The Trinity Part 1

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Introduction

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This week we’re going to start a sermon series on the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re going to take a break from the book of Matthew for a few weeks while Albert is taking a couple weeks off, and study the incredible mystery of the Trinity, to dedicate a few weeks getting to know God as he’s revealed himself in this way.
A few months ago I was listening to a fellow Christian, and well-known theologian, who regularly teaches on a multitude of biblical subjects, and one evening he was discussing the doctrine of the Trinity. He’s a well-known apologist and debater, often publically defending the Christian faith, and so he was discussing some of the objections that Christians regularly encounter to the doctrine of the Trinity, and while he was talking he rhetorically asked the question, “How often do you hear a sermon preached on the Trinity in our churches today?” The question caught my attention and I immediately realized what he was saying. Why is such an important doctrine, an essential doctrine, not more often taught in our churches? In fact, this subject is so often neglected that Dr. James White wrote a book about it, called The Forgotten Trinity. And he wrote it almost 22 years ago now, which, I think, speaks to the continuing reality that this doctrine is so often forgotten.

The Forgotten Trinity

And the reason I think the Trinity is so often overlooked is that because most of us as Christians merely assume it. We’re told that it’s orthodox and essential to our faith so we adopt it. But unfortunately, this also usually means we adopt it without truly understanding it, and because we don’t understand it we don’t value it, we don’t see why it’s important, or how it’s valuable to us.
So my hope is that through this series of sermons you’ll not only come to understand the biblical teaching of the trinity but also come to love the doctrine of the trinity, and not because you’re a heady person, or an intellectual, but because the trinity describes the God in whom you love. We ought to love the doctrine of the trinity because we love God. In fact, this is why we should be eager to apply our minds to the Scriptures, in order to more intimately know our God.

Anti-intellectualism

However, within much of the church today a certain anti-intellectualism is very prevalent. So many of the people I’ve known within the church say that they don’t want theology, they just want to love Jesus. They associate theology with a cold and unfeeling faith, whereas they want a warm and feeling faith, a living faith they say. While on the surface this pursuit seems noble and even righteous, but under the surface this kind of so-called love lacks root. The idea that love can exist without knowledge is foolish, and merely describes the kind of superficial love that’s promoted by the world. A love that’s based purely in emotion and experience. However, biblical love is first rooted in knowledge, a knowledge that forms the foundation for genuine biblical love, a love that isn’t devoid of emotion or feeling, but a love that involves deep emotion and deep feeling precisely because of a deep knowledge of that love’s affections.
Let me give you an example, if I were to declare my undying I love for my wife, and yet remain completely ignorant of her personality, her desires, and everything about her that defines her, we wouldn’t say that I’ve loved her much at all. In fact, just the opposite! And more than that, imagine that my wife has made it abundantly clear to me all of the characteristics that define her, in fact, she’s made an effort for me to know these things, and yet I still remain ignorant them, what does this say about my love for?

Theology at the the root of our love for God

You see, there’s no contradiction between theology and our love for God. In fact, the one depends upon the other. To say that we have the one and not the other might indicate that our love is a sham, or at least and immature love, a shallow love that’s intended to be deepened. The truth is, most of our marriages start out this way, our love for one another is not yet very deep. And in one sense this is normal, because it takes time to come to a more exhaustive knowledge of one another, but the intent is that over time our knowledge of one another will deepen, leading ultimately to a deepening of our love for one another.
Now, it’s equally true that we can have knowledge about God that’s devoid of a love for him. In fact, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, pointed out that knowledge can puff us up - if we’re not careful it can promote pride within us. And we should always seek to be on guard against this pitfall, but it also shouldn’t keep us from pursuing knowledge, particularly our knowledge of God, because the depth of our love for God depends upon the depth of our knowledge about him. Let us pursue knowledge in order to love God more deeply.

A revealed faith

So when we study the doctrine of the trinity we’re studying the very defining attributes of God himself, those things that he has chosen to reveal to us. Deuteronomy 29:29 famously says,

29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Often Christianity is called a revealed faith, in other words, it’s a faith that involves our Creator, over time, revealing himself to his people. And while most of what could be known about God is hidden, still much has been revealed to us in the Scriptures, and what he has revealed to us in the Bible is what he intends for us to know. So for us to neglect such a privilege to know God as he has revealed himself would be to neglect the highest and most wonderful knowledge in all the universe.
Therefore, let us pursue knowledge, with the desire to love God more deeply, because, as Dr. White puts it, “the more exhaustive our knowledge of God, the deeper our love for Him will be.” (James White, The Forgotten Trinity, p.19) This is why we will spend several weeks exploring this doctrine of the Trinity.

Loving God as He has revealed himself

The trinity also challenges us to love God as he has revealed himself, rather than as an image we’ve created of him in our minds. If any of you know anything about the doctrine of the trinity already you know that it involves a significant amount of mystery, because the picture that the Bible paints for us is like nothing we have ever experienced or witnessed here on earth, there’s no analogy to it. Our creaturely expectations and assumptions are immediately overwhelmed when we study the doctrine of the trinity. Which challenges us to worship God on his terms, to worship God has he defines himself, rather than how we might want to.

God is holy

The doctrine of the trinity teaches us that God is completely unique in his existence. In one sense he is not like us at all. This is why the Bible describes him as holy. And his holiness not only describes his righteousness but it primarily teaches us of his otherness, that God is radically different than us. The doctrine of the trinity highlights this reality, that his being is far more complex than ours. The concept of three persons subsisting in a single being is altogether foreign to us and the created order. This is why we describe the trinity as a mystery, not because it doesn’t make any sense, or because it isn’t rational or logical but because the concept is utterly unique, and in many ways it’s beyond our finite human comprehension. Like the doctrine of God’s eternality, we find it hard to comprehend. The idea that there is a being that has no beginning or end is foreign to us, with no analogy here on earth. The Trinity is like this, because it describes the nature God’s existence.

Incomprehensibility of God

Throughout the centuries theologians have also affirmed what they call the incomprehensibility of God, that God, in his infinite nature, is incomprehensible, or that the finite (i.e. us) cannot grasp (or contain) the infinite (i.e. God). This of course doesn’t mean that God is utterly unknowable, but simply that none of us can fully comprehend him, or comprehend him exhaustively. The doctrine of the trinity is an example of this. It’s the highest of God’s revelations concerning himself. Isaiah 55:8-9 says it well, quoting God himself,

8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As many of us like to say we cannot put God in a box, we can’t contain him. However, let me be clear, lest we fall into a different ditch. When we say that we cannot put God in a box, we must not mean that God is free to contradict himself, that somehow we must be prepared for him to make a U turn. What was true about God yesterday is true about God today. God is immutable, he does not change, we can trust him without fail, and we can trust that he will never contradict his word.

Worshiping God as He has revealed himself

So the trinity challenges us to love and worship God as he defines himself, to worship him on his terms and not own own. This is why the second commandment says,

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

because if we do we inevitably break the first commandment which says,

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

God’s holiness makes it impossible for us to worship God by our own imaginations, for there is none like him in all universe, therefore to do so would be idolatry.
Therefore, when we worship God as he has revealed himself in the Trinity we worship him in purity, because to know God truly is to worship God truly. This is why Jesus described true worship as those who worship him in spirit and truth. For if we do not worship him in truth then we do not worship him at all. But true worship glorifies God, this is why the Trinity is essential to the Christian faith, because this doctrine sits at the heart of who God is, and who God has revealed himself to be.

The trinity is revealed in the incarnation

And, finally, I want to close with how the trinity is first revealed to us. One thing to keep in mind as we embark on this study of the Trinity is that the Bible can be described as progressive revelation. And what I mean is that the Scriptures, over time, progressively reveal more and more information about God and his redemptive plan from Genesis to Revelation. For instance, in Genesis 3, shortly after the fall of mankind, God says to the serpent that he will,

put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

Biblical scholars over the centuries have referred to this verse as the proto-gospel, or the primitive gospel. It’s the first text in the Bible where we get a hint of the God’s intent to eventually redeem his people. And based on what we know about God’s redemptive plan today, in light of the NT, we can see how primitive the description of the Gospel is here. In other words, so much has been revealed to us since then, and we sit here more than 6,000 years later looking back in hindsight with the benefit of so much more light since then. It isn’t that anything has changed in God’s plan of salvation, but because of progressive revelation we can see now how God determined in eternity past to save a people for his own glory.
And so it is with the Trinity. We can see hints of it even Genesis, but the nature of God’s existence wouldn’t be revealed to the extent as we know until the NT. In fact, the specific event that marks the beginning of this revelation is the Incarnation. In the incarnation the Trinity begins to take shape, in the coming of Jesus the Trinity is revealed. As God’s plan of redemption continued to unfold in the coming of his Messiah, by necessity the nature of God’s existence became unveiled. All of a sudden the Father is to be understood in relation to the Son, and through the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity revealed in the Gospels

As you read through the Gospels what you’re often witnessing is the unveiling of the Trinity. In fact, it’s so central and so significant that the Apostle John dedicates much of the first chapter of his Gospel to explaining it.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

then down in verse 14 he continues,

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And as you progress through John’s Gospel, at one point in the story, the disciple Philip asks Jesus a question about his departure, he says,

“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

then Jesus famously says to him,

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

While Philip probably didn’t yet understand what Jesus meant, what we see is that the Father can only be known through his Son, and that no one came come to the Father except through the Son. In other words, we cannot bypass Jesus to get to God, because they’re indivisible, they cannot be separated.
This is why the Apostle John who wrote both the Gospel of John and the three letters later in the new NT, would say in 1 John 2:23-25,

23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.

At the time John was addressing a particular false teaching within the church that claimed Jesus had not come in the flesh, but rather that he had only appeared to come in the flesh, that there was no real incarnation and no divine Savior who died an atoning death for sinners. So John immediately responds to that claim by saying, “no one who denies the Son has the Father.” In other words, you can’t have the one without the other.
So, in light of NT revelation, no one who claims to know the Father can do so without knowing his Son. At the end of John’s letter, in chapter 5:10, he writes that,

10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Closing

This mystery of the incarnation and ultimately the trinity is essential to Christianity, in fact, it’s essential to our salvation. Turn with me to Colossians 2:2-3 and listen to the Apostle Paul’s words,

2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

In other words, to be spiritually rich is not to have a big house or to own a fishing boat, but to have a “full assurance of understanding” about God himself. Or to say it another way, you’re spiritually wealthy when you have a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. There’s a real, tangible wealth that comes from understanding God as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures. And to know Christ is to know the Trinity.
And, Lord willing, in our next time together we’ll begin to plumb the depths of the blessed Trinity.

Prayer

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