Ephesians, Doctrine of the Trinity part 2
Ephesians · Randy Peterman · Oct 11, 2009
Ephesians (2009), No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926145145887

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to continue on. Brad last week talked about the three parts of the Godhead in the Trinity, and then I get to talk about the unity of the three parts of the Godhead. I'm going to try to focus just on the passages in Ephesians for this lesson. if you've been in any study of Ephesians of the Trinity there are a tremendous number of verses that people could go to particularly in the Old Testament since there's a lot of attack on monotheism when you talk about the Trinity it's definitely a place to go.

One of the things that I've wrestled with is I like philosophy and I like logic Before most of you got in here, I actually wrote up some code, if you would, some software development code on the board describing logic. And then I erased it because it's really not going to be useful for anyone here. There's no compiler and all that. But the thing is that when we talk about logic and we talk about the Trinity, it tends to be a head-scratcher because people want the Trinity to be something that fits into an earthly system, and they want the Trinity to be something that fits in with a Western logical system, and something that fits into mathematics. Now here's, I'm just going to take a really fast early rabbit trip.

Is mathematics self-consistent? Is the system of mathematics self-consistent? as far as man has defined it. Actually, as far as man has defined it, it is not. Multiple efforts have gone into proving the self-consistency of mathematics, and there are places where there are holes and inconsistencies where equations don't line up like they should.

I have a book with some examples. It was presented back in the 30s by a German mathematician. I think Godet was his name. That's not for here and now. But basically, mathematics is still, as far as man has been able to operate in it, a self-contained system that has some holes and flaws in it. So when people talk about mathematics and they say simple things like, well, the Trinity, 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1 is wrong. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Let's take a look at this in the right context.

Does the Trinity get its definition from an earthly or a heavenly source? It's a heavenly source. And that's the part that confuses people and is the stumbling block. See, a triune God who created all the universe is self-consistent with a triune God who is one but has three parts. And that's consistent, but the definition comes from heaven and is explained to us as best as it can be in an earthly form in the words that we have in the revealed scripture. If that was by itself the only example of a heavenly-derived definition, we might have some problems. But I've got here on your page a quick list that I came up with off the top of my head, and it's certainly not complete.

Love. God's description of love in the scripture is beyond and is unique to the definition of love that we have in an earthly context. What happens if you define love in an earthly way? It's significantly different from a heavenly love. There was a couple here at the church whose names I won't say, but they shared a story that I have to share with you. They were sitting out, having had breakfast. They were sitting out in their car, having eaten it, and the husband said to the wife, sure love you and the wife you know warmly smiled and thought that was sweet and he said but I sure love bacon too and yeah so no it wasn't me it wasn't me but I thought you know that really you know we use love in different ways and in these different things but God has a love that is self-consistent and is infinite and exceeds the way that we understand things on an earthly level. When you talk about love in an earthly context, it's hard for people to take a heavenly definition of love and see it in their own lives. in an earthly relationship way because it often falls short because of human beings.

Grace, we've already had a series on grace at the church and we've talked about grace being the unlimited unmerited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. That's not a definition of grace that we use in an earthly sense. We kind of morph mercy to mean grace in most cases in human contexts.

Righteousness, None of us knows righteousness fully of our own accord. We have to have a heavenly definition for righteousness. Truth. Truth needs a heavenly definition. Faithfulness. Again, we're not righteous, we're not faithful, we don't embody truth.

Perfection. God is the only perfect being in all of creation. universe and in time-space continuum, and is completed within himself. Everything else is derivative because he's the Creator. Our definition of Creator, even on this earth, is different than that of God's definition of Creator. I was just thinking about this word, perfect.

We will sometimes define something as perfect. Oh, it was a perfect rose, or it was the perfect color, or, you know, we'll use a term like that, but the rose dies. It starts to wilt and discolor. And the color, whatever perfect color it was, you wash it and oops, it's not the same color anymore. So our idea of perfection is very temporary, whereas God's perfection is eternal.

When you talk about God being the creator, I think Bill Cosby actually, not being much of a theologian, but I think he put it well. Anytime man does something, we call it amazing, and we call it wonderful and awesome, and God makes the trees, and he makes the world, and he calls it good. He doesn't market it beyond... It's good. And God's definition of good is probably different from our definition of good.

So, I just wanted to make sure to point out as we talk about the Trinity that its definition and the concept of it is heavenly in nature and not earthly. The consequence of having an earthly understanding and definition of all these words, and the Trinity included, is a weaker selfish relationships, relativism, and a misunderstanding of cosmology. Where does the earth come from? Well, from a heavenly perspective, it comes from God.

From an earthly perspective, There's a number of theories. Big Bang is thrown around but actually there's been a lot of recent research that shows that can't be consistent and true. So it's not the Big Bang. Now we've got to come up with some other theories. I won't get into that because that's an entire rabbit trail.

But the thing that we need to understand is that the awesome and infinite nature of God is still understood in a simple a simple being in the Trinity. The theologian Wayne House used the word simplex. God's complex because of his infiniteness and his perfection, and he's simple because of his infiniteness and his perfection. So it's interesting terminology that was used.

I said we're going to spend most of the time in Ephesians, so let's go ahead and dive in. We're going to take a look at some passages that talk about the Father's involvement in Trinitarian activity in Ephesians, and then the Son's involvement in Trinitarian activity. The phrase Trinitarian activity is something that I have derived, so please don't read too much into that.

The first place we're going to look at is actually Ephesians 1.3.

Would somebody mind reading Ephesians 1.3 out loud?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. Alright. So I think that's a great first look at the Father's involvement. When we see the Trinity there, which of the two parts of the Trinity are involved in that verse? The Father and the Son. There's going to be a lot of overlap, I did put that in the introduction, I didn't say it, but there's going to be a lot of overlap in verses because anytime you're talking about the Trinity, you're talking about the inner relationship between God the Father and God the Son, or the Son and the Holy Spirit, or God and the Holy Spirit, or the Father and the Holy Spirit, and so forth. In this case, we see that the Father brings the blessings through the Son. Who are the blessings from? The Father or the Son.

They're from the Father, but they're also from the Son because they're through the Son. That relationship is there. They're intertwined. They can't be separated purely as saying, oh, well, they're two distinct beings that are not related. They are related. They're intertwined in the Godhead. Who they are and how they work in the Godhead is critical. They have their own personalities. But they're working together with the one will, singularly, that you could say is God's will.

And what's God's will in Ephesians 1.3? That we be blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's a tremendous thing.

So Ephesians 1.3, not only is it a tremendous verse to say, hey, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, but you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing because of the awesome work of God the Father through Christ the Son, revealing the nature of the Trinity there.

Ephesians 1.20, if we want to jump down there. I'll go ahead and read this one. I'll alternate between me reading and someone from the seats reading.

Ephesians 1.20, which He brought about, He being God the Father, brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. The pronouns there are intermixed, so you have to keep things straight.

But God the Father brought about things in Christ the Son when God the Father raised Christ the Son from the dead and seated Christ the Son at God the Father's right hand in the heavenly places. Both parts of the Trinity unified in the purpose of redeeming believers. Unified in the purpose of reconciling man to God. Fulfilling the eternal covenant that they had established, as the Hebrews tells us. But we see again, the will of God is unified in the two parts of the Trinity, in this case, God the Father and God the Son, to raise Christ through His power, through God the Father's power.

Now, the biggest thing when I see, looking through this and see the Trinity, is that Each part of the Trinity is actively involved in the same will, but doing things in a different role, on purpose, to respect the position that they have in the Godhead. There's a theological word for that, and I'm going to refrain from using it because it's just not useful to have a more theological vocabulary. Because the other thing is that it leads to a rabbit trail, so I'm going to refrain from rabbit trails as much as possible. But the thing is that we see that God respects those different positions in His activity.

What is the position of God the Father in the Trinity? Brad talked about this a little bit last week. What is the position of God the Father? He's the head. He's the father. All in Ephesians we studied and looking at chapter 3, all of creation gets its name from him as the father. He has this headship, this leadership that he takes as the father in the Trinity, but he uses in a loving way the other parts of the Trinity.

Let's keep going to Ephesians 2.18 I can read that, Brad. Brad, I'm sorry. You can call me Brad. I've been called much worse.

Ephesians 2.18. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His authority. Will you jump ahead to 2.18? Thank you very much. That's okay. I was like going, oh no, we have the wrong address.

Spirit to the Father. Okay, so that one actually involves all three parts of the Trinity. Through Him being Christ, we both or all have access in one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to the Father. Now why do we want to have access to the Father as believers? Fellowship. He's the head. We're having fellowship with the Father. I just think back to John 17. If we are in Christ, and He is one with the Father, then our relationship with Christ gives us relationship with the Father.

Having access is an important part of what makes Christianity unique. If you look at other world religions, how much access do you have in Islam? How much access do you have in Hinduism? How much access do you have with Hare Krishna and the whole nine yards there? It's just not the same. And there is not the intimacy.

Of course we have identification, but we'll get to that. So the father we get access to the Father through the Son and the Spirit. The Father strengthens believers through his Spirit, Ephesians 3.16, so that through that strengthening Christ may dwell in our hearts. of the section there.

In Ephesians 3.16 he says that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. So the Father works to strengthen us and that's a tremendous thing.

How many of you in your own flesh can do anything? We've said this a million times in the class. What can we do in the flesh? Not awesome things. The works I'm going to refrain from making a food comparison because some people might like the food. I caught myself, see, I filter every once in a while. But, you know, and this is probably not the most complete list of Trinitarian activity by the Father, but it's an example of how we can see that the Father's involvement leads to the edification of the body and the presenting of the rest of the Trinity. Who did God send? Who did the Son send? The Spirit. And who... well, we'll keep going. So we saw the Father, now we need to take a look at the Son.

Let's take a look back at Ephesians 1.3. Now we were already there, so again there's overlap, but that's okay.

The Son becomes a conduit, or an agent, of the blessing of God, the spiritual blessing of God, the unlimited blessings of God. One of the things I think is tremendous about that is that Christ's willingness to come to the earth, take on human form, to die on the cross on our behalf, is beyond what we think of as being a requirement for a conduit. I'm just going to be an agent. Oh no, it's beyond that. This agency is going to involve the cost of his very life. But he did it, and the results of that are pretty tremendous.

The results, of course in this case being every spiritual blessing, The next one we've got on here, Ephesians 1.5, and we didn't take a look at that before.

So He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will. Again, we have this concept of Christ being a conduit for God's adoption for believers as sons. And that's a tremendous blessing we have every spiritual blessing, but now we're also blessed to be adopted. And anytime we talk about adoption, I just always am filled with joy to think of how that means that we can't be separated from God the Father. We've been adopted and have been given a special standing and a place with Him. The next one we have here is used by the Father through identification with Him, undeceiving so as to show us His grace for eternity.

So let's flip to Ephesians 2, 6, and 7. Would somebody please read Ephesians 2, 6 and 7 out loud? He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace and his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Thanks, Roy. I just love to meditate on that passage. There's just something about thinking about eternity with our Lord and Him constantly revealing Himself to us. That's just awesome.

But the work of Christ is used there in two places. We're raised with Christ through the power of God the Father. We're raised with Christ. We're seated with Christ in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come the Father might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

So Christ is this amazing agent for an eternity with Him. Part of the Trinity. Part of the Godhead. And that's an amazing thing to think about. That God would reveal His riches to us for eternity through the work of Christ. Him being or God the Father being the one that is doing that through God the Son. So we can see, again, a unity of will and purpose in the Trinity there.

Ephesians 2.10, just a few verses after that, Ephesians 2.10 says, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. So we have this concept of being the workmanship of God through the work of Christ so that the works that God has prepared beforehand could be done. Again, it's always good when you teach this verse to point out that it is as long as we're abiding that those works are works that we're going to do. But again, we see the will of God working together in unity through the unity of the Trinity to achieve something. But the blessing is not, it doesn't stop with God. God is blessed and is glorified by the things that he does.

We can't do that. We don't have that in our character. We bless and glorify ourselves with the same quality. We might have, you know, temporary praise from people. We know, yay, the Dodgers won the NLCS, you know, West, awesome. Yeah. Sweet. What's going to happen next year? I'll have to start all over again. It doesn't matter. The teams are going to trade players. It goes away.

But when you talk about God's character, it's eternal. And His glory is eternal. And these things work together. But we receive that blessing as well as being participants in this work that He has set aside. The next section here is Descriptions of the Holy Spirit's Trinitarian Activity in the Ephesians. I missed the verse reference on that Sealed by the Spirit, so let's quickly grab that one. There you go.

Put down Ephesians 1.13 on there if you've got your paper. Sorry about that. I always like to leave myself work to do in the middle of teaching. But we're sealed by the Spirit under the Father.

So, Brad, I'm going to pick on you and say, will you read Ephesians 1.13 out loud? Awesome.

In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So, the Holy Spirit's involvement, again, the will of God is self-consistent, showing the internal unity there. But we've been, because of that, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And I think that being sealed by the Holy Spirit is probably one of the things that caused me to, one, doubt some of my charismatic theology when I was charismatic, but two, it caused me to realize that I could be very secure in my salvation.

So the Holy Spirit's work there, showing the unity of the Trinity, showing God's intent for relationship with us. Again, the thing that is amazing about looking at the Trinity in Ephesians is that it's the Trinity plus how they're interacting with mankind over and over again. showing God's love, again defined with a heavenly definition of love, a benevolent, agape love, and even that's a finite, manly definition, but it's not a definition that we would describe from an earthly perspective. It's a heavenly love that we get to see there.

Ephesians 2.18, let's keep moving forward. And we saw this already as well, but we'll take a look at it again.

For through Him we both have our access in one spirit to the Father. I am always glad to see that I have access to the Father. We talked about why would we want to have access to the Father. He's the head of the Trinity. But having access to the Father is something that I am constantly humbled by. I really am glad that here I am seated in the heavenlies with Christ. And through that I have access to the Father. Through the Spirit I have access to the Father. I've got access to the Father. I don't have it of my own accord, I have it of his work and what he has done.

Isn't that interesting? It's just a thought. I'm asking what is being seated at his right hand and why? Certainly favor, but I'm wondering how far that goes. Well, that's the next section, the Trinity and the Unidentified Believer, is what we're going to go over next. So that's a good question. I'm going to hold off answering that for just a moment.

But it's somewhere I want to go in this class because I think it's important. I wanted to know my Bible and I wrote it and I'm not sure it's correct. We both have excess. I was wondering if it had Jews and Gentiles or is that... Yeah, the preceding verse says that. Yeah. Yeah, 1718. Okay. Those that are near would be the Jews. Yeah, it's Jews and Gentiles. It's both. Yeah, because in the earlier section of 2, he's talking about the separation of the Jews and Gentiles being done away with. So we have, again, this access that's there.

Let's take a look at Ephesians 2.22, the last verse in this passage, or this chapter, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

So we have the Holy Spirit's involvement making us a dwelling place for God in this temple, in this earthly body. And that's a tremendous thing. We're dwelling in the heavenlies with Him, but He is dwelling in us here in an earthly sense. Would it help to say, in a literal sense, that God's dwelling to get an understanding of that. The dwelling of God could be anywhere. Sure, well yeah, it's in us being built together in the church. We are the dwelling place of God. Yeah, we're the new creation.

But being dwelled by God through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and I think that's a tremendous thing. I said we're not going to look at other verses outside of Ephesians this morning. So I'm not going to yet. When we get to the questions, I will. I have intentionally brought in another verse. But I think that being dwelt by the Holy Spirit is a tremendous thing because from a charismatic perspective, at least the way I learned things, the Holy Spirit was coming and going pretty regularly.

You know, because you've got all these songs about come Holy Spirit business. where it's like you're indwelled with the Holy Spirit, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. God dwells in you. So that means that, you know, usually the Come Holy Spirit songs are always because you sinned this week, you know, or since the last time you sung the song. And so you have these Come Holy Spirit songs and yet they totally ignore that we've been sealed. Now there's a difference between being filled by the Holy Spirit, as Ephesians 5 tells us, where we'd be filled with the Spirit instead of filled with wine. That's a slightly different context.

But there's this concept of come Holy Spirit that was prominently taught to me. Over and over again thinking, I better confess all my sins and make sure I dot my i's and cross my t's and do all the things I need to do so that the Holy Spirit will come. So I can have a good experience.

That's what the Old Testament concept was. Yeah, it's very Old Testament like, but it's not how we deal with things in the New Testament. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit. In fact, I do think it is important to point out that the Holy Spirit is actively involved in the Old Testament.

I remember, I think I was in seminary when one of the teachers said, well, the Holy Spirit was in the Old Testament, and I thought, somehow I had just not put that in the aggregate of my knowledge. I mean, I'd read it. It's there. I couldn't, you know, I'd read the whole Bible, but it was just it never seeded itself in my brain where I was like, oh yeah! Because the Holy Spirit was actively involved in the Old Testament. The Jews knew of the Holy Spirit. They knew of his work when Saul is anointed. What does he do? He's filled with the Spirit and runs with the prophets. They knew of the Holy Spirit. It's not a mysterious thing like the church age that they didn't see coming. So, anyways, we're going to stick back into Ephesians here. Sorry, rabbit trail. Go back to 22 a minute. Okay.

My version here that I'm reading, it says in whom you also are being built together for God's dwelling in the spirit. I'm just ruminating on that. Sure. That God has chosen to dwell in us. It has that aspect of being at home. Yeah. If you don't understand that God is dwelling in the life of the believers, it makes for all kinds of emotional, feeling-oriented perceptions. Like, I don't feel like God is with me right now. But it has nothing to do with us. Yeah, exactly. But see, the thing is, if scripture says God is dwelling in me, then I have to reconcile my feelings with what scripture says. And if they don't reconcile, the problem is not God.

But that's a problem, because we'll have this concept, oh, I'm in a spiritual desert. I've heard that over and over again. I used to live in the physical High Plains desert in Nevada, so I know what a desert is. But it was, there was this sense of spiritual oppression and this sense of spiritual, all kinds of things that people would talk about in a charismatic-y, you know, we're going to map out the spiritual domain so that we can pray against Satan here and the nine yards that people went into. But none of them were resting in the fact that God was dwelling in a bud tree. Randy, I was in somebody's rapture. I'm not on a rapture. You've never been on a rapture? Oh no, I rarely get on a rapture. At any case, do you remember some of the earlier descriptions of trying to describe the Trinity as God the Father, the Executive, God the Son, the Judge, and the Spirit as the Administrator?

Did you ever hear that statement? That one I haven't heard. I've heard eggs and water and a number of those things. But you know, I was wondering in the standpoint of God the Father, the Executive, that we go through Christ, Christ is our advocate. He's our, He's the judge and I was just wondering where they got that together if you haven't heard?

Well, that's one I'm not familiar with, but the thing is that as humans, again, we take a heavenly definition and try to fit it into an earthly context, and it comes close. I mean, obviously when we say God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, we're using earthly human terms. They're going to have some corruption in our understanding of what those mean. I think we've talked about before in this class how people perceive God the Father much like they perceive their own human fathers. What a horrible thing to do to God the Father.

My dad is awesome. I love my dad and I think he was a tremendous father. I mean that and I'm not trying to say that because he's an elder or something. I mean that. He has been a great dad. But I don't think that because he's been a great dad that God the Father is like my dad. Because my dad is finite. He also sat down at the table with us and with tears in his eyes apologized for working too much and not spending enough time with us. Not to then emphasize the failures of my father. But anytime we use human terms we can bring some baggage so we need to make sure we separate. Along that line, actually, I had an experience with a guy that I shared the gospel with.

And he said, well, the problem I had with that, I had a terrible father. Yeah. And so, you know, if you hang your head, he was oppressive. He, you know, he lists this whole laundry list of how bad his father was. Well, I can't relate to a heavenly father because I see my own father there. So you have to be careful. Yeah. He's not, you know, if you put it on a human being, you're going to be, you could be in trouble.

Good examples and bad examples of fathers. My buddy Tony, and he's given me permission to share many stories from his life. And one of them is that he grew up being passed around between parents. He was with aunts and uncles and various people abusing drugs and him and other people and just his whole life growing up. I'm amazed he's alive and I'm amazed he's a believer, but he's a believer. He goes, I don't know what a dad looks like. I don't know what a father looks like. The only father I know to follow is God the Father. And so I try to take my cues from scripture.

And I was just like, man, that's awesome. So many people get it backwards of that. They're trying to force their earthly father into a heavenly role rather than saying, I am an earthly father and I need to understand what my heavenly father models for me. So we did pull off the rabbit trail thing. See, bud? You did it. Just kidding.

But we can look, let's keep going because we need to take a look at the Trinity and the identified believer. If we're identified with Christ and Christ is part of the Trinity, how do we understand that? I think that's one of the things that for me, when I realized I was identified with Christ, then I had to figure out how do I fit in with this triune God since I'm, you know, it's not a quad, What is the quadrant? Quadunal? Whatever. Yeah. Fourunal? Fourunity? I'm pretty sure that that's not going to ever stick.

But how do I fit in with this? So I wanted to take a few moments to look at that as well because I think it is important. We're told that we're identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. So we have to ask how we fit in.

The good news is that we're not part of the Trinity. Let's first establish that. You don't read us as being part of the Trinity. What do we read instead? Roy was asking roughly this question. What do we read about us being involved with the work of the Trinity? What happens? God indwells us. We're the recipient, right? We receive something due to the work of one part of the Trinity or another. But it's not us becoming part of the Trinity. And that's just something that I think it's cool that we're part of that.

We are seated at the right hand of... We're seated with Christ, who's at the right hand of God. That's an amazing thing. To say positionally, I'm seated with God. I mean, I... Well, the other half of that is that we were co-crucified. Well, yeah, and you can't take it by... Co-buried, co-raised, and seated. When you think of all of that, was buried and what's been left behind is important here. It ain't the old man that's seated with him. Yes, no, certainly not.

But we can see, we can see as we look here in Ephesians, and I want to just look at these three verses. Let's turn to Ephesians 4-6, and this is one that I think should grab all our attention. It's in a series of Paul writing about there being one of various things, one church, one spirit, one body, but 4.6 says, "...and one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

So who is in us? God the Father. How is He in us? We just looked at it through the work of the Holy Spirit, building a dwelling place. So God the Father is participating in this indwelling, in this work that is working in us and through us. And that's, wow, that's a big deal.

But then we look at, we saw in Ephesians 1.3 that We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, again, through the work of Christ. And we were seated with Him in all the things that we just mentioned there.

And then Ephesians 1.13 again, talking about the Holy Spirit sealing us. All parts of the Godhead are involved with us intimately. I said that word intimately again. I'm sorry. I can't help it. But we've got, go ahead, were you going to say something mom? No, I just have a question. Okay, well ask the big question.

For the first time, I'm always thinking, God the Father is seated on the throne, and Christ is in the heavenlies, and the Holy Spirit is in dwelling in us. And yet, Christ is in us, and he says also the Father is in us, and this is just overwhelming me. at this moment reconcile all the earth. Well, that's part of what makes the Trinity, that's the unity of the Trinity, that they're not, they don't, they don't just take on some location, you know, it's not like, and I hate to use a technical analogy, but I will because I can, it's not like you can look up God the Holy Spirit on Google Maps, you know, oh, he's over here, and you know, God the Son's over here, and God the Father's over here, and you just need to find them on Google Maps and get directions between them. But they all are, because they have the same purpose, because they are all God, in the sense of the being of God, they have a similar purpose. They have the same goal. And that causes us to have to stop and think. Because it's easy to think of God the Father in the heavenly sense, but then when you say God the Father is dwelling in you, and working in you, then you do have to stop and you have to just be in awe.

That's really what it comes down to. We have the Godhead indwelling us, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I never had considered that before. It's mind-boggling, it really is. And you talk about being baptized. You get a package deal. Yeah, you get the package deal. Part of that mystery of the church.

It's also what offended the Jews if you think about it Jews were offended by you talking about Trinity in principle, but then you start talking about God Being with you. Oh wait a minute now you cross some lines That's a big deal but so you know we can see that those are there now because I Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I have a few questions here for discussion. And these are going to lead into rabbit trails, and I'm okay with that. What's the difference between the doctrine of the Trinity and polytheism? Polytheism, that there are many gods.

How do we reconcile that? The unity aspect, right? Yeah. Otherwise, what would you call that? Tritheism? Yeah. Like the woman. It's like a number of other anti-Trinitarian heretics. One that's Pentecostal, T.D. Jakes. I have to say his name and tie it in with her. People need to know he's a wacko. I mean that. T.D. Jakes is a scary guy. He's a big guy too, so if he ever finds me he's going to beat me up. I'm going to refrain from following that rabbit trail. It's not edifying. But the difference between the Trinity and polytheism, it is important to understand the unity. The Trinity is not saying there are three gods. It's saying there's one God, he's got three personhoods, but they're unified in one thing.

Because they get their definition from a heavenly description of unity, it's not the same as trying to do gymnastics with our vocabulary in an earthly sense. We're not playing mind games, we're not pulling a bait and switch. It's self-consistent from a heavenly perspective and we get the definition and it carries with us. I've got a next question here and this kind of asks the same question. Why is it important to understand the Trinity in the context of heavenly things rather than attempt to reconcile it with mathematics or earthly logic? What's the consequence of reconciling the heavenly state with earthly logic and mathematics? We can't understand it anyway. It's beyond us. Since it's from an infinite being to a finite person. We can't properly describe it by using earthly logic. Yeah, comes up short. Brad?

Just kind of an illustration of that. I read a lot of children's books because that's kind of my level. And in a lot of those children's magazines and books, you know, they'll have a little picture and it's just a cut out portion of a small portion of another picture you're supposed to figure out based on that.

And we'll just hear apart what the rest of the picture is. I think that's kind of what we've got going on when we look at the Trinity, with one exception. So we've got the earthly funeral reference. This is how much we physically can see without exploding or no longer being human. And yet, the really wild thing is, as we make our steps, it's not as if, I mean, in the picture book, that's a picture of a bird's foot or a lizard's skin or something that you're supposed to be able to infer the rest of the picture off of. We've never seen the whole thing. So we've kind of just got to stick with our little viewer window and go, well, this, this, this, but no. We still can't take in the infinite nature of it. Exactly. We'll be thankful for it. Were you going to say something else? Well, since you were looking at rabbit trails. Yeah.

In the very beginning, when you talked about this very thing, I was looking at the word righteousness and I was thinking if evolution was true and man just came up with language from whatever, pig, cow. Where would a term like righteousness even come from? How could you even begin to think of that term? Our definition would have a radically different context and it often does.

I mean when I got my speeding ticket in California I was really indignant because I thought The police officer who pulled me over didn't actually know how fast I was going. He didn't. He had a rough guess. He was going the other direction, and he thought I was going faster than the speed limit. So he pulled me over. And I was, but I didn't realize it. Again, never mind. I won't defend myself. There was a lack of justice and righteousness in this decision.

He said, you were going 70. I said, I was not going 70. I know I wasn't going 70. I was going 65 because I thought the speed limit was 65. is one year old, single in California, so I don't want to go too fast and endanger my family. So he comes back, he gives me my ticket and he says, well I just gave you a ticket for 65. Well if I was actually, because he didn't know how fast I was going. He couldn't say I looked at my radar, you're going 70, he just guessed.

And I thought, this is just not righteousness, you know? And I was mad, but I was like, OK, I've got to respect authority in front of my daughters. All right, we're good. So I took the ticket, drove away, mumbling to myself. But the thing is that in human righteousness, we come up short.

The state of California sent me my ticket in the mail and said, if you're going to do the driver's training class to have this first ticket waived, send $24 on top of the fee of your ticket. So I wanted to confirm something, so I called the phone number on the ticket. Called the phone number, talked to some lady at an office. I'm assuming she was a lady, but I don't know about her personal choices. So I'm talking to her on the phone.

Sorry, that was inappropriate. And she tells me I have to send in $49. I said, but the ticket says 24. She goes, oh, that's wrong. So wait a minute. Now I'm not sure about the speed I was going. I have a ticket I have to pay, which was way higher than I was expecting. And I've got a fee that's changing by your word of mouth versus what I've got printed here.

And the sense of inequity was just, just my blood was boiling. I was like, ah! So what do you do? You comply and you try to be righteous yourself against the unrighteousness that you feel is being foisted on you. It's a difficult thing in human terms in your own way, and I think you pointed out earlier, we don't have righteousness.

What is the truth of how fast I was going? My speedometer said 65. My wheels might be off by a fraction, and so I was going slightly faster, or slightly slower. It doesn't matter. What is the truth? God knows the truth. But those terms that we get, the faithfulness, I thought I was going faithfully to the speed limit. I wasn't.

But as you look at various things, the human definitions, the human values of those things are completely inadequate. They don't cover what needs to be covered in its fullness, which is why we need God to reveal to us, through all three parts of the Trinity, those words and what they mean and how they impact our lives directly. The last question I've got here, and I told you that there would be one non-Ephesians verse, 1 Corinthians 2, 10-16. I'm going to go ahead and turn there and read it first and then ask the question. Alright, 1 Corinthians 2, 10-16. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except for the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Alright, that's a long passage there.

But my question is, how is God the Father's involvement with the Holy Spirit important for us in our understanding of passages like Ephesians 3.5 and 1 Corinthians 2.10-16? How is it important for us to understand a Trinitarian, a unified understanding of God the Father and God the Spirit? and how that impacts us and our knowledge of God and His will. That's a long question, I'm sorry.

Well, if the Spirit is one with God, He's going to be relating that information to us correctly. He's not going to be interpreting it through His own different eyes, but they will be the eyes that interpret the same way. So the information will be correct, it will be valuable, So if the Holy Spirit indwells you and knows your spirit, and if the Holy Spirit indwells or knows God, He is God, and knows God's will and mind, He can reconcile those two things. He can be praying for us in an intercessory sort of a way, which Scripture tells us in other places that He does. That's a tremendous thing to see the Godhead in action and in our, not only in our lives, but together working for our growth. If you're being conformed into the image of Christ, and there's lots of versions that tell us that we are, if you're being conformed into the image of Christ, it's really awesome that he's indwelling you, and involved with you, and knows your spirit, and knows Christ's spirit, and knows God's, or Christ's mind, and knows God's mind.

That's a tremendous thing, that our minds, our thoughts are being conformed into the image of God. And he's not doing it in some hokey, you know, Rube Goldberg contraption sort of a way. He's doing it very intimately, with real knowledge and real understanding. The second bell is rung, so I'm supposed to stop. I am out of questions, which is fortunate for you, too, probably.

But let's go before the Lord in prayer, and then we'll be done. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for sending your Son who then sent your Spirit. Thank you for indwelling us with all three parts of the Trinity. Thank you for having a will that is so benevolent and so loving and so righteous and just taking care of each element in our lives with intimacy and understanding. Just ask that you would help us grow together as we are all together being built into a dwelling place for you as your word tells us. Thank you for your love and thank you for your work in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen.