Dr. James White, The Doctrine of The Trinity

It is good to be with you today. I woke up very early this morning someplace else and that's how road tripping works, and I am

I am not a Lifelong RVer or anything like that so those of you who are take pity upon me pray for me

As I as I learn all of the tricks of the trade This is my second trip.

I went north the first time and Unfortunately, there is something called the Rocky Mountains North of me

I I'm not sure there is a hill between Conway and here. I I didn't run into one

That was pretty amazing that was that was my truck got into a nice rhythm, and it's just that was fun.

That was very nice Until we got off the real nice highways, and then it's like oh, this is interesting

Look at all these you have you have so many green things here. I don't really know what those are living in Phoenix And I have to keep watching because someday the front air conditioner on my unit will be the casualty of my not watching and That's gonna be a horrible sound when it takes place.

I can assure you, but it's a good to be with you I'm on my way to Something called g3 the conference in Atlanta.

I actually am supposed to be speaking tomorrow night So tomorrow is gonna be an early morning, and please pray that I don't have any issues between here and there it's a pretty long pretty long drive and but on Friday I have the assignment of being the warm -up

For two guys you've probably never heard of before it'd be preaching after me some guy named

Vodie Balcom another guy named Paul washer So I'm not really sure who they are but Yeah, it's gonna be a great time

Hopefully there at g3 and then I've got a number of stops on the way back where I'm gonna be speaking and things like that So we're just sort of getting used to this.

I'm sort of getting used to it and when I Have been up all day and driving. I generally don't throw on the bowtie and things like that.

Hope you don't mind because when you have to hook up power cords and water lines and Sewer lines and things like that.

It's just sort of like yeah, okay We'll we'll be casual the rest of the day after after we do all of that, but it is good to be with you

We have two topics. We're gonna be covering today, and it was interesting I just happen to notice even though I'm pretty much focused on the road and Traffic and things like that you have to be

By the way if you drive like a little Prius or something could I give you a piece of advice?

The reason that those of us who are driving something It's over 40 feet long and in my case between 7 16 and 18 thousand pounds the reason there is space between me and the next vehicle in my lane is because I need that space to stop and So when you take your

Prius and zip in front of me and slam on the brakes. I will turn you into a Ritz cracker Really fast it's amazing what what people do in those situations just a little common sense type thing goes on there

But I was driving into Jonesboro And I looked over to my right and what to my wondering eyes did appear

Then an Islamic Center Yes a a mosque Have have any of you visited that mosque for example y 'all you have a couple of you have okay?

And Very nicely built there, it's not a small one. It's not real big, but There's one there, and I passed a

Newman Center for the Roman Catholic Church on the way in as well, so obviously there are

Issues to be addressed not so much with the Newman Center on this subject though I would raise some issues concerning Mary on some some aspects of things, but especially with the the

Islamic Center there There is a real need for Christians who know what they believe why they believe and are passionate about What they believe to be able to interact with those folks.

I have a special Love in my heart of course for the Muslim people having had the opportunity of engaging in debates with them literally all over the world

Those were those were that those were the before corona days Where in 2019

I flew a hundred and sixty -five thousand miles and taught in South Africa Samara Russia Melbourne Australia spent two months in London And we'll probably never get to do any of that ever again to be honest with you

But in those days I got to debate in mosques in South Africa and I love the

Muslim people and they need Christians who know what they believe and Why they believe it and are passionate about those things and can answer sometimes very challenging questions as well and so let's use that as sort of the example to to Walk us into our topic

It does seem to me that most evangelicals in the West are

Trinitarians of tradition, but not so much of passion if any of you have seen my book

The Forgotten Trinity, you know that I began that book by telling a story and by raising the phrase

I Love the Trinity and asking the question. When did you last hear anyone say I love the

Trinity you hear people saying? I love Jesus. I love prophecy. I love worship.

I love eschatology You hear all that kind of stuff, but when do you ever hear anyone saying

I love the Trinity and I think the primary reason for that is that for most of us it is somewhat of a mystery and We feel uncomfortable with it

We recognize you know if I right now for example I've taught systematic theology and seminary many times and if if I right now said

I'm going to pick one of you out and I'm going to ask you three questions

About the doctrine of the Trinity and I started looking around What's gonna happen is a number of you are all sudden going to discover that your left big toe is fascinating You'd never noticed how fascinating that was, right?

because most of us don't want to be put in that position and One of the problems

I think is most pastors don't want to be put in that position either and One thing

I learned a long time ago My church history professor put it this way That which is a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew

So if the person up here isn't overly clear about a certain thing

It's going to be even less clear in the pew because they are going to struggle to be able to express themselves

They may be inconsistent and how they express themselves on these certain beliefs And so if many of our seminary graduates are not really

Passionate about and have a clarity of thought Concerning the doctrine of the Trinity if it's just something that's out there.

It's historical. Well, it is historical. It's major part of the history of the church but if it's just out there if it's just in our systematic theologies and Not a part of the everyday

Experience of a Christian let's put it this way How many of us could honestly admit that?

We could easily go through an entire day of our life Without ever contemplating the

Trinity that shouldn't be the case because for example when you pray

Who are you praying to? Why do you pray in the way that you pray? Why is it that Jesus said in John chapter 14 about the time after his ascension back to the father?

He said if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it Well, how would you ask Jesus something in his name after he's ascended back to the father?

Well, that's why in first Corinthians Christians are known as those those who Epicaleo they call upon the name of the

Lord the Lord there is Jesus They were praying to Christ So, how do you do that because most people simply pray to the father or even worse

How many times you heard someone praying Don't want to pick on anybody here But you've heard something like this

Oh Heavenly Father we thank you for giving us this day to gather together and Oh Heavenly Father We thank you for coming and dying for us and no one even twitches

The father didn't die for us The spirit didn't die for us It was the son who became incarnate and so I have often heard people make

Trinitarian errors in prayer which indicates a level of confusion on their part as to What role the divine persons have had in the gospel itself?

I think that impacts our worship I think it impacts our hymnology the worship of the church together now there are some groups that are

Very explicitly Trinitarian and most their people really do know the doctrine fairly. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of their theology is going to be

Balanced and and and and sound but there are certain groups that have a good strong emphasis in those areas and we can be thankful for that, but we as believers

Should recognize that historically the church has said this is the defining doctrine of the faith.

I Mean at least up until the last few years, I suppose It's been pretty obvious that we can't have fellowship

With for example Jehovah's Witnesses, not that they were looking to have fellowship with us in the first place But we why couldn't why couldn't we have fellowship with Jehovah's Witnesses they think the

Bible's the Word of God yeah, they've got a weird translation of it, but And yeah, they're constantly trying to convert us and wake us up on Saturday mornings and make us angry with them and things like that but Why can't we have fellowship with Jehovah's Witnesses?

Well because they believe Jesus is Michael the Archangel and That the Holy Spirit is an impersonal active force similar to the electricity that is

Lighting these blinding lights that are so wonderful over on the sides of the room He's not a person he's an it and So they deny the doctrine of the

Trinity So we can't have fellowship with them but how can that be when most of our fellowship doesn't actually involve us really understanding what the doctrine of the

Trinity is in the first place and Then those Mormon missionaries aren't they some of the nicest young men you've ever seen

I mean, they are so clean -cut and they're in good shape too. They're riding a bike everywhere and You know, they they want to talk about families and and they wear white shirts and it's just it's just great and wonderful but we don't have fellowship with them either because they believe they can become gods and that God the

Father was once a man lived on another planet and that his one of his first his firstborn spirit child with one of his many wives was

Jesus and then Another one of his spirit children was Lucifer and we're all his spirit children that lived on another planet.

The circle's a star named Kolob and We go, yeah, no can't do that Okay so if it is central to our

Experience central to our faith then shouldn't it be something that we spend?

more or less time understanding and studying then say

Oh Knowing what's going on in the current popular whatever the popular

TV series are right now, which I will have to admit I don't have a clue. I don't have any earthly idea.

What is popular on television these days, but how many Christians know more about that than they do the

Doctrine of the Trinity and Does that make any sense? And when we then tell people outside the

Christian faith? about what we believe and they know and can tell by the

Well, look when when you try to explain something to someone You know, my my daughter's grand schooling my grand homeschooling my grandkids and I think it's wonderful and awesome and they're great kids and she's doing a great job, but When you're when you're a homeschooler there are certain subjects to do real well in and then there are those subjects you didn't do all that well in in school either and So you're much more dependent upon The textbook and your answers aren't so quick and they aren't so clear and you really can't give good illustrations and things like that Can people tell that when we answer questions?

About the Doctrine the Trinity that we're struggling that we're having to really put a lot of thought into it and That would tell them we may say it's central, but we're not living as if it is

Now I don't have time in the amount of time that we have together in this hour hour 15 something like that to Do a full orbed seminar on the

Doctrine of the Trinity I've done that many times. There's stuff like that online and things like that.

But what I would like to do is look at what is key in defining the

Doctrine of the Trinity and Hopefully lay a foundation for you clarify some of the key issues and also make an appeal

I Am I'm a bit concerned about some of the stuff going on in the church today and even in what

I would consider to be sound circles of Theological discourse and discussion in regards to this

Doctrine of the Trinity When I wrote the Forgotten Trinity and It came out

I think in 1998 how many of you were not around in 1998 anybody here that wasn't around in 19.

Well, there you go. I'm sure you were not around in 1998. That's that's true. That's good so most of you around anyways, but it was a while back and I Made the argument that I am a biblical

Trinitarian and And I laid out what that meant and Fundamentally my assertion was if you believe

Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith of the church sola scriptura And if you believe that you have to believe all of Scripture Toto scriptura

Then the Bible teaches Three foundational doctrines that if you believe all three of them require you to believe it to be a

Trinitarian There are some today who would find the foundations of doctrine the

Trinity in some rather abstract philosophical speculations and Would consider my approach to be rather naive to be perfectly honest with you

But the fact the matter is I can't see any other foundation for believing in the doctrine of Trinity.

And in fact, I Would say one of the reasons that Liberal denominations or leftist denominations, whatever you want to call them.

They're denominations that eventually die For example that you know

All the mainline denominations that are just disappearing into the mists of history right now

I just saw an article just this morning that the United Church of Christ just sold its headquarters building where over 300 people used to work and have moved into something like the size of a house and That the current collapsing rate

They will be completely they used to have over 2 million members. They will they will disappear into history

By 2045 there won't be anybody left There's a reason for that. They abandon any even semblance of belief in the

Bible as Word of God they they basically abandon any semblance of belief in the supernatural and And If you do not believe that this is a consistent revelation from God there is no reason to believe in the doctrine of the

Trinity It's none Why in the world would you believe that God is?

One being and three persons. Why would you make that distinction? Why would you distinguish between the father sons?

Just give me illustration. I attended a debate and I wasn't actually debating which is very unusual for me to defend a debate

When I'm not debating, but I attended a debate about five six years ago it was on the subject of homosexuality, but in the process the the the leftist that was pushing the idea of Becoming accepting of the

LGBTQ movement in the in the church made the argument that we've already learned to think past and believe past what

Paul a first century Jew believed and We need to do the same thing to recognize that we need to be able to to believe differently than Jesus a first century

Jew believe and I This professor at the time was an adjunct for fuller theological seminary

So I went up to him during the break and I I said did I hear you correctly when you said that and he said yeah

I said so you don't you don't believe for example the The Nicene confession of faith in Christ and he said

Do you really think the Apostles thought Jesus was God? this is this is a professor in a theological seminary and Once you once you abandon this as your foundation and once you abandon the commitment to believe

To believe this and to believe all of it sola scriptura and tota scriptura There's no reason to believe in the doctrine of Trinity I mean you can say well traditionally this group said that and this group said that and blah blah blah

But that's all it is. It cannot have any kind of authority in your life at all and if you just in passing would like to make a obvious connection between what we're talking about now and what's going on in our society right now and For some of us it's sort of like we're talking about what sounds like an abstract theological concept over here but there are people in my country right now who are

Hoping to be able to make it so that if I don't Say whatever they want me to say and do whatever they want me to do and think like they want me to think

That there's gonna be a nice Uncomfortable gulag to stick me in very soon and sort of so we sort of go.

Huh? What's what's more important? You know I probably should be thinking about this stuff over here and not this abstract theological stuff over there

Well, let me just point something out to you Well the primary responses that Christian people are offering to the rise of totalitarianism in our day is

The words that we all know from Matthew chapter 28 We all know the

Great Commission Therefore go make disciples of all nations Baptizing them name the Father Son Holy Spirit teaching them to observe

Everything I've commanded you and along with you always even at the end of the age But there's a therefore there and the previous verse says what?

All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth Jesus said all authority been given to him in heaven and on earth

Now if Jesus was just simply a man Those would be insane words.

They would be frightening words you don't give all authority to anyone other than someone who can bear that authority appropriately and So when

When Christians say we are to live our lives in light of the Lordship of Christ.

We are making claims about this one We're not only claiming he rose from the dead We're also claiming that he was the eternal

Logos who took on human flesh. He is he is the Son of God incarnate He's the maker of all things when

I talk to my Muslim friends down the road there. I Say to them I Say you can't have a

Jesus who's just simply a prophet a mirror Azul as the Quran says The Jesus of the

New Testament gave you every breath of your mouth and every beat of your heart you can't be neutral toward him and So what we believe about Jesus is intimately connected to what we believe about the doctrine of the

Trinity And what we're saying to the world is there is a higher authority than any Congress than any president than any premier than any prime minister and in fact every member of every

Congress including that one Democrat who said that The existence of God is not relevant to this

Congress Just about what about a year ago. He said that Boy, those are words.

I would not want to take into heaven and answer for well Actually wouldn't be having you been answering it for but to in the judgment of it to answer for But every member of every

Congress every premier every prime minister Every president will someday stand before the one who rose from the dead to be judged the deeds done in the body and So the doctrine of the

Trinity is very much connected to any Decisions that we are making today as to how we are to respond to individuals who are attempting to establish a secular totalitarian state wherein everybody gets to think what they tell them to think and the

Christian says that the Christian says Someday, there will be a totalitarian state.

What did what did Paul say to the Philippians? That after the resurrection of Jesus God highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above with every name that is the name of Jesus what every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is courteous.

He is Lord to the glory of God the Father That is the

Christian message and we should not shirk back from that That is not established by military force, however to recognize who

Jesus is at this point in time is the work of the Holy Spirit in a person's heart and life and Only when judgment takes place is there a mighty display of his power

So that connection made and that short sermon delivered That connection made that short sermon delivered

Doctrine of the Trinity I put and he you guys good back there with the with the thing there.

I Grabbed just four little slides from my normal presentation to sort of give you a framework to utilize and to and to function from if you want to take notes or stuff like that, like I said, there's a there's a

Entire presentation we could do here, but I want to give you the framework of the basics as to how to Understand the there we go.

The doctrine the Trinity this has helped a lot of folks I hope it helps you and I hope it makes it easier for you to communicate when you're talking with your your friends or or If you happen to go by the mosque or whatever if the are the

Jehovah's Witnesses even going door -to -door anymore I have not seen them. You still got some around here.

Okay. All right in Arizona, I honestly I Know the

Mormons went into hiding in March of 2020 and no one's seen them since I've jokingly said that they're going to finally come out of their basements and they are gonna be so pasty white is not even

Talk about white and delights him. They will be white and delights him at that point in time No, really. I don't know what's going on with the

Mormons. They shut down their temples They they they haven't had an in -person general conference since October of 2019

It's it's amazing. There's gonna be a huge massive splintering of Mormonism eventually

Here that or it's just gonna whimper and die one of the two, but anyway When talking with all those folks, it's extremely helpful

To recognize that there are three foundational truths that are biblical teachings

That give us the doctrine of the Trinity and once you know these biblical truths

These three foundations then when you're talking with someone and you hear their objections or their misunderstandings or whatever else it might be you're able to focus in on what's really important and You're also able to take them to the key

Text let the Word of God Testify concerning its truthfulness. I think a lot of folks have talked about the

Trinity Someone has an objection and we just start becoming all of a sudden philosophers There's nothing wrong with a philosophy that recognizes

Christ as the center of philosophy, which most philosophers will not but if this is a

Biblical doctrine if it's what this presents and by the way, if you think this is inspired and consistent enough

To give you a doctrine like the Trinity you are today in the minority in what calls itself what calls itself

Christianity you go to most seminaries and Bible colleges maybe not necessarily around here, but I'm sure plenty of them you could find around here, too and Their their doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture will not be sufficiently high to believe that this is consistent enough to reveal something like this

That's a sad commentary, but it helps you to explain How people end up where they end up.

So the first foundation the Bedrock of the doctrine the Trinity. What is

Trinity try unity is That unity that is monotheism.

There is only one true God now You and I may just sort of assume that we've just grown up with that, right?

But in the history of mankind that was a radical idea and especially in the ancient

Near East when when Israel would say Yahweh created the heavens and the earth

That was considered incredibly offensive because what you're saying is Your God didn't and in fact your

God doesn't even exist Everybody back then every nation had its own gods and they they had they ruled within the borders of that particular nation that particular country and That's how you got along with everybody you worship your

God will worship our God it's cool and If you went to war then if you could steal their

God, hey now you win because their God can't do anything about it. Anyways So when when

Israel comes along and says Yahweh made the heavens and the earth even even Great nations great empires like the

Babylonians their gods came out of the creation The creation pre -existed them and gave rise to them

So when you have the constant testimony of from Genesis Through Malachi or as the

Jews would have said Genesis through 2nd Chronicles their order of canonicity is different than ours That Yahweh is the maker of all things

That he is the only true God he knows of no other gods all the gods of the nations are idols

Those were incredibly offensive words to the people around them, but Everybody knows how a

Jewish person would identify themselves, right? You know, you know, what would identify a Jewish person in days of Jesus or before that was you said the

Shema You would each day you would pray the Shema. Shema means here in Hebrew So Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh echad

Here O Israel Yahweh is our God Yahweh is one and that's how they were identified that was their profession of faith and That was a profession of faith.

That was very Offensive to the people around them. Most of us would go

Yeah I know the Bible teaches only one true God and because we assume it and unless you've Spent time witnessing the

Mormons who don't believe there's only one true God you might struggle to find all the passages in Scripture that say it, but I would just suggest to you if you want to Read and contemplate this particular truth

Go to what's called the trial of the false gods in Isaiah 40 through 48 chapters 40 to 48 and there

Yahweh places the idols of the people on trial and in the process reveals so much about himself and unique attributes of his divine being by demonstrating that the gods of the peoples are just idols and Interestingly enough one of the primary arguments that that section gives is the true

God knows the future The idols cannot tell you the future but the true

God knows the future because he's the creator of all things So Monotheism the fact that there is only one true

God and that does not change in the New Testament We don't have one

God in the Old Testament one in the New Testament if you want to see especially how this is just just For a second look at 1st

Corinthians chapter 8 with me 1st Corinthians chapter 8 if you've not seen this before and I get to show it to you first Well great, then you will always thank me for this, but 1st

Corinthians chapter 8 remember I just quoted to you the Shema and that's what defined the

Jewish people but in 1st Corinthians chapter 8 Paul's talking about things sacrificed to idols because back in that day if you wanted to if you want to go pick up a pound of beef to make dinner tonight, you'd go to the meat market and You knew if you were in some place like Corinth Every bit of that meat in the meat market had been offered in one of the pagan temples to one of the gods so it had been put on the altar and Sacrifice had been made and then it's taken out the back door and sent to the meat market and sold and so there were some

Christians who knew this and their consciences were troubled by this and So Paul's discussing this in 1st

Corinthians chapter 8 and he says, you know, there's no such thing as an isle the world There's no God But one there are there are so called gods whether in heaven or earth as there are many gods and many lords

And so there are all sorts of Deities that people will identify If you were in Corinth, there was a deity on almost a temple to the deity on almost every corner

But then he says in verse 6 yet for us there is but one God the Father From whom are all things and we exist for him and one

Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we exist through him now

I have all sorts of cool graphics I could illustrate this but What Paul does in verse 6 is he takes the

Shema if you look at verse 6 in Paul's writing in Greek and You look at the

Shema from the Old Testament in Greek and what's called the Greek septuagint the Greek translation the Old Testament Which is what everybody in Corinth would be reading at this point in time and you compare the two of them

You can see Paul is taking the Shema where it says one God Lord is courteous

Yahweh. He's using all the same language and he's expanding it in light of the incarnation and Here is an early most people believe early

Christian creed some English translations even put verse 6 in Poetic form to show that that's probably what it is.

But this is an early Christian confession of faith an early Christian creed There is but one

God the Father from whom are all things and we exist for him notice the creation aspect And one courteous, that's the

Greek word that translated the name of God Yahweh in the Old Testament Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we exist through him so this doesn't change then there is that you don't have monotheism in the

Old Testament and Trinitarianism in the New Testament Trinitarianism is a monotheistic belief and this is one of the places where our

Muslim friends can be very confused Because it seems like the author of the

Quran was greatly confused at this very point as well Every time the Quran says do not say three

Referring to the Trinity. The next line is there is only one God Allah and So the author of the

Quran thought that whatever it was we were saying implied polytheism and That simply is not the case if you understand the doctrine the

Trinity and it does not seem that he did So monotheism is the foundation has to be rock -solid at the bottom

The second foundation is where most of us struggle, so let me come back to it because the third foundation we sort of understand and that is the co equality and co eternality of The person so in other words if you've ever

Tried to demonstrate the deity of Christ the places where Jesus is called God where he's described as being the creator being eternal things like that Discussed the person of the

Holy Spirit and You've gone to Acts 5 you've not lied to God But you've lied to the

Holy Spirit and and so on so forth you've been defending the third Foundation and as the co equality and co eternality of Father Son and Spirit and so that's where the deity of Christ Arguments come in with the

Jehovah's Witnesses or or other Unitarian groups and things like that and So it's important to know those things

But that's the third foundation Where a lot of people struggle is foundation number two the existence of three divine persons, how can you say one in the first foundation and Three in the second foundation and so there are a lot of groups

They will try to confuse us by saying we are saying one plus one plus one equals three. No, we're not

Well, you said one in the first you saying three in the second and you can't tell us what the difference is

Well, but we assert there is a difference. We are saying that there is one being of God and Three divine persons that share perfectly that one being well

How do you distinguish between being in person? Well, we distinguish between being in person every single day

It's it's a natural part of our language So, I don't know if any of you

Very few of them of you in the room are old enough to remember but back in the 1970s there have been some really

Dumb things remember mood rings Anybody remember mood rings? That's a couple you're going. Yeah I'm not admitting that no,

I don't remember mood rings. No we had mood rings and I remember

I thought I was in I think I was in junior high school when everybody was running around mood rings But right around the same time

Someone came up with the idea of having pet rocks pet rocks

Now the nice thing about it was They weren't expensive because they're rather plentiful

In almost anywhere you live you can find rocks of pretty much any size shape you want paint some eyes and stuff it thankfully didn't last for a long time, but The fact was you could you could take a rock and you could you could spend a lot of time

Painting it very nicely and making it very Well as attractive as a rock can be

I suppose but if you picked up that rock and you swung it at somebody and You hit somebody with it.

You could go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon, right? Why because the rock has being it exists and how do

I know that throw it at my face? And I will know that it exists it can prove it exists however all the painting in the world

All the the nice stories about how much your pet rock means to you Will never make it personal and how do

I know that because I could put my pet rock right there And I could go. I love you pet rock

You just mean the world to me And you know what its expression would not change

It would not care because it's not personal or I could call it every name in the book

It's still wouldn't care It has being but it's not personal we distinguish between the two now my cats have being and in a way they can tell what

I'm Angry at them because they just ripped up something. I didn't want them to rip up I remember

I I still have a couple Bibles that I bought When I was younger that my cats got to and all the spines are just those are great for sharpening those claws you know and just all torn up and they knew

I was not happy with them, but they forgot about that by the next day and They they can't see themselves as part of cat kind for example

They cannot recognize their own personhood over against any other cat What beings do we know in Scripture?

are Properly described as personal well

God is uses personal pronouns the angels seem to be as well and human beings

We know that we exist in humankind We can distinguish ourselves from others. So we see the connection we have to all the people as far as our

Humanity is concerned, but we also recognize that we are not all other people. We are distinguished from all other people and So when we're talking about the doctrine of the

Trinity we are distinguishing between being and person so Keeping those in mind then when we talk about the three divine persons

We are saying that we can distinguish between the divine persons and there's two different ways we can distinguish between them

We can distinguish between them between what they've done in Redemption so it was a son who became incarnate not the father not the spirit

It's the spirit who's been sent by the father and the son to indwell the church It's the father who sent the son to be the

Redeemer and the Savior of mankind each has taken a different role in what's called the

Economic Trinity or the the actions of the Trinity in redeeming mankind but theologians have also said that there are

Intrinsic differences that distinguish the persons even before creation itself

Now I'm not gonna go into all that today If you want to read the Forgotten Trinity, you can get into a discussion of those things but there are distinctions between father son and spirit and how they relate to one another and This is where people struggle because have you ever talked to someone who's for example a oneness

Pentecostal Jesus only and They will at least if they're part of the

UPCI They will believe that Jesus is two persons

He's both the father and the son the father is the divine aspect of Jesus. The son is the human aspect of Jesus Hence the son came into existence at his birth in Bethlehem.

He's not an eternal person and There's some confusion as to exactly

How to identify the Holy Spirit Especially in regards to the resurrection of Christ, but anyway

This is a form of what's called Modalism Dynamic monarchy and ISM. This was an actual error error of the early church.

In fact by the 2nd century there was a great deal of consternation about this particular teaching, but If you've talked to those types of folks, you know that they'll point to verses and they'll say well

Jesus said if you've seen me you've seen the father Jesus said I and the father are one and so there

Jesus was identifying himself as the father. Well, no, he wasn't Even in John 10 30 when

Jesus said I and the father one the verb there is plural I And the father we are one in the context

It's one in the salvation of God's people not the same person. Jesus always distinguished himself from the father

He referred to the father and used different personal pronouns one person speaking to another person

John chapter 17 He said father glorify me was to the glory which

I had in your presence Before the world was that's one person talking to another person.

There's no question about that and so Foundation number two is where there's a lot of confusion in people's prayers

There's confusion in songs there are well -known singing groups today in contemporary

Christian music a Made up of people who used to be one to spend a castles and now they now their churches go

We're not really sure We're not really sure what to believe about that But these are your three foundations and so when you're when someone starts objecting to what you believe

What your mind should do is immediately go these foundations which one of these foundations is this person confused on?

Have they been misinformed about? However, you want whatever the situation is your mind should go to them.

So let's go to the next next one and when you see a triangle you automatically start thinking of that graphic where you've got

God in the middle and says is not is not is not is Is is etc.

Etc. So that's not what this is You already got that one. I don't need to give you that one these are the three doctrines and And Monotheism is on the bottom the foundation

The three divine persons is over there on the left side the equality the persons is on the right side and so if you

Write this down and put it like that if you cross out monotheism if you deny monotheism

If you deny there's only one true God like the Mormons do And then you take the other two sides you have three divine persons

They're equal to one another but you don't have the affirmation of monotheism. What's the result polytheism?

You're gonna have three gods Maybe more but at least three because if you've got three divine persons and they're equal with one another

But you don't have the foundation of monotheism. The result is polytheism a belief in more than one

God So let's go to the next one if You negate the existence of the three divine persons then you have monotheism and Any quality of those persons and the result is modalism or oneness?

so either you have the idea that Jesus is multiple persons or the more ancient idea that God sort of Behaved in different ways and so he would take different modes of existence

And so he'd have a mode of existence as a father But then he'd have a mode of existence as a son a mode of existence as a spirit and it's frightening how many?

Christians default to this by mistake I I have said for decades that I would be concerned to give a test

To most people attending church is coming Sunday Because a large number of those folks would test positive for oneness

Not for that other thing but what test positive for oneness and I remember

I was in a in a church in, Florida Was it Florida? I think it was anyways, and this is before YouTube and Yes, young people there was a world before YouTube it was a dark and lonely place

Windswept plains nothing to do Dinosaurs walking by outside had to be very quiet when they came by but and before YouTube I Could roleplay with people because who wouldn't who in the world would know who in the world?

I am my picture wouldn't be all over the place that wouldn't be hundreds of debates that I've done wandering around the internet and so It's really fun.

It was fun to do I can't do it anymore But it was fun to do especially with junior high schoolers

You know any junior high schoolers Good yes, he's saying yes, no

Junior high school see you're born you're human you're human junior high school backed up the humanity in high school.

It's just it's just Anyone who works with junior high schoolers God bless you. I mean no purgatory for you so Anyway trying to keep junior high schoolers attention is really difficult to do and so I was in this junior high school class and the youth minister was in there and the youth minister introduced me as Elder somebody from the local

Kingdom Hall one of Jehovah's Witnesses and so I'd get up there, and I would start speaking and and they're freaking out of course and And honestly with this poor youth minister guy

I Had him spouting oneness heresy within about 34 seconds

Was that easy to do? Well you know Jesus said he you know he was seemingly seen the father right so so Jesus and a father one person well

Yeah, I guess well then how can this be true and just tied the guy up in a knot so fast and the kids are just like Absolutely they don't have any phones to be looking at back then so they are fascinated by this, but they're also freaking out

And then you know halfway through you stop and tell them what's really going on and they go oh? And then you lose their attention for the rest of the time, but at least you tried

So that's that's the best you can do, but I think Most I would

I would estimate minimally 70 % of people attending conservative

Baptist churches across the United States would Fail a quiz and fall into this camp not because they have a conviction of it

But they just don't know how to distinguish being in person. It's that second foundation. That's the issue

I Really think that would happen so the last one then obviously if you

Deny the equality the persons you have monotheism you have three divine persons and so what you have to do is you have to subordinate because you don't have equality you have to subordinate one to the other and so Subordination ism the denial of full deity of Christ People saying that Jesus is a great messenger.

Whatever else it might be Unitarianism if you want to see how this sort of fleshes out in one example

The debate that Michael Brown and I did against two Unitarians Anthony buzzard and Joseph good on the

Jewish voice broadcast 2011 I think I think it was 10 years ago May have been even 2010.

I don't remember now, but it's on YouTube Three three some odd hours long and you can see how that works so what this triangle allows you to do is to when you when you

Hear where the objection is you can identify? what

Section of biblical verses that you've already memorized because we're gonna memorize lots of verses to be prepared right right which

Testimony of Scripture you need to be moving to to help them to understand what their area is

Or it may not even be people that are just have objections. It may be something in your Bible study class It just doesn't understand they've got some bad information.

They've heard some bad preaching They've listened to Phillips Craig and Dean that was the music group I was talking about beautiful music, but they're not

Trinitarians And so they end up with some level of confusion and you can help them

You're called to be able to help them. It's extremely important. I think for you to be able to assist them and to help them

But it also is so vitally important. I think for you for us in the church

When we worship We need to have the proper biblical categories

For that worship to be pleasing to God and for it to us to recognize

What our God has done in our own Redemption the Trinity is? Central to the gospel the gospel is a

Trinitarian belief When you don't have the doctrine of the Trinity you're gonna end up with the false gospel.

What do I mean by that? Any text where you start working through?

What is being said Ephesians chapter 1 takes us all the way back into history blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and all these spiritual blessings that are then listed as coming from the decree of the

Heavenly Father and What is the only way in which they are found? Ten times in 13 verses

Paul says in him in Christ in the beloved one. They are Uniquely in Christ They are the blessings that flow from the decree of the

Father they come into our possession only as we are in Christ as we are in him and Then how does it end in verse 14?

And how do we know all these things we have the Arabon the down payment in our own spirit

And who is the Arabon the Holy Spirit of God? That makes us to understand all these things that seals us and that directs us in our worship

It's Trinitarian Think about what Ephesians 1 would actually be about if you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses well, first of all, they don't

Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that I Fact I remember the first time I was talking to Jehovah's Witness and found out that they are basically open theists

Now, you know what an open theist is an open theist, but does not believe that God has exhaustive knowledge of future events

Most forms of open theism would say he doesn't have exhaustive knowledge of future events Because he cannot know what free creatures will do

So you can surprise God He may know that you know

Went out with the guys to grab a bite of lunch when I got here I Am one I am one of those speakers that is extremely demanding

You know because I know some speakers When they come into a church they have to have a hotel room at a certain temperature and there has to be these things in a basket waiting for them when

They get there and all that neat kind of wonderful stuff. My my hotel rooms parked right out here you want you passed it when you came in and we went

To Arby's, yeah, I Saw Arby's on the way in I said that would be good.

That'd be quick. It's safe. I I love Arby's But you know what there are a couple of things at Arby's that I really like Their their chicken fingers ain't bad

They're not as good as Cane's though, and I'm sorry You guys got Zaxby's down here can't touch

Cane's with a 10 -foot pole. No, no We can get we can get argument going here because all you

Chick -fil -a people go. Well, what about Chick -fil -a? Well, let's not go there right now. Shall we? but they've got chicken fingers and they've got the regular roast beef sandwich and they've got a beef and cheddar and they've got a number of Different sandwiches you can get at Arby's Now normally

I'd get the regular but I may have surprised God today if you're an open theist Because I got a beef and cheddar instead

Now The open theist is doing that for other reasons the open theist is doing that so that man can have an autonomous will

There's no doctrine of election and and all the rest of this kind of stuff, but the price is huge That God created, but he didn't know how it was all gonna turn out at the end and he's doing the best he can

But there has been some detours along the way shall we say some you know World Wars and things like that atomic bombs and whatever

But he can't be really be blamed for that because it's it he didn't know that that was all gonna be here so Leaving open theism, you know off to the side

Jehovah's Witnesses sort of embraced that idea and so in in talking with them

What I found and this is this is true of many different groups what's one of the best ways

Not only for us to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, but to explain to somebody else Tell you a story

Again before YouTube I got to meet with more Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses once YouTube came along then that became more difficult to do but I was asked to come over and meet with three elders of a

Jehovah's Witness congregation at a Christian's home and I was straight up front with them when I met them

I I teach at the time I was scholar residents at Grand Canyon University, and I teach apologetics and in fact,

I lecture people about what you believe Now some Jehovah's Witnesses.

They're straight out the door as soon as you say that Some of them others because these were elders so they they felt a little bit more comfortable others find that fascinating and So what

I said to them I said in fact Could I sort of run through what you believe for you just to give you an idea whether I'm you know?

Am I being accurate? No one had ever offered to do that for them before so I ran through using their own language and Gave them the most accurate representation of what they believe

I possibly could and they just sat there. They're like and one of them said You could have done that in a

Kingdom Hall and nobody would have Been the wiser Well, I try to be accurate in my understanding of what you're saying now.

What have I done? I've purchased the opportunity to have a few minutes of their attention now

I said And they said and and you're a Trinitarian And I said yes, and let me explain why can

I explain why to you and since I had accurately represented them They said yes, and so what

I demonstrated to them Really left and speechless, and this is they're not gonna

They're almost never gonna take literature from you. You've got to show it to them in their own Bible the key way to Help a

Jehovah's Witness see the truth is not to argue with him about John 1 1 whether it's

God or a God a Jehovah's Witness can argue John 1 1 with you in a comatose state. They don't even have to be conscious

You're not getting them to think about anything don't even bother It's not that it's not an important text

It's not that there isn't a way of demonstrating what it's supposed to teach the point is that in most situations we don't have time to dig that deeply and So what

I did is I said well as you know the name of God in The Old Testament is

Yahweh or as you pronounce it Jehovah in this instance. I didn't argue about the pronunciation There wasn't any reason to do it.

I used to went with Jehovah that's not how it was pronounced, but anyway and I said that names used thousands of times in the

Old Testament a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses don't even realize that Christians know these types of things And I said what's fascinating is we come into the

New Testament We know that the father is identified as Jehovah, and you would agree with that and they said yes for example

Who was it that laid our sins upon the Messiah in Isaiah 53 it was Jehovah Jehovah has laid our sins upon the

Messiah I? said but where we disagree is the

New Testament writers frequently identified Jesus as Jehovah now for a

Jehovah's Witness If Jesus is Jehovah, that's the end of the debate You can talk about God and a

God until the cows come home if Jesus is Jehovah they are wrong it's all there is to it and So they're very interested in where this would be and So I took them and it's it's important you do this in the right order

Yeah, I've got just about enough time to do this. It's important you do this in the right order I took them to Psalm 102 25 to 27

And in Psalm 102 25 to 27 in their translation you can you can back it up It's talking about Jehovah because their translation uses the name

Jehovah it's all all through the Old Testament even in the New Testament and Their Jehovah is described as the one who of old made all things

But they will wear out you never change you will change them like a garment But you yourself never change your years never end.

It's this whole description of What's called the immutability the unchangeableness of Jehovah and so I asked him

I said, okay here in Psalm 102 Jehovah is being described as unchanging

Would you agree with me that only Jehovah is unchanging? Well, yeah, of course.

He's the Creator Exactly. Keep your finger in there and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 1 and I could have started earlier in Hebrews chapter 1 and we could end up having arguments about some

Mistranslations they have in their version and not worth doing it There are a number of references the deity of Christ and he was chapter 1, but if you go to verse 10

There the author Quotes and I backed them up a little bit and even their own translation

But of the Sun he says and then there's a quote and and then this quote so it's about the

Sun Even their own translation says it and in fact, I'm not sure if they've removed this

They came up with a new edition the NWT just a few years ago, and I I haven't looked this up yet I need to I have a new a new one

But in those days anyways, there was a cross -reference In the center column that told people where verses 10 through 12 was being quoted from it.

It's Psalm 102 25 to 27 the very same text that's about Jehovah being

Unchanging and eternal is applied by the author of Hebrews to the

Sun in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 and since they already read

The Psalm passage it's identical in Hebrews. There's no way to avoid it

Now here is a just a very practical little thing to remember if you ever get yourself in this situation

Now the temptation hits you Okay, I've got him So I'm gonna get out my theological sword and I'm gonna run through Tell me about that.

Mr. Jehovah's Witness and here's the problem. They'll come up with an answer It may be the craziest dumbest thing they've ever said in their lives

But they'll go their grave defending it because you forced them to You have to be very careful at this point

You've just presented something to them that if they will have the time and if there's another another

Jehovah's Witness with them They cannot even make it that they cannot give any indication

They're even hearing what you're saying because they're scared of what that other person could do So you've got to give them the freedom

To think about these things at another point in time when they're not under that pressure if you really want to help them the most

So here's what you do You say now if you've never seen that before it would be unfair of me to ask you to give a response to that So now you've taken the pressure off They're not gonna forget it because they don't know how to answer it.

They've never seen that before So you've taken the pressure off and then what you do is Take advantage of having taken the pressure off and go but could

I show you another one? I've never had a witness say no Because I took the pressure off them.

I didn't make them answer the first one and So now I've bought myself a few more minutes to give them a second one and the second one

I do is I go to John chapter 12 and This is at the end of Jesus ministry

John's quoting from another number of passages wrapping things up in regards to God's judgment upon Israel and He quotes from Isaiah 6 and I remember what

Isaiah 6 is. It's Isaiah's temple vision I saw the Lord lofty lifted up sitting sitting in his temple and and so on so forth and it's also where Isaiah is commissioned to be a prophet and so When you read

John 12 All of a sudden there's this verse John 12 41 he said these things

Isaiah said these things Because he saw his glory and he spoke about him and Then it goes on continue to talk about Jesus.

Jesus is the only person in the context John says Isaiah saw

Jesus's glory Now, what did he had just quoted he had just quoted from Isaiah 6 10.

Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? He saw Yahweh Jehovah sitting upon his throne

So if you ask Isaiah Isaiah, who did you see I saw Jehovah John who did

Isaiah see he saw Jesus most of us just Fly right over it.

Don't even notice it, but it's actually stronger than just that So how many in here have heard my presentation on this and you already know why it's stronger than that one person

You want to come up and explain? Nope. He says no. I'll leave it to you. I need more practice, right? Yeah, I need

I need more practice It's actually even stronger than What I just presented to you now,

I didn't tell them this part. Okay So you don't have to if it's goes beyond where you want to go, but this is just for your benefit

Remember it says he saw his glory and he spoke about him. I remember I was writing the

Forgotten Trinity, so this would be in the late 90s and I was responding to a really good

Jehovah's Witness who was trying to find a way around all this stuff and That's when I looked at again the

Greek Septuagint the Greek Septuagint the Greek translation The Old Testament was the Bible of the early church. That was the language that everyone spoke in the

Roman Empire at this time and So the Greek Septuagint had been translated about 200 years before Christ at least 85 to 95 percent of the quotations from the

Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Septuagint they're not from the Hebrew and so it was the

Bible of the early church and John is writing to primarily

Greek speaking individuals and So if you go back in the

Septuagint to Isaiah chapter 6 There's a fascinating textual difference between the

Hebrew and Greek I Remember the first time I saw it you may have memorized it from the

Hebrew translation and And it says I saw the Lord laughing lifted up and what the train of his robe was filling the temple

Remember that the train of his robe was filling the temple That's not what the Septuagint says his glory

Filled the temple is what the Septuagint says his glory the very same

Greek word John uses in John 12 41 When he says

Isaiah saw Jesus's glory So anybody with a

Septuagint that looks up the quotations that Jonathan John's been giving Knows exactly what he's saying

John is identifying Jesus as Jehovah the one seen by Isaiah So I presented those two the

Hebrews 1 Psalm 102 John 12 Isaiah 6 to these three elders and again, they had never seen it and So what

I did then is make application. I said so What we see in the New Testament then is we have three persons

Who are distinguished from one another and you would agree with me that they are distinguished back

You don't even believe the third person is a person. You don't believe that the Holy Spirit is a person But they are distinguished from one another and Yet the

New Testament writers identify each one with one divine name What's the doctrine the

Trinity one being of God shared by three persons in the New Testament? You have the name

Jehovah shared by three persons That's why I'm a Trinitarian. They had never heard it never heard it and So you want to present that kind of argument?

Because they I've never had a Jehovah's Witness walk out of the house leaving their Bible behind they're not gonna take literature from you, but you show it to them in their scriptures and they're gonna be taking that with them and It's going to gnaw upon them.

And what you do is you pray that God by his spirit will help them to remember and to understand and Yes, that can be the beginning point those folks especially need to run into Christians who know what they believe and Can show people what they believe in the scriptures in the scriptures and that's one way of doing it

But also helps us to understand that identification of Jesus as Yahweh father son

Spirits that what's the spirit very the very phrase spirit of the Lord in the Old Testament is spirit of Yahweh And that's how

Yahweh speaks is by his spirit and so There are so many other

I mean we could obviously spend a great great great great deal of time Looking at all the other passages that demand of us a

Belief in the doctrine of Trinity, but now I understand what I what I say when I say I am a biblical Trinitarian if you believe all that this book teaches and You believe it's consistent with itself not a surface level consistency, but a deep consistency from Genesis through Revelation Then you see those three doctrines are taught and you have to come to understand the early church was forced

To make this confession on the basis of what happened in the incarnation one last thing then we'll wrap up one last thing

Some people ask well, where is the doctrine of the Trinity revealed? People want to have a certain verse.

I remember when I was in high school I was in a Bible study class once and somebody asked well, where is the

Trinity in the Bible? You know what? We all did we turn to the concordance? and if you turn to the concordance, you're never gonna find the word

Trinity and We were bothered by this We hadn't been properly instructed to understand

Where the terminology came from and how it developed we want a chapter on the

Trinity Because we don't recognize the nature of what Scripture is We don't understand the way in which

God has revealed himself. So I am going to show you Exactly where the doctrine the

Trinity is revealed in the Bible you ready? Okay This is

Right after Malachi and there's Matthew over on that side. So it's right there

There's where the Trinity's room. Can you see that? Do you see the Trinity in there? You're just gonna smile at me, aren't you?

The the brightly colored gentleman you see the Trinity right and he says he can all right good.

What do I mean? I just trying to wake people up right toward the end. No, the

Trinity is primarily revealed in the historical reality of the incarnation

The life ministry death burial resurrection of Jesus His ascension to heaven and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit upon the church Where did all that happen historically? right there every single word

Written in the Old Testament came before that and every single word of the

New Testament is written after that and And so what happens in between the

Testaments is the revelation because it took place in history and So what that means is every writer of the

New Testament is already a Trinitarian and so they're not going to be

Stopping and every time they make some reference to the Trinity stopping say oh by the way You might not understand what that is.

Let me explain to you what that is We wish they did that but that's that's not how the revelation took place and So think about Peter Peter was an experiential

Trinitarian. He had lived three years with the incarnate

Son He stood on the Mount of Transfiguration heard the father speaking from heaven. He was now indwelt by the

Holy Spirit he's an experiential Trinitarian and so when Paul Can in one sentence talk about the

Spirit of Christ and then next sentence? It's the Spirit of God and then the Spirit of the Lord and he just keeps

Going that way and he doesn't stop and explain things there's no reason for it to him to stop and explain things because there's already that understanding between himself and his audience as to what has happened in History in the incarnation of Christ and outpouring of the

Holy Spirit so that's where it's revealed right between the two and hence the

New Testament is a Trinitarian document, that's why Paul can say the

Corinthians the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the

Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all he doesn't stop and go

Okay Now I need to explain to you how I can associate these these three persons together

So easily because you know if you're not a Trinitarian and that's pretty weird I mean think about Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses think that Jesus is

Michael the Archangel and that the Holy Spirit doesn't exist so Baptizing them in the name of Jehovah Michael the

Archangel and an impersonal active force The grace of Michael the

Archangel the love of Jehovah and the fellowship of electricity be with you all Doesn't make any sense does it no and there's all sorts of texts in the

New Testament. They're just simply Trinitarian that's the only way to understand them Because that was the context out of which they were written

Wasn't trying to prove it the proof was in the resurrection the proof had already taken place in history

That's why you don't have a chapter called Trinity chapter or something along those lines

Because that's how God has chosen to reveal himself. So I hope that at least some of these

Considerations have been helpful to you and I hope that you see That the doctrine the

Trinity should be something we do not fear it should be something that we love Because it holds everything else together

It's central to how we worship. It's central to how we pray. It's central to how we evangelize how we understand the entirety of God's revelation in history.

I Hope that's been helpful to you. Let's pray. Oh dear Heavenly Father We do thank you for this opportunity to gather together even in this midweek period to consider your truth

I thankful I'm thankful for those who have come out this day. I pray that you would bless them and indeed father

I pray that they would be given opportunities to Speak these truths to others that you would give them a desire to do so and that you would bring to their mind

These realities when they have the opportunity of sharing them with those who bring into their lives

We thank you for your revelation we thank you for the freedom that we yet have to be able to meet like this and to be able to bless others through The broadcasting of these things across the internet.

We ask that you would Be with us again this evening and we come together again to talk about the glory of your gospel