All right, tonight we will finish our study on chapter two of the Westminster Confession of Faith. We'll be going through paragraph three. This is on page 921 in your Trinity Psalter Hymnal, or you have the authorized version of the Confession. It's page 12. So I'm going to go ahead and read this for us, and then we'll get started. Page 921 if you're using the Psalter Hymnal. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons 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 Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. So that's where we're at in the confession, and that's where we're going to finish our teaching of God and the Holy Trinity for these Wednesday night studies. And as we said at the start, yeah. Page 921, chapter 2, paragraph 3. Can I ask a grammatical question? Sure. Why did they say, in the unity of the Godhead there be three persons? It's just old English. This was written in the 1640s. We would say, in the Godhead there are three persons today. So it's just, that's the way they spoke then. All right, so we've said as we've been doing this study that how you think about God may be the most practically important thing in your life. How you think about God may be the most practically important thing in your life. And that's why we've spent three weeks in these three paragraphs of the span of which we would normally cover in one week. If you think back to when we did chapter one of the confession, we were going at a clip of about three paragraphs a week and here we've really slowed it down. And I would recommend if you want to learn more about some of the things we've studied, such as the attributes of God, I've got a couple of books here. Uh, this is the attributes of God by A. W. Pink. He's a, he's a Calvinistic Baptist preacher from the mid 1900s. It is very good. Uh, this is one of, Probably one of the most helpful books I read before seminary, and even after having gone through seminary, it is still one of the most helpful books I've ever read. And it is saturated with scripture. It is very, very good. It's a modern classic. I would also recommend J.I. Packer's Knowing God. This is another classic work. In fact, I actually recently discovered in my library, I have two. So if anybody would really like this afterwards, come see me, it's yours. But it's a great book to study more in-depth the doctrine of God. Of course, there's The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul, and several other wonderful books on this subject. I hope that this will be a matter of lifelong study for you, The Doctrine of God. So let's do a little bit of review. There have been some key terms that we've gone over over the last several weeks together. So one last time, who can tell me what aseity means? When we speak of God's aseity, Mr. Johnson. He's self-sustaining. He's self-sustaining. He's self-sufficient. He needs nothing else. What else would that that's spot on and what else would be part of that? Is there another word that we would use to go along with that? He's also immutable. He doesn't change. So he's, he's always been perfectly and completely himself. Um, and then, Why is the doctrine of aseity important? We may not use the word all the time, but why is it important to know that God is completely self-sustaining, completely self-sufficient in and of himself? What is helpful about that to you? Yeah. He's reliable. He doesn't depend on others and nothing that he promises you is contingent on somebody or something else. He is fully Sufficient in and of himself to keep his promises very good who can define for me? Simplicity when we speak of God as being a simple being ponder He's not made up of parts. Why is that good news? Why is that helpful? It's a little bit harder than a safety Jack Yeah He's all one thing. He's unchanging. So if we could, if we could say that a little bit of a different way, because God is not made up of parts. When we read that God is love, God is perfectly and always love. He's, he doesn't, he doesn't need other things to make him love. He just is love. Or when we say that God is just, God is always perfectly just. And we don't need to worry about whether or not, something else is added to the mix. God is his attributes. They're not merely things that he has, but they're components of who he is. For him to cease to be love, for him to cease to be justice, for him to cease to be any of these things would be to cease to be God, and that cannot happen. Ryan McGraw, who's a professor at Greenville Seminary, also has an excellent book I would recommend to you called Knowing the Trinity. practical thoughts for daily life. This is very accessible, very clear in his writing. He's a great writer. And what's really wonderful about the book is it takes this doctrine of the Trinity that is abstract and is going to be difficult to wrap our minds around and tells you why it matters in your day to day life. And we're going to touch on a little bit of that tonight, but if you want a fuller treatment, this would be a great book. And he writes, the relationship that the father, the son, and the Holy spirit hold to each other in eternity is the foundation of the relationship that we hold to both God and fellow believers in time. The attributes of God teach us what kind of God the Trinity is. The persons of the Godhead provide us with a window into who he is, and how he relates to his creatures. In other words, what he's saying there is, when we think of God's attributes, they tell us what kind of God it is that we worship. When we think of him in terms of his persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we're actually thinking of him and relating to God in personal terms. It's the foundation of our relationship to God, and it's the foundation of our relationship to one another. We've been adopted into a family. under our Heavenly Father. We've been adopted into the family by the work of our brother, the Lord Jesus. The scriptures do refer to him as an elder brother, the firstborn of the dead. We've been adopted into the family of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, applying the work that Christ did in accordance with God the Father's decree, and on you could go. But Dr. McGraw goes on, he says, it is to our detriment if we do not think about our Christian lives in terms of fellowship with the work of all three divine persons. The triune God himself is our comfort, our blessedness, and our exceeding great reward. And again, that's just from the introduction of this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to study further. But what he's getting at is essentially, the Trinity's like super important and very practical for us. Did you ever realize how Trinitarian your worship is on Sunday morning? The Trinity is everywhere in our worship service. Can anybody think of maybe one spot where we might find the Trinity in our normal Sunday morning worship service? Whenever we recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed. Yeah, whenever we recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, which is three out of four Sundays a month, so that's pretty prevalent. Where else? The doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Trinity's in the doxology. Where else? The Gloria Patri? Glory be to the Father and to the Son. Don't make me do this. And to the Holy Ghost, right. The Trinity is everywhere in our worship service. When we administer the sacrament of baptism, which we will do this Sunday morning, it will be done in what? In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. When we have a benediction, the benediction we had this past Sunday night, Dr. Master pronounced 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. When Dr. Phillips prays the prayer of invocation at the beginning of the service, he prays to our Father in heaven, that he would send the Holy Spirit to assist us and lead us in worship. And he does so in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore we pray in the manner that he taught us to pray. We recite the Lord's prayer. The Trinity is the bedrock on which our worship of God is built. That's not by accident. That's not by tradition. It's because we understand that how we think about God, is the most important thing in our lives, and it will guide our worship. And so tonight, I want to do three things with the doctrine of the Trinity in 20 minutes or less. I want to define it, that is, say what it is. I want to prove it, that is, show you where these things are taught in scripture. And then finally, I want to rejoice in it. I want you to see why does this matter? Why is the fact that God is one and yet three a matter for praise and rejoicing. So first of all, defining it. What is the Trinity? Well, it's not like an egg where you have one egg and then you have the shell and you have the white and you have the yolk. It's not like that. It's not like H2O where it can be a solid in the form of an ice cube or it can be melted down and be water or it can evaporate and be gas. Yes, Francis, we're going to watch the Lutheran satire thing soon. It's not like these things. It's completely unique. And it's also completely unique to the Christian faith. There is no other religion that has a God anything like this. The doctrine is stated probably most simply in Shorter Catechism 5 and 6. Would somebody read those for us? Shorter Catechism 5 and 6. It's page 360 if you've got this copy. Go ahead, Francis. Are there more gods than one? There is but one only, the living and true God. All right, so wait, how many gods are there? One. OK, so I'm going to write this once. One God. How many persons are there in the Godhead? There are three persons in the Godhead. All right, who are they? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. And these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power, and Lord. All right, so they're all gods. All right, so the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Ghost is God. It doesn't say that there, but it does say it in chapter two, paragraph three, that these persons are also distinct. So, the Son is not the Father. The Son is not the Holy Ghost. And the Father is not the Holy Ghost. So there are three persons, one God. These persons are distinct from each other. They are all fully God and they are not each other. They are all co-equal and co-eternal. One God in three persons. And each of the three persons is truly and totally God. The three persons are equal in power and glory, as she read there, co-eternal. And there was never a time when one of these persons existed that the others did not also exist. There was never a time when the son did not exist, but the father did. Because he could not be the eternal father if there was not eternally a son. Does that make sense? Because God the father is who he is, and he is unchangeable from all eternity, there could never logically be a time given who he is when there was not the Son. Now we can distinguish the persons of the Godhead, which is to say we can distinguish them by what they do. As we read earlier, the Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Now what does all that mean? At some level, the Westminster divines along with the writers of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed before them, are just trying to capture what the Bible says, right? So when they say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, the only begotten Son, when we refer to Him as the only begotten Son, we're using language from scripture. We're using language from passages like John 1.18, that speaks of Jesus, the Word, being the only begotten of the Father. And when we speak of, or in 1426 and 2022 of John's gospel, both speak of the Father and the Son sending the Holy Spirit. So we're just trying to capture biblical language, but that doesn't still quite answer the question, what does all of that mean? And I read a lot to try and find a clear, simple way to express what this means. I read Francis Turretin, I read Herman Bovink, I read John Calvin, I read a lot. And the most helpful analogy that I could get for what this means, and we have to be very careful whenever we try and give any analogy or explanation for things that relate within the Godhead because it is utterly unique. So I'm only trying to illustrate one specific facet, which is to say, how is it that these three are related to one another? What is the way in which they're completely dependent on each other and yet also completely distinct? And so this is what I got. First of all, let me ask you guys a question. Has anyone here ever spoken without thinking? Liars, all of you. It's impossible to speak without thinking. You may have spoken without thinking it through. You may have spoken without thinking carefully about it. But you had to have thought to have spoke. Your brain doesn't, your mouth doesn't just operate independently. Can't see now. What if you speak? Is your brain active? I would say so. The point is this. The point is this. You can't think, does anyone, you think, if you're like me anyway, you think in words. I think in words. And I speak according to my thoughts. But my words are not my thoughts, and my thoughts are not my words, and yet they are completely dependent on each other. My thoughts are expressed in words. Herman Bobbink. The great Dutch reformed theologian put it much more intelligently than that. He said, the most striking human analogy is thought and speech. Just as the human mind objectivizes itself in words, so God expresses his entire being in the logos, which is the Greek word for in the beginning was the word. So God expresses his entire being in the word. For God to beget is to speak, and his speaking is eternal. The Son is begotten out of the very being of the Father from the eternity. The Son remains very God of very God, just like we say in the Nicene Creed. And again, that's just to illustrate how the Son is begotten of the Father and yet never existed apart from the Father, nor did the Father ever exist apart from the Son. Before we move on to proving all of this from Scripture, I just want to make very clear, all we're saying, one God, three persons. Distinct, but not able to be divided. Distinct, but not able to be divided. Just as thoughts and speech are distinct from each other, but not able to be divided. Now for fun, here is what the Trinity is not. After the ad. Okay, Patrick, tell us a bit more about this Trinity thing. Yeah, Patrick, tell us. But remember that we're simple people without your fancy education and books and learning. And we're hearing about all of this for the first time. So try to keep it simple. Okay, Patrick? Yeah, real simple, Patrick. Sure, there are three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet there is only one God. Don't get what you're saying here, Patrick. I'm not picking up what you're laying down here, Patrick. Could you use an analogy, Patrick? Sure. Trinity is like water, and how you can find water in three different forms. Liquid, ice, and vapor. That's mortalism, Patrick! What? Modalism, an ancient heresy confessed by teachers such as Noatis and Sibelius, which espouses that God is not three distinct persons, but that he merely reveals himself in three different forms. This heresy was clearly condemned in Canon One of the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, and those who confess it cannot rightly be considered a part of the Church Catholic. Come on, Patrick! Yeah, get it together, Patrick! Okay, uh... Alright, so modalism, just to make sure that we're clear on this, is saying that the one God sometimes acts this way, sometimes He acts this way, and other times He acts this way. It is not what the Bible teaches, and as they so eloquently put, was condemned at the Council of Calestone in 381. Then the Trinity is like the sun in the sky, where you have the star, and the light, and the heat. Come on, Patrick. That's Arianism, Patrick. Arianism? Yes, Arianism, Patrick. A theology which states that Christ and the Holy Spirit are creations of the Father and not one in nature with him. Exactly like how heat and light are not the star itself, but are merely creations of the star. That's a bad analogy, Patrick. You're the worst, Patrick. Alright, sorry. Arianism would modernly be expressed by groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, by the way, that say that Jesus is a very great being, but he's a created being nonetheless, therefore not fully God. We'll get into why that matters more in a little bit. Trinity is like this three-leaf clover. I'm gonna stop you right there, Patrick. Yeah, hold your horses, Patrick. You're about to confess partialism. Partialism? Yes, partialism, a heresy which asserts that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct persons of the Godhead, but are different parts of God, each composing one-third of the divine. What vocabulary term have we talked about that that idea would violate directly? Simplicity. Who confesses to the heresy of partiality? The first season of the cartoon program Voltron, where five robot lion cars merge together to form one giant robot samurai, obviously... Great show, by the way. Of course you haven't. It's not going to exist for another 1,500 years now, Patrick. Get out of the program, Patrick. I mean really, Patrick. I'm going to snap you in the face, Patrick. OK, that was probably enough. All right, I'll try again. The Trinity is like how the same man can be a husband and a father and an employer. Moralism again. All right, then it's like the three layers of an animal. Marcellus revisited. Fine. Trinity is a mystery which cannot be comprehended by human reason, but is understood only through faith, and is best confessed in the words of the affirmation creed, which states that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. that we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess that each distinct person is God and Lord, and that the deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, co-equal in majesty. Well, why didn't you just say that? All right, so that's the idea. Lutheran satire, by the way, I highly recommend. The motto is teaching the faith by making fun of stuff, which is, especially for y'all's age, very good. Anyway, so those are examples of what the Trinity is not. All right, so. We'll move quickly through this. For anyone that wants these notes later, let me know. I'll be happy to get them to you. Let's move quickly, though, through being all raised in good, reformed, conservative, confessional churches. I trust I don't have to prove this too hard for you, but I'll give you the text nonetheless. That's what the doctrine is. How do we know that it's true? Because the Bible says so. Yes, but where? Is there a verse in the Bible that speaks of God as triune? No. There is not The word Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but that is okay Because does anybody remember our discussion from maybe a month ago out of chapter 1 section 6 on something called good and necessary consequences Anybody remember what that means good and necessary consequences It's more than reasonable Anybody want to strengthen that? It's something that must necessarily be true, given what the Bible says explicitly. So it's not just something that makes sense to derive, but it logically is necessitated by taking into account the fullness of what the Bible teaches on a given topic. And that's where we get the doctrine of the Trinity from exegetically. So first of all, the Bible teaches very plainly in many places that there are how many gods, One God. This is all over the place. Deuteronomy 6.4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Isaiah 44.8. I'll read that for us once I get going the right way. I don't know why I went the wrong way there. Isaiah 44.8 says, is there a God besides me? There is no other. I know not any. And on we could go. Isaiah 45.5, since I'm right there, the Lord says, I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. So there is one God. And yet when we take into account the fullness of what the scriptures say, there are three distinct persons, all of whom are called God at one point or another. The father generally nobody disputes this but just so we say we did it can somebody please read 2nd Corinthians 1 3 3 and then somebody else Ephesians 1 3 2nd Corinthians 1 3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies, and the God of all comfort. Blessed be God, who is who? The Father of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the name of Jesus. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, the Father is God. And the Son is God. You guys should just be able to throw a proof text at me for that. Anybody? Proving the deity of Christ. John 3.16. How would you get there from there? Wait, you said proving that Jesus. No, proving that Jesus is God. John 1.14. Yeah. Yeah. John chapter one would be a great place to go. John chapter five, verse 18. Somebody read that. Mr. Bombaro, can you read for us John 5, 18? Yes. Thank you. John 5, 18? Yep. This is why the Jews were seeking So what that's saying is that Jesus, by teaching himself to be the son of God, is equating himself with God. Then there are several other places that we could go for this. We won't run through all of them. And then lastly, the Holy Spirit is said to be God according to the scriptures. This one is not as prevalent as the Father and the Son, but it is Nonetheless, a clear teaching of Acts chapter five, verses three to four. Acts chapter five, this is where Ananias and Sapphira have sold their field, and they say they're presenting everything, and they keep back a portion for themselves. They're lying in what they're offering to God, and Peter says, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? So in other words, he's saying, you didn't have to give anything. You could have kept it all. You could have kept part of it and given part of it. You could have done any number of things, but you chose instead to give part of it and say it was all of it. Why have you lied to the Holy Spirit? He says in verse three, and then he goes on and says, why is it that you have contrived this in your heart? You have not lied to man. but to God. So he says, when you lied to the Holy Spirit, you lied to God. The Holy Spirit is called God. So we've got one God, three persons all referred to as God. And then we also have biblical teaching and warrant to say that these three persons are all distinct from one another. One passage to show that we can do that in one verse. The passage that James brought up, John chapter one, verses one and two, in the beginning was the word, And the word was with God, and the word was God. He was, and the same was in the beginning with God, is verse two. In other words, we've got the word who is God, that's Jesus, but he's also with God, distinct from God, separate from God. We've got, Jesus' baptism in Matthew chapter three, verses 13 to 17, where Jesus, the Son, is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, and there is a voice from heaven, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The voice from heaven is calling Jesus, the Son, who's the one speaking from heaven. The Father, right, all three present. Jesus is not throwing his voice to the cloud to make that, no, they are all distinct, different persons. Matthew chapter three, verses 13 to 17. These three persons, all called God, all distinct from each other, are yet united. They have one name. Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 to 20. Go therefore into all the nations, baptizing them into the name, singular, of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. So they are inseparably united. And as we've already saw, we quoted several passages where the Bible teaches that the Son is begotten of the Father, and where the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son together. This is the doctrine that comes together when we take into account all of what the Scripture says about God. It is necessarily true. Another great systematic theologian, Francis Turretin, put it this way. Here we are occupied with the adorable mystery of the Trinity, which neither reason can comprehend nor example prove. So what he's saying is it's too big to wrap your mind around. If what I'm saying is feel kind of feel like your head's in a fishbowl, that's okay. We're trying to explain a being that is wholly and completely different than us. cannot be comprehended nor proved by example. What he means by that is I can't give you, as Patrick tried in the video, an analogy that paints a perfect picture that you could fit in your mind. And because of the kind of being God is, we should expect that. We should expect him to exist in ways that are apart from our ability to understand. But the authority of divine revelation alone proposes to be received by faith and adored with love. Very quickly, too quickly, why does this matter? Why does the doctrine of the Trinity matter? Well, for several reasons. One, the doctrine of the Trinity is involved in creation. Genesis chapter one, in the beginning was God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. So we've got God in the beginning, creating the heavens and the earth, The Spirit of God is there, and how did God create? He spoke. The Word. John chapter one takes Genesis chapter one and interprets it and says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And apart from Him was not anything made that was made. So we have in Genesis one, one to three, all three members of the Godhead at the foundation of creation. This matters. The Trinity is also essential to your salvation. Trinity is essential to your salvation. Now, quick disclaimer, I'm not saying your perfect understanding of the Trinity is essential to your salvation. But I'm saying the doctrine is necessary for your salvation to be true. Because denial of the Trinity is to deny a necessary person of salvation. 1 Peter 1 would say that you are the elect according to what? The foreknowledge of God. God the Father chose you by the sanctification, by the setting apart of the Spirit, sprinkled by the blood of the Son. 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2 teaches us that our whole of salvation is trinitarian. It is necessary. To deny the Trinity either in one of the persons is to deny a necessary part of salvation. To deny that one of these persons is God is to say there's part of my salvation that God didn't do. That is why the Trinity is necessary for salvation. And finally, the Trinity is necessary for God to be God. Remember, we spent a lot of time, and I brought it up a couple of times tonight, because I knew we were going to come here, aseity. God is self-sufficient. And simplicity. God is his attributes. These are not things that he possesses, but things that he is. So when we take a very simple one, like 1 John 4, verse 8, which says, God is love. The highest form of love is not love of myself, but love for others. And so for God to perfectly be love, that love must have an object. And it's not you. God is not in need of us, his creatures. Rather, God the Son is the object of the perfect love of God the Father. God the Spirit is the object of the perfect love of God the Father and the Son. And I'll let you guys go, just give me one more second. Triune God changes the way we look at the world. He gives us our foundation for existence. He gives a basis for virtues such as love. And he also gives us the hope of eternal life as all three members of the Godhead are involved in, even in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And I'll give you those verses some other time. I know the choir kids have to go. So let me pray. We're dismissed. God in heaven, there is none like you. We praise you and worship you and glorify you. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to make this a lifelong study. In Christ's name, amen.