Simply Trinity (part 29)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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That means he has no origin whatsoever. Not only, as with the other persons of the

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Trinity, was there never a time when any of them did not exist, but the

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Father is the source, as it were. So, the

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Father is eternally unbegotten, the

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Son is eternally begotten, and then the Holy Spirit is said to be eternally spirated.

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So, to our logical minds, our feeble logical minds, in our minds, when we hear that the

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Father is the source, and the Son is eternally begotten, that is, he comes forth from the

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Father, then what do we presume? That he had an origin. But to have an origin means that there was a time when he did not exist, and there's a problem with that because, again, we're creatures.

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We think in terms of what we experience, and how we go through time.

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And the problem with that is, God doesn't go through time. God is outside of time.

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So the concept of timelessness is one that kind of warps our minds a little bit. Before anything existed, before time existed, the

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Son, the second person of the Trinity, was eternally begotten. And the

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Spirit was eternally spirated, that is to say, sent or breathed out by the

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Father and the Son. So when we say the Spirit drives the

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Son out in Jesus, out into the wilderness to be tempted, that's in keeping with his own personal property, that he's sent by the

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Father and the Son, but he's sent into the world, why? To help believers, to be the comforter.

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And so for the Son, he also provides that impetus for the Son to go out into the wilderness to be tried, where the

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Spirit then undergirds the Son, and gives him the strength to withstand the temptations of Satan.

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So he sends him out there, and then he undergirds him. Anyway, moving on here with having identified both inseparable operations, and what was the other one?

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Yeah, divine appropriations. We go to number six, true or false, which are always good, because then you have a 50 % chance of being right.

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The Father had no role in the incarnation of the Son. That's false.

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Barrett says, but notice the incarnation is not the Son gone solo.

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I wanted to put it in there for no other reason than that. It's not the Son gone solo. The Son went rogue, you know, and decided to come into Earth.

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Nope. The incarnation may be the incarnation of the Son, but the miracle of the incarnation is wrought, or done, by the

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Father, Son, and Spirit alike. As Augustine explains, let him therefore understand the incarnation and the virgin birth in the same way, as indivisibly wrought, done, by one and the same working of Father and Son, not leaving out, of course, the

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Holy Spirit, of whom it is said in so many words that she was found to be with child of the

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Holy Spirit. We emphasize a lot of times that the Holy Spirit superintends the incarnation of the

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Son, but obviously the Son then takes a human nature to himself, and the

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Father is also involved because there's creation, the creation of the human being, the human

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Jesus. So, all three persons are involved there. I think that's one practical implication, you know, that the

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Son did not go rogue in coming to the Earth, you know, to protect us from the

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Father's wrath, that the Old Testament God was the God of wrath, the New Testament God is the

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God of love. You know, I mean, even if you just think about it in terms of what the world says, you know, it's amazing somebody, an actor,

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I mean, I'm sure there were more than, there was more than one actor that died this week, but an actor died this week, and what does everybody immediately say?

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Rest in peace, right? Rest in peace. Well, because the idea these days is it doesn't matter what you've done, what you've believed, what you've said, or anything else, as soon as you die you go to heaven.

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Even though people don't believe in God, they still believe in, you know, some kind of, everybody goes to, you know, it's not just all dogs go to heaven, all actors go to heaven, you know, all rock and roll stars go to heaven,

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I mean, we could just go on and on. But here's the point, the point is, you know, in Christmas, many people see this as a time of change, well the only change is that the

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Redeemer came into the world. The Redeemer started his mission of redeeming his people from their sins, saving his people from their sins, that's the big change.

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You know, just one more thing when you say that, because Roman Catholics say that Mary has to intercede with Jesus, well why is that?

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Because sometimes Jesus is aloof, or difficult, or, you know, doesn't really, doesn't really care so much, but he always listens to his mother.

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Well, if God is love, and he is, well that means Father, Son, and Spirit are love, and is there anything more loving than leaving heaven and entering this decaying planet?

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Filled with sin, filled with people who hate God, to actually redeem people who hate

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God. Is there anything more loving than that, than being willing to live a perfect life, die a substitutionary death, and be raised on the third day, all for the sake of others, not for you, and so the idea that somehow

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Mary is the only one who can get to the heart of Jesus is absolute rubbish, and should be rejected as blasphemous.

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Thoughts, questions, concerns, Catholics? Number seven, thank you

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Anthony, that'll be one person who liked that. True or false, number seven, eternal generation undermines the notion that the

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Son does only what he sees the Father doing. Jesus himself said that,

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I do only what I see the Father doing. Well first, what's eternal generation? I just explained it two minutes ago, so we should remember that.

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The Father begat the Son in eternity past, right? So before time began,

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Jesus was generated by the Father. That's eternal generation. And he says it undermines the notion, this author, whoever he is, whoever wrote this question, says eternal generation undermines the notion that the

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Son does only what he sees the Father doing, which Jesus said, let me see, well you would like the person to explain why it would undermine that, but the person declines to comment.

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If that person was here, it is false, it's as false as it could be.

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And sadly for whoever that person is who wrote that. And all this comes, and I think we'll have that later, my mind is just kind of going blank,

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I know the verses are nine through twenty and I can't think of the chapter where he says that, but he says that he only does what he sees the

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Father doing. But anyway, and maybe it'll be in here, oh, it probably is, Barrett says whatever the

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Father does, the Son does likewise. Whatever the Father creates, the Son creates. Whatever the

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Father sustains, the Son sustains. Whatever the Father heals, the Son heals. Whoever the

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Father raises to life, the Son raises to life. Even when we respond to the

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Father and the Son, such an inseparability is seen. To honor the

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Father is to honor the Son. These are all scriptural concepts. You can't, you know, anyone who believes in me, believes in the

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Father, I mean there are a series of things that Jesus says, if you reject me, you reject the

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Father. And to honor the Son is to honor the

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Father. Jesus even says he is to be honored just as they honor the Father. This is why the

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Father has given all judgment over to him. Only if Jesus is inseparable from the

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Father, indivisible in essence with the Father, can he make such a claim.

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That inseparability is not undermined by eternal generation, but is all the more buttressed or supported.

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Okay, thoughts, questions, concerns, before we go on to number eight, all right? Yes. No, it's not mere cooperation, it's the essence, it's the nature of the

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Triune God, right? It's not just a spirit of cooperation, of harmony. It's not the social trinity thing, you know, where they all just kind of get along to go along.

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Okay, number eight, true or false, the Spirit descending like a dove is meant to show us that he is acting by himself.

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Yeah, but he's diving and he's, you know, ducking and diving and all that stuff.

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Okay, Barrett says, our Triune God is indivisible in the descent of the

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Holy Spirit as well. Whenever we witness the Spirit in Scripture, whether he is descending on the disciples at Pentecost or indwelling the assembly of believers in the book of Acts, it is not as if the

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Spirit has gone solo, nor as if the Spirit is merely cooperating with the Father and the

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Son. Whatever the Spirit does or accomplishes, the Triune God does or accomplishes.

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For example, consider our sanctification. Paul can say that Christ himself is our sanctification, which he does in 1

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Corinthians 1, verses 2 and verse 30. And pray that the

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God of peace himself sanctify you completely, which he does in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23.

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And Peter can rejoice that God's elect are secure in the sanctification of the

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Spirit, 1 Peter 1, verse 2. So they all participate in our sanctification.

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I've mentioned this before, if we look in the section where Jesus is comforting the disciples,

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John 14, 15, 16, and it goes on to 17. But he says that he will send the

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Comforter who will be with them. But he also says that he will be with them, and he says that the

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Father and Son will be in them, will be in the disciples.

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So what does that mean? It means the Trinity altogether take up residence in believers.

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That's the essence of it. Is the Spirit emphasized? Yes. But are you separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

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The answer is no. You're always with the Trinity. Number 9.

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True or false? Inseparable operations protects us from subordination and tritheism.

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True. So let's talk about a couple of things. What is subordinationism? There's a hierarchy in the

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Trinity. The Father is the General. How many were in the military?

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Okay, nobody. Yeah, I mean, there's a rank structure in the military, right?

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So a General would be the highest ranking person. So the

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Father would be a five -star General. The Son, then, might be a full Colonel.

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And the Holy Spirit, a major Captain. Wrong. In our minds, though, sometimes we think that way.

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Why do we think that way? Because the word

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Father, I think that's part of it. I think it's also difficult for us to really understand kind of the three beings who are all powerful and yet all equal and yet one and yet three persons.

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We have a hard time with that. True, yeah. So that's subordinationism.

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And then tritheism, very simple, is three gods. So we want to stay away from both of those.

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So he says, how do inseparable operations help us with that? Again, inseparable...

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I speak for a living. Inseparable operations just being the idea that the Father, Son, and Spirit do everything together as one.

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So, conjoined with inseparable from.

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This is language we are after for phrases like these. Conjoined with or inseparable from.

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Protect the simplicity of our triune God guarding us from tritheism and subordinationism alike.

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They ensure our triune God acts as one because he is by nature one. He is simply

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Trinity. A little plug for his book. Oh, sorry. Furthermore, apart from inseparable operations we risk the heresy of inequality.

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And that is too big of a risk to take. And he gives an example here. For example, inseparable operations assume not only that the triune

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God is one in nature and will but that each person of the Godhead is equal to every other person in the

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Godhead. For there to be an inseparable operation there cannot be inferiority in deity, power, or honor.

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So, there we go. We think, okay, is the Father more God than the Son? No. Is the

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Son more God than the Holy Spirit? No. And we could do that in every possible way which

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I think is not very many. But we can rule that out.

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Number ten. Number ten, true or false. Inseparable operations leaves the door open to modalism

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Patrick. Now, why do I put Patrick in there? Do I have something against Patricks?

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Yeah, a little bit, sure. Why would I do that? What would possess me to do that?

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Why can't I resist that horrible pun? Because of a

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YouTube video. Isn't that terrible? It's that Lutheran satire video where the little leprechauns come out there.

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Now, doesn't that sound bad? Childish and immature, yes. And I really very much enjoy that.

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That's modalism Patrick. Okay, well you get the idea. Sure. Inseparable operations, true or false, leaves the door open to modalism.

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What's modalism? There's one

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God, but he operates in three modes. And so, to be clear, God is either the

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Father, or he's the Son, or he's the Holy Spirit.

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But, say the modalist, he's not all three. And the most famous modalist in the world right now is

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T .D. Jakes. So, in case you have any books at home on your bookshelf, you have your

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MacArthur section, your Sproul section, and your

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T .D. Jakes section, my suggestion is clear off some shelf space.

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So, then you wind up in tritheism. I've said about the

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Christian life, on one side is legalism, and on the other side is antinomianism, and we want to avoid both, right?

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Understanding both the law correctly, and sin correctly. We want to understand law, gospel, we want to understand sin, all those kind of things.

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We believe in hell, we fear, we're thankful to be delivered from hell. But in the same way,

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I think John raises a good point, in this sense, if our revulsion in modalism, and we should be revolted by it, because it's blasphemous, says that there's only one person of God, if our revulsion of modalism leads us to then go, well,

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I'm going to get as far away from that as possible, then we wind up in tritheism, which is the other gutter, and we want to avoid both.

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So, we want to stay in the Trinitarian lane. Wow, that's pretty cool.

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You know, we want to have a right understanding of father, son, and spirit.

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So, to answer the question, because we haven't yet, true or false, inseparable operations leaves the door open to modalism, that is false.

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Barrett says, what about Sibelianism? Now, Sibelianism is a fancy way of saying modalism.

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Why is it a fancy way of saying the same thing? Well, it's interesting because Sibelius is the person who invented modalism, and so he gets all the credit for it.

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Some assume that an inseparable operation succumbs or turns into or devolves into Sibelianism or modalism.

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If the three persons act as one by virtue of their common nature and common will, then they can no longer be three distinct persons.

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However, such an accusation fails to consider that an inseparable operation may be distinctly appropriated, mentioned earlier, divine appropriation, by father, son, and spirit alike, yet in a way that is consistent with their personal properties or eternal relations of origin.

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That's the word I was looking for. Those two things mean the same thing. Eternal relations of origin.

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Personal properties is the phrase that normal people would use. Eternal relations of origin is what you want to use if you want a pointy hat and act like a goofball.

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If you want to show off to your friends. Eternal relations of origin means the same thing as personal properties.

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Unbegotten God, the father. Eternally begotten son.

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Eternally spirated spirits. So, we've already mentioned divine appropriation, so I think we're all set on that one.

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Anyway, it's false. Inseparable operations does not leave the door open to mortalism. Thoughts, questions, concerns?

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Heresies? Okay, good. Number 11, true or false, divine appropriation explains how an action may be attributed to one member of the

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Trinity to the apparent exclusion of the others. That is true.

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And I think the key word there, which the writer did an excellent job in including, is the word apparent.

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Apparent exclusion of the others because they're not excluded. Barrett says, the word appropriation has been used by theologians to explain how the scriptures can speak of a particular person of the

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Trinity whenever an act of the triune God is in focus. Appropriation attributes an action or an effect to a divine person in a special way without excluding the other two.

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That qualification, without excluding the two others, is important, so that we don't divide up the

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Trinity and compromise its singularity, its unity, its simplicity. For as we learn, the external works of the

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Trinity, again, that's what they do what the three persons of the Trinity do in time, in creation.

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When we say external works, then what does that imply? That there are internal works of the

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Trinity, which we really don't know much about. That's just how they interact with each other. So when we say external works, it just means how they act toward us, toward creation in general.

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The external works of the Trinity are always undivided. Appropriation does not undermine inseparability, but reinforces it in every way.

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Theologian Bavink says this, All things proceed from the Father are accomplished by the

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Son and are completed in the Holy Spirit. I mean, we could test that.

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I mean, if only Bavink were here, of course he's dead, but if he were here, it'd be a good question to ask him, and then I'd be able to sit down for the rest of our time this morning.

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Thoughts, questions? Okay, number 12. Corey had one?

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You need a flare gun over there, son. First of all, if I say that God wrote the

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Bible, is that wrong? So if I say God inspired the

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Bible, is that wrong? That's his term, right?

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He breathes it out. If I say that the

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Holy Spirit inspired Scripture, is that wrong? You better say no, because that's exactly what the

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Bible says. If I say that Jesus inspired

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Scripture, is that wrong? If I say that the Father inspired

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Scripture, is that wrong? And the answer is no. Well, why is it not wrong? Because Father, Son, and Spirit all inspired

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Scripture, and in various places, one or the other is emphasized.

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We can do the same thing with creation and different things, but is it wrong to say God did this? No. Could it always say, could

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Scripture always say God did this and God did that? Yes, but then what would happen?

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What would be the issue? This is speculation, but I'll allow it.

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See what I did there. Why does

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Scripture not just say God all the time? He's already done it. He's already simplified it.

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But I mean, getting back to the question, because I can only handle one question at a time, really. We wouldn't see

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God as triune. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again for the sake of anybody who's not heard it or listened before, that what is interesting is as the church gets started, you know, as Peter and John go into the temple, they heal the man who'd been lame since I don't remember how long, but a long time.

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And he's out there, he's begging, and they go in and they start explaining to the crowd there on the temple grounds that Jesus is

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God. They don't have to say that, I'm going to tell you guys something, that God the

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Father is God, Jesus Christ is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and they don't get stoned.

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Why not? Because as they explain it from the Old Testament, not only are the minds of some of the

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Jews open and they're enabled to understand this, but it's in perfect keeping, with Scripture.

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Because God has always been triune and always revealed himself as triune, it's just that the people are stubborn and didn't want to grasp who

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Jesus was until he's dead and resurrected. And then some people get it.

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But, I think the simple answer to Corey's question is because God is triune and wants to be known as triune, and so he reveals himself as triune in Scripture.

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Well, I think that's good. I think he is those things, and we need him to be those things, and I would just say, because he is those things.

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Is that circular? Yes, but that's okay. I'm okay with that. Yeah, yeah.

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Okay, so number 13. And not a true or false question, which makes it 12.

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See, I just wanted to skip to 13. Okay, number 12. True or false, the

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Father is rightly regarded as the beginner of all activity. John is audibly wrestling with this question for us, refusing to answer it, but instead, toying with our emotions, seeing if we'll...

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Well, what I can do... Oh, go ahead in nature. Let's check with the author of this question.

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I'll send him an email. I'll get back to you. The advantage of having multiple email accounts.

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So, let's see what

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Barrett says, and then we'll get back to, you know, my thought process on this question.

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He says, we are merely recognizing that in any single act of the triune

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God toward his creation, external operations, each person receives attention in a way that corresponds to each person's distinct, incommunicable, and eternal relation of origin.

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Unbegotten Father, we said this. Begotten Son, spirited spirit, says that which is appropriated to each person is consistent with the personal properties.

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Paternity, Father, affiliation, Son, inspiration, spirit.

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So, Father, beginning of activity, fountain and wellspring of all things.

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That's from Calvin. Eternal relation, because the Father is unbegotten in eternity.

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Son, and this is again Calvin, Father's wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things.

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Eternal relation, because the Son is begotten by the Father in eternity. Spirit, Father and Son's power and efficacy.

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Every work is, quote, completed in the Holy Spirit, end quote.

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Because the Spirit is spirited by the Father and Son in eternity. Now, just for a moment, because this, this passage just readily comes to mind.

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We've talked about Ephesians 1 in the past. Ephesians 1, we would see the

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Father choosing, that is to say, beginning the activity of saving his people.

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Then, the Son does what? The Son goes and redeems these people, right?

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And the Holy Spirit seals them. So, that is an appropriation, divine appropriation, appropriate, appropriate,

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I don't want to use again, appropriate. It's an appropriation, but it's in keeping with their, the individual, incommunicable, eternal relations of origin, right?

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The Father is the beginner of activity. The Son is wisdom, counsel, the ordered disposition of things.

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The Spirit is the power and efficacy of the power, or the seal there.

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But, as we pointed out before, you know, did the Father choose the elect on his own?

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No. I mean, we would know that from other passages where Jesus says that he chose.

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Does Jesus redeem his people by himself? Well, in the sense, in the human sense, right?

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He's the only one who comes and lives a perfect life, dies a substitutionary death, and is raised on the third day.

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But, who causes us to be born again? It's the

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Holy Spirit. But, we could also say, well, wait a minute. Doesn't the Father draw us?

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Doesn't Jesus himself say, I will be lifted and I will draw people to myself? I mean, you know, there, it is complicated, but if we just think in terms of, if we're going to,

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I'm trying to use the word, if we're going to use, if we're going to assign particular aspects of salvation or anything to one of the persons of the

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Trinity, he suggests, and I think this is right, because, basically, every theologian does the same thing.

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The Father is the beginner of all things, you know, et cetera. So, things are initiated by the

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Father, they're carried out by the Son, and they're completed in the Spirit. Okay, so the answer to number 12 is true, in spite of the fact that we may not like the fact that, well, that seems like a separable operation.

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No, it's a divine appropriation. It is complicated, right, because our default is to think in terms of time and, you know, even, yeah, we need to, yeah, but just the idea that he is eternally and,

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I'll just say it, generated doesn't necessarily mean past tense. It's just a participle, participle, as they say in South Africa.

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Alright, so with that, we have to close. So, we'll pick this up and we can debate number 12 again next week if we want to.

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So, Father in Heaven, Lord, help us as we study this and, help us to see even as we read through scripture how this really helps us to better understand

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God, your nature in being Father, Son, and Spirit.

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Father, we thank you for granting us salvation and even granting us your word that we might be able to study, that we might be able to learn, that we might be able to grow in relation to you and to better grasp all that you have done for us.

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Help us today to just focus on the Lord Jesus Christ for his finished work, all that you have done for us through him and how you continue to refine us and sanctify us and we pray for these things in Jesus' name.