The Doctrine of The Trinity

The Apologetic Dog

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All right, we're about to get started. So if you have your book, Everyone's a

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Theologian, we'll be referencing that. And if you've been joining us on Wednesdays, Pastor Nathan's been teaching through Everyone's a

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Theologian because everybody is. Everyone has convictions about who God is and who

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God is not. So everyone's a theologian, but it's a different question of asking, are you a good theologian or not?

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And so we have to start with God's word and how he's revealed himself to us. And so this evening, we're gonna be talking about the one essence of God and God being three persons.

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Okay, so we're gonna be talking about the doctrine of the Trinity. And so I just wanna tell you, if you don't have a copy of this book yet, please get it.

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This book is phenomenal, really breaking down systematic theology. All the major doctrines of our faith.

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R .C. Sproul does an amazing job putting it in terms that are bite -sized. And hopefully some of the things are challenging, but this is just a really good resource to continue to delve into.

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So I wanna start by sharing a story about probably 10 years ago, I was sharing the gospel with a

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Jehovah's Witness. And the Jehovah's Witness had a lot of questions for me. And he said,

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Jeremiah, do you believe in the Trinity? I said, absolutely, I do. And he said, can you show me anywhere in the Bible where it says the word

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Trinity? And I remember thinking, oh no, I don't know. I really felt in a moment of being unequipped, right?

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I didn't understand the doctrine of the Trinity well enough to be able to show this is the testimony of all of Scripture.

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And so the Bible from beginning to end teaches that there's one true living God, the creator of all things, and he has revealed himself in three divine persons.

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And so I just wanna recommend another resource as we delve into the doctrine of the Trinity. Dr. James White wrote

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The Forgotten Trinity, and we had Dr. White come and speak at 12 .5 earlier, or last fall, and the year before that, and he actually spoke on the

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Trinity. So we have that content recorded. Definitely want to encourage you to go look at that.

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So that's what we're gonna be talking about tonight is two important categories. Because the

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Jehovah's Witness said, well, do you believe in three gods or one god? And I knew the answer was, well, we believe in one god, but it kind of felt like we serve three gods.

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And I just wanna tell you that that is not true. We do not serve three gods. We serve the one true and living

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God. And if our understanding of the Trinity is that he's three sometimes and he's one in another, well, that doesn't make sense.

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Probably the biggest point this evening is I want us to understand two distinct categories. God is one in essence, or being, and he is three persons.

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And so if we can talk about the tri, unity of God, tri, and his persons, and he's unified in his eternal existence, well, that at least gives us a proper foundation for understanding who

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God is and what God is. So we really want to avoid being illogical.

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God is the God of truth. God is not going to contradict himself. So we need to understand these two important categories, the what of God and the who of God.

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God is one being and he is three persons. So for you note takers, we're gonna be talking about three fundamental truths and talking about the

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Trinity. Number one is the one true God. This is monotheism.

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Number two, we're gonna talk about divine persons. Three divine persons that are distinct from one another.

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And then the third major point is the equality of those divine persons. And so if we deny any one of these three major foundations, that there's one true

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God, three divine persons, and the equality of those persons, then we're going to commit heresy.

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We're gonna deny the true God, the only God who can save. And so for example, Mormonism teaches that there are many infinite pantheon of gods as you go back, and that is polytheism, and rejects the teaching that there is only one

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God from scripture. Oneness Pentecostalism teaches that God is one in person and simply shifts modes.

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God acts as the Father sometimes, and sometimes he puts on a different mask or switches modes into the

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Son and switches modes and is the Spirit. So oneness Pentecostalism denies that God is in three persons.

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And so Jehovah's Witnesses, earlier like I mentioned in one of my early encounters of sharing the gospel, they believe that God is the

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Father only and then created the Son. So this denies the deity of Jesus Christ.

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Okay, so I really want to emphasize these three major foundations for understanding the

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Trinity, that there is one true and living God, monotheism, and number two, that God is three divine persons that are distinct from one another, and those three persons are equally divine with one another.

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And so for us to be consistent, we have to look to the entire Bible. We have to look to scripture alone and the totality of scripture.

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2 Timothy 2 .15 commands Christians to study God's word and we must have a consistent understanding of truth.

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Do your best to present yourselves to God as one approved and a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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And so I want to talk about that first major foundation, that there's one true living God. And so when we use the term monotheism, mono means one and theism, theos means

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God. And so this comes from chapter 10 in our book from R .C. Sproul, Everyone's a

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Theologian. We're talking about the one essence of God. Essence is interchangeable with God's being.

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He exists eternally, okay? So when you think about God's existence, go ahead and start thinking about our own existence.

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Our existence is different, right? We're created. We change over time, right,

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Keith? We are becoming. But God is simple, meaning that he's not becoming. He simply is and always has been.

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God does not change. And so that one God who does not change is the only God who can truly save.

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Now, this is a truth that the Old Testament first began to teach, that there is one

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God who is eternal and self -existent. Now, the Old Testament, Israel, they believed in one

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God when all the pagan deities believed in multiple gods. They were polytheists, where Israel alone worshiped one

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God. So the great Shema, Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 says, "'Hear, O Israel, the

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Lord our God is one.'" And so every Jew would be quoting the

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Shema when they get up in the morning, all throughout the day, before they go to bed at night, is to always give the one true

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God worship. He is unique and distinct from all other created false deities.

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He's unique, once again, creator of all things. He's self -existent. He's not created.

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He's eternal, and he is unchallenged in his power and sovereignty.

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And so Deuteronomy 6, 4, the Shema, which is Hebrew for, "'Hear, O Israel, "'the

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Lord our God is one.'" Jesus quoted the Shema, because Jesus was a Jew.

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Jesus confirmed the fact that there is only one God, the creator God of all things. And so all throughout the

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New Testament, we see the Shema being quoted, even throughout the epistles. The apostle Paul says, "'We know that an idol has no real existence, "'and that there is no

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God but one.'" And so that's something that R .C. brings out on page 52.

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He says, "'All the pagan deities worshiped many gods, "'but Israel stood alone in worshiping the true

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God.'" And so as we look out through church history, we've studied many creeds and confessions, and something that Christianity has historically confessed is the

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Lord our God is one, the only living and true God, He is self -existent and infinite in His being and perfection.

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This divine and infinite being consists of three real persons, the Father, the

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Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have the same substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence without this essence being divided.

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Now, there's two major categories that I want us to just really repeat, all throughout the night.

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God is one in His being, and He is three in His personhood.

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Okay, so I want us to have those proper categories. That way we understand biblically how God has revealed Himself. Those key terms, being is synonymous with nature or the type of existence which is eternal.

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So since God is infinite, He is self -existent, He is uncreated and eternal, He possesses many attributes that belong to Him and Him alone.

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And so the next upcoming chapters, we're gonna read about God having incommunicable attributes, meaning things that belong to God, like His omniscience,

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God is all -knowing, God is all -powerful, He is omnipotent, and His presence is felt by His entire creation,

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He is omnipresent. Those are things that belong to God and to God alone.

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And so this gets us into a doctrine that's gonna be really helpful with understanding the Trinity, but we have to understand the creator -creation distinction.

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There's so many things that God alone possesses that, since we're made in His image, do transfer over to us and we reflect some of God's attributes.

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Yes, God is eternally love, but He's created us in a way to have loving relationships.

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But God is eternally love. He is the essence of love, right? But our love goes up and down.

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It can be improved upon over time. And so I want us to understand that God's being is different than our created being.

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God has those omni -attributes. And one story that I reflect on is the story of Job, where Job started questioning the things of God, right?

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Job suffered in a great way. Remember the story of Job? And in Job 38,

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God was like, okay, now it's my turn to question you. Where were you when I created the foundations of the world?

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Right, and I think immediately we step back and say, when we go through hardships, trials in this world,

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God's eternal. God has a purpose in everything that we are experiencing. And then Job responds in chapter 42.

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He says, I know that you, God, can do all things and no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

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So God is omnipotent. That's something that belongs to him and him alone. And so when we do talk about the other attributes that God is all -knowing, well, that's necessary in order for him to make a promise to give a prophecy about something that's going to come to pass.

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God can accomplish that. We can make promises, but a lot of times our promises are broken or we change our mind.

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Well, God is unchanging. God, when he makes a promise, we can trust in him that that will come to fruition.

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And so God's presence is also everywhere. He's omnipresent, but this doesn't mean that God is in everything, right?

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This would be a heresy called pantheism, meaning that everything, all is one and all is God. God has revealed to us, no, he actually created this world and he is distinct from it, but his presence can be felt everywhere.

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Hebrews chapter four tells us, and no creature is hidden in his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him whom we must give account.

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His presence is felt everywhere and he sees all things. But remember, we have to keep this doctrine in mind.

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We have a distinction between the creator and the creation. Those attributes belong to God and him alone, but he's also revealed himself in such a way where we can have true, meaningful relationship.

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He created us in his image. And so God's being is ultimately eternal, transcendent, absolute, and is uniquely different than the created world.

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So now we have a better grasp on the what of God, right? We're talking about his eternal essence, his eternal being.

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And now I wanna talk more about the who of God. Okay, so on our three major points, the second major foundation is

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God has revealed himself in three divine persons. These three divine persons are distinct from one another, father, son, and spirit, but they fully share in that one divine essence.

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And so I wanna illustrate how we can understand the differences between these two categories.

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I don't know if you've already had this in mind, but what is the difference between being and person? Like I said, we have to make sure we keep these two categories different because if someone says, well, do you worship one

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God or do you worship three gods? And we just say, well, kind of both. That doesn't make sense. So I'm just wanting to reemphasize that we have to better understand these two categories.

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Okay, so I want us to think about this podium right here. This podium exists, but it's impersonal, okay?

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Or if I have a rock, it has rockness, it has rock being. And if you say, well,

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I don't believe that rock has being. If I were to throw it out to y 'all and it clashes with one of you, you're gonna figure out real quick, it exists and it's gonna hurt, right?

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So a rock has being. Everything that exists has being, but not everything that exists is personal, right?

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If you try to talk to a rock, it's not gonna talk back to you. But I want us to understand inanimate objects exist, but they are not personal, okay?

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And so now think about human beings. We exist, we are personal beings.

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We can have relationships with one another, okay? But our human being, our existence is temporal, is finite, is limited.

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So our being is only shared with one person, right? The true you.

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Jeremiah is not necessarily this body, right? It's my inner person. And so what

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I'm trying to show is we are personal beings, but since we're limited, our being is only shared with one person.

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Now when we start to talk about God, who's eternal, who is transcendent, almighty, his being is personal differently than our person, okay?

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And so he's tripersonal. And recently I did a YouTube video with Brant Bosterman and interviewed him on the

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Trinity, how God necessarily, in order to be an absolute personal being, it must be with three persons.

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That is a perfect harmony between father, son, and spirit, and it is a loving harmony with one another for eternity.

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And so the reason why I'm taking us down this path is I want us to understand we don't worship three gods. We worship one eternal

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God who is tripersonal, father, son, and spirit. And so I think if that's our biggest takeaway this evening, then we've really graduated a step.

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Because the next time when someone says, well, explain to me how you don't worship three gods. Well, easy. We worship one

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God who is tripersonal. And his personhood is different than how we are personal.

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And it's because we are finite. It's because we are created. I wanna invite you to turn with me to Matthew 28, verse 19.

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Because as we are studying the one true God, we see the consistent testimony that the

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Lord our God is one. And Jesus says a famous Trinitarian verse in the

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Great Commission. So if you would, look with me at Matthew 28, verse 19. Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Now this is an incredible statement because Jesus says the name, right?

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If we worship many gods, he would have said names, plural, in the names of the

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Father, Son, and Spirit, but he says the name. Now Jesus was a Jew. He quoted the

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Shema in Mark chapter 12. Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. He is talking about the name of Yahweh.

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But then he talks about Yahweh revealing himself in the Father, the Son, and the

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Spirit. And so this, in one verse, even though we look to the whole testimony of all of God's word, this is showing us that we believe in one

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God who is Father, Son, and Spirit, three distinct persons.

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Now I mentioned a group called Oneness Pentecostals. Remember, they deny the

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Trinity. They believe that there is one God who is only one person. And that one person simply puts on different masks, right?

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The mask of the Father or switches modes and puts the mask of the Son or the Spirit. And in my conversations about this, they say, well, have you not read

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Acts 2 .38? And with all my debates, I'm like, oh, I'm very familiar with Acts 2 .38.

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And so kind of catch the direction that they would wanna go with this. And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized to every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. And so the objection is, well, you see, it says the name there, and it's talking about Jesus Christ.

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So he's the one true God. And I said, well, we gotta back up. There's a few things we gotta understand.

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There is meaning and power in the name that Acts clearly lays out, and we'll look at in a second.

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But what Peter is talking about is in the authority of Jesus Christ, be baptized in his authority.

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And Jesus, how did he authorize how to be baptized? In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. And so in the book of Acts, I just wanna share a few of these nuggets with you.

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We see that Peter talks about that Jesus is the author of life, in whom God raised him from the dead, to this we are witness.

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And by his name and faith in his name, he has made this man strong and he performed this miracle.

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And so to have faith in the name of Jesus is ultimately putting your trust in all of who he is.

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Acts chapter four, it tells us by what power or by what name did you do these miracles to the apostles?

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Well, they do it in the name and the power of Jesus Christ. Probably one of the greatest verses in all of Acts is

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Acts 4 .12, that's talking about the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

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And so the point here, Acts 2 .38, when Peter says repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, is talking about under his authority.

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Well, Matthew 28, he talks about be baptized in the name, which would be

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Yahweh, the one true God, creator of all things, who is the father, son, and spirit.

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One God revealed in three divine persons. So Matthew 28 .19, wonderful verse.

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And we're talking about the categories, once again, of being in person. So to be a person has certain qualities that go with that.

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In order to be a person, you have relationships. Persons can communicate, a person makes choices, has desires to do a will, can think.

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A person has the capacity for loving relationships. And so all members of the

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Trinity are persons. The father speaks to the son, the son, who is Jesus, prays to the father, and even the

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Holy Spirit is referred to as a he, is given a pronoun, right? That belongs to a person.

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The Holy Spirit in the book of Acts talks with people. And so these three persons fully share in the singular divine nature and essence, which is

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God. And so this brings us to our third and final point. I'm hoping to write down any questions that you have, because after we go through a lot of these three major points,

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I want us to be able to open up the floor for discussions. And it's not stump the chump. So, and it's not hard to do it on probably the hardest doctrine that's been revealed to us.

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But our third and final point is talking about the equality of the persons, of the

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Godhead, father, son, and spirit. And so we know that each member of the Trinity share in the divine nature of God because this is exactly what

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Scripture tells us. The Scripture tells us that there's one true God, and the Father is God, the

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Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And so we only come to the understanding of the

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Trinity when we start with God's word, and we let the totality of Scripture speak as a unified whole.

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The first time we read God the Father comes out in John chapter six, verse 27, where Jesus is talking and says, and do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the

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Son of man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal.

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And there's honestly tons of verses that clearly tell us that the Father is God. Now, I would like to invite you now to turn with me to John chapter one.

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There's so many verses throughout the New Testament, even prophesied in the Old Testament, that tells us the

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Son, the logos, the eternal word took on flesh and dwelt among us.

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This is Jesus Christ, and in John's prologue clearly tells us that Jesus is

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God. And I want us to look at the opening five verses here in John chapter one.

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But we know that Jesus did many things that only God could do. He forgave sin.

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God alone can forgive sin, and that's why the Pharisees would pick up rocks to kill him, because he was trying to make himself

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God. They were right in understanding who he is as God, but they were wrong in obviously wanting to kill him.

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And so, like I said, Jesus did many things. He called himself the Great I Am, which belonged to God.

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That was what God revealed to Moses in the burning bush. Go to Israel and tell them

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I am, the eternally self -existent one has sent you. And Jesus referred to himself as the

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Great I Am. So, here in John chapter one, verse one, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was

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God. Incredible verse, because only a Trinitarian understanding can understand what

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John is communicating. If you have a Unitarian understanding or this modalistic understanding that there's only one

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God who is one person, this doesn't make sense. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

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Okay, now some people say, well, is this word just simply God speaking? No, that's not the understanding in the context of John.

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He existed in a time where even the secular world knew that as far as they could look at the world, reason was ultimate, okay?

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And they didn't have a way of understanding how do we grab this reason that exists out there that we all have in our mind.

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Well, John is saying the ultimate reason is in God, and he took on flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus Christ.

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And so the point here is the word was with God in relationship, okay?

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So, the Greek here is really interesting, because we understand that God alone is eternal, and God creates this temporal world, and the word existed before the beginning.

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As far as you wanna push the beginning back and say, okay, that's when the beginning started, the word was already present, which we're gonna see in verse 14, the word took on flesh in Jesus Christ.

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And so we're learning that the word, this logos, this reason is not impersonal and abstract like the secular world wants to say, but it's the second person of the

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Trinity. And then he goes on to say this word was with God, and the word was

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God. And if there's any confusion, talking about the word, verse two, he was in the beginning with God.

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So, once again, when it's saying God here, it's talking about the Father, and the word is also divine, and they're in face -to -face, perfect relationship with one another.

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And so he was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

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So this is telling us the word, the logos, was not created. Everything that was created was created through him and by him.

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And like I said, this is talking about Jesus Christ. He is the creator of all things. Jesus is

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Yahweh. Yahweh is revealed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

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And so John, in his opening few verses here, is telling us that the word is

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God. And so, skip down with me. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only

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Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so look with me at verse 18.

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Verse 18 is kind of the bookend to verse one. And so this is kind of a really cool scheme that the human writer

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John is doing. He starts with the truth, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was

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God. And he repeats that same truth here in verse 18. He says, no one has ever seen

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God, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

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Now this is incredible, because God existed in eternity past as Father, Son, and Spirit.

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The only way we can know God is if God condescends and comes to us and reveals himself.

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How did God do that? Well, the second person of the Trinity took on flesh through the virgin birth and became a man and talked to us in such a way that we could actually understand him.

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And so this is incredible, because we see that the logos, the word, was there at creation, something that only

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God does. Verse four says, in him the logos was life, this is talking about eternal spiritual life, and the life was the life of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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And so I'm just wanting you to see the wonderful attributes of the word, who is Jesus. It's things that can only belong to God.

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And I believe in our books in chapter 10, he's talking about who Jesus is, he's talking about how we can easily see the revelation of God, how

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Jesus, being the second person of God, is truly divine. But distinct from the

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Father, and distinct from the Holy Spirit. So with that, like I said, wanting to say that there's one true

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God, and God the Father, or the Father is God, the Son is God, and the

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Holy Spirit is God. There's many verses that talk about the Spirit of God, and one of my favorite passages in Acts chapter five tells us

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Peter's speaking to Ananias and Sapphira who sinned, he said, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the

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Holy Spirit? Why have you contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but you have lied to God, okay?

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So Mormonism teaches that the Holy Spirit is not a person. It's more like electricity, it's something that's impersonal.

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And what's interesting is in Acts chapter five, Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. Well, you don't lie to a water bottle, right?

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That's kind of foolish, right? You lie to persons, and in that context, we learn that the

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Holy Spirit is a person, is God. And so I wanna hang on to this point that each member of the

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Trinity is equally divine, but each member of the Trinity is distinct from one another, and they have different roles in redemption, okay?

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So if you look in your book on page 59, R .C. Sproul talks about Father, Son, and Spirit having different economic levels.

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And so we've been talking about the eternal truth of how God is three persons, and then we see those three persons take on different roles in redemption.

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So a lot of times this has been referred to as the economic trinity, meaning that there's one existence of God for eternity.

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The one existence of God subsists in those three persons. And that's kind of confusing language, but all he's telling us is remember the two categories, being and person.

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Has anybody ever seen the triangle of the Trinity? In the center you have God, and then you see

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God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Spirit, but the Spirit is not the Father, the

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Father is not the Son. I think that's a good illustration to show you the two categories, one being, and we have three persons.

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So another passage of Scripture that emphasizes how the persons are distinct from one another is the baptism of Jesus, right?

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Y 'all remember Jesus was baptized by who? John the Baptist, right? And as he was being baptized, who descended like a dove?

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The Holy Spirit, right? And then God the Father says, this is my Son in who

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I'm well pleased. So we don't see God shifting modes really fast, right?

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But there's one God who is revealed in three persons, and we see that they are truly distinct from one another.

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Each member of the Trinity is distinct from one another, however, they have wills, they have desires, and meaningful relationship within the one true

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God. And so that's why we wanna use the word persons. They are personal and they interact relationally.

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So then we get into trouble. We say, okay, let me begin to explain the

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Trinity, the Trinity is like, and then we give an analogy. I've been guilty of this.

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Actually, want to play a video for you real fast, kind of mocking the idea of how when you use analogies, you're gonna get into a lot of trouble very quickly.

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So we have that video queued up. Those Lutherans. I watched that a while back, and that, it was really good, because you could see the problems when you use a created analogy to illustrate an eternal truth.

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Now you may say, well, all analogies break down at some point, and that's true, but when you use it to explain the

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Trinity, it breaks down in a heretical way. So I was brought up with all these analogies.

32:22

Think about water, right? It can be vapor, it can be a liquid, it can be a solid. Well, it's still the same substance, just changing different forms.

32:32

Modalism, changing in different modes. The one I was taught was, well, can't you just be, that one person can be a father, a son, and an employer, or something like that?

32:44

And that was the one I was taught, because it's like, okay, that's a concept where you can kind of be three, and you can also be one, but what's the problem?

32:50

It's one person operating in these different roles. Okay, so, like I said, we wanna avoid using created analogies.

33:00

I know the shamrock, the three -leaf clover is really tempting, like, oh, God's like that. Well, you see, in that model, it makes it,

33:07

God is three different parts, like, the Father is a third, the Son is a third, and the Holy Spirit is a third, and it's like, no, they are all fully divine, and the best way to understand that is one being, three persons.

33:21

Remember, we are personal beings, but we're limited and finite. God is eternal. God is transcendence.

33:28

The way that he is personal is different than how our person is, and so, like I said, any man -made analogy will break down in a heretical way to illustrate the eternal reality of the what of God and the who of God.

33:44

There's only one concept that can describe God, and it is God himself. Remember what God said to Moses in the burning bush?

33:51

I am that I am. The Lord is not defined or determined by anything other than himself.

33:58

The triune God is the eternal creator who has revealed himself to us in his word.

34:04

That's where we start with, and if we look to Genesis to Revelation, we come away with that there's one true

34:09

God, and he's revealed himself in three divine persons, and so, as we're closing here, since the

34:16

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally God, they are all equally worthy of worship, our obedience, and they are glorified by their work in redemption, and so, yes,

34:27

I want you to keep those two categories in mind, one being, three persons, but I also want us to understand that the gospel is a

34:34

Trinitarian gospel. If you would, turn with me to Ephesians chapter one where Pastor Nathan's been preaching through this wonderful letter showing us what

34:46

God has set out to accomplish since before the foundation of the world. We see the

34:51

Trinity here working out salvation. In verse three, we read, Blessed be the

34:57

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be blameless and holy before him.

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So, in eternity past, we're thinking about the gospel, the message of salvation. This begins with the

35:18

Father in eternity past, and he has predestined a people, a bride for the Son.

35:24

Okay, and so Ephesians one, verse five picks up, In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, the second person of the

35:35

Trinity, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

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In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

35:48

So the gospel begins with the Father before the foundation of the world. He predestined a bride for Jesus, and Jesus is the perfect Savior.

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He loses none in which the Father has given him. John's gospel articulates how

36:04

Jesus is a perfect Savior who saves to the uttermost. All that the Father gives me,

36:10

Jesus says, will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my will but the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.

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So the gospel begins with God the Father, eternity of past, choosing who will be saved.

36:34

The gospel is accomplished by Jesus Christ, perfect redemption for the bride, and the

36:40

Holy Spirit applies the gospel to our hearts. He seals us unto the day of redemption.

36:46

Look with me at verse 13, Ephesians 1. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

36:56

Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

37:04

The Holy Spirit regenerates us. He indwells believers and seals us eternally secure to the day of redemption.

37:13

Sound good? All right, so now I'm gonna open up the floor for questions.

37:20

Brother Keith, I saw that hand go up really fast. Two questions, one, you mentioned this before in the discussion, and you've talked about it now, the perfect balance between the three of them, there had to be three.

37:37

Can you, and I'm not making this up, and a hundred words or less, or I don't know, can you expand on that a little bit?

37:47

It really intrigues me that it had to be this. Keith, as you talk about a book you read, it really, really goes in deep into the

37:57

Trinity and all these things that you've talked about. Could you tell us about that? I'll tell you a little bit about it. So I read this book written by Brant Bosterman on the

38:07

Trinity, that's the short version. I got to interview Brant Bosterman last week, and the interview was two hours and 30 minutes.

38:15

And we talked about why God must be one in three, not one in two, not one in four, or one in a hundred.

38:23

And so I will, it's so much to unpack, so I just wanna encourage people to go watch the interview or talk with me afterwards, just because it's so much.

38:32

But I want you to know this, God has revealed himself, and that is perfectly sufficient for why we trust him.

38:40

And he gets to call the shots, ultimately. But yes, I think he has revealed himself in such a way where we can go down that road, ultimately, to do that.

38:49

So was there another question in there? Or just, yeah. But it's ultimately resting in that God is one in being and three in person.

38:59

So sorry, not answering that yet. Me and you will talk afterwards, Brother Keith. All right, Erica. When people talk about how we shouldn't take our beliefs off the creeds, because sometimes people memorize the creeds, so what is the argument to begin to educate that these creeds are based off the scripture?

39:19

Or what is the argument that you use? To not go to the creeds?

39:24

Like, you know, people are talking about now, like, oh, well, the creed is not the entire Word of God, so that's not them.

39:32

Yes, that's a really good question. I wanna encourage people, if our faith, it did not originate with us, then it would have existed when we look back 100 years, 1 ,000 years, all the way back to when

39:45

Jesus and the apostles walked on the earth. So we have a historic faith. And so what the creeds represent is, there's been

39:53

Christians before us that have held to these wonderful truths as well. I wanna tell people they're right that the creeds are not infallible, but we would expect much of the creeds to understand basic things to who

40:07

God is and how He has saved us. So we do wanna say creeds are important, but we gotta be able to ground the creeds in scripture.

40:16

So I think it's wrong, though, for people to say, well, that's just the creed. I don't care about what the creeds say.

40:22

That's where we push back and say, no, no, no, we have a historic faith. Do you look at a table of contents in your

40:27

Bible? That's not inspired. But that's creedal, meaning that other human beings, other

40:33

Christians have come together and passed things down to us. Now, when we pass things down orally like that, it's not inspired.

40:41

And ultimately, you have to be able to ground the creeds in whatever's passed down in the Word of God. So there's a balance there.

40:49

Does that kinda make sense to say, we recognize one is the Word of God and truth, and the other one just reflects that?

40:56

Good question. Adam, did I commit some heresy up here?

41:02

Yes. Uh -oh.

41:34

Yes. No, that's a great question, because we wanna affirm the one will of God.

41:42

But when we're doing that, we're ontologically appealing to the triune

41:47

God who exists. I've heard some commentators say, God is a

41:53

Trinitarian person. And we're just like, because it's just kind of shattering our minds with these categories.

41:59

So when we talk about the singular will of God, we're talking about that one eternal being of God who exists.

42:07

Now, God is tripersonal, Father, Son, and Spirit. So when we see that playing out in real time, we see the unity of that one will being perfectly played out in the three divine persons.

42:20

And so I had some questions down here to throw at y 'all if y 'all didn't have any for me. But a lot of people say, how can

42:26

Jesus say that the Father is greater than I? It's kind of getting to the same thing.

42:33

Not my will be done, but yours be done. We gotta think Jesus was in eternal glory with the

42:38

Father, and he stepped down from his throne to take on flesh, to be the perfect Savior, to be humble, to pave the way.

42:47

And so positionally, he can say the Father is greater than I, because he took on flesh and condescended.

42:53

So he can say, not my will be done, but your will be done, because it's in perfect harmony with the will of God, the one true

43:02

God. What do you think? I'm part of it, yes. All right. I believe in subordination.

43:08

Oh, Don. This is where I'm at. So he asked a question that's kind of been ongoing, like between Father, Son, and Spirit, is there subordination -ism going on?

43:22

And here's what I tell people. What do you mean? Because if you mean, does the

43:27

Son submit to the Father in terms of his being? No, the Son is equally uncreated as the

43:34

Father. They fully share in that divine being. Now, they have been in eternal relationship.

43:41

And so if someone wants to say the Son eternally and perfectly submits to the Father, relationally, without touching the essence, to me, there's conversation to be had, because if we look at the economic trinity, this is reflecting an eternal reality.

43:57

When what they do, it might be subordinate to who they are. Did y 'all catch that? What they do might be subordinate, but who they are, they're totally equal.

44:09

Trying to trip me up there. I see. Okay. Yes, yeah.

44:16

Which the two categories was existence and subsistence. And me and Don have talked about this a lot.

44:21

I don't like that terminology, because I just think it's confusing. But it's just really emphasizing the two categories, being in person.

44:29

So if it floats your boat, then by all means. Okay, because I listened, did anybody else listen to that link that I posted in the church app earlier today?

44:42

So he talked about subsistence and was saying, like, these are earthly categories that are kind of beneath, right?

44:49

He talked about people that are in poverty. I think his point is they need help, right?

44:54

They're kind of lower class citizens. And so it's a crude analogy to say you got the one existence of God, but there's three subsistences.

45:04

Not three existences, that would be three gods. One existence with three subsistences.

45:10

Is that right, Keith, in the way you were understanding it? Well, I mean, I understood what he was saying.

45:17

It just got me to understand it. Yeah, yeah.

45:23

Because there's two categories that we always have to be mindful of, and I think that was just one way of doing it.

45:29

Existence, subsistence. Can you give us an analogy?

45:34

Oh! It's funny, because one person, one analogy, because there's a few that they're not as heretical as the rest.

45:45

You know, I've went down this track. So someone, I was talking today on the phone, one times one times one equals one.

45:52

And I'm like, but to me it just begs the question, why are we multiplying and not adding?

45:57

You know what I mean? We're talking about an abstract concept of math when we should be talking about personal categories.

46:05

Right, and that might be nitpicky, because we are wanting to illustrate how God can be one in three in different ways.

46:11

One in being, three in person. And then time, time is one, but then you have past, present, and future.

46:20

And I thought, you know, on the spectrum of heresy, that's probably not as bad as some of the other ones. But time is impersonal.

46:34

Yeah. This is where I think if you use an analogy, but you talk about where it goes wrong,

46:56

I think it's better than just kind of explain, like give an analogy and just saying, all right, good luck with it.

47:02

Because if you're talking about one shamrock, one three -leaf clover, that illustrates a unity, and then you can talk about different features.

47:10

But without explanation, it seems like you got a third, a third, and a third, and that doesn't capture the unity of the essence of the three persons.

47:22

God's simple. God is not made of parts like man. God is not becoming.

47:29

He is. God is unchanging, as we are constantly changing. Yeah, yeah, the four -leaf clover.

47:40

Any other questions out there on the Trinity? You know,

47:46

I should've had the triangle. If you know, I'm talking about God's in the center as a circle, and then you have a triangle outside of it, and it just shows how they're all

47:57

God, but then they're distinct, and they're persons. Adam, with another question. It helps everybody better understand coming from not being contradictory, but being paradoxical.

48:10

What he's talking about, the paradox being a long shadow, and how that kind of plays out. Right. Paradox is not contradiction.

48:20

Paradox says, okay, something looks like a paradox at first, but upon closer examination, we see that, oh, it works perfectly.

48:28

And the two categories that we need to have to avoid contradiction, three persons, one in being.

48:35

And you gotta think, that comes from the name Trinity itself. Tri, meaning three, and unit, or unity, in the one.

48:42

So yeah, I think understanding paradox is not the same as contradiction. Go ahead. Think of it with the law of non -contradiction.

48:52

Yeah. Contradiction comes from the law of non -contradiction, where two things cannot be identical in the same way, in the same place.

49:01

Right? And so, and that's where, if someone says, well, we believe in one God, but we also believe in three, that's nonsense.

49:09

That would violate the law of identity, and the law of non -contradiction. But if we have two different categories, then it works.

49:17

Good point. Can you name all the cults that actually teach that? There is one.

49:24

I probably couldn't name them all, but the one that we are most familiar with is

49:30

Oneness Pentecostalism. They would affirm a modalism. They would deny that there's three persons.

49:38

So there's also, I like that picture, but there's also a triangle illustration.

49:45

You know what I'm talking about? So if you find it, but we can kind of illustrate it here, but that is the one true

49:51

God, right? Well, it does, yeah. That's actually the cover of Bosterman's book.

49:57

So that's actually also my background on my phone. It has been for years. So I'm trying to think.

50:06

You've probably come across the term Arianism, and it's similar to Jehovah's Witness, which would be another cult, and Mormonism.

50:14

So those may be the two we can stick with. Jehovah's Witnesses say that there's one God, and it's the

50:20

Father, and then Jesus is the first creation of everything else. So Jesus isn't divine, he's the first created thing.

50:28

That's kind of preeminent above everything else. And we're saying, no, Jesus has been an eternal relationship with the

50:35

Father and the Spirit. So they just deny the deity of Jesus. And then

50:40

Mormons, they just have a pantheon of gods, right? And that denies that the

50:46

Bible teaches monotheism, one true God. So there's a handful. Any other ones you can think of?

50:55

Come on, JJ, the apologetic pup back there. Yes?

51:01

I know Jesus is our creator, but would you say that creation was a planetarium?

51:06

Yes. The creator is like saying the one true God. And so the creator is tripersonal.

51:14

Yahweh is the creator, but Yahweh is Father, Son, and Spirit. So Jesus is the creator.

51:19

We know that we look at John 1, we look at Colossians 1, we look at Hebrews 1. We learn that this is a Trinitarian act, like you said, because when you look at Genesis 1, in the beginning,

51:29

God created the heavens and the earth, right, and we see that God spoke, let there be.

51:35

We see the eternal logos, the eternal word, and the Spirit was hovering over the face of the deep. We had the

51:40

Trinity in just the opening three verses of Genesis. Isn't that cool? Oh, did we get the triangle?

51:51

So this is good, because it's just illustrating the two categories. God is one in His being and three in His persons.

51:57

God is the Son, God is the Father, God is the Spirit, but they're not identical in their persons. There's the triangle.

52:05

Any other questions out there? No other questions.

52:17

Adam Hartness, you got anything over there? He says, stop it, don't pull me into this. Any from the youth?

52:25

We talk about the Trinity all the time, don't we? Hey, that's important. That's why we sing the doxology every

52:30

Sunday. In the Forgotten Trinity, Dr.

52:36

White begins by talking about what is the Trinity, and he made a really good point, and this might be a good point to kind of end on, is we hear a lot of people say,

52:43

I love Jesus, and we should, He's our Savior, but how often do you hear people say, I love the

52:49

Trinity? That's a lot less, and both are important, but it's going back to who is

52:56

God? How has He revealed Himself? And so, this has been a joy to be able to talk about these things.

53:03

Any last takers out there? How are we on time? Ready to wrap up?

53:09

Brian, did you come away with anything? Yeah, I mean, the thing I keep thinking about the modalist view is, and there's so many verses about it, that I don't know how they can hold it in, but it says the cross is our advocate to the

53:23

Father, and then when you think about the cross saying, my

53:29

God, why have you forsaken me? Dying on the cross, that can be the same, He's forsaken

53:34

Himself. Right, it's because you're saying, the modalist says there's one person of God, and Jesus isn't praying to Himself when

53:43

He's praying to the Father. And that's what you have to impose onto the text, to say

53:50

Jesus is somehow talking with Himself. No, God is an absolute personal being, and then

53:56

He's revealed Himself that He's three persons. And we're never gonna fully wrap our minds around this.

54:03

If we could, then that would make us God, and that would not be good. Adam. Okay, so we see from Scripture, clearly from a lot of different perspectives that you've given, about the fact that it is why the person of God is revealed.

54:21

But any time that we try to come up with an analogy in our head, or out loud to be descriptive on earthly human terms, we're always gonna step in holes and stuff.

54:34

So I guess two parts to this, and you may have already answered that, is that number one, are we ever gonna fully understand to be equipped to explain this to anybody?

54:48

And number two, I forgot the second question, so you can step in the hole. I thought you were gonna ask a different question, which

54:56

I wanna touch on in a second. But no, I don't think we can fully comprehend the triunity of God.

55:03

We can only understand it as much as he's revealed himself. Oh, lay it on me.

55:24

Oh yeah, well it comes back to the word of God. You're either gonna believe it or reject it.

55:30

It's either real or it's not real. Now, I take the stance that if you don't start your worldview, when you start asking questions of truth, if it's not based in the trinity, who's revealed himself, then this entire life does not make sense.

55:46

Well, that's what's hard about this, that you have to start with the foundation of the trinity when talking about the trinity.

55:54

Absolutely. The author of that interview, Dr. Brant Bosterman, he has a chapter called

56:00

The Transcendental Argument From the Trinity Into the Trinity, meaning that he's the necessary foundation in which we stand on in order to learn more about him.

56:10

I thought you were gonna ask me, are we gonna ever more fully understand the trinity like in eternity, the life after next?

56:18

And I would say no, because we're gonna be glorified, I think, since God's eternal with no beginning.

56:24

We have a beginning, now we exist onto eternity. God is gonna continually reveal himself to us, and that blows my mind, right?

56:33

Because we think in terms of beginning and end, but with God, there is no beginning, there is no end.

56:39

So we're always gonna retain our creatureliness, even though we'll be glorified. So you put knowing everything about the trinity as the exact same question.

56:50

So I believe R .C. will get into this. We can apprehend many things about God, but we cannot fully comprehend everything about God.

57:00

God comprehends himself perfectly. How? Father, Son, Spirit, in that eternal, perfect, harmonious, loving relationship.

57:09

We're creatures created in his image, and we can understand, ascertain, many truths of how he has revealed himself.

57:18

But getting at more of your questions, by no means can we fully comprehend that. Does that help?

57:25

That was good. Good. Any other takers out there? Don? Take in heaven, we'll always see them as three distinct persons, or do you think?

57:33

You know my answer to this. His name is one being. So this gets into, will we see the

57:40

Holy Spirit one day, or the Father? And I'll be honest, I don't know. God is, I don't think he has told us this.

57:47

I'm okay if all we see is Jesus for eternity. You know what I mean? Because he is the mediator between God and man.

57:55

I think when you see God speaking in the Old Testament, I think every time it's Jesus. That is still the mediator, even in the

58:02

Old Testament. And so I don't know what that looks like for eternity, but we know the truth will still remain, that there is one true

58:09

God and three divine persons. But I don't know if we'll see the Spirit or not.

58:16

You're saying you think that the brain flesh will heal? Yes, I do. I think Jesus walked in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve.

58:22

I think he's the angel of the Lord, which was the burning bush. And the reason why that's important is later in John chapter one, it says that no one has seen

58:33

God. Well then we think, there's a lot of people in the Old Testament that saw God. How does that work?

58:38

Well no one has seen God the Father, but they did see the second person of the Trinity.

58:43

That's where Second Temple Jews have problems, not just paradox, but contradictions in their doctrines as we're

58:49

Trinitarians, so we know how they saw God. This was the pre -incarnate Jesus. Sure, whatever could not be seen of God has to be referring to the

59:03

Father, because that's what John kind of clarifies. Yeah, yeah, that's good, yeah.

59:25

Yes, so how do we pray? Do we pray to the Father, the Son, or the Spirit? I would just say yes, all of them.

59:32

But Jesus gave us a model how to pray. So this is kind of where I fall back into, is Jesus modeled how to pray to the

59:38

Father. A lot of times we end our prayers in the name of Jesus, and it's Spirit -empowered. But I also, this is personal preference, if I'm praying for someone's salvation,

59:49

I'm gonna pray that the Spirit would open their heart, transform them from the inside out. So the role, remember those three roles?

59:55

Economic trinity, God predestines, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit regenerates and seals.

01:00:01

I'm gonna pray to the person of the trinity that that's their role. Does that make sense?

01:00:07

But I forget who says this, but if I'm not sure who to pray to, I'm just gonna pray to God and know that it's gonna end up in the right mailbox, right?

01:00:16

Even in my prayers, if they're not as theologically precise as they ought, the Holy Spirit has my back, even when

01:00:22

I don't know how I ought to pray. So don't let that bother you. Definitely keep searching that out, but that's kinda how

01:00:27

I approach it. Brother Keith? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got me.

01:00:34

That'd be a mailbox analogy. Is it one mailbox revealed in three mailboxes? Yeah, no, yeah, that's good, that's good.

01:00:50

All right, anyone else? No youth, wow. They do not act like this when we're over in the house.

01:00:58

They have a lot of input. All right, well, thank you,