Mark: Theology 101-The Trinity[Mark 12:35-37]

Mark: Theology 101-The Trinity []

We’ve been camped out here in these verses for a few weeks now, looking at some important theological truths…we first looked at the inspiration of scripture (David spoke by the Holy Spirit), last week we looked at the divinity and humanity of the Lord Jesus, this week we will dive in and look at the trinity and see if we can’t understand it little better, or at least as best as our finite minds can understand. Let’s look at our text again...

Stand for the reading of the word of God []

Maybe you’re wondering, “why a sermon on the trinity?” I mean I see where you get the inspiration of scripture from this text, I see where you get the divinity and humanity of Jesus from this text…but the trinity? Isn’t that just a stretch? I don’t think so. Ultimately what is the question Jesus is bringing up??? Who is Jesus? That question cannot be answered adequately without addressing the issues pertaining to the trinity.

The trinity gives us the “backstory” if you will to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world for our salvation. It’s the story of the Father sending His Son to die for our sins and rise from the dead to obtain eternal life for us. It’s also the story of the Father and the Son sending the Holy Spirit to bring us to repentance and faith, to bring us from spiritual death to spiritual life, and to bring us from spiritual immaturity to maturity as believers.

Just as all three persons of the Godhead were involved in creation, all are involved in our salvation, all were involved in the inspiration of scripture in which we learn about all these things. In fact, there is no area of essential Christian doctrine that is not affected by how we view the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So that’s why a sermon about the trinity. Now I will use language that some may not be familiar with and terms or ideas that you may not of ever heard before. But I will attempt to define terms and ideas as best as possible.

I will give you some false ideas about the trinity that have existed throughout the years as well, hopefully that will help us better understand what we believe and help us define it better. In your bulletins is just about my whole sermon.

The doctrine of the Trinity is biblical, meaningful, and practical.

The doctrine of the Trinity is biblical. You’ll notice in your bulletins I put several scripture references…Old and New Testament, that is because the doctrine of the trinity is biblical. While the word Trinity is absent from the bible the doctrine is not, it is clearly taught in the Bible. Though it’s most developed in the NT, the OT has many indications of the Trinity as well.

The doctrine of the trinity is meaningful. It’s not some nonsense the early church made up to make God harder to understand. It tells us important truths about the nature of God and about what he is doing in the world. It helps us see the Son and the Holy Spirit as divine, sharing the essential nature as the Father-while not making the mistake of thinking that Jesus is the Father or that the Holy Spirit is Jesus in another form. Though we’ll never have a complete understanding of God in our life time, studying doctrines like the trinity help us clarify and understand a great deal more about God.

The doctrine of the trinity is practical. Understanding the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an important part of our Christian lives. All three persons of the trinity perform essential roles in our salvation, roles that are best understood in the context of the trinity. The doctrine helps us rightly direct our prayers and our worship to God the Father and the Lord Jesus, as well as the role the Holy Spirit plays in or worship.

Jesus came to invite us into a communion of love with the Father and himself through the presence of the Holy Spirit. In a sense, the doctrine of the trinity is all about love, the love of the Father and the Son for one another, the love that they show toward us through the Holy Spirit, and how their love is both the model and the source for the love that we are called to show toward one another. What is more important than that?

The doctrine of the trinity was the first doctrine the early church felt it needed to explain in a definitive way at the councils of Nicaea [AD 325] and Chalcedon [AD 381]. The church defined the doctrine because of the rise of a heretical movements that were happening like Docetism, which challenged the early church in the first century.

The doctrine of the trinity distinguishes orthodox Christianity from other monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Islam. It also separates Christianity from polytheistic and pantheistic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. i.e. the doctrine of the trinity sets Christianity apart from all other world religions.

So let’s define the Trinity...

The scriptures describe God as one eternal being in three persons. Sounds simple enough but try explaining that to a first grader…1=3 and 3=1??? So it’s not so simple to define it. J. I. Packer said in His book ‘knowing God’, “The historic formulation of the trinity seeks to circumscribe and safeguard this mystery, not explain it; that is beyond us, and it confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought the human mind has ever been asked to handle. It’s not easy; but it’s true.”

Attempts to make God more understandable by putting Him in a nice little packaged box we can handle diminish His character. I mean when you thinking about it:

If God is the creator of everything; if He is sovereign over the universe, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-everywhere at the same time; if He exists outside of time yet operates within time; if God owns the cattle on a thousands hills and yet became poor for our sake in the person of Jesus Christ; if he authors scripture without dictating it, but by enabling sinful and fallen people to use their unique insights and experiences to pen His very words; then I think it’s foolish to think we can squeeze God into some sort of manageable understandable idea.

The bottom line is, the only reason we even know anything about God is because God has revealed Himself to us. We do well not to forget this. There are many mysteries in the bible that we embrace without fully understanding. The incarnation-God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? Regeneration-the unseen work of the Holy Spirit that breathes new life into our dead spirits. The kingdom of heaven is still a mystery even though Jesus sought to explain it in over a dozen parables. God is magnified when we explore His work before time, in time, and beyond time.

Back to trying to define the trinity. The BF&M says, “The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.”

The word Trinity comes from the Latin word ‘trinitas’ which means ‘threeness’. The Trinity is a term used to describe the one true and living God, who exists as three distinct, but inseparable, co-equal, co-eternal persons.

Three things from scripture about the trinity.

There is only one true God. Christians do not worship three gods; that’s polytheism. We don’t worship one god made up of three parts; that’s tritheism. Nor do we exalt God as one person who wears three different masks; that’s modalism. Christians worship one God who exists as three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal persons, sharing all the attributes of deity, agreeing completely in will and purpose, and existing eternally in divine, loving relationship with one another.

The scripture is clear that there is only one true and living God. The Shema from , “hear of Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The Lord declares in , “no god was formed before me, and there will be none after me.” Paul wrote in , “there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.” There are many other passages that could be mentioned but what is clear is the consistent theme through scripture that there is one and only one true God.

another truth.

The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. there are hundreds of scriptures that declare this truth. I listed several scripture references.

The Father: , “there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him.” , “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

The Son: In , the Father speaking to the Son says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice. Throughout the NT we see Jesus exhibiting the attributes of God. he is eternal []; He has all authority []; He is unchanging []; He is the creator [; ] He forgives sin, receives worship and claims equality with the Father [; ; ; ]

Throughout the NT

The Holy Spirit: Called the spirit of God or the spirit of Christ [; ], the Holy Spirit is revealed as both divine and personal. For example when Ananias lies to the Holy Spirit, Peter points out, “You have not lied to people but to God” []

Time and time again we see in the scripture, particularly the NT, that there is one true and living God who exists in three persons.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, but inseparable, persons who exist simultaneously. The false doctrine of modalism teaches that God reveals Himself consecutively as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But Scripture paints a much different picture. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing simultaneously. The Father and the Son love one another, speak to each other and together send the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself proclaims He and the Father are two distinct witnesses and two distinct judges, yet one as well [].

These self distinctions are amplified in a few events in scripture, Christ’s birth []; Jesus baptism []; the Transfiguration []; and Jesus commission to baptize believers in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [].

As I mentioned earlier the doctrine of the trinity was the first doctrine the early church felt the need to define in definitive way. The first ecumenical council at Nicea in AD 325 was tasked with the assignment to define, in helpful terms, the trinity to combat false doctrines that had been invading the church in the first and second centuries. They did not invent the idea of the Trinity, they simply put it into terms we could communicate better. Here’s a section of that Nicene creed.

“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, light of light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made...

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets...”

Simply put the Nicene Trinitarianism affirms that there is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While this is truly difficult to grasp, it’s important because it distinguishes a biblically faithful understanding of God as Trinity so we can then identify false views of the Godhead.

False views of the trinity

Here are a few of the false views that have been throughout history.

Tritheism: is the teaching that the Godhead essentially consists of three separate gods. While it is accurate to say the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, it’s wrong to say these three make up three different deities. God is one being in three persons.

Unitarianism: Takes many forms but essentially maintains that God is only one divine person [the Father] but denies that Jesus is God. In the 4th century a heretic named Arius held to this view and out of this view is where the Jehovah’s witness theology comes from. More modern views of this have been called oneness or ‘Jesus only’ position. the Oneness idea accepts the truth that there is but one God, but thinks that the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit are all different names for Jesus, thus denying the trinity.

This has also been called Modalism-the belief that there is one God in substance and person, and that the Father, son, and holy spirit are three successive functions or modes of God. put simply this view maintains that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never exist at the same time. it denies the distinction of the Godhead.

Polytheism: is the belief that there are multiple deities. The Egyptian culture was polytheistic, the Greek culture…today Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism are all polytheistic.

Henotheism: Is kind of a hybrid of polytheism and monotheism. This view commits to one god, but leaves room for other deities. This belief is in one god but that there is one god for each people group or nation…example, Jews have there God Yaweh, Philistines had their god dagon, Canaanites had their god baal and so on. Hinduism would be a good example of this…though they are polytheistic they generally one worship one god, yet they acknowledge more than three million other gods who may be worshipped as well.

Mormonism is a modern day example of henotheism. They profess a belief in the trinity but it’s a mess up idea. They view the Father and the Son as flesh and bone deities, and they view the Holy Spirit as a divine spirit of personage. they hold to a view of countless other gods that rule over countless universes. And hold to the idea that the Father is literally our heavenly Father through sexual relations with a goddess wife. And those are just a few of the wrong views of the LDS church.

Some times in an attempt to simplify the Trinity people have resorted to analogies to try to help explain it, but sometimes that does more harm than good. In fact some of the analogies I heard used before represent one of the ancient heresies I just mentioned.

Three groups of analogies:

Parts-whole: In this analogy the trinity may be likened to an egg, which has a shell, egg white, and egg yolk. Each part fully egg but not the whole egg. The problem with that is it’s similar to Tritheism that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate divine beings or the divine nature may be divided into three parts, like an egg shell, white, and yolk. This reduces God to the sum of His parts.

Names: This analogy applies several names to one subject. Example one man can be father, son, and husband at the same time. This is similar to Unitarianism that God wears different masks at different times but is not distinct persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

States: This analogy identifies a single substance that takes different states. example H2O is one compound that may be solid, liquid, or gas. However we can see that this is similar to modalism. one thing with three different modes, never existing at the same time.

I bring this up to say perhaps it’s best to stick with…there is one God. This one divine being exists as three distinct, but inseparable, co-equal, co-eternal persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In your bulletins I have left you numerous scriptures for your own study. Where to find the trinity in the OT, the NT, the Acts and the Epistles and I challenge you to dive in and see just how marvelous this God is we worship and serve.

I believe it best for us to take God at His word, to understand as much as we possible can, then go no farther trying to reconcile things we can’t understand. As God said in “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not may ways...” “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”