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Pastor David Mitchell
Put the Luke chapter 3 verse 21. And we'll review just a little bit before we move forward today. We've been talking about for several weeks How God exists? How God exists and It has been expressed since the earliest centuries the first century and second century AD that he exists as a Trinity.
So we've been looking into what that is and seeing what the Bible says about it and we spent the first part of that time Talking about the unity of God. Going into the Old Testament scriptures again and again and again literally hundreds of times.
The Old Testament Jew understood that God was one God and God says I am one God. There is another. There is no other I should say he says. There was none formed before me nor after me. He said I will not share my name with another and so forth so God is one God and that is the basis and the foundation of this study and Then let's look at this passage.
I ask you to turn to Luke chapter 3 verse 21. Why is it that after? Jesus Christ came into the world and after he died and was resurrected and ascended into heaven and Then the Holy Spirit came down. Why is it that after that the church began to speak of God as a Trinity?
That's a beautiful noise. Don't worry about it. Most beautiful noise. I've heard in a long time. Well, let's look at Luke 3 21. Read along with me. Now when all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized and praying and the heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost Descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him and a voice came from heaven which said thou art my beloved son in thee.
I am well pleased and Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age then it goes on and says as Being as was supposed the son of Joseph, which was the son of Eli. Isn't it interesting? It says as was supposed the son of Joseph.
Because Joseph wasn't his real father. Handing to mama that'll fix it. Now notice here that you have Jesus standing in the water. You have a voice coming from heaven, which says this is my son in whom I'm well Pleased and you have the Holy Spirit descending in the form as of a dove.
So you see now why the early church father spoke of God is one God, but they also spoke of three persons but we have to Examine what the Bible says about this and what they meant by persons and what they didn't mean by it or you can have some real confusion now.
There were we wrote we read verses like that. We noticed that there are at least three reasons why they began to think of God as one God subsisting as three distinct persons first of all as We found in Matthew 28 18 19 and 20 where it talks about that We baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.
That they had that God had three designations. So that's one reason. Now you might call that References if you want to do ours instead of D's you can say references. He was referred to as three different names father in other passages son other passages Holy Spirit.
So we have three references. Secondly verses like the one we just looked at in Luke chapter 3 There are three relationships. There is actually a relationship between the father and the son. It's impossible for us with our limited thinking to conceive of that without there being two persons.
How can there be a relationship? Without there being two persons the father and the son in other words. Is there a father? Yes, there is. Is there a son? Yes, there is is There a Holy Spirit. Yes, there is.
Do they does the son have a particular relationship with the Holy Spirit? He certainly does he relies upon him for everything when Jesus Existed here in this world in his ministry, especially as a man.
Then he was a man totally filled with the Holy Spirit. So he relied upon a Relationship he had with the Holy Spirit for the powers of healing for the powers of teaching. For all the powers to walk on water so there were Relationships between the father and the son and the Holy Spirit and that led them to begin to speak of him as one God but three distinct persons.
So they spoke that way because of the reference or the names they spoke that way because the relationships there was a third reason and When you look at verses Like mark chapter 13 verse 32 that we mentioned last time where it says but of the day and the hour knoweth.
No, man, no, not even the angels which are in heaven neither the Son. But only the Father knows that hour when Jesus was on this earth. He said only the Father knows that the hour of the second coming.
He said the angels don't know it. No man knows it. He said not even the Son knows it, but the Father knows it. Now. Do you see their distinction? We've already proven that the Son of God is God in many verses.
John chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and You can look at 1st Timothy 3 16 God was manifest in the flesh. You can look at Colossians Chapter 1 and chapter 3 where it says Jesus was all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body.
So we've established that he is God. So, how can it be that he does not know the date of his second coming but the Father does? Unless there is a third reason that we speak of three persons and that is different Responsibility.
So think of it this way a difference in reference. In other words, they go by three names. I Shouldn't say they he goes by three names. You see we can't even hardly to speak of it in human terms. Secondly relationship there is a father.
There is a son. There is a Holy Spirit and they have relationships one with another and thirdly different responsibilities. For example, it was not the responsibility of the son to know when he was coming back again.
That was up to the father only. Now there are other examples of this in Luke chapter 1 verse 32. It is not the Responsibility of the father to come and be seated on the throne of David during the Millennial Kingdom.
That's Jesus responsibility and then in Luke chapter 1 verse 35 it says that the Holy Spirit will overshadow Mary and that Jesus would be called the Son of God. It was the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to place Jesus the man Jesus Christ in the womb of Mary that was not the father's responsibility nor the sons.
It was the Holy Spirit's so we can find different responsibilities that the three different persons of the Godhead have. Therefore that's a reason so we have three reasons that the early church fathers Spoke of this as one God subsisting as three distinct persons different references different relationships different responsibilities.
Now most of the material we talked about tends to deal with Jesus and the Father the Son and the Father and it's interesting to study what the early church fathers wrote because most of it dealt with the Son and the Father very little of It dealt with the Holy Spirit but the reason for that is because they're most of what was written was written to argue against heresies of the first and second third fourth century.
So since they were arguing against heresies They spoke against whatever the other guys were saying wrong and most of what they had to say wrong was against Jesus for example the Aryans Wanted to teach that he was a created a created angelic being like Lucifer and that Lucifer was his brother.
That's what the Mormons believe today. So what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe today their religions are not new. They're ancient they go all the way back almost two thousand years ago to the first and second century and especially the third and fourth Century when the Aryans came into power.
They said Jesus was created not that he was the creator and that he was not of the same substance as the father. But he was a created being. That was one of the greatest heresies that they Argued against so you can see how most of what they wrote had to do with Jesus and the Father rather than the Holy Spirit.
However they did right concerning him and As we look at some of these scriptures that deal with even the reference and the relationship and The responsibility let's look back at Acts chapter 8 verse 14 and see if we can see anything written about the Holy Spirit in the Bible that deals with these relationships.
Acts chapter 8 verse 14 is a good example. It says now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God. They sent unto them Peter and John. So here that the first church of Jerusalem Heard that in Samaria they had received the gospel.
So they send Peter and John over there to preach the gospel more clearly to them. When they get there, they find out that they don't know anything about the Holy Spirit. They've never heard of such. It says who when they were come prayed for them that they might receive The Holy Ghost for as yet.
He was fallen upon none of them. Only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. Isn't that fascinating because in Matthew 28 18 19 and 20 Jesus said you will baptize this way in the name of the Father of The Son and of the Holy Spirit and over in Samaria when they got saved they heard about Jesus.
They received him and they were baptized and the ministers were baptizing them in the name of Jesus only. They had never heard that there was a Holy Ghost. So Peter and Paul were sent by the church. I mean Peter and John were sent by the church To give them the teaching about the Holy Spirit so now they were Told about the Holy Spirit and they received the Holy Ghost.
Other examples. Like that. Let me give you one in first John 5 7. It's interesting. You go back and you look at first John. This really to me is the clearest verse in the entire Bible and this is one of the older books of The New Testament.
It was written in 90 a .d. Some of the early church fathers were already alive at this time and These were preachers and ministers who existed after the Apostles some of them were already on the planet when this book was written in this book first John 5 7 and 8 the Apostle John recorded this.
For there are three that bear record in heaven the Father the Word. With a capital W who knows who that is. That's Jesus. We know that from John 1 1 through all the way through verse 16 teaches us that that is Jesus.
That's why it has a capital W. It's a person. So it says there are three that bear record in heaven the Father the Word or Jesus and The Holy Ghost always remember that's the same as the Holy Spirit in the Greek.
It's the word spirit and These three are one. Now you can't find a better Description by the early church fathers than the one found in the Bible Written under the Holy Holy Spirit's inspiration by the Apostle John.
Listen to it again. There are three That bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost so there are three that have a relationship with one another there are three that have a reference or a Designation you have one called the Father one called the Son one called the Holy Spirit.
There are three and Yet it says these three are one the perfect Definition of the Trinity God exists as one God but three distinct Persons, so that's what the Bible teaches about it. That's also what the early church fathers were saying about it.
Now. They had controversy that went on in that time period and you had Some problems that they had with heretics like the Aryans who believed Jesus was created and was an angel and was the brother of Lucifer.
That's still taught today among the Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses and a lot of ignorant Baptists probably. They don't a lot of people don't know. But that is a heresy, but then you had problems within those who were not heretics.
But they were true believers and they had problems over words the way they would describe this and define their terms. You had two groups the Western fathers and the Eastern fathers and You had groups within those groups and some of them would use the term That dealt with the fact that God is one essence.
That same word would be used by another group to be talking about that God was three persons and they would use the same word for essence. So they would say he's three essences. So the first group would claim their Aryans their heretics.
They would say no, we're not heretics. We believe there's one God. And three persons and none of them created all eternal. We're not heretics. Well, they had a problem and there was a man named Athanasius who must have been greatly loved of the Lord because he was a peacemaker.
And he came in and pointed out to these two sides that they were really saying the same thing. They believed exactly the same thing. They were just defining their words differently. And we'll talk about how they define these words in just a moment.
Let me get you to turn to the book of Revelation we've spent such a great deal of time talking about the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and that he is God, but he is also One of the persons of the Godhead as they use the word.
Let me spend just a moment talking a little bit more about the Holy Spirit. And then we'll close this study by Talking about the definitions that they had for the word person because to me that's the most confusing thing as you read the creeds of The old first second third fourth century the creeds that they wrote where they talk about God being one God.
But three persons to me as I think about what a person is that's confusing. So we're gonna look at what they meant by the word person because it doesn't mean the same thing it does to us. But first let me show you the Holy Spirit.
Look at Revelation chapter 4 verse 5. Have you ever asked yourselves the question? Why is it that there seems to be a whole lot more talk about Jesus and his deity? Then there is about the Holy Spirit being one of the persons of the Godhead.
Why is it easier to understand that Jesus came into this world and yet he came forth from God? Therefore he was God. Why is that easier to talk about and understand then to seem to get a grasp on who the Holy Spirit is?
Is he a what or a who is he some energy force that comes from God? Is he just a conduit between us and God that connects us all together? Or is he a person of the Godhead and what do we mean by person again?
It seems far more difficult to talk about the Holy Spirit. A very few of us when we pray pray dear Holy Spirit. Thank you for this. That or the other? Why is that? Well, I believe it's because of his nature and his own responsibility as we talk about the different persons having different responsibilities.
Jesus himself said that the Holy Spirit will not speak of himself. But will speak of whom? Jesus. He says he will reveal to you all things concerning me and Jesus said I will reveal reveal the Father to you and then Jesus come back comes back and says no man knows the Son but the Father and Those to whom the Father draws them to Jesus.
Then he says no man knows the Father but the Son and to whom the Son reveals him. So the different persons of the Godhead reveal the other persons to us. The only thing we know about the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son revealed to us.
The Holy Spirit will not reveal himself to us. Because he glorifies and speaks of the Son Of God that is what he joys in doing. That's what his nature is to do and that's what he will do and therefore he doesn't speak of himself much and since the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible.
There's less information and you have to dig a little deeper to find out information about him. But there are some real nuggets and I'm going to show them to you. Look at Revelation 4 or 5 and I want you to turn there and look at it because it's quite amazing.
You have to think a little bit. So we might all do one more scripture song and stand together. Wake up a little bit but look at this and out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices.
Now let's stop right there. What throne are we speaking of and where is this taking place? In heaven, so what throne is it? Excuse me. The throne of God so who will be seated upon this throne? If you're gonna mention the persons of the Godhead which one is seated on that throne.
No, I Have an advantage. I've already read ahead of you. You might want to read two or three verses ahead. But no that the throne that is depicted here in Revelation 4 or 5 is the father's throne. Okay.
Now. And I the problem you have is the proof of that is in chapter 5. We're gonna go there in a minute and I've already read ahead of you. So I ask you an unfair question. But it is the throne of God and the father is seated upon this throne now you say how can he be seated there?
Because the Bible says he's a pure spirit being no man hath seen him at any time. It's not really all of him seated there. You remember in the Old Testament in the tabernacle if you went into the Holy of Holies.
There was the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat what dwelt above that? Well, you had the two angels the two cherubs that were guarding it. What's their duty? To guard the holiness of God. So what dwelt between the cherubs the Shekinah glory.
What is that? That's the presence of God. But is that all of God? Was it an old man with a beard seated there? No. Was it a body? No. It was a presence. Why is that because you can't see the father and The father I believe if he brought his presence into time and space and this planet did destroy everything because he is the I am.
He doesn't live in time. So he just put a glory or a resplendent shining presence there that represented him on that throne which was what a picture or a model of the real Mercy seat that's in the heavenlies.
It was an earthly model that he taught Moses how to build. Build it just according to these specifications because it's a model of the real one. It's in heaven and who is seated at the real one. The father is he there as a man?
No, is he all there? No. Because you can't put him all anywhere. Because he's everywhere. He's also outside of this realm you see the third heaven is actually part of this part of What we know. I mean there are physical things there.
So that's not where the father dwells in his entirety. He dwells outside of that. This is stuff he created. He dwells outside of that. So you can't depict all of the father on that throne, but he has a presence there.
You can see some of it and it's amazing as as God takes John there and gives him a vision of this allows him to See it in our Sunday school this morning brother Otis is teaching in the book of Revelation.
He's talking about how God told John to come back and write down everything. He saw he doesn't have words for these things. There's no vocabulary for what he's seeing. God shows him a glimpse of the future with a Heinz helicopter perhaps shooting missiles.
He doesn't know the word helicopter. So he says well, it's a thing that flies around looks like it has the hair of a woman. Swirling and you know the eyes face of a man. He's seeing the pilot in there.
It's the thing that has a face of a man, but it shoots things stuff. What's he gonna say? So the book of Revelation is fascinating to read because you have a first century man writing about things that are here now.
That he had no words for in his dictionary and then he's seeing things in heaven that none of us have any words for. So he's trying to describe a throne that has the father there. But how do you describe that?
There's no Physical man there. What is this? And this is what he's describing. So here's here's how he describes it. Now see if you could have done any better and out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices.
So, what does the father look like what does he sound like. I Don't have words for it so I'm gonna say it looks like it's as bright as a lightning flash and as loud as thunder and like Voices that are like thunder.
That's what it's like, but I can't describe it. But that's what it's like and then he says there were seven lamps of fire Burning before the throne now you have to understand the number seven to the Jew is the number of perfection.
It doesn't mean there were literally seven lamps necessarily. What he may mean by this is that there was a burning lamp of fire before the throne it was so Resplendently bright. I can the only way I can describe it is to put the perfect number of seven on it because it was perfectly shining beautiful Lamps that are burning before the throne.
Now look he defines what these lamp what this light is that he's seeing so he sees a throne Which is the where God the Father dwells and before this throne or in front of this throne in heaven. He sees what he describes as seven lamps of fire burning and he says here's what they are.
They are the seven spirits of God. This is the Holy Spirit. Now. Let me tell you something. The Holy Spirit is not seven spirits. That wouldn't fit with anything else the Bible says about the Holy Spirit anywhere so he is not seven spirits.
The word the number seven is God's number for perfection among the Jew in the Jewish mind. And as John is trying to describe with words that he doesn't have in his vocabulary what he is seeing. He is now seeing the presence of the Holy Spirit before the throne of the Father and he says it's like seven lamps burning.
It's the most perfect light of burning that I've ever seen and that is the Spirit of God that is before the throne of the Father and He sees To he sees a father on a throne though. Not not an entity that he can describe very well, and he sees Some presence which he says this is the Holy Spirit which only God could reveal that to him what that was.
I mean just seeing it wouldn't have told him that's what it was. But God himself said that's my spirit. Now who is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. I'm not present and That is with regard to the physical universe.
This place that God has made that is physical. The Holy Spirit is everywhere in this physical realm. There is no place that he's not and that's what this depicts. Now go to Revelation chapter 5 verse 6 show you something That is absolutely Wonderful that God gave it to us.
This gives us some insight Into this person of the Godhead known as the Holy Spirit Revelation 5 6 in In the previous chapter. It just described him as seven lamps of fire burning. Revelation 5 6 says and I beheld and low in the midst of the throne of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders now we're in the same place we're looking at the same throne and Standing beside this throne is a lamb as it had been slain.
Who is this? This is the the son of God a Different person of the Godhead. So you have the father as depicted being upon the throne you have the son standing as one having been slain and This lamb who is Jesus now, it's not if you were looking at it is not really a lamb it is Jesus.
The symbolic language is used in the book of Revelation and This one who is Jesus Christ the Lamb of God has seven horns. Horns stand for power. So he had the number of perfection, which is seven. He had perfect omnipotence.
Perfect power and it says he has seven. Let's see. Where am I? Having seven horns and seven eyes. Now do you think he saw Jesus and Jesus really had seven eyes? It's not what it means. It's symbolic. But look at these eyes these seven eyes that Jesus had are The seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
It's the same sevenfold spirit Holy Spirit that was at the front of the throne of the father. So the same spirit of God that is with the father is seen in the eyes. If you look in Jesus eyes, you see the same sevenfold spirit in him.
So Jesus the Son of God has the same spirit that the father has they are one essence. They are one God. If you go into Isaiah 11 and I won't take time this morning. Maybe we'll do this next week if we're still on this topic.
But Isaiah 11 verses 1 through 5 will name the seven spirits. It still doesn't mean there are only seven Attributes to the Holy Spirit because he is infinite. I mean even in Galatians where it names the fruits.
There are more than seven name. So it doesn't mean there are only seven. But it does name seven things and seven spirits of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11 1 through 5 you won't check that out later so we see here that as we look in the Bible, it does not give a Theological expression of God as one God existing as three distinct persons except for first John 5.
What verse was it first John 5. God which verses is it 5 is it 7 and 8? Verses 7 and 8. That's the closest we have to a theological expression in the Bible. But we have all these bits of information that are revealed to us.
About the Holy Spirit about Jesus Christ the Son of God and about the father. And we put them all together in the early church fathers put them all together. They came up with the conception of Wording it this way God Exists as one God one essence subsisting in three distinct persons.
Now that gets us almost there in our understanding except for the fact the word person is a problem so Let me talk about that just for a moment. I'm going to give you I'm not going to go into this because we're out of time, but I'm going to give you something To think about next time between now and next time.
What it was dealt with in two languages in the East it was dealt with in the Greek in the Western Church. It was dealt with in the Latin the theologians of the East preferred to speak in Greek and write in Greek the Western theologians in Latin.
So that's nice because we have it in both languages. It helps us maybe to Get little colors of the meaning from one language that wouldn't be in the other and so forth but It was put this way the word Person in the Greek is the word prosopon.
P-r-o-s-o-p-o-n and here's what it meant. Literally a mask as. In a role in a play. The part of a play that an actor played the role that he played was called the prosopon. Sometimes in the Greek plays they would actually make a wooden mask and they would wear that mask throughout the play and that created the.
The prosopon it created the person that's he's supposed to be acting out. So it did not mean the actor it meant the face that he wore While they acted. Does that give you a good understanding of the meaning for?
That in the Greek language was translated into English when I talk about the persons of Godhead. It's a little different than our English word. Now. It is true that the word prosopon Evolved over time in the Greek mind to meaning more than just the mask or the face or the part played.
It can also be used to describe the actor himself so Even in the later part of the first century Before Christ it could mean the word person. Or it could mean the actor or the party played. Now in the Greek, but especially in the Latin It also had to do with a person in a legal sense that in a court of law.
If you're going to have a person seated there that's being judged for something that is his prosopon. I mean, that's this is the person that the law is about to act upon. Now, let me go to the Latin just for a minute.
It's the word persona. Now we've carried that over into English we have an English word persona and We know that what it means is the same thing as the Greek meant it is the mask. It literally means a mask or a role that you play as an actor.
Later it came to mean the actor himself. Also, it's used in legal terminology in the Roman government in the Latin. It is used as a legal term to denote the court representative either the plaintiff or the defendant.
So The great Tertullian who was in the Latin the Western Church, so he preferred Latin. He would speak of God as three personae in one substantia. The substantia means substance. Personae meaning the masks and we don't know whether he meant mask or the per.
We don't know if Tertullian meant the role that was being played or the person playing the role and this is where the controversy in the words came. Some people when they said God existed as three persons meant The person playing the part.
Others meant the face or the part that was played. What we don't have time this morning, but next time we'll talk about why is that important? Because there is a big difference and We have some beautiful Quotes from these old church fathers that bring out exactly what they meant in their mind about it.
We'll read that so you have the idea of the persona. That was used to describe the three persons or personas personae of the Godhead now. Without leaving you totally muddled because you all have to come back next week because we have to finish this.
We don't want to leave you in confusion, but we're out of time. So you have to come back all of us. You have to be back. So if you don't live here, you have to fly back down. Or you could get me to email you the notes for next week might be easier but God exists as one essence one substantia.
Substance all of them agreed on that. He is but one God. But he subsists in three distinct Personas, I like what first Timothy 316 is who is Jesus if you think of him as a persona? Who is he he is God?
Manifest in other words playing the persona in the flesh. So think about those things think about those words and next time we'll come together. We'll complete what the early church fathers said by this and what they meant by it how they defined it.
I think we will leave after we finish the entire thing with a little bit better understanding our way of thinking of God. Then maybe we did before because when we use the English three persons. Well, we think of God.
Well, it's almost like three gods. None of them believed he was three gods. So we want to get a good grasp on this word Persona so that we no longer would think that way because it doesn't mean that so let's stand and have prayer together.
Have you ever wondered why it is? That the Trinity is Requires a lot of study and prayer and Thought. To even begin to conceive of God and how he exists and yet. The one thing we would probably like to know the most in our relationship with a real personal.
God is how he exists. You suppose he made it that way so that we would spend the rest of our lives studying him. Trying to learn more about him and how he is. Maybe even the rest of eternity after we get over on the other side.
We may continue to study. How can he exist this way? How is he? Who is he and how is he? Let's pray together father. We thank you for your word, which gives us all that you want us to have in this dispensation.
We thank you for your Holy Spirit who enlightens the word and gives us even new thoughts out of the old book so that we might learn new things from you and Continue to learn more about you every day of our lives as we grow and every year we can know you better.
And Lord, we thank you for a church that has that desire to study you more than to study how to be successful or how to study how to Do things while we're here as persons. We would rather study you. And so Lord, we ask you to continue to give us insight into your word as we study it together.
We thank you for our visitors today Ask you to bless them and each of us as we have a time of fellowship in a few moments. We ask you to bless the meal that we're about to have together and our afternoon service in Jesus name.
Amen.