God the Trinity

Today we're at chapter 5. This is one of those times when you think, Lord, I can't do this. We're talking about Trinity today, and that's one of those subjects that's probably beyond our comprehension when you think about it. But what's incredible is there's just a tremendous amount of scripture that talks about that subject, and the more you look, the more you see is there. And I hope that if you've had a chance, you've read the chapter. And if you haven't, you'll read it afterwards. And there's just a lot to be said about the Trinity.

And actually, we're not going to cover that subject exhaustively. I went through it and just tried to look at it. In fact, in Chapter 5, there are six sections. In Chapter 5, actually, I don't have it. It's on your handout, actually, the bottom part of the notes.

And we're just going to talk about the unity of the Divine Trinity, the names of God, and the attributes of God. And we're going to see that all three of those subjects really are going to be focused toward the triune God, that we have one God in three persons. And just one thing that you'll notice in the first section in Chapter 5, they talk about, they go through all these different beliefs or whatever, and it kind of struck me, materialism, as we know, that seems to be the overriding mindset of our world. And it just kind of struck me that that eliminates God.

It says, I don't need a God. I look at nature, and nature is self-sustaining. It created itself, and all these kind of things. And that fuels evolution. And we know that. And it's sad to see that that's taught. And it's sad to see that God is eliminated from that process. And there's a whole bunch of other things that are in that first section.

Okay, so with that kind of said, let's just go on and start looking at the the triune God. And when you start looking at the at scripture and you look at the things that talk about God, there are three names in the Old Testament that kind of come out kind of loud and clear in terms of who God is. And most of you probably have heard these words before, Elohim, Yahweh or Jehovah, and Adonai. I kind of like to go through these three names a little bit and look at some scriptures, and then that will help us I think later on as we get into some verses that will actually use that.

Actually, there's a mistake that you'll see a little bit later. I'd like you to keep your eyes open for a mistake I made. Actually, I had my wife proofread. And actually, this is not a spelling mistake, but it's something that I was going to mention and I realized I didn't hold true to what I was going to mention here. So, see if you find it as we go through here.

Okay, let's talk about Elohim first. Elohim is the most common name for God in Scripture. It comes from the root word El, which means strength, and many times the word is used to speak of God's covenant, covenant nature, covenant keeping God. Actually in Genesis 1-1, in the beginning, in the beginning was God.

I'm not a grammarian. Grammar is not my strong suit, but anyway. It's a masculine noun in plural form, but is used in a singular sense. I think the key part of that is that it is plural in nature. It's a plural noun, and I think that that kind of looks toward, is a foreshadow, if you will, in the Old Testament of the fact that we have a triune God. And we're going to see a particular verse, I think, that really is illuminating in terms of that.

Actually, let's turn to Genesis 1.26 for a second. And I've looked at this before in a previous time.

And in Genesis 1.26 it says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So in this passage, this word for God is this word Elohim, the plural name for God, and then it kind of goes on. You see the plural nature of let us make man in our image plural again, according to our likeness. So the plural nature of God is there in the Old Testament. Maybe not as clear as it is when we get into the New Testament, but it's there. This word also is used when it speaks of pagan gods. If you just turn over to Exodus chapter 18, you can see that just briefly. Exodus 18. Exodus 18 and verse 11 says, Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods. Indeed, it was proven when they dealt proudly against the people.

So in this passage, actually we have two of the words we're talking about here. We have the Lord, which in this case is Jehovah or Yahweh, and then we have the word gods, and smaller gods, but this is the word Elohim. So sometimes the word Elohim is used to speak of the true God, and sometimes it's not. You have to look at the context. In most English Bibles, they will capitalize when they believe it's speaking of the true God, and they'll put it in small when it's not. Let's go on to the next one, which is Yahweh, or Jehovah.

The English Bibles help you out here, and it's something you have to look carefully. It's normally in block caps, and actually in this passage we just looked at in Exodus 18, chapter 18, verse 11, if you'll notice that in mine, I have it in what's called block caps. Everything's capitalized, but the first letter is a little bit bigger font, so you have a little bit bigger font for the L, and you have all the caps for the rest of it. In contrast, you'll see to Adonai, which has a capital L in lowercase.

So you can go through and look at Scripture and you can decide whether they're using Yahweh or they're using Adonai. And it's funny, when you start looking at that, it's a little bit different, a little window into God's Word. As with looking at the original languages, too, many times looking at what the word means really helps you. And I think this is really neat. And this particular word Yahweh is really...

And it's first used in Genesis chapter 2. I'm going to turn back over to there for a second. Genesis chapter 2. I'm kind of doing this just to get your feet kind of wet, so that we'll kind of see what... So when you look at some other verses, you'll kind of have this in mind.

Genesis chapter 2, verse 4. And it says, This is the account of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. So in this case we see that it's Yahweh, and I believe this is Elohim, so this would be Yahweh, Elohim made the earth. If you look down at verse 5 for example, you'll see that they use Adonai in verse 5 of chapter 2.

Is that distinction in most of your Bibles? I haven't checked all the translations. I think it's pretty universal. As we go through, I'll try to point out some other ones. Now let's look over a real important passage in looking at this word Jehovah or Yahweh is in Exodus chapter 3. I'd like somebody to volunteer to read that, Exodus chapter 3. And maybe we could start reading... Could somebody volunteer to read verses 3? I'm sorry, 3. 13 and 14 in Exodus chapter 3. Just raise your hand. And you get extra points if you read, of course, if you realize. Go ahead, Sue. And God said unto Moses, I am as I am. And he said, Thou shalt not say unto the children of Israel, I am as this means, but this means unto you. Well, in verse 14, this is a tremendous statement.

It depends upon your rendering. I think the King James have, I am that I am, and other ones have, I am who I am, it seems like. But it's this name for God that is that is related, and I don't really, like I said, I don't claim to understand it totally, but there's a connection between Yahweh and this passage, and it has to do with the verb, well I can't pronounce it, but it's a verb, to be verb, it's a verb that talks about that God exists. I am that I am. He exists, he always existed, he always will exist. He's a self-existent one. That defines God's very nature. Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. So I am that I am, or I am that I am, describes who God is. And that's expressed in this word Yahweh or Jehovah.

And I think you probably read in the chapter, if you read that, or other places, that the Jews considered this name so special they would not speak it, or not even write it down. They would substitute another name for it. Which I guess, I was kind of thinking about this, this would make it very difficult if people started maybe not accurately copying they copy in Adonai in place of it. They didn't want to say Jehovah, so it made it very difficult. But the word in the original Hebrew text is, in many places, Jehovah or Yahweh. And it's this self-existent God. Okay.

And then the third one is Adonai, and it's translated Lord, capital L, and lowercase O-R-D. And it's first used in Genesis chapter 15, if you want to turn there for a second. Genesis 15, in verse 2, and it says, And Abraham said, O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, since I am childless?

And the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And you're going to notice here, so here we have the capital L, lowercase o-r-d, and you see many times it's combined with Elohim. So now this is Adonai Elohim. Adonai Elohim is the name for God in this passage. So many times it's combined for God. Okay.

And actually, someone's also pointed out that it seems to be three primary names for God, and some have even thought that's even a foreshadowing of the Trinity, too. I mean, you know, and I don't think we have to be, you know, I think it's really interesting that there are. I hate them, you know.

Okay, so now let's, with that in mind, let's go ahead and start looking at the unity of the Divine Trinity. So I kind of have two major sections in this, one addressing the unity of God in the scripture, and that's mostly in the Old Testament. And then secondly, the triune God, and that's largely, but not exclusively, in the New Testament. You're going to see some Old Testament verses in there as well.

I was trying to jot down some things that were mentioned in the book as well as other places. We have one God in three persons. The three persons are equal, equal in attribute. They're equal in our praise and worship. There is a procession that we're going to see. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there's a procession involved in that.

And it's not tritheism, as is mentioned in the book. It's not three separate gods. And it's not even God in three modes of existence. God is just a triune God, period. You know, sometimes I find that you You start down one path and pretty soon you wind up with three, and one time you get this way. You've got to be careful. You've got to let scripture speak for itself. That's kind of the bottom line.

As we go into the triune God, I kind of went through there and looked at the fact that the Lord Jesus is called God, the Holy Spirit is called God, that all the passages, and there's just a ton of passages on on Christ and the Father, and they're constantly passing, especially in the Gospel of John, that talk about this intimate relationship of the Father and the Son. And then Christ, before He left, talks about His relationship with the Spirit, and that's talked about. And then there's this procession of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then in the Old Testament, these phrases, the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, and then the Spirit of God as He moved upon people.

So we're going to look at all those. Okay, so then we'll just kind of start down that path. So in this section, I want to talk first about the unity of God. And actually as I looked at the unity of God in the verses, I only put two down there, there's many other verses, but there are two ideas that kind of hit me. Let's go through the verses and then maybe I'll give you a chance to see if you can... I think there's two ideas kind of in there in these verses.

Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 6. And verse 14. Did I do that right? Thank you, Hal. That wasn't a mistake. I'll get the extra gold star for that one because it's funny. I don't know whether you've experienced this. You have a bridge put down and you look at it and it's not the verse. Thanks, Hal. So correct that to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 4. It's going to be important here that we look... Can I pick on you there?

What word in the original is Lord in this one from your Bible there? make out, is that Adonai or is that Elohim? I'm sorry, is it Adonai or Yahweh? Actually, in this passage, the first one, well actually in my Bible, in my Bible they're They're both the same. They're both capital L, then block caps for ORD.

Does someone have different than that? Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Really? That's interesting. Okay. Now, unfortunately, this is my mistake. I'll go ahead and confess to my mistake right here. My mistake is that my Bible has both those as Yahweh, or all caps. Both of them are LORD. Yahweh. So it would read... I'll read it. The LORD Yahweh is our Elohim. The LORD Yahweh is one.

So what's interesting about this verse And I'm pretty sure, I don't know, we can double check, it's interesting that the NIV doesn't have that second one as... Okay. Maybe we'll get this... Because actually this is one of the points I found interesting looking at this verse.

That it talks about Yahweh as being God, our God, which is a plural form, and then it says He's one. I thought that was tremendous. Three but one in this one verse. I thought that was really significant. It said, Yahweh is Elohim, which is plural, and it says the Lord is one. And that word one is the same one like one day in Genesis where it says evening and morning was one day.

So it's really a one. I mean, it's one day. One is one. Okay. In Isaiah 44 it says, I am the first, I am the last, and there is no one beside me. Can anyone from these two verses tell me the two ideas that you see here in those two verses? Do you see two separate ideas, first of all, between Deuteronomy 6.4 and Isaiah 44.6? I see two aspects of God kind of portrayed here. Actually, maybe even three with the fact that verse one is talking about the Lord is our God, which is plural, but he's one. But I thought verse 44 kind of added an additional idea. I was looking for something a little bit different.

Basically, what occurred to me is that He's alone. There's no one beside Him. The last part of the verse says it. And there's no one beside Him. And there's other places that talk about, you know, He's alone. And this refutes any other, there's not like a God of the sun and the moon, you know, all these other multiple gods. He's alone. He stands alone.

Unique. So in these verses here, in the unity of God, and there's a whole bunch of other ones, like in Isaiah 45, There's another passage that talks about the fact that there's no one beside me. I stand alone and unique among all gods. There's none other than me.

So there's two ideas. God is alone and that God is one, but he's three in one from the Deuteronomy 6 passage. So that's kind of what I came away with looking at the unity of God from those passages. Other thoughts about that? Okay, so let's go on now to looking at the triunity of God. And this is where we kind of get into the fact that the Son is called God and the Spirit is called God.

And some of these verses we looked at before, in John 1.1, it says the Word was God. And that Word was is the idea that He continuously exists as God. He always has existed as God. He always will exist as God. The Word was God. And then Romans, it talks about that This is a passage that talks about that Christ is overall and He is called God, blessed forever.

And then in Titus 2.13 it talks about this is the one that we're looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the Lord, our great God.

So the Son is, and this is only just a few passages that the Son is called God. What you find is there seems to be a many, many passages on the Son and not as many at the beginning on the Spirit. But they're there, it seems like, the more you kind of dig in. So the Spirit is called God. Let's just look at that for a second. Acts chapter 5. This is a passage with Ananias and Sapphira.

Starting in verse 3 it says, But Peter said to Ananias, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land, while it remained unsold Did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart?

You have not lied to men, but to God." So here, the Holy Spirit of is spoken of, and there's no question raised here. You have not lied to men, but to God. Okay, and then also in the Corinthians passage, it talks about, it just says, the statement that the Lord, the Lord is the Spirit, and of course this is the New Testament, so it's a different word, and I didn't really look up the Greek word for Lord in this case, but it says the Lord is the Spirit.

So let's go ahead and look at the next couple ones. Now, I'm always amazed that you hear people that really haven't read much Scripture or know very little about the Bible, they say, well, Jesus never claimed to be God. It's not obvious that Jesus is God from Scripture. I don't know. They haven't read much Scripture, that's all I can say.

There's so much, it's just incredible, especially in the Gospel of John. And the first one here is in John chapter 10. In verse 30, it says, I and the Father are one. And once again, in many, many of these passages, we're going to see that when it says, this particular word, are, is a form of the word in me, it's a plural of in me, and it's the idea that something continuously exists. So it says that, and it's in the present tense, so it says that I, the Lord Jesus, and the Father continuously exist as one. And the Greek scholar who has a little, I don't know if you're familiar with the Wiest translation, it's really very helpful. He renders it as, I and the Father are one in essence. They're very who they are, they're very core, and we're going to see that as we look at the attributes of God. You can go through and look at the attributes of God and you'll see that the holiness of God and the righteousness of God, all these attributes are shared by the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then in John 14, it says, He who has seen me has seen the Father. Now, let's just turn over to that for a second. John 14. And John 14 says, John 14 verse 9, Jesus said to him, Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.

How do you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father abiding in me does his work." So, you know, just in these two little verses, there's just a tremendous amount of information about this relationship between the Father and the Son.

And basically, the Lord is telling telling Philip here, it's sufficient, Philip, it's sufficient for you to see me. And I kind of wonder, and we have this discussion with my wife all the time about, when we go to glory, who are we going to see? You know, and this is back to the Trinity, this is the whole kind of immersion that I, I'm going to see, you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I don't think, I don't know, I'm stepping on his toes here, Scripture, the Lord Jesus is who we're going to see. We know we're going to see Him, and I think that's enough.

I think that speaks of God's very nature. It's sufficient to see the Lord Jesus. That's God's purpose and His plan. So anyway, you get off on a lot of discussion, a lot of rabbit trails. And it says it's sufficient, Peter. Because Peter says, show me the Father. I want to see the Father. Jesus says, no, it's sufficient. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

If you have other ideas, let me know. Go ahead. Oh boy. I personally think we're on dangerous ground if we start doing that. I mean, I just, I don't know. Because actually, we're two, you know, we're two entities, and God sees us as totally unique, right? I mean, anything that I, you know, like in a family, right? I want my children to know the Lord is their Savior, right? I can show them Scripture, I can lead them to the Savior, and we know what the Scripture says, I can't be... And we do. We do.

I don't know. The problem is that we're two entities. We have a body, soul, and spirit, and we're two, where the triunity is beyond that in my mind. I don't know. It's very hard to come to grips with, I agree. We have to go back to Scripture and carefully look at Scripture and say, well, it says the Spirit is holy, and the Son is holy, and the Father is holy, and we go through each of the attributes carefully, and we have a chart. We may not get to it, but at the end of the package there, all the attributes of God are shared by the Trinity. And the fact that we share, the fact that we thank and we love and we care, we're still two separate entities. Whereas God is one, but three persons.

I don't know. I come to a point where I'd better stop talking. I'm going to talk outside of the scriptural bounds. I'm going to start trying to make him into three, but he's three but one. And I don't know. I think we have to be careful. And that's why it's such a foundational doctrine of the Christian faith that we agree that this is something that does not have a parallel. here on earth, and I've heard, and there are some ones that seem to indicate that. Anyway, I don't know. I probably didn't answer your question exactly, but... It's a good, I mean, that's good. Okay.

And I listened to other passages in there that, under Christ and the Father, and there's other ones that we can mention. I thought I'd just go, we'll just skip over those for now, and let's look at Christ and the Spirit In the one passage, let's turn to John 14, and let's look at verse 16, and I'll just go ahead and read verse 16. It says, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever, that it's a Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. So the Lord Jesus is really speaking here about, you know, obviously the Holy Spirit.

And it's really significant here, this word another. And there are two words in the original language for another. One is another of the same kind, and one is another of a different kind. And this happens to be the word alice, which is another, of the same kind.

So it's another, the Lord Jesus is saying, I'm going to send to you another one like me, of the same kind. Indicating that he is truly, truly God. And he shares what the Lord Jesus shared, another of the same kind. And he's going to abide with you forever. So right there it speaks of his eternal nature. The Holy Spirit is eternal in nature. Alright, so let's just go on.

The next part is that scripture kind of reveals that there was a progression, or procession, I should say, of the Father sending the Son and the Son sending the Spirit. And if you look at John 17, let's turn over to John 17 in the real Lord's Prayer, John 17 verse 18. And in this prayer the Lord is praying for the In the me context, it's for the disciples, it seems like, basically.

And in verse 18 he says, Thou didst send me into the world. I also have sent them into the world, speaking of the disciples, I think. And so in the first part of this phrase, Thou didst send me into the world, speaking of the Father. So the Father sent the Son into the world. In the passage it says the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. So this is not the only place this is mentioned.

So the father sent the son, and then if you turn back to John 16, you'll see that John 16 and verse 7. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you. But if I go away, I will send him to you. And it says, and when he comes, this is a tremendous statement about he convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, but the key here is in verse 7 that, that, um, but if I go, I will send him to you.

So the Son will send the Spirit to you. So we see this progression. And also, it seems like this is never reversed. You never see the Spirit sending the Son. It's always this pattern, that the Father sent the Son, and the Son, when He left, sent the Spirit.

Now, I mentioned that there are several passages in the Old Testament that speak of the angel of the Lord, and also the Spirit of the Lord. And these, in the Old Testament, we have the idea of the triunity and the fact of the plural nature of God's name, but then also we see that with the angel of the Lord and the spirit of the Lord, we see the three persons there as well.

Basically, there's actually quite a bit more than I listed here. The first one in Genesis 16 is the one where the angel finds Hagar after she's run away from her mistress. and comforts her and tells her to go back and obey her mistress. And then in Genesis 22, the angel of the Lord calls Abraham from heaven and stops him from killing Isaac. And there's a whole bunch of other ones with Balaam and Gideon. There's just a tremendous number of times when we see the pre-incarnate Christ in view.

And then the Spirit of the Lord is mentioned in a whole bunch of passages, too, It speaks to the fact that the Lord came upon someone to do something for the Lord in creating parts of the temple, or in many cases. And then David says, the Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, indicating that this was coming from the Lord. So let's move on here to the attributes of God here. So I think it's really valuable to look at the attributes of God.

I brought up other Hal's lists in his kind of order, which I really like. He's listed them kind of in major bullets, if you will. The holiness, God's infinite, His self-existence, His love, His immutability, His spirit, and His sovereign. And there's a list of things that are kind of contained in that. God's holiness is expressed in His righteousness and His justice. infiniteness, that word, I don't think it is, is his omniscience that he's all-knowing, he's everywhere present, and he's all-powerful.

So I think this is just a tremendous list. What I found you can do is, you can go through any of these attributes and you can find, and sometimes it takes a little bit of work, you can find verses that show that the Father, Son, and Spirit share those attributes. I thought that's just tremendous. That's a really neat exercise to do that, to go through and say, well, where does the Father talk about this?

So the example I have on here is truth. God is truth. In John 7 it says, in 28, He who sent me is true. And actually, let's just look at that for a second. We're already in John. Let's real quickly, here's John 7. Sometimes it helps to have the context and I just have a little piece of the verse there. And this is the Lord Jesus speaking here, 728. And 728 says, Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, preaching and saying, You both know me, and know where I am from, and have I not come of myself?

But he who sent me is true, whom you do not know. I know him because I am from him, and he sent me. So just in here we have, you know, it's amazing, here we have the fact that he's being sent, kind of immersed in this passage, but also we have the fact that he is truth. And then we go through in terms of the son. So the father is true here in 728. Let me just make sure I read that right. Yeah, he's speaking of the father. He who sent me is true, speaking of the father.

And then in Revelation 3.7, it says, He who is holy and who is true, and that speaks of the Lord Jesus.

And then in 1 John 5.7, it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. So all of these attributes of God are basically who He is. That's His very nature, and He expresses Himself. He'd cease to be God if he did not have those attributes, and that's what separates him from man. He continually holds all these attributes at the same time. His love doesn't counteract his holiness. He can act in complete holiness and love, and we see that expressed in just his plan, how he would redeem a lost world and do it in love. do it with righteousness and holiness.

Actually, I didn't realize it when I assigned the questions. Actually, the first question I think Hal answered the week before. Does anybody have a fact that how clear is the revelation of God in nature? Can someone answer that from last week? What Hal talked about last week? Or give me a verse?

That's good. Well, I think, you know, in the Psalms there, the heavens declare the glory of God, the heavens declare God's glory. Right. So all of God's creation declare... So it's clear, and actually how I went to Romans there and showed that that's sufficient information from Romans, that's sufficient information for man to respond. And I think we answered the question about the tritheism. Does someone know what tritheism, what, if a person says he's a tritheist, What would that mean?

Three gods. Right. He has three gods. The next one is... Can someone tell me the names for the three names we talked about today? We've got to find your... look, check out your Bible there too. Okay, alright. And then actually the last chart we just had are the attributes of God. So next week, how it's going to get into God the Father, and as you'll notice, let's just go back quickly here. and how it's going to do God the Father, and then you see we're going to go into sections on the Trinity, if you will. We're going to cover God the Father first, and then we're going to talk about the Son, and just a whole bunch of key points about the Son, and then about the Spirit.

So, through Chapter 19, we're going to be involved in the Trinity. I found, in going through this book, it's just really helpful. There are things in there about the Son that you may not may not have thought of or have come across. It's just really important to know those, and the Spirit as well. So we're going to be covering the Trinity for a time to come.

Let's just close in prayer then. Dear Father, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for this time, Father. We're thankful for your Word, Lord. We're thankful, Father, that you are the Triune God. Lord, we have a difficult time grasping that, Lord. We pray that you would help us to see The truth of that, Lord, help us to see the one God in three persons, Lord. Thank you for that. We ask it in your son's name. Amen.