Knowing God - His Unity
Knowing God • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
I. The Meaning of God’s Unity
I. The Meaning of God’s Unity
When we speak about the unity of God, of course, we are talking about the fact that is a Trinity.
And the fact that we speak about the Unity of God, we are talking about the unity of God within the Trinity.
Let’s start with a brief definition.
This is foundational and important that we understand this.
The Forgotten Trinity A Basic Definition
Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
While, as evangelical believers, we believe and affirm the facts about the Trinity, yet we also reject the belief in polytheism; the belief in many gods.
While we believe in the Trinity, we are also monotheist; meaning the believe that their is but one God.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
This monotheistic cry is also heard throughout the NT as well.
As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.
Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
And while the OT and the NT declare that there is one God, but all the while they both insist upon the fact that God exists eternally in three distinct persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Let’s look at some of the major issues presented by this definition.
First, the Doctrine rests completely on the truth of the first clause: there is only one God.
Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
And there are many, many other passages that we could look into that testify to the fact that there is one God.
Again, the term monotheism is the assertion that there is only one true God.
The second clause of that definition is that there are three divine beings.
I want you to notice that we are not saying that there are three Beings that are one Being, or three persons that are one person.
I emphasize this because this is the misunderstanding of the doctrine that is commonly found in the literature of various religions that deny the Trinity.
The second part of that definition speaks of three divine persons, not three divine Beings.
And, of course, you see that the difference in the language there is not just semantics; if we say three divine Beings, we are saying that there are three God.
And if we say three persons that are one person, we have deny the divinity.
And understand that we must succumb to the temptation to read the term “person” as if we are talking about finite, self-contained human beings.
What “person” means when we speak about the Trinity is quite different that when we speak of creature such as ourselves.
These divine persons are identified in the last clause as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The third phrase in that definition speaks of the relationship among those divine persons; and that relationship is that each of the divine persons is eternal.
They have eternally existed in this unique relationship.
Each person is said to be eternal and each person is said to be co-equal with the others as to their divine nature.
Each fully shares the one Being that is God.
The Father is not 1/3 of God, the Son 1/3 God, the Spirit 1/3 God.
Each is fully God, co-equal with the others, and are that eternally.
There was never a time when the Father was not the Father, that the Son was not the Son, and that the Holy Spirit was not the Spirit.
The relationship is eternal, not in the sense of having been for a long time, but existing, in fact, outside of the realm of time.
So, summing of the meaning of the Trinity:
There is one God: monotheism.
There are three Divine Persons.
The Persons are co-equal and co-eternal.
Every heresy through redemptive history will finds its origin in a denial of one or more of these truths.
II. The Manifestation of God’s Unity
II. The Manifestation of God’s Unity
It is my desire, as in everything that I teach is to not approach this a philosophical issue.
Not do I want to approach this as a theological speculation.
I want to approach this subject as revealed, divine truth.
I do not believe the Trinity because that is traditional evangelical theology.
I believe it, just as everything else that we believe, because it is manifest in the pages of sacred Scripture.
The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the doctrine that I would call the “drive-train” of the gospel; there can be no denial or compromise of this great doctrine.
Because what is at stake here is deity and if deity is at stake than all the actions of the deity are brought into question.
Now. to be fair, because in a real examination of Doctrine we do not run from passages or explicit or implicit things that may seem to suggest that our belief system needs to be called into question.
And one of those explicit things is that the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Scripture.
But people that are truly Biblical are those who believe all the Bible has to say on a given subject.
If I believe everything the Bible says on a particular topic but use terms not found in the Bible to describe the full teaching of Scripture on that point, I am being more truthful to the truth of God’s Word as someone who uses only Biblical terms, but rejects some aspects of God’s Revelation.
Christians believe in the Trinity, not because the word is used in the Scripture, but because the truth of it is found in the text of the Bible.
If one denies monotheism, the other side of the triangle is polytheism.
If one denies the equality of the person, the result is subordinationism.
And if one denies the existence of three persons, the result is modalism; the belief that God exists in three “modes” (Father, Son, and Spirit, but is only one person).
This is not the Doctrine of the Trinity.
The Forgotten Trinity What We Are Not Saying—
No true Trinitarian believes the Father was a “ventriloquist” at the baptism of Jesus, nor that Jesus was praying to himself in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Scriptural truth that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Spirit, is clearly demonstrated from the Scriptures.
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.
For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
These two verses show actions that are incomprehensible outside of recognizing that the Father is a separate divine person from the Son.
Probably the best known example of the existence of three persons is the baptism of Jesus.
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Here the Father speaks from heaven, the Son is being baptized, and the Spirit is descending as a dove.
Jesus is not speaking to himself here, he is being spoken to by the Father.
There is no confusion of the persons at the baptism of the Lord Jesus.
The transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17:1-9 is again another demonstration of the separation of the personhood of the Father and the Son.
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
Again, the distinction of the person of the Father and of the Son is clearly maintained, this is a conversation, not a monologue.
Jesus is not speaking to himself or as one writer put it, “his humanity is speaking to his deity.”
He is clearly communicating with another person, that person being the person of the Father.
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Jesus very clearly addresses the Father as a separate person.
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
In the Gospel of Mathew, we have the reciprocal relationship between the Father and the Son and it is put fourth with exactness, while at the same time dictating the absolute deity of both.
All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
Only God has the authority to “hand over all things,” and no mere creature could ever be the recipient of the control of “all things.”
It is just as clear that the Lord Jesus Christ is never identified as the Father by the Apostle Paul but is shown to be another person besides the Father.
To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The same kind of greeting is found in several other of the epistles written by Paul.
One of the “problem” passages that is given by some to indicate that there is no distinction between the Father and the Son is in the Gospel of John.
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
Some will say that when Christ said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” was just as if Christ were saying, “I am the Father.”
But that completely ignores the words of Christ that follows where Christ makes the distinction between himself and the Father when He says “the Father abides in me and I abide in the Father.
And the full deity of Christ is upheld because no mere creature can ever say, “He who has seen has seen the Father.”
Jesus’ words do not make him the Father, but they do tell us that the unity that exists between Father and Son is far more than a mere unity of purpose or intention.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
The single most popular verses cited in the defense of modalism is the very verse that is used in defense of the deity of Christ.
I and my Father are one.
In this context, the argument is that the Father and the Son are one person.
But that is not what the passage is saying at all.
Notice that the word “are” is in the plural and that is a part of speech that cannot be ignored.
And because it is a plural verb, it is literally translated, “I and the Father, we are one.”
Jesus is not saying “I am the Father,” he is saying that He and the Father are distinct persons but are both one in unity and deity.
One of the places where the unity of the Father and Christ is seen is in the salvation of depraved sinners; and we will discuss this later in the last point, but I want you to see the verse now.
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
We see deity, we see distinction in the Godhead, and we see unity in the Godhead.