God: Who is He? #2
Notes
Transcript
We continue to day in our topical series on Worship. As we study this topic, I pray that we will grow in our knowledge of God and our love for Him. I pray that we will experience His presence and His grace in our lives. I pray that we will worship Him with all that we are and all that we have. And that we will truly understand what Jesus meant when He said that we are worship God in spirit and truth. (John 4:20-25)
Today's sermon title is God: Who is He? Part 2 It is important to know who God is.
THE FATHER AND THE SON ARE ONE
THE FATHER AND THE SON ARE ONE
In John 10:30 Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”
I and My Father are one.”
That is a claim of absolute equality with God; yet at the same time it is a reaffirmation that there is but one God.
John MacArthur, Worship: The Ultimate Priority (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2012), 74.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul stressed the oneness and equality of the Father and the Son. The Corinthians lived in a pagan society that worshiped many gods. The city was full of idols, and those who worshiped these false gods would offer food to them. The idol priests ran food stands, where they sold the leftover food that had been given to the idols. Some Christians were buying that food, maybe because it was cheaper than the food at regular markets.
Christians who had been saved out of pagan worship were disturbed about those who were eating food that had been offered to idols. They would go over for dinner and then refuse to eat if they found out the food had come from idol offerings. It was causing serious problems in their fellowship, and Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 8 to tell them how to resolve the issue. Verse 4 sums up his teaching:
Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
An idol isn’t anything. If food offered to idols is the best bargain in town, get it. Eat it. It isn’t going to make a bit of difference, spiritually. An idol is nothing. And there is no other God but one.
Paul continues,
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords),
yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
How can all things be by God, the Father, and all things be by the Lord Jesus, and we exist through God and we exist through the Lord Jesus?
This may look like a confusing paradox at first, but Paul is clearly showing that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are united, co-equal and co-eternal the Father and the Son are one. It is a further affirmation of the complete divinity of Jesus Christ without splitting God into pieces.
THE FATHER AND THE SPIRIT ARE ONE
THE FATHER AND THE SPIRIT ARE ONE
We find in Acts 5:3 that The Holy Spirit is clearly named as God. Peter told Ananias, “Why did you let Satan fill your heart and make you lie to the Holy Spirit and keep some of the money from the land?” (Acts 5:3
But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?
Then he made it plain in the next verse: “You did not lie to people but to God.”
While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”
This means that lying to the Holy Spirit is the same as lying to God, so the Holy Spirit must be God. 1Cor3:16; confirms this
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
“Don’t you know that you are God’s temple?” And it proves it by saying, “God’s Spirit lives in you.”
In chapter 6 this point is further stressed. Verse 19 says
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
And verse 20 urges, “so honor God with your body.”
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
This shows that the Holy Spirit is equal to God. Many other verses (in fact, the whole teaching of the New Testament) support this truth: the Holy Spirit is God.
GOD IS A TRINITY
GOD IS A TRINITY
How can we reconcile the fact that Scripture teaches that the Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is but one God? All those truths are clearly taught in the Scriptures repeatedly.
The answer, of course, is the doctrine of the Trinity. God is three distinct persons in one indivisible substance. Another way to say that is that God is a unity of three different persons who share the same unbreakable essence.
The Trinity doctrine came about because it best fit the whole picture of the Bible’s testimony to who God is. The Bible plainly states that there is no other God besides Him (Deut 6:4; Isa 42:8; Jas 2:19).
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!
I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.
You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!
God is One and yet...
The Bible just as clearly teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. Each of them do things only God can do and receive the worship due to God alone.
These three persons are not separate pieces of God, nor are they just different roles that he plays depending on the situation or purpose. Some scholars have identified the persons as Creator (Father), Redeemer (Son), and Sanctifier (Holy Spirit), and these labels can be helpful in some ways—but actually all three persons share the same authority, attributes and work as God.
Because each person of the Trinity is fully God, they share the same purpose and activity, but the ways they think and act are distinctive to each.
Let us continue in scripture as see more evidence to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The word for God in Genesis 1 is “Elohim.” It is plural. The im ending on a noun in Hebrew is like s in English.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The opening words of Genesis could be translated “In the beginning, Gods” The word-form of the noun is plural and yet the reference is to a singular Being. Because of the Hebrew grammar within the sentence. The description of God throughout the Old Testament is clearly a singular concept. The verb that goes with Elohim in Genesis 1:1 is likewise singular.
The seraphim Isaiah saw and described in Isaiah 6:3 cried to one another with this threefold exclamation: “Holy, Holy, Holy” (v. 3). Again, it seems to be an allusion to the Trinitarian nature of God.
And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”
One of the clearest Old Testament references to the Trinity is Isaiah 48:16 a prophetic verse spoken by Jesus Christ. It puts all three members of the godhead together in one verse: “And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”
“Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit Have sent Me.”
Repeatedly the New Testament refers to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together in the same passage, on the same level.
In Matthew 3:17 we are told that as Jesus was being baptized, the Holy Spirit descended as a dove, and the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (v. 17).
And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
In John 14:16–17 Jesus says,
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
Jesus told His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” Matthew 28:19
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
In 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 the apostle Paul says,
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.
The final verse of 2 Corinthians 13:14, says
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
God is one, yet He is three. This is a profound mystery that no one can fully understand or explain, but it doesn’t affect my trust in God or my belief that He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God’s revelation of Himself as the Trinity shows us that He is beyond our full understanding. Anything I say about God is only a tiny fraction of His infinite glory, like a speck of dust compared to all the grains of dirt on earth and all the worlds He created. To grasp God, we would have to be as smart as He is, but He is incomparable and He rebukes anyone who dares to challenge His wisdom (Job 40:6–41:34).
Heretics over the centuries have tried to explain the Trinity in several ways. Sabellius, who was a third-century Christian theologian, taught that at times God appears as the Holy Spirit, at other times as the Son, and other times as the Father—just one person, with three manifestations. But the Bible does not support that. And as we have seen, at Jesus’ baptism all three Persons of the Trinity were manifested at once. God is one and yet He is three at the very same time.
Preachers have tried to explain the Trinity with illustrations, I myself have fallen into this trap, saying that God is like an egg with the yolk, the white, and the shell; or like water, which can be ice, liquid, or vapor; or like light, which can illuminate, warm, and produce energy. But all those illustrations fall short. God is not like anything. There is not a light bulb or an egg or a chunk of ice or a ball of doe in the world like Him.
The Trinity is one of those truths that is just too great for the human mind. It can only frustrate those who pursue it intellectually.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?”
God has, however, allowed us a glimpse of Himself, but we cannot hope to understand Him in His fullness. We must simply and confidently believe who He is based on what He has revealed about Himself.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
We must worship the true God as He really is.
Worship is not pleasing to God if it is aimed at a false god, no matter how sincere or beautiful or well-intentioned it may be.
There is no need to erect an altar to “the unknown god,” because God has made Himself knowable. He has revealed Himself to us specifically in His Word.
He is a person, and we can have a personal relationship with Him.
He is a spirit, and we can connect with Him in our innermost being.
He is one, and there is no rival to Him among other gods.
He is a Trinity, working together for our salvation.
And He is a rewarder of those who come to Him in faith.
If we want our worship to be genuine, to be acceptable, we must try to understand God as He has made Himself known to us. Knowing God personally is perhaps the best reason to worship Him with all that we are. When we see God as He is, our reaction has to be to praise Him, to honor Him by giving Him all the glory for who He is and what He does for us.
True worship begins with what you do with Jesus.
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Romans 10:9–10 “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Romans 10:13 “For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.””