The Trinity for Beginners

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How are you doing? Doing alright.
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How are you guys doing? Great.
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Well, let me give you all a quick heads up.
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I do have to leave as soon as class is over today.
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I've got some guys doing work at my house, and my wife is there by herself, and I just want to get back in case they have any questions or anything.
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So as soon as I'm done, I'm going to roll.
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And I want to also make a second point.
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I think most of you all know me.
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If you don't know me, my name is Keith.
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I do the systematic theology, which is a 12-week course.
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Every week we do a different theological subject.
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And today's subject is one that is considered to be somewhat difficult, even though I don't think it should be as difficult as people make it out to be.
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But I want to ask that you would at least hold off on a lot of questions.
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Allow me to get out what I want to say before I have to start fielding questions, because if I have to start fielding questions from the very beginning, we ain't never going to get nowhere.
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You know what I mean? Normally I don't mind you all asking questions while I'm talking, but today, unless it's just something very, very needful, hold off until the end, and we'll maybe last five, ten minutes.
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We can deal with any questions or anything you all have.
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Okay? So be fair to me.
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I'll be fair to you all.
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All right.
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So let's start with a word of prayer.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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We know that Your Word is truth, because Your Son told us that Your Word is truth.
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He said, sanctify them by Your truth.
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Your Word is truth.
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So, Father, today as we seek to understand what Your Word says about this very important subject, this historical, biblical, and foundational subject, I pray, Lord, that You would first and foremost, as I always pray, please keep me from error.
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For I am a fallible man, and I am capable of preaching error, and I do not want to.
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I pray also, Lord, that You would open up the hearts of these men, not just their eyes and ears, but their hearts, to understand what Your Word has to say.
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And, Lord, if there is confusion today, I pray that You would clarify it.
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And, Lord, do not let me be the perpetuator of confusion.
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But, Lord, help me by Your Spirit to bring some clarity to an often confusing topic.
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I pray it in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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So, in our 12-week theology course, we begin week 1 with the doctrine of revelation, which is how does God reveal Himself.
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We talked about common revelation, which goes out to all people, or what we call general revelation.
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And we talk about special revelation, which is given through God's Word, whether that's through His prophets or through His written Word, which is what we have today.
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Week 2, which was last week, we looked at the existence of God, and we looked at His attributes.
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We looked at the attributes like God's holiness, God's justice, God's love, God's mercy, even God's hatred, which we didn't talk much about that one, but there are things the Bible says God hates.
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The book of Proverbs says there are six things God hates.
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Yes, seven are an abomination to Him.
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And He talks about those things that God hates.
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A lying tongue, a haughty look, all those things that are opposed to God's righteousness.
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So God expresses Himself as a being who can be known.
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Well, today we are going to look at the doctrine of the Trinity.
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And this just so happens to be one of the subjects about which I am very passionate.
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I've written a couple of books over the years, and one of the books that I wrote is called God in Three Persons.
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And it is a historic and biblical view of the doctrine of the Trinity.
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So this is something that I've spent a lot of time with and devoted myself to.
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And very recently had an interesting interaction with a young man who's now become a good friend.
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And that is I got a call at the church.
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Our church phone forwards to my cell phone.
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So I look down at my cell phone and I see that I have a missed call from the church phone.
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So I open up my phone and I listen to the voicemail.
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And it's a young man who said, I recently got saved and I feel like I need to be in church.
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He didn't get saved at a church.
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He got saved through a ministry of someone who was online sharing the Gospel.
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He heard the Gospel and got saved.
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And he said, I've been reading the Bible.
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I've read the New Testament twice since I got saved.
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But I have a lot of questions and I'm very confused about some things and I want to ask questions.
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Well, I was excited to talk to him.
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So I immediately called him back and introduced myself and we began to talk.
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And he said, I have a very important question and I really need to know.
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He said, I don't know if I believe in the Trinity.
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He said, I know that it's something that churches teach, but I'm not sure that it's biblical.
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And I said, well, I want to tell you this.
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And I said, and hear me well.
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I said, not only is the doctrine of the Trinity biblical, the doctrine of the Trinity is not optional.
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It is not something that you can simply take it or leave it.
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It is something that is so inherently biblical that it is necessary to believe.
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It is one of the things that the church has affirmed historically that if a person rejects, it puts them on the outside of the faith.
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In fact, if we look at the groups like the Jehovah Witnesses or the Mormons or even the Unitarian church, like the Universalist Unitarians, the thing that separates them is that they reject the doctrine of the Trinity.
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It is not something that is optional.
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And that is my firm stance on this.
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If you come to me later and say, well, I don't believe the Trinity, I would say there's two things that are happening.
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Either one, you're very confused or you're still lost.
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And you say, well, how can you be so judgmental? I'm not being judgmental.
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I'm telling you that is the historic affirmation of the church.
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And when I say the church, I mean the church in general.
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This is not something that has been debated.
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This is something that has been affirmed for 2,000 years.
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Now, there have been debates along, but the debates have always fallen on the side of the doctrine of the Trinity.
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The historic church has always stood on this teaching.
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So when we say we affirm Christianity, we are saying something about what we affirm about God.
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This is not an optional doctrine.
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Does that make sense? Alright.
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So, before we even jump into the doctrine, because here's what we're going to do today.
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We're going to define the doctrine.
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We are going to defend the doctrine.
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That's the two parts of today's lesson.
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But before we even do that, I want to make a distinction between two words.
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There is a distinction between understanding and comprehending.
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Now, often times, we use those two words interchangeably.
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Like if I were teaching you how to use a nail gun.
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I say, do you understand this? You say, yes.
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I say, do you comprehend it? Yes.
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And in that sense, it's a synonym.
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But there's also a way where they're not synonyms.
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For instance, if I say to you, do you understand that God is eternal? You could say, yes.
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That means He has no beginning and no ending.
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That's what you understand.
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That's what it means to be eternal.
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But if I said, do you really comprehend what it means to be eternal? No beginning and no ending.
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You say, no.
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Because everything you know has a beginning and ending.
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You have a beginning and ending.
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Your children have a beginning and ending.
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Your mom and daddy had a beginning and ending.
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Even the earth that you walk on had a beginning and one day will have an ending.
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You are unfamiliar with anything that is eternal and therefore, for you to comprehend the eternal would be somewhat impossible because you have nothing against which to compare it.
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You have nothing with it to analogize it.
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Therefore, you can understand it because you can define it.
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No beginning, no ending.
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But you can't really comprehend it.
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To comprehend it would be like taking all of the Atlantic Ocean and putting it in a thimble.
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You can't do that because it's just too much to comprehend.
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Our finite mind cannot fully embrace everything it means when we talk about the eternal God.
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We can't comprehend all that is.
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So when I tell you today, you can understand the Trinity.
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Yes, you can.
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And you will.
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Before you leave today, you are going to learn three things, three statements.
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And if you've ever been in this class, you guys know this class rotates so some of you have been here before.
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But you're going to learn the same three things you learned last time and that is the three doctrinal affirmations that are affirmed in the Trinity and you will understand what each of them means.
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But I cannot promise you're going to comprehend it because that level of comprehension is somewhat beyond us.
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In the same way that God is eternal, fully comprehending how it works, and all of the intricacies, and all of the moving parts, if you will, is going to be a little bit beyond us.
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So we're good with that? Alright.
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Well, let's go into our definition.
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Like I said, we're going to do two things today.
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We are going to first define and then defend.
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No use trying to defend something you don't understand so we've got to define it before we can defend it.
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When we talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, most people think of the Trinity like this.
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God is one in three and three in one.
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In fact, we sing songs that say, you know, God is the great three in one or something like that.
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Nothing wrong with that.
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But that is somewhat obscure because like I remember years ago, my beloved mother, she and I were talking about the Trinity and she goes, I know about the Trinity.
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It's like three in one oil.
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And I love my mother and I thought that was so cute.
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But you know, three in one oil like what you put in a lawn mower.
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That's just the way she thought.
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And that's a simple faith and I'm fine with that.
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There's nothing wrong with it.
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But that is somewhat obscure because three in one oil means three different types of oil in one.
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And that's where there can be some confusion.
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It's not a perfect analogy.
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So I did go in and explain a little bit to her.
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I said, yeah, but we can't think it's three different gods or something like that.
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And that's the part, when we get to the end, when we get to the defense, we're going to talk about some of the false views.
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And we need to be able to understand that as well.
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So when the Trinity is defined as three in one, that is true, but it's a little obscure.
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It's a little ambiguous.
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And so the church has historically sought to define the Trinity more specific than just three in one.
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The historic formulation of the doctrine is this.
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This is the three statements I said you're going to get.
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Number one, God is one in essence.
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Now, immediately, we have to ask the question, what is essence? Well, another word for essence, if you want to be a little more specific, is the word being.
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God is one in being.
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But you can even go further than that and use what we would say a more doctrinally appropriate term, the term that was used by our ancestors in the faith.
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And they used the word substance.
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Now, when you think of substance, you usually think of something that you can handle.
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Like we talked about oil earlier.
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Oil is a substance, right? You can put your hand in oil.
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You can feel it.
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You can wipe it on you.
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You know what oil is by how it feels and the fact that it has a substance.
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When we talk about the substance of God, we're talking about what He is.
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And the Bible says He is spirit.
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Isn't that what it said in John 4 when Jesus was talking to the woman at the well? God is spirit.
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Those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth, right? So the idea of God's substance, it's not something tangible like oil or wood or concrete.
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It's spirit, but it's still a spiritual substance.
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It's that which God is.
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Now, when we talk about that which God is, we learn this last week.
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Remember the three omnis? Remember omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, right? That's the nature of God.
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Omnipresence means God is everywhere.
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So His substance is everywhere.
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It's all around us.
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It's everything.
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The Bible says if I go up into heaven, you're there.
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If I go down into Sheol, you're there.
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I can't escape from your presence.
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I can't escape from you.
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So that's what we're talking about.
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That is one.
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God is one in essence, being, or substance.
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So that's number one.
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Number two.
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God is three in person.
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God is three in person.
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Now, the theological term which has typically been used in regard to person actually corresponds to the word substance, and it is the word subsistence.
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So we can say God is one in substance, and He is three in subsistence.
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And this should be a C.
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Pardon me for that.
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Sometimes when I'm writing on the board, my brain disconnects from my fingers, and I write the wrong thing.
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So I apologize.
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So we say God is one in essence, being, or substance.
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God is three in person or subsistence.
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And the last one, the last of the three, is that the three persons are co-equal and co-eternal.
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Co-equal and co-eternal.
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So let's just break these down a little further.
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Because this is where groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and everything, they immediately start making the argument.
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They say if God is one in essence, He has to be one in person.
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Because essence and person are the same thing.
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And we say no, that's not true.
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Essence and person are not the same thing.
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Or being and person are not the same thing.
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And the easiest way to define that, the easiest way to prove that, is to look at a rock.
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Does a rock have substance? Does it have being? No, it doesn't have being.
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It's there.
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It has substance, being, and essence all the same thing.
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Remember? So it has being.
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It be.
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Versus it don't be.
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Being is simply the state of existence.
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Right? It be.
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And if you don't believe it be, I throw it at you and when it hits you, you'll know that it be.
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Because it be hurting.
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Alright.
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So, a rock has substance, it has being, it has essence, it's the essence of a rock.
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Right? It is.
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But it does not have person.
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You can't talk to a rock, even though years ago, back in the 70's, you know a guy made a million dollars selling a pet rock? Pet rock.
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Million dollar company.
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Selling pet rocks.
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I can't even imagine.
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But he did.
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Million dollar company selling pet rocks.
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People talked to the rock.
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Guess what the rock did not do? It did not talk back.
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It did not have personality.
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It did not engage.
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It did not feel empathy.
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It did not feel pain.
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It just was a rock.
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So it be? It be.
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But it not do.
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Person do.
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Persons do.
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Beings be.
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Okay.
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So if I said to you, a rock can have being and not person, you understand there's a difference between being and person.
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If I said to you, a cow can have being but not person, and by person, now we're beginning to be more specific about person.
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You say, well cows can have certain personalities, like bull can be ornery, or a heifer can maybe be somewhat passive, right? You know, they can have little personalities.
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But those are what we call instinctual personalities.
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They're based on instinct, not on real personality like you.
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You know, you are who you are because God has endowed you with His image.
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We're going to talk about this when we get into anthropology.
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You are a man made in the image of God, therefore you have personality, you have intellect, emotion, will, right? Those are all part of what make you person.
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Well, yeah.
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And so we distinguish between personhood and being all the time.
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And we do that naturally.
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So what we are used to is we are used to a ratio of one to one.
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One being, one person.
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Right? Because if you met a being, like if I met you, and there were three persons or four persons or six persons, we'd have problems.
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Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
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Because that would indicate some type of mental problem in a person if they had multiple persons in the one being, right? Now, I am not in any way, shape, or form defining the Trinity as some type of holy schizophrenia.
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Because that makes sure I'm not.
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But my point is when we talk about personhood, we are used to one being and one person.
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That's the ratio that we are used to.
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And there is no other being in the universe that has one being and three persons other than God.
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This is why we say the Trinity is a unique definition to God because there's no other being that we can define that way.
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So God's ratio is not one to one.
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God's ratio is one to three.
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One being, but three persons.
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And the three persons, here's a key word, the three persons share the one being.
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The three persons share.
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Remember I talked about the substance or the stuff of God? Even though we can't touch it, it's there.
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God is everywhere.
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That substance, that is God, is shared by three persons.
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And you say, well, where do you get that from? I'm going to show you when we defend the doctrine, but before we even go any further, I want you to think in your mind to the prayer of Jesus in John 17.
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You see, most people think of the Lord's Prayer.
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Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
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That's not the Lord's Prayer.
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That's the model prayer.
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That's the prayer Jesus gave us to pray because His disciples said, teach us to pray.
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And He gave them a model prayer.
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But the prayer that Jesus prayed, the real Lord's Prayer is John 17 when Jesus takes His disciples and He prays for them and He prays for you.
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Because the Bible says, Jesus said, I'm not only praying for them, but I'm praying for everyone who will believe in My name because of their testimony.
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Why do you believe in Jesus? Because of the testimony of the apostles.
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That's who wrote the New Testament.
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We believe in Jesus because of their testimony.
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So Jesus prayed for you.
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Isn't that neat? Jesus actually prayed a prayer where He said, I'm not only praying for them, but I'm praying for those who will believe in Me because of their testimony.
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So Jesus prayed for us.
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But in that prayer, He says this to the Father.
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He's speaking to the Father.
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He is the Son.
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He said, Father, glorify Me with the glory that we had together before the world existed.
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Glorify Me with the glory that we had together before the world existed.
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Think about what Jesus is saying.
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He's saying that He and the Father shared glory before the world existed.
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Therefore, when I say the three Persons share the One Being, I'm just simply repeating what Jesus has said when He talks about sharing the glory of God.
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You know what the Bible says in the Old Testament? No one shares the glory of God except God Himself.
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But Jesus said He did share His glory.
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How could He do that unless He was one with God? Unless He shared God's essence as well.
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So we see this ratio expressed to us through the words of Jesus Himself.
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Now, I want to very quickly before we move to the defense of the doctrine when we look at more texts, I want to talk about the subject of contradiction.
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There are people, and there are quite a few people actually, who deny Christianity or deny biblical Trinitarian theology.
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And they say, I deny it because it's a contradiction.
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You're saying that God is one and you're saying that God is three and you can't be both one and three.
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That is a contradiction.
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And that would be true if we were saying God is one God who is three gods.
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Or God is one person who is three persons.
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Because that would be contradictory.
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Polytheism maybe? Yeah.
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But we are making a category distinction.
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And understand this.
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Categories matter.
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If you don't think categories matter, even your own salvation, you are either in the category of the redeemed or the damned.
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That's two categories.
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There ain't no third way.
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There ain't no purgatory.
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There ain't no other option.
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You're either in the redeemed, which means you're in Christ, or you're among the damned, which means you're outside of Christ.
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Now, my prayer is that all of you are redeemed.
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But that's categories, right? We have to understand the Bible is filled with categories.
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In fact, the Bible itself distinguishes by categories.
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What does Jesus call His believers? He calls them His sheep.
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What does He call the unbelievers? Goats.
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He makes a category distinction, right? So the Bible is filled with category distinctions.
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And here we make a category distinction.
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God is one in this category.
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God is three in this category.
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We are not contradicting because we are not mixing our categories.
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We're not saying we have one God who is three gods.
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We're saying we have one God who exists in three persons.
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So the doctrine of the Trinity simply explained is God is one in essence.
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God is three in persons.
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These persons are co-equal and co-eternal, which means the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have always been and they have always shared the essence of God.
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There wasn't a time when the Father said, you know what? I'm going to create me a Jesus.
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Or I'm going to create me a Holy Spirit.
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They were always and have always been the Trinity.
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And this is an important thing to make known because I believe in what is called essentially the eternal plan of God.
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Some people call it the covenant of redemption.
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I simply call it the eternal plan of God, but that's a more specific term is the covenant of redemption.
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What that means is I believe that in eternity past, which when you talk about eternity, talking about past and future is kind of foolish, but from our perspective, in eternity past, God made a decision to create the world.
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And He made a decision to redeem the lost before He ever created the world.
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He knew that Adam was going to fall.
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He knew all that.
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He had decreed what was going to happen.
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And in that, He chose the Son to be the one to bear the burden of sin.
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How do we know that? Because the Bible says Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
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So the second person of the Trinity was designated as the sin bearer before there was even one stone laid to create the world.
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Now I know the world wasn't created by laying stones, but you understand what I mean.
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Before God ever spoke the world into existence, He had already determined that the Son would be the Savior.
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That He was going to glorify Himself through the salvation of His people through the work of His Son.
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Which tells us the Son existed prior to the creation of the world.
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Alright? So we have this biblical testimony of the doctrine of the Trinity and it's not contradictory.
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Now, there are several creeds and confessions that we could look at, but I want to look at Scripture because I think Scripture is the most important thing.
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Obviously it's the highest authority that we have as Christians.
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So if you have your Bibles, we're going to look at several passages of Scripture and I want to give you a few.
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If you want to write them down, you can.
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If you want to open your Bible, you can.
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The first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at...
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I wish I had a different color marker.
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But we're going to look at this one.
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God is one in essence.
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And we're going to look at two passages specifically that make...
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Now, there are many passages, but we're going to look at two passages that essentially prove this doctrine.
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Go to Deuteronomy 6.
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Now you may know this one by heart.
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I think this might be one of y'all's memory verses.
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Do y'all have Deuteronomy 6 as a memory verse? Is it level 2? Okay, okay.
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Well, Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 is what is called the Shema.
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If you're writing it, it's S-H-E-M-A.
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But it's not she-ma.
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It's like shema.
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That's the way it's pronounced.
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And that simply means the prayer of Israel.
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It's the prayer of faith.
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It's sort of like...
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You ever heard some people talk about the sinner's prayer? Well, this is sort of like that, but it was the ancient Israelite version.
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They were praying about faith in the one true God.
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And this is what it says.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
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And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
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Alright, we'll stop there.
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It goes on to talk about hanging them on your doorposts and keeping them as frontlets before your eyes.
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All those things.
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But the most important part is where He says, Hear, O Israel, which is a call to respond.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
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And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might.
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So, not only are we to understand that the Lord is one, but we are to understand that the Lord is one over all.
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That we are to love Him over all.
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So, that is a passage which affirms our first line.
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God is one in essence.
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Deuteronomy 6, 4-6 affirms that God is one.
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What do we call a belief in one God? Monotheism.
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Very good.
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Very good.
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Monotheism.
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We are monotheists.
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Understand that.
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Christians are monotheists.
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Now, we are Trinitarian monotheists.
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I'll explain that in a minute.
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But just understand, we have not departed from that belief in the one God.
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When we talk about God, we talk about the one true and living God.
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Now, turn in your Bible to Isaiah.
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Isaiah 43-10 Now, Isaiah tells us something about this one God.
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Isaiah 43-10 Now, I'm going to read the King James Version.
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I like how this is worded.
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It might be a little different than what you have.
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But it says it this way.
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It says, Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen that ye may know and believe Me and understand that I am He.
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Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me.
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Alright.
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So, for a moment, let's just consider what God is saying through the prophet.
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One, He says that...
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He says, I am God.
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He says, I am He.
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And He says, Before Me there was no God formed.
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Now, here's the thing about that.
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There is no before God.
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There is no B.G.
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You know, we can talk about B.C., before Christ, before He came into the world, but we can't talk about B.G.
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There's no before God.
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Alright? So, God is saying, I didn't come from another God.
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It isn't as if there was a greater God who made me and I'm the product of Him.
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If you're familiar with Mormon theology, Mormons teach that God, the God that made our world, was once a man.
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That He lived on another planet and that because of His adherence to His Mormon teachings, which was what He was taught, He became a God.
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And the belief of Mormonism is that you can become God.
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You.
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You can become...
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Wouldn't you be a great God? No, I don't think so.
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I mean, me either.
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I'm a pretty terrible human.
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It would be an even worse God, right? Well, the idea of this...
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In fact, this is the passage I use when the Mormons come to my door.
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Because a lot of people run to other passages.
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I really like this passage because I will ask them, I say, do you believe that there were gods before Yahweh? The one true God.
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Do you believe there were gods before Him? And they will say, yes.
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I say, well, how do you deal with Isaiah 43.10? Which says, before me, there was no God formed.
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There was no God before Him.
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But here's the key to what's important for the Trinity.
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The second part of the sentence.
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Neither shall there be any after.
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You see, even before God, there was no gods, but after God, He didn't make any other gods.
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God cannot create a God.
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People say there's nothing God can't do.
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No, there's a lot God can't do.
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God can't lie.
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God can't deny His Word or His own nature.
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God is bound by His own goodness.
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So God can't be evil.
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Right? So there are things God cannot do.
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One of the things God cannot do is He cannot create another God.
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Because by definition, God is uncreated.
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He is self-existing.
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So if a God is created, guess what He ceases to be? God.
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He's created, not creator.
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Right? See, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus is a created God.
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Do you know what a created God is? It's no God.
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It can't be a created God.
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Because you can't make a God.
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God either exists or He doesn't exist, but He can't be created because God has existence in Himself.
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So the idea that Jesus is a created God is a false view because you can't make a God.
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Even God can't create a God.
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Alright, so He says, "...before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be any after Me." So what does this tell us? This goes back to here.
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God is one in essence.
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We've affirmed that twice.
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And again, we could go through a myriad of passages where the Bible affirms the oneness of God.
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But now, we want to look at the second part, and that is the three in persons.
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And we're going to go to a passage I'm sure you're all familiar with, but I still want you to look at it.
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And I wish I had more white board.
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I don't want to erase that because it looks like it's useful.
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But I don't want to erase this either because this is important.
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But when we get to John 1, turn to John 1, I want to show you that is John 1.
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That is right.
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But I want to break something down for you that I think is very important about that passage.
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In John 1, verse 1, it begins with the phrase in the beginning.
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In the beginning is the same phrase that begins what other book? Genesis.
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Genesis, right? So John is hearkening back to Genesis.
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In fact, in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it actually is written the same way.
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John is copying that phrase, n-r-k, which in the Greek means in the beginning.
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So n-r-k, in the beginning, in Genesis, is the same as John, in the beginning.
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But notice what he says.
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In the beginning, and he uses a very important word, and that word is the word was.
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The word was.
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He says in the beginning was the word.
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Now we'll learn in verse 14 that the Word is Jesus.
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Because it says the Word became flesh, dwelt among us, we beheld His glory, the glory of the only Begotten, the Father, full of grace and truth.
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So we know who the Word is.
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We don't have to try to figure it out.
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It's defined.
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We know the Word is Jesus.
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So he says in the beginning was, the word was indicates that He already was.
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He was there in the beginning.
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He was already there.
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In fact, one translation, the New English translation I think it is, actually translates it.
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In the beginning, the Word already was.
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He already existed in the beginning.
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It wasn't as if God created Him in the beginning, because that's again what some people believe.
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They believe that God created Jesus and then Jesus created everything else.
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No, He was already there.
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So in the beginning was the Word, and then we have that important phrase, and the Word was with God.
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You say, okay, so there's a distinction between the Word and God.
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But then the next clause blows that out of the water because it says, and the Word was God.
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And you say, man, that is heavy duty thinking.
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How can we say that the Word was with God and the Word was God? This is the only way to make sense of it.
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That He shares the being of God.
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That's why we can say He is God.
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But that He is also distinct from God because He is a different person than God in the sense of the Father.
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The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have each one of them person that is able to relate to the other.
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Guess what the Father does to the Son? He loves the Son.
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And you know what the Father and the Son do together? They send the Spirit.
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The Bible says, Jesus says, I must go away and send the Spirit.
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You know, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
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So we have this wonderful interaction between the three persons, and that interaction happens because they are persons who can interact, but they share the being, the substance of God.
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Three persons, one substance.
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So we see that.
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Now notice verse 2.
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The same was in the beginning with God.
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Verse 3, all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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I love saying this to people because sometimes I like to see their wheels turn.
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I say, I worship my Creator, Jesus.
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People say, that's a weird way of saying it.
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I say, yes, but verse 3 tells me all things were made by Him.
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Who's the Him? Him is the Word.
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Who is the Word? The Word is Jesus.
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Therefore, I can say, I worship my Creator, Jesus, because He made me.
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It says, all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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So when I look around, I can say nothing was made that wasn't made by Christ, including me.
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So, John 1, 1-3 is a very important, what we call Christological passage.
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It tells us something about Jesus, about His nature.
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Christological.
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Christology is the doctrine of Christ.
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Now I'm going to give you a few other verses.
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You don't have to turn there, but if you want to write them down, you can.
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It's a lot of verses at once.
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Colossians 2-9, speaking of Christ, it says, For in Him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.
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Or the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
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All that is God dwells in Christ, because He shares the essence of God.
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Colossians 1, 15-16 says, He is the image of the invisible God, the preeminent of all creation.
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Some say firstborn.
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I think the better word is preeminent there.
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For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
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All things were created through Him and for Him.
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Not only were you created by Christ, you were created for Christ.
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All things were created by Him and for Him.
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You have a purpose.
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And your purpose is to glorify your Creator.
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People say, I just don't know what my purpose is.
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Your purpose is to glorify God.
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That's what it is.
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And here's the thing, you will glorify God.
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In one of two ways you will glorify God.
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You will glorify God as an object of His mercy and grace or an object of His just wrath.
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But you will glorify Him.
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You might say, I hope it's the first one.
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I do too.
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But God will glorify Himself in the punishment of the wicked and in the glorification of those who have received His grace and mercy.
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But God will glorify Himself.
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Revelation 22-13, Jesus says this, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
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Understand that's something only God can say and Jesus says that of Himself.
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Yeah, Revelation 22-13.
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And one of my favorite phrases in the Bible in regard to Jesus was shouted out.
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I believe it was shouted.
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The text didn't say it was shouted, but I have a feeling it was shouted.
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By Thomas.
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When Thomas saw the risen Christ.
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Remember, he said, I won't believe unless I see the nail scars in His hand and put my hand in His side.
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And Jesus reveals Himself to Thomas and He says, put your hand here.
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See that it is I.
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Touch My side.
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Know that it is I.
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And Thomas exclaims, My Lord and My God.
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When he's speaking to Jesus.
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He says, this is My Lord.
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Hakoriasmu in Greek.
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Kaihathiasmu.
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And My God.
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This is He.
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I heard a Jehovah Witness try to explain that one time.
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He says, well, that was just...
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He was just saying, My God! Like one of us might see something incredible and say, oh my goodness! That is not how we should interpret that phrase.
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Because that's not how that phrase is meant to be interpreted.
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He is identifying Christ.
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He is saying, You are My Lord and My God.
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Alright, now, you might say, well, that proves Jesus.
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Obviously, no one disputes the deity of the Father.
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That proves the deity of the Son.
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What about the Holy Spirit? Well, the Holy Spirit also has several passages that refer to His deity.
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And I don't think anybody would really deny the deity of the Holy Spirit, but I think they deny His personality.
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A lot of people talk about the Holy Spirit as if He is an it.
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Like the Holy Spirit is a power.
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But the Bible never ever uses a neuter pronoun referring to the Spirit.
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By the way, you know pronouns have masculine, feminine, and neuter, right? If I say He, She, and It.
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Alright, that's masculine, feminine, neuter.
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The Bible never uses a neuter pronoun for the Spirit.
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It always uses a masculine pronoun.
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He came upon them.
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He overshadowed them.
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That's the way the Bible describes the Spirit working.
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Not as an it, but as a He.
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And so, one of my favorite passages to point to, if you want to write this one down, I think it's a good one.
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Acts chapter 5, verses 3 and 4.
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Now you remember this story if you've read your New Testament recently.
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I know you guys read the Bible every day, which is very encouraging.
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There's a lot of times you guys remember these passages.
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But in Acts chapter 5, there was a man named Ananias, and he had a wife named Sapphira.
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And the two of them lied about some property.
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What's that, Charles? It says they lied to the Holy Spirit.
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You can't lie to a force.
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You lie to a person.
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That's blasphemy.
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We're actually going to do a whole class on the Holy Spirit.
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We're going to talk about the blasphemy of the Spirit.
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But that is a good point.
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That's a very, very important and dangerous sin.
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And they ended up dying over it.
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They ended up dying over it.
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It is.
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But I want you to hear this real quick.
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When Peter was talking to Ananias, he says this, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for yourself a part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.
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So when he talks about lying to the Holy Spirit, he says that he's lied to God.
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It's such an important passage.
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Another passage to write down if you're writing them down in regard to the Holy Spirit is 2 Peter 1.21.
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This talks about how we got the Bible, how we got the Scriptures.
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It says, No prophecy of Scripture was ever produced by the will of man.
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But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit is the one who inspired the Bible.
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We say He carried those men along to give them the right words to write down so that we would have God's Word.
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So the Spirit was active in the putting together of the Bible.
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Alright, now, last but not least, on our defense, I'd like to look at Matthew 28.19.
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Because we said God is one in essence.
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We've looked at passages for that.
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We've said God is three in person.
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We've looked at passages that regard the deity of the Son.
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We've looked at the deity of the Spirit.
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Now we're going to look at the three persons being co-equal and co-eternal.
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And I think probably the best passage to use is Matthew 28.19 which is called what? Anybody know? The Great Commission.
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Matthew 28.19 is the Great Commission.
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This is where Jesus says, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them...
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what? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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And what's so interesting about this in the Greek is the word name in Greek is onomatopoeia.
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And it is singular.
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In the one name of the three persons.
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The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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It's just an interesting construction.
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And I love grammar.
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I think grammar is really cool.
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It can teach us a lot.
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B.B.
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Warfield was a tremendous theologian and this is what he says about Matthew 28.19.
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He says, What we are witnessing is the authoritative announcement of the Trinity as the God of Christianity.
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By its founder, in one of the most solemn of his recorded declarations, Israel had worshipped the one and only true God under the name of Jehovah.
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Christians are to worship the same one and only true God under the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Now can we still use the word Jehovah? Yes.
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Can we still use Yahweh? Yes.
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But how do we identify God as Christians typically? The Father.
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Jesus said when we pray, do we pray, O Jehovah, or do we pray, Our Father in Heaven? Right? Again, there's nothing wrong with using the word Jehovah.
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I'm not saying it's wrong.
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I'm just saying the identification, Jesus identified God as His Father.
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And He says when you pray, you pray Our Father in Heaven.
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And so we identify God as Father and as Son and as Holy Spirit.
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So when we look at the doctrine of the Trinity, we see that it's not only something that is intellectual, it's something that is also powerfully emotional because we begin to think about the God who exists, exists in a relationship with Himself.
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The Father loves the Son.
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The Son loves the Spirit.
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The Father and the Son together send the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who comes to live within us so that we may love God with all of our heart.
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Now, we're drawing close to the end here, and I did say I would give a few minutes for questions, but I want to end my presentation with a quote.
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It's one of the most beautiful quotes I think ever written.
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It was by a bishop of Sardis.
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It was written in 180 A.D., so 1,840 years ago.
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This was written.
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This is from a sermon that was preached by Melito of Sardis.
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Speaking of Jesus, this is what he says.
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So He was lifted up upon a tree, and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed.
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Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling.
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But listen as you tremble before Him on whose account the earth trembled.
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He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
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He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
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He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
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The sovereign is insulted.
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God is murdered.
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The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
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This is the One who made the heavens and the earth that formed mankind in the beginning.
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The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets.
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The One enfleshed in a virgin.
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The One hanged on a tree.
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The One buried in the earth.
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The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven.
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The One sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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The One having all authority to judge and say through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
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This One is the Alpha and the Omega.
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This One is the beginning and the end.
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This One is the beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
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This One is the Christ.
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This One is the King.
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This One is Jesus.
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This One is the Leader.
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This One is the Lord.
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This One is the One who rose from the dead.
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This One is the One sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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He bears the Father, is born by the Father, and to Him be glory and power forever.
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Amen.
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What a word.
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What a description of our Savior.
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And with that, I want to ask, are there any questions? Yes.
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I'll go with him first and I'll come right back.
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Okay.
51:10
I've learned that, and I want to know if I'm right or wrong, that when we go to the Father, as the Father said in prayer too, we should ask in the name of Jesus because it says there's power in the name of Jesus.
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Yes, but we also ask in the name of Jesus because Jesus is our mediator.
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The Bible says that we are separated from God because of our sin, but Jesus makes the way back to the Father.
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He is the mediator.
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This is what it says in 1 Timothy.
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It says there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
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You see, Jesus became a man so that He could represent us to the Father.
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And so in doing so, He mediates for us.
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So yes, there's power in His name, and the power is that power of being able to be the bridge.
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In fact, on Christmas, I'm preaching about...
52:03
You remember when Jacob laid his head on the rock and went to sleep, and he had a dream about a stairway to heaven? Not the song.
52:11
And it says angels were going up and down that stairway? Well, later in the book of John 1, Jesus is speaking to Nathanael.
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And He says to Nathanael, He says you will see angels ascending and descending upon Me.
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Which what He was saying was I am the ladder to heaven.
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I am the pathway.
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I am the one who makes heaven and earth meet.
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I am God's mediator.
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So that's why we pray through Jesus.
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Yes, sir.
52:42
You can never lose or hide from the Spirit when it's in you, right? Sure, absolutely.
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Can't hide from God.
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What you try to do to get away from...
52:52
As a Christian, if you slip away, it means He's still with you, right? Yeah, and I always like the old saying which says if you're far from God, who moved? God is still there.
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We tend to try to get away from Him.
53:08
Psalm 139 says I can go up in heaven or down in the shield, and I can't escape Your presence.
53:14
Psalm 139.
53:15
It says I cannot escape Your presence.
53:17
He had His hand up first, and I'll come right back.
53:19
When the angels are descending to the Lord...
53:26
I'm not sure about that.
53:27
I think the picture...
53:28
I mean, we could discuss that.
53:29
That could be, but I think the picture is what we see Jacob say.
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He says this is where God meets with man.
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That's why he calls it Bethel, the house of God.
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So whether or not the angels are taking prayers, we could discuss that, but the picture there is the mediation, the meeting place.
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But I don't think it's necessarily wrong.
53:50
I hadn't thought about that.
53:51
I didn't think through that.
53:53
Yes, sir? This is a little off topic, but it's just what popped in my head.
53:57
God and Jesus and the Spirit are all referred to as He, and you get everything from them.
54:02
Why is wisdom a she? That's a good question.
54:07
Proverbs right refers to wisdom as a she.
54:12
I don't know if I have a good answer for that.
54:14
Other than the fact that the church is called a she as well, you know, the bride of Christ.
54:20
There are times when it's appropriate to use certain phrases in the feminine, but off the top of my head, I can't give you a good answer as to why wisdom is referred to that versus other attributes.
54:32
Sorry.
54:34
I'm just kind of going off what he said.
54:35
Is that a translation? No, it's feminine in the Hebrew.
54:40
That would be when you look at Hebrew, they're masculine and feminine pronouns as well.
54:47
Wisdom being a her, I'm trying to think.
54:52
Maybe just to make it attractive? Because it's something you would hopefully desire after, I guess.
54:57
I don't know.
54:58
Like I said, I know that it is used in that way, but I've not looked into the reasoning why.
55:05
I've not really thought about it, honestly, until you just said it.
55:07
So I don't want to give a bad answer.
55:09
No, that's cool.
55:10
You also said it in a negative way also.
55:12
So say she means that.
55:20
Yeah, and it also talks about the whorish woman who would drag you down into a ditch.
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So be careful of her.
55:29
But yeah, Hebrew poetry too is interesting in the way that it's constructed at times.
55:35
Yes, sir.
55:37
In the Garden of Eden, it says the Lord walking in the garden.
55:43
Yes.
55:44
I don't think that I've ever seen anywhere in the Scripture where it says that the Father actually set foot on anything.
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Is that Jesus walking or the angel of the Lord? I believe that it's Jesus, but I base that on a passage in John.
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In John it says, No one has seen the Father, the only begotten of the Father.
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He has made Him known.
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So I believe that every time in the Old Testament that we see a visual manifestation of God, that it's Christ and it's not the Father, because it says no one has seen the Father, but the Son has made Him known.
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And here's a good proof text for that.
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I hate proof texting, but I will give a proof text.
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I think it does make my argument.
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In Isaiah 6, it says that Isaiah saw the Lord on the throne and he saw His glory.
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Well, when you compare that to John 12, John says he saw Jesus in His glory.
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He says Isaiah saw Jesus.
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So I do believe the Old Testament manifestations of God were manifestations of Jesus.
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That's another question.
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A couple weeks ago, Moses spoke face to face with the Lord like he was talking to a friend.
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Is that a metaphor? Yeah, and therein is a getting back to the issue of no one having ever seen the Father.
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Any manifestations we see, even the burning bush, we know is the angel of the Lord, which is a manifestation of Christ.
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So it would have to be, if he's seeing face to face, it would have to be Christ and not the Father.
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And that was in the tent of meeting, right? Yeah, and again, I do think that somewhat of that language, face to face, in Greek, stoma pro stoma, it means to be in their presence.
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It doesn't literally mean always, it actually means mouth to mouth.
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Stoma pro stoma means your mouth to your mouth.
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It means they're in the presence of the other.
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Yes? What happens when people get stoma erupted? At the right hand of the Father.
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I do believe he saw some form of manifestation, but I don't think he saw a personal manifestation of the Father.
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I think he saw the Son standing.
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I do think he saw Christ.
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So in that particular moment, what I find interesting about that, and I don't mean to change the subject, is the fact that we are told very clearly that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father.
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But in that moment, Christ is standing.
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And I think that that is a picture of Christ coming to the defense of His own when His own is in peril.
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See, Stephen is being stoned.
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Christ is standing, giving him that confidence to see through to His death, and knowing that He's just about to be in His presence.
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So it's a wonderful truth.
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But I don't know what he saw as far as the manifestation of the Father.
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But he did say, I see Him at the right hand of the Father.
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So what the manifestation of that, whether it was light or glory or something, we're not told specifically.
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All right, guys.
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Well, we are out of time.
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I hope that was helpful.
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Can we end with a word of prayer? Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for these men.
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I thank You for their attentiveness today, Lord.
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I pray that it has been fruitful and encouraging to them, and that You'll use it to grow us all.
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In Christ's name, amen.