Essentials: The Trinity

Introduction

Good Morning and welcome to the second week of our summer series on the Essentials of what “We believe” here at Friendship Church. Last week I spent some considerable time introducing this series and I won’t repeat all of that again, but I wanted to remind us all of just a couple of things. First, that our goals in doing this series on our “Declaration of Faith” is three fold:

Grow Deeper Roots Together

Increase the Partnership

Discover any needed changes to our “What We Believe...” statements

Again this week I have included a copy in you bulletin of our “Declaration of Faith” as it now reads and I would encourage you to hold on to that for the weeks to come as I won’t be including it every week but I will make them available back on our information table if you need additional copies.

Lastly, the feel of these messages may be a little different as instead of walking through a book of the Bible verse by verse as I typically do - and am more comfortable with - we are going to be walking through our “Declaration of Faith” and using many different passages to show how these things are supported by the whole counsel of God. I will have the references for those verses in your notes page as well as they are up on the screen.

So as you can see in your copy of the Declaration of Faith, our topic for today is what “We believe...” about The Trinity.

Let’s say you answered the call to become a frontline missionary, maybe you even went down to Rio Grand Bible Institute to prepare and then you hopped on a plane and landed somehere that they have never heard about Christianity. And then one day you are given this opportunity to share your faith and so you begin to unpack the story of Creation, the Fall of man, what Jesus did for us on the cross and then the guidance of the Holy Spirit and finally the treasure of heaven…and then your listener indicated that he has a question for you.

He asks “You talk about the Creator God who sent His Son who is God and then the Son sent us the Holy Spirit who is God…so how can you say that you only have one God? It sounds to me like you have three of them. How would you respond to a question like that?

Tension

Now you might not get asked such a deep question right away, but you could…especially if you had landed in a people group that believed in many gods and you started off talking about having just one. And your answer probably would not be as formal as this but this is the very question that we are looking to answer when it comes to what “We believe...” about the Trinity.

We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons—God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; that these are equal in every divine perfection, and that they execute distinct but harmonious offices in the work of creation, providence and redemption.

So just memorize that and then you will be prepared to answer that question…ok, well there might be a little more to it than that, but still theologically it is a good answer even if we would probably have to unpack it a little to communicate what we are saying by all of this.

And the truth is, when it comes to the subject of the Trinity most of us are probably in one of three camps:

1. We grew up in the Church and have always just assumed the Trinity to be true so we never really gave it much thought. We have just always believed it and don’t really see why anyone would question it. (Blindly believed)

2. We aren’t really against the idea, but we do secretly wonder about how that whole three in one thing works - so we hope no one ever asks us to explain it because we are not really sure that we could. (Secretly Wrestling with it)

3. We are aware of the idea of the Trinity, but we are not sure why it even matters. If someone didn’t want to believe in these things then that is not really a problem for us, we would much rather focus on other aspects of our faith. (Wonder if it really matters)

This morning I hope to have at least the beginnings of a answer to all three of these perspectives. First I hope to show a Biblical defense for the doctrine, Secondly, show how it does and does not work and lastly help us all to see why it even matters.

So let’s pray and we will dive into this adventure together.

Truth

If you look in your copy of our “Declaration of Faith” you will see that the next three topics that we are going to cover are the three distinct persons in the God head, one each week over the next three weeks, so today our focus is not really their distinct qualities but how they work together in this thing called “The Trinity”.

One of the things that people find surprising about the doctrine of The Trinity is that even though it is a very familiar word in modern Christianity, the word “Trinity” is not found anywhere in the Bible. It is a Theological term that was chosen to describe principles we see displayed in Scripture, but their is no Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent for the word in all of our Bibles.

So what does “Trinity” mean? In essence the doctrine of the Trinity is boiled down to God being One God who exists in three persons. And while we don’t find anywhere in our Bible where is directly says that “God is three” we do find many places where it says that God is “One”.

So the first words of our statement on the Trinity begin with ...THERE IS ONE TRUE AND LIVING GOD and we see this stated in both the Old and the New Testament. We first see it in Deuteronomy chapter 6 where it says...

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And if we place this short verse up against the bulk of material found in the Old Testament it may seem to be insignificant, but this short verse is the introduction to probably the most recognized verse in all of Judaism. These words are the opening words to what is called “The Shema” which is a prayer that orthodox Jews prayer twice a day ever day and they have been doing it for thousands of years. As a devote Jew, Jesus certainly prayed this prayer twice everyday, and more than that, when He was challenged as to what He believed was the most important commandment in the Scriptures...

Mark 12:29–30 ESV

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

These are the words of the Shema and they are familiar to us even as New Testament believers. The idea that Jehovah God is “one” was a very important distinction to the Hebrew people in both the Old and New Testament because they were surrounded by pagan people groups who practiced religions with many different gods…but they were to be different, they were to worship only the one true God.

Even in the New Testament we find warnings like this:

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.”

1 Timothy 2:5 ESV

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Galatians 3:20 ESV

20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

James 2:19 ESV

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

This last warning in James is talking to those who religiously prayed the Shema, but he goes on to say even the demons can believe right things about God. The difference is do you submit to His Lordship or are you rebelling against it.

So we can clearly see how Scripture affirms the “Oneness” of God in both the Old and New Testament

There is one true and living God…

ETERNALLY EXISTING IN THREE PERSONS (GOD THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT)

We find the clearest descriptions of the “Three” in the “Three in One” in the The New Testament, but that does not mean that the Old Testament is silent about it. It may not talk about their being exactly “Three in One” but it does tell us that God is somehow both “One” and “more than One”. The first place we find it is in the very first words in the Bible. Genesis 1:1 says

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And without Hebrew Scholars we would probably not see anything but the “Oneness” of God on display here, but the word for “God” written here is the word “Elohim” אֱלֹהִים . This word for God is Plural, meaning more than one, and it is found in this plural form in over 2,000 different places in the Old Testament. Often times it is accompanied with the singular article ‘The”. So we have “The” pointing to God being One and “Elohim” in the Plural meaning more than one.

Let me give you a couple of other vivid examples of the plurality of our “One” God as found in the Old Testament. Later on in the creation story our triune God set about to create our first parents Adam and Eve. Gen 1:26a

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

We see this again at the Tower of Babel when God said:

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.”

It is also how God referred to Himself when He instructed His Prophets to speak His words to the people, like in Isaiah 6:8

Isaiah 6:8 ESV

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.”

Again we see the singular in the “I” and the plural in the “us”. So the Old Testament gets us thinking of both “one” and yet somehow “more than one”, and then in the New Testament we get a clear revelation of the three.

The first place that I like to point to when discussing the doctrine of the Trinity is the account of Jesus baptism, because in this one event we see all three person’s of the Trinity present and distinctly active. I am going to read it from the Gospel of Matthew, but you can find the same information in all three of the accounts:

Matthew 3:16–17 ESV

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

God the Son is rising from the water

God the Holy Spirit is descending like a dove

God the Father is speaking from heaven saying of Jesus, “This my beloved Son...”

All three person’s of the Trinity distinctly active in the same scene, and this shows that they cannot be only one when they are interacting here as three.

And most people don’t have problem seeing God the Father as distinct from God the Son, especially since Jesus was always praying to His Father - but sometimes people do wonder about how the Holy Spirit is a person. They wonder if the Holy Spirit might be more like an invisible “force” than a person.

One the strongest arguments against this is that the Bible never refers to the Holy Spirit as an “it” but always a “he”. As in John 14 where Jesus Says...

John 14:26 ESV

26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

or later in John 16:7-8 Jesus said...

John 16:7–8 ESV

7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:

or Acts 8:16

Acts 8:14–16 ESV

14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, 15 who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

The fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an impersonal force (like gravity), is also shown by the fact that he speaks (Hebrews 3:7), reasons (Acts 15:28), thinks and understands (1 Corinthians 2:10–11), wills (1 Corinthians 12:11) and he feels (Ephesians 4:30). All of these are qualities of personhood.

1. We believe that there is one living and true God 2. eternally existing in three persons... and

3. THEY ARE EQUAL IN EVERY DIVINE PERFECTION

In other words, God the Father is fully and truly God, God the Son is fully and truly God and God the Holy Spirit is fully and truly God. One of them is not more or less “God” than any of the others.

And as always, I don’t expect you to take my word for it, so let me point us to a couple of places where God’s Word teaches us these things.

1 Corinthians 8:5 ESV

5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—

in the sense that people serve many things as their “god” or “lord”

1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV

6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

This verse gives us affirmation of both God the Father as God and God the Son as being and doing the same things as God the Father and therefore He is just as much God. Most people don’t have trouble seeing how God the Father is truly God, or really even how God the Son is also God…especially with verse like John 1:1 where it says of Jesus

John 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Seeing that “The Word” can be no one but Jesus that seems to be a pretty clear claim of Jesus’ deity.

But where many people get hung up is on how The Holy Spirit is Fully and truly God. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes people see the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force, maybe just the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Jesus returning to earth but not with the same kind of personhood that the Father and the Son have and especially not as God.

Since we already tackled the “personhood” question lets look specifically at the Biblical claim that the Holy Spirit is God. The best place to see this is in Peter’s address to Ananias - you remember he was the one who sold a field and then lied about how much he had given the church. We find the account in Acts 5 where it says:

Acts 5:3–4 ESV

3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

So Peter first says that Ananias has lied to the Holy Spirit, then later says that He has lied to God. This is the clearest example of the Holy Spirit being referred to as God is scripture, even as there are other references that point us in that direction.

So...We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons—God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; that these are equal in every divine perfection, and that .

THEY EXECUTE DISTINCT BUT HARMONIOUS OFFICES IN THE WORK OF CREATION, PROVIDENCE AND REDEMPTION

And we are going to spend the next three weeks looking at how this works, but for now lets just see this last point as an introduction to things yet to come.

Gospel Application.

As I sat down to decide how I was going to tackle such a complicated doctrinal issue as the Trinity in just one week, I was hoping to find some sort of illustration that would help us all wrap our minds around, but the more I dug the more I saw that this is an exercise in futility.

Some people suggest something like an egg that is made up of shell, white and yoke but still all just one egg, but that doesn’t really work for the Trinity because these are just three parts of a whole. We would never look at the egg shell and say “That is an egg” because it’s just one part of the egg, but with all three persons in the trinity we can say that they are truly and fully God on their own.

Another common illustration is the idea of using water in it’s three forms: Ice cubes, liquid water, and steam. The idea being that on a molecular level they are all still one thing: H20 but they manifest in different forms. Solid liquid or gas. Again this starts us off in the right direction in seeing three in One, but it still falls terribly short. God didn’t take one form to become the Father, another form to become the Son and yet another to become the Holy Spirit.

When St. Patrick was trying to explain the Trinity He reached down and grabbed a three leaf clover,

St Augustine used the physcological framework of the lover, the beloved and love itself to express the Trinity.

I even saw that my daughter had my old juggling balls out this week, and so I got to thinking maybe there its something in this for the three in one - three balls all working together to create one thing that is juggling…but what I found is that all of these fall horribly short.

Here is the big idea: God is so “other-than” us. He is “Transcendent” in that he exists beyond and outside of the World of our experience. His very existence is not bound by the limitations that we are bound by. He created all things including time, space and all matter…and yet...He still chooses to be actively involved in our world. He chooses to relate to us. He chooses to reveal Himself to us. He chooses to love us.

And this is where we see that the doctrine of the Trinity begins to matter.

We are never going to be able to know God fully, but we have been given the opportunity to know Him truly, as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. Since God exists outside of our realm of understanding we have nothing to do but trust that in His love for us he has revealed to us everything we need to know to know Him truly, even as we should never even expect to know Him fully.

Every heresy that surrounds the doctrine of the Trinity is born out the sinful attitude that says that the things that the Bible says about God can’t be true because they don’t fit together in my understanding. But would you even want a God so small that you could totally understand Him.

God has told us...

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

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.

Landing

I think that it why the Doctrine of the Trinity Matters, because it paints this beautiful picture of God that is unmistakably “other than us” and yet desires a loving relationship with us. Not because He was lonely, because God didn’t need another person to love because he had all three persons of the Trinity for all of eternity and yet He desires to have a love relationship with each one of us!

We will never fully understand God, but we can truly know Him and especially we can know his love for us: NLT

Ephesians 3:18–21 NLT

18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.