Simply Trinity Study (part 10)

Father what a glorious morning it is to be here. How blessed we are to have Christ Jesus as our covering

Father we have Redemption we have forgiveness We have reconciliation with you all because of Christ Jesus Father help us this morning as we look

To this difficult doctrine of the Trinity as we study you father son and spirit

I pray that you would help us that you would teach us through your word that you would remind us through these great men who?

Have through the centuries rightly divided the word of truth Lord help us in Jesus name

Amen So we're gonna start with the Bible And you know

Tim Pierce doesn't get to talk about this because we we were talking about it the other night But open to Matthew chapter 24

Verse 36 and you guys Get to be great theologians this morning.

It's an well. It's a you know it is a it is a blessing Verse 36

I'm gonna look to see what my Okay, I like this pretty good

Okay good notes here in the Reformation study Bible all right Matthew 24 36 but concerning that day and hour no one knows what day and hour is that?

Okay the second coming no one knows not even the angels of heaven not the Son, but the Father only

Now there is on YouTube a Video of a prominent theologian whose name you would all know

Guess what he says about this verse some he said something.

I don't like It's not a question of whether I like it or not It's a whether it's true or not

The Divine Son doesn't know and he goes even further He says the

Holy Spirit doesn't know Because it says and he reads the

Greek and which is very impressive, and he says that the Greek says only the

Father knows What are the problems with that and here's where you get to be great theologians?

What are the problems with that if they're one then they all should know what well?

I mean, what are the implications if for example what this great theologian said is true?

That only the Father knows that the eternal Son does not know and the eternal

Spirit does not know Well, they could argue, but I mean more more importantly what does that suggest about the

Father that he keeps secrets from? The Son and the

Spirit which I mean the implications Implications that could be pretty vast

You know the Father knows things that the Son doesn't know the Spirit doesn't know so the Spirit goes wow

I Had I had no idea you know that's amazing What does that I mean?

What does that tell us about you know the one in? Essence the one you know the one

I mean Let let me just be Crass about it crass relatively speaking

Does God have three minds? Well, how could the

Father only know and the Son not know and the Spirit not know?

Could that be the incarnate Son that they're talking about that? He's talking about that Jesus is talking about you know the little the little rectangle attached to our triangle if you remember con substantiation

And by the way just for by way of review. What is double? Consubstantiality Double that Jesus is of one substance with The Father in his deity, and he's of one substance.

That's the con substantial and He's of one substance with whom according to his humanity.

Let's get some more coffee Mary Mary right because he's born of Virgin But as I as I listened to this man explain this the other day,

I just thought to myself that this is Contra everything that we're reading and it also you know like I said if The Sun in his deity doesn't know then we've got some real issues.

You know does the Father have some kind of a I Don't know theological lockbox where there are things that he keeps separate from The the

Sun and the Spirit and they just they get to find out later But they get to be as surprised as everybody else or they get you know and So let me just read you know

I mentioned the Reformation study notes had it right This is what they say

For 2436 no one knows this remains true and after his resurrection

Jesus affirms the truth that it is not given to humans To know the times or seasons that have been fixed by the

Father Then they go on to say nor the

Son although omniscient with respect to his deity

With respect to his humanity Jesus knowledge is both finite and changeable

Mysteriously his two natures are united in one person yet their distinctive attributes are not mixed or confused in other words

Jesus in his humanity does not know the times or seasons, but Jesus in his deity

Does know he does know when he's coming back the Father hasn't kept secrets from him

I? I just really hated that so so if you're on the internet

You're watching YouTube and some brilliant man comes on and tells you the wrong thing you'll go. You know I don't think that's right

There you have it Okay back to our quiz Let's see people are coming in now.

They have no way yes.

We're on chapter 4 Do I have any chapter force I do as a matter of fact if anybody doesn't have a chapter 4 please raise your hand and the man in the lovely

Flannel plaid Miami Dolphins colors Sure well

All right, so we've done one and two and So far the infallible highlighter has been correct number one is true true or false collapsing or conflating the imminent

Trinity with the economic Trinity leads to disaster by the way if you don't have a list of these terms

If you would like a list of the the terms that we use often in the class It even has consubstantial

Consubstantiality if you want one of those yeah, you may they're free of charge no cost or obligation

I Don't even give you an essay essay to you know send a contribution nothing so all right

Imminent Trinity, what's the difference between the imminent Trinity and the economic Trinity? Imminent is who

God is Imminent as in I am m a n e n t.

That's who he is from all eternity and Economic is then what he does in time

Imminent is who he is Economic what he does okay number two true or false

John the Baptist attention was directed to Jesus by the Holy Spirit True That's John 129 through 34, so that's where we left off last week and number three

True or false the experiences and by the way if you object to the question welcome to the club

The experiences of Abraham Moses and Israel point to similar experiences in Jesus life.

I heard true any falses The answer is true from from Matthew Barrett He says

Jesus was baptized. This is where he's going through the whole Fictional how many have been reading the book

If you haven't been reading the book, I really just really commend it to you it. You know

I heard someone mentioned the idea that it's Difficult, it's not really the subject matter is difficult, and you know sometimes, but like this whole section about Zipporah and Zipporah Harvey said and her experience her fictional experience of watching things develop is actually very helpful

And I liked it Jesus was baptized, but unlike me fictional

Zipporah Zipporah It was not because he was a sinner instead the

Lord himself Was baptized for me and for my people it's as if he was reliving my family history all over again

And she's writing this obviously as a Jew She says having entered into the waters would he now like Israel go into the wilderness to be tempted

Did he go into the wilderness to be tempted? Yes, he was impelled or sent out by the

Holy Spirit And then like Moses ascend God's mountain to teach us how to live in God's kingdom.

Did he do that? Surround them out Would he succeed where we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve all children of Abraham had failed

Yes in other words did he keep the law as the Second Adam as the last

Adam would he? Succeed in doing everything that the father commanded the answer is yes

So the answer that was true questions thoughts complaints

Okay All complaints by the way must be signed in red ink and submitted in triplicate so Nor for true or false the scene surrounding the baptism of Jesus refutes the doctrine of the

Trinity The scenes run. Why are you guys laughing?

hurts my feelings But you know what

Can I you know let me just share some you know inside the tabernacle

Secrets with you with you all if I read this as A teenager, what do you think

I would say I? Would say true right

Why would I say it's true? because this is exactly the kind of argumentation that Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses engage in to disprove the

Trinity, so let's look for a moment at Matthew chapter 3 Matthew chapter 3 verses 16 and 17, and you know once again

I'm grabbing my Bible, but I don't really need to because I can't pace the verses here so that I don't have to do that so Enough of me acting like I'm gonna turn to the right pages because I just want

Matthew 3 verses 16 and 17 and when Jesus was baptized Immediately he went up from the water and behold the heavens were open to him

And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him and Behold a voice from heaven said this is my beloved

Son with whom I am well pleased now a

Mormon or a Jehovah Witness will read that and why will they say this refutes the doctrine of the Trinity they see three separate

Well they would say individuals in three separate locations, and they go That's not one

God, it's because they don't really understand the nature of one

God in three persons, so Barrett says this unlike all the nations around us.

This is still Zipporah talking and around Israel Nations that believe in many gods we

Israel believe in one God So how can John be right that when the heavens open the divine voice itself?

Pronounces blessing on one who is in the words of Isaiah the Lord are there two

Lords now and not just two but three For John said a dove descended on Jesus some say this is the

Spirit John swore it must be you know how can these things be because you have to understand

God in three persons? You know and if you also understand a and um

Omnipotent What sort of omnipresent God then this isn't so difficult? He's everywhere at the same time

Which is kind of mind -boggling, but all right questions thoughts yes,

Corey Good so modalism

You know we're doing a lot of review here this morning modalism is what the idea that God is either

The father or the son or the spirit that Essentially the in fact you'll sometimes see this on church websites

They'll say you know God has three different modes if you think of it is like gears right how many of our driven a manual?

transmission Wow, that's a that's an amazing number. It's good good to know if the big one goes down so You Know you're either in you're either in first gear or second gear or third gear or fourth or fifth or sixth or whatever

You're in one gear at a time, right? So the idea is that you know

God either exists as the father and they would say you know that's mostly in the Old Testament and God mostly exists for a time as Jesus the

Son and now he mostly exists as the Spirit through these three different modes

And that's false, and you know as a proof text. This is pretty good Because here you have all three modes appearing in one time and that that'd be very confuzzling

For those of you not familiar with that term My daughter invented that so okay all right number five true or false

Psalm 110 does not refer to Jesus well, I guess you know what

I didn't put this in my notes So so let's let's just see what we think of Psalm 110.

I mean, what do you guys? What do you think? Whoa, that's a pretty bold statement them

I Am the

Psalms guy I write that I write the Psalms that make the whole world sing All right

Barry yeah for you people older than 60 you've got that joke all right

Psalm 110 I'll just read it because it's short the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your

Footstool these are familiar words, right? The Lord sends forth from Zion your might your mighty scepter rule in the midst of your enemies

Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments From the womb of the morning the dew of your youth will be yours

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek The Lord is at your right hand he will shatter

Kings on the day of his wrath He will execute judgment among the nations filling them with corpses.

He will shatter chiefs Over the wide earth he will drink from the brook by the way

Therefore he will lift up his head and when you read that it sure sounds like You know the father often referring to the

Son and Jesus so again, this is Zipporah this fictional person that Matthew Barrett uses he says everyone in the crowd

Knew Jesus was quoting Psalm 110 a Psalm recited in synagogue on a frequent basis

But the way Jesus asked about this psalm shed new light I don't know why

I'd never seen these two Lords in the text before I must have recited David's word a thousand times Yet I never paid attention to the plurality

David assumes is Present in the one God we worship, but Jesus did not only that but Jesus gave the impression that he is one of those

Lords David's Lord to be exact apparently David overheard

Obviously inspired by the Spirit a divine conversation between the Father and the Son in eternity about the victory the

Son promised he would accomplished a Victory Jesus has now come to inaugurate in history

It's as if the Spirit spoke through David as David gave voice to the very person of the

Father Addressing his only begotten Son before all time After all if I remember

Psalm 110 right the father goes on to say to his son Before the dawn -bearing morning star appeared

I begot you and by the way, we just read that that wasn't there Well, where is it? It's in verse 3 of the

Septuagint. So Okay, thoughts questions concerns

Brian. Okay.

There are a lot of things. I don't mention but that's true two different words It's just Can I just step away from the podium for a minute?

Yeah, good good point Yeah, there are two different words there so there isn't you know, even in the text an indication that there are two different Persons involved, you know, you always have to pause a little bit because you know you're always on the tiptoe not, you know, the tiptoeing up to the edge of not eternity, but Heresy, so you have to be a little careful.

Okay All right number six by the way, those those of you who you know

Came in I'm very thankful if you were late You're probably gonna want to check the tape and listen to the first ten minutes because it was fun.

Okay Number six true or false because there were no systemic theologies or systematic theologies

I don't know why I put systemic. What is that? You know, I sometimes autocorrect and I'm gonna blame this on autocorrect systemic,

I don't even know what that would mean systemic theology

In the early church Some Christians did not believe in the Trinity. I Love I love when

I get when I get Tulsa or I get through, you know Is it I think mark is on to something accidentally

Sorry, sorry strike that from the tape No, that's that that is that's that was the trick in the question, right?

Can you be a Christian and not believe in the Trinity? See now we're getting into something here.

This is good. I Can hardly I wish I was gonna be in the car with them on the way home. I Think that's pretty good, right?

You're not a Christian if you deny the Trinity You know, if you don't comprehend it, can you be a

Christian, you know? I've told I told you all before some of you may not have heard this but you know coming out of a

Mormon background When I come to realize who Jesus is I'm like, yes,

I get it I understand finally You know, he's not a created being etc.

Etc. Etc. But I'm like, I still don't know about this Trinity thing he didn't have time the thief on the cross didn't have time to study systematic theology, but You know while he was in purgatory he did so Andrew Yes Okay, except it doesn't say, you know, you must fully comprehend the

Trinity it just says Believe in the Trinity. Oh The sacred highlighter

You know, it's a relic you get points out, you know, you get to what are those things called? the

Pope gives that You know with regard to the thief on the cross,

I think that's a valid point, you know Didn't have time to do a whole lot of systematic study of scripture or anything else, but I I think you know, the key really is

If it's presented to you and you reject it Then we have an issue If you don't really

Understand it Well, okay. It's like everybody before this class, right?

I think I need a wrist rocket. Maybe this is a pea shooter I don't know squirt gun Barrett he says for the first century believer to become a

Christian was to embrace the salvation given and Accomplished by none other than the triune

God Father Son and Holy Spirit To gain access to the throne of grace one had to come to the father by believing in his only begotten

Son For that only happened if the Holy Spirit opened one's blind eyes to the son's saving

Resurrection life if we just think even you know going back to John 3 and We think about Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night and he says, you know, you must be born again

Well, why because some things aren't going to make any sense to you until the Holy Spirit causes you to believe and This is this is you know, admittedly a difficult doctrine as you know evidenced by the first ten minutes of this

Class this morning where you know, somebody's brilliance in many many ways would say something bizarre like he did

So it is difficult, but I think you know the lack of systemic or systematic

Theologies in the early church have nothing to do with it Once people became aware that Jesus Christ was

God and that he pointed to the father You know, he said I do everything that the father sent me to here to do

I do the works that I see him doing etc, etc, etc Then those folks understood that there were

Two beings who were God and they also understood because of the way Jesus talked about the

Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit was God So that you know, there was no question about that. Did they use the word

Trinity? No That's not really ultimately the point, okay and Barrett concludes with this for these early

Christians to believe the gospel was to believe that the one God of Israel was triune

Anything less was not simply was not Christian a gospel. That was not Trinitarian was no gospel at all

And if we just consider, you know Like Ephesians 1 3 to 14 where Paul burst out in praise and what does he do?

He basically prays a Trinitarian what a Trinitarian prayer

I'm getting quizzical looks a Trinitarian prayer to the Father the Son Holy Spirit thinking them them for the plan of salvation, so All right number seven and This whole question is wrecked already true or false.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not related to the gospel. That's false

Sometimes we treat the Trinity like rationalists as if the Trinity were some

Cognitive riddle to be cracked a divine Rubik's Cube fitting together random biblical texts until we come up with a magical Mathematical formula and I want to pause there just for a minute because if we think about how we study the

Trinity typically even as I've taught it in Fundamentals of the faith.

How do we understand the Trinity? We prove that the Father is God then we prove that Jesus is

God then we prove that the Holy Spirit is God and therefore You know 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1

Therefore we have the Trinity. That's kind of how we do it And that's what he's referencing here when he says it's kind of like a divine

Rubik's Cube You just sort of arrange things and you go. Here we go At other times

Barrett says we treat the Trinity like as if we are pietists Dismissing the

Trinity at the start of our pilgrimage because it's pure speculation that's what I hear from some people on Facebook, you know, that's

Philosophical speculation that has nothing to do with the gospel or Christian life Whether it be prayer worship or the preaching of the good news itself, and he says either road is destructive

The Trinity defines the gospel because the gospel itself is all about the Trinity the father has sent his only begotten

Son to accomplish our redemption and the Father and the Son have sent the Spirit to apply that redemption within us there is a

Trinitarian descent for the sake of our salvation a

Trinitarian descent that is to say the father son and spirit all condescend all cooperate to save us questions comments complaints

Okay Refunds are available. All right number eight our liturgies

Should reflect the truth of the triune God Our liturgies should reflect the truth of the triune

God. That seems pretty obviously true He says when we gather for worship our liturgy should lead us in the same direction

Empowered by the Spirit to repent and believe in the only begotten Son sent by the Father for us in our salvation as Paul says we worship by the

Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus. That's Philippians 3 3 Enlightened by the

Spirit says Basil of Caesarea Excuse me, we look upon the

Son and in him the image or As in the image of God behold the

Father if the gospel reveals a Trinitarian descent a reception of that gospel involves an assent into the triune life of God Okay number nine true or false

What the Trinity does in time reflects the eternal relations of the

Trinity? What the Trinity does in time reflects the eternal relations of the

Trinity That is so tricky. I Don't like the guy who wrote that question.

I hear I Hear a fruit and I hear a Tulsa That's entirely valid.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Ah There we go There we go

I'm gonna combine your two answers and give you correct right or fru

The correct answer in number nine is true. Why? Because what the

Trinity does in time in other words the economic reflects the imminence

The economic reflects the imminence It doesn't tell us exactly who they are, but it reflects it gives us some truth about Yes, yes, which is

John nailed it Listen this gospel tells us something Barrett says about who this triune

God is in and of himself in other words Well, then he says apart from creation and salvation.

In other words, it tells us something about the imminent Trinity The deeper we go into the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ The more we discover that the mission of the

Son in salvation history the fact that he was sent by the Father Reflects his eternal origin

Not his submission because that's in his humanity But his eternal origin from the

Father in eternity This pattern applies to the whole Trinity the Father sending the

Son the Father and the Son giving The Spirit these missions are not arbitrary but reveals something intrinsic about God's triunity

The Father sends his Son into the world because it is the Son who is eternally begotten or generated by the

Son apart from the world Likewise the Father and the Son give the Spirit who descends on the world because the

Father and the Son Eternally breathe out or spirate the Spirit apart from the world. The point is the temporal missions those in time reveal the eternal relations in Eternal relations.

We just mentioned the Father begets the Son is begotten and The Spirit is spirated, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean what they what they do in time reflects their Eternal relations, right?

So why why was the Sun the one to come because he's the eternally begotten one, you know and So it's it's it's these relationships that are just reflected in what they do in time number ten

Number ten the whole Bible is built on the truth that God is one yet three. I hear a lot of truth

And the answer is true. Hey, not every question is tricky

Barrett says the whole book or actually this is BB Warfield The whole book the

Bible is trinitarian to the core all Its teaching is built on the assumption of the

Trinity and its allusions to the Trinity are frequent cursory easy and confident

That's probably about the clearest thing BB Warfield ever wrote Okay, number 11 not a true and false therefore all true and false answers will be wrong

How can Barrett claim that the fullness of the Trinity is Revealed after the

Old Testament and before the New Testament. Yeah, I I mean I had to interpret it that way otherwise,

I couldn't have Formulated the question actually, so yeah So after the

Old Testament is written, but before the New Testament is written, you know full stop Well, and and so and so I I did as well and that's why

I formulated the question The way I did hopefully to shed a little light on that. So every once while the question writer does a good job

If the Trinity if the Trinity begins to come into full light with the incarnation of the

Son Christ Jesus then God's full revelation of his triune identity occurs after the writing of the

Old Testament but before the writing of the New Testament in other words Once Jesus is born.

There's some new information You know things have Crystallized so I shouldn't say new information

But what was kind of obscure, you know? there are multiple times where Paul uses the word mystery and sometimes it's the mystery of how

Jews and Gentiles are going to get along but sometimes it's just the mystery of who the Messiah was going to be what his full nature was going to be we had we had shadows of it

But now as he comes to be we understand much better. So he says

With the incarnation of the Son and the descendant of the Spirit the Trinity is revealed in the salvation of God's people Which then gives the

New Testament authors much to say and confess about the Father Son and Holy Spirit In their epistles and I've said this before it's it really is interesting when you think about it when you read

Particularly in Acts but also in the epistles the one thing the

Apostles Luke you know and the Apostles they never do is what?

Say okay, I know because it a lot of this is written to or is spoken to the

Jews They never say I know you you're familiar with the Shema of Israel here Oh Israel the

Lord your God is one But let me tell you how he exists in three persons. They never give this great

Explication of the Trinity. Well, why not? And I think it's because they all understood that there was one

God and so then as they understand as they start to hear this About the

Son is the second person of the Trinity or also God and the Holy Spirit is

God They don't rebel against it. They don't recoil back from it It's just kind of like oh

Now I now I understand it better Jonathan, right?

Yeah, I think that's right I think that I think there were a lot of illusions things that kind of You know

They might have if they if they would have had you know The Internet and whatnot people would have been arguing about such things and trying to fully understand them

But once Jesus comes it becomes a lot more clear Let's see then he says as Christians in the 21st century

We need this reminder this side of the cross with the full Canon the full Bible and by the way

Canon CA n O and only one end there in them in the middle Although some people think it is a

Canon so the Canon referring to all those books we call inspired scripture We flip pages in our

Bible and move from Old to New Testament in seconds But don't forget hundreds of years pass with the flip of a page

What holds these two Testaments together is none other than Christ himself

Mystery in the Old Testament revealed in the New Testament, right? He is the Christological clamp

His coming means not only the fulfillment of all those covenant promises God made in the

Old Testament, but the full Revelation revelation of God himself as Father Son and Holy Spirit Through redemption comes revelation and through revelation comes redemption thoughts questions concerns heresies

Seeing none we move on. All right number 12. Yes. Sorry, right good good.

Yeah I mean he says, you know, this is this is at last and I can go in peace and oh, yes, he understands

Number 12 true or false the New Testament corrects the teaching of the Old Testament so that we can understand the

Trinity Yeah, I gave that one away, I think that's pretty easy Rather than thinking as many skeptics do that.

The Trinity is an invention the New Testament Correcting the monotheism of the

Old Testament. We should instead think of the Trinity coming into full view Literally or lit up and radiance and a full gents of triune revelation right before our eyes

And then again Warfield He says the mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the

Old Testament But the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation and here and there almost comes into view

So now it is in full view Yes, John Question is do

I know what they do with the Old Testament or the Old Testament allusions like, you know

Let us make man in our image right, you know that that plurality what do they do with it?

I I don't know specifically what they do, but I would guess that it's probably they would call it a plural of majesty

You know Well, they do believe that there's a coming Messiah, but you know

When we went to Israel, this is 22 plus years ago almost 23 years ago they had a

Rabbi come and talk to us and What he described how he described because they do believe that our

Messiah is coming the way he described the Messiah I'm listening and I'm going Any Christ any

Christ Any Christ? I mean it was scary they they just what they're what they're anticipating coming is the very opposite of the

Messiah and I just What was pretty frightening? No, I know

I don't I don't think so, you know, I don't think so. Yeah, like like a second

Moses kind of Yeah Well, yeah, I guess I I think you could say

Moses plus David, you know, so Okay, number 13.

What are some of the ways the Old Testament presents the Trinity? What are some of the ways the

Old Testament presents the Trinity now for those of you who've been reading Barrett's book? You've memorized this list.

Go ahead Brian Brian hasn't There's a smart guy

Isaiah 48 16 which Brian also has memorized go ahead and his spirit right and when he says he sent me

If you read the the verse in context is clearly the pre incarnate Christ and how do you remember

Isaiah 48 16 Brian? That's not right

Yes 16 times 3 is 48. That's how I always remember it, you know, it's just these these little things, you know, just kind of help us, right?

Okay, let me just give you what Barrett says and then we'll we'll close

Here are some of the ways the Old Testament presents the Trinity distinction between names

Elohim and Yahweh Plural form of Elohim and by the way, I think he says this is from Bovink.

I didn't give the plural form Elohim whenever whenever there's a word like even

What's the word I'm looking for for Oh seraphim, you know, we all always say seraphim But it's really seraphim and what does it mean seraphim means?

more than one the angel of the Lord Number four wisdom personified in Job 28 12 to 27 and also

Proverbs 8 Number five word of God also personified ascribed divine attributes number six spirit of God Number seven

God speaks of himself in the plural number eight multiple divine persons named and number nine

Three persons named so he gives all these and we don't have I Mean, I didn't go to Bovington rip off his notes.

So But I think he has a longer list than that Okay, thoughts.

Yes. Go ahead Daniel Yeah, and that's and that's right.

You know, I mean so much tradition and no, we're not gonna sink tradition, but so so much tradition that That It you know getting back to the original meaning of the

Bible isn't all that important to them Because they've got hundreds and thousands of years of teaching and that's all they have.

So Okay with that we need to close times up Father we thank you for this morning.

Thank you for this Opportunity again to just remind ourselves of who you are

What you've done how what you've done even reflects who you are and your eternal origins in terms of eternal relations in terms of the father beginning

The son being eternally begotten and the son being or the spirit being eternally spirated

Lord help us to to grapple with these things and to better understand You that we might better worship you