Scripture and the Trinity
Sermon preached on Sunday, January 4, 2026 by Dn. James Wilcox
Scripture Readings: 2 Tim 4:5-8; Mark 1:1–8
During our celebration of the Nativity over the past few weeks we heard from the Gospel lessons according to Matthew and Luke. And in each case, these lessons came from their opening chapters. Today, on the cusp of Theophany we hear from the opening chapter of the Gospel of Mark. As Mark's Gospel was the first of the four to be written, his opening verses stand as the oldest, and first recorded words in the entirety of our Gospel accounts. And, to reiterate, it reads as follows:
"The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets, 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness…"
Now, as Mark's goal is to introduce us to who Jesus is, he chooses to ground his opening statement of in the reality of Holy Scripture, or at least the Holy Scriptures known to him at the time—what would call today, the Old Testament. If we recall, there was no New Testament to speak of at the time he was writing. which was around the year 50AD. What is more, Mark probably had no idea his words would eventually become canonical Scripture. He was simply making an honest attempt to explain Christ through the lens of the Old Testament, or what were to him, the Hebrew Scriptures. This is why he begins by invoking the prophets of old.
It is important to recognize also that Mark wasn't trying to get back to the original source material, or the quote/unquote "original text" of Scripture, which is a common interpretive method in practice today. Mark was simply engaging the Old Testament texts to explain the reality of Christ as Messiah to his audience at the time. And therefore he writes: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets…"! And from here, Mark carries us forward into the the arrival of John the Baptist, as interpreted through the prophets Isaiah and Malachi—two Old Testament prophets.
Now, I mention this notion of getting back to the "original source material" because It is almost second nature for us to think that whatever was originally written, or whatever was originally intended when the author wrote the text, must be the ordinary and plain meaning. And therefore, whatever was originally written in that text should become the starting point for our interpretation of that text. This isn't a bad way to examine historical texts, of course, but it doesn't work that way when it comes to the Orthodox Church and her engagement with Holy Scripture. We must always remember that it is not the text itself that forms our beginning point, but that of Jesus Christ from whom we MUST always make our start.
As an example, in John Chapter 5, Jesus is in an altercation with the Jewish people over a healing He performed on the Sabbath. This is not permitted according to the plain text of the Hebrew Scriptures. But Jesus says to says to them: "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf…If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me."
Luke 24 says likewise: "…beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures." In this example from Luke, the Disciples had their eyes opened to the reality of Christ IN the Scriptures by way of Jesus Christ Himself. It is not the other way around. The Disciples weren't first enlightened by reading Scripture and then somehow recognizing a crucified and risen Messiah. They would never have been able to do so because the Old Testament texts never spell out any notion of a coming Messiah who would be put to death by His people, only to rise from the dead three days later. Their understanding of Jesus AS Messiah only came about by the direct experience and encounter with the risen Christ. And likewise, our eyes too can be opened to understand the meaning of Scripture, as enlightened through Christ just like the Disciples in Luke 24.
Now with respect to today's Gospel reading and our being on the cusp of Theophany, allow me to present a different example of this concept. We in the Orthodox Church are radically Trinitarian! The feast we are near to celebrating is one of the first revelations of Trinity laid bare before all of humankind. But it's important to know that the word Trinity is found nowhere in Scripture. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all present and together in Scripture, but there is no doctrinal definition of the Triune God. "One in essence and undivided," is not a biblical phrase, in fact, but a definition arrived upon through the difficult work of many Church councils. If our methodology was to simply return to the original source material in the Bible, to muster an understanding the Triune nature of God, we'd have to throw out Trinitarian doctrine entirely, because it is simply not there. And, to be frank, this IS a growing take on the Trinity with some online personalities today. Among certain academics in religious circles, I've heard it suggested that the Trinity was simply "made up," by Christians in the 4th Century. I would personally offer that this is a reductionistic take on the work put fourth by our Church Fathers & Mothers who fought to codify further revelation of the Triune nature of God over time.
But more to the point, if we are on a quest for origins or an "original meaning" only, we ignore the active work of the Holy Spirit in our Church to help define the essential doctrines that direct us toward our salvation in Jesus Christ. If God is not Triune, then everything the Orthodox Church has understood about our salvation comes undone. But because this indescribable mystery HAS been revealed and announced to the cosmos, as seen at Christ's baptism in the Jordan, we know that in and through Jesus Christ — who is our starting point— that our salvation is at hand.
"Orthodoxy does not only know a Christ of words," writes Fr Dumitru Stăniloae, "but one who loving the Father through the Holy Spirit, communicates the love of the Holy Trinity to believers. Orthodoxy helps believers grow in holiness through ascetic practices so that they might sanctify themselves through the power of the Trinity, in which they live even while on earth, growing in the kingdom of love without end."