Turn back to John 14. We continue our exposition of the Upper Room Discourse, though we will take a bit of an aside today in order to better understand it. Let's go to John 14. We'll begin the reading at verse 7. And we'll read down to verse 11. John 14, seven, this is God's word. If ye had known me, ye should have known my father also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works' sake. May the Lord bless the reading and especially preaching of His Holy Word now. While we continue our series on the Upper Room Discourse, and when we consider that this discourse is given by our Lord Jesus Christ so that His disciples would, before He is taken from them, have what they need to know before He goes to His cross. It is very striking to us to see in this text that one of the things that he most wants his disciples to know is who God is. What God is. He wants them to know something of the nature of God. In fact, Christ wants them to know this one thing of a certain. He is God. And as I go to prepare a place for you, as I go to that cross, you have to know that I am God who has gone there. That it is God, and as the Apostle Paul will say later on, right, we need to know that because what else can atone for the sins of all of God's people but that blood which is counted as the blood of God, Acts 20 verse 28. The church was purchased with the blood of God, is what the Apostle Paul says. Now, God, properly speaking, this would have to be another sermon on this topic, does not have blood. But because of the unity of the person of Christ, the unity of the natures in the one person of Christ, what is proper to the human nature, blood, is counted as belonging to the divine person. So we'll come to that another day and another time. But it is important for His disciples to know before He is taken to the cross that He and the Father mutually indwell each other. Now, as I thought on this text, I thought about how to expound it. You know, the natural place to go is, this is the doctrine that is part and parcel of the Trinity called caresis. And that's the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity. But it struck me that as a congregation, we haven't laid a foundation yet by which we could even understand that concept in the space of an hour. And so it seemed we had to go to first principles. You know, if we had started in John 1 rather than John 13, of course from the very beginning we would be confronted with the Trinity. And we would have already dealt with some of these matters. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and then the Word took on flesh, right? And so we'd have to contend with what is this other person who is with God and was God and is distinct from God the Father? Well, we'd have to have laid all that foundation, but we come here in God's providence into the middle of the upper room discourse and we need to understand something of the mystery of the Trinity as it is revealed to us in the scripture. So we have actually before us a doctrinal sermon today. I'll just say it might be quite stretching as I already mentioned earlier before we began our worship service. And it's going to be probably taxing, particularly for the afternoon hour. I'm well aware of the frailty of our flesh. But we do need to establish today a Trinitarian grammar, if I could use that expression. So that in future weeks, as we go through the Upper Room Discourse and into the High Priestly Prayer, the words that are spoken from the pulpit would make sense. And we would know the meaning underneath all of it as we progress through John's Gospel. But it's not just that you and I would attain a Trinitarian grammar today, but really for us to grow in awe and wonder ultimately for the God we worship. That far too often our conception of God is too small. You know, we'll even say with our mouth, yes, God is a Trinity, but we have absolutely no idea what we mean by that. And that should never be the case because the Christian church has literally shed blood over this doctrine. Men have died in order to defend the doctrine of the Trinity. And it is of vital first importance. I mean, you think about this. Should it not be of first importance to you to know who God is or what God is? Wasn't it the case that the Apostle said to the men of Athens and probably other places too, right? You don't know the God you worship, but we do. Can you say that you know the God you worship? The Bible has much to say about the God you worship, and yet much of God's people don't know. He even expressed here, Jesus Christ does, disappointment. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? This is possible for us, and we have to recognize that this is possible for us. Survey after survey, and I'll quote the Ligonier survey a little bit later, survey after survey has come, and while people will profess, like 90% of evangelicals will profess they believe in the Trinity, when you actually ask them questions about it, that survey shows they don't know the Trinity at all. May that never be you, and may that never be me. Because to know God as He is will cause us to worship Him. And may we run away from a God that is far too small, because this doctrine leads us to worship. And in that, I want to say it is an exciting doctrine as well. To know your God as He is, to see the depths of the majesty and grandeur and glory of who God is, that there's none like Him. So let's know our triune God, and we'll endeavor to do so. under a few heads tonight, and the first is the revelation of God, the revelation of God. Verse 7, Jesus said, if you had known me, you should have known my father also, and from henceforth you know him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the father, and it sufficeth us. Now, at this point, it is likely what Philip wanted was a manifestation of the Father's glory. You almost think of the Shekinah glory, right? Which, you know, men fall to their face before the glory of God, that he might behold the power of God. And let me just say this much, that is often what too many people are seeking when they want to see the glory of God. Perhaps in that room, Philip wanted, may we fall on our face and that we would see the glory of God as it filled the temple of old. We want to see a display of divine power fill the place of worship. And yet, what did God tell Moses in Exodus 33? Moses says, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy unto whom I will show mercy. And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. If you want to see the unadulterated glory of God, none of you can see that glory and live. Even the prophet Isaiah comes before the glory of God. And what does he say? Woe unto me, I am undone. None can see the glory of God and live. It would be the same for Philip, wouldn't it? Yet God said that he would make all his goodness pass before thee to Moses. And Moses gets a temporal vision of the backside of God. But in that room, Philip was able to see the glory of God in a way in which he wouldn't be consumed. Through the mediator, Jesus Christ. God, man. It's stunning that Moses was told, you'll see the backside of me, I will cover you in my hand and so on. But in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, we have seen the goodness and glory of God shine in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews says that Christ is the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person. So in Christ we have a fruition of God that Moses could not have at Sinai. Why? Because Jesus is God in the flesh, come to be our mediator, and that is the great advantage Moses did not have. And so we can know God through the incarnate Son that is God himself. We'll pick up on that a bit later throughout the series in the Upper Room. But let's get to verse 9 as we drive towards the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? You know, we covered a little bit of this verse last time, and this is the bridge to today. What does seeing the Father mean in this place, right? He that had seen me had seen the Father. What does Jesus mean by that? God is a spirit. You can't see him, boys and girls. You can't see him. He's invisible. That's why you can't image him and make images of him. You know, when you will see God, that is, the divine essence of God will be the beatific vision. We covered that. You'll have a mental vision of God. You won't see him in a physical way, but you'll have a mental communication of God to you. But in this time, in this place, you supremely see God in Jesus Christ as the very image of God. In other words, the character and works of God are shown to you through Christ. We saw that last time, didn't we? And so, I'll leave that before you. Again, we'll cover some of these things in more detail later, but we're driving towards the triune God. So now, verse 10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Now, Philip is actually asked by Jesus Christ an article of belief concerning Jesus' nature. It's actually quite interesting. Do you believe, believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? So this is actually an article of belief that he is asking. So you can actually see here that belief in the triune nature of God is something that Christ is actually interested in you having. It's not ethereal for ivory tower philosophers and theologians, as it were. He's asking one of his disciples, do you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? This is the nature of God that we are now starting to unfold. How can the Father be in the Son and the Son mutually be inside the Father? Only the doctrine of the Trinity can explain this for us. The true doctrine of the Trinity, and not sometimes the false conceptions that we might have. You know, to read a text like this, if you just sort of stuck at it, and you looked at it, and you wondered, what in the world does this mean? This would have you ask this one simple question, what is God? What is God? Two persons mutually indwelling each other, The catechism asks you that question, doesn't it, children? You're to know, what is God? God is a spirit, so on. But, you know, you can survey all the imaginations of men, and you will find none that will challenge the limits of the human mind, you know, other gods, that is, none that will challenge the limits of the human mind like the triune God. Even this one statement. It baffles the mind. And yet, Christ, God himself, has come to reveal God to us. And it's wonderful that God comes to reveal God to us. Who else can reveal God to you? But one that mutually indwells with the Father. Right? So everything that you are going to learn about God through Jesus Christ is trustworthy. Why? Because He is God. Who is it that needs to teach you of God? God. So He says to the disciples, have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me? And so we ought to no God through Jesus Christ. So let's consider in this preliminary sermon on the Trinity, our second heading, the one God. So I'll come to what I mentioned earlier, that the doctrine of the triune God has fallen into hard times. In the 2025 State of Theology survey by Ligonier, 29% of evangelicals either denied that God was triune or said they weren't sure. So it's 29%, almost a third. And you might say, well, at least 70% affirm that God is Trinity. That might be so, and that is actually a real problem, because when there are other statements that are asked, like this one, here's a statement that they make, and they ask if you affirm or deny it. Here's the statement, the Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being. 53% of evangelicals affirm he is a force. That is staggering, because that's blasphemy, of course. So you can say that you believe the Trinity is true, and then at the same time you can deny that one of the persons of the Trinity is a person, and it's just a mere force. In my former denomination, we ordained a man on the floor of Presbytery who could not distinguish between the persons of the Godhead. He could not distinguish what makes the Father, Father, what makes the Son, Son, and what makes the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And you might have actually wrong ideas on that too, which we'll get to later. And that should make us as a church ashamed and embarrassed, frankly. Like, this is where we are. Why is this so important? Why is this stress today? Well, you need to know who God is. God is very interested in making sure you don't worship an idol. And he has revealed himself as Trinity. One God. Three persons. But you can't just say that. You have to know what that means in order to truly worship God. And this ought to be the driving desire of every Christian. I have to ask if it is yours. Do you want to know who God is? I hope so. You know, one of, that was Philip's desire, one of the strengths of the fathers and the reformers was this, is that they wanted first to know who God is, or what God is, and then they wanted to adore Him and contemplate Him. That's the heart of worship. How can you worship something you don't know? Simple question. How can you adore God when you don't know what God is? Man's greatest joy ought to be to know God. And so that's why I intend to highlight key aspects of the Trinity for you tonight. Otherwise, we're just messing around with religion if we don't want to know God. So what is the doctrine of the Trinity? Let's start basic. The doctrine is there's one God. There's just one God. Trinitarianism is monotheism. It is not tritheism. And now you might say that, of course, I know that, Pastor. But actually, functionally, many Christians are tritheists. and they're not monotheists. And that'll come out very soon as you start to survey the current Christian landscape. What this means, though, is that, you know, when we talk about there is one God, that means there is one divine being, there is only one divine essence. And that essence is uncreated, it is self-existent. There are not three divine essences, but there is one and one only, there is one God. in all of the formulations of the Trinity. You have to absolutely maintain Deuteronomy 6. Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. There is one God. That's it. There are not three gods. And when you start giving to the persons of the Trinity attributes that are proper to individual gods, you are now veering away from monotheism, and going towards tri-theism, which is to say, I believe in three gods, not one. Now, this singular divine essence is what we call philosophically simple. It's not composed of parts. Now, you might say, of course, God doesn't have body parts. Of course, that's true. But he is not also composed of parts conceptually. That's important. For instance, God is not the sum of his attributes. It's not like God has goodness, God has love, God is identical to his attributes. That's why in the Bible you read what? Not that God has love, but God is love. As the theologians say, all that is in God is God. So God is love, God is goodness. You cannot separate out all the attributes of God. Now we do that in order to conceptually make sense of His attributes, but God is simple. So the divine essence is simple, cannot be divided into any portions. All that is in God is God. So his essence is identical to his attributes. And we might have to have follow-ups on these things, but I want to put that before you. That is mind-bending, right? His essence is equivalent to his attributes. God is love. God does not have love in that way. And now this one simple God eternally subsists in three persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So this one God, and these words are very important and they're technical for sure, but they're necessary, He eternally subsists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And these three persons, each of them, fully possess the singular divine essence. So they don't, the father doesn't have a portion of the divine essence, the son doesn't have another portion, it's like they don't divvy it up, one third, one third, one third. But they each fully possess the singular divine essence because there's one God. That is what our creeds and confessions and catechisms are so jealous to guard. Our catechism, children, says that the three persons are what? The same in substance. Not similar in substance, same in substance, one divine essence. The Nicene Creed put it this way, consubstantial. In the Greek, homoousios, same in substance, not similar in substance and the substance cannot be divided. Now as God is simple, each fully possessed the singular divine essence. Three, these three are one God, same in substance, equal in power and glory. Catechism, question six. And the one place where you can quickly grasp this in the Bible is Colossians 2.9, where it says what? That the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ. Now, the word Godhead there signifies the divine essence. So the fullness of the divine essence dwells bodily in Christ. Now if it was divided up, that would make no sense. But the fullness of the divine essence is in the Son. And how can the fullness dwell in a singular person? Because all three persons of the Godhead fully possess the singular divine essence. So you think of this, in your Savior, the Son of God, the fullness of the whole divine essence dwells. That's a remarkable thing. So it's not divided. So the fullness of the Godhead dwells in the first person, second person, and third person. So next, so having considered there's one God, one divine essence, which is what makes one God, how do we distinguish the persons of the Trinity? Let's consider that in our third heading. So let's deal with the nature of the persons of the Trinity. Now much trouble comes, we're going to spend most of our time in this heading, much trouble comes from imposing our modern notions of a person. upon what we call the persons of the Trinity. This is where you get the sort of mischief of, I remember one man I had spoken to, he thought when the Lord and the two angels visited Abraham and Sarah, that it was the three persons of the Godhead. And that's wrong. It was the Lord and two angels. But you can't imagine that there are three independent persons walking around out there. That with independent wills and everything else that we import into personhood. But that's not what we mean by persons. The term person is rather technical in the doctrine of God. John Owen gives a definition of a divine person in this way, that a divine person is nothing but the divine essence subsisting in a special manner. I need to break that down for you, but it's the divine essence subsisting in a special manner. And that's what we have. We have one singular essence subsisting in a special manner. And I'm going to use the word mode, and you're going to at first rankle against it because of modalism, but this is actually Trinitarian doctrine. The three persons are the three modes of subsistence of the singular divine essence. That's going to be mind-bending, and hopefully with some time and work we can work through it. The essence of God exists in a specific personal manner in the three persons. So the father has the fullness of the divine essence as father in his personal properties, which we'll get to. The son has the divine essence as son in his personal properties, which we'll get to. And the spirit has the divine essence as spirit in his personal properties, which we'll get to. Oh, and as he said, a person in the Trinity is nothing but the divine essence subsisting in a special manner. So you might hear mode of subsisting and you start to think of the old heresy of modalism. And what modalism does is different from what the Trinity teaches, which is modalism posits that the singular God wears three masks, as it were, and switches them out. So sometimes this one god works as father, and he calls himself father, then he puts on the mask of the son, and he acts as the son, third time he puts on the mask of the spirit, and so on. But rather there are three persons in the godhead, not that one wears a different mask as father, son, and spirit, depending on how he interacts. But the fullness of the godhead, and this is where our mind is blown, dwells in each of the three divine persons. These are modes of subsisting of the one divine essence. And it subsists in this triune way at the same time. And the way you see this in the Bible is at the baptism of Christ. It's not one God who is flipping masks around. You see this one God, He is subsisting as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So as Father, you hear the voice, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. You see the Spirit come down, you have a vision of the Spirit coming down, and you have the Son of God incarnate who is being baptized. These are not modes. of one person, but three persons. Three persons, one divine essence, and one God. Now Matthew 28, 19 teaches us this, when Christ says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Now children, how many names are there? It's kind of a trick question, isn't it? Baptizing in the name. One name, that's an allusion to the name Jehovah. This is the name of God, signifying one divine essence, and yet three persons, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. These three are one God. Each of them fully God, because each of them possesses the singular name Jehovah. Okay, that's a lot and you'll probably have to review it, ask questions later, go to the books that I commended earlier, but let me draw out implications because this is where we need to go. It means that these three persons, and this is almost shocking to people today to hear, they don't have three separate wills. They have one will. There's only one will in the Godhead. Anything else, when you start to posit three different wills, you actually now have three gods. And that's the problem with that. The church has been very careful to say, there's only one will in the Godhead. There's one divine essence. There's not three. Otherwise you end up with what is called social Trinitarianism. And so basically the Trinity is a kind of a society. And you got three persons, as we use that expression, modern, as moderns, who kind of agree on everything. It's like, okay, well, it's like the father comes up with some sort of thing to do, and then the son and the spirit kind of sort of nod their heads, say, yeah, I think we're agreeable to that. And so you have this sense that they just sort of come to a consensus. And maybe they have a meeting, and they come to an agreement. But that's not it at all. They agree because they have the same will. There's one will in the Godhead. There's one divine essence. Otherwise, you have tritheism. And that is probably one of the greater errors of our day in how we view the Trinity. That's not monotheism at all. You have three gods, not one. The reason that the persons of the Trinity agree is because they have one will. Now some go, and maybe your mind is going here, and they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, we just heard this recently, he said, not my will, but thine be done. So there must be a separate will here. That's not true, right? Jesus Christ is both man and God. And as man, he has a human will, which is distinct from the divine will. In fact, to say that the divine will took over the human will is actually another kind of heresy. But rather, he has his own will as a man, and he is asking that his human will would come into compliance with the will of the divine. And so it is the personal union of the two natures that Gethsemane speaks of. There's something wonderful, though, about all this. I know that there's been much heavy stuff said, and maybe some of this is still eluding you, but when you think about one will in the triune God, brethren, what a wonderful thought that is for you as believers. You are loved by all three persons. of the Godhead, because they have one love, they have one will, right? They do not just say, you know, the Father says, you know, you don't have to say, well, does the Father love me more than the Son? Or maybe the Father doesn't love me and the Son loves me, or on and on and on it goes. No, they all three love you because they have one will. And that means you are equally loved by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's not as if there's a kind of ranking there in the Godhead. All three persons love you equally and fully and they have one will towards you, Christian, which is your salvation. They all desire your salvation because they have one will. And the Son, you know, some people actually have this heretical notion that the Son on the cross made the Father love his people. That's a heresy. The father out of love sends the son, doesn't he? And it's not like the son had to then have his arm twisted, as it were, as if the divine persons have arms, but you understand the manner of speaking, his arm twisted because the father says, you don't get it. I really love these people. And the son goes, well, I guess since you love these people, I'll go and I'll die for them. I'll be incarnated and I'll die for them. No, they have one will towards you. The Son goes willingly because He has the same will as the Father, even your salvation. And the Spirit comes into the world at Pentecost because He has the same will for you, your salvation. And that's why the Spirit draws you to Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Father. And in the upper room, you find here that the Father and the Son have the same will towards the 11 disciples, their salvation, their well-being. When the Son speaks, He speaks of the Father as well. Well, with that, can we distinguish the persons of the Godhead? And the answer is yes. Now, I said I'd come to this because some people think they know how, but they don't. I would actually ask you to think about it yourself right now. How do you tell the persons of the Godhead apart? Our children who know the catechism know it, actually. But I wonder, if I ask you, as I asked that man at the floor of Presbytery in my last denomination, distinguish the persons of the Godhead? He actually couldn't tell me. You know what he said? He said, well, I distinguish them this way. The Father sends the Son into the world. The Son goes to the cross at Calvary. and the spirit is sent into the world to apply salvation. Is that how you would distinguish them? I hope that's not how you distinguish them, because that's not how they are distinguished. In fact, to distinguish them that way means that there's no way to actually distinguish them before the creation of the world, right? And so eternally they had nothing to distinguish themselves between each other. So many say that kind of thing, but that is utterly wrong. It makes the persons of the Trinity dependent, as I've said, on creation and redemption. Now, the only thing that distinguishes the persons are, and this is again a bit technical, their personal properties, which are expressed in terms of their mutual relationships of eternal origins. Now, let me cite the Confession. This is how it distinguishes the persons, which is just Nicene theology. 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. And that is the only way you can distinguish the persons of the Godhead. Now these deal with their eternal origins. So the father is unbegotten, he doesn't proceed. The son is eternally begotten of the father, and the spirit proceeds eternally from father and son. Now these are eternal origins. The son is not created. In other words, but from eternity past, the son is eternally begotten of the father, and the spirit proceeds eternally from father and son. And so the personal property of the father is called paternity, the personal property of the son is called filiation, and the personal property of the spirit is called spiration. And as their eternal origins, it's never the case that one existed without the other two. They are before time began these eternal origins. There was never a time when the Father was and the Son and Spirit were not. This is mind bending, but all we are doing is taking the data of the scripture. And we have to say, this is the limit of our comprehension. This is all we know that God says of himself. I don't know how to explain fully what it means the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and that the Spirit eternally proceeds from Father and Son, but this is just what the Bible reveals. And we have to be content in knowing that, but this is the only way you can distinguish them in a way that does not make them dependent upon time or the creation. And so we'd say the essence is common, but the only things that are not communicable between the three are these personal properties, paternity, affiliation, inspiration. Okay. All that said, these are careful formulations, and perhaps it's been a lot, and I know it's late. And so these things are perhaps not what we're used to in the second sermon. But let me just say this, all of these formulations carefully come from the study of God's word. And they have to be jealously guarded. Otherwise you're going to veer into heresies of all kinds, right? You have to, and where it all begins is you have to maintain all the scripture data. You have to jealously guard monotheism. You cannot get rid of monotheism in favor of tritheism. And that's what these formulations do. It takes all the scriptural data and it has to make sense of hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. that there is one God, and then you look at the biblical data, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, and then you look at their personal properties, begotten of the Father, sent or proceeding from Father and Son, and councils and godly men over many years have poured over the Bible in order to find what makes sense of it. And these things are derived for us of careful study of God's word and good and necessary consequence so that we would guard our conception of what God is. And it is sad to say in modern times, these things are treated very loosely to the point now that more than half of evangelicals don't even know what the Holy Spirit is. When I was in the PCA, and it's not about the PCA, it's just where I was, I had a minister, and I didn't know better at the time, in the Sunday school class try to teach the Trinity in this way. He actually was a social Trinitarian. Yeah, he was teaching social Trinitarianism, I found out later. And he says this kind of thing, and many nod their heads even today. They say, well, as we talk about human relations, husbands and wives, okay, they're equal ontologically, but their roles are different. That the husband, right, is in the economy of the home, the head and the wife is subordinate to him. Okay, fine, fair, true, insofar as it goes, and there can be more clarity than that for sure. But then he said, well, you see, women don't chafe at this because this is like the Trinity. You know, the father and the son are equal, and yet the son is subordinate to the father. That is actually heresy. They are same in substance, equal in power and glory. And what you carefully find in the Bible is not that there's any sort of subordinationalism in the Godhead, but rather, in salvation, the Son takes on flesh to become a mediator, as Augustine points out from Philippians, right? He is in the form of God, he is equal to God, and yet he takes the form of a servant, and in the form of a servant, he is subordinate to God. But in the Godhead, there's no rank like this. It's not like the son is less than the father in some way, even in his role in the Trinity. It's not true. And so this kind of thing is taught all the time, and yet that social Trinitarianism, which actually began with liberal theology for social justice, and strangely, conservative men have now tried to use it for human relations in the home. As it comes to some of the things you might have heard about the Trinity, right, you might say, you might have heard this kind of thing. An unbeliever or somebody who doesn't know the doctrine of the Trinity says to you, it seems like a contradiction to say one plus one plus one is one. Have you heard that? You're saying that there's one God, there's these three persons, and you're saying one plus one plus one is one. And you know what too many Christians say? It's just a mystery. It's beyond reason. And that's actually not true. Now, maybe our children are picking up on this, if they're paying attention. The doctrine of the Trinity is never one plus one plus one is one. But rather, one is one, and one plus one plus one is three. There is one divine essence, there are three persons. Otherwise, you're saying three gods is one God. That's not the doctrine of the Trinity at all. And so the doctrine of the Trinity is actually quite rational. It doesn't actually defy logic, but it is beyond our ability to fully grasp. There are no contradictions in the doctrine of the Trinity, and I think that we have let that thought come into our minds. But carefully, when you look at the Bible and you look at the doctrine as it has been handed down through church councils and through confessions, there are no contradictions in it at all. And it was carefully formulated from the Bible because God is not the God of confusion. And let us never say, right, the mystery of godliness is revealed to us in the Bible. How can man be reconciled to God? That mystery is brought out. God takes on flesh to reconcile us to himself. It is utterly a thing of astonishment. In some ways, it blows our mind, and we can't fully grasp it, but it does not mean that it is unreasonable. The doctrine of the Trinity is not unreasonable, and it is not contradictory to reason. The only way that you can say 1 plus 1 plus 1 is 1 is if you mix up essence and person. Otherwise, you can't make that mistake. In fact, I was sharing this with some friends. Thomas Jefferson, he absolutely despised Presbyterians, by the way. He wrote very much against him, against Presbyterians, and he absolutely despised John Calvin. And the reason for that is he said, well, because Calvin couldn't find in his Euclid how 1 plus 1 plus 1 is 1. And the point and the problem is Jefferson didn't know what Calvin knew, which is that's not the doctrine of the Trinity. And so we must never be mixed up in that way. So the last matter. I will draw out tonight are the notion of divine missions and appropriations. Now, the missions of the persons of the Godhead deal with them being sent into the world. For instance, and there are two persons that are, the Son and the Spirit, the Son in the incarnation, the Spirit at Pentecost particularly. And when you see the missions of the persons This is really, this will change the way you read the Bible and how you appreciate their personal properties. Their missions reflect their personal properties. So their works ad extra, that is out in the world, outside of the Trinity, reflect their personal properties. After all, you can ask, why is it proper for the son to be incarnated and not the father? It is because it reflects his personal property of being begotten. Why is it proper for the Spirit to be sent into the world? It's because, by Father and Son, it's because it reflects His personal property of eternally spirated from Father and Son. So when you look at the missions of the persons in the Godhead, they reflect their personal properties. Otherwise, you would ask, why is the Father not incarnated? Because it's not proper to Him. His personal properties don't reflect that. And so that's the missions. We'll come back to that another day, God willing. And while we see the missions of the persons of the Godhead, because it is one God, the work of one is the work of all. They're inseparable. That's what Jesus Christ said, that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. You see this in the scriptures, don't you? The question often comes, who raised Christ from the dead? And actually the Bible gives you The answer, well, if you ask the question, is it the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost, the Bible gives you the answer, yes, to all three. Galatians 1.1, Paul an apostle, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, there's the Father. John 10 says, I have power, that is Christ speaking, to lay it down, and I have power to take it again, there's the Son. Romans 8.11, but if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, et cetera, there is the Spirit. Do you see that? All three persons work because they can't be separated. You can't just sort of divide them up however you'd like. So in every action outside of the Godhead, they are working together. And even the incarnation is that way, and we'd have to talk about that in more detail because that is a very complex thing. But you will find, however, that the work of salvation and creation is often appropriated to particular persons of the Godhead, but that's because it suits their personal properties, and yet it is properly the work of all three. There is an expression that is good to see and to understand. Every operation is from the Father through the Son in the Spirit, and they act as one because they are one, and no one can separate these three. Even in our verse 10, the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Right there, it's the Father and the Son mutually doing the work together. Okay, and that would have Philip know he has seen the Father at work if he has seen the Son of God at work. And that's why he's saying, if you've seen me at work, you've seen the Father at work. All three persons work simultaneously. They cannot be separated. Again, the doctrine of the Trinity is jealous to guard monotheism. It's not as though Jesus Christ is introducing a new religion. Hear, O Israel, there is one Lord. We serve one God. That one divine essence subsisting eternally in three persons. Now, hopefully, With all this put together, you can better understand or at least start to grasp, right? I get it, right? It took me a very long time to start to put all the pieces in my own mind. So I understand if some of this has gone beyond you or you are feeling a bit glazed over right now. I would say press forth, continue to study, continue to learn, look at the resources I've sent, read, listen to the sermon maybe again and again. But, you know, you start to, at the very least, start to put the pieces together. One divine essence, there's one God, eternally subsisting in three persons. And now you start to understand what in verse 11 we find, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me. This is the doctrine of the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Godhead. Why do they mutually indwell each other? Because there are not three essences, there is one. And this one singular essence subsists in these three persons. And the technical term for this mutual indwelling is perichoresis, P-E-R-I-C-H-O-R-E-S-I-S. This indwelling and interpenetration of the persons of the Trinity. And you might have to understand, you've said pastors have been very long and perhaps a little bit, quite a bit different from most of the sermons that are preached here. But before you can get to that doctrine, you have to understand why I have to labor to show you one essence, three persons. Otherwise that makes no sense. I could say perichoresis all day long, mutually indwelling, but now you get one essence. subsisting in three persons, not three essences. And so of course they mutually indwell each other because it's one God, one essence. They cannot be separated from each other. Think then of the great unity that Christ told Philip between the father and the son. that we cannot be separated, Philip. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. And it's not because I'm just a pale reflection of Him, or I'm like His twin. It's because we mutually indwell each other from eternity. You really can't separate us at all. There is such a unity here, it defies the human mind to grasp and grapple with. And that's when you start to get the force of our Lord saying here, there is absolutely no way you can miss the Father if you've seen me. Because we are the same in substance, equal in power and glory, and though that power and that glory right now is mediated through human flesh, we are the same in a sense, one essence. You and I can talk about being one essence in a sort of metaphorical way, but they are truly one essence. We are one God, not twain, not three. And because of this, right, when the son is glorified Christian, the father is glorified, John 17. When the Holy Spirit is worshiped, the triune God is worshiped. Sometimes we say, well, should we offer up worship to any of the persons of the Godhead? Now you tell me, after you have come to an understanding of one singular God with one essence, should you feel guilty for worshiping any single person? No. One essence, one God. This one essence eternally subsisting in three persons. But to the Son belongs honor and glory. To the Father belongs honor and glory. To the Spirit belongs honor and glory. Otherwise, you've become a tritheist. We don't have to feel as if giving homage to the Son is not giving homage to the Father. We don't have to feel as if giving homage to the Father is neglecting the Son. And we don't have to feel as if giving homage to the spirit is robbing the father of homage. And this is when then you go back to the patristic era, right? And you see that those who think of the three persons are always drawn to the one God. When they think of the one, they are drawn to the one, of the three, they're drawn to the one essence. And perhaps the best statement on that comes from Gregory of Nazianzus' 40th oration. You might know this. I meditate on it much. No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three. No sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of any one of the three, I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. Those are a remarkable word. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light. I think so much we partition God. And yet when we think of any one person of the Trinity, our mind goes to the three and our mind goes to the one essence. And when we think of the one essence, then we think of the three, the way it subsists in these three persons eternally, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And I love how he said, because this happens to me so often, my eyes are filled and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. My mind cannot grapple with the enormity of God. And that is how he would have it to be. So that he would be the object of your adoration. This is the stuff that leads to worship, a God that cannot be contained by our minds. But yet, you think of it, He gives you enough to sort of grasp, as it were, the hem of His garment, to get a little bit of a sense of the awe and majesty and grandeur we ought to have for Him, to be able to say at the end of the day, right, what I know is so grand and glorious that my mind is blown. He doesn't just say, well, I'm totally incomprehensible, which is true in a sense. He gives you enough of that incomprehensibility so that you would say, ah, I must worship this God. So why have we labored with some difficulty tonight, close on this thought, to consider the doctrine of the Trinity? It is because, sad to say, many of us have not known God for who He is or what He is. And that needs to change. Frankly, too many of us, even men ordained by presbyteries, do not really know the first thing about the persons of the Trinity. And that should scandalize the church. But look at our text, brethren. Did not Jesus Christ give to his very simple disciples these truths so that they may grapple with them? Don't leave it to the ivory tower theologians. You need to grab a hold of who God is yourself. and be in awe and astonishment of what God is. I would say to you and encourage you, in this life, you can know quite a bit more about God than you might think at first. So grow in the knowledge of God. Do not be satisfied. You will spend all eternity growing in the knowledge of God, because He is infinite. And that means that you will never in all eternity, isn't this wonderful, a wonderful thought, ever say, you know, today is the day that I now know exactly fully what God is. And that is why eternity will not be a bore and a chore. but will be glorious. He will increase your capacity over time to know more and more of what He is in the beatific vision, and you will go and you will grow and grow and grow, and God will be more immense to you, not that necessary time is there, the way we see time, a trillion years from now. God will be bigger in your mind than He was on the day He first took you to glory. See, this is a God you can worship. You know, people ask, well, you're gonna sit around worshiping God for all eternity? What a bore that is. You don't know God. You don't know God. And you will grow in astonishment, right? When the Queen of Sheba comes to meet Solomon, her breath is taken away. And that is what eternity will be like for you. It's as though your breath will be taken away constantly by who God is. So know your God, contemplate him as triune, one essence, subsisting in three persons, mutually indwelling each other in perfection. Think of one person and think of the three, think of the three and think of the one essence. This is God to be worshipped. And how worthy He is of our adoration. No wonder the holy angels stand in awe of Him day and night. And what do they cry? Holy, holy, holy for each person of the Godhead, Lord God Almighty, one singular divine essence, who was and is and is to come. That is the name Jehovah. Who was and is and is to come. I am that I am. So even in the cry of the angels in the revelation, you find the revelation of the triune God. Holy, holy, holy, the three persons. One divine essence, one eternal God, Jehovah. May the Lord help us with this Trinitarian grammar then and bless us in future weeks through this hard work of study. May we rise and go to the Lord in prayer. Father in heaven, We're thankful for the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Give us a sense of the grandeur of God. And though we have labored much and in much difficulty, and these things are hard for our dull minds at times, oh Lord, show us thy glory through these truths and help us to pursue the knowledge of God May we never be satisfied today in what we know. May we grow in this knowledge through the Bible and through good and necessary consequence drawn out of it. And we pray, O Lord, that Thou wouldst impress upon us Thy majesty. Bless Thy people. May they leave here not believing in three gods, but in one God. And we pray that they would know that there are three persons in the Godhead, same in substance, equal in power and glory, to whom belong praise and glory and honor forever. And we thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast shown us these things. And we pray that we would guard them jealously, and that we would be kept from error ourselves, that we would know God and not create an idol of God. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.