Triune God in Salvation

Ephesians  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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A look at Gods' triune nature and how it is revealed in the salvation texts of Epesians 1.

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Transcript

Welcome

Announcements

Farmers Market
Start of Wednesday Night Study on the Puritan Faith this Wednesday

Prepare for Worship - Let us prepare are hearts and minds to worship the Triune God today

Call To Worship

Responsive Reading - Psalm 67 pg 202 in your Hymnals

English Standard Version (Psalm 67)
1  May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth,your saving power among all nations.
3  Let the peoples praise you, O God;let all the peoples praise you!
4  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.
5  Let the peoples praise you, O God;let all the peoples praise you!
6  The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us. May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him!
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Song - To God Be the Glory pg 485

Confession

Prayer of Confession -

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen

Assurance of Faith - We can know our sins are forgiven by these words from Eph 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

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Worship

Holy, Holy, Holy pg 138

A Mighty Fortress pg 260

Prayers of the People

Prayer Request

Triune God in Salvation

The Trinity as Necessary Belief

Let me begin with a stolen string of thought from the author of The forgotten Trinity, Dr. James White. He starts the book by saying “I love the Trinity.” Said in earnest this statement will take most people as strange. For most the idea of the trinity is simply an abstract idea. Outside of singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” most Christians have not spent alot of time learning about or being taught about the Trinity, especially from the pulpit. But honestly, saying I love the Trinity should be no different to us than saying I love the Cross, I love the Word. But that is hard for us, as for the most part Christians don’t understand, or they just don’t see how it matters in their walk, or worst they hold to an idea that we just don’t need all that theological stuff. Either way it leads us down paths we should not venture. Rather we should be willing and excited to learn and understand our God in a fuller manner. we need to begin to understand the doctrine of the Trinity as a basic concept of Christianity itself, and to understand how it informs our understanding of the Gospel itself.

What do we mean when we say the Trinity -

Once again borrowed from Dr. White: “I have found the following definition communicates what needs to be said with the greatest clarity: Within the one Being that is God, there exist eternally three coequal and coeternal Persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”
Do we have to believe in the Trinity?
Some would say no.
Question arises; if God is triune, and we deny that truth, do we have the God of Scripture? And does any other God save?
Steve Metaphor
What is it that we must understand and believe in regards to the doctrine of the Trinity
There is one God. This has been the basis of faith throughout all ages in regards to God.
We must deny any understanding of the Trinity that divides God into three beings, or three Gods
In this one essence or being of God, we find three distinct persons: the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit
We must deny any understanding that explains the three in terms of the one as different modes of operation or parts of existence.
We define God as simple, without parts because if He is comprised of parts, each of those parts would be lesser than God and therefore would indicate He is created from something outside of himself.
Each person of the Trinity is fully Diety. Each person is God, nothing less.
Three questions we must ask ourselves,
can we as Christians properly define the Trinity. Have we been taught sufficiently in this doctrine?
Ask ourselves, is our understanding of God as Triune in line with orthodox Christianity?
Could we defend the Trinity as a belief to someone challenging our faith?
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Historic Confessions -

Athanasian Creed: That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.  For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.
Westminster:
The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition Chapter II. Of God, and of the Holy Trinity

III. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father;p the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

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Roles in The Godhead -

Each person of the the Trinity operates in and of a single will, but with differing functions.
We must understand that the Father, Son and Spirit are not of differing minds. wills or purposes.
For an example we look to the roles of the persons of the Trinity in the act of Salvation
The Father
Wills, Purposes, and Chooses
The Son
Willfully sacrifices Himself for the atonement of Sin
The Holy Spirit
Performs the action of application of atonement in the work of regeneration\
Each role of the persons of the Godhead is unique, but at the same time is never at odds with any other person. We must firmly reject the idea of a God who is at best bi-polar as some would describe. A vengeful and angry God of the Old Testament, and a loving meek, and mild Jesus in the New. This is a mistake far to often painted to soften the full understanding of Scripture.
The God of the Old Testament that ordered the slaughter of nations in the OT is the same God who came in flesh and sacrificed himself on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.
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The Trinity in Scripture

The word of God is always our final authority when it comes to any doctrine. The Westminster confession states it as such: The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture
Westminster Assembly. (1851). The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition (pp. 20–21). Philadelphia: William S. Young.
It also states: The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture
Westminster Assembly. (1851). The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition (p. 18). Philadelphia: William S. Young.
Therefore when we investigate any doctrine (teaching of belief) we must be sure that we can either find it expressly written down in Scripture, or that it can be deduced by “good and necessary consequence.”
We must remember that nowhere in Scripture will you find the word Trinity, or the express statement that God is three persons in one being (or essence). So we must be able to defend why we are willing to say such things from Scripture itself, because it is not enough to say I believe it because someone told me that.
The following points and defenses are borrowed from “Defending the Trinity” by Jame Rochford

There is one God

The first point of defense that there is only one God, is the simplest to defend from Scripture, and is the least objected point of this doctrine from almost all other forms of monotheistic systems of belief.
Isaiah 45:6 states, “There is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other”
Paul writes, “There is one God” (1 Tim. 2:5)
James writes, “You believe that God is one. You do well” (Jas. 2:19)
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One Being, Three Persons

When we survey the Bible, we see that God is not play-acting as three distinct persons; instead, he is made up of three distinct persons.
At Jesus’ baptism, we read, “[Jesus] saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; 11 and a voice came out of the heavens: ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased’” (Mk. 1:10-11)
We can hardly make sense of the “high priestly prayer” unless the Father and Son are separate persons (Jn. 17)
Jesus told us to baptize new believers “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19)
Peter spoke of believers being chosen by “God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (1 Pet. 1:2). 14:26)

All Three Persons are fully God

First, the Father is FULLY GOD. Psalm 89:26 states, “You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.”
Second, the Holy Spirit is FULLY GOD. Peter says, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? …You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3-4)
Third, the Son is FULLY GOD. Paul tells us that Jesus “existed in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6), and “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1).

The Trinity Revealed in Ephesians 1

Now we have a fuller understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, and how it is revealed through Scripture, and how it has been expressed in orthodox thought throughout the history of the church, let us look at today’s passage and see what truths are revealed about the Trinitarian work in salvation.
A quick note of interest as you read through these passages, as i encourage you to do this week, as we will be spending a lot of time in these 11 verses over the coming weeks. Take particular note of the use of pronouns in regard to the persons of God. He and Him are used over and over, and often it is hard to discern who they refer back to, the Father, the Son,, or the Spirit. While this may not have been a purposeful use by Paul as he wrote, I think it is an inevitable by product of holding a trinitarian understanding of God, and serves as evidence even though Paul does not expressly reveal God’s nature in that way.
Understand today our goal is not to examine each verse in detail and pull out all the depth of each passage, but rather to see how it reveals the different roles of the persons of God in the act of salvation.

Fathers Work of Love Eph 1:3-6

We begin with the role of the Father in salvation. The specific aspects of salvation that are revealed as those of the Father are found in verses 3 through 6.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

This verse without the use of the word reveals a fathers love for his children, for he gives us all of the blessings possible in the heavenly places.

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him

and this is the outcome of those heavenly blessings with which He so greatly blessed us, that we were chosen in Him, we were Holied (set apart), just so that we could be blameless before Him, even though we know we are not

In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

Here we see that the Father predestines us for adoption. But not through anything we have done, not through our own merit, but through the Son, through the one who has done the work of our salvation for us. And He has not done this of any other will than that of His own.

to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved

Here it is revealed the why and the how of all the previous aspects of salvation. It is through grace that we are blessed in the Beloved. It is through grace that this predestination to adoption and shoosing to holiness is accomplished. And for one reason only. The praise of His glorious grace. It is for His glory alone that we are saved. It is not for our own sakes that we are brought into His family, but simply so that He might be glorified.

Sons Work of Redemption Eph 1:7-12

The following 6 verses reveal the Son’s role in our salvation, we will look at 3 points in particular. But it should be noted that all of the God has centered all of the salvation of the world on the person of Christ. As we read through those previous 3 verses take note that everything done by the Father was t=done through the Son

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight

Verse 6 ends with our blessing in the Beloved, who we then see in verse 7 is the one through who we have redemption through His blood. Obviously the beloved is Christ, and here we find that we have forgiveness of sins, through redemption. Notice the pronoun confusion in the second half of the verse “according to the riches of His grace” is this pointing back to the father whose grace was highlighted in the previous verse? Or is it a clear indication that the grace of the Father and the grace of the Son are one in the same. That grace that was given for His glory, is lavished upon us, which makes sense that if it is for His glory alone and not our own benefit, that He would give it without hesitation, and He does so with ALL wisdom and insight.

making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth

Jesus is here credited in verses 9 and 10 with another work of our salvation. This is a work that we will expand greatly upon in the future, but it is important to see here that this redemption, bought with His blood is not for us alone. We are told here that it is revealed to us that the mystery of the gospel is that His blood buys all things and redeems them all, all things will be united, things in heaven and earth. Christ work is not one simply limited to the salvation of individuals that will eternally exist in an ethereal state called heaven, but rather the salvation is fully realized in the uniting of heaven and earth. An eternal dwelling of God and man in his creation as was His original design. So much to cover there, that we will give full treatment of later.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory

Finally we see the connection between the role of the Son and the role of the Father. The predestination to adoption is accomplished through the redemptive work of the Son who then provides for us the actual inheritance, all the things united and redeemed by Him in heaven and on earth. And again we are told that this is done according to the purpose of the one who does all things according to the counsel of His own will.

Spirits Work of Application Eph 1:13-14

Finally we see the role of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We find these revealed in verses 13 and 14.

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

Here we are told that when we heard the word of truth (jesus is the Word), this good news of our salvation. When we heard it and when we believed we were sealed with the Holy Spirit. Think the ancient method of sealing a letter from a King. an Impression in wax or in soft clay. It indicated ownership. This is the work of the Spirit, He is the one who puts the mark of ownership upon the believer. He is the means by which God dwells now with His people daily.
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Eph 1:14). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
We now see the threefold tie of purpose as this verse points back to the previous verses speaking of adoption and inheritance. The Spirit is now our guarantee, our means of keeping hold of that adoption and inheritance. then means by which we as fallen creations are able to maintain relationship with our God until we actually obtain our inheritance that was discussed earlier.

Conclusion

Because this set of passages is inherently revealing of the Triune nature of God, it was important for us to cover the topic. I could have very easily stated it as fact and moved on, and no one would question it. it is a firmly held believe among Christians, but more often than not we don't hold to it out of a sincere understanding, but rather simply because it is told to us that is what we are to believe. That is why I find it important to cover this topic. And honestly this was a very cursory overview of the topic. Maybe at a later date we will enter into an in-depth series so that we might grow even more into maturity as we seek to know and understand this God in whom we profess faith. What we should seek to gather from todays’ overview is those things that we must profess as true in regards to the Trinity. While I do not expect anyone, myself included to be able to recite and explain the Athanasian Creed, we do need to be able to understand the basics. There is but one God, that God exist in one being and three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, those three persons are all fully God, but the Father is not the Son nor the Spirit, The Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Son.
Secondly we looked at Pauls introductory passage about the gospel and the nature of salvation, and in it we saw that our salvation is necessarily Triune in nature. In fact we could say that without a triune God we would not have salvation at all. For in our salvation we find that each person of the Trinity has a specific role, the Father in choosing and predestining, the Son in the completion of the work of redemption in man and all things as an inheritance to the believer, and the Spirit in the sealing and maintaining of the believer until he receives that inheritance. Let us then say with earnest hearts “ I love the Trinity,” for it is a beautiful understanding of our God.
Closing Prayer

Doxology pg 592

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Commisioning

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen

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