Article 2.A God The Father (Trinity)

“God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

“God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

Memory Verse

Matthew 6:26 ESV

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

“Look at the birds of the sky: they don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?”

Notes

How Can God be three Persons, yet one God?

Trinity defined: God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is Progressively Revealed in Scripture

Partial Revelation in the Old Testament.

The word Trinity is never found in the Bible, though the idea represented by the word is taught in many places.

Trinity means “Tri-Unity” or “Three-in-oneness”

It is used to summarize the teaching of Scripture that God is three persons yet one God.

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Here is our first example of a plurality with God, we do not yet know how many the “us” represents.

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Isiah 6:8 “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Notice the use of singular and plural in the same sentence, both referring to God.

Some passages call a person “God” or “the Lord” and is distinguished from another person who is also said to be “God”

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever…. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”

The Psalmist clearly states that one of the people referred to as God will have a throne that lasts for ever and ever. In the New Testament applies this to Christ.

“The Lord says to my lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Jesus interprets this in that there are two separate persons being referred to as Lord.

Even without the New Testament we still see that David recognized a plurality to God.

says that God’s people “rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.”

This shows us that the Holy Spirit is both distinct from God himself, and that this Holy Spirit can be “grieved,” thus suggesting emotional capabilities characteristic of a distinct person.

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More Complete Revelation of the Trinity In the New Testament

We have verses clearly depicting all three persons of the trinity in the New Testament.

When Jesus was baptized, “the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven , saying ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’”

We have God the Father speaking from heaven

We have God the Son being baptized

We have God the Holy Spirit descending from heaven to rest upon and empower Jesus for his ministry.

at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he tells the disciples that they should go “and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The usage of “Father” and “Son” indicated very strongly the distinct personhood of both the Father and the Son.

The “Holy Spirit” is put on the same level as the other two, showing he is a person and of equal standing with the Father and the Son.

The New testament authors generally use the name “God” to refer to the Father, “Lord” to refer to the Son, and “Spirit” to refer to the Holy Spirit.

is understood as a Trinitarian statement. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.”

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

In both of these verses we see the three persons mentioned separately.

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Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching

God is three persons.

Each Person is Fully God.

There is one God.

God is Three Persons

The statement that they are three persons means:

the Father is not the Son.

The Son is not the Holy Spirit.

The Father is not the Holy Spirit.

They are each distinct persons.

Scripture shows us the distinction in “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

“Word” is later clarified as Christ

“God” is understood as Father.

Jesus continues as our High Priest and Advocate before God the Father.

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Jesus and the Father are not the Holy Spirit.

“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

the Holy Spirit Prays for us

Several passages about the great commission highlight that the Father and Jesus are not the Holy Spirit.

We see Jesus returning to Heaven and sending the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not simply a force. He is defined as having a distinct relationship as a person within the trinity.

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The masculine pronoun “He” is given to the Holy Spirit

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Personal activities are ascribed to the Holy Spirit

Teaching ()

Bearing Witness (; )

Interceding or praying on behalf of others. ()

Searching the depths of God. ()

Knowing the thoughts of God. ()

Willing to distribute some gifts to some and other gifts to others. ()

Forbidding or not allowing certain activities. ()

Speaking (; ; and many times in both the OT and NT)

Evaluating and approving a wise course of action. ()

Being grieved by sin in the lives of Christians. ()

If The Holy Spirit were simply the power of God, certain verses would no longer make sense.

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” would mean “God anointed Jesus with the power of God and with power.”

Apply this idea to ;

Each Person is Fully God

In addition to the fact that all three persons are distinct, the abundant testimony of Scripture is that each person is fully God as well.

First, God the Father is clearly God.

This is evident from the first verse of the Bible.

In the Old and New Testament God the Father is clearly viewed as sovereign Lord over all, and when Jesus prayed, He prayed to his Father in heaven.

Next, the Son is Fully God

clearly affirms the full deity of Christ. He is said to have been “with God” in the beginning, and that he “was God.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses deny this claim. They translate as “the Word was a god” instead of “the Word was God.”

They claim this is the proper translation because the Greek definite article “ho,” which is the equivalent of “The” in English, does not exist in the Greek. This is true.

What they do not admit is that the regular rule of Greek grammar states, “The absence of the definite article indicates that the noun is the predicate rather than the subject of the sentence.”

So a proper understanding of Greek Grammar defends the claim that this is a statement of deity for Jesus.

Thomas refers to Jesus as “my God.”

makes an explicit claim to Christ’s deity as well.

Even Old Testament prophecy refers to Christ as “God.”

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God.’”

Finally, The Holy Spirit is also Fully God.

Once we understand that God the Father and God the Son are both Fully God, then Trinitarian expressions in the New Testament like assume the deity of the Holy Spirit as well, since the Holy Spirit is included with equal status as the Father and the Son.

Verses explicitly refer to the Holy Spirit as God.

, Peter asks Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…? You have not lied to men but to God.”

Paul teaches us that we are God’s Temple now, and God’s Spirit dwells in us. The temple is where God himself dwells, and if God’s spirit dwells there, it is a claim that He is God.

Paul attributes divine attributes of God to the Holy Spirit.

he attributes Omniscience, or the “all knowing” power of God to the Holy Spirit.

There is One God.

Scripture is abundantly clear that there is one and only one God. The three different personas of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and in agreement on what they think, but they are one in essence, one in their essential nature.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.:

Isaiah45:5-6 “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I gird you, though you do not know me, that men may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.”

Simplistic Solutions Must All Deny One Strand of biblical Teaching

We have three statements affirmed by Scripture

God is three persons

Each Person is fully God

There is one God

If we deny the first statement, we have the Heresy of Modalism.

Examples of this are that God is like a man who at times is a Father, a lawyer, and a Son.

This leaves us incomplete. If this is true, then who did Jesus pray to? If God was on earth as Jesus, who was in heaven? If Jesus was literally the only person of the trinity, then did God die on the Cross?

If we deny the second statement, we have the Heresy of Arianism, that taught that Jesus was created by God, not God himself.

The problem with that, is that if Jesus was just a creature, and not God, then how could he have been the perfect sacrifice? How could he have taken God’s perfect wrath on the cross? How could he have risen from the dead?

Finally if we deny the third statement, we have the Heresy of Tritheism, or the belief in three gods.

All Analogies Have Shortcomings

God is like a three leaf clover, which has three parts yet remains one clover.

This fails because each leaf is only part of the clover, and any one leave can not be said to be the whole clover. In the Trinity, each of the persons is not just a separate part of God, each person is fully God.

God is like a tree with three parts: The roots, trunk, and branches all constitute one tree.

This falls apart just like the first. These are only parts of a tree, and none of the parts can be said to be the whole tree.

Also, the different parts of a tree listed have different properties. In the Trinity, all persons have the same properties and characteristics.

God is like Water: Steam, Water, and ice are all H20, yet three.

This is inadequate in 4 ways

No quantity of water is ever all three of these at the same time.

They have different properties or characteristics.

The analogy has nothing that corresponds to the fact that there is only one God. There is no such thing as “One Water”

The element of intelligent personality is lacking.

God is like a man who is both a farmer, the mayor of his town, and an elder in his church. He functions in different roles at different times, but he is one man.

This falls apart because there is only one person doing these activities at different times. The three persons of the Trinity work independently and simultaneously.

God is like the union of the intellect, emotions, and the will in one human person.

No one factor constitutes the entire person, and the parts are not identical in characteristics and abilities.

The Bible never uses an analogy to describe the trinity, so we shouldn’t either. We simply teaches the facts.

Errors Have Come by Denying Any of the Three Statements Summarizing the Biblical Teaching.

Modalism Claims that there is one person who appears to us in three different forms or “Modes”

Arianism Denies the full deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Adoptionism is a form of Arianism that teaches that Jesus was only adopted as God’s son temporarily, but that God abandoned him before the Crucifixion.

Tritheism denies that there is only one God.