Our God is Triune (Part 3)

We’ve looked at the mention of the thrice holy God in Isaiah six, also mentioned in Revelation chapter four. We also looked at Isaiah 42 verse one, Isaiah 48 verse 16, Isaiah sixty one one through two, Isaiah sixty three seven through 14, and then lastly, Psalm 33 verse number six. And the truth is there are more, but but I just want to give you a kind of a sampling, a good a good sampling of the places in the Old Testament where the three persons of the Trinity had occurred together. And then we come to the New Testament, of course, the New Testament is full of this and more explicitly.

And we saw last week two places that we started with where the New Testament lists or mentions the trinity together. We look first of all at the baptism of Christ in Luke chapter three verses twenty one and twenty two. And then we saw the great commission baptismal formula in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. That’s in Matthew 28 verse 19.

And we also while we were there, we also looked at various places in Acts when we saw the different believers baptizing and why that, why sometimes the formula, even though it’s not really a formula, but the statement regarding baptism is a bit different than the official formula in Matthew 2eight 19, but yet it all indicates the same truth which is the father, the son, and the holy spirit are co equal.

And so now, we want to go to Luke chapter one and and visit a few more places in the New Testament in which we see the trinity together and then we want to take a moment, take a little bit of time, and and look at the Holy Spirit and after we look at the Holy Spirit, then, we’ll look at the lord Jesus Christ in the relationship to the triunity of god. So, let’s take a moment and pray and then we’ll start in Luke chapter one. Let’s pray together. Our father, thank you for the opportunity again to meet together as your people.

Lord, thank you for the beautiful weather. Thank you for the changing leaves. Thank you for lord the grace and help you’ve given to many people in this room. Lord, who have who have not even though there’s a lot of illness going around in other places. We have not been so much affected with it here at this point but we thank you for that. Thank you for that that for for the good report from sister Joanna. We pray for wisdom there. We we pray for those who can’t be among us as well like Miss Diane and Miss Judy and Lord, we think of Brother Sonny and Mrs. Myers and Brother Ken and these folks, Miss Doris, that can’t be with us like they once were. I pray for your grace and comfort to rest upon them and that you would strengthen and help them even as they listen in. They would still be strengthened and edified by the word.

And so lord, bless our time in the Sunday school as well. Lord, as we look into the scripture, lord, teach us and help us to understand. Help us to see you as as you are revealed in scripture and lord, help us to stand in awe for we ask in Jesus name, amen. So, Luke chapter one, if you would look down at verse number 35, this is part of the announcement of Mary.

It isn’t interesting that you see the trinity in almost every major event in the life of Christ and and I was I was having a conversation I was having a well I had a conversation with somebody about the coming of Christ and you know there’s all kind of debate about the coming of Christ and when that happens and the order and that that kind of thing. Well, and I was thinking about the the second coming of Christ but as I was thinking about that, how that that’s not a a single moment in time. The Bible describes it as a lot of events that are all to happen altogether with his coming, but that’s also true of his first coming. His first coming was not a single event. You might say, well his birth. Well, no, no, no. Oh, no. He was conceived in the womb, nine months before he was born.

So did Jesus come when he was conceived or did he come when he was born or did he come when he revealed himself in his public ministry when he was baptized? So, you see what I’m saying? The coming of Christ was kind of an unfolding, right, over over in events that unfolded. And so I was talking about that in relation to the second coming of Christ, but during that first coming, one of the things that we do not look lightly upon that we we see is very significant is the announcement of Christ of Christ’s conception. This is before Christ was ever even conceived and in verse number 35, the Bible says this, and the angel answered and said unto her, now think about the the importance of this event. Now, we know we know based upon scriptural truth that a baby at at conception, when a when a when a baby is formed and that new individual is formed in the womb long before that child is birthed that, you know, when that the the male seed and the female seed come together, that’s the point at which an individual is is is conceived. We say conceived. You know what I’m trying to say.

And but that’s also true with the lord Jesus and even before his conception, the angel said, notice what verse 35 says, the angel answered and said unto her, the holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of god. Now, you notice all three persons of the trinity are mentioned. The holy ghost comes, the power of the highest, you could, we could see that as the father but you notice how they’re used synonymously and that’s important, that’s what we’re gonna get to later. But and then, of course, the one being conceived is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is also present obviously in the conception.

And this is before he was conceived. And so even at the conception, think about it now, even at the conception of Christ, all three members of the Trinity are present. And then you go into his public ministry at baptism, that starts, all three are present. When you... And and throughout his life, you you see at his resurrection, all three are present. He was raised by the father, also by the Holy Spirit, and he himself risen from the dead.

At every place you see our Lord, you see the three persons of the Trinity together and the conception of Christ is no different. Now, if you would look at John chapter 15, John 15.

John chapter 15 verse number 26. And our Lord’s teaching concerning the comforter, this is a part we’ll come back to a little bit later. But but John 15 verse number 26, our Lord speaking to His disciples, He says this, but when the comforter is come, now He identifies the comforter in the context as the Holy Spirit, but when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth, which preceded from the Father, he shall testify of me. Now, don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but let’s just say in verse 26, let’s just say here. The comforter is mentioned, he is sent by the son from the father.

All three together. You see this? First Corinthians chapter 12. Look at that. First Corinthians chapter 12. If you ask, why do we have to go through all these verses? Well, first of all, because it’s Sunday school. You came and you thought this was just going to be Sunday. Listen, it’s actually Sunday school. But the second reason is, here’s what I want you, one of the reasons we go through the verses, is number one, I don’t want you to take my word for it.

I want you to see it. It is vital. It is vital that every Christian see the truth for themselves in the Scripture. Number two, number three rather, is that I want you to see firsthand that this truth of the Trinity is not a one off. This is an oft repeated truth that we find in Scripture. It is enormously important. It’s so important that it’s found very frequently in the Bible. That’s one reason why we go through these verses.

Corinthians chapter 12 verse number four, referring to the spiritual gifts. Verse four says this, now there are diversities of gifts, but the same, what does it say? Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. Now, you can mix those around a little bit. Is the Lord referring to Jesus or is it referring to God? You see, it kind of blends together. There’s a reason it kind of blends together because they’re a trinity and they’re they’re a unity. So, but you notice all three members of the Trinity are mentioned. Look at two Corinthians 13.

Two Corinthians 13 Verse number 14, I love these benedictions. A lot of truth is included in some of these benedictions. Second Corinthians 13 verse 14, last verse in the book. The grace of the lord Jesus Christ and the love of god and the communion of the holy ghost be with you all. Amen. Ain’t that a good compact verse? Good compact verse. But notice the order. In a few places we read, the order is not in the Matthew order, or in the first John five:seven order, which is Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit. It’s in the order of Jesus Christ, love of God, communion of the Holy Ghost. So it switches the order. Now, why does that matter?

Well, you know as well as I do that order in Scripture matters. Order in Scripture matters. If you’re gonna list off your children, how do you list them? Brother Joseph, how do you list your children? Well, exactly. It’s natural to list them oldest to youngest. Order matters to us in in human language and that’s true in scripture. Order matters in scripture. And so it’s no wonder that in the Matthew formula, have Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. First John five:seven has Father, Word, and the Spirit, but here it switches.

What does that tell you? If the order switches in a few places, what does that tell you? They’re equal. It means they’re equal, right? It means you can switch them and it’s perfectly okay. And so... And that’s what that’s one example that you see right here where they switch switch them up. Now, you look at verse number 14. I’ll just deal quickly with an objection since we’re here. Some people might look at verse number 14 and they say, the grace of our of the lord Jesus Christ and the love of god and the communion of the holy ghost be with you all. Amen. And the the logic goes like this, if Jesus is god, then why is he spoken of as separately in this verse? And sometimes, there’s truth, there’s some truth in that. In other words, when you see two things, for instance, another example, this is maybe a little bit relatable.

When you see the term adultery and you see the term fornication found in the same verse, that indicates to you that there is a distinction in some measure between the two, right? Because they occur together, otherwise you’re just saying the same thing twice. Well, and so someone might look at verse number 14 and say, well, Jesus Christ is mentioned and and god is mentioned. So, therefore, Jesus Christ is not cannot be god because they’re mentioned separately but you gotta understand that well, first of all, you’re dealing with the trinity. Number two, and and this is one of the key the key truths that we gotta take away as believers and make sure we understand this this concept.

When we talk about the Trinity, we’re not saying that Jesus is the Father. This is one thing that Arians, Arians are like Jehovah’s Witnesses, those that do not believe in the deity of Christ or in the Trinity, that’s Arian doctrine, A R I A N. Arianism is what it’s called. Those that believe that often use a straw man. In other words, they characterize wrongly what we believe by saying Jesus is the same as the Father. We don’t believe that.

We don’t believe that God the Father is God and Jesus is God the Father. That’s not what we think. There is a distinction between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Right? There are three persons. That’s when we talked about when we first looked at this, we talked about modalism. Right? Remember what modalism is? Just a little bit of review? Somebody help me. Exactly, the same substance or the same...

It’s not really unity, but the actual same thing without distinction and just manifested differently. And then you have Arianism or you have tried the tried deity which is what? Three separate gods. That they’re not the same in substance. Right? The Bible teaches neither one of those. It teaches a trinity in persons, but a unity in substance. And that’s what we’re trying to see here. And is this hard to understand? Of course, it’s hard to understand. But verse number 14, it should not be a surprise that we see Jesus Christ and God mentioned distinctly because they do.

They they did they are distinct. So it’s not a surprise to us that we find them distinct. It’s not surprising when you understand the trinity that you see Jesus praying to the father. Because we don’t think they’re the same person. We never did think that. That’s a straw man put forth by the Aaron. Yeah.

Good. Right. Right. The idea of distinct, being distinct but yet same in substance kind of thing? Right, and that’s another way you could view it as an analogy. Alright, let’s go to the next one, let’s go to Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two.

Short verse, verse number 18. Ephesians two eighteen. Verse 18, For through Him, now pause a second, for through Him, now take just about ten seconds, scan northward on the page, find out who the Him is. Alright? Scan northward until you can find out exactly what the antecedent to hymn is. Who are we referring to? Is it 13?

For now in Christ Jesus, he who sometimes were afar off were made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, that’s Christ, who hath broken down, Christ, his flesh, Christ. Verse 16, and that he might, that’s still Christ, and he he came and preached peace to them who are far off, that’s Christ, for through him, that’s Christ, right? So, you follow the chain and you see that Christ is verse number 18, for through him, that’s Christ, we both have access by one spirit unto the father. You see the three? Christ, spirit, father, note the order. Now, father is last in the order.

But actually, you could have deduced the hymn in verse 18 was Christ just from the fact that the Spirit and the Father are both mentioned, so the only other person left is, but that would have kind of short circuited the whole exercise. Alright, one Peter one, one Peter one.

One Peter one:two. Now this is in the matter of our salvation. As it relates to our salvation, the three persons of the Godhead are all actively involved. First Peter chapter one verse two, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, Grace be unto you and peace be multiplied. You see the elect according to foreknowledge, god, that’s by god the father, sanctification of the spirit, and then the blood of Jesus.

All three persons in some way involved in the in our redemption. Look at the book of Jude, the book of Jude. Jude verse number 20. Jude verse 20 says, But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, there he is, notice he’s first. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Now going back to what I said before, remember the order, the fact of of the order gives us an indication that these, it doesn’t overtly say it, but the fact that the order is switched randomly throughout Scripture shows that there is a coequality between them two or it implies that.

And so you see it here as well. Revelation chapter one, Revelation chapter one. Verse number four. This is our last one that we want to see. Revelation one verse four.

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the Prince of the kings of the earth, unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.

All three you see together. All three you see in another separate order. So as you can see, hopefully, the number of times that the Trinity is mentioned together, mentioned in different orders and mentioned coequally is significant in Scripture. It was in in the mind of the writer, let’s just put it like this, in the mind of the writer who was directly led by God to write the words, in the mind of the writer, there was a distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But there was no question as to the fact that the three were equal.

That the three were one. And that’s why they’re mentioned in this way, we see this so frequently. That’s without question. And here and this is why this is why when we come at this question of the trinity, is this is is this what we might call an essential doctrine? In other words, is this a doctrine? Not all doctrines are like this. Not all scriptural truths are like this. Some scriptural truths you can leave out and you’re not doing justice to the text, but it’s not it’s not a different faith or a different God. Okay?

Whereas the trinity is one where you tinker with this, you’re dealing with a different god, okay? You’re dealing with a false god that’s not the god of the Bible. So, this is a very significant thing in scripture. Now, let’s take, let’s just turn the page if you will and I wanna take a little bit of time to look at the Holy Spirit. So, when we talk about the trinity, you know, the idea that god is one but he is three, he he’s one in substance but he’s three persons and so, when we look at the Trinity to understand the Trinity and to appreciate it, understand the breadth of the Trinity and how it’s taught in Scripture, we can also look at the various individual members of the Trinity as as they are revealed in scripture and see how each one is revealed as fully god, right? Who is very god. Each one is very god and I want to do that with the Lord Jesus and I want to want to cover that in some detail later, but before we do that, I wanna look at the Holy Spirit. Here here’s why this is important.

Is the Holy Spirit God? Is he very God? Fully co equal, in no way lesser than the Father or the Son. What’s the answer to that question? You know the answer to that question. The answer is yes. Okay? That’s the correct answer. Okay. But there’s a reason that that is important. Not only is the Holy Spirit co equal as in station or place, He’s also co equal in His character, in His attributes.

So here’s what I mean by that. If the Holy Spirit, if the Father and the Son are persons, in other words, say persons, that’s just because it’s hard to describe, they have personality is I guess the best way to put it, then that must also be true of the Holy Spirit. But if the Holy Spirit does not have personality, then He is not one in substance with the other two.

Now here’s where it gets kinda interesting. What you’ll almost always find that Arians teach, people who deny the deity of Christ, they almost always deny the deity of Holy Spirit.

And they they almost always explain the Holy Spirit not as a person, but as a force, an impersonal force. That’s actually the definition that Jehovah’s Witnesses give their literature, the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. Now, say, why they do that? Why do they go through all the trouble to do that? And I’m just I’m gonna let you in on the little secret that we’ve already covered so it’s not really a secret anymore.

It’s not about the Holy Spirit. Nobody cares if the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force or if the Holy Spirit is a person. Nobody cares if the Holy Spirit is deity, nobody cares about that. And we care, but in the theological world, nobody cares about that. That whole argument which we’re gonna look at right now, that whole argument, what is the Holy Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit? Is He a person? Is He equal with God? Is He separate? Is He lesser? Is He subordinate?

Whatever, all of those questions really aren’t about the person of the Holy Spirit at all. Those questions are designed to undermine the Trinity. And the Trinity in turn, undermining the Trinity is about undermining Jesus. That’s why it matters. Because you either accept it all, you accept it all is scripture or none of it is scriptural. And so, and so that’s that’s why this question of the trinity is so important and why if you can prove then that the Holy Spirit is presented in scripture as a person with personality like the Father, like the Son. And if you can prove that the Holy Spirit is equal, in no way lesser than the Father and the Son, you have then proven the Trinity. And by proving the Trinity, you have proven the identity of Jesus Christ.

That’s what it’s all about. I don’t think Satan is too concerned with these doctrinal quibbles about the Holy Spirit, but But is he concerned? Well, of course he’s concerned to some degree. He hates God in of his manifestations. But he is ultimately concerned with Jesus Christ and we know that because he constantly brought doubt upon who Jesus was. That’s what this whole thing’s about. So, how is the Holy Spirit revealed in Scripture?

How is the Holy Spirit revealed in Scripture? Look at John 14. John 14. Look at verse 16. John 14 verse 16. John 14 verse 16 says this, And I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter. Okay, stop a second. Why does it say another?

If it says another, then who’s the first? It’s Jesus Himself. Okay, so if Jesus is the first comforter, and the Holy Spirit is the second comforter, although not directly stated, does that not really imply that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one in substance? That they’re they’re equal, right? Let’s keep reading. That he may abide with you forever. Who’s the he in verse 16? The spirit. The holy spirit.

Even the spirit of truth cast away all doubt, there it is, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him, what does it say? Seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. Notice number of times the word he, he, he, he. Now, here’s a little, here’s a little thing. You have to understand about the language from which our English Bible is translated.

We don’t have this in English, not in any serious form. We do not have grammatical gender. What grammatical gender is, is not speaking Spanish, Spanish has grammatical gender, right? So, what was your name? I didn’t catch it. Ruth Baras. Ruth? Baras. Baras. Did I say that right? Right. So she speaks Spanish. Jim speaks poquito, poco, whatever the word is.

One thing you... One of the first things you learn in Spanish is grammatical gender because that is wildly different than English. That is all nouns have a gender. Now in Spanish it’s masculine and feminine. But in Greek, which is from the language from which our New Testament translated, it’s masculine, feminine, and neuter. Okay? We don’t have that in English. We say cat, we don’t know if it’s boy cat, girl cat, we say boy cat, girl cat. You know, we have whatever.

Tomcat, I don’t know how you say it. How you say girl cat, I don’t... Whatever, whatever it is. We have special, but that’s different than grammatical gender. Grammatical gender means if you say, for instance in Spanish I think cat is masculine. Okay, that’s right, can have a girl cat too. I don’t even know what I’m talking about here. But anyhow, in Greek and in other languages that have grammatical gender, if the word is masculine or feminine or neuter, then any reference to it also must be masculine, feminine or neuter, that’s why you say he. And we do this in English a little bit, but it’s different than grammatical gender. For instance, if you were referring to my wife, you would say, know, Allison and then later you would say she or her, right, to match the antecedent, that’s pronoun antecedent agreement. But in Greek it’s deeper.

In Greek, the word spirit is actually neuter. The word spirit is neuter. But that doesn’t mean the spirit is not a person. That just means that the word spirit, no matter how you use it, is neuter, that’s grammatically neuter. But when you get to verse number sixteen and seventeen, it doesn’t say it, it says He on purpose because He makes it personal. You see you see why that’s important? Now there are a couple of examples which I’ll point out in which we’ll see the Holy Spirit referred to as it.

And we understand why, because the Holy Spirit, the word spirit is neuter. But just because that’s the case doesn’t mean he He is not a person. Look at John 14 verse 26, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name. He shall, what does it say? Teach you.

An impersonal force cannot teach something. Teaching is a personal action. And this is also how the Holy Spirit is described, He does personal things. For instance, if you were to go stand out in the sun, you would feel the heat of the sun, that’s a force, basically, it’s energy, okay, that’s a force that is influencing you. There’s no conveyance of information. The Son is not personal, the Son is not teaching you anything because of its giving you heat and light.

But the Holy Spirit is a person. He does teach just like the Father and just like the Son. Look at chapter 16 verse seven. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away, the comforter, once again we see it, will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you. Again, him, him, he, he. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Notice, he is, the Holy Spirit is doing things that only a personal God can do. So he’s not a force, he’s a person, just like the Father, just like the Son.

Again, the coequality. Look at chapter 16, same chapter verse 13. Howbeit when he, the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. All things that the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you.

Oh, I’m sorry, missed verse 14. He shall glorify me for He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. So again, you have this personal activity of the Holy Spirit. Know, maybe that’s one of the reasons a lot of people get messed up on the Holy Spirit is because they don’t view the leadership of God as distinct and as something God teaches us, they kind of view it as how you feel. That’s not how the Holy Spirit operates, it’s not, oh, feel like He wants me to do this. No, it’s more than that.

He personally instructs His people because He is a person. Now we have to stop there, we’re just kinda getting into this truth, We’ll have to pick up there next time and go a little bit further. Any question before we before we close? Any comment? Alright, let’s pray then.