The Doctrine Of The Trinity

John 17 and the Context of Eternal Life

Last week we stepped out of our gospel studies and Did something a little on the practical side we go back to John chapter 17 this morning and Certainly trust that's a Study of John chapter 17 likewise has practical applications as well but the same way that We did last last week the Wi-Fi here to save the battery a little bit we have been just starting into this high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus and If I recall correctly and I will call upon the keepers of notes because this is a text that I have to deal with fairly regularly.

We did work through Verse three particularly in the context of the fact that it is very often used as an attack upon the deity of Christ so for example a couple weeks ago I Was riding on a Saturday morning, and I pulled into the little parking lot at the end of 40th Street.

Just what is that South somewhere around there and Or Shea South of Shea anyways for 40th Street ends down there and you can go hiking and stuff like that and there's a parking lot there and a restroom and stuff and there was a Couple of Jehovah's Witnesses had set up a table there, and they're passing out literature and Well, actually they were just sitting there I mean most most the hikers were going around.

But I went over and chatted with him for a while, and we didn't actually get into this particular subject. I can guarantee you that while the very first text outside of John 14 28 that I would have heard from them would have been John 17 3 and that's why we went through it last time as I recall discussing the Categories that are that are there the fact that Jesus as the God man remains a monotheist.

That the only way that you can read verse 3 isolate it from verse 5 and the rest of the testimony of the gospel of John is that you have a Goal in mind you you're not trying to allow the text to speak for itself.

There's a Something you're trying to prove in essence and that if the Incarnation took place that the Incarnate One would Worship the Father because as a perfect man That's the very command of the scriptures themselves is to worship God so if you're gonna be a perfect man.

You're gonna do that. The thing to keep in mind when you encounter folks citing this they're assuming Unitarianism you cannot assume what you're trying to prove. But over and over and over again if you'll just think through The arguments that people are making you'll find those those Foundational presuppositional assumptions, they're making that's where you have to challenge them at that particular that particular point so we also noted that to Have eternal life to even define eternal life doesn't say this is the one who has eternal life.

This is eternal life, but they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent so I don't know that we really expanded out much upon the fact that once again We cannot avoid noticing the particularity of the gospel message here and what I mean by that is.

There is a tremendous push for pluralism. In our society there is a tremendous push to adopt a form of religious belief Where all religions are equal all roads lead to Rome all roads lead to Whatever Mecca however you want to put it To lay aside the idea that the truthfulness of one religious belief by necessity Negates the truth claims of a different religious belief that contradict that.

And when it comes to religion what we're being told is we need to be irrational because religion is itself irrational it's not a scientific thing you see and So you have to allow for? competing Statements to be equally true, which means you have to embrace the idea that there really is no religious truth.

It does help us in our conversations with others to break it down to that point in Fact you can't always do this because there are simply people who are just too emotionally driven to even go here. But I find myself more and more when I identify the Fundamental claim that is being made even though.

It's frequently hidden in the form of a question. You can tell it's it's actually an objection. Pretending to be a question. But we all know if you watch Pierce Morgan or somebody like that. He's not actually very good at he's just he's just vociferously Christian, but For a lot of others in the media.

You'll you'll get this question, and you know it's actually an objection. And the skill that we need to be Cultivating is the ability to identify what the fundamental error is in the assumption. That lies behind the objection which is masquerading as a question.

And what I find myself doing more and more is just immediately jumping to it and challenging that so somebody will say something to me. How can how can you believe that the Bible is the Word of God and now this response?

You don't believe God can communicate and you're like. Where'd you get that as soon as they've now said where'd you get that they've now allowed me to define the ground for the discussion and I can immediately go to what the real issue is rather than trying to do the peel the onion thing and Finally get to where the objection originally lies in the same way theologically in a conversation with someone like this.

Someone raises this particular text. And I'm immediately going to go well. Do you think the God man would be an atheist and They're like. What do you mean? That's well? The rest of the Gospel of John is made very very clear that this is the law God.

He's eternally existed. He's become flesh and If he is as Christians have always believed the God man. As Ignatius of Antioch one of the first writers outside of the New Testament Described at the they stay on through a pause the God man the very term we use this day.

If he's the God man, he's perfect man. Is he an atheist. He's been in he's been in in eternal communion with the father. On a level of intimacy unknown to his creatures and you think that's just gonna stop.

Once he enters into human flesh. Is he gonna say you're one God amongst many gods. Is he actually claiming to be another God. Don't you see that you're assuming. Almost a polytheistic view here. What if if God is as we say he is if God is is is one being?

There's only one being of God shared by three divine persons. One of those divine persons enters into human flesh. Does that now mean? There's multiple guys. What what else would he say than this? How else would he address the father.

I mean he dresses the father is Holy Father and things like that. But but as far as categorically, and why does he say this is eternal life to know? God and some creature I Mean really is it how does how does that work?

How is it what other prophet has ever said this eternal life no God and me? So many of Jesus words are just so blasphemous when placed upon the lips of a mere creature. And so I like to go for the the assumption that is being made because honestly sadly my experience is 99 .9 of people I talked to have never been challenged on that one the Christians.

They've talked to just just not really thought through. How to reason with someone on an issue like this so that would be my suggestion is to is to Cultivate that ability to recognize what what is this person assuming in?

The objection that they're making and Eventually like I've said many times that well let me let me just ask as I've said many times. What are the three? Foundational doctrines. Three foundational biblical teachings.

That make up the doctrine of the Trinity. There are three foundations gotta know gotta know first one first one is the fact. There's only one true God absolute monotheism. There is only one true being of God.

Psalm 965 says all the gods and peoples are idols. There is no such thing as our demigods while there might be spiritual. There's angels and things like that to sometimes function with the power of God.

They themselves are created when it comes to the Uncreated created division. There's a big old chasm and God is alone over there and everything else is over here. All right absolute monotheism first foundational have to know that have to affirm that not just with Mormons.

But have to affirm that with the Muslims because they think that we violate them. They think that we are not true monotheists. So absolute monotheism, that's number one. What's the second God is real?

Thank you very much Offspring number one yes. Yes the God is revealed himself as in in three persons in other words the denial of Sabellianism modalism the idea that the father is the son the son is the spirit the spirit is the father the common most of the common illustrations.

That people come up with the Doctrine the Trinity. Our violations of this very revelation. They're actually modalistic. There's a hilarious absolutely hilarious Satire channel on YouTube called Lutheran satire and The Lutherans will actually satire us too, so be prepared for that, but there's one that they just put up recently where there's these two Irish peasants and they're talking to st. Patrick about the Trinity and They you know they're Patrick.

What are you trying to tell us about this here? You know and and so Patrick start telling himself. Oh, no, that's modalism. That's the bailing isn't it and these these these two Nobodies know all this stuff about church history and finally Patrick just gets all frustrated just gives him the Athanasian Creed.

They said oh, well Why didn't you tell us that from the beginning is it's really it's very educational and really funny. And they just put one up where they the same two guys take on two more missionaries.

It's just really hilarious, but look it up sometime you might find it. They also did one with the current Pope they call it what they call it Frankie the Frankie the Hippie Pope Frankie the hippie Pope that's right where they keep asking him questions.

And he says these weird things and then they've got some handler guys are off that has to come on I said well he didn't really mean that what he meant was this you know because he's been saying all this weird stuff and.

So it's it's on the same channels. You might find it to be rather intriguing, but anyhow. You know the idea of the the three leaf clover. You know no that's not what we're talking about and the idea well I'm a I am a Husband, and I'm a father and I am a son yeah, but you're one person says modalism and wrong.

The the biblical revelation is that the father is not the son the son is not the spirit. The father speaks the son it's right here in verse 5 that you're gonna get one of the clearest.

Indications. Yes, sir. Category of. I would not describe that as a.

Biblical doctrine as much as it is a necessary Way of understanding how the Bible addresses us, and how God has created us. So I mean where would I go in Scripture necessarily to? Exactly yes, yes. Unitarians who deny the Trinity will go that direction.

Not all denials of the Trinity necessitate that but. Most the historical ones do. Yes, yes, but when I define when I'm when I'm talking about The what what brother Callahan is referring to here is once we define the Trinity we have to address the issue of Being in person because we're talking about one being of God.

We're not talking about never is the Trinity one being of God whose three beings or one person whose three persons many people. Misrepresent that. So you're saying one is equal to three and three is equal to one.

And we're not doing that. We differentiate between being in person. And I don't think that we could function without making that differentiation. We function on the basis of that presupposition every single day.

We recognize. You know this morning for example. I picked up Kelly has one of these plastic plants. They're about the only plants we can keep green and. And one of the mother cats or something had done to one of these some of this plastic plant and one of the leaf things had.

Come off, and you ever tried to put one of those things back on a plastic plant. I said it's not worthwhile. So I I picked the thing up and I chucked it in the trash, and it just happened to cross my mind.

That you know if that was a real leaf I would probably look at it differently than that plastic leaf. And then I walked down the hall forgot about it, but the point was I recognized that is a thing. It has being.

I mean if I took it it had a little bit of a scratchy service. I might be able to scratch you with it. It has being it has existence, but it's not personal. We are finite limited beings. We are human beings we share a category of being.

We're all humans but we are differentiated by our Personhood. A person who whose being is shared by two persons. Well. We have special padded rooms for those folks. And hopefully some medications and things like that.

That's not a natural natural state of affairs or maybe an exorcist or something like that, but God's being being and our being is finite limited temporally temporally limited. Spatially limited we exist here, and now God's being is not limited by those categories.

And is is is infinite and biblically is revealed and shared by three divine persons not one-third. It's not that the the father is one-third and the sons one-third and the spirits the bottom third.

No. It's that that that would be an inappropriate way of looking at that one infinite being is shared Perfectly and completely by three divine persons now. Obviously the term person you have to be very careful our tendency is to go from bottom up and so we take words That we have associated in certain ways With physical bodies and our creatureliness, and we tend to project them upward on to God.

That's where a lot of the problems come in and in the early years of Christian history that's where a lot of the conflicts came from is there were concerns About using certain words that might have inappropriate connotations.

Very understandable, but we're talking about is is we're talking about a divine person. The father can speak to the son. The son can speak of the father speak to the father in the second person as we're going to see in verse 5.

The father and the son can speak of the Holy Spirit. There is the utilization of personal pronouns and yet. And this is one of the most important things for me the one divine name Yahweh is Used to the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.

The one the one word that is used of the very being of God is applied to each one of the divine persons. But they're clearly differentiated from one another. Now is there an analogy in create in creation that will Accurately describe the doctrine of Trinity by necessity.

No, why. Because if there's anything in the creek in the creation that would be directly analogous to God. Then he's not unique. The same thing with the incarnation. There is only one incarnate person and every Attempted analogy to the incarnation ultimately fails because of the uniqueness of the incarnation and the same thing is true in regards to the doctrine of Trinity now you can Try to illustrate an aspect.

Maybe when you're trying to explain something, but any Analogy from creation is going to fall apart at some point. It is a doctrine of revelation I believe is a doctrine revealed between The old and the New Testaments, what do I mean by that?

The fundamental revelations doctrine of Trinity is the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and temporally that took place between the writing of the last word of Malachi and the first word of Matthew or Mark or whatever you think the first Book of the New Testament was it took place by God's Redemptive act in in history in the incarnation and The outpouring of the Holy Spirit that to me is the ultimate evidence of the doctrines of Trinity the New Testament then becomes the record of What God has done in that revelation?

Yes, we haven't even gotten to the other we've only gotten two of the three.

I'll get to the third one with that if what you're referring to. Is the fact that in?

Isaiah 9 G is is prophetically described as El Gabor the mighty God and then in most for English translations the Hebrew phrase a be odd is translated as eternal father and So the oneness person and some Muslims Muslims are using this to Create the idea of inconsistency or contradiction of the Bible will say see you say he's not the father the Bible says he's the father.

Etc. Etc. As if the revelation of Father Son Holy Spirit and the relationship between them is the substance of the Old Testament revelation rather than New Testament revelation. That's why I say the revelation of the Trinity comes in Between the Testaments not in it the term not in the Old Testament the father is The creator the term father normally God is called the father of Israel.

He is the one who brought Israel forth. He's the one that made Israel. It means originator creator and a be odd I think is referring to father or originator of eternity or time which would be a direct Parallel to Colossians chapter 1 for by him all things made where the heavens are at visible invisible principalities powers and the authorities.

All things created by him before him. He's before all things and him all things all together. I think that's what you've got there. Just as the next phrase is what? Sar Shalom Prince of Peace and where Shalom come in Shalom comes in Romans 5 1 therefore I've been justified by faith.

We have peace with God for our Lord Jesus Christ. That Shalom that peace comes from the fact of his work will eventually mean the reconciliation of all things. Everything is going to be in its right relationship to God.

Either in salvation or in judgment or ever else it might be so the the wrong assumption is to take relationships that are revealed Specifically in the New Testament read them back into the Old Testament to create some type of a contradiction.

Rather than going. All right. Here is a prophetic look forward at what the Messiah is going to be. What would be the consistent way of understanding this application rather than looking for an inconsistent way?

Represents who I'm still missing. What all of them is the descriptions or people. Oh, yeah, of course.

There's nothing there's nothing in that text about the the coming of the Spirit that this description in in Isaiah 9 is specifically about The the Messiah and the nature of Messiah. There's oh, yes. Oh, okay.

Yes. Yes. Well, yes exactly I mean we saw in in John 14 and 16. I'm going to send you another comforter Who is who is of the same kind not different than me? But but that's that's asking Isaiah 9 to describe something that Isaiah 9 is not describing.

Right, right. All right. So just to just to make sure I wasn't planning going here this morning, but hey Just to make sure you understand in response to brother Callahan's question the Distinctions and the appropriate recognition of the difference between being in person Absolutely necessary to the formulation of the doctrine Trinity and discussion of it.

But when I'm talking about the three foundational doctrines these the doctrines that make up the revelational portion of the Trinity and every denial of the Trinity will Deny at least one of these foundational doctrines some people deny Functionally all three the Jehovah's Witnesses.

I would say really get close to doing that in some ways, but at least two and what's vitally important for you to be able to do is When you're talking with someone to be able to identify which of these biblical doctrines is this person nine?

Because then you can go right into the text of Scripture Rather than What frequently happens is you end up in a long discussion with somebody about the Council of Nicaea or something like that? You know There can be places for doing that If you happen to have been doing a lot of reading on the Council of Nicaea or something like that.

But for most of us, especially given that the conversations we're going to have are not The type that can be extended over months of time. We want to be able to get to a more Appropriate place fairly quickly and so we've identified two of the three doctrines so far the first one was Monotheism the fact is only one true God the second was Existence of three divine persons that the father is not the son the son is not the spirit the spirit is not the father.

That is one of the weak areas for most evangelicals. That's why There's a controversy right now the Southern Baptist Convention. Because for the pastors conference the Southern Baptist Convention in June of 2014 They have contracted with Phillips Craig and Dean to be the singing group there.

Well, what's wrong with that? They're a very talented singing group. Yes, they are. There's only one problem. They come from oneness churches. Now they all say they're not in oneness churches anymore, but the last I saw Randy Phillips was still very strongly oneness saying that Constantine forced the Trinity on the church.

Oh, this is it's only 2009 and the other two were members of churches. We're in their statement of faith when it comes that issue. They go. We don't know. We don't know if God's trying or if God's just one person.

That's just a mystery. We don't know. I think that's that's almost worse than taking the other side going. God hasn't really told us you know what that sounds real good today, but that's not exactly what.

So and the real problem is they have signed a statement and I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about this in the vinyl line this week. I'm gonna post on the website. They signed a statement first of all Attacking everyone who has posted Hurtful things about them on the Internet in years past.

Do a search for Phillips Craig and Dean and Trinity in Google almost everything the first page is Me or people on my blog. So I'm a terrible horrible person why. Because I've been asking questions that they've refused to answer.

Now you can expose the one who's Pentecostal in a second if you just ask the question Did the Sun as a divine person? Exists eternally in that relationship with the father before his incarnation in Bethlehem.

Simple it's easy, but no one seems to want to ask that question of the folks in Phillips Craig and Dean which just drives me nuts, but anyway, so it's become an issue because. To be honest with you. I would say a large.

I would say a majority of evangelicals are modalists. They don't know what that means, but functionally that's what they are because they've never thought it through so monotheism exists in three divine persons.

The Personhood and Equality of the Divine Persons

Third foundational doctrine you go to in the Bible is. Thank you. I saw the hand there Josh. It's okay. You know I We're good. We're good. The personality and Equality of the divine persons now. I put the word personality in there because what's one of the primary?

Denials doctrine Trinity is to deny the Holy Spirit is a person. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal active force. Which is why in the New World Translation? They never capitalize the phrase Holy Spirit.

They don't use the definite article so they'll say you will be baptized in Holy Spirit. Small h small s. So like water electricity and something along those lines. It's not the Holy Spirit so the personality and equality the person.

So this is obviously where most of us are accustomed to the battle taking place is dealing with the text that people cite. The father is greater than I am and I can the son says he can do nothing. But what he sees the father doing John chapter 5 and etc etc.

And then of course our responses are demonstrating that Jesus identifies Jehovah and so on and so forth. So those are the three foundational doctrines if you take monotheism. The existence of three divine persons and the personality and co-equality of those persons put them together you have the doctrine of Trinity and if you Listen to what someone is saying you can identify Presupposition.

Lee where they are coming from. Many times they will simply assume Unitarianism without proving it and then the there's a breed of philosophical Unitarians. You can see this in Sir Anthony buzzard and they are a pretty aggressive group Out there both on the internet as well as going into churches.

Who attacked the very distinction the brother Callahan mentioned I said it cannot be maintained and they use this as their foundation for a promotion of a form of Unitarianism that will either require subjecting the Sun as a mere creature form of Arianism or Some Most oneness folks are not philosophically oriented at all.

There are few who might go that direction. But most oneness especially when it's Pentecostals do not tend to be philosophically oriented and hence would not necessarily. They would they would question using non-biblical language like that.

But very rarely would would utilize it in their own positive argumentation. Wow, that was a That was an interesting Circular way of getting around to hopefully Reminding us once again of really, you know, I'll be honest with you It has been rightly complained by many that most of Protestantism in the United States, especially is Monotheistic but not Trinitarian.

And and I and I think there's some real Real truth to that. I mean I wouldn't have written an entire book on the Trinity if I didn't think it was somewhat important and remember the title the book is the Forgotten Trinity.

So it's it is something that has always Concerned me and I have often said that our worship is fundamentally Damaged and crippled. When we have inappropriate and improper understandings of the doctrine of the Trinity in our minds.

I think that's really behind where a lot of this a worship is just what makes you feel good type stuff has come from because if you if you Don't know who your God is. You look back in history and paganism.

Not knowing who God is that's the very essence of paganism. You're worshiping the unknown God and and you or Gnosticism you have to go through all these things to find out who God is. But you never really really totally find out etc. Etc.

The the ignorance of knowing who God is that's a part of paganism. The fundamental part of biblical revelation is that God has made himself known to his people in a special way. He wants us to know who he is.

He's revealed truth about who he is and That's why the the Western attack upon upon Christianity and its exclusivism is really a pagan attack. It's a it's really nothing different than the Romans were doing.

It just it just wears different garb and uses different language the same. It's the same Has the same essence as what what we've been fighting all along of course most of us don't know church history.

And so we don't realize been fighting that battle all along. That's sort of what what is what is happening there, but If we don't know who God is then we cannot really engage in Christian worship because Christian worship is based upon knowledge.

This is eternal life that they may what you Wasn't saying verse 3. The term is good no scope from gnosis knowledge, but they may know you not feel you or speculate about you. Or all the other things that tend to be the essence of most of human religion, but this is your life.

They may know you there is a the revelation of Christian truth is to the entirety of Man as created by God. It's not just to one aspect. It doesn't just appeal to the mind. It doesn't just appeal to the emotions and the heart.

We are to love God with our heart soul mind and strength all of us. Not just part of us, and I would suggest the Christian worship that does not call for that is not really Christian worship. And so Anyway, so back to the point that I started 35 minutes ago, and that is this is eternal life and This eternal life requires that we know the father and the son so that led us into understanding the relationship between the two and why that's that's consistent within Christian revelation and so on and so forth and Why it is that that is so offensive?

To many in our society who don't have any problem with you're saying if you want to say that this is a way for you To know God that's fine, but what you must do, and this is exactly what the Roman State was saying the Christians for over 200 years.

When they said off of that pinch of incense upon the altar and say Kaiser Koryos Caesar is Lord and Get your nebulous your your certificate that says you've sacrificed to the Emperor what they were saying is you can say That Jesus is a way to the father and you can say that this is a valid way to God.

But what you cannot say is it is the only value you cannot Make that category leap into an exclusive Statement and that's exactly what we're being told today. That really is what's behind what happened to Tony Miano some of you know who Tony Miano is his street preacher Retired LA County Sheriff and goes around the world does street preaching.

He was arrested in London at Wimbledon last year. But was fairly quickly released and charges dropped this time. He was arrested in Dundee Scotland and While he's been released. He has to come back in in April for trial and why?

Because he mentioned the need for redemption from sin and That included sexual sin and so he is going to be tried for promoting homophobia now. What is behind all of that when you peel back? It's got lots and lots of layers and very rarely do people get through the layers.

But what is behind all of that is the fundamental assertion of our society that there is no such thing as religious truth. There is no objective truth when it comes to ethics and morality and if you dare say these things are true honest good just right holy and these things are sinful and dishonest and Destroy life, and they're unholy and they're ungodly you are.

You're refusing to offer your pinch of incense on the altar and I think that's exactly what's going on there and Already in in many of the European countries. It's already pretty much just a given you just know.

There are certain things you can't say in public anymore. There's certain things you can't say in public anymore, and we know that that's heading our direction, too. We're not setting our direction to now.

We'd be able to continue to say these things for example on the internet. I was talking with a very well-known Christian leader just a couple weeks ago. He said you know he said I think the internet will be one of the last places that we will have freedom.

He says because I mean look at it. It's it's pretty much the Wild West and When countries try to ban certain things? There's always a backdoor. That may be one of the last places where we truly have some level of freedom is in it.

I hope he's right. I hope he's right because everyone you know my phone's in there. We see a lot happening. I don't know I don't know. The NSA might be listening to everything. I'm saying right now through all of your cell phones kids, so it's a sort of scary thought but anyhow I I really was going to try to get to verse 5 today, but Maybe we laid some good foundation.

Hopefully for looking at at that because I will be here next week. And so we'll be able to press forward at that point. Okay, all right. Our Heavenly Father we do thank you for your word. We thank you for the fact that you have revealed yourself that you want us to know you and then knowing you we have eternal Life.

We thank you for that. We ask that we would rejoice in it each and every day. We rejoice in it even now as we go into worship as we hear your word opened as we sing hymns to you. May you be honored and glorified and all that takes place pray in Christ's name.