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Matt Slick will cover the topic of the Trinity tonight. Bring your questions and take lots of notes!
Marry her, and she was homeschooled. How's that life look? Is your mind doing well? Homemade cooking. Huh? You don't find boxes in anything.
You able to get in with Facebook and everything? I'm having the worst time with passwords. Every time I go to a computer and the same thing, it's... Yeah, well, they may be changing. It's ridiculous. I can't get into half the stuff now.
Okay. All right. The Facebook ones haven't had to do anything with those. All right. You ready? One, two. Okay. I just hit the button. You're already set. Hey. So, how'd it go? Did you get any feedback from the guys?
You guys went to about ten, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I really started showing them some oddball stuff.
They seemed to like it. Well, I know his sons were starting to fade out. Yeah. They liked that. I could see the clocks working in their head, you know.
Oh, in that case, I could have done more. If I had known that, I'd have told them some other stuff. But, okay. That's good. For next time. Next time. Good. When we're all done with the series. Yeah, because I know how to do that really well.
My daughter's wayward. I can tell you what not to do. What? Right now we're live? Yeah. Okay. Okay, we're going to start. So, they can all hear us and see us everywhere. I wish I had a monitor so I could see.
I'd like to have a monitor so I could see myself. I know where to go. That's a good idea. One thing at a time. That's why we need our own place. About this big. And a hammock, jacuzzi over there. That'd be great.
A little hibachi. I'd like that. That would be muy goodo. All right. So, we'll do the Trinity tonight because you guys asked. So, next week. So, next week I'm not going to be here. I'm taking a week off.
I work too much. Oh, really? Yeah. You don't care. You don't care. All you care about is if I'm teaching you so you can be fed. That's all you care about. You're so selfish. Yeah, you're selfish. All right.
Yeah, you're totally depraved. That's true. That's right. Oh, yeah. Okay. I guess we're about ready. We're ready because she's doing something a little bit more. So, I wanted to make sure. We got everything going?
Oh, look at all that stuff down there. Okay, ready? I can pray? Yep. Okay. Lord, we come before you and we ask that you would bless us. Bless this time. I thank you, Lord, for those who are here. And, Lord, as we look at the Trinity, we ask that you would open up our hearts and minds.
We've gone through it before. And maybe this time it'll sink into someone new. And they will learn all the more why it's a good doctrine and why it is true. We ask this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Amen. All right. So, now that we've started the video stuff, fewer and fewer people are showing up. And is it because they're at home watching? So, if you are at home watching, I'd like you to email me and let me know.
Because if fewer and fewer people come when I'm teaching, why teach? That's the logic. So, if fewer and fewer people are coming because I stink, that's one thing. If it's because they're watching from home, that's just fine.
I need to know. So, you need to go to CARM website, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And that's just notes from Bogota. I'll be in South America. And so, just email me there. Just say, yeah, I'm watching it. And how many?
Just please do. Don't say, yeah, I should. Do it. I really need to know. All right? Because it does affect the continuation of this. Because I would rather spend time speaking to as many people as possible and preparing things for as many people as possible than, you know, not that you guys aren't important.
But that's just one of the things. So, that last one was important. All right. So, who asked for the Trinity? You did, right? No, somebody did. So, who asked for the Trinity last week? And then they wanted to do the Trinity.
Trinity, Trinity, Trinity. All right. So, what we'll do is we'll start with the doctrine of the Trinity. And a lot of it is going to be basic. We'll go through some stuff. I have some quotes from the Mormons, from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and from Christian science.
You guys know what Christian science is? Sort of. I'll tell you about that a little bit. We'll go through some doctrines, what the Trinity is. And I'm going to explain to you why the Trinity is necessary, basically, for our salvation.
All right? If God is not a Trinity, then it doesn't work. I'm hearing myself. Look at that. It's working. There's technology stuff. Voices in my head? So, those got out. Usually, no one else knows about them.
That's right. So, those voices in my head. All right. So, what's the Trinity? The Trinity is the teaching, the monotheistic doctrine. Monotheism. Trinitarianism is monotheism. It is not polytheism. It is not triadism.
It is not anything like that. It is, by definition, by nature, monotheistic. Mono. One. Theos. God. One God. Monotheism. It is not polytheism. I don't care what the One is Pentecostals say. I don't care what the Mormons say.
I don't care what the Jehovah's Witnesses say. It is, by definition, monotheism. And I've had many debates with people about what the Trinity is. Muslims, for example, will say the Trinity is three gods.
And Mary's part of the Godhead and things like that. They've said that. And I'll say, look, it is not what the Trinity is. Yes, it is. And they'll say, no, it's not. And this is one of the problems I've had with people that I debate the doctrine of Trinity with.
And I'll say, no, the Trinity is one God and three simultaneous, eternal, co-powerful, distinct persons. And they'll say, you're wrong. And I'll say, no, that's what the Trinity is. They'll say, no, you're wrong.
There are three gods. I've had discussions like this with Mormons. And I'll say, look, I mean with Muslims. And I'll say, look, look, look, I know what the Trinity is. I've been studying theology for, you know, 30 some odd years.
And I have a Master's of Divinity. Oh, now you're boasting. You know, sometimes it doesn't matter what you say. You just can't, not that you want to win, but you can't win. And so people will tell me, it doesn't matter what they say.
You're just wrong. Okay, well, whatever. The doctrine of the Trinity is that there's one God in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father is not the same person as the Son, who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit, who is not the same person as the Father.
There are three distinct persons, not three gods. We say the word person because what we just basically say is, has to do with the issue of how we understand personhood. It's kind of a tautologist thing here.
What's a person? A person is someone who has a will, can think, says you and yours and me and mine and things like that. And so what we see is that in the doctrine of the Trinity, that's weird. Bible pages are ripped.
In the doctrine of the Trinity, there's three distinct persons. The Father speaks to the Son. The Son speaks to the Father. The Father and the Son speak. The Holy Spirit speaks. The Father has a will.
The Son has a will. So we know that, for example, each one is called God. The Father is called God, Philippians 1, verse 2. Jesus is called God, Colossians 2, 9. The Holy Spirit is called God in Acts 5, verses 3 through 4.
Each one is called the Creator, Isaiah 64, 8. Speaking of God, therefore the Father. In John 1, verse 3, in Colossians 1, 15 through 17, the Son is called the Creator, and the Holy Spirit is the Creator also, Job 33, 4, and 26, 15.
So we see many places where God is spoken of as the being who's a creator. Also, and I'm not going to get into all of this because I've got this chart here, and you can go on the CARM website, and you can look up the doctrine of the Trinity, and you'll find this chart.
And it's a really nice little chart, and it shows that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each resurrect, in the case of Jesus. Each indwell us. Each is everywhere. Each is all-knowing. Each sanctifies.
Each is life-giver. We have fellowship with eternal. Each is eternal. Each has a will. See right here, probably blurry, but there it is. That's just really annoying right up there close to the camera.
But you can go check it out. There's only one God in all place and all time. Is that my phone doing that? All right. Turn that down. So that's what the Trinity is. It's not three gods. It is one God, one being who is God.
That's what it is. All right. Let's see what's going on here. Sorry, this is live. It's live TV. Okay. All right, good. So I need to turn that off. That's what the Trinity is. It's been under assault.
In fact, I had, believe it or not, a roommate. He was in my wedding. And he went to a Christian college with me. And nice guy, great guy in a lot of areas. And, you know, I moved up here. And every now and then we'd talk on the phone.
And one day he started getting a little bit obstreperous about some things. He started getting a little bit negative about some theological aspects. And I tried to correct him. But he's not the kind who likes to be corrected.
And so, you know, I just let a lot of stuff roll because I just know him. We used to be roommates in college. And I thought, well, we'll just see where he's going with this. And then over the next few months, he attacked the doctrine of the Trinity.
And when he attacked it, he, I mean, he attacked it. And I could tell in his tone he had no interest in discussing it. He decided it was a bad doctrine and that Christianity as a whole shouldn't be believing it.
We haven't talked since. I don't have any plans to talk to him since because, you know, he's moving into heterodoxy. Not that I couldn't refute him. Not that I couldn't deal with him. But when people are headstrong and they don't care, they don't care.
And you'll lose friends over truth. You will lose acquaintances over truth as well. So anyway, that's what the doctrine of the Trinity is. It's one God and three simultaneous distinct persons. Now a lot of times people say, well, the Trinity doesn't make any sense.
Well, it's not an issue of it making sense. As though in order for something to be true, you have to understand it. That's not how things work. In order for something to be true, it has to have its value apart from your decision, apart from your deciding whether or not it's true or not.
We do not decide truth for ourselves and say, now it's true because I've decided it's true. Now the Trinity is not illogical, but it can be paradoxical. Now sometimes what people will do is they'll say the Trinity is 1 plus 1 plus 1.
And they'll say, and this is what you guys say, Matt. They'll say, you believe that there's the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And you say that's 1. So there's 1 plus 1 plus 1 is 1. And they'll say, that's illogical.
And I'll say, well, you're correct. It is illogical to say that 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1. Is that a proper representation of the Father? I mean, excuse me, of the Trinity. If we were to say the Father plus the Son and plus the Holy Spirit, we would say it equals the Trinity.
So what we would say is 1 person, 1 person, 1 person equals 3 persons. That's what we say. 3 persons is the Trinity. So what they're doing is they're confusing their terms. They're saying 1 plus 1 plus 1.
1 plus 1 plus 1 what? Is it 1 God plus 1 God plus 1 God equals 1 God? No, we don't say that. We don't say there's 1 God and 1 God and 1 God becomes 1 God. That's not our position. It's 1 person plus 1 person plus 1 person, 3 persons.
And that's what the Trinity is. When people are antagonistic to the doctrine of the Trinity, they do so because they've been misled or and or. They're just simply not regenerate. They don't understand what the truth is.
They don't want to know what the truth is a lot of times. So, you know, I try and work with them and try and get them to understand what the Trinity is. Now, a lot of times what I'll do, and you might want to try this.
If you're ever debating someone on the Trinity and they'll say the Trinity is false, like a Jehovah's Witness or Muslim or a United Pentecost or say a oneness person. We'll get into some of those errors.
One of the things I'll do is I'll say, look, you say the Trinity is false. They'll say that's correct. It's false. I said, OK, why is it false? And they might, you have to ask questions. Well, it's false because there's only 1 God.
Well, that's what we agree. It's 1 God. The Trinity is 1 God. So you don't understand it. Oh, yes, I do. Then you get into that thing. So why is it wrong? Well, because you teach there's 3 gods. OK, let's go over this again.
We don't teach that. And they'll say, well, it's not in Scripture. How do you know it's not in Scripture? And they'll ask me, is there a single verse in the Bible that says there's 1 God in 3 persons?
I'll say, nope. They'll say, see, so it's not in the Bible. Well, you know, Psalm 14 .1, you know, the foolish person is one who denies God exists. You know, the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
Well, that's atheism. Yeah, but the word atheism isn't in the Bible. So does that mean atheism is not a concept in the Bible? Or monotheism, the word monotheism is not in the Bible. So does that mean that monotheism is not biblical?
So people are not thinking very critically when they say things like, well, the word trinity is not there. Or one particular verse doesn't describe the trinity. I'll say, well, you're right. One particular verse does not describe the trinity.
And they'll say, see, it's false. Now, see, you don't understand. You don't understand what it is. Because if you understood what it is, you never would have made that statement. You never would have said that the trinity is false because there's not a single verse that says the doctrine of the trinity like that.
Instead, the doctrine of the trinity is arrived at systematically by looking at the whole of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. That's how it's arrived at, by looking at the whole of Scripture. And I'll say to them, all right, so if the doctrine of the trinity is false, it's false because that system of analysis is false.
We don't arrive at it by simply looking at a single verse. We look at it by looking at the whole of Scripture. We have a way of looking. We see things. Oh, that's how we derive the trinity. Now, I'll say to them, if the trinity is false, you have to understand how it's derived.
Then you can tell me if that system is wrong. Otherwise, you don't know what you're talking about. So I'll say to them, so what is that system? Oh, it's ripping things out of context. Okay, let's try this again without diapers.
Okay, do you know how the doctrine of the trinity is arrived at? Oh, you like that, huh? So I'll say, do you know how the doctrine of the trinity is arrived at? And they'll say, okay, what I want them to do is understand that there's a methodology of getting to what the doctrine of the trinity is, and I've already explained it.
A lot of times what I'll do is I'll bring up this chart, you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and each one does this, this, this, this, this, this. Each one has a will, resurrects. Each one's involved in our fellowship, redemption, and things like this.
I'll even explain it to them beforehand. Hint, this is the system you use to arrive at the scriptures. You see, we have verses here from all over the scriptures. We have them from Psalms, from Micah, from Romans, from Luke, Ephesians, Revelation, from John, from the book of Job, Colossians.
We have, from Isaiah, we've got verses from all over the scriptures. And I'm going to do from all over the Bible probably, but this is just representative. So I'll show this to them and say, now, how's the doctrine of the trinity arrived at?
And they don't know. They can't even repeat it because I've just shown them. And then they'll say, well, the system's wrong. And I'll say, well, let me show you how it's arrived at. Now, the Father's called God, the Son's called God, the Holy Spirit's called God.
And they'll say, yeah. In fact, this happened one time for real. The guy says, I deny the trinity. I said, you do? He says, yeah. I said, well, is the Father God? Yes. Is the Son God? He goes, yeah. Is the Holy Spirit God?
He said, yeah. Okay. Does the Father have a will? Yes. Does the Holy Spirit have a will? Yes. Does the Son have a will? Yes. Do they speak to each other? Yes. Does the Father love? Yes. Does the Son love?
Yes. Does the Holy Spirit love? Yes. They love us? Yes. Does the Father speak? Yes. Does the Holy Spirit speak? Yes. Does the Son speak? Yes. I said, that's the Trinity. He goes, no, it's not. I said, well, yeah, that's what it is.
That's what it is. And so this one guy wouldn't believe in the Trinity, but he was believing in the Trinity. And I said, that's just what it is. No, no, no, no, it's not the Trinity. And he had this negative reaction towards the word, the word Trinity.
Man, you're having a good day over there, aren't you? Yeah. Okay. So now, okay. Having said all of that, let me go through some stuff in scripture. This is Romans 1 .18,. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God has made it evident to them.
Now, verse 20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal powers, divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.
So one of the things I'd like to say at this point is that we can see a Trinity of Trinities in creation. Now, I tell people, I say, you already believe in Trinities and they'll say, no, I don't. They'll say, yeah, you do.
They'll say, time is past, present, and future. And they'll say, yeah. Space is height, width, depth. Matter is solid, liquid, gas. I said, you believe in a Trinity of Trinities. No, I don't. I've had people, you know, they're obstreperous.
And if you don't know what that means, folks, it means boisterously recalcitrant. You can look that up. So what they'll do is they'll say, no, I don't believe in the Trinity, but they see Trinities around them.
And why? Because the fingerprints of God exist in creation. We see him that way. Now, I remember when I was nine, nine years old. And I was outside an apartment where my mom and dad lived in Corona, California.
And I went downstairs and not too far away, across the street and across a little bit of a field was a creek. I'd go hunt for frogs. Hey, mom, look, a frog. That's nice. Get rid of it. And I remember once I'd walk across the field, you know, and I just, I remember seeing the sunrise or sunset, whatever it was.
I remember looking at the sun, not end of the sun, you know, one of those things, you know. But I mean, I was looking at the, I can still see it, the majesty, the clouds, the sunrise, you know. At nine, I was staring at it.
And I was contemplating eternity, distance, creation, what it was. I remember that at nine years old. And if I remember correctly, too, I really had a really profound understanding of the depth of distance at an incredible distance.
And I was understanding all kinds of things just flowing into my mind. And all of a sudden I heard this, this. And then ever since I wasn't quite as smart. So I think I went, I pushed myself too far. But that was when I was nine, okay.
And so I remember thinking about it, looking at creation. There was something more than just, there it is. Well, I'm reminded of that whenever I read, almost whenever I read these verses about the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his power, his nature are seen.
Well, these things, these things did not come into existence by themselves. They didn't come into existence by themselves. Now, just to do it for a little bit, I'm not gonna spend much time on this, but it is not an issue on, which I could do sometime to have fun, the Kalam cosmological argument, an infinite regression of uncaused causes, existence.
All right, so things exist, right? Well, then they had a cause, there's the cause. Well, that cause had to have a cause, right? Okay, well, when something exists, it came into existence. It was caused to come into existence.
And it was caused to come into existence, it goes backwards. So what we wanna say is that everything that has come into existence was caused to come into existence. Can you go back infinitely? Can you go back infinitely?
And the answer is no. And I'm not gonna get into all this too much philosophy stuff, but let me just say that, let's just say that here's a domino, here's a domino, here's a domino, here's a domino, three dots means ongoing.
And this is forever this way and forever that way. And if that's, you know, the dominoes are falling, right here, they're falling, hitting, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, going on. And this is infinitely long in both directions, but particularly in the past, is it possible for us to conclude rationally that there was a beginning?
No, because it's infinite. Well, here's a question. If there is no beginning, how can you have anything occurring? Because you have to have a cause for things to get underway. So without a first cause, there can't be a second cause or a third cause, and you couldn't get to now, okay?
You could not get to now. Because if it goes back infinitely, infinitely, if it goes back infinitely, it would take an infinite amount of time to get to now, to right here, right? But you can't cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.
See, there's all kinds of paradoxes, and we're gonna do all that, but that's enough for now. But the thing is, you can look and say, creation had a beginner. It was God. That's the kind of thing that's going on.
Now, if you heard the radio show today, I think it was today, the atheist guy, yeah. He's working hard at being blind. He's working hard at deceiving himself. And it was obvious. You know, I was giving him answers.
No matter what I would say, he would just argue about everything and get his philosophy, you know, okay. Been there, done that. People work hard at trying to deal with stuff like this, and they work hard at their own, excuse me, their own blindness, their own desire to rebel against God and the truth of his creation.
They do this because that's their nature. Ephesians 2 .3, they're by nature children of wrath. 1 Corinthians 2 .14, they cannot receive the things of God for they're foolishness to them. They cannot receive them.
So they have to, in light of things like this that I just erased, but in light of things like this, they'll come up with philosophical ideas and how to have this or that or whatever it is, because they don't want God.
That's their nature. But nevertheless, back to the doctrine of the Trinity. Within the doctrine of the Trinity, we have two aspects called, for now, called the economic trinity, all right? The economic, economic, hope I can spell, and the ontological, all right?
So the ontological trinity has to do with ontos, the nature and essence of something, and so all of the members of the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same nature, divine, divinity, all right?
So divinity, and I'm gonna add this, holiness, I believe holiness is a quality of God alone. That's another topic. The economic trinity, from economia in Greek, has to do with the relationship that's changed, but relationship between the members of the Trinity.
So the Father sent the Son, the Son did not send the Father. The Holy Spirit and the, excuse me, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not become incarnate, but the Father, excuse me, the Son became incarnate, nor did the Father become incarnate, and things like this.
It's just an interaction of how things work. Now, when you go to John 6, 37 to 40, in that pericope, it talks about, it talks about stuff like, all that you have given me, Father, of them I will lose none.
Given me. Now, what does that have to do with, that you have given me? Well, what I believe it has to do with is something found in Hebrews 13, 20. Hebrews 13, 20 is where it mentions the blood of the eternal covenant.
Hebrews 13, 20, the blood of the eternal covenant, and I preach on this Sunday. This is part of my sermon. So, in Hebrews 13, 20, a covenant is a pact or an agreement between two or more parties. It would make sense that the eternal covenant would be the inter-Trinitarian communion covenant in order to redeem mankind, where the Father would elect and choose, all right, that's Ephesians 1, 4, and 5, and give them to the Son, John 6, which I had right over here and erased, John 6, 37 through 40.
The Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin, John 16, and all three would indwell us. This is redemption. Now, we're gonna get into this a little bit more a little bit later. We're gonna talk about the heretical views of the nature of God.
In fact, no, I won't do that yet. Do eternal sonship, and then I'll do the heresies. Okay, so, so we have, we have the fall, all right, and with the fall, we have people who are going to be regenerate, all right, and we're gonna have people who are gonna be non-regenerate, saved, unsaved.
Now, in order for them to be saved, in order for them to be saved, before the universe was created, okay, this is when the Trinity existed by itself. Before this all went on, we had the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Son was always in relationship to the Father, as the Son, because the Father from eternity reached into the, not reached in, but had given John, I didn't make that, John 6, 37 through 40, the ones given, all the ones that you have given me, ugh, okay, all given, all the ones given, all the ones given by the Father to the Son here, here.
This is important. This is the eternal Sonship of Christ in the inter-Trinitarian communion. So all that the Father has given him, which Jesus would redeem here at the cross, all of them were given to him back here, and we have this doctrine called the eternal Sonship of Christ, of the Son.
This relationship is eternal because the election of the all who are given to the Son occurred here, not here. A lot of people will make the mistake of thinking that God looks into the future to see who's gonna pick him, and then he goes, oh, who's gonna pick?
Oh, look at that, Matt's gonna pick. Nathan's gonna pick. Oh, okay, let's give him to the Son. That violates several doctrines, but one of them, it violates the doctrine of no partiality. Romans 2 .11, there's no partiality with God.
And James 2 .2 -4, that God negates the idea of judging anybody favorably because of a quality that they have. And so God would not look into the future to see who's gonna pick him because it would mean that he is showing favoritism by giving them to the Son because of a good thing that they're gonna do.
But wait a minute, how can they do a good thing if they're not regenerate? Now we would have, essentially, the circumventing of the cross. Whole other thing, which I'm gonna be talking to Molinists about some other time.
So that's what we call eternal sonship, and it's in part of the Trinity. Now what I wanna do now is go through some bad ideas of what the Trinity is. And some of them are kinda fun to read, at least for me.
You know how some people love to talk sports? I like heresy. Some people, oh man, that guy threw that pass for 40 yards? And that was a really good throw. I don't know anything about sports, I don't know.
I don't, I don't know, I gotta go. That was good? Yeah, that was good. Okay, good. See, it doesn't interest me. What I like is heresy, like, oh, that's a good heresy. I take heresy and rub it in my chest, oh yeah.
I like heresy. Yeah, I know, I got issues. So this is what Islam says the Trinity is. Trinity is shirk. What, nodding about shirk? I got issues? I don't, no, I don't put oil on it to do it that way. No, that's not good.
Don't get him expanded, Rob. That would not be good. No, but I offer him as privacy in my room, I go, oh, talk to me. Yeah, that's good stuff. A little, you know, good music on, you know. All right, I do like heresy.
I don't know, it's just the way I'm made. Okay, so this is what Islam says. The Trinity is shirk, which is unforgivable, okay. It's an unforgivable sin that associates partners with God and it states that the Trinity is basically the father, son, and Mary, okay.
And they do blaspheme those who say that God is a Trinity. God is one of three. See, they're misrepresenting the doctrine of the Trinity with three gods, that's Surah 573. So basically, Islam gets it wrong.
And I'll often do this with Muslims. I'll say, I think it's Surah, what is it, 42, I think. Don't quote me, it might be that. Where if there's one thing wrong in the Quran or if it's from God, there won't be any discrepancies.
I think that's what it is. And so I think that's a Surah, but at any rate. Well, they get a discrepancy here that the Trinity is three gods. No, it's not three gods. It never was, never has been, never will be.
So they mess up. I'm gonna save the Christian scientists for last because I like Christian science. The Jehovah's Witnesses is another Trinity. They say, check this out. A fundamental doctrine of so-called Christendom is that known of the Holy Trinity or known as Holy Trinity.
It is accepted as scriptural truth and held sacred by millions of persons. The doctrine in brief is that there are three gods in one. God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Ghost. All three equal in power, substance, and eternity.
The origin of the Trinity doctrine is traced back to the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians and other ancient mythologies. Let God be true. 2nd edition, 1952, pages 100, 101. So, you know, it says, I got a whole bunch of quotes right here on the Trinity from them.
But let's see. What then do the facts show us of the Trinity? Neither the word nor the ideas in God's word, the Bible. The doctrine did not originate with God. The truth that leads to eternal life, page 25.
Actually, that should be called the truth, or the lies that lead to eternal damnation. That's what it should be called. There was never a more deceptive doctrine advanced than that of the Trinity. It could have originated only in one mind, and that mind, the mind of Satan, the devil.
Reconciliation, 1928, page 101. So obviously the Trinity is considered a demonic doctrine by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they deny the Trinity. I'm gonna go through why we need the Trinity in order to be saved.
I'll do that later. Mormonism says this, this is Apostle James Talmage, Articles of Faith, page 35. Separate individuals, the Trinity's three gods, separate individuals, physically distinct from each other, is demonstrated by the accepted records of divine dealings with man.
So they don't have physical distinctions. Why? Because in Mormonism, God is an exalted man from another planet. Let me think about that. I started a religion. You know, I got an idea. And what's your idea?
I wanna start a new religion. Oh, okay. Well, what's it gonna teach? Well, I like the idea of aliens, and I was thinking that, you know, my god would be, you know, an exalted creature from another planet.
And he comes to this world. It looks like us. And then he's got a mate in heaven, and they make spirit babies, and then we worship him as God and goddess. But you need handshakes to become one of them.
What do you think? No one would believe anything like that. That reminds me. Back in the 80s, this is no lie. When I was doing swapping ministry in Southern California off the 22 freeway, across the freeway, basically from the Crystal Cathedral.
And I remember this. Some guy, this is no lie, no lie. This guy, this is true. This guy came up to me, and he said, what are you guys doing? We had this booth, and we had rocks holding down tracks because the wind would blow them away, and we're talking, and my buddy and I, and blah, blah, blah.
Mormons here, Jehovah's Witness up there, Christian science, you know, whatever. And we're trying to witness. We went out to the marketplace, and this guy comes up, and we get a discussion. And he said, so what does Mormonism teach?
I said, well, it teaches that God used to be a man on another world, and he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of that god on that planet. And then, once you become a good Mormon here on this world, you have the potential of becoming a god also.
But I forgot to tell you, I said, you see God and his goddess wife have physical relations and produce spirit offspring that inhabit human bodies at birth. And then you have the potential of becoming a god by becoming a good Mormon, full 10 tithe, you come to the church, you go to the temple, you get secret handshakes, secret hugs, and some holy undergarments that help protect you and things like that.
I told him this, this is all Mormonism, it's all true. And the guy literally looked at me and said, you're lying. And I said, no, I'm not lying, I'm telling you, I got the documentation right here. He said, he just goes, look, you're just flat out, you're a liar.
I said, no, this is what they teach. He said, nobody's that stupid to believe that. And he walked off. He walked off. I got the documentation right here. I think he flipped me off, I'm not sure. But I'm like, I never forgot that.
I'm like, no, this is what they teach. And he actually said, I'm a liar because no one was that stupid to believe that. Well, actually, now, this is what Christian science teaches. Okay, if you don't know what Christian science is, Christian science is one of the mind science cults started by Mary Baker Eddy in the 1800s.
And everything is an interpretation of the divine mind. Now, in Science and Health with the Key to the Scriptures, page 25, starting in line eight, the material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse us from sin when it was shed upon the cross than when it was flowing through his veins as he went about daily doing his father's business.
So in other words, they deny the blood sacrifice of Christ as being sufficient. All right, so in Science and Health with the Key to the Scriptures, it says the traditional doctrine of the Trinity is polytheism, page 256.
The theory of three persons in one God that is a personal trinity or triunity suggests polytheism. Life, truth, and love constitute the triune person called God. That is the triply divine principle love.
They represent a trinity in unity, three in one, the same in essence, though multi-form in office. God the father, mother, Christ the spiritual idea of sonship, divine science, or the holy comforter.
So they take the trinity and they redefine it all over the place. So I love Christian science. I should teach on Christian science sometime because it's like, people go, what? In fact, I'll tell you the story.
So everything's an interpretation of divine mind, right? Because how you perceive it, that's why they don't want to go to doctors because you're giving reality by your speech to sickness. Sound familiar?
Positive confession movement. So I was out passing out anti-Christian science literature. This is what they teach. This is what the Bible says. It was just that with the gospel presentation. And remember, everything's an interpretation of divine mind, how you perceive reality.
That's basically what's going on, how you perceive it. So if you're sick, you're perceiving something that's not in harmony with the divine consciousness. It's not real. All right. So at this Christian science lecture, one of the few times, several times actually, that I went and passed out literature back in the 80s, mid 80s when it was pretty popular, particularly in Southern California, not so much here in Idaho.
So I had some literature and I was passing it out. And this guy goes, oh, thank you very much. He's a Christian scientist. Hey, I love to read this stuff. And he just read it like that. And he's walking off and I'm like, hey, you want one?
Yeah, I'll take one. You want one? I'll take one. And I noticed this guy's reading. And he goes, and I could see him like 50 feet away. He was stopped and his head's down and his body's shifting. I'm like, okay, he's not liking what he's reading.
And he turns around. He starts walking towards me. And he has the paper in his hand like this. And he's got it. Oh, look, there's some notes in here. They're all crumbled up like this. And he walks up.
No lie. He walks up like this and he goes like this. Okay. And I sat there and I waited and I thought he's gonna just take a punch at me. And so he goes, and he shoves it into my pocket and rips my pocket, right?
And he goes, I don't want any of these lies. You shouldn't be here doing this. And he walks away. And I said, I'm not really here. You're just interpreting my existence improperly. And he's walking. He went, and he kept going.
Yeah, I said that. This is the evangelism book, chapter three, how to win friends and influence people by being a smart aleck. And that was when I was younger. And yeah, and yesterday, yeah. So anyway, now I've learned a lot more.
Say, well, sir, I would do it differently now. Say, well, can we talk about this? But no, I said, don't worry, I'm not really here. And smart aleck answer, you know. So I don't know, it's not a good approach, but at any rate, okay.
Now, so you guys liked that, huh? Having a good time, man. All right. Good for you. Okay, now. All right, so what I wanna do is talk a little bit about heresies and why they're heresies, why this is dangerous.
Is it Trinity important? Absolutely, it's important. Why is it important? It's important because for one, it's scriptural. It's biblical. That's what the Bible has said. It's what the Bible has revealed.
So we wanna go with what the Bible says. Now, another thing is that, I'm gonna illustrate this the right way here. We have the Father, we have the Son, and we have the Holy Spirit. All right. Now, in oneness Pentecostal, they have a Father, they have the Son, they have the Holy Spirit.
This is oneness Pentecostal. Because in oneness Pentecostal, there's only one person who has three, now, I know that I'm gonna upset a few of them when I say it this way, three forms or three manifestations, okay?
But they'll say it's not three forms, it's not three manifestations, but then they'll use the terms that describe forms and manifestations. And what they wanna do is kind of say that God takes three appearances.
Sometimes they'll use the term manifestation. Sometimes they will use the term form. So I'm gonna stick with this because they have used these terms. But what they're saying is this, without a doubt, only one person.
Now, that's what the oneness Pentecostal says. Now, why is this important? Well, this is important because we have a question we have to ask now. In something like that, how do we have an incarnation?
Serious question. So we have the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all right? In oneness. Now we have Jesus. So here's Jesus, okay? And within this person are two distinct natures, the divine and the human, the divine nature and the human nature.
This is the person of Jesus. I don't even like drawing a stick figure of Jesus, makes me nervous. So we have the one person who's divine and human, okay? So we have one person, right? You got this, right?
Now, he has two natures. So he's divine to offer an infinitely valuable sacrifice. He's a human in order to offer it, now I can draw people, on behalf of people. No problem. In this situation, where's the incarnation?
Now, in biblical orthodoxy, the incarnation is permanent. It's a permanent incarnation. Now, the reason I can say that, is for example, Hebrews 6 .20 and 7 .25, okay? Jesus lives after the order of Melchizedek forever in order to make intercession for us.
I combine the two. He's forever a high priest. According to the Old Testament law, in Leviticus chapter eight, numbers four, Exodus 29, and read those chapters, you'll find out that in those basic chapters there, are some of the requirements of what a priest needed to do in order to be, a man needed to do in order to be a priest.
He had to be anointed with oil, that's the Holy Spirit. Verbal blessing, give it my beloved son. 30 years of age, Jesus was 30. Water applied, actually was sprinkled, but that's another thing. And he was to do this in order to enter into the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.
Now, can you be a priest if you're not a man? No, Jesus is right now a man. Colossians 2 .9, for in him dwells all the fullness of deity and bodily form. And there's one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2 .5.
So his incarnation is permanent, so that he can forever live to make intercession for us. Hebrews 6 .27 .25. Now he was also made under the law, Galatians 4 .4. So he's made under the law to fulfill the law, right, for us, and he was divine so he could fulfill the law and never fail.
Now, how does a true incarnation happen here? Because what happens when you go to, for example, Luke 22 .42, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus is praying to God the Father and says, not my will, but your will.
So I'll ask the oneness people. Wait a minute, can you please tell me now, who is he praying to? So what they generally say is the spirit of God, was praying to, oh, excuse me, the flesh, excuse me, the flesh was praying to the spirit.
So the flesh was praying to the spirit, but that implies one person, and this implies one person. Because personhood has a will, self-awareness, aware of others. The flesh was praying to the spirit, that implies two persons.
We get into that error, it's similar to this, Nestorianism. Okay, look that up. It's the idea that there's two persons in the body of Christ, generically speaking. So this is what's going on here. So, well, wait a minute.
So the flesh is praying to the spirit. Where's the spirit? In heaven. So the divinity is in heaven, not incarnate? You see the problem now? You go, wait a minute. That, you're denying the incarnation now, aren't you?
Because not only we have this, we have Galatians 4 .4. He cooperated with the limitations of being a man, Philippians 2, five through eight. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also existed in Jesus, who, although he was existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, if they need to be grasped.
But he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant being found, he humbled himself to the point of death. Now it says that there in Philippians 2. I can always paraphrase that a little bit. Five through eight.
And then also you can go to Hebrews 1, no, 2 .9. Okay, Hebrews 2 .9. He was made for a little while lower than the angels. So he's made under the law for a little while lower than the angels, cooperating with the limitations of being a man.
Why? Because the spirit was under the law in the person of Jesus who was incarnate. And that's why he would grow in wisdom and stature, Luke 2 .52. All right, now. So when we look at Luke 22 .42, and we see that Jesus is praying to the father, except he is the father.
He's now praying to himself, who's not in himself, but outside, but also in himself. See how screwed up this is? Now I can go into more detail about this, but we're gonna be over here in like five or 10 minutes.
So this is one of the problems, as you can see, that oneness Pentecostal has a serious problem in that it risks the true incarnation. If it risks the true incarnation, do you have a true atonement? No.
So one person can't become incarnate because to be just kind of crass, not really, but just be overly simplistic, if he becomes under the law, has to cooperate with the limitations of being a man, who's left to run the universe?
So if we have the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, the son, eternal son, becomes flesh. Divine, right? Divinity, excuse me, divinity is here. And divinity is in the son, who is both God and man. So we have an incarnation of the word.
And this is made possible by the doctrine of the Trinity, what the Trinity actually is. All right? Now let's talk Jehovah's Witnesses. So, because they represent, these two groups represent basically everything.
Basically, except for polytheism. So in Jehovah's Witness theology, there's God the father, there's the son who's lesser, and the son is created. The Holy Spirit is a force. Now, we know that the Holy Spirit, for example, speaks Acts 13 verse two.
Holy Spirit's called God, Acts five verses three and four. And John 16, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Conviction is necessary in the issue of redemption. So the father elects, the son redeems, the Holy Spirit convicts and applies redemptive work.
All right? We can get into all that kind of stuff. So back to the Jehovah's Witnesses. So what they say is that the father is divine and that the son is creature. So therefore the son does not have divine quality.
And so therefore there is no divine incarnation. Now in Jehovah's Witness theology, Jesus only died for the 144 ,000. He only mediates for the 144 ,000. Everybody else has got to earn their salvation, so to speak.
Actually everybody does, but that's another topic. We'll teach on them sometime. So with them, there's no incarnation. Without an incarnation, we cannot have a divine sacrifice, can we? There is no forgiveness of sins in Jehovah's Witnesses.
There's no forgiveness of sins in one is Pentecostal. There's no forgiveness of sins in Mormonism, which has three separate gods, three gods, and one of the gods becomes flesh and dwells among us, but he's not the divine being.
We have polytheism and that's more complicated. We have time to get into. So the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong. Now, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, all teach that you have to be good to be saved.
Not those exact words, but that's what's going on. They teach that you must have a quality of goodness and obedience to the law in order to demonstrate yourself right with God. Why? Because their view of God is not triune.
Therefore, that's therefore, three dots. Therefore, there is no divine incarnation. Because there's no divine incarnation, therefore, the cross is now null and void because it's not sufficient to pay for our sins, because it's not a divine sacrifice.
When you have a wrong God, you have a wrong Christ, okay? God, this is Christ, and this is the gospel. When you get this wrong, you get this wrong, you get this wrong. The Trinity is critical. Without the doctrine of the Trinity, you can't have a true incarnation.
You can't have a true conviction of the work of the Holy Spirit upon them, and in, and with, and through. You can't have an eternal high priest who lives forever to make intercession for us. You can't have all that is necessary for a redemptive work where the Father calls, gives to the Son, who then comes and redeems ones given to him by the Father, and the Holy Spirit helps to apply the redemptive work as he convicts and opens the heart of people within dwelling of God himself.
Is the Trinity important? Absolutely. Absolutely. If God was not triune, if he wasn't plural, there could be no true incarnation. Without a true incarnation, there could be no redemption, because there could be no true sacrifice.
Without God being plural in the sense of his triunity, we can't be saved. We'd be lost. All the devil has to do is get people to believe in a false God, and you'll believe in a false Christ. You'll believe in a false gospel.
And all of those false gospels teach, you have got to know something and do something in order to be right with the infinitely holy God. Why? Because it's not God who did the work. It's man who did the work.
It's a creature that did the work. And if a creature can do the work and satisfy God, you as a creature can do it too. This is why it's so problematic. This is why it's wrong. This is why the Trinity is true, and everybody else who disagrees, you're flat out wrong.
The doctrine of Trinity is in scripture. I've already gone over it. Basically, this brief thing and putting a whole bunch of stuff together, I hope makes sense, helps illuminate the idea of why the Trinity is important and why the cults are what they are, why their theologies are so whacked, why they have so many problems in so many different ways.
All right? All right, so what we'll do is take a break for five or 10-ish, and then we'll just come back with Q &A and stuff like that, and we'll talk some more. So let me close in prayer, and we're done.
Lord, thank you for this time, and I ask for your mercy to continue upon us, and that you would help people to see the truth of your word, to see the truth of your nature and the Trinitarian essence, the incarnation, the true gospel.
Lord, that we would come to know you in a true way. Lord, may we trust in what you've done, God in flesh, on that cross, did what we could not do, and the Trinity makes that incarnation and that work and that sacrifice possible so that we could be saved if we put our trust and our hope in what you've done, Lord Jesus, God in flesh.
We thank you, we praise you, and we ask all this in your name, Lord. Amen. Okay.
