Simply Trinity Study (part 12)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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We ought to learn more about you and more about the finished work of Christ.

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Bless each one here, I pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, so a little anecdote to start here this morning, because I'm going to be talking about the

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Trinity, and it sounds like it should be a college class, and maybe it should be, but if you've been reading this book, how many of you have read the book, okay, started the book, good, you know, it's really written at a very easy level,

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I mean, I wouldn't say it's like sixth grade or anything, but it's pretty easy to understand, and he does a really good job,

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Dr. Barrett does, of explaining things. When I first realized who

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Jesus was, lo, those many years ago, I mean, it seems like a long time ago, probably because it was 30 years ago,

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I mean, I can still remember it, but, which is amazing given my age, but I remember thinking, well, am

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I a Christian now? Now that I know who Jesus is, now that I love Jesus, now that I believe that he's saved me, am

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I a Christian? And the one thing I couldn't wrap my head around, the one thing

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I could not get was the Trinity, because I'd spent my whole life denying the

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Trinity, and mocking people who believed in the Trinity, and now I'm like, I guess I'm supposed to believe in the

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Trinity. It was pretty hard. How could God possibly be one, and yet three persons?

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One being, subsisting in three persons. Logically, I couldn't wrap my head around it.

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It took some study, it took some understanding, and you know what, and a little spoiler alert here, one of the things

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I did, even in teaching Fundamentals of the Faith about the Trinity, was what most of us typically do, which is, we look at Deuteronomy 6 .4,

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which says, God is one, right? Here, O Israel, the

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Lord your God is one. So I take that, the Shema of Israel, and then

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I think to myself, okay, God is one, I can accept that, that's point number one, and then what? The Father is

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God, the Son is God, the

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Spirit is God. Therefore, He's one, and He's three.

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And that was the extent of it. And so, we come to this.

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By the way, I did eventually come to grasp and understand and believe in the Trinity, so, you know, just want to clarify that before we go any further.

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Okay, so you should have a quiz. If you don't have a quiz, raise your hand, and I will fold it into an airplane and fling it at you.

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No, I won't do that. But there are copies over here, and the man will get you a copy.

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I think Lisa Huber needs one, I don't know who else. Would you raise your hand again if you don't have a copy of the quiz? Okay, it's just Lisa.

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Not singly out. Okay, number one, true or false, and this is kind of his introduction, so I'm working my way through the introduction with him.

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True or false, we will leave behind a theological heritage. True or false, we will leave behind a theological heritage.

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Yes, we, us. Okay, you tell me. Are we discovering it, or are we giving it to the children?

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What does it mean to leave something behind? If you leave behind your money, are you discovering it, or are you giving it to your children?

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I think you're giving it to your children, right? We, in essence, and we talked about this

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Friday night, I may have talked about it yesterday morning, because it's something I like to talk about.

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But let's look at 1 Timothy chapter 2 for a minute, as I fumble, stumble, and mumble.

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I remember several years ago looking for something to give to Pastor Mike to mark one of his milestones.

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And I mean, when you've been around as long as Pastor Mike has, you have a lot of milestones. So, you know, he has a lot of tchotchkes and whatnot.

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And we give him this verse, you know, stuffed and mounted and put it on his wall.

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1 Timothy chapter 2, or maybe not, because I'm totally going to get a hash of this.

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I think it's 2 Timothy chapter 2. I know it's in one of the Timothys, and it's in chapter 2, so it must be 2

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Timothy chapter 2. All right. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

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Now, this is a familiar verse, which is why we stuffed and mounted it and put it on Pastor Mike's wall.

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But what's the idea here? What you have heard from me. So, Paul to Timothy, spiritual father to spiritual son, right?

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What I told you, Timothy, I want you to do what with? Teach others, right?

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I've handed you the baton. This is like the last letter he wrote. Timothy, I've handed you the baton.

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I've given you the faithful teaching, and here's what I want you to do. Take that baton and drop it.

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Take that baton and bury it. No. Take that baton and pass it on to others.

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With the idea that they will then pass it on. So, we have this spiritual heritage, and we want to pass on the truth.

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Barrett writes, have you ever considered what kind of theological heritage you have inherited or will leave behind?

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If you are reading this book, your heritage, like my own, may be an evangelical one. There are many reasons to be proud of our evangelical heritage.

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It's insistence that one must be born again to be a Christian. It's commitment to the Bible as our supreme authority.

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It's determination to keep the cross of Jesus central. And it's zeal to take the good news of Jesus' sacrificial death to the nations.

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These marks define our evangelical story. So, what do we want?

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I mean, if you have kids, if you have grandkids, what do you want them to learn? What is it that you want to instill in them?

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Obviously, you want them to know the truth. Well, what do we want the next generation of the church to receive, to believe?

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And then, what do we want them to pass on? We want them to pass on the truth. We want them to faithfully take the baton and hand it on to the next generation.

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Okay, number two. Number two. Yeah. True or false?

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Number two. Because we are Protestants, when we hear the word Catholic, we should recoil in horror. I feel like I'm in a town meeting and I should say, you know, let's...

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Robert's Rules of Order. Okay, I heard some true and I heard some false.

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I know why I heard some true. Why did I hear false? Yeah, look at that.

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I mean, when you hear Catholic, you should automatically go to the lower case. No, I mean, you know, it's written there, so it's a little bit easier.

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Catholic. Barrett writes, But our evangelical heritage is cut short if it's not also a

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Catholic heritage lower C. Catholic with a small c referring to those universal beliefs the

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Church has confessed from its inception. From the beginning, there are certain things that the

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Church has taught and believed. Those things are Catholic truths, meaning universal small c, not to be confused with the

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Roman Catholic Church. He also says, Let me just pause there for a minute.

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When heretical teaching comes into the truth, you know, is it like, you know, a political candidate and an event with somebody holding a sign up in front of him as he walks in and it says heresy on the front?

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Beware, the man behind me is teaching heresy. That's not how it happens. Instead, what do false teachers do?

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What do heretics do? They mix the truth with some lie.

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It sounds good. And so it turns into some kind of like, well, almost like the

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Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, you've heard it said, but I say, but Jesus had the authority to do that.

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What heretics do is, you know what? You've heard this and that's true, but it doesn't go far enough.

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Or let me explain it further. That kind of thing. And so what creeds do is they protect us.

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They guard us from false interpretations, from heresy. He says, for this reason, creeds are called orthodox beliefs.

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Again, we hear the word orthodox and what do we do? We kind of go, it's not as bad as Catholic.

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Catholic makes, you know, puts you in a sprint stance and you're just like, let's get out of here. Things are about to get

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Catholic. When you hear orthodox, you can juxtapose, you can put that up against non -orthodox, unorthodox, false, wrong, right?

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I mean, orthodox just means true or correct. So orthodox can be good if it doesn't mean smells and bells and, you know, guys with funny hats.

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Number three, true or false. We know so much more about scripture than the early church.

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So we should not concern ourselves if we disagree with ancient teachings. False. Why is that?

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They were there and we weren't. That's good. But what about new and improved? Scriptures haven't changed.

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The truth hasn't changed. God hasn't changed. But we hear a lot of things that are new.

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I mentioned this the other night and I've told this story before, but I remember years ago. There was a new translation of the

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New Testament in the bookstore at Grace Community Church. And somebody said, you know, have a look at it.

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Just read the introduction. So I don't want to give too much information because I'll embarrass a godly man here.

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But it was a translation now, not, you know, any kind of study Bible or anything like that.

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I pick up this translation. I open up the intro and I read it. And the author says that he's discovered many nuances that no one had ever seen before.

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That's what I did. I just closed the book, put it back on the shelf. And I thought, they really probably shouldn't sell this book.

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This is not good. New is not good. Never seen before. I mean, the idea, you know, who says we have truth that nobody in the history of the church for 2 ,000 years has ever known?

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Who says that? That guy did. Joseph Smith, right?

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It's cultists, false teachers. Charlie. No, he didn't say that, though.

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Did Martin Luther say, I've discovered many truths that nobody's ever seen before? It is the charge from the

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Roman Catholic Church. But is it true? And, you know, if you were at my Bible study, our Bible study on Friday night, you would have found out that that's not true, that Polycarp and others actually taught justification by faith alone in the first century.

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You should have been there. There was room for you. I don't mean

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Charlie. I just mean in general. You know, we could have packed everybody into the house. Number, oh,

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I guess we haven't read what he said. Barrett, do our beliefs as evangelicals align with those biblical

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Orthodox beliefs the church has cherished and confessed since its beginning? And will our identity moving forward be characterized by those same beliefs?

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Again, that's the idea. I mean, what do people say when they go to church? They want it to be fresh.

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They want it to be peppy. They want a lot of things. They want nice bathrooms. They want everything that we're not.

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The one thing that they don't say is to themselves as they go into the parking lot, as they get to the car, they don't think that was really

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Orthodox. It was so good to hear the ancient truths of the church.

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Who said that when they're leaving a church? Almost nobody. Right. I guarantee you they don't say that when they when they leave

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Saddleback just going because they don't hear those churches that are booming these days are doing new stuff.

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People like new. Number four. Which of the following are the four marks of evangelicalism?

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Correct. Guitar solos. Charlie, get it done.

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Yeah, I can see Taylor now going, OK, pops, that's enough tapping him on the shoulder. You know, we'll just go wailing here this morning.

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Which of the following are the four marks of evangelicalism? Anybody want to guess? A, B, C and D.

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Any other guesses? What's that? None of the above.

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Wrong. Any other guesses besides A, B, C and D? See, I thought

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I could fool you. I really did. It's A, B, D and E. Hey, what's wrong with that?

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Listen to what Barrett says. The four marks I mentioned above make up the evangelical quadrilateral.

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Conversionism. Biblicism. In the sense that they stick to the

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Bible. Crucicentrism, which is being cross -centered.

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And activism. Meaning we're not passive about evangelism.

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I mean, the activism probably could be better explained. And he says, according to historians, these four marks define and determine whether one is an evangelical.

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But notice, no Trinity. Where did the Trinity go?

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Barrett says, I've been an evangelical for decades now. And I've never met anyone or heard of anyone outside of the evangelical fold who said,

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Those evangelicals may be many things. But there's no question they are Trinitarians through and through.

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I've heard them call us by many names. But Trinitarians? Never. And I'm going to suggest to you, as Barrett does, that there's something wrong with that.

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We should be known for our Trinitarian beliefs. So, we come to number five, and we'll develop this a little more.

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Number five, true or false. Most evangelicals can give an accurate summary of the Trinity.

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False. Right? Barrett says, many evangelical churches and pastors know they are supposed to affirm the

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Trinity. And so they do. But if they're being honest, they have no idea why other than to say the

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Bible says so somewhere. Right? Though they're not sure what verse that might be.

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Ask them to articulate the same Trinity according to biblical orthodoxy, and they will return a blank stare.

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Hold on, professor, you might object. Haven't we experienced a resurgence of theology in recent years?

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Have we? I think we have. And for those of you who pay attention to such trends, you would see that there have been a lot more theological books looking back at historical theology, you know, reminding us of things that are important.

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You know, in particular, we can even say Calvinism and other things. Barrett says, malnourished and hungry for meat rather than just milk, young folks at the turn of the century dug deep to resurrect theology in the church, and not just any theology, but Reformed theology.

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But two decades have passed, and we now have the advantage of looking back to recognize gaping holes we did not see before, blind spots.

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Here is one too big to ignore. With all our focus on the bigness of God and salvation history, somehow who our triune

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God is in eternity was left out. How ironic. The story of salvation is a story that reveals not only what our triune

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God has accomplished, but who he is in and of himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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How telling. Perhaps our Reformed resurgence is not all that Reformed after all, or at least not as Reformed as it should be.

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And, you know, to buttress that a little bit, I went and looked at the... Ligonier does this survey every couple years, and I found this kind of interesting.

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96 % of evangelical Christians agreed with this. See if you would. There is one true

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God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What do you think?

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So that's 96%. That's not bad. Even at the

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Master's Seminary, that's an A. Barely, but it's an A. Now, what percentage of evangelicals agreed with this statement?

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God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

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49, 50, 30 -something, 56 % of evangelicals. More than half agreed with that statement.

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Now, if we just think about it, 96 % agree the

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Trinity exists. Then 56 % say God accepts the worship of all religions, including

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Judaism. Does Judaism have a Trinity? A triune

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God? No, because if they did, they would be Christians, right?

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Does Islam? No, they deny the deity of Christ. So there's a disconnect there somewhere.

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It's almost like, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it's almost like Christians say to themselves, I know we're supposed to believe in the

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Trinity, therefore I know how to answer that question. But if I go any deeper than that,

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I'm lost. Yeah, was he the greatest created being?

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I didn't include that one, but I had one more, because I was tracking along the same lines here. 43 % of evangelicals,

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Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Now again, 96 % said there's one true

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God in three persons, and 43 % of evangelicals, I mean, I kept checking, because there's the evangelicals and there's the unbelieving, and they kind of make a muddled mess out of it.

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So I wanted to make sure, and I kept going back and going, is this really possible? You know, take a couple more, leave, look at it again.

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43 % of evangelicals agree with this, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Who's in your

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Trinity, buddy? People are, you know, evangelicals are confused, and you think about it, and you go, why would that be?

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Why would even, Charlie? Okay, the least communicable attribute of God, meaning there's nothing that's really comparable to the

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Trinity. So there's no good analogy, you know, you hear all the ice, water, and vapor thing, and you know, that's about as good as a puff of smoke, right?

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It's a bad analogy, because it doesn't work at all. I mean, you know, you can't have three in one, and one in three, and you know, all these things, and then there's the apple and the corn, and then you go, what happens to the seeds, and it's a big mess.

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There's no good analogy, and you're exactly right, right? I think there's another reason maybe why so many people are confused, so many evangelicals are confused about the

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Trinity. Why would that be? They're not taught. And I'm sure,

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I'm confident, that if we talk to the pastors of many churches, they would be able to explain it, explain the

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Trinity, and they would hold an orthodox belief. So why don't they talk about it from the pulpit?

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It loses seekers, because it's not practical. It's not something, you know, on Tuesday, you think, oh man.

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When the pastor was waxing eloquent about the Trinity on Sunday, that really moved me.

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Charlie, you were a motorist,

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Patrick. Yeah, it is easy to slip into heresy.

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In fact, you know, the challenge, and I'm not really going to give myself this challenge. The challenge when talking about the

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Trinity is to see how long you can speak about it without committing some heresy or something, because it's not, you know, it's almost like once you submerge yourself kind of in the doctrine of the

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Trinity, you just want to stay there, because as soon as you pop your head up for a couple minutes, and you go and look at something else, and then you come back to it, you're going to make a mistake.

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You know, is there redemption for those who make mistakes when talking about the Trinity? I hope so.

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Otherwise, I'm in big trouble. 43 % Jesus was...

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I mean, can I just focus on that for a second? If you're an evangelical, and you say

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Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God, what is true about you? You're not an evangelical.

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You know, if evangelical can be equated in any way, shape, or form to Christian, then wrong, right?

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Yeah, so I think we have a lot of social evangelicals and maybe a lot of social Trinitarians, right?

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They're like, well, sure, I believe in the Trinity, because, you know, that's what we do. We're Christians.

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Okay, number six. This takes me back.

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True or false? The best way to teach the Trinity is to list all the verses that teach there is one true

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God, then list all the verses that prove the Father, Son, and Spirit are individually God.

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Okay? Yeah, modalist.

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And you know what? It's good to define that, because, and I'm going to, I just didn't have time this week.

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I'm going to develop, in fact, I started highlighting words. Modalist is not in my notes, but I started highlighting words in my notes that I want to have like a glossary, because we're going to use some phrases so much that you're going to go, what is that?

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What does that mean? Modalist means, I want to just repeat it for the class.

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Modalist means what? Okay. And it's helpful to just, when you hear modalist, it's helpful, thank you.

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It's helpful to use that word mode, right? And to think of, it's single

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God, so they have that part, right? Modalism is a heresy. And modalism is a heresy that says

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God exists as one person, and then he has three different modes, meaning he's either the

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Father or he's the Son or he's the Spirit. One of the most well -known modalists is

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T .D. Jakes. You know, and a crude analogy is that God goes into a phone booth, and he comes out as either one or the other, or the other, you know, he just changes, depending on what the need of the moment is.

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There are all kinds of problems with modalism, but that's not the point of this morning. That's one of the more, I think, common heresies, and it's easy to do.

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Yes, Vadim? Okay, let's, so would you answer true or false?

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Well, I mean, this is, I think this is the way it's typically taught. It's not a wrong way, but, you know, is it the best way?

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Yes. Okay.

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You said two things that I really like. One is, I was tempted, which means,

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I'm delighted by the way I phrased the question, right? Because it tempted you, it made you, you know.

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But the second thing I liked about what you said was, you know, it's good to let the

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Bible speak for itself. That's true.

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And it's not true. I mean, it's something we have to be careful of, because what happens, well,

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I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we're going to see this more as we go into this. You know, how could it be true and not true?

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Because teaching the Bible in a vacuum is, you know, or taking verses in a vacuum is dangerous.

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So let me just read what Barrett says about number six. He says, the way I was taught to approach the

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Trinity, however, was more or less like a hard science. The Trinity was treated like a conundrum, which

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I understand, right? I mean, I'm coming from a background that says, you know, when

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Jesus got baptized, that's a perfect illustration of why the Trinity cannot exist. Actually, it's probably a pretty good argument against modalism, not such a good argument against the

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Trinity. Trinity was treated like a conundrum, even a problem, but one that could be solved with the proper formula.

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Since no verse in the Bible taught the Trinity, one had to get mathematical. First, add up all the lists, the verse, list the verses that say

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God is one. Next, add up and list all the verses that say the father and son and spirit are each fully

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God. And voila, we know that God is one in essence and three in three persons.

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Done. Finished. But there's a problem with that. And we'll, we'll get to that.

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Number seven, true or false. Some modern scholars rightly reject the so -called eternal generation of the sun.

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Some modern scholars rightly reject the so -called eternal generation of the sun.

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How many would say true to that? How many would say false? How many are afraid to answer?

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Tell the truth and shame the devil. Okay. The answer is false. Why is it false?

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Exactly what Corey said. The word rightly in there. It is heretical to do that.

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It's wrong to reject eternal generation of the sun. Barrett says, both in college and in seminary, each textbook

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I read made a point to reject an old Christian belief I'd never heard of before. The eternal generation of the son from the father.

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And it wasn't just well -loved textbooks, but some of the most highly recommended books on the doctrine of God by evangelical theologians and philosophers, including, he mentions,

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John Feinberg, Bruce Ware, Robert Raymond.

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Hey, we've had him here for a conference. We won't have him again. Because he's, because he's in glory.

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William Lane Craig, JP Moreland, and others. Okay. Good question.

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What's the difference between generation and spiration? These are words, again, that will go on my glossary. What's the difference between the two?

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The son and the spirit. That's exactly right. Spiration, if you think about it, if you could imagine the word here for a moment, since you don't have it in front of you,

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S -P -I -R -A -T -I -O -N almost looks like spirits, which is a good way to remember it.

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The eternal spiration of the spirit. The Holy Spirit always existed, and he was always spirated, or sent forth by, the

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Father and the Son. Okay? So, and the Son, is eternally generated by the

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Father. Always begotten. Eternally begotten.

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What's that? Well, I think, you know, that's a good question.

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Why is it important to say that he's eternally generated? Yeah. I think it's just to be more specific.

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Saying that he's... Right? It's fine.

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It's just not as theologically precise, but it's fine. Right? His begottenness is not his body.

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Right. I mean, when we think of sons, when we think of children, we think of begottenness, right?

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We are begotten. You know, my dad begat me. I mean, that's a pretty terrible word, but it's a biblical word.

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It's the King James Bible. To be begotten is a property of sonship, of being a child.

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To be eternally generated, and here's the reason why it's kind of important.

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Being eternally generated says this, that there was never a time when Jesus did not exist.

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He didn't come into being. Right? He is eternal. And people go, well, how can he be eternal, and yet begotten, and yet generated?

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Okay, now we're starting to grapple with some of the real issues. It's hard to wrap our heads around.

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They don't want to say that. What they're teaching, what these people are teaching, is kind of a hierarchical system in the

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Trinity. It's called eternal functional subordination, and the idea is that the son always was kind of second.

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The father's first. That there was an eternal pecking order. That they're not equal.

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Okay? And that's a problem. And so they get away from this language, and I'm going to mention it in my sermon this morning, just because I woke up this morning just really perturbed by this.

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I get perturbed sometimes, and things just happen. But if you look at John 1 .14, and if you have the

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ESV, this is one of its less proud moments.

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One might even call it shameful. John 1 .14,

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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only

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Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now that's true, but it's not the whole truth.

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Because the whole truth would be, what, instead of the only Son, how many have another version of the

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Bible? What does yours say, Becky? The only begotten.

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Way better. Right? I mean, it tells us something more about him, and why does

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ESV have the only Son? Because they want to get away from this eternal begottenness, this eternal generation thing, because, sadly,

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Wayne Gruden was on the translation committee, and that's what you get.

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Okay, we have time for one more. Maybe two. Woo -hoo! Number eight, true or false.

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Some aspects of the Trinity are not easily defined by a single verse. True. I mean, we just, you know, yes.

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Barrett says, Some scholars shared this weakness, rejecting the eternal generation of the

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Son, shared this weakness, and they rejected this ancient doctrine called eternal generation because they were unable to find a text to support it.

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Without a chapter and verse, it couldn't be included in their list. It just didn't fit into their formula.

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Others rejected this churchy belief because it just didn't make rational sense, and if it wasn't reasonable, it couldn't be sensible.

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And I would submit to you that that last phrase, it didn't make rational sense, and if it wasn't reasonable, it couldn't be sensible, is exactly the road that leads to heresy.

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One of the things I maybe mentioned briefly when I did my thing on Mormonism on a

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Sunday night a couple weeks ago was this. What Mormonism excels at, what it's brilliant about, what

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Joseph Smith did so well was to make God comprehensible. Joseph Smith basically made

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God to be like just a superior version of us, like a glorified version of us, somebody who used to struggle like we do, but now he's exalted in yon heavens.

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And one day, if you do the right things, you can be just like him.

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Meaning, just like him. So God gets reduced, we get elevated, that makes sense to our fallen brains.

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But a God who is one, and yet three persons, that doesn't make sense to our little brains.

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We can't comprehend that, so we look for other explanations. Now let's do number nine.

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What does it mean to be a father? Does the mere word tell us anything about the first person of the

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Trinity? Barrett's explanation is pretty simple.

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The father is called the father because he is, well, the father of his son. As fathers do, he begets his son.

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That is, after all, what it means to be a father, right? You're not a father if you don't have kids. But since this is

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God we're talking about, not a mere mortal, he does so from all eternity.

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So think about that. He doesn't become a father. He's the eternal father.

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Why? Because he eternally begets his son. Though he himself, the father, is begotten by no one.

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So sometimes theologians will say he's unbegotten. He has no origin.

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And that's because he is the source or origin of everything. And this is called paternity.

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Eternal. Unbegotten. And eternally begetting the son.

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Kind of complicated. Or it sounds complicated. Charlie. Right.

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Right. The inference of hierarchy would be, well, if the son has always been the son, then he must be lesser because I'm a father, and if I have a son, he's lesser than I am.

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And this is what we're going to be talking about for at least next week. Talking about the equality of the

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Trinity and how that's possible and why it has to be true. And why the early church thought it was true.

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And why we still believe it's true. But we have to go because somebody has to preach in a few minutes.

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So, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.

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We thank you not only for your word, but we thank you for men who have faithfully passed the baton, the truth, doctrine, throughout the ages, from one generation to the next.

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We thank you for the creeds and confessions that we might have these guardrails to keep us from going into modalism or some kind of understanding like Mormonism.

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Lord, we thank you for these things that are true, that are in the original languages, that have been passed down, that don't change.

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Help us to grapple with them. Help us to better understand them, that we might better know you.