father, and did the Father's will at all times denying His own will, up to laying down His life on the cross. After the Father raised Him up from the dead, He returned to the Father and then the Father sent the Holy Spirit into the world to be in the place of the Son. Now the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of people who are saved and exalts the Son in their lives.
In the above examples we see the three Persons of the Trinity taking on different roles and corresponding responsibilities, and a demarcation of authority automatically coming into the picture. We see the Father taking on the top position, with the Son submitting to Him by doing what the Father directed Him to, and the Holy Spirit assisting the Son in the execution of the task.
This is very instructive for us when we place these facts side by side with the fact that the three Persons are still equal in terms of their being God and not having any disparity of inherent value among them. So, authority is seen not as an expression of superiority over inferiority but as a means to get things done in an orderly fashion.
It is good to realise that our authority is bound to the areas of responsibility we have. As people, our individual responsibilities differ from one another, and our areas of authority cannot go outside or beyond those areas of responsibility.
Parents have responsibility over their own children, and they have no right to discipline their neighbour's children. We cannot exercise authority outside the boundaries of our responsibility, and when we don't take up our responsibility in any area we lose in effect the right to exercise authority there.
On the other hand, the better we carry out our responsibilities, the more we earn the right to exercise authority. Then we exercise our authority with the goal of fulfilling our responsibilities to the maximum in the interest of the people over whom we have the responsibility.
In reverse, if someone has great authority in one place it does not automatically grant him that authority when he goes to other places. A CEO in a company does not automatically gain any prominence in the church, and a newly converted movie-star does not have enough spiritual understanding and discernment to start giving sermons in the church!
Because of our fallen nature and the resulting craving for recognition and affirmation, people look for opportunities to be seen as greater, better and more important than others. As a result, authority is seen many times as an opportunity to acquire that sense of significance. Then it gets misused, and the responsibility for which the authority was given gets neglected.
Our fallen nature contributes a lot of imperfection in every area of life including authority and submission. This shows up both in the way we exercise authority and the way we submit to authority. But let us learn from the perfect example of the Trinity in the way the three Persons in the godhead relate to one another in perfect harmony and respect for one another while recognising authority lines and carrying out their specific responsibilities.
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