GOD IN THREE PERSONS:
THE TRINITY
How can God be three persons, yet one God?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.
- The Doctrine of the Trinity Is Progressively Revealed in Scripture
- Partial Revelation in the Old Testament.
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26
“God, your God, has set you above your companions” Psalms 45:7
“And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his Spirit.” Isaiah 48:16
2. More Complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament.
2. More Complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament.
“the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’”
Matt. 3:16-17
“According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood” 1 Peter 1:2
B. Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching
B. Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching
- God is three persons.
- Each person is fully God.
- There is one God.
- God is Three Persons.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” John 1:1-2
“It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” John 16:7
2. Each Person Is Fully God
2. Each Person Is Fully God
“baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” Matthew 28:19
“Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit...? You have not lied to men but to God.”
Acts 5:3-4
3. There Is One God.
3. There Is One God.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5
4. Simplistic Solutions Must All Deny One Strand of Biblical Teaching.
5. All analogies Have Shortcomings.
6. God Eternally and Necessarily Exists as the Trinity.
C. Errors Have Come By Denying Any of the Three Statements Summarizing the Biblical Teaching
4. Simplistic Solutions Must All Deny One Strand of Biblical Teaching.
5. All analogies Have Shortcomings.
6. God Eternally and Necessarily Exists as the Trinity.
C. Errors Have Come By Denying Any of the Three Statements Summarizing the Biblical Teaching
- Modalism Claims That There Is One Person Who Appears to Us in Three Different Forms (or “Modes”).
The fatal shortcoming of modalism is the fact that it must deny the personal relationships within the Trinity that appear in so many places in Scripture (or it must affirm that these were simply an illusion an not real).
2. Arianism Denies the Full Deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2. Arianism Denies the Full Deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
- The Arian Controversy
“the first-born of all creation” Colossians 1:15
“only begotten”>>>325 Nicene Creed “begotten, not made”
b. Subordinationism
c. Adoptionism
d. The Filoque Clause
b. Subordinationism
c. Adoptionism
d. The Filoque Clause
led to the split between western Christianity and eastern Christianity in 1054
e. The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity
e. The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity
“In the confession of the Trinity throbs the heart of the Christian religion: every error results from or upon deeper reflection may be traced to, a wrong view of this doctrine.” Herman Bavinck
3. Tritheism Denies That There Is Only One God.
D. What Are the Distinctions Between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
3. Tritheism Denies That There Is Only One God.
D. What Are the Distinctions Between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
- The Persons of the Trinity Have Different Primary Functions in Relating to the World.
“economy of the Trinity”
God the Father - planned redemption and sent his Son into the world
The Son - obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption for us
The Holy Spirit - sent by the Father and the Son to apply redemption to us
2. The Persons of the Trinity Eternally Existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. The Persons of the Trinity Eternally Existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The only distinctions between the members of the Trinity are in the ways they relate to each other and to creation.
“equal in being but subordinate in role”
3. What Is the Relationship Between the Three Persons and the Being of God?
3. What Is the Relationship Between the Three Persons and the Being of God?
Father, Son and Spirit each possesses the whole being of God and each is all of God’s being.
There is no difference in attributes between Father, Son and Spirit at all. The only difference between them is the way they relate to each other and to the creation.
4. Can We Understand the Doctrine of the Trinity?
4. Can We Understand the Doctrine of the Trinity?
The Trinity is a mystery...man cannot comprehend it and make it intelligible. It is intelligible in some of its relations and modes of manifestation, but unintelligible in its essential nature...The real difficulty lies in the relation in which the persons in the Godhead stand to the divine essence and to one another; and this is a difficulty which the Church cannot remove, but only try to reduce to its proper proportion by a proper definition of terms. It has never tried to explain the mystery of the Trinity but only sought to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in such a manner that the errors which endangered it were warded off.
Louis Berkhof
E. Application
