Everyone Is A Theologian: Trinity

Everyone Is A Theologian: Trinity John Weathersby Sunday November 4, 2018 Last week, we considered Sin and Mankind - we found the two to be linked, yet mankind to still maintain some marred semblance of the image of God. As we consider how we image God to the world around us we must ask, who/what is God? I’ll make an argument for God that is called the cosmological argument - it’s to say that all things in nature demand for a God. If you’re paying attention the reasonable person recognizes that there is a “God”, the reasonable question is not is there a God, I mean - you don’t really believe all this came from nothing do you? So the question is who/what is this God. We could make it up - maybe God is a woman, like Ariana Grande says - maybe she’s a theologian independently able to tell you who deity is or what the origins of the world are, or develop well-honed philosophical constructs that you can live your life by? Maybe God agrees with whatever you already believe, maybe God basically just works to make you happy - whether that’s giving you money, or making a boy or girl love you, or giving you a kid, or keeping your mother or father alive longer … how are we to know who God is? Clear Conviction from Scripture: Let’s find the concept of the trinity in Scripture and work back into it as we say who/what is God: Deuteronomy 6:4 (ESV) 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 1 Corinthians 8:4 (ESV) 4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” Galatians 3:20 (ESV) 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So - God is one. Genesis 1:26 (ESV) 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 11:7 (ESV) 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” Isaiah 6:8 (ESV) Isaiah’s Commission from the Lord 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” ..us… So how does this resolve, and the trinity is the answer. God is a trinity. Here is some balance for the Trinity I think we have to be careful here. We understand it, and we don’t understand it. It’s like one of my favorite verses in all the Bible: Mark 9:23–25 (ESV) 23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” Too often we as sloppy Christians say things like “I don’t understand the trinity”, but that’s not true. Do you understand everything there is to be known, NO - but you don’t exhaustively understand anything? Do I understand physics, yes in so much as it’s the study of matter and motion. I get how to throw a ball, how to apply force to an object. Now do I totally understand the covalent bond - no. Do I understand Quantum physics, where physicists say that a subatomic particle goes through and around objects all at the same time through varying paths - NO, but that doesn’t mean I absolve myself of understanding physics - in the same way, I understand the Trinity. I understand what God has explained about himself to me - for me to know, it’s fairly plain in scripture if I don’t bring preconceptions and ideas to that. Here is my fear on this and why it matters: Does This Matter: If we just wash our hands on the Trinity, we effectively tell people, yeah I don’t even know what I believe and believing about God rightly isn’t important so you may as well camp up with Ariana Grande - and we know better than that. Put yourself here: bedside with someone dying. They ask you, am I going to see God, you say yes. You say - can you tell me who God is… What do you want to say in this moment? Do you want to know, will you just say, pfft who knows? Do you want to say, ehh we can’t really know? Do you want to be an ill-informed sloppy Christian - because when you give people the feeling that God cannot be known and the Trinity is too complex, that’s what you’re doing, and it’s not true and simply lazy. So much damage has been done to people’s understandings of God through this doctrine. Remember Satan entered the garden, took a clear teaching of God “don’t’ eat food off that tree”, and Satan entered with confusion - did God really say don’t eat that fruit…. What was the answer? YES God said don’t stinking eat it. Just like God said, I’m one, we are one. Deuteronomy 6:4 (ESV) 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 1 Corinthians 8:4 (ESV) 4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” Galatians 3:20 (ESV) 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So - God is one. Genesis 1:26 (ESV) 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 11:7 (ESV) 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” And Jehovah’s Witness’ enter, Oneness Pentecostals enter, Mormons enter and ask … did God REALLY say He’s one? The answer is again, YES He did. So if rather than starting from the confusing arguments, we start from the source - It’s important to define terms - isn’t that helpful. First of all the substance of God, the being of God is timeless and eternal. He is not a human being nor an angelic being, rather the being of God is eternal omnipresent, and holy, unique or different. Personhood is different - personhood describes personality. A gentlemen once explained it well like this, one what, 3 who’s. One being, 3 persons. One God, 3 persons, and the 3 persons are equal and eternal. If you remember those 3 tenants of the 3 persons in the one being of God, you’ll be ahead of the pack - consider 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 with your newly refined understanding: 1 Corinthians 12:4–6 (ESV) 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Remember, Church - the Trinity isn’t know about, but it’s also inexhaustible. Allow yourself to be human, and God to be God, you know Him, and you know about the Trinity, celebrate the mystery! It’s interesting when we understand God on the terms that He’s described himself by, not by how we’d normally understand those terms. The Bible is actually called an accommodation. And doesn’t that make since, that the God who is not materially of this world, would need to accommodate us and stretch language a bit so that we’d be able to know who he is? It’s like trying to explain to someone from another country what it’s like to live here? Have you ever seen that go down - when you try to explain a phrase that just doesn’t translate? Try to explain these: Pull my finger It’s about to go down I’m going to pig out… Now, how do you explain tri-unified God? God did it, in His word - we take Him at his word, and we understand it like physics. We read it, we trust Him, we know it’s true and His word is faithful. Amen? Whetting of the Appetite for More: I pray you’ll continue to consider this. There are classic hermeneutics that can been seen from a mile away if rather than studying the error you know the truth. The Trinity