You Can Understand the Trinity

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Well, again, it's good to see everyone tonight.
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We continue in our study of systematic theology, specifically on the subject of theology proper.
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And for those of you who may not remember, theology proper is the study of God's nature, and more specifically, about the nature of God the Father.
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As we will go on from this to a study of Christology, which is a study of God the Son, specifically, and a study of pneumatology, which is a study of God the Holy Spirit.
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So theology proper is simply an understanding of God and His nature.
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We have already looked at several things, and your worksheet outlines the things that we've looked at.
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We've looked at the revelation of God.
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We have looked at the names of God.
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We have looked at the attributes of God.
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But tonight, we are going to take a step further, and this will be, Lord willing, the last of this study before we move into Christology.
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Thank you, son.
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I got it.
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This will be the last of this study, and it's looking at the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Looking at the doctrine of the Trinity.
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I want to begin with a story.
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Years ago, I was asked to be part of a pastoral ordination.
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Prior to the ordination, there was a panel that met that was responsible for asking questions of the man who was under the review to be ordained.
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Now, I have to tell you, his ordination was that afternoon.
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So it was sort of a...
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If anything, it was just getting through a formality.
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It wasn't a real time of questions and answers.
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Had there been a real time of questions and answers, it would have been done weeks ahead of time.
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It would have been under much more severe conditions.
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But when they already got the chicken cooking in the next room for the reception that's supposed to follow the ordination, you know this is little more than a bare formality.
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But I went anyway.
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I was an invited guest.
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It was not at this church.
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It was at another church.
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And I went as the invited guest who was later realized they didn't really wish they hadn't have invited this guest.
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Because I went with real questions.
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And I'm not saying that the other men that were present didn't ask real questions, but I was asking questions that I knew were not necessarily the easiest questions, but that a minister of the gospel should know.
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And so I went and I sat in, and the first question that went around, went around, went around, got to me.
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And I asked if I could go last.
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I said, okay.
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So they kept going and I went last.
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And I like that.
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I like to have an opportunity to hear everyone else before I speak.
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It gives me an opportunity to kind of get the read of the room.
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And I was the outsider, so I felt like that was fair.
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So I said, I'll go last.
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I said, okay, that's fine.
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And when it came my turn to ask the question, I asked this question.
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It was very simple.
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I said, imagine yourself as a minister of a church, a pastor of a church.
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And while you're there, a person comes to your church.
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Maybe they're a family member of a church member, or maybe they have visited from the community.
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They have come to your church, and they have decided they want to become a part of your church, but they're coming out of the Jehovah Witness movement.
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And so they had been taught through that movement that the Trinity...
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And I said, so, how would you respond to that person? And I said, let me ask it this way.
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I said, if you had that person come to you, I said, what scriptures would you take them to to tell them that the doctrine of the Trinity is not only true, but it is so obviously true that if anybody were to deny it, that they would be denying the historic Christian faith? Well, he didn't say anything.
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He just sort of looked at me.
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The man next to me, Deacon So-and-So, I don't know what his name was, but he was a deacon at the church that they were doing the ordination.
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He lost his mind.
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He really did.
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He got angry with me.
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What are you doing asking a question that's so difficult? Nobody could answer that question.
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That's a mystery.
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And if I'm exaggerating, it's only a little.
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It was a small room and his voice echoed off the walls.
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What are you doing? Why would you ask such a difficult question? To which I simply responded, it's a difficult job.
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It's a difficult job.
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We're not hiring him to be the dog catcher.
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And even that's a hard job.
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But this is something of great importance.
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And I want to say this.
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When somebody tells you that it's impossible to understand the Trinity, that is not true.
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Because there's a difference, and I've talked about this in the weeks before, there's a difference between understanding something and comprehending something.
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To understand something means that I can explain it, but to comprehend it means I fully grasp it.
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And I do believe that not only should every Christian be able to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, I believe it's the great danger of the church that most Christians don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
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It's the great scandal of the modern church.
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I do Bible studies with certain men at certain times, and I'm going through a Bible study now with a man who I've just been going through a book of the Bible with him.
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And recently we had this conversation.
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He's not a member of our church.
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He's from somewhere else.
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But I asked him, I said, do you understand the doctrine of the Trinity? I don't think anybody does.
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I said, no, that's not true.
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They've lied to you.
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I promise it's a lie.
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Because let me ask you this.
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Can you understand that God is eternal? There's no beginning and no end? You can understand it because I just explained it to you.
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That's it.
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Eternal means no beginning and no end.
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You can understand that.
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Now if I say, can you comprehend it? Can you really wrap your mind around it? Can you carry the Atlantic Ocean in a thimble? No, you can't.
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But when I say, can you understand what it is and what it ain't? The answer is yes.
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If I say, do you understand what eternity is? It's no beginning and no ending.
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So what would the opposite be? Something that has a beginning? Or something that has an ending? So you know what it is? And you know what it ain't? You understand it even if you cannot fully comprehend it.
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Same is true with the Trinity.
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Not only do I believe every Christian can, I believe every Christian of average intelligence can understand it.
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I believe every Christian of average intelligence should understand it.
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In fact, I believe for far too long we have used the difficulty of it as a cop-out for not even trying.
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Instead, we replace it with bad examples, bad illustrations.
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God is like H2O.
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Sometimes He's ice, and sometimes He's steam, and sometimes He's water.
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That's not the Trinity.
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That is a historical false teaching called modalism.
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And it was condemned by the church in the fourth century.
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It's not the Trinity.
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And here's the thing.
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You have children, and some of you grandchildren.
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You have children.
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Some of you are children.
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Yeah, you're 18.
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You guys with children, you send your kids to school, or you homeschool, you expect them to do algebra.
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You expect them to do sometimes advanced placement classes, right? But yeah, you send them to Sunday school and they give them a coloring book with Noah's Ark pictures.
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Why is it at the church we have to dumb everything down? Because we don't.
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But we feel like we must.
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And that has damaged the integrity of the church.
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It has damaged the integrity of the movement of Christianity in America because it has become a place where people check their brains at the door, and everything becomes about feeling.
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And it's like Thomas Sowell said.
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Thomas Sowell is not a Christian, but Thomas Sowell is an economist.
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And he said, you know, the problem now is not that little Johnny can't think.
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The problem is little Johnny doesn't know what thinking is.
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He replaces thinking with feeling.
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And he thinks that's thinking, and it's not.
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We must be forced to think.
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And when it comes to the Doctrine of the Trinity, we do have to think a little.
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So let me get us to thinking.
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Now I want to say, I have another quick precursor to this.
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Not long ago, I did a very long series on the Doctrine of the Trinity.
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It was last year actually.
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I did like two or three months where we looked at the history of it.
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I've actually written a book called God in Three Persons.
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And we went through the book that I wrote.
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And so this is a subject very near and dear to my heart.
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But it's also something that we've gone through at length.
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If you want to go through this at length, I encourage you to go back and listen to that series.
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Because I'm not going to do that again.
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This is a part of a broader series.
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If I stop now and did three months on the Trinity, that wouldn't be fair to the broader series.
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This is a series on systematic theology of which the Trinity is only one part.
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So I am going to try to get through it all in one night.
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As crazy as that may seem.
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I believe every Christian should know three things about the Trinity.
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And this is on your handout.
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I don't even think I gave you blanks.
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Did I give you blanks? Well, here they are.
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I don't have them.
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Let me have the handout.
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I want to look at it.
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Alright.
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Okay, I wrote them in there.
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Every Christian should know three things about the Trinity.
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Number one, every Christian should know how to define the Trinity.
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There's no excuse why we don't.
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Number two, every Christian should know how to define the Trinity.
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And if you came tonight not knowing, you'll leave knowing.
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At least you'll have a handout that tells you.
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Keep in your back pocket.
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Number two, every Christian should know the relevant scriptures regarding the Trinity.
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Now there are a myriad of relevant scriptures, but you should at least know a few.
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And so we're going to look at those tonight as well.
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Third and finally, every Christian should know how to identify false views of the Trinity.
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Why? Because almost every cult group that exists in some way or fashion violates the doctrine of the Trinity.
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In fact, I would say the only group that I would identify as being a group that doesn't possess the Gospel, but has a right view of the Trinity, would be the Roman Catholic Church.
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Because from a historical perspective, the Roman Catholic Church still maintains a fairly orthodox view of the Trinity.
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And yet they do not hold an orthodox view of salvation.
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And so there is unorthodoxy there, but it's not on that.
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In fact, some people believe that's the one thing keeping them in the loop is they're holding to a right view of the Trinity.
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But there's an attempt even to kind of destroy that with the idea of trying to make Mary divine.
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And that would come in and that would totally lopside the entire process and be a problem there.
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But the point is, those guys who come to your door and the nice ties and the name tags that say Elder Johnson or Elder Steve or whatever, those little guys who are coming with those ties, they have a false view of the Trinity.
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The nice couple that comes to your door, usually a man and a woman who have an awake magazine or a copy of the Watchtower, which they don't do a lot anymore.
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It's awake.
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You don't get the Watchtower as much anymore.
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When they come to your door, they are coming to you with a false view of the Trinity that was condemned in the fourth century.
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It's called Arianism.
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This is the foundation stone upon what many cults are built.
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So we need to know these three things.
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So let's look at number one.
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Every Christian should know how to define the Trinity.
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The Trinity is often defined as God is one in three and three in one.
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Yes, but that's too ambiguous.
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If you just say God is one in three and three in one, that doesn't say anything.
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Because you're not saying one what or three what.
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If you say God is one in three and three in one, you're robbing yourself of what the church has painstakingly, historically done to help you identify one what and three what.
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Because on your sheet, I'll give you, God is one in essence.
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God is one in essence.
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I also like the word substance.
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But I also like another word.
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And this one kind of, I don't think it'll get me in trouble, but this one's a little different.
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God is one in stuff.
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You say, what do you mean? All the stuff that's God is one.
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Substance, essence, stuff.
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God is one.
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Sometimes they say God is one being.
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Okay.
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Now you're starting to get a little further down the line.
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Because when we talk about God's oneness, we're talking about that which is God, which is infinite, which is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, all of that which is God, which is divine, is one.
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Number two, God is three also.
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But God is not three in essence.
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And this is key.
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Because if you say God is one in essence and three in essence, you have something called a contradiction.
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If you say God is one in essence and three in essence, you have contradicted yourself.
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Because what is the law of non-contradiction? The law of non-contradiction states simply that something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
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Something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
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And if something be one, it cannot at the same time be three at the same time and in the same relationship.
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Right? So when we talk about the threeness, we're talking of a different category.
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God is one in essence.
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He is three in person.
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Or, another word is subsistence.
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This is a word that was very popularly used by the ancient Greek teachers.
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They would talk about the substance of God and the subsistence of God.
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Or the essence of God and the person of God.
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See, a contradiction only happens when something is or is not in the same way and in the same relationship.
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If I said God is one person and God is three persons, then I would be engaging in a contradiction.
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But if I say that God is one essence or one substance, and I say that God is three persons or three subsistences, I have immediately not made a contradiction because I am not violating the rule of non-contradiction.
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I am maintaining the perspective of two categories.
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Let me explain it like this.
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Most of us are familiar with a one-to-one ratio.
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You're familiar with how ratios work? Right? You know what a ratio is? So, on a ratio of one-to-one, we have man.
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Man is one essence and one person.
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There's only one person per essence.
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If you've got more than one person in there, you've got a problem.
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Right? That's important because man is a one-to-one ratio.
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God is a one-in-three ratio.
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Did I make it easy? You see what I said? You can understand it.
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It's not that hard.
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You say, well, I don't comprehend it.
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No, you won't.
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But you can understand it.
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You can understand what we're saying and what we ain't saying.
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And that's the key.
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Because it's one essence, three persons.
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I'll give you another example.
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How about a rock? A rock.
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And I don't mean anything fancy.
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A rock you pick up off the ground.
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It has one essence and zero person.
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How about a cow? It has one essence and zero person.
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I could go on.
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But you understand how the ratio works now.
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Cows and rocks have essence but no person.
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Man has one essence and one person.
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God has one essence and three persons.
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That's how I can prove that essence and person are not the same.
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And thus I can make the distinction between God being one in this category and three in that category.
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And the category of person leads us to the third rule.
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And the third rule is God is one in essence.
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He is three in person.
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And these three persons, the Bible teaches us, are co-equal and co-eternal.
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Co-equal and co-eternal.
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This is where the real rubber hits the road here.
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Because we talk about equality.
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People say, but when Jesus was on the earth, He said things like, the Father is greater than I.
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That doesn't sound like someone who is expressing equality.
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And yet, in Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul says this, Have this mind in yourselves that was yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of man and coming and dying on the cross, even death on a cross.
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You see, in His humility, He condescended and He came as a man and in His humanity took on a role of servant.
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But in His divinity, maintained equality.
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But He didn't grab hold of it while He was here.
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That's what the whole idea behind Philippians 2 is this.
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You should be humble as Christ is humble.
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How are you to be humble? Look at how Christ is humble.
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He was in every way God, but He didn't consider that a thing to be grasped.
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He humbled Himself.
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If Christ wasn't God, it wouldn't be humble for Him not to grab hold of it.
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It would only be right if He wasn't God.
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But He was and He is.
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So the equality and eternality.
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Eternality is a very important concept.
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Jesus is co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit.
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All three persons of the Trinity.
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There was never a time where God the Father gave birth to the Son.
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There was never a time when God the Father and the Son gave birth to the Spirit.
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They all three exist in one essence, but three persons eternally.
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This is why we can talk about the eternal relationship within the Trinity.
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Is God eternally love? The Bible says God is love.
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Is that an eternal attribute? Huh? But it's an eternal attribute.
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And yet, how does love reside in God? Within the relationship of the Father and the Son and the Spirit.
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There's an eternal relationship that's always been.
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Alright? So, many creeds have attempted to explain this.
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My favorite is the Athanasian Creed.
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I am not going to try to read to you the Athanasian Creed tonight because it be long.
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And we don't have enough time.
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But I would encourage you to look up the Athanasian Creed.
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It was not written by Athanasius, but it does codify the teachings of Athanasius.
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You say, well, who was Athanasius? Athanasius was one of the men who was responsible for fighting against the Arians in the 4th century.
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Well, who were the Arians? Now we're getting into history a little bit.
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I don't want to spend too much time on this.
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The Arians were the ones who were fighting the battle to say that Jesus was not fully divine, but that He was the first and greatest creation of God, and that He was created by God, and through Christ, God created everything else.
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This is the position that the Jehovah Witnesses still take, by the way.
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If you read the New World Translation, which is the Jehovah Witnesses translation, it says in it that Jesus Christ made all other things.
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They add the word other.
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Because the Bible says Jesus cried, through Him, all things were made.
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But in the Jehovah Witnesses translation, it says through Him, all other things were made.
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They add the word other to identify the fact that Jesus Himself was created, but everything else was created through Him.
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So it's an addition to the text.
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The Athanasian Creed, though, does identify some very important things that help us with the doctrine of the Trinity.
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That Jesus Christ, the Father and the Son, I'm sorry, the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit are in a relationship with one another that is uncreated, uncaused, and eternal.
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And obviously equal, as we just said.
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If you have your sheet, you'll notice I give you a little picture.
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Now again, I already said I'm not big on illustrations, because illustrations are bad sometimes.
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But I kind of like this one because I do think it sort of gives a fair shot at attempting to draw a picture of what we're saying.
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And so, just allow me to, very rudimentarily, copy what you have on your sheet.
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There is one God.
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And we have the Father.
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We have the Son.
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And we have the Holy Spirit.
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And we can say, the Father is God.
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The Son is God.
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The Spirit is God.
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But the Father is not the Son.
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The Son is not the Spirit.
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And the Spirit is not the Father.
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So we have God is the Father.
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God is the Son.
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God is the Spirit.
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But the Spirit is not the Son.
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The Son is not...
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And this is why, on your sheet, I gave you things as what is the Trinity may hold this is for a second brother.
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No, well here I think you give you back You'll notice I gave you this this is I actually did a seminar on this subject at another church a few About a year ago, I guess and I used this handout.
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I don't have time to go through everything tonight, but this is helpful Because it kind of explains some of the things that we need to understand when you talk about the Trinity We have to make distinctions here's a distinction that people often mess up the father did not die on the cross People talk about God died on the cross Well, yes God the Son died on the cross, but they'll say the father was on No, the father was not on the cross.
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This is where a distinction must be made.
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The father did not become incarnate Here's one that often upsets people When you get saved Who lives in you? Yeah, a lot of times people talk about asking Jesus into your heart right now There is a verse that talks about the Spirit of Christ unless the Spirit of Christ be in you Romans 8 you're not his So he is called the Spirit of Christ But where is the Son right now? Is the right hand of the Father right and he said I must go away because if I go if I don't go away The comforter will not come but I go away and I send you all this paracletas another comforter one like me All right, another being another like me, huh? Yeah, absolutely, but the Spirit of the Spirit resides within us, right? So we have this distinction what we call the economic Trinity This is the ontological Trinity meaning how we understand being ontology simply means understanding of being right? This is the ontological Trinity.
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The economic Trinity is how we understand the working of the Trinity the father elects the son redeems the spirit regenerates Those three works are different and yet in the eternal Covenant that God made within himself That was the decision that was made the father would choose the son would die for those chosen and the spirit would go and Save those chosen through the working of regeneration and their heart regenerate them rather birth them give them rebirth All right so That is the doctrine of the Trinity easily explained.
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I think Maybe it was a little harder than I think it is, but I think that at least is Enough to say that it's understandable Now move on to the next question everything every Christian should know the relevant scriptures boy How am I going to do this? Well, I'm gonna tell you to write them down But I'll make a few notes as we go why write this down And God is one in essence What's a passage for that? Here all Israel the Lord thy God the Lord is one Lord Deuteronomy 6 4 through 6 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength Deuteronomy 6 4 through 6 That's called the shema.
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That is the prayer of ancient Israel still pray today, by the way And it identifies the oneness of God also, Isaiah 43 10 You're my witnesses saith the Lord Whom I have chosen and you may know and believe in me and understand that I am he before me There was no God formed neither.
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Shall there be any after me Deuteronomy 6 4 to 6 And Isaiah was Isaiah 43 10 now the Isaiah passage is important because if you have those two nicely dressed 10 speed riders come to your door I'm gonna make it fun.
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That's what they are.
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They every time I see him they come to your door You say brother or I don't I wouldn't say brother.
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I would say sir or sometimes You know young man because they're usually a lot younger than me.
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I'll say young man Do you believe that you will be a God one day? This is not normally how I start But but in a conversation I might ask do you believe the Mormon teaching that you will be a God one day As Mormons believe that God was once a man on another planet that because of his adherence to Mormon teaching He became a god and now if they are faithful to Mormon teachings they too can engage in celestial marriage and Put forth their own race on their own planet where they are their gods of their own planet and it's very clear Mormon teaching it's not something they make a big deal about but it's not something that really is a question either and Some of them will say yes, I will be a God one day Then how do you understand Isaiah 43 10 before me? There was no God formed and there will be no God after me It's actually the same thing I ask Jehovah Witness because Jehovah Witness say Jesus is a God but he's a God that was created They that's why they say John 1 1 in the beginning was the Word the Word was God with God and the Word was a God Right.
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They'll say a God they'll say Jesus was created as a God God created another God like him But there's only one eternal God that's Jehovah, but Jesus is a God I Said but what about Isaiah 43 10 before me? There was no God formed and after me there will be no God formed What you do with that? These passages clearly teach the oneness of God So this takes us what is the first that God is one in essence and Yet there are three persons who are called God so this is why I'm a Trinitarian, right? I'm not a Trinitarian because Augustine was I'm not a Trinitarian because Calvin was I'm not a Trinitarian because Athanasius was or because any of the minute the the 320 some odd men who were at the Council of Nicaea were were Trinitarian I'm Trinitarian because the Bible doesn't let me go anywhere else The Bible only allows me to believe one thing there's one God I can't believe in multiple gods the Bible doesn't allow it But the Bible calls the Father God it calls the Son God it calls the Spirit God and it makes distinctions between those three persons so either the Bible is contradicting itself or I have to understand it as The the church has for 2,000 years that there is one God and he exists in three Persons the Bible wouldn't allow it any other way.
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So here the here's some other verses for you to write down In regard to Jesus being fully divine.
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I've already mentioned John 1 1 2 3 John 1 1 2 3 and I really like to break this down in the Greek to show But I again don't have time but it simply says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God the Same was in the beginning with God and all things were made by him and without him was not anything made That was made Very clear Jesus is not only God and with the Father, but he's creator Colossians 2 9 For in him that is Jesus dwells the fullness of deity bodily in In him dwells the fullness the King James has the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ the word Translated Godhead deity.
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However, you want to translate it Colossians 1 15 and 16 Jesus he is the image of the invisible God firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and For him for him That's another key aspect of his divine nature is the world was created for him And people say wait a minute says he's the firstborn of creation The word firstborn in the Greek there does not identify something that came into being as we would think of the firstborn child But rather first in the order of priority He is the king of creation Because he created it Revelation 22 50 20 to 13.
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I'm sure you're familiar with this one.
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I am the Alpha and the Omega who said that? Jesus I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end a man can't say that a Created being can't say that And one of my favorite When Thomas and Thomas gets a bad rap I really do.
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Well, how would you like to be called doubting Steve or something? Whatever your name is, you know He gets he gets called doubting Thomas forever right And he's stuck with it right ain't going away Huh he was being honest I won't believe until I see the nails scars in his hand and Jesus season he said see my hands feel my side that it is I and what did he say? Hafez hi, ha My lord and my god Now if you ever listen to a Jehovah Witness explain that one and I have I've talked to them They'll say well that was him X giving an expression of excitement.
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Like you might say my god if you got really excited There's a Greek word for that it is Bologna because that's that's exactly what that is.
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That's a bologna interpretation right there is no good the phrase Half a ass.
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Oh No, it's hot.
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They asked me.
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Hi How courteous move my know how courteous move Kai? how they asked me my lord and my god my my god and My lord and Jesus didn't say get up.
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You're wrong.
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Don't say that You and you know angels do that if you fall down before an angel, what do they say don't worship me But when Thomas fell down to worship Christ Christ accepted his worship Because he deserved it Because he's God To worship anything other than God is a violation of the first and second commandment Have no other gods before the Lord I do not make for yourself any idol and Jesus accepted worship the Holy Spirit Several passages, but I'll just give you a couple one.
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I've already mentioned John 16 7 to 11 This is where Jesus talks about him going away.
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So the Spirit could come that tells us one that the Spirit is personal and Also that the Spirit is divine Because he's coming as Christ in the world being in the place of Christ in the world In fact, this is where I take great issue with the Pope Because the Pope calls himself vicar of Christ vicar means vicarious or being in the place of something The Holy Spirit is the vicar of Christ not the Pope The Holy Spirit is the one who comes in the place of Christ not the Pope Acts 5 remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira Richard and I talked about this one a bit What did what is it about that story Richard that makes we know the Holy Spirit is a person? Remember Ananias and Sapphira What did he say? You've lied You lied to the Holy Spirit you've lied to God We've talked about this a bit because he said he said you've lied to the Holy Spirit.
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You've lied to God and that's the the point is that it's God.
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He is God And by the way, don't do what I just did because I just made a mistake.
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I said it The Holy Spirit's not it.
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The Holy Spirit is he Him not it and that's it That's it That's a mistake easy to make like I said It's sometimes in the just wrong because we think a spirit as a thing not a person.
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I do like the term Holy Ghost I Start talking about the Holy Ghost so people think I'm Pentecostal but use the word Holy Ghost and it puts more personality Than Holy Spirit because we think a spirit is sort of an immaterial thing.
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But ghost is something someone right and so King James says Holy Ghost.
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I mean I can say Holy Ghost if I want to I Like this one 2nd Peter 1 and 21 2nd Peter 1 and 21 No prophecy was ever given by the will of man But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit How did the scriptures come to us the scriptures came to us through? the administration of the Spirit of God That's how we got this book.
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This is God's Word because the Spirit administered its writing the Spirit oversaw and superintended It's writing and the three persons are co-equal and co-eternal How do we know that because they're all God, but I would also say this in Matthew 28 19 Matthew 28 19.
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What is that? Does anybody remember? Yep, go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit It's interesting if you looked at that in the in the Greek and I don't I don't press the Greek too hard on that one Because it's a Greek translation of Aramaic because Jesus is speaking Aramaic, even though the Matthew was not written in Aramaic It's it's translating what Jesus said, but either way it's interesting because the singular name of the Father and of the Son The Anima is the Greek and it's singular There's a the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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I Have how many of you familiar with a BB Warfield? Princeton theologian very influential figure from the From the past BB Warfield said this and I tend to agree with him he said when Jesus gave the Great Commission and said you're going out to Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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He was at that moment Replacing the name that everyone was used to associating with God and that was Yahweh Because now we we don't say Yahweh we say the Father the Son and the Spirit That he's given us a new name to proclaim and it's the name of the triune God It's still Yahweh.
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Don't take for a second that I'm saying.
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He's no longer Yahweh, but Warfield's argument was that the by by Proclaiming baptism.
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We don't baptize in the name of Yahweh we baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Spirit one God Yahweh, but three persons and I Think it's just an interesting point that Warfield makes there.
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All right last but not least.
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We'll run through these false views How to identify false views of the Trinity well, I Put them on your sheet to try to help make it simple there's really The Best way to understand the false doctrine is to hold it up against the real doctrine So if you start out and say God is one in essence That's the real doctrine then anything that would say anything other than that would be false, right? So what's the first one on your list there? I'll give you the picture Tritheism right tritheism says there's three gods God is three in essence or God is three in being right and so in that sense you have three Triangles each one representing a different God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and all three of these are God But all three of these are different beings different essences different substance.
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They are three different gods this is the Think of a what's that pitchfork, but it only has three Trident.
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Yeah, it's this is a threefold God the trident God.
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It's it's not three in one.
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It's three distinct and inseparate and yet still three and so that is called tritheism or tritheism depending on how you want to pronounce it and That would be the first because it would violate the first Understanding God is one in essence If you say God is more than one in essence and you violated the doctrine of the Trinity The second one would be that God is less than three in person.
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He is one in person and The way that you're I want to explain the square there because it says you have the father in the Old Testament you had the Sun and the New Testament and you have the Holy Spirit in the in the present Now how many of you have ever heard of something called? oneness teaching sometimes called oneness Pentecostal ism It's also known as Jesus only Jesus only Like I'm pretty sure I ran into a Jesus only lady the other day before Thanksgiving Because I was in Walmart and I was getting the food for the dinner and I was with the lady and they had spilled Some oil and they were pouring some kitty litter on her or something to get it to soak up And so she's standing there.
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You can't walk down the aisle, sir You know, there's there's danger and I said well, I need what's right there and she goes if you tell me what you want I'll get it for you So we can't have a conversation and I and I asked her how she's looking forward to Thanksgiving if she had to work whatnot We just kind of have a conversation and I said something about being a pastor of the church and she goes.
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Oh You believe in Jesus? Yeah, I do believe in Jesus and she said well Jesus is the eternal God and I didn't have the time to dig into what she meant because that is true But it's also indicative of somebody who's been brought up in a Jesus only Culture because they won't use words like Trinity They'll talk about Jesus only in fact when they baptize They don't baptize the name of the Father the Son the Holy Spirit they baptize in the name of Jesus Christ only Very important with them that you only baptize the name of Jesus and they say Jesus was the Father in the Old Testament It's only one person one being right there's one triangle one person one being he was a son When he was on the earth and he was a spirit now So we call that That's called modalism.
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By the way, that's the ice thing When I talked about earlier water steam and ice what's the problem with that as an analogy for the Trinity? They're not all the same at the same time You can't have steam and water and ice in the same molecule at the same time.
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It's got to change Well, that's the picture of modalism.
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It's also the picture people will say well the Trinity is like this.
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I am a father I'm also a son.
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I'm also a brother.
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I'm also a husband.
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So I am many things so God can be many things That's modalism Patrick Only one person I knew would get that there's a great YouTube video out there And it's a joke about it's but there's a little joke about it's modalism Patrick It's supposed to be st.
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Patrick saying it but or these two guys having a conversation with st.
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Patrick but the point is That is not Trinitarianism There is no true Analogy for the Trinity because there is nothing and no one like God The Bible says this there is none like unto me So there's no real analogy The Sun has heat and sun rays and that's the Trinity.
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No Bad bad bad, and then you got the third one, which is Unitarianism.
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This one's actually pretty popular Unitarianism says this Unitarianism says that you have the Creator Who is God the Father you have the creature Who is God the Son or they wouldn't say God the Sun they'll say that the Father is Creator.
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The Son is creature and the Holy Spirit is a is a impersonal force And I've heard I've actually talked directly to Jehovah Witnesses.
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I have a lot of conversations with people I don't know why but I do And I talked to directly who said you know How if you grab a hold of a live wire and that live wire is connected to power Somewhere that that live wire is gonna shoot energy through your body and that energy going through your body is power And I said, yeah, I mean I've worked with electricity I've got bit a few times, you know He said well, that's the Holy Spirit it's not a he it's an it and So Unitarianism says there is only one God Who is the Father and he is the Creator and oftentimes they'll make the point that he is Jehovah All right And everything else comes from him as creature spirit is not even a creature though the spirit is a force It's the spirit of Yahweh Which is like water going down a pipe or electricity going through a wire Let me just very quickly run through a few things about these number one.
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This one here I think is the easiest to dismiss Because it's ultimately polytheism right Very few people are going to come to your door espousing polytheism some might But you know, we're not living in ancient Rome we're not living with the Greeks now if you were in India where there are many gods or if you were dealing with say the Native Americans who believe in a You know a plenitude of gods and then you might be dealing with some type of polytheism But that's what trifee ism has to be and this is I've heard the people say God's like three-in-one oil Well, that's sort of like trifee ism because it's three different types of oil mixed, you know, that's not Three in one oil is not one Essence, it's three different oils mixed together But it's you know again the illustrations fall flat Trifee ism.
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I like I said, I think it's easiest to dismiss Modal ism is what I believe is the most common error the most common error Because of what I've already told you about the ice and the husband-father thing You say is it dangerous I think it is and this is why I Don't say I think I know it is.
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Here's why Modal ism Fails to make a distinction between the Father and the Son the Son and the Spirit and thus you end up with it with a Christ who is as it is is Misrepresenting himself on earth Because when he's speaking to the father, he's talking to himself And that's a misrepresentation of Christ's relationship with the father and John 17 Jesus said this glorify me with the glory that we shared before the world was by the way right there is proof Jesus existed prior to the world.
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Even if you didn't have John 1 1 you have John 17, which says Glorify me with the glory that we shared By the way, only God shares God's glory.
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So that's another argument, but he said that we shared before the world was Jesus is not having a conversation with himself.
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He's not schizophrenic So I think that that's where Sabellianism also known as Sabellianism modalism a modalist of monarchy and isn't there's a lot of names for it, but That's where I think the failure is.
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Yes, sir, Richard.
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Yeah Absolutely, and you know, I use Hebrews 1 7 and 8 when talking to the hope of witnesses of the Sun it says your throne.
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Oh Lord is forever and ever I say who is it talking about here? It's talking about the Sun if you go back to the passage that's quoting from the Psalms It's talking about Jehovah and you can show them that in their own Bible So is the Sun Jehovah or not? No, he's not but here it says he is Yes, sir Was teaching it in the youth and the pastor was unwilling to say or do anything about it Was openly teaching Modalistic monarchinism or Sabellianism and was that pastor did nothing Absolutely I Here's the issue Yeah Like I said this one I think is the easiest for people to make a mistake on it's easier for people to fall into because it still sounds like Trinitarianism It's not though It's one of the oldest and most common mistakes, but it's not what the Bible is saying.
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It's not what we're saying so That one is important last one is Unitarianism you ever heard of a Unitarian Church Right usually referred to as Unitarian Universalist, but not always because Jehovah Witnesses are Unitarian Unitarian is this remember the ratio thing I was talking about Unitarians believe that God is limited one being One person the same way man is one being in one person They believe that God is limited to one being one person He cannot be one being with three persons because they say that would be a contradiction which it's not which I've already proven It's not but that's not the point.
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The point is it's a one-to-one and cannot be anything else That's Unitarianism and you will be surprised how many people assume Unitarianism because they treat God as if he were man Man is limited to a one-to-one ratio So God must be limited to a one-to-one ratio and that's how many people fall into if you ask the average Christian is Jesus God You'll get a plethora of answers And I want to say if you ask me is Jesus God My response would be what do you mean? Because if all you gave me is yes or no, I would have to say yes But I would want to know are you meaning is Jesus God in this sense Because I always say Jesus is God the son or Jesus is God incarnate you say why would you qualify it? Because it is this group That makes the dangerous point of saying Jesus is the father and that's not what we're saying That has to be understood that there's a distinction between saying Jesus is God.
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By the way, this is the oh boy I go I don't go another half hour, but I'll say this Mary the mother of God people lose their minds about that It's not that big a deal folks Now I move the Internet's gonna explode for me saying this what I mean by it when I say it's not that big a deal What I mean is this from a historic perspective The point being made was that Mary was the mother of the incarnate deity And we sing about that every Christmas We've got to go nuts singing Christmas songs here in the next couple weeks.
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Hail the incarnate deity Right, we're gonna say those words and she is the mother of that incarnate God But where Roman Catholics have perverted that and that's why we don't use that Terminology anymore is they have now made Mary a sort of pseudo divine.
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That's wrong But the idea of Mary being the mother of God if you mean by that God incarnate, there's nothing wrong with that But if you mean by that it somehow makes her divine there is a lot wrong with that So we don't usually use that term because it's confusing now Do you understand my point? And I know I got to go I've got a meeting to get to and I forgot about it until just a minute ago And now I realize I just took 15 minutes away from I have an elders group get it gathering tonight Did you guys learn something tonight? Was that helpful? All right next week.
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We are going to begin our series on Christology Which my prayer will be you'll see how these connect because we're going to go straight from the Trinity To understanding the nature of the second person of the Trinity who is Jesus Christ.
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Let's pray father Thank you for this time of study.
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I pray it's fruitful for your people.
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We draw us closer to you in Christ's name.