Part 3 / Session 09
The Trinity
Big Idea
The one true God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit: one God, three persons, each fully God. That is who God has shown Himself to be, and it is why God is love.
One What, Three Whos
Three truths
“Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” (James R. White, The Forgotten Trinity) “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
One God
Three Distinct Persons
Each Fully God
Tonight
Who God is
01 / Isaiah 6 · John 12:41 · Acts 28:25 · Matthew 3:13–17
One God, Three Persons
Isaiah saw the LORD on His throne. John says Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory (John 12:41), and Paul says the Holy Spirit spoke through that vision (Acts 28:25). At Jesus’ baptism the Son comes up from the water, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” When Jesus prayed, “not my will, but yours,” He wasn’t talking to Himself. The Son was talking to His Father.
02 / Isaiah 40:25
Three Ways to Get It Wrong
Water, ice and steam make God one person in three modes. The sun, its light and its heat make the Son and Spirit less than God. A shamrock makes each one a third of God. Every one of these pictures breaks one of the three truths, and every one turns God into a thing. “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.”
03 / John 17:24 · 1 John 4:8 · Ephesians 2:18
Why It Matters: God Is Love
Before the world began, the Father loved the Son: “you loved me before the foundation of the world.” God didn’t need to make us in order to have someone to love. And this is how Christians pray: “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” To the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
Three Truths, Three Errors
If you deny one
Deny one God
Three gods
Deny three distinct persons
One person in three modes
The picture that does it: water, ice, steam.
Deny each is fully God
A lesser Son and Spirit, or a third each
The pictures that do it: the sun; a shamrock.
HANDS
What belongs to God alone
Each person of the Trinity is given the Honors, Attributes, Names, Deeds and Seat of God. (Rob Bowman and Ed Komoszewski, via Wes Huff)
H
Honors
“that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” (John 5:23).
A
Attributes
The Spirit “searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).
N
Names
Lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God (Acts 5:3–4).
D
Deeds
“Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7).
S
Seat
“the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).
In One Sentence
There is one God, and He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Three persons, each fully God, never three gods. Before anything was made, the Father loved the Son in the Spirit, and He brings us into that love.
Two Lines To Remember
“Before he ever created, before he ever ruled the world, before anything else, this God was a Father loving his Son.”
“…which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on him.”
This Week
Take it home
Read John 17 once. Every time Jesus speaks to or about the Father, notice what He says about their love. When you pray, notice who you’re praying to: the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
To Chew On
If God is in control of everything, is anything really anyone’s fault?
Bookmark for next week: Psalm 104 · Genesis 45 · Matthew 10 · Psalm 127