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"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me, My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him" (Psalm 28:7).

In recent months, a mainline denomination decided that the name of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was too old fashion and bias. They came up with a number of titles, most all of which reflected a post-modern, multicultural, sexist society (1). Needless to say, and rightly so, it drew criticism from Bible believers. How we see God is so important. While we might complain about what others may do, churches of Christ have chosen a more deistic approach; God started the universe, sent Jesus to save us, gave His Holy Spirit to provide scripture, and now the Trinity is in heaven watching while we are on earth with only scripture to aid us. That has been the dominant view in the church but it is changing. Many are recognizing that God is indeed active in His creation. He desires to be in fellowship with His people. When we read through scripture, we see heaven and earth meeting, indicating God’s desire (2). This can be seen with the pillars of fire and cloud, at Mt. Sinai when God comes in a dark cloud, to Job when God speaks out of the storm, at the Temple dedication with Solomon, illustrated with Isaiah (chapter 6), and with Jesus coming into this world.

We sing songs reflecting who God is and His desires to be involved with us. One such song is the title of this article (3). It addresses the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though the concept is difficult, if not mysterious, to understand. Let’s take a look at this powerful song.

"Wonderful, merciful Savior, precious Redeemer and Friend

Who would have thought that a Lamb could rescue the souls of men?"

The first verse is a description of Jesus. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). What we see in the first seven words is a powerful description of Jesus and His activity. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve but rather, because of His divine activity, He has redeemed us. He paid the price for our salvation. God has always been merciful and in fact was known to Israel by that description: "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). The Redeemer becomes the Friend. We are told that Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners and we should follow that example. But more than that, He is our Friend. "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear."

We also see Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God. John the baptizer pointed that out when he said, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29)! In the picture of heavenly worship in Revelation four and five, again we see the image of the Lamb. "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God members of every tribe and language and people and nation" (5:9). That was the new song sung in the presence of God.

Our song asks the question, "Who would have thought?" Paul wrote about the shame and foolishness of such an idea, yet this was God’s way (1 Corinthians 1:18-31). People do not want to come face to face with their own sins. They want a politically correct Jesus who demands nothing and appeases their sins and accepts a universal theory that all will be saved no matter what they believe. Sin is redefined to accept what is evil and call what is good evil. Even as Christians, we do not want to face our own sins. David prayed about that in Psalm 139. "You have searched me, Lord and you know me" (vs. 1). "Search me, God, and know my heart" (vs. 23). The first is the recognition of what God has done, the second a request for the painful revealing of our hearts to ourselves. Most of us would admit that there are just some things I rather not know, knowing that we have offensive things that need to be dealt with by God, but would rather keep them buried than to confront them. Looking at the slain Lamb on the Cross as a sin offering challenges us to consider what sins of mine He bore there. Coming to grips could free us from the burden we carry (see Matthew 10:28-30).

"Counselor, Comforter, Keeper, Spirit we long to embrace.

This verse concerns the Holy Spirit especially from John 14 through 16 and Romans 8. The Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. The idea could be like earnest money on a house or an engagement ring promising marriage to follow. God has not left us alone unlike the deistic point of view attempts to prove (4). When we read John 14 through 16, the question that arise are: was the Spirit for the apostles only or was He for all of us? When we see Paul especially discuss the Spirit, it is clear that God has given us His Spirit to comfort and guide us. I don’t claim to understand all of this but by faith accept it. We just cannot survive without God’s personal active role in our lives. God wants a redemptive fellowship with us and another way that heaven and earth meet is through the Spirit (5). To deny the Spirit’s role is to quench the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). We need all the help we can get in our wilderness journey. As in the days of Moses, God was with His people in the pillars of fire and cloud for forty years, He is with us today through His Spirit who has been poured out in our hearts (Romans 5:5).

"Almighty infinite Father, faithfully loving Your own.

So we sing of the Father completing the Trinity. God is eternal or infinite and loves His creation. From before the world was created God planned for rescue (see 1 Peter 1:18-20). God is King! "Here in our weakness" is the realization that we are helpless. We must depend upon the actions of God, looking at what He does as redemptive love. The attitude of some is that because God is unseen, He really doesn’t exist. Fredrick Nietzsche stated that God was dead, that is, irrelevant. Many have taken that further to deny that God exists at all. We are alone in the universe or there is a hope that there are some other beings "out there" that will discover us. The primary idea is that man is an accident, man is an animal, and that only the strong survive. Weakness is seen as pitiful. According to Nietzsche, Jesus was the most pitiful man in scripture because of His advocating service and Pilate the most admirable.

It is in weakness that we learn to trust and in humility that we fall down and worship God. It is the humble that approach God and fall down in praise and worship. There is a recognition that left to my own actions, I will do nothing but make a mess of things. We need our infinite Father whose love carries us through any and all circumstances (Romans 8:31-39). Our worship is a recognition of our need for God. When we come before God, it is to show our dependence on Him. Too often, we look at worship in a legalistic fashion, performing "the five acts of worship," completing our obedience, showing God how good we are in doing those things. That misses the point all together. The heart of worship is humility, realizing that we have little or nothing to offer to the Almighty King of the universe except ourselves in all our weaknesses.

Keep in mind that weakness is an important theme in the New Testament, and so it should be. Sheep without a shepherd was a statement of Jesus’ several times. It was the weak who came seeking help, the blind, lame, and pained. Paul tells us to "help the weak" and the Hebrew writer tells us to clear the paths for the weak. Yet we have chosen to call the weak unfaithful because they do not do what we, the strong do. How much have we missed the attitude of Jesus!

"You are the One that we praise, You are the One we adore,

We praise God because He knows what we need. Grace is God giving us what we need not what we deserve. We adore Him for all that He is: from Rock and Fortress to the Holy God to our Father in heaven. He, and He alone, brings healing to our hurting hearts, hearts that hunger for such comfort (Psalm 34:18).

God is with us always. I always like the poem about the foot prints in the sand. At the beginning of the poem, the author describes two sets of foot prints walking along the beach, God and me. Then life turns difficult. It could be from sickness or persecution or anxiety. The author sees one set of foot prints and complains, asking, "where was God?" It appears that He deserted him in his time of struggle. Then two sets appear again so the author asks God where he was during that time. God answers that the one set of foot prints he saw was God’s, not his. It was God who was carrying or bearing him along through the struggle.

This song praises God from the Mighty God He is to the loving Father we need. For such a brief song it captures great meanings for us.

George B. Mearns

(1) Some of the names offered were "Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb," "Rock, Redeemer and Friend," Rainbow, Ark and Dove," "Speaker, Word and Breath," "Overflowing Font, Living Water and Flowing River," "Sun, Light and Burning Ray," "Giver, Gift and Giving," "Lover, Beloved and Love," "Rock, Cornerstone and Temple," and "Fire that Consumes, Sword that Divides and Storm that Melts Mountains." "Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a "Name That Trinity" contest. Entries included "Rock, scissors and paper" and "Larry, Curly and Moe"" (Charlotte Allen, LA Times, 7/9/06).

(2) N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, Harper, 2006.

(3) Robert J. Taylor, Praise Hymnal, Taylor Publications, Montgomery, Texas, 2005, p. 175.

(4) John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine, Kingdom Come, Leafwood, Abliene, Texas, 2006. I will review this book soon but it shows that while the view that the Spirit dwells in the Christian through the word has been the dominant view, it wasn’t the only view in our Restoration past. Both David Lipscomb and James Harding advocated the Spirit was given to help and comfort us directly.

(5) see 1 Corinthians 6:19-21; Ephesians 1:13-14; 2:11-22; Titus 3:3-8 among others.