God in Three Persons: The Trinity Friday, March 30, 2007 |
God in Three Persons: The Trinity
How Can God be three persons, yet One God?
God eternally exists as three persons, father, son, Holy Spirit, and each individual is fully God, and there is one God.
Or “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness”
Or “Ontological equality but economic subordination” equal in being but subordinate in role.
Explanation and Scriptural Basis
1) The Doctrine of the Trinity is Progressively Revealed in Scripture
a) Partial Revelation in the Old Testament
i) Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..”
(1) What do the plural verb “let us” and “our” mean? Plurality of Majesty maybe?... has no support in the Hebrew Scripture, Speaking to Angels?... not apart of the creation process.The best explaination is that already in the first chapter of Genesis we have an indication of a plurality of persons in God Himself.
ii) Psalm 45:6-7 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; 7 you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
iii) Psalm 110:1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
(1) Here one person is called “God” and is distingiushed from another person who is also called “God”.
(2) IN the NT, Hebrews qoutes Ps 45 passage, and applies it to Jesus.
(3) Matt 22:46 shows how Jews still to this day cannot explain Ps 110, because they do not understand God exsists in three persons.
iv) Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit;
(1) Suggests both that the HS is distinct from God himself and has emotional capabilities.
v) Hosea 1:7 and I will save them by the Lord their God.
vi) Isaiah 48:16 And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.
(1) From a full NT perspective, this verse spoken by Jesus the messiah, refers to all three persons of the Trinity.
vii) “Angel of the Lord” If the angel is a “messenger” of the Lord, he is distinct from the Lord. Yet he is referred to as “God” sometimes. (Gen 16:13, Ex 3:2-6, 23:20-22, Num. 22:35 w/ 38, Judg. 2:1-2, 6:11)
viii) Proverbs 8:22-31 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, 26 before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.
(1) To work as a “craftsman” at God’s side in creation suggests in itself the idea of distinct personhood.
b) More complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament
i) Matt 3:16-17 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
(1) Here we have all three members of the trinity performing three distinct actions. Father is speaking from Heaven, Spirit is descending to empower Jesus for ministry, and Jesus is being baptized in front of witnesses.
ii) Matt 28:19 “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”
(1) Father and Son. Distinct family roles.
iii) 2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
iv) 1 Peter 1:2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:
v) Jude 20-21 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
vi) 1 John 5:7 “and these three testify”
2) Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching
a) God is three persons
i) This means the Father is not the Son, they are distinct persons.
(1) John 1:1-2 tells us the “Word” is “with” God shows distinction from God the father. (“Word” is seen to be Jesus in verse 9-18)
(2) 1 John 2:1 Jesus is our high priest and advocate before the Father. In order to intercede for us before God the Father, it is necessary that Christ be a person distinct from the Father.
(3) John 14:26, 16:7 and Romans 8:27 all refer to the Holy Spirit interceding us, indicating a distinction of persons.
(a) Each is distinct. God the father sends God the Son into the world, the Son prays to the Father, and the HS intercedes before the Father for us.
b) Each is Fully God
i) The father Gen 1:1
ii) The Son John 1:1-4, John 20:28, Hebrews 1, Titus 2:13, Colossians 2:9
iii) The Holy Spirit Acts 5:3-4, Psalm 139:7-8, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11
iv) (If the bible only taught these two facts, there would be no logical problem, because there would be three Gods. A “tritheism” or “Polytheism” and would be far from what scripture teaches. Scripture is abundantly clear that there is only one God)
c) There is one God.
i) The three different persons of the trinity are not only one in purpose and in agreement on what they think, but they are one in essence. In other words, God is only one being.
ii) Deut 6:4 The Lord our God is one
iii) Ex 15:11 Who is like you, O Lord?
iv) 1 Kings 8:60 The Lord is God, there is no other
v) Is 45:5-6 I am the Lord, there is no other
vi) Romans 3:30 God is one
3) Simplistic Solutions must all deny one strand of Biblical teaching
a) We have three statements, all which are taught in scripture.
b) All analogies have short comings
c) God eternally and necessarily exists as the trinity
4) Errors have come by denying any of the three statements summarizing the Biblical Teaching
a) Modalism claims that there is One person who appears to us in three persons
i) The argument is in the OT God revealed himself as the Father, then throughout the gospels as the Son. After Pentecost, this same person revealed himself as the spirit active in the Church.
ii) It’s attractive because it lifts up the fact that there is one God. The fatal shortcoming is that Modalism denies the personal relationships whining the trinity that appear in scripture. (or assume it’s only an illusion or charade when Jesus is praying). The idea of Jesus or the Holy Spirit interceding for us is lost.
iii) Modalism loses the heart of the atonement, the idea that God sent his Son as a substitutionary sacrifice, and that the Son bore the wrath of God in our place, and that the Father, representing the interests of the trinity, saw the suffering of Christ and was satisfied (Isa. 53:11)
iv) Modalism denies the independence of God. For if God is only one person, then he no longer has the ability to love and to communicate without other persons in his creation. (And God does not need anyone because of the perfect relationships within the trinity)
v) Today, United Pentecostal Church is modalistic in its doctrinal position.
b) Arianism denies the full deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
i) Condemned at the council of Nicea in 325.
ii) Reaffirmed at the council of Constantinople 381
iii) The passages they use to argue Jesus was made, not begotten, can better be understood to mean that Christ has the privileges of the “first born”.
iv) Christ is of the same nature as the Father
c) Tritheism denies that there is only one God
i) Few persons have held this view
ii) It has similarities to many ancient pagan religions
iii) There would be no absolute worship or loyalty to one God
5) The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity
a) The Atonement is at stake
i) If Jesus is not fully God, then he as a creature could not bear the full wrath of God against all our sins
b) Justification by Faith alone is threatened
i) If Jesus wasn’t fully God, we would doubt if we could trust Him to save us
c) If there is no trinity, then there is no interpersonal relationships
i) This would make it greatly difficult to see how God could be genuinely personal or be without the need for a creation.
ii) If there is not perfect plurality and perfect unity in God himself, then we have no basis for thinking there can be any ultimate unity among the diverse elements of creation.
6) Distinctions Between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
a) Persons of the trinity have different primary functions in relating to the world
i) In Creation
(1) God the Father spoke the creation into being
(2) God the Son carried out the decree (John 1:3, Col 1:16)
(3) Holy Spirit was moving over the face of the earth (Gen 1:2)
ii) In Work of Redemption
(1) God the Father planned redemption and sent the Son (John 3:16, Gal 4:4)
(2) The Son obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption for us (John 6:38, Heb 10:5-7) God the father did not die for our sins, nor did the Holy Spirit.
(3) The Holy Spirit was sent by the Father to apply redemption to us. (John 14:26, Jon 3:5-8, Rom 8:13)
b) The Persons of the Trinity Eternally Existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
i) Could God the father have come instead of God the Son to die? Could the Holy Spirit sent God the Father? No. For the role of commanding, directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father. These roles could not have been reversed or the Father would cease to be the Father, and the Son would cease to be the Son.
ii) Eph 1:3-4 Before the Son came to earth, before creation, the Father was the Father, the Son was the Son, and the Spirit was the Spirit. The relationships are eternal.
iii) If we do not hold to ontological equality, not all persons are fully God. If we do not have economic subordination, then there is no inherent difference in the way the three persons relate to one another, and consequently we do not have the three distinct persons existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity.
7) Can We Understand The Trinity?
a) We cannot remove all mystery from God. However, it’s not correct to say we cannot the doctrine of the trinity at all. Certainly we can understand and know that God is three persons, and that each person is fully God, and that there is one God. We know these things because the Bible teaches them.
b) What we cannot understand fully is how there can be three distinct persons, and each person have the whole being of God in himself, and yet God is only one being. It’s spiritually healthy for us to acknowledge God’s very being is far greater than our understanding. This humbles us, and draws us to worship Him.
c) Scripture does not ask us to hold to a contradiction. A contradiction would be “There is one God, There is not one God” or “God is three persons, God is three persons”. But to say, “God is three persons, and there is one God” is not a contradiction, it’s a mystery or paradox. But that should not trouble us if all three statements of the trinity are taught in scripture. (1. God is three persons 2. Each is Fully God 3. There is one God) For as long as we are finite creatures and not omniscient deity, there will always be things that we do not fully understand.
