Our God is Triune (Part 1)

Now, but to put it out there, just the objection that people have to the trinity and that objection is this, the word trinity is not in is not found in the Bible. The word trinity is not found in the Bible. That’s the objection and it’s true. The word trinity is not found in the Bible. The reality is though there are many things that are written in scripture, there are many truths that are articulated in scripture where the term, the modern term that we use is not used of that term.

You’ll not you’ll you’ll also not find the term deity of Christ. You won’t find that. You won’t find the deity of the Holy Spirit. You know another term you’ll not find as well is the term salvation by faith alone, you’ll not find that. In fact, was listening to a video kind of, well anyway, I was listening to a video and it was being recorded by an Eastern Orthodox, what are they called, priests?

Are they priests? Seems like there was another word. Anyway, I don’t know, I don’t know. He didn’t sing that old, I don’t know. But anyway, he was an Eastern Orthodox priest and his argument was, which is to me kind of ironic, but his argument was that salvation is not of faith alone, okay? And his argument was that the Bible never says we’re saved by faith alone, okay? That’s true, there is no verse that says we are saved by faith alone, know, in quotation marks, there’s no verse that says that.

And of course, what he’s arguing in that is he’s gonna argue that the works that our church and religion prescribe must be done in order for you to be saved. In other words, these works, now what they come back, they come back and say, well, these aren’t really works. These these aren’t works of the law, these are just our works. So the point is they’re arguing that works must be included, right?

Well, so but here’s the thing, just because that term is not found does not mean that truth is not found. And the same is true of the rapture of the church. Is the rapture of the saints a true thing? Absolutely. And it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter like when you think that happens because there’s there’s disagreement and our church has one view and you know, some people disagree on that, but the fact of the event is not in question. There is a rapture, although the word is not mentioned in scripture, right? The word is not mentioned. And so, just because the word is not mentioned doesn’t mean that the truth is not there, the truth is there.

And there are many many things that we have terminology for now that in the time the scripture was written, there wasn’t terminology and it’s not found in scripture in that way. So, I wouldn’t that bother you but Trinity is one of those that is that where people get hung up on that. Well, it’s not in the Bible. It’s the the term is not in the Bible. Well, so? That makes no difference to me.

Okay, here’s a here’s a definition of the trinity. The trinity is defined as the doctrine that there is only one, there is one only and true God. I don’t know that that seems they seem to have that backward. But this is copy and pasted from a source, so I wanted to give you a sourced definition. It’s the doctrine that there is only one true God, but in the unity of the Godhead, there are three co eternal and co equal persons, the same in substance, but distinct in subsistence.

Okay? So that’s one way to put it, there’s so many ways you could describe the Trinity, but here are the key here are the key factors of the Trinity, and we’re gonna look at all the scripture. I promise, we’re gonna we’re gonna run the references and all of that. But the key thing is that the Trinity has three that are unified in one, and when we say unified, we’re not saying that they’re unified as in they always agree, they do, but that’s not what we’re talking about when we say the three are the triune, three unity.

We’re not saying they just they always agree, because you and I, you know, if you if you come up in a family, oftentimes you’ll have someone who’s very, you you have a best friend and your best friend, you always agree, that’s not what we’re talking about.

When we say the Trinity, we’re talking about three persons that are equal, but not... They’re equal, but they are one in substance. Does that make sense? One in essence. So this is why we can say the seeming contradictory thing between we say there is one God which is clearly taught in Scripture, but there’s three persons, there’s three persons, God is in His essence, in His attributes, is three persons, that is His nature. Does that make sense?

Okay, and you say, well I don’t really understand that, that’s hard to understand. And we’ve covered this before, but it is no surprise to us that a God who is infinite and who is, as we’ve already studied, a God who is indescribable and self existent is going to have attributes that are hard for us to understand. That’s not surprising. It’s difficult for understanding how God is eternal, but that doesn’t alter the fact that He is eternal.

And so ultimately, the Trinity, the truth of the God is triune, is something that is not known, we can’t know it just by logic. Like you can’t know it just by understanding it in its full meaning through human reason. It is something that is revealed in Scripture. And are there difficult parts, are there difficult verses that deal with the Trinity that where it seems to say one thing and another? Yes, there are absolutely difficult Scriptures, that’s not surprising because when you’re talking about something that there is no equivalent, there is no equivalent in the universe to God.

That’s what Isaiah 46, forgot the specific verse, but Isaiah 46 says, To whom will you liken me? Or make mine equal, you know? And there’s nothing that you can compare to God and all of His attributes and the Trinity is one of those attributes that is we grasp it, but we do not fully understand it because it it is... It exceeds this this material world and everything we understand here. There’s... It’s a mystery.

But God nevertheless reveals the Trinity in Scripture even if the full understanding of it is still a mystery. Now some people have tried to describe the Trinity in different ways. You probably have heard some of these analogies. Have you ever heard someone try to describe the Trinity as water? Water has three states, it’s solid as ice, it’s liquid as liquid water, and it’s gas as water vapor, right? But it’s all water.

Or some other people have tried to describe it as the egg. Have you ever heard the egg analogy? The egg is the yolk, the white and the shell, but it’s a single egg, right? Those aren’t very good analogies to be honest with you. In fact, they actually in some form or another actually are analogous to a misunderstanding of the Trinity.

For instance, the egg is one egg, that’s true, but it has actually three parts and those are distinct, those are distinct. The water is one substance, but it has three phases actually aligns with something we’ll talk about in a minute, which is moltenism. Okay, we’ll talk about that in a second. And then some people have tried to use the analogy of a triangle. You know, you probably seen the Trinity drawn as a triangle where it’s, you know, God is written in the middle, and then you have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the three corners and they’re one God.

Maybe that’s a good way to put it, maybe not. But there is one Biblical analogy that is in my opinion, the best analogy for what we mean when we say Trinity. And I’ll acknowledge though that this analogy is also limited and it’s limited to our own understanding of this thing. Look at Genesis chapter one if you would.

Genesis chapter one, Genesis one verse number 26. We will come back to this in just a minute, this verse, but I’ll just I’ll get to one part I wanna show you. Verse Genesis one twenty six says, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Now notice at the beginning of that verse it says, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Now, although we read this, we think of image as something you look at, you have to understand that God is a spirit and the Lord is not referring to physical appearance because the Lord had no physical appearance, especially now because Christ had not come.

And so he’s not referring to Adam and Eve looking like his physical appearance. He’s referring to the to the nature of Adam and Eve as his nature. And what does that include? These are some of the things we taught when when I was a missionary in Cambodia, we would teach the Cambodian people about the nature of God and because that’s something that’s unknown. Cambodian people didn’t have an understanding of the nature of God like we do in scripture.

And so when you talk about we are in the... We’re made, God made us unlike all the other creatures that he made, he made man unique because man is made in his own image, right? We’re all familiar with that idea. But what does that mean? Well, for one, God made us with the ability to have emotion. God gave us the ability to exercise volition, which is our will.

God gave us intellect. Whereas the animal creation operates basically on instinct and input, right? It’s instinct and input. The input is like it’s hungry, it’s raining, and that animal does a certain thing based upon that condition, and then that animal does a certain thing based upon a genetic instinct. That’s why I’ve always wondered, who’s I talking to about this? Sam? No, it’s somebody. The question I had was, why does, I’m getting distracted here, but why why do sea turtles, because sea turtles are, the eggs are laid on the beach and buried.

Why is it that sea turtles who are in eggs, baby sea turtles, when they hatch know to go to the water? They’ve never seen the water. They’ve never been in the water. They don’t know what the water is, so there’s no, as I said, there’s no input, right, there’s no circumstance, but it’s wired, God has wired the sea turtle babies to do that without being instructed because mama’s gone.

She lays the eggs and she leaves, so there’s no example, there’s no input, they’ve never seen the water and yet instinct tells them to go to the water and so that’s what they do. You’ve seen the pictures of that when they’re rushing to the to the water’s edge, right? That’s instinct. That’s the way God made the animal kingdom, but that’s not the way God made a human being.

Now, we have some of those things in common, but God made human beings with a with a higher level of a higher nature than that. We have will, we have emotion, we have intellect, but even the way that we’re hardwired in our nature is like God. So in all of those ways, but in one other way, is that human beings are triune because we’re made in the pattern of God Himself, God’s own nature. Look if you would at one Thessalonians chapter five, First Thessalonians chapter five.

There are other verses we can look at, but this is this is not the core of our lesson, so we’ll just read this one. First Thessalonians five verse number 23, and the very God of peace sanctify you holy. Notice it says, sanctify you holy. So, Paul is praying that God would sanctify them, but not just, you know, first of all, he he he wants that sanctification process to be accomplished in the whole being. And so this is a definition of the whole being of man. Alright, here it is. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s sanctification.

So spirit, soul, and body, starting with the inside, working out. But notice there’s three parts, but the three parts are described as the whole. Do you understand that? He said, sanctify holy, that’s the one. And then you have the three parts, the body, the soul, the spirit, the soul, and the body. Now, do we, do you understand what the difference is between the spirit and the soul and body? I mean, you obviously know what your body is but do you understand what the minute differences are between your spirit and your soul? We we don’t fully understand it. What we do know is that the human being is not just this, right? That’s what we do know. The human being is not just this.

The human being has an inward part and we might call that the soul and some in fact some people have described the soul as the core, what you are, who you are, that’s your soul, but then there’s also the spirit. We don’t really fully understand the difference between all of that, that’s hard to understand. But here’s what we do know, that even though a human soul is not in his body because he died and his body is in the grave, his soul is with Christ, right? Or in the case of a lost person, his soul is in hell.

So can you say that he is in the grave? Yes. Can you say that he is in heaven? Yes. How? You see what I’m saying? There’s a triunity there that every part of us is fully, is us in essence, and yet together there’s also because there’s only one individual. This is what I think is the best example, although it’s limited, of what the Trinity, what God is in His triune nature.

Because this is the only one that is a Biblical pattern because god made us after his own image. And so we can look at ourselves and understand certain things about god’s about god’s nature because he made us after his pattern. Now, what is the what the Trinity... Let’s look at this right now, what the Trinity is not. Okay? So we talk about the Trinity is, gave you the definition, three persons who are who are one in substance, not just one in desire, but one in substance, essence.

Okay? But what is the... What are false understandings of the Trinity? There’s two... If you’re just taking notes, there’s two opposite views, okay? For the first one is called tritheism. Tritheism, which is three gods. Okay? So that would mean God the Father is God, God the Son is God, God the Holy Spirit is God, all three of them are gods. Look if you would at Deuteronomy chapter six, I wanna show you this.

You say, who in the world would believe in three gods? The answer? Mormons, Latter day Saints believe in three gods. They believe... Actually they don’t believe in just three, they believe in many. But as it relates to the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, they believe that those three are actually three distinct gods, okay? There’s not that unity. That’s called tritheism. Deuteronomy six verse number four.

This is called the Shema. It says this, here oh Israel, the lord our god is one lord. Now, you might read that and you might think, okay, hold on. If he’s one lord, then how can there be a trinity? That’s a great question.

This, in fact, Jesus himself who was the second person of the godhead, right? Quotes this verse. So, Jesus himself also believed this verse and he quotes this verse without contradicting or denying the truth of the trinity because the trinity does not mean three gods which is disproven by this. The lord is one lord. He is not three gods. He is one. God is one. Okay? So, whatever the trinity is, it does not mean three gods because because there is but one god. Everybody with me?

On the same page? Alright, the second the second version of the trinity that is not that is inaccurate and false is the is called modalism. I said I said monism earlier, I meant modalism, modalism, modalism. And basically what modalism teaches is that the Trinity is actually one God who is merely manifested in three ways. That would be like the ice, the water ice analogy, that water is one substance, but it’s manifested in three ways, that’s why ice is not exactly an accurate analogy, water is not an accurate analogy. So they would say that there the trinity, God is manifested or has three different roles or modes or versions, and depending on the circumstance, He reveals different ones at different times.

Okay? And the people that believe this, probably the most common one in our day is there are certain groups of Pentecostals that believe this, it’s called the Oneness Pentecostal Movement. And so they believe in modalism. Now, what does the Bible say about modalism? This is very simple. If that’s true, then Jesus could never pray to his father in John chapter 17, or in any other place.

How can... If God is just manifesting himself in different ways, then then how can he pray and interact with himself? Okay? And this is all going somewhere. We’re building a case because we’re gonna get get to some verses where there’s objections and there’s there’s issues that people raise about that, but the the fact that Jesus prays to his father denies modalism. Because Jesus is a person and he’s praying to his father which is a person and that requires two different persons.

Everybody with me? Okay. Okay. Now if you would go back to Genesis chapter one, and this what we’ll cover to finish up today. Now we need to say this outright, the Trinity as a doctrine is not fully revealed anywhere in the Old Testament and that tells us something, that the Old Testament was never intended to be the complete revelation of God.

It was partial, it was never the full thing. The structure of the Old Testament tells us that, but also in this doctrine we can see that because this essential doctrine of God’s nature is not seen in the Old Testament in a plain way like it is in the New. It is only revealed in the New, in the New Testament. And this is one reason why the Jews had such a hard time with this, going somewhere with that, but however, the Trinity is indeed hinted at and implied in various places in the Old Testament.

It’s hinted at mainly by various mentions of God in the plural in several places. That’s not that’s not it. We will look at these, but you will not see a verse that puts the three persons of the Trinity in one place or put together in a unified kind of in that kind of way, you’ll not see that in the Old Testament, it’s just not there.

Because it’s not fully revealed. Okay, look at Genesis chapter one verse number two. Here’s the very first hint that the Trinity is in the Old Testament. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, I know that doesn’t, there’s no Trinity there exactly. But as we’ll see in a minute, and this is important for us to get, very important for us to get, the doctrine and question of the Trinity, the triune nature of God is tied directly to the deity of each member of the Trinity.

A lot of times we spend... The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which one of those three persons in the Godhead do we spend the most of most of the time trying to prove his deity? Jesus, obviously. And... But sometimes you will see people argue that the holy spirit is is is not God, is not a person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is a force or something like that.

But here’s what here’s what I want you to see. When people argue against the Trinity, they might argue this or that, but the goal is to get to Jesus. Now, this is very important. When people say, oh, the trinity is not in the Bible. What you have to understand is arguments against the trinity are a satanic attempt to undermine one thing and that thing is the identity of Jesus. Amen. That’s it.

Remember, the devil from the beginning in the garden, not in the garden, the in the mount of temptation. Jesus was being tempted. If thou be the son of god, that is forever been the question. We went through the 160 messages in Matthew and how many times did I talk about the the the identity of Jesus being being at the forefront where even the devils, you remember the devils would come to Jesus and throw themselves down, you know, when they were possessing people. They would throw themselves down and they would say, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God, you know, or they would say something like that acknowledging his what?

Identity in an effort to get favor so He wouldn’t cast them out and that kind of thing. But here’s the thing, that’s always been the question. So the question is not, is God three, the question is not really, is the Holy Spirit God? Nobody cares about that question.

The real question is if I can deny the Trinity, then that means Jesus is not God and that’s the whole game. It’s a satanic game. It’s a satanic game he’s been playing since the very beginning. Christ has already come, so if he can undermine his deity and get people to deny that, he can keep them out of heaven. He can keep them away from God because Jesus is the only way.

Not an impostor Jesus, a fake Jesus, but the real one. And so these arguments about the Trinity you have to understand are really about Jesus. Alright. Now, here in verse two of Genesis one, you see the spirit of God acting in a godlike way.

Because he’s moving upon the face of the waters, it doesn’t say plainly and directly, but he’s moving upon the face of the waters and what’s what he’s doing is it’s a creative act, right? But it’s not being done by God, verse one, it’s being done by the spirit of God. Well, you could say, well, God was using his spirit. Maybe, but the Spirit is being described in a personal way here.

So that’s a first indication that the Spirit of God is involved in the creation, which is one of the characteristics of God’s identity, He’s the Creator. And then if you go down to verse number 26, we’ve read already, look at what it says, and God said, let us make man after our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion of the fish of the sea. So the question is, who is the us that God is referring to? And some have said, well that’s just the angels. Well, problem is that mankind is never stated in Scripture as having been made after the image of angels, only after the image of God.

But yet, God uses on purpose uses the plural to refer to Himself. Now is that a full revelation of the Trinity? No. But it is something there. And then, and what’s interesting is in verse 26, he uses the let us make man in our image after our likeness in the same breath that he’s describing how that mankind is made similarly to God himself and that’s what we just saw about the trinity.

He uses the plural when he’s referring to that part of man that is matching God’s nature. And then you go down to verse number verse number 27, so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. See, it switches back to singular, immediately. And then you go down to verse number, look at Genesis three verse number 22.

Notice in Genesis one twenty six, God is talking to Himself and He uses the plural. In Genesis three twenty two, God again is talking to Himself and He again uses the plural. Verse 22 says, and the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden.

Again, God uses the plural. And then the last example we see of this is in Genesis chapter 11, look there if you would. Genesis 11, once again, God talking to himself.

Verse number seven, at the Tower Of Babel, go to, let us go down and there confound their language that they may not understand one another’s speech. Now, I won’t say that every single time the lord is having a conversation inwardly, right? Because he does about Noah and so but not every time, but you do see often in Genesis when God’s talking to himself, it’s almost like a conversation between the different members, the different persons of the Trinity having a conversation.

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all talking amongst themselves. Again, that’s not a full fledged explanation of the Trinity, no it is not. But it is notable, right? It’s a hint of of the triune nature of god. Okay. Alright. We’ll pause there and pick up next time. Let’s pray together.