3-in-1

3-IN-1 1 Peter 1:1-2 May 30, 2021 Last Sunday was the holy day of Pentecost. We celebrated the arrival of the permanent and indwelling Holy Spirit, and the birth of the new Christian Church. So, at this point we have met God the Father. He is the creator of all that is. He spoke directly to his prophets, and gave us the Law - the Commandments by which we are judged. We have met God the Son; Jesus Christ. Over thousands of years we proved conclusively we absolutely could not keep the Father's rules. By every measurable standard we have failed and are wanting. The Son, made atonement for our sins, and redeemed us from slavery to sin. Jesus is our Savior. And, finally, as of last week, we met God the Holy Spirit. Knowing that we are saved is one thing. Living every day like we are saved, is something else. God the Holy Spirit lives inside of each Christian. Promises made thousands of years ago by God the Father, are kept through God the Holy Spirit. God says to the prophet Ezekiel (36:26-27), "And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations." He was talking about the indwelling Holy Spirit, and using it to live every day like we are saved. Now that we've met all three parts of God, we celebrate Trinity Sunday. Trinity is a shortening of tri-unity. Three, that are unified. Three in one. Now, that word never shows up anywhere in the Bible. It's a word we made up ourselves, to explain God. Because, now that we've seen all three aspects of God, we finally know everything about God - right? Not so fast. The Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost morning, the Apostles become preachers and evangelists, and the Christian Church is born. Peter preaches a sermon and 3000 men convert to Christianity, get baptized, and receive the Spirit. But, that's only the beginning. The Holy Spirit pushes Christians to share their faith. We want everyone to be saved for all eternity. It's the Holy Spirit that actually does the saving, but we carry the Spirit to a broken, and wounded, and unbelieving world. And, what makes the most sense to the Apostles, is to start with people who are already religiously inclined. When you're just figuring out how to talk about Jesus, don't go to the most hardened, cynical, atheist you know. Start with something easier. Start with someone who accepts the concept of God, and salvation, to begin with. The Holy Temple is in Jerusalem. All of the Apostles are in Jerusalem. Every day, devout and faithful Jews from all over the world arrive at the Holy Temple to make pilgrimage. These people spend their time and money to visit the Temple in Israel, because faith and religion are important to them. And, Peter understands, this is where you start. Go to the Temple every day, and look for spiritual people to talk with. After just a few weeks, the Apostles begin to notice a recurring difficulty. When you speak to a Jew about God the Father, God the Creator, they don't have any problem with that. You can share your views about how God the Father works, and they will listen and discuss God with you. Not real comfortable with you calling God 'Father', but I get where you're going. When you talk about God the Son, they start backing up. Wait, I mean the Messiah. Oh, I can work with that, I know about the Messiah. Well, the Messiah is also God. And, at that point most of the faithful start shaking their heads. Then the Apostles brought up God the Holy Spirit. And, that was generally the end of the discussion. The Holy Spirit is a servant of God, not another God. There are not three Gods. Here's why there was so much pushback. No one had a Bible in their home. Bibles were huge scrolls that had to be stored very carefully. And, they were phenomenally expensive. Instead, everyone had a tiny box nailed to their front door - a mezuzah. Inside the mezuzah were little strips of parchment with a single Bible verse written on them by the Rabbi. And, the very first verse your Rabbi gave you was the Shemah Yisrael. That's Hebrew for Hear, O Israel. Those are the first words of Deuteronomy 6:4. It says, "Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, is one." There is only one God. The Jews were unapologetically monotheistic. There are not dozens or hundreds of Gods. There is only one God. And, he's our God. He's just for us. I may not know the Bible, but I know what the Rabbi put in my mezuzah - there is only one God. So, you Christians get out of here with your three Gods. It was necessary to take a step back, and ask, do we understand God? There is only one God, right? Well, when we look through the Old Testament, we find many, many verses where God speaks of himself in both the singular, and the plural, at the same time. When God gets ready to create Adam; when God decides it's time to make people, he speaks of himself in both the singular and the plural (Genesis 1:26), "Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness." So, from the very beginning God describes God as both one and many. When the people create the tower of Babble, and try to reach God, God makes a decision, in the plural (Genesis 11:7), "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." When God speaks to Isaiah, and tells him 'I need you to be a prophet' he speaks in both the singular and the plural (Isaiah 6:8), "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" There are many other examples. But, the point is, one God - with multiple persons - has been Biblical from the very beginning. Now, in the early Christian Church, making God the Father (God) was not a problem. Making Jesus the Son (God) became a problem. If we call him the Son, that means the Father made him. So, Jesus is a lesser god than the Father. The Father is the real God, Jesus is a demi-god. That way, there's only one real God, but Jesus should be worshipped. And, Jesus told the Apostles he would send the Holy Spirit to them, so Jesus must have created the Holy Spirit. That makes the Holy Spirit a sub-demi-god. Not sure if that even counts as God. Maybe the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a human conscience with an extra loud voice. It took the Church 400 years to work through that problem.1 As part of worship this morning, we read the Nicene Creed. That was not an easy document to create. The Nicene Creed says, 'Hear O Israel, there is only one God'. And, our one God has three distinct and unique personages - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You and I take that for granted. But, this caused the first Church split. Smart, high-thinking men left the Christian Church because three-in-one is just too crazy. One of the smartest Church Fathers I have ever read was named Augustine. It was another 100 years after the Nicene Creed before he wrote a detailed, exhaustive explanation, of how we can have a God who is both singular and plural at the same time.2 This is not an easy thing to explain, and it's not easy to understand ourselves. Maybe this will make you feel better. If God was easy to understand, if we could know exactly how God works, would he still be God?3 Shouldn't God be so far beyond you and me, that trying to explain him is difficult? So, how do we try to explain the Triune God? There's the technical definition. If you're a theologian, or if you're OCD about doctrine this will work for you.4 First, God has three distinctive personalities and presentations. Three distinct ways he appears, and communicates, with humanity. Second, none of these personages is anything like the other two. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so unique they do not overlap. Third, all three personages are made of the same thing - not from parts of the same thing - but the one and only same thing. And, absolutely nothing else in all of Creation is made of this same thing. And, fourth, that one thing they are made from is defined as God - so there is only one God. How about that? Did that take all the mystery and confusion out of the Holy Trinity? Didn't think so. Let's try this instead. How about visual depictions from examples we're familiar with? When I was a kid, every house in America had a can of 3-in-1 oil. It's oil. Oil is a lubricant. All oil lubricates. But, 3-in-1 oil also penetrates and removes rust from the metal piece. And, it cleans the metal piece. Now, if you squirt 3-in-1 in your hand, you can't see the parts that lubricate, or the parts that remove rust, or the parts that clean. There's only one liquid in the can. But, that liquid has three distinct and unique actions. Kind of like God. The Celtic triangle. You can draw this without ever taking your pencil from the paper. There is only one line in this drawing. But, when you look at it, obviously there are three projecting lobes. One line, three distinct and identifiable projections. Kind of like God. How about a three-leaf clover? There's only one stalk to this plant. We call this a plant in the singular - there's only one. But, everyone can look at this and see three distinct leaves. No leaf is exactly like the other two. The leaves are unique and special, but they are inseparable from the one and only plant. Kind of like God. A tree is a decent example of the Trinity. You can see there is only one tree in this picture. Just one. But, this tree has roots. And, it has a trunk. And, it has leaves. No matter how close you look, it's almost impossible to tell where roots become trunk, or where trunk becomes leaves. And each of the three parts is vital to the life of the tree. Roots and leaves do not do the same thing. If any of the parts die, the entire tree dies. Every part is unique and necessary. Kind of like God. This one is kind of creepy. There is one God, but he has three faces. And, his body is overlaid with the technical definition of Triune that we discussed earlier. This is an accurate representation of the Holy Trinity. But, it would really creep me out to come into a church and see this hanging on the wall. This is the example that I personally like the best. Water. Water is made of one thing only - water. And, nothing else in all the earth is made of water. Water is completely unique. If left at room temperature water is liquid. It flows, it moves. It's useful for drinking or cleaning. Take that same water and freeze it, and it becomes ice. Ice is hard, you can hurt someone if you throw ice at them. It's great for keeping drinks, like water, cold. It's made of exactly the same thing as water, but it's so different. Take that ice cube, and heat it, and it becomes steam. Suddenly that water is invisible. Before I could see it, and touch it, but now it disappears. Doesn't mean it's gone. Put your hand over boiling water, and the steam will burn you. It's made of exactly the same thing as water and ice, but it's so different. Water is the best 3-in-1 I know of. There is only one substance, only one essence. But, there are three distinct personages, with different purposes and appearances. Water is like God the Father. Ice is like God the Son. And, steam is like God the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as a perfect metaphor, or perfect illustration. Work hard enough and you can find problems with water as an example of God. But, I think you get the idea, and hopefully this helps. I read something this week that really connected with me. God has three personages. Those three personages are of the same essence, they are made of one thing. We define that thing, that essence, as God. But, what is that one thing? Love.5 God is the only thing in the universe made completely of love. You and I can only recognize love, and love one another, because we have God in us. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are completely unique - but each of them is motivated exclusively by love. I like that. I like that a lot. Maybe the great 3-in-1 makes perfect sense to you. Or, maybe you find the idea confusing. It is ok if you don't understand everything about God. God is God, and we are not. All you really need to know is - no matter which part of God you're talking about - God is good, and God is love. 1 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (New York: Viking Press, 2003), 180. 2 Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, X.24. 3 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 230-260. 4 R. T. Mullins, "Trinity, Subordination, and Heresy," Theologica, 4 no. 2 (January 2020), 1-15. 5 Robert E. Doud, "The Trinity, the Virtues, and More," The Way, 60 no. 1 (January 2021), 47-56. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ 2