Did Jesus really teach the Trinity?

All right. Now we're live. Well, welcome back, Peter. Thank you so much for coming back. How are you?

Doing well. Thanks for having me.

I'm so glad you're here. For those of you that may have not listened to our second episode, Pastor Peter Moord is a pastor at New Life Church in California that I met on a plane when I was deliberating if I should even start this podcast.

And I was really, really concerned, really scared. And then of course, when I get on a Southwest flight to go back home, I sit next to a pastor watching videos about baptism. And you don't know this, actually, but I was like, this is such a sign from God for us to talk.

And we kind of talked, but I could tell you were busy. And I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to be like, no, engage. And I was like, no, if I'm supposed to talk to this pastor, he's got to come to me.

And sure enough, I got off the plane, put my headphones in, and you chased me down and was like, hey, here's the card for my church. We should talk. And I was like, okay, we got to talk.

That's awesome. Well, what you don't know is the Holy Spirit was like, dude, you sat in a plane for four hours and didn't have a conversation, which I always have a conversation, but I was just so focused on what I was studying.

And sometimes we can be so into our own little bubble that we miss what God wants to do around.

Us.

So no, that was awesome. I'm thankful that God crossed our paths.

Me too.

I remember even in the prep calls for this podcast, you were like, you got to do it. You clearly have this on your heart cast. God asked you specifically to do that, which definitely put the pressure on, but I'm glad.

You did that.

That was like, I needed somebody to do that for me.

So thank you.

Absolutely. No, I'm glad and I've been praying for it.

Thank you.

The topic today is something that I am coming humbly into this podcast with, with zero information. I'm just going to like lay that out. And we were kind of just talking about this, but as a Christian who's been pretty lukewarm her whole life, the idea of the Trinity never was something that I thought I needed to question or even reconsider.

And I'm not saying that we're reconsidering the Trinity in this episode, but more so to think that it wasn't, I don't know, I just kind of skipped over the idea that it had to be developed and it needed to be kind of said out loud that there is a Trinity.

I guess I just thought when Jesus kind of was on earth, he just, that kind of came with him, that there's God, there's Jesus, and then there's the Holy Spirit. But that's not the case. If we look at historical events, it had to be kind of in a creed, you know, that it needed to be developed.

But before we get into the history of it, what is the, you know, if I'm five years old, how would you explain the Trinity to me?

Yeah. So it's the fact that God is one God. And he says that over and over again, that he's one God, but that he coexists in three unique and distinct persons. So not in three essence of the same person, but in three distinct persons.

And I know that's hard for us to wrap our mind around. And we are in this dimension. So it's all that we know, it's all that we can think about. And whenever I explain the Trinity to people, I always use a piece of paper.

Do you mind if I use like an object lesson?

Go for it.

So if I were to try to explain this to someone who had never seen a pencil before, I think if I could use a piece of paper as well, if I were to take this same pencil, this mechanical pencil and put it through a piece of paper, I think it'd be easy for you to understand that the bottom that's coming through is only a part of the pencil.

So Jesus came down to earth, we only saw a part of who God is. And so if you think of the spirit being the part kind of in the middle that is interacting with our beings, we can't see him, right?

But we just know. It's like in between the two folds of the paper.

Yeah, yeah.

We know he exists, right? And so this is so silly, and I've never seen anyone do this. It just helps me.

No, I love it.

This is how I would explain it, right? So it's, you know, Jesus, the spirit in God, the father. And as much as we want to read about God, the father, we will really, truly have a hard time putting that into focus.

But Jesus came down to earth to allow us to see in really all of his manifestation who God was in the form of a man. And so God with us, that's Emmanuel, right? So it is difficult for us to think about a multidimensional God from this dimension.

But I just am thankful that we have a God that's so much greater than our understanding. I think there is great peace in that. And just like anything that is immaterial in our world, regardless of if it's religious or not, it all takes faith.

What do you mean by that? Well, we know more about the universe, Cass, than we do about our own dreams. So the headspace while we sleep is something that's very, I mean, it's been studied and, you know, my background, psychology and counseling and, you know, taking some of the biology classes when I was doing my master's, it just, it was, you know, no pun intended, mind-blowing to think that there's so many parts of the mind that we haven't even explored.

Like we don't even know why that happens. And, you know, up until recently, we didn't realize even that gray matter would grow, you know, beyond the thirties and expand and all of the things that happen in the mind.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, David says in Psalms. So what I'm saying is anything immaterial, anything that we can't, you know, touch, feel, you know, and see right off the bat is a matter of faith.

I mean, creation itself is a matter of faith. No one was there regardless of how we believe everything came about. And so when it comes to this, it is a matter of faith, but I think that God has revealed so many things to us about the Trinity that it's important.

It's important to uncover.

Absolutely.

No, I think that is really interesting for the people that are like trying to pinpoint faith on just religion, but it's like, we have a lot of faith that there's not a monster at the bottom of the ocean, but we haven't seen that yet.

You know, like, I think that there is a lot of secular areas within our life that we have faith in. We just don't recognize it.

Right.

Yeah.

That's actually a really good point. And faith itself has, you know, the Bible says in Hebrews 11, 1, it says, without faith or in Hebrews 11, 6, without faith, it is impossible to please God. So the way that we interact with God is faith.

But then in the first verse of Hebrews 11, 1, it says that faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So it is our faith that allows us to go into these areas like the Trinity and say, OK, the Bible says it.

It's revealed in nature. This is who God is based on the revealed truth and based on everything we've seen and based on the eyewitnesses who walked and talked with Jesus. This is who God is. And so one day we will see him.

One day we will be face to face with him. The Bible says that. But until then, we have eyes of faith and one day our faith will be made sight.

Absolutely.

The Holy Spirit in Acts and the Old Testament Roots of the Trinity

OK, so the Trinity. Let's get into some history lesson here, because I love a history lesson. How did it form? Like, what was it? Could you I mean, I want to like push your limits of what you know and don't know.

So if you don't know, it's fine. But Jesus is alive, Jesus dies, and then people are figuring out New Testament because obviously the Old Testament's already developed and now they're developing the Gospels and everything for the New Testament.

And Constantine is in power, total Christian society, you know, that's so different from what the Romans were before. But now they're kind of planning out what Jesus is, Christianity and what this religion should look like.

And that included a conversation about there's a God above. A man was just on earth who claimed to be God and then rose like rose from the dead. And then so I guess how did the Holy Spirit come into play as the third?

Yes.

So if I could go back to the transition between when Jesus Acts chapter one, you can read this when he ascended into heaven. That was the that was the transition. I mean, Jesus had said on earth, I mean, several times, hey, when I leave, it's actually going to be good for you.

This is John 14, John 16. It's going to be good for you because I'm going to leave a paracletus. I'm going to leave a comforter. I'm going to leave the spirit. And he's not going to be bound by one physical person like Jesus was.

Jesus was the Godhead bodily, like he he was one human being, right? All man, all God. So so he was bound by by that. And so the spirit would be everywhere all at once, just like God is omnipresent. And so his point was, hey, when I leave, the spirit will come to you.

And in that transition period, you read in the book of Acts, all of the things that were happening, the people who had the Holy Spirit in them, they had clothing, clothing, tongues of fire, like these little little fire halos or whatever you want to call them over their.

Head.

You know, these massive miracles were happening. You know, people were speaking in Greek and and people who only spoke Hebrew understood.

It.

People were speaking Aramaic and people who only, you know, spoke, you know, some of the African dialects, you know, Egyptian. They understood it. I mean, it was it was amazing what the Holy Spirit was doing.

People were being raised from the dead and, you know, lives were being changed. It was just this incredible thing where signs and wonders were being done. And God was showing, hey, I'm still here. Like Jesus left, but his spirit is still here.

And the church, the church was was really, like you said, trying to trying to accept the fact, OK, God, God is still with us. He has not forsaken us just because he's his physical presence is not here.

He is absolutely still working and he's still here. And so that's where the that's where the Trinity started in a very real practical sense. But it immediately started, you know, the the idea of the Trinity started right when the first words of scripture were being penned, you know, by the Holy Spirit.

We know that holy, you know, holy men were moved as the Holy Spirit led them. And so the Holy Spirit is the author, obviously. But but, you know, Moses pinned down, let us in in Genesis one twenty six, let us make man in our image.

It's plural. And the Holy Spirit's mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis. I believe that Jesus is referenced in the first chapter of Genesis. We know this because in John one one, you know, he's talking about how Jesus created all things.

All things were made by him. So I know I'm throwing a lot out there, but my point is just to kind of paint a broad picture and then we can get more specific. The Trinity didn't, you know, begin to happen when Jesus showed up.

It had always been before the before Adam and Eve were formed by God himself. The Trinity already had unity, already had a relationship. And this is so important because C .S. Lewis says this, that if the Trinity did not exist, God could not be love because love is given and received.

OK, so because because God is love, there had to be a relationship. We stepped into the relationship that God had with himself when Adam and Eve were walking with him in the in the cool of the day and having relationship with him and loving him.

That love wasn't just created out of nothing. God was already love. And so because we were made in his likeness, in his image, we are stepping into his love. We love him because he first loved us, 1st John says.

So so we're stepping into this. And there's there's, again, a lot of theological truths that I'm just trying to simplify and just just kind of give the overview. But but the Trinity didn't just happen to be when Jesus said it was.

It was always existing, which is hard for us to wrap our minds around as well, but it was always existing. And there are there's a thread of the Trinity all throughout the Old Testament. And then when the New Testament comes, you realize, oh, OK, here's you have a greater high definition view, if you will, of who God is in three persons.

But being one God.

OK, wow, you the way you said we stepped into the love, but he made us in his image. I don't know. For me, that was a really good visual in my head. But I think, yeah, no, I think I'm being way too logistical about it, that after Jesus in Acts, there's the Pentecost that you were referring to, that kind of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone was speaking, but everyone could hear each other despite their different dialects. And it's like, oh, the Holy Spirit has entered the chat. But you're you know, that's not right. Like the Holy Spirit was there all along.

And so you're saying like by the time they got down to the New Testament, they were kind of recognizing the role, documenting it and acknowledging it. Right. Whereas before. That's interesting, because you're thinking like if I'm putting myself into the shoes of, let's say, one of the disciples and Jesus is the person in front of me and he's referencing the God that we're worshiping, the Jewish God that everyone kind of was already familiar with.

But now there's God right in front of me. And I want to call it magic because that's like what my Western American 21st century mind wants to call it. He's like, OK, and now he's like moving his hands and people are getting up from the dead.

So what is that? That is the Holy Spirit kind of working through him that after he leaves, it remains. And I think once and then so it sounds like once Jesus has gone, they're like, oh, that's still here.

Right. It didn't leave with him. One of the I want to reference one of the Gospels, because now let's pretend that I'm John. So we're going to read from John 17, one through five for the NIV version. So if if I'm John and I have the living God right in front of me, this is what it says.

It says after Jesus said this, which we can read ahead, he looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Now, this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on Earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

I feel like that's a pretty heavy statement for John to witness. I mean. It is it makes Jesus I mean, this might be kind of wrong to say, but it makes Jesus seem like an alien that was like outworldly experience, something that our human mind on Earth couldn't even comprehend.

We would never say something like that. Like, God, remember the pact that you and I talked about before I got to Earth? Like, what that is a wild sentence for John to witness and for us to comprehend.

But like Jesus knew and this is beyond the Holy Spirit. Now, this is Jesus identifying himself as God as well. But still, I mean, what are your thoughts on that verse?

Yeah, it's super powerful. And, you know, the thing I love about John is John had the benefit of a lot of perspective, a lot of a whole lifetime. You know, I think it was like 90 A .D. when he's penning this, you know, of course, under the inspiration of Holy Spirit.

But but recognizing the importance of this and, you know, when you have the first thing penned around 32 A .D., which is right after Jesus was was, I mean, crucified. I mean, so we have things, you know, like the the the resurrection creed in First Corinthians 15 that is penned when all this is happening.

Like it was they didn't wait. Right. But there's benefit in having John who who walked and talked with Jesus, who saw the first century church explode, who saw them persecuted, who saw Nero, you know, killing hundreds of thousands of Christians and Jews.

And and he saw all of this and he saw that it didn't end Christianity. It actually thrust Christianity into greater, you know, roles in places that it would have never gone. And all of this is, you know, culminating.

And when you get to John 17, where Jesus is praying, it's one of the most powerful prayers. It probably is the most powerful prayer in scripture. But one of the things that's interesting about this is Jesus is giving us a window into his relationship with God and at the same time showing us how he is God.

Because of what because of his all know, you know, his knowledge, because of because of what's about to happen, we need to understand and John's helping us through the inspiration of Holy Spirit to understand that this isn't a man that's dying for your sins.

This is an infinite death. So if if a perfect man died, OK, then that's just one man dying. But if a man who's God dies, then his payment is infinite, meaning there is no limit to the number of people that he can pay for.

And so it is so majestic and and the depth of it. I don't believe that we I think for all of eternity we will be trying to find the the bottom of this this canyon of his love and the depths of who he is and his grace and all of that.

And I don't think there is a bottom. I think that it's just it really is beyond our comprehension. And so that's where that's where when you start pulling on that thread of the Trinity, you start you start realizing how great God is.

And it really does put everything in perspective. It is it is what I believe is the greatest doctrine in Scripture because it is who God is. And when someone comes to Scripture looking for who they are, they're reading into it.

They're looking for themselves. And Proverbs says, you know, a fool cares nothing about anyone other than himself. Right. But when we look to God, the great thing is we we now we know who we are. Right.

And so the Trinity is helping us understand who God is. Helping us understand who Jesus was and is and now how the spirit interacts with us and the work of the spirit and the person of the spirit and how the spirit feels and and interacts with Christians today like you and me.

Yeah, absolutely. OK, I'm going to push a little bit because I want you to sell me on why that this is one of the greatest parts of the Bible, because I am kind of zoning back into my logistical what happened next mentality.

Yes. Why was this the best scripture ever? Because to me, it seems like a no brainer. You know, it seems like a no brainer. If you, you know, believed in God, experienced Jesus, saw that the Holy Spirit was still here.

What was the point of the Council of Nicaea where they had to state directly that there is a Trinity? Wouldn't it have just been kind of like group thought? We all just believed it anyways. Like, why was there even a debate?

Yeah, so if you read the book of Galatians, you're going to see you're going to see this already starting. I mean, you know, and again, we can go into the Council of Nicaea, but that was so much later.

That's 325 A .D. Yeah. When you when you get into Galatians, you know, 50 A .D., you're realizing, oh, you know, the council, you know, the Jerusalem Council, which decided that, you know, Greeks could be, you know, exempted from all of the Jewish dietary laws and they could be accepted in the church and all of that.

You're realizing, oh, so people were bringing their Greco-Roman context into Christianity and people were bringing their Judeo-Christian context, their Judaism. You know, they were called Judaizers in Galatians.

Those Judaizers were bringing all of their rules and all of their religiosity into Christianity. And so it's normal for people like Arian who really popularized. He was he was the the bishop of Alexander who popularized the fact that, no, we have one God.

Well, he was taking that from Judaism, the fact that there there aren't multiple gods, there's only one God. And I've had Jewish rabbis call me a polytheist because I believe in the Trinity. And just because I'm Trinitarian, they say, well, no, you believe in three gods.

And and I said, no, it's one. And they're like, no, well, it's three because, you know, you can't call it one. You know, the Lord, our God is one Lord. And they and they quote Deuteronomy, you know, six, four, which is the Shema they quoted every day.

So they know that they say that the Lord, our God is one God. And I just believe that God can be one and can be three at one time. You know, so again, that same pushback, the same conversations that I'm having with Jewish rabbis in L .A. and and and great friends of mine who who are, you know, who don't believe that Jesus, you know, was the Messiah, the promised one or the son of God, you know, that those conversations are still being had.

So so that there were certainly people who didn't believe it. But when you if you're just talking about the church, you're talking about the people who walked and talked with Jesus. We're talking about the church that Jesus died for, you know, as Acts 20, 28 says, he purchased with his own blood like this was his church.

He was the founder. Right. Well, when when we're talking about that, those people did believe the Trinity. Those people were dying, saying that Jesus was God. So so again, you know, it really to to someone like me, I don't I don't go to the Council of Nicaea.

I go to I go to I go to Paul, who was a historical figure. And and I go to, you know, the writer of Hebrews, which may have been Paul. I go to, you know, the early historians, you know, like to tell Ian and tell Ian.

And I go to I go to these historians that are 100, 200 years before the Council of Nicaea to know that there's so much evidence that even before Constantine made it popular and legal to talk about it and to be a Christian.

OK, it was happening. It was happening all over. And there were thousands of people who were who were developing these these doctrines. And so I think it's just important to note that and know that there's a lot of historical evidence out there.

And some people can say, well, I don't I don't believe that, you know. But but again, that's for that's up for debate. You do want to look at that evidence, though.

A hundred percent. OK, so let me because history and chronology really matters to me and just understanding the process. So if we're looking at Hebrews and I want to look at Hebrews one, one through eight, which you've already sent to me that I would love to read, where does that land in time compared to Jesus lived?

Hebrews was written and then the Council of Nicaea, like where did the Hebrews writing, where did that land in history?

Yeah, so that letter and again, people debate who wrote it. I believe Paul wrote it. But regardless, it's an actual letter with, you know, hundreds of manuscripts to back up the fact that it was, you know, meant for the church, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

There's so many ways that that met the the, you know, canon, which was the rule, you know, the rule for whether or not scripture was was, you know, recognized. But it was it was a letter written to the Hebrews who were at Rome.

OK, so all of their about 50 ,000 Hebrews, Hebrew people who were in Rome, who were Christians. So they they spoke Hebrew. They were of they were of Jewish descent, but they they literally were were being persecuted for their faith because they believed that this guy was their Messiah, that he was the son of God.

And so I'm I'm really, you know, I'm really appreciative that God gave us, you know, multiple angles in this. It wasn't just like one angle. This is the only you know, this is the only text. No, there are many different angles.

So by the time we get to chapter eight in this letter to these to these, you know, Hebrews, I think it's important for us to understand that that they are he's building a case of who Jesus was for all the people who they have just reached, all the people that they have said, hey, listen, come come worship our our creator.

Come come know who we've met and and who we believe that Jesus is. And and even if they haven't met met him physically, obviously they had received him. They they believe that he was their savior, their their the one that that was going to forgive them of their sins.

And you read through that there. They were looking to him as their high priest. Chapter 10. So by the time you get to chapter eight, it's talking about how God views Jesus. And and when you read verse one through eight, you're really getting a picture of, oh, here's here's how God views the angels and here's how God views Jesus.

And then there's a specific quotation that that the writer of Hebrews says that God says about Jesus and and it's specifically thy throne. Oh, God is in heaven and he's talking about Jesus. It's God to Jesus saying that that he was God.

And that's one of those scriptures that you really it's hard to twist that any other way. I mean, it's God talking to Jesus, calling him God. So I think that's that's pretty strong.

Thank you. OK, we can read it, but so you're saying that this was written right after.

Jesus? Yes.

Yeah. I mean, the the again, the dating has a range, right? But because it doesn't have that, you know, the manuscripts don't have like a date stamped on them. But because we know the time that we know the audience and we know the things that he's mentioning in the book and all that, you know, it's probably around sixty.

Five, sixty to sixty five before the Council of Nicaea. So they already had these texts when they were deliberating. Yes. OK, let's go ahead and read it, because I'll read Hebrews one one through eight, the NIV version.

So God's final word. So this is God talking to Jesus. OK, in the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophet at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he also made the universe.

I mean, it pretty much says that the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

So he became as much superior to the angels as the name as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. Oh, so there. So he has become as much. OK, thank you for that. OK, so verse five for which to for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son today.

I have become your father or again, I will be his father and he will be my son. And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels worship him. And speaking of the angels, he says he makes he makes his angel spirits and his servants flames of fire.

But about the sun, he says, your throne, oh, God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. So he's saying God calls Jesus God, your throne.

Oh, God. Right.

Yeah. And it's one of the greatest texts to know what God's thinking about him. And I love the little nod to Jesus's baptism, because when Jesus was baptized and we have that recorded in the New Testament, you know, he comes up out of the water and the spirit is descending like a dove.

It didn't say he was a dove, but the spirit was descending like the dove. So now you have the spirit there, the heavens open and God says, this is my beloved son and whom I am well pleased. Right. So so now God's recognizing that it's a son and and now the spirit's there.

But now you have later on God recognizing that he's not just his son, but he's also God, which is a hard thing for us again in our dimension to wrap our mind around. But it's important. I think it's important for us to to embrace that tension, to say we're not just dealing with a mere man.

We're not doing dealing with something that intellectually we can wrap our our minds around like this is something that we we should struggle with. And in the struggle, there is there is a calming, a peace to know that that this God is great and not just great enough to overcome our challenges and not just great enough to, you know, hold the world together.

I think that that's kind of a surface level that he's great enough to redeem all humanity and he's great enough to allow eternal life to not just be something that's this pie in the sky idea that he talks about how his throne will be forever.

And, you know, the whole Bible is is this, you know, mosaic of God reconnecting with man that, you know, it was severed in the Garden of Eden when man decided to define good and evil on his own terms.

But now God's reconnecting and he is reconnecting by saying, hey, by the way, this is this is a little bit about me, just like you would connect with someone over coffee or or lunch. Hey, this is a little bit about me.

And this is, you know, let me let me hear about you. Well, well, now we are his creation. So so he knows everything about us, but but he still wants to hear from us. And and he wants us to know about him.

And there's there's a depth in that relationship and there's there's strength in that relationship. And it is a it is a fountain, as Jesus said in John four, that will never run dry. Like like this is this is the secret to to lasting peace and and to the way that Christian life was meant to be lived.

A hundred percent. So I'm just thinking like an omnipresent God that is beyond our understanding. This is me trying to rationalize and understand is so if God is kind of the creator and Jesus was on Earth, it feels like to me the Holy Spirit is the omnipresence part.

Would that be or do you think the Holy Spirit serves a different purpose? And God is always omnipresent, always all knowing the Holy Spirit is like the messenger. Like I'm trying to compartmentalize the role of the Holy Spirit right.

Now. Yeah. So and that's where, you know, there are there's there's so much we could talk about there. But if I could break them into two different categories, I think it'll help us. One is there's a category of attributes that God has that are things that we can replicate, things that we can do.

And in the theological arena, they're called communicable traits, right? They're things that we can actually do. We can you know, you can be loving and you can be, you know, gracious, just like God. You know, you can reflect God in these areas.

OK, however, you cannot be omnipresent and you cannot be omniscient. Those are non communicable traits. Those are traits only God has. You cannot forgive. Only God can forgive. And so when Jesus is on Earth, he is fully man, but he's also fully God.

So he walks up to Nathaniel and he said, I saw you. And Nathaniel was like, what, huh? And he's like, yeah, when you were under the tree and he described everything that he was doing, I saw you there showing that he was he was omniscient.

He knew what was happening all at once. Right. So just because he was a man doesn't mean that he, you know, wasn't fully God as well. There's so many examples of that, that where God was forgiving sins and he was doing things that no mere man could do.

And so it's beautiful that God would come down to us, that he would that he would indwell this earth. I mean, he would come down to this. I shouldn't have used the word indwell, but he would come down to this earth and he would be with us is what I meant to say.

And and that just there's there's beauty in that he would be tempted in all points like we are yet without sin. He feels that empathy, you know, but but yet he is still fully God.

OK. OK, yeah, it's so hard to grasp. I understand why people struggle with it, but I'm going to ask you to do something kind of difficult, Peter, but what are some of the main issues people have with the Trinity?

Because I feel like I don't understand it fully enough to ask the questions. But what are some of the things you think should be clarified? Because people have the most questions about it and they need to be like, at least from your perspective, set straight from what you know.

Yeah. And I want you to know that there are a lot of there are a lot of complex theological things. So I get why people are constantly, you know, gnawing on this. I mean, trying to figure this out. Right.