anyways. What's that? Exactly. Make sure I'm orthodox enough. So thanks. Let's go ahead and get started with a word of prayer. Our dear Lord God, we thank you for this new day, this new morning. We pray that you would help us to see in the scriptures that you are Trinity. We would see Trinity and unity and unity in Trinity. That we would be illuminated by the scriptures and that the confession would help us to learn of you. We pray this in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Alright, so if you could have guessed from the slides and everything, we are talking about the Trinity this morning. We're in Westminster Confession Faith, Chapter 2, Section 3. And let's go ahead and read it first. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons. One of one substance, power and eternity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Father is eternally begotten of, sorry, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. So this is an atom bomb of theology. There is a lot here and I wanted to bring up two things before we started getting into it first Because we had just been thinking through God's attributes Think it's important to see that that we're moving from his attributes to his person and really we're putting if I put it this way skin on the bones Because only in the person of God and in the persons of the Trinity Do we actually understand what the attributes of God even mean? So for example the love of God What does that abstractly mean, that God is love, unless God is love and that the Father elects a people to save and that the Son, out of love, goes to the cross to purchase us for our redemption and that the Holy Spirit, out of love, applies that redemption to us. So you can talk about love, but actually these attributes only have meaning for us in relation to the triune God, because there is no other God. So as we go from the attributes to the person of God, it's important to think through that. And also I'd recommend to you, if you have some time, spend a while thinking about the attributes of God and how they work themselves out in the person of the Trinity. Second thing I wanted to say besides that the eternal being reveals himself in his triune existence more richly and vitally than in his attributes is that we should approach the trinity with lots of humility and a tone of reverence because This is God we're talking about when he revealed himself to Moses Moses didn't see the the fiery bush and become Arrogant he trembled with fear. He hid his face and was afraid to look upon God when God revealed his name Yahweh I am who I am And so in the Trinity, we're not dealing with a doctrine merely about God or an abstract concept or a scientific proposition about the nature of divinity. We're not dealing with even a human construction, per se, of which we've put onto the facts and we can analyze and dismember. But we're dealing with a God who says, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And He reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, I love this quote from Gregory of Nanzianzus. He says, No sooner do I conceive of the One than I'm illuminated by the splendor of the Three. And no sooner do I distinguish them that I'm carried back to the One. So this is trinity and unity, unity and trinity. He has a certain reverence and splendor in thinking through and reflecting on the persons of the trinity. Augustine also said that nowhere except for in the doctrine of the trinity is a mistake more dangerous or the search more laborious or the finding of the truth more advantageous. So there's all kinds of things to be gained from contemplating the Trinity and understanding the inner workings of the persons of God. So, I have here Trinity revealed. And I wanted to talk about revelation before we get into this section, too, because this is self-disclosure of God. And ultimately, we don't believe in the Trinity because of things I mentioned earlier, scientific propositions or all of these things, but because this is how God has chose to reveal himself to us. Why do I believe? Because this, again, is how God revealed himself. Not because, per se, of a counsel or Aristotelian philosophy or abstractions, but because God has given us this. And this follows the Westminster Confession as well, because we've talked about the revelation of God and the scriptures and how God comes to us and that we could never know of him without his revelation. And so our reasoning about God needs to be It needs to be subsumed under the revelation of God, what He tells us about Himself. So the Heidelberg Catechism gives a very helpful answer to this on question 25. Why should we believe it? The Trinity. It says, because God has so revealed Himself in His Word. not but it's also not in a single verse that we can find the trinity while there are like a systematic theology the westman's confession is a system of doctrine right and systematic theology is something we believe in and it's helpful but we're especially talking uh in god revealing himself about a biblical theology, which is a history of how God has chosen to reveal himself in the nature and then also in a special revelation like we've talked about. It's not merely a book of doctrines, the Bible, but it's a story of God's love for us. And as we think about that, I put this picture of a dimly lit room because The triune God has always been there. There is only one God. So while it is less clear that He is triune, per se, in the Old Testament, although it's there, it's the same God. So like a dimly lit room has the same furniture, even if you put the lights all the way on. So also the same God has always been there, whether you can see lesser of Him or more of God. Or another analogy is like the acorn of a tree grows into a full tree. So the self-disclosure of God grows more and more and more and then we see the fullness of God, especially in the New Covenant. And one way that you can see this, for example, is the oneness of God was especially stressed in the Old Covenant. Like in the Shema, which the Jews say in their prayers like every day, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one God. Yet in the New Covenant with greater revelation we know For us there's one God the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist Now Paul isn't saying in first Corinthians 8. Oh, there's a God and then there's a Lord and they're different He's saying there's one God and one Lord and And it can be a little bit of a thing to wrap around in your head, but this is the revelation of God. Real quick, I also wanted to say that in the Old Testament, you see all kinds of ways that the Trinity is hinted at, if I could put it that way, such as the plural form of God's name. The word God is Elohim in Hebrew, which is actually a plural form of a word. Or you can see it in the angel of the Lord. Often we call them Christophanies, which is like a visitation of the pre-incarnate or before the Son of God became man. He appeared in history. You can think of You can think of God showing himself up in the garden, walking in the cool of the day, or of the angel of the Lord who visited Hagar, or the angel of the Lord that visited Joshua at Jericho and who said, I am, also with Moses in the burning bush. This actually shows a plurality because there's, if I can put it this way, another person in heaven. In fact, in Genesis 19, it talks about Abraham prays when he's interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah, and it actually says that Yahweh rained down sulfur and fire from Yahweh in heaven. So, are there two Yahwehs? And so you start to have this issue of, are there, there's a multiplicity in the person of God. Also, you see wisdom personified in Proverbs 8, mostly. It says that God, by wisdom, created the heavens and the earth. And all over that the word of God is ascribed divine attributes, the word being separate from the speaker, and the breath being like the spirit. So you can see the persons of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Before I move on, any thoughts or comments so far? We know that there are some who consider themselves Christians, and we know that Jehovah's Witnesses are not. And you wonder if they ever take into account the fact that the Bible says that God is love, and it's probably one of His greatest attributes that we know of. So if God is eternal, and He is love, whom did He love in eternity when there was no one else around? And so the logic of the Trinity is just exposed right there and exactly. Sure. Yeah, I like that. Thanks, Al. Yeah. Do you see the Trinity in Genesis 1 where God says, let us make man That's a good question. A lot of people see it there and in a lot of confessions and things like this. But you do also see God speaking in those terms in places like Genesis 11. Let us go down and confuse the languages of the people. And is he talking about an angelic host, as some have argued, like Meredith Klein? Or is he talking in Trinity? I'm not sure. But I don't think that, you know, obviously the doctrine doesn't stand or fall on that verse, but I... Was it in Isaiah where God, speaking as the Trinity, said, whom shall we send? Well, that is another example of... Well, some people believe like an angelic host surrounding the Father enthroned in heaven. So he's asking the host of angels, who shall we send? So, you'll see that, and I think it's in Samuel, he sends a spirit, a deceiving spirit. It's in the mouths of the prophets, and there are angels in heaven, so sometimes, he's speaking like that, although there are definite places where God speaks in a plurality that are not with the angels. Mm-hmm, right God is eternal but his decrees means that he acts in time and even consorts with angels and there's a divine counsel spoken of right so Does God really need counsel as if someone could be his counselor? No, but that's how he's chosen to act in history. So think about the book of Job where God actually, it says that Satan comes to him in the divine council, an angel, fallen angel, Satan comes to him and God says, have you seen my servant Job? So he's deliberating in the heavenly council with a fallen angel. So it's, all of this is very hard to kind of get your head around, but yeah. Go ahead, John. and Messianic prophecies, like in Psalms, where it says, like, thanks be to God, this is eternal, this child will be of my right hand. Right. That's also very powerful. Right. Yes. Yeah, Isaiah 9, 6. Yeah, and the You know, Psalm 110 is the number one quoted Psalm in the New Testament. The Lord said to my Lord, David said, sit at my right hand until I, you know, make a footstool of all your enemies. So, and Jesus asked in the New Testament, how can David's son be David's Lord? So he's saying there's more to the Lord, and he's obviously talking about himself. I was going to say another good passage is Daniel chapter 7, the coming of the clouds from the Ancient of Days. The Jews in the first century really struggled with that to understand because it's a divine figure and coming with the clouds is very much a divine presence. But it wasn't God. It was proceeding from God. And so they struggled with it in the first century. Many believed it to be Right Yeah, and you see in the book of Revelation also That the Trinity is pictured in the heavens where there's the lamb, and then there's the one who sits on the throne, and then the eyes that represent the fullness of the Holy Spirit that's there too. So that's another place that you can think about. Amen. And this is getting ahead because we're going to talk about the divinity of the Son. But in the Gospel of John, when he talks about that instance where Isaiah sees the Lord and the train of his robe fills the temple, Jesus says that Isaiah saw my glory. So Jesus says that that's me. the holy holy holy one which is amazing so um and it's not necessarily the the robe is uh in this is in the weeds but in the septuagint the greek translation of the old testament it says that his glory filled the temple so jesus i think referring to the septuagint translation of that passage so all right let's get back to um our passage right here I had the proof text at the bottom, but they got cut off. Let me go ahead and continue thinking through this. So as we come back to it and see the Trinity revealed more and more, you end up with verses in the New Testament that speak of all three persons of the Trinity. So probably the best, if I can put it that way, of them is the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where Jesus says, one name, singular, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He goes on from there. So, when you think about God's name, it's, you know, His power, His authority. It is, in essence, who He is. So, to have the three persons of the Trinity right there makes it obvious that there is a Trinitarian nature to our religion. Also, on a personal note, when we're baptized into the name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we are made, I think, to think of how God in each person of the Trinity affects our salvation to bring us from death and into life. It's not one person of the Trinity who accomplishes this act, but all of them. Another is in 2 Corinthians 13. You've probably heard that apostolic benediction. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. That is straight from the scripture. Another place that you see it more visibly is in Matthew 3, 16 and 17, where You see the baptism of Christ, and when he is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends on him in the form or an image of a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. So you see all persons of the Trinity together. So these have the unity of the Godhead, and Godhead is not a dirty word. It's in the Scriptures in a few places, like all the fullness of deity dwells in Christ bodily. is one place. Or another place where it says that the Godhead is known in creation, actually, in Romans chapter 1. It says that what can be known about God, you know, people suppress in unrighteousness. But it says, namely, His eternal power and divine nature. And that word is the same. It's like a Godhead. which people disagree about whether or not the Trinity is revealed in nature and not merely in special revelation. And I'm not gonna get into that. But, moving from the unity of God, there are three persons in that unity who are related. So, the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. There is very little debate over whether the Father is God. It talks about Him as the begetter of Christ, for one, but also the earth. You know, Paul's prayer in Ephesians talks about from whom all the families of the earth are named. We pray to the Father. The Son has been the biggest controversy, you could say, as far as who is divine in the history of Christianity. But the scriptures are very clear about Him being God. You guys are good at this. Give me some scriptures that we can memorize or know that Jesus is God. there any single ones we have there's a lot there's ones we can do comparing the Old and New Testament but there any texts that come to your mind yes I think so I don't I don't know if that's a that says a direct one but I think you have to ask yourself who could say that who could say that sort of thing and I think Right? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, which no non-divine person could utter those words without them being blasphemy. John 1, yeah. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then it says very clearly that He took on flesh, that Word of God. So also in that text, you have the pre-existence of the Son of God, that the Son of God predated Jesus, right? Jesus is the person, the man born in Nazareth, yeah, or Bethlehem, excuse me. So, yeah. John 20, 28, where, Absolutely. That's a great one, especially when you think about the Shema. Right? My Lord and my God. Our God is the Lord is One. And Thomas, who knows these things, is starting, in view of the resurrection of Christ, his eyes are opening and he's saying, who is this? This is God. This is the one who I know already, which is amazing. And not only that, but Thomas worships, and in the Old Testament, no angel. Right, so the way that the Confession speaks about how do we know that each person of the Trinity is God, it talks about that only, it says the words, works, and worship that is only due to God is given to all three persons. So, the Son is given divine names. So, for example, if you look at Psalm 102, where it says, your throne, O God, is forever, and the earth will perish and roll up like a scroll, but your years have no end, that is talking about Yahweh. But in the writer of the Hebrews says, of the Son, he says to him, and quotes Psalm 102. Very clearly, the name Yahweh is attributed to Christ. So remember that for your Jehovah's Witness friends. It's also in Ephesians 4 as well, when it says that he ascended on high and gave gifts to men, which is a quote from Psalm 60 something. That one also is only, it's talking about God. And so the name God is immediately attributed to him. So are the works of God like in Colossians chapter 1 it says that for from him or it says Through him and for him were he created all things, right? That's not an exact quote, but Colossians chapter 1 talks about Christ as the mediator of creation. So the work of God is done in Christ. He also receives worship. So a great one to remember for all of this really is in Philippians chapter 2, where he says, have this mind among yourselves that was also Christ Jesus, who, although he was in the form of God, so there is, he is divine, did not consider it a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. And by the way, that made himself nothing doesn't mean he stops to be God. It means that he doesn't consider the divine prerogatives his own, but takes to himself a humanity. So, makes himself nothing by becoming born and even going to the cross and suffering. And then Philippians 2 says, So, that is another text that worships Christ. So, words, works, and worship of the Son, right there. Let me also go to the Holy Spirit, go through that real quick, and then we can have a little more discussion. The Holy Spirit, probably the most controversial thing about the Holy Spirit is that He is a person. I've had people talk to me who kind of like freak out. I remember one person who grew up in a brethren church because they don't have confessions, They didn't really go through this, and she said, Joe, is it true, like in a hushed tone, the Holy Spirit is a person? She was like freaked out. I was like, yes, but not, probably not in the way that you think about it, because when we're talking about person, we usually only think like a human, and when we're talking about the Trinity, that's not what we're talking about. Per se. When you think about what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, and I'm thinking of Absolutely, yeah. I would say all the persons of the Trinity glorify one another. Have you seen this before? I think this is helpful. It's not everything, but it's simply the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Spirit, the Spirit's not the Son, the Son's not the Father. It's a great little visual, but I would say it's incomplete because one thing about it is there's this doctrine called perichoresis, and it means like an indwelling Each person fully exhausts divinity. So, like Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You can say the same thing about all the persons of the Trinity mutually inhere one another, which it's hard to get your mind around that, but it's a good doctrine to remember. But the Holy Spirit speaks in the first person at different places. Like in the book of Acts, it says that Peter, while pondering and envisioning, the Spirit said to him, three men are looking for you. So the Spirit speaks. He's constantly referred to by Christ with the he pronoun in John 14 to 16, which is a great text passage. If you want to think through a lot of these things, go to John 14 to 16. He has an intellect and a will. For example, in Acts 16, 7, when they'd come up to Myasia, they attempted to go into the Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So it's actually the spirit preventing or actually acting on his own. So there you have it. And think also of the emotions of the Spirit that do not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And He's separate, of course, from the Son and the Father, like we talked about in the baptism with a distinct form, a dove, things like this, show that there is a distinct personality to the Holy Spirit. He's given the names of God. So in Acts 28, it says, 25, it says, there was a disagreement among themselves. They departed after Paul had made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying your fathers through Isaiah the prophet. So Isaiah speaks the word of God. And in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, Luke writes that Paul said, the Holy Spirit spoke. So the Holy Spirit is given the name of God, has the attributes of God like omnipotence. He has all power, like in Psalm 33, it's by the Spirit of the Lord that the earth was created. One second now. And then you see the same thing with his works, like for example, in resurrecting the son from the dead. In Romans 8, 11, it says that He rose by His Spirit, Jesus was rose. And you can sin against the Holy Spirit, so there's also worship of the Holy Spirit. So, for all those reasons, you can see that there's a unity in the Godhead, and yet Trinity, three persons in the Godhead who all have the words, works, and worship only properly attributed to God, all attributed to them. And that's a very quick atom bomb theology of the Trinity. You can't lie to an impersonal force. So the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons believe the Holy Spirit is a power, a force, and you can't lie to an impersonal force. Any other questions or thoughts? Absolutely. Yep, that's a great one, too. Yeah, dude. Yes, I'm going to get there in the context of the creeds. I'm going to skip that because we don't quite have enough time, but I have this picture of the Nicaea Council. You see a lot of controversy right out of the gates about the Trinity in the New Testament with John talking about the Gnostics who said Jesus, you know, didn't come in the flesh. There's all this controversy over who Jesus actually was, what he came to do. And so it was so controversial that in the Roman Empire they were saying don't associate with your parents. There were bishops being thrown out of churches. People were being exiled. It was It was very intense, you know think George Floyd riots and then like what higher you know people were intense about The Trinity and about who the person of the Sun was So it became if you could put it this way like almost like national security that Constantine decided to bring together the Council of Nicaea in 325 in order to consider this issue, especially over this guy named Arius. And Arius was one of the arch heretics of the church who said that there was a time, or he's attributed as saying, there was a time when the sun was not. So his begottenness, the begottenness of the sun, is in time. And Nicaea came up with what we now have as, well, they came up with an earlier version of what we now has as the Nicaean Creed. which, like the Apostles' Creed, confesses, I believe in the Father, I believe in the Son or the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. So from the beginning, whether you're talking about the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed in 325, or the version we have now that came in 381, we're always talking in Trinitarian terms as Christians, which is awesome. But speaking to some of those issues of begottenness we confess now that he's been eternally begotten because we want to say that the begottenness of the son is not constrained to time he's the eternally begotten of the father and as far as the procession of the holy spirit that's a that's a great one too because there is controversy over whether the spirit proceeds from merely the father or the father and the son which is what our um which was what we said what it says here um about the personal properties. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. So there was a split in 1054 over like the Eastern Orthodox Church. They don't believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. just the Father. So we're confessing that there because there's a procession from both persons. You see this in places like John 15, 26 says, when the Helper comes, Jesus says, whom I will send to you from the Father. So how could the Spirit in time proceed from the Son unless the Spirit also eternally proceeded from the Son? And He'll bear witness about me, says Jesus. And then in 14.26 of John, He says, So that time, the Father is sending the Spirit in the name of the Son. He will teach you all things and bring to the remembrance the things I've said of you. Also, real quick, he says in that 1526, he says, the spirit who proceeds from the Father. So it's not who will proceed from the Father. We're talking about eternal categories who proceeds from the Father. So he's saying it is an absolute. This is the fact. So, we're talking in eternal categories. Likewise, for the Son, in John 17, 5, He says, He says, So there is an eternal glory. We're talking in eternal categories when we're talking about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And these personal properties that are mentioned here in our confession are, yeah, they all are not talking about God in time, which is, again, kind of a mind-blowing thing. You can see more about the persons of the Trinity in time, but there is an eternal triunity to God. Also, and Jesus says to the Pharisee, before Abraham was, I am. So he identified himself with the I am that they understood. Right. Yep. Yes, Becky. This is gonna sound crazy. What difference does it make to us if Eastern Orthodox believes that the Spirit just comes from the Father? How does that extrapolate out? Does it extrapolate out into wrong thinking on other things, like what is, I mean, the fact that we're holding fast to father and son means it's true and it's important, but how would that affect their thinking? I just, I'm wondering. No, it's a good question. Is it wrong, or is there some, does it then flow into other heresies because of that? I would say it does affect their theology and their practice, and what, if you read theologians on it, they'll say that it's a kind of, I'll explain this, but it's a latent monarchianism. So what that is is, You know that, that old chestnut. Yes, it is malarkey. Monarchianism is this ancient view that the Trinity, well, they're not three divine, well, they are divine persons, but their being comes from the Father. So he like trickles over like a fountain into the other so that if you had no father You wouldn't have the others and that's a crude way of speaking about it. But Justin Martyr, he talked about it like there's a torch and then from the torch the father comes the light and the heat that are like the Sun and the Holy Spirit but these depend on the father for their existence and so It's not a great analogy. As God works in time, that's fine. But in the eternal being of God, there are three self-existing eternal persons. So, the Son is of himself God out of Theos. And Calvin, for that reason, didn't really like the part of the Nicene Creed where he says, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, because he says he did not get his divinity from the Father, per se. He is of himself God. And so in the Holy Spirit, Yes, he proceeds from the Father and the Son, but there is in rejecting that the Spirit comes from the Son, a kind of a view that the Son is lesser than the Father. Does that all make sense? All right, I'm glad you followed me, because that was a lot. That's what the Pharisees did. What? That's what the Pharisees did. They believed that, you know, that no one could become lesser than God. There was only one. That's why they, that's where they stand on only one God. And of course they couldn't accept the concept. And one of the things that I think of is the fact that if we could actually define divinity to perfection, guess what? We'd be actually Right. The things that are revealed to us belong to us and our children, but the things that are hidden belong to God. Last thing I wanted to mention before we move on, and I just have a real simple slide for this, is just modern issues. And I would say there are all kinds of Trinitarian heresies among so-called Christians, like I've mentioned Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, and I don't know, I would There are lots of resources you can find about these, but I would say Islam is probably the second biggest world religion, right? They deny the Trinity, but somehow say that the Gospel of Jesus and the Torah, the Old Testament, were sent down from God. So there's going to be a constant conflict with Islam, with Mormonism, with oneness. Pentecostalism is a modalistic, and it's hard because we don't have enough time to get into all that. But modalism is the belief that, like people will say about analogies that God is like water, you can find water in three different forms. liquid, vapor, and ice or solid, that's a heresy. Because God doesn't merely represent himself in three forms as if one person showed up in different ways, but in three distinct persons. Most of the analogies that we have for the Trinity are all heresy. God's not a three-headed dog, like William Lane Craig said. He's not a washer-dryer with three different settings. I know that a lot of these are Sunday school, like you're trying to help, but he's not a three-leaf clover that is three persons that are one-third of the divine being. A lot of our analogies all break down, and so I would not recommend any analogies when we talk about the person of God. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it's strange because Islam holds that Jesus is a prophet and speaks of him in the Quran, but then what they have to do is basically deny that God has preserved the New Testament. And then they end up saying, well, that's not actually what happened. Yeah. All right. That was a lot. Thanks, everybody.