There is a text in Holy Scripture which is very conclusive on the great subject of the being of God, that he is manifest in the three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. That verse is the seventh verse of the chapter we have read, 1 John chapter 5, verse 7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one. Of course in the new versions of the Bible there's hardly one which contains this verse. You'll find in all these NIVs and NEBs and I don't know what else all got their title in the initials that have been bequeathed to them. There's scarcely one which includes this verse, or if it does include it, it has a note. It either puts it at the bottom of the page or has a note to say that it is not found in the oldest manuscript. Well, I'm not going to go into that question this evening, but I've never come across any argument at all that seems to be valid that such an important verse of this should not be in the Bible at all. I advise you to stick to your authorised version and you won't go far wrong. But there is an internal evidence that seems to be quite conclusive, despite all that the critics say, that this verse, though not found in some of the ancient manuscripts, is not only found others which are just as reliable, indeed, in the opinion of some of us more reliable, but apart altogether from that there is internal evidence here. For we read in verse 7 of 1 John 5, there are three that bear record in heaven, now notice that word, the three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one. It surely must be obvious to any person of ordinary rational mind that the two verses are intended as a perfect balance in heaven and in earth. They want to cut out the one that mentions there are three that bear record in heaven. But why should John say there are three that bear witness in earth? Unless he had already said something about in heaven. therefore there is no need for him to say there are three that bear witness in earth unless there is a balancing verse going before for the simple reason that it would stand just as well there are three that bear witness the spirit, the water and the blood these three agree in one he doesn't need to put in there in earth of course we know that we are baptised on earth and not in heaven there are three that bear witness in earth the spirit, the water and the blood and he could have left it at that But he says in earth. Why? Because he'd already spoken about a condition of affairs which is in heaven. Therefore on the ground of the peculiarity of verse 8, I would say it is beyond question, apart from any manuscript evidence, it may or may not be, that John must preserve the balance And it is because he mentioned the three that bear record in heaven, that he goes on to speak about the three that bear record in earth. And the three that bear record in heaven are the Spirit, are the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. I mention that just in the passing. But that verse is crucial in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Of course the Holy Trinity can be proved in a thousand other portions we believe in the Holy Scripture. But it is good to have it so clearly stated in John's writings. Now there has always been a great argument in the history of the Church about this crucial and fundamental teaching that God is in three The Godhead consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. In the time of Athanasius, who lived in the period, he was born in Alexandria in 297 AD and died in 373. He was 75 coming up to 76. years old when he died. It happens to be around about the age of the poor man who is trying to do him justice this evening here. I'm actually older than he got, by a month or two I think. I don't know how long the Lord may permit me to go on in this course. Sometimes I don't feel too well and other times I feel fine. That's what goes on with all of us. But what does it matter? His times are in our hands. Athanasius lived at this very crucial time and undoubtedly the Lord raised him up as a great champion to put the church and keep the church on the right lines doctrinally concerning this all important fact. concerning the Godhead. There was another man who was somewhat older than Athanasius named Arius, A-R-I-U-S. He was born in the year 250 A.D. That makes him some 47 years older than Athanasius, but the two lived, the younger man and the older man, for a considerable period. Arius died in the year 336, just about the same age as what Athanasius died in the year 373. Arius was a man who speculated very much upon the doctrine of the Godhead. It is not true that he denied that there was a trinity of persons, but he modified the teaching the teaching of Arius was that there was a time when God the Father was all alone and he brought forth the Son and therefore the Son was not always in existence but he came forth from the Eternal Father. No date is given to this because there weren't any dates before the creation, that this happened before the creation. Now this is what he taught and there will be many who have taught the same thing from that day to this. We will deal with this more closely as we proceed. no doubt, there are those of us here present, indeed I should imagine all of us, young and old, have wondered sometimes what it all means. Three persons with one God. And if the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is the Son of God, then he must have come after the Father. The same problem doesn't arise about the Holy Spirit, but about the Son. The problem arises in the mind that in what sense is Christ co-eternal with the Father and yet He is the Son? Well you see where the problem lies don't you? And of course they were wrestling with this question in the early days and it was not that denied that there was Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But what he did deny was that the Son was eternally begotten. There was a time when there was no Son, if you can call that time in eternity. And that was one of his great errors, that he did not seem to appreciate that eternity was one thing and time was another. The matter became of very great consequence in the Church because just about that time we had the first Christian Emperor of Rome. His name was Constantine. Before that all the Emperors of Rome, all the Caesars, had been idolaters, heathens in their outlook. Here was a man who was a Christian. converted man so far as we know and he believed in God and all the church rejoiced because here we've got a man in Constantine on the throne a very great man indeed he's a Christian and all persecution of Christians will now end as substantially they did until they started persecuting each other that was the pity of it and Constantine was not exactly a theologian you wouldn't expect him to be but because he was he wasn't born a Christian he was converted and in a very remarkable way he seemed to see a vision of the cross in the sky and a voice said by this conquer and That was a hallucination of what it was, it doesn't matter, this is the history of it. And so Constantine, who was a general in the Roman army then, went forward under the inspiration of that vision which he thought he had and he well and truly conquered. And for the first time the Christian church found itself under Christian protection. But there were snags. It didn't work out as easy as all that. Because this man Arius arose and he was commended rather good deal to Constantine and Constantine favoured Arius and that made it rather difficult for the orthodox Christians who believed that Arius was wrong and that the son was eternally begotten of the father. Now you will say, I've no doubt, you haven't trodden this pathway perhaps before, you'll say well it seems more or less an argument amongst these men. Is it really as important as all that? Well we shall see as we go on. We shall try to point out how important it is. The battle raged. It was a battle of words. Although persecutions came in and the court being involved, the king and the Caesar on the throne being involved in the matter he took sides and he took the side of Arius which was very unhappy for the rest of the church but still that is what happened and it was then that this young man Athanasius arose and though he was only in his 20s at the time, he entered into the battle. His patron, who was the Bishop of Alexandria, where Oregon had its origin of course, as you remember, and Oregon had a good deal to do with Alexandria too under a previous Bishop. Aphenasius comes along and he is befriended by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, which is an awful mix up of names here. But there were quite a number of Alexanders who were bishops at that time. This particular Alexander isn't a bishop by the way, unless we alter the general meaning of the word bishop, which we don't intend to do. Bishop Alexander took this young man, Athanasius, into his home at the age of 16. That is Athanasius was 16. And from that time Athanasius was devoted to the Christian ministry. He was a pupil in the famous catechetical school in Alexandria where Oregon had formally taught. Of course Oregon had been dead by about a hundred years before all this took place. At the age of, in the year 319, at the age of 22, Athanasius had already made himself known as the author of two great essays, theological essays, one entitled Against the Gentiles, using the term Gentiles, meaning, the meaning it had at that time, meaning the heathen. Against the Gentiles or the heathen. And of course the whole of the Roman Empire was heathen until very recent times to Athanasius when Constantine mounted the throne. And so this was a very bold thing that Athanasius was doing as a young man. He was writing a great essay, he called it a tract in this day, against the Gentiles or the heathen who were dominating the earth. And the other essay which he wrote was on the incarnation of the Word. That is, in the words of the Saviour Himself. No, in the words of the Apostle John of the Saviour in the first chapter of John's Gospel. The Word was made flesh. That is the incarnation of the Word. The Word is Christ. The Word that was ever with the Father. Christ the Word of God, the Wisdom of God, the Power of God. And this Word of God was Christ. became incarnate. At this season of the year we think a lot of that, don't we? When Christ was born of the Virgin, way there in Bethlehem, in the stable, because there was no room in the inn. God became man. Son of God. became incumbent. And it is about this that Athanasius is writing, on the incarnation of the Word. And in these two tracts, one against the heathen, who were dominating the scene up to then, and the other on the incarnation of the Word. And in these he argued the fact of the unity of the Godhead. That is in the tract to the heathen. one god. The Roman world had a hundred gods, a thousand gods. They had one or two chief gods of course, but the place was, even Greece. Remember when Apostle Paul was in Athens, he preached a great sermon to the wise scholars of Athens, the great men who were sitting there, and he rebuked them. He said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an alter of this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you. God was unknown in his own creation. Paul was going to make it known, especially to these Athenians, who despite all their They had so many gods that there was a statue of a god at almost every street corner. And it was said at that time in Athens that it was easier to meet a god in the streets than it was to meet a man. The gods were more numerous than the population in other words. And it was against this that Athanasius was writing. The unity of the godhead. That is there is only one god. And then in his second tract, in the essential divinity of Christ, he was showing that this one God subsisted in three persons, of which the second person was Christ, the Son of God, who had become incarnate. About this time he became Archdeacon of Alexandria and he attended a great council which was called by Constantine, the emperor, the Caesar, called to sort out this question so that the Christian church would be unanimous upon the matter. Here was Arius on the one side, he was saying the sun was not eternal but he wasn't denying that he was God but he was teaching that it was a kind of inferior kind of a Godhead in as much as the The son was not the father and there was a time when the father was alone and then the son was born. This was the teaching of Arius. Whereas, of course, Athanasius taught, and the church generally taught, the eternal sonship of Christ. There never was a time when the father was not the father, and the son was not the son, and the Holy Spirit was not the Holy Spirit. And so, this great council was called by Constantine the church leaders to get together and although Athanasius was not a full bishop yet at this time yet he was permitted to attend along with Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and there they joined others in this great debate regarding the nature of the Godhead. Well as things went on though Athanasius at this time was in the upper twenties, getting towards the upper twenties. He was comparatively young, very small in stature, a very small man, a very little man. He spoke out in the great debate and they listened to him because it was quite evident that he was a most unusual man. was power in his words, there was clearness in his thoughts. Though still only comparatively a young man, he had gone deeply into this matter and he presented the truth of the Godhead, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit in the eternal oneness of the Godhead. In the year 325 the Council of Nicaea was held and largely through Athanasius' influence and power in presenting the truth the church adopted a creed known as the Nicene Creed. You may or may not have heard the Nicene Creed But I'll read it out to you. You know the Apostle's Creed so-called. Of course it wasn't that the Apostles drew it up because they didn't. But it was called the Apostle's Creed from an early day because it represented the Apostles' teaching. You know the Apostle's Creed. I suppose you learned it at school, at least I did. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate. You know it don't you? Don't you ought to? You'd better look it up and read it. Well, they drew up at Nicaea, the church camps at Nicaea, especially under the powerful argument of Athanasius, they drew up what they called the Nicene Creed which is a slight expansion of it. I'm quoting from the prayer book, of course, because that's where you get these things. It's very often read at the communion services in the Anglican Communion. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, this is all speaking of Christ. Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven and sat on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeded from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who is spake by the prophets. And I believe one Catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. The word Catholic doesn't mean Roman Catholic by the way. The Orthodox Church was known as the Catholic Church which simply means universal. Universally this was their doctrine. Of course the Catholic Church with the Roman Catholic Church now gives itself the exclusive title. They don't call themselves the Roman Catholic Church. We English people call them the Roman Catholic Church. They say we're the Catholic Church. But we've already got a Catholic Church, which isn't the Roman Catholic Church. Please, it hasn't been up to now. We have our doubts about what's going on there now. When I was a boy, the Church of England was the Holy Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. Well, you do anything with words, can't you? But at the time that this creed was compiled, there was only one church, and that was the Catholic Church. means the universal church. The only true church. Catholic and apostolic. And words have changed their meaning somewhat. And I just mention that so that you won't think I'm going Catholic. I'm not going Catholic. I am Catholic. In the true sense of the term. I hope you are too. But still, what's in a name? The great thing is that we believe in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We're on our way to heaven. And we won't be fully satisfied and fully happy until we get there. Though we may say of course that heaven has already begun in our hearts and we are enjoying heaven on the way to heaven. There was another creed called the Athanasian creed named after Athanasius but that wasn't compiled till 200 years after the death of Athanasius so he had nothing to do with that. It was simply an enlargement of this and I have it here but it's too long to go into. It's well worthy of reading sometimes. I had a chance of reading the Affirmation Creed. It's only called the Affirmation Creed because it embodies the teaching of affirmations. But he was already dead by two centuries before they put it together. Now then, this was the situation. He was now 28 years old and Five months earlier, Bishop Alexander, his patron, had died and Athanasius was elected to succeed him to the acclamation of the people of Alexandria. He was now 28 years, small in stature, but with a face radiant with intelligence, even as the face of an angel. So writes Gregory of Nazianzus, who knew him personally and was himself a great teacher of the Word of God. Gregory said of him that he was slow to anger, quick in sympathy, pleasant in conversation, still more pleasant in temper, effective alike in discourse and in action, assiduous in devotions, helpful to Christians of every class and age, a theologian, a comforter of the afflicted, a staff to the aged and a guide to the young. I've been ticking these off in my mind as to what does not belong to me and I think I only come into about three of these. It's much to my shame. But if he was all that, and we understand that he was indeed, well spoken of, then he was indeed a man of God, a man raised up of God, to do many things and to keep the church under the providence of God on the right lines for well ever since then we have we took a large part in compiling the Nicene Creed which I have just read and which cannot be improved upon it states the case as it is and like the Apostles Creed so called it is a guideline to assist of what we really believe And it keeps us on the straight and narrow path so far as theology is concerned. And we ought to remember these things because these are things which are being questioned now. That Christ is becoming very, very small in the picture these days. And it's becoming easy for men to take the New Testament and say what the agnostics and atheists were saying a hundred and more years ago that Jesus Christ if he ever existed which is questionable of course if he ever existed was well we know very little about him as far as the bible is concerned it's just made up by men who had an axe to grind And as for the idea that after he was crucified, if he ever was crucified, that he rose again from the dead the third day, this is sheer nonsense because people don't rise from the dead anyway. And this is how they're talking, but this is how they're beginning to talk, and more than beginning to talk, inside the churches and from the pulpits. Things are moving very, very rapidly. A few years ago you couldn't have said such things as these. But we are living in days when we have got to watch our every step and do what Athanasius did and fix our foot and say we shan't budge from this position and we have every reason to maintain it. His life was tranquil for a few years And then on account of the Emperor Constantine having been influenced by Eusebius of Nicomedia, his troubles began. Constantine began to adopt the views of Arius under the influence of this great bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia. There were several Eusebiuses by the way, so that we mustn't confuse them. This was the Eusebius of Nicomedia. Constantine demanded that Arius who had been debarred from communion because of his heresy concerning the person of Christ. Constantine demanded that Arius should be readmitted to communion in the churches. Athanasius stood firm on the matter and said no until he recants and comes over to the side of the truth concerning the person of Christ we cannot have communion with him. And then there arose against Athanasius many false witnesses alleging against him cruelty and even murder and sorcery. He was able of course easily to clear himself of these charges but his enemies did not resist and he was summoned to appear before an imperial council at Tyre before Constantine himself. It became evident that there was a determined plot to condemn him and he fled to Constantinople to appeal to the Emperor himself. In Constantine's day, although the great Roman Empire had been divided, it was too unwieldy to rule from one place. And so Constantine built Constantinople as the eastern capital of the Empire and one of his brothers became the Caesar in Rome on the western part of the Empire. The Roman Empire was a tremendous and it could no longer be ruled from one place. Constantine very wisely built Constantinople, called it after his own name. And so, affamatious seeing that his enemies were besetting him on every hand, he thought if he could only speak to Constantine himself that the Emperor would appreciate what the true position was. He was too much at the mercy of men who were enemies of Athanasius. So he fled to Constantinople to appeal to the Emperor himself. The Emperor at first refused to give him a hearing, but his perseverance won him at length an audience with Constantine. But his enemies, seeing he got as far as the Emperor, dropped the charge of cruelty that was alleged against him. these false charges and now alleged another crime that Athanasius had interfered with the shipment of grain from Alexandria to Constantinople because they got most of their grain from Egypt and that Athanasius had deliberately interfered with the traffic of that trade and so placed Constantinople in a very difficult position especially with the Emperor there. that he was falsely accused of this and the imperial jealousy was aroused and Athanasius was banished without a hearing to Tres in the capital of Gaul, that was in France. He was there for two and a half years banished away from the condition of the rest of the empire. After two and a half years Constantine died and so, the emperor being dead, Athanasius returned to Alexandria and the people ran in crowds to see his face. But his enemies devised fresh plots against him and he was replaced by an Arian bishop who was installed into Athanasius' room by military force. They sent soldiers to put this man there. and Athanasius had to flee again to Rome where the Western bishops took up his cause. For the second time he was restored to Alexandria a few years later, five years later, much to the delight of the citizens of Alexandria who streamed forth to meet him and one of the men who describes the scene said it was like the River Nile flowing through the streets of Alexandria, the masses of the people who come from all quarters to welcome their bishop back again. The deaths of successive champions over a short period of time saw Athanasius driven from Alexandria twice more until in the year 366 He was finally restored, never again to be moved, and died in C373 after those six years of quietness at the age of 76. Hooker, one of the English reformers, writes this of him. This was in the 1500s. The whole world against Athanasius and Athanasius against the whole world. Half a hundred years he spent in doubtful trial, which of the two would succeed? The side which had all behind it, the power of the emperors, of Rome and of Constantinople, or else that part of the church which had no friends but God and death? The one that is God, the defender of his innocency, and the other, a finisher of all his troubles. This is all that the true people of God had on their side. All the power of the world was on the opposite side seeking to destroy the true testimony of the Church of God. But though they had no one to take up their righteous cause, he who sits in the heavens had all his enemies at last in division. for Christ cannot be thrown down. As the second psalm says, kiss the son lest he be angry and perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Unsold, he won in the end. Out of weakness, strength came. The enemy was overthrown and the church was preserved. His chief distinction as a theologian was his zealous advocacy of the essential divinity of Christ as being co-equal in substance with the Father. This was the doctrine proclaimed in the Creed of Nicaea which he defended by his life and writings. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever since been more identified with his name than with any other in the history of the Church and of Christian theology. Arius held that the father gave birth to the son before time and endowed him, the son, with his own perfections. This is the Arian doctrine. It seemed to give Christ a wonderful dress and give Christ wonderful glory but in fact it undermined the Godhead and was a threat to the whole scheme of Christian truth. Most of the modern sects today are Aryan. The Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and many more that could be mentioned mainly had their origin in the United States by the way. They are all Aryan in that they talk very much about Christ, they will say what a wonderful person he was, but that he was only a prophet of God. He was not the Son of God as we speak about the Son of God. Most of the sects which have arisen, and there are hundreds of them if not thousands of them all over the world or have been, most of these sects are weak on the doctrine of Christ. the doctrine of the Son. Now when we see the new versions of the Bible are dropping the most important verse on this matter out of the epistle of John, we see that we have a fight in front of us. We have a testimony to raise. The fight is not over. In fact the battle is only beginning. You and I as Christian people have got to be strengthened not only in our faith but in our understanding of the faith so that we will not be moved not by anything that people can say and this brings us to the... let's see how long we've got gives us just time to to place the whole doctrine of the Holy Trinity into our mind as something that we can carry away with us, so that we not only see the importance of it, but we see the truth of it. And how we cannot do without this doctrine. It must not be impaired. It must be held to the very last moment. The Apostles left us with the New Testament. The task of the Church down the ages has been to understand the New Testament, to develop and extend the knowledge of divine truth. It has been through significant men like Oregon, Athanasius and Augustine, and later on men like Luther, Calvin and the great reformers in England. and it is through men like this that the foundations of theology were laid or built upon. First there was the doctrine of God, the three in one and the one in three and it took three centuries of church history in order to settle that question once and for all. Now we must Just briefly, I want to point out the great significance of this doctrine of the Holy Trinity, of the three Persons in their absolute equality in one God. Now there has always been a question, people of mine, if Christ is the Son, and this is where Arius comes in, if Christ is the Son of God, then is a Son not born? Therefore the Father must go before the Son. Well, yes, if we think of God in terms like a human father, but he is not a human father. God is eternal. And the begetting of the son, the only begotten of the father, the only begotten, the begetting of the son was an eternal act. That is, it has no date. You say, well, we don't understand. I am a son or a daughter as the case may be or my parents. There was a time when they were but I wasn't. I became a son, you became a daughter. Therefore you have to have parents going before you. But then there is no reason in this earth or out of this earth why we should regard the eternal sonship of Christ in that light merely because in our limited lives, we have to have those who went before us. We must not apply a human situation to the eternal God. The certitude of the glorious outcome of creation rests in an act of God, not a mere fact of the deterministic will of God. Evil cannot be abolished by a declaration against it. And when evil entered into creation, only one could alter the situation. Only one, the unity of the Godhead could deal with that tremendous problem. which arose. If Christ was not the eternal Son of God, co-equal with the Father, begotten eternally, there never was a date when he was begotten. It is an eternal condition in the life of God. The Son proceeds from the Father. And the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son in an eternal condition, an eternal act. The order is one of propriety, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but not an order of time, because time was not involved. That is, the Son was always Son. The Holy Spirit was always proceeding from the Father and the Son. And if this were not the case, We could not say God is love. Because there would have been a time, we speak about time in eternity, when God, who is love, was alone. That is, the Father was alone. If this be the case, then God could not be love, as the Bible says He is. Because it is impossible to love without an object. You cannot love unless it is someone other than yourself. This is absolutely true. And in the Godhead, God who is love and only love, simply and absolutely love. He's got no shape or form. He hasn't got feet, he doesn't move. In that sense he's not a creature of time. He's not limited as we are. He is eternal love personified. For love cannot exist without a personality. We can talk about magnetism. That's something which draws something else to itself. But it isn't love. Where there is love there must be person. There must be the one who loves. There must be the one who is loved. And there must be the return of love between the two. And that's Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son is eternally begotten. There never was a time when he wasn't begotten. He was not begotten in time. He was begotten eternally. This is what Athanasius saw. And we've got to grasp what we cannot understand. Because you and I cannot conceive of God being eternal anyway, can we? He always was there. There must have been a beginning somewhere. No, there wasn't any beginning. Everything began in God. Creation came forth from God. He made creation. He created us in it. Time proceeds from God, but God is not in time. Time is in God, but God is not in time. And the Son was eternally begotten of the Father. There never was a time when the sun did not exist because otherwise God could not be a God of love. He is a God of love. Therefore, love must have its object and in an eternal act, in the eternity of God, the sun appears. But he was there eternally with the Father, eternally proceeding from the Father in the eternal birth of love. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Not in a matter of time, but eternally so. He proceeds from the Father and the Son in the spirit of love. which completes the Godhead. There must be three. There cannot just be two. There must be three. Because God must remain one and yet there must be three persons. And it must be in that order. The Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, the Holy Spirit who proceeds. What they call the double procession of the Holy Spirit. from the Father to the Son, from the Son to the Father, and yet because the Holy Spirit is of both, the Father and the Son, therefore he is neither. He is of both, therefore he is neither, he is not the Father, he is not the Son, because he proceeds from the Father and the Son, and therefore he must be and is a third person eternally in the Spirit of Life. It is in this wonderful operation of the Godhead in creation and in redemption that these things become so vitally important. Creation was made to display the wisdom, the grace, the power, the beauty of the Godhead so that by creating a world of angels and men and women. The area of divine love and blessedness would be enlarged beyond all limits. But, in order to do this, God must create, He must create a world, an invisible world of angels and a visible world of man. Angels fell. Man fell. Why didn't God make them infallible? Because had he done so, he'd have created himself. And man would not have been free. He would simply have been an automatic sort of a being whose returning love for God, to God, would be meaningless because it would merely be a creation within himself for which he was not responsible. God will not be loved like that. Nor could he create a world of infallible beings because he would have only created himself. And yet creation there must be. God doesn't choose anything which he does in that sense. If God created the world then he created because he must create it. because it is part of his matchless wisdom and the glory of his name. And so creation was made. The fall was inevitable and yet inexcusable, without reason, without right. And yet there was a fall in heaven and a fall on earth. God tolerated in order that a greater good would come out of this form of creation than ever otherwise could be. God himself must bear the burden of it and become the man of sorrows, equated with grief. If we hid, as it were, our faces from him, he would despise and be esteemed enough. Yet surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. And Charles Wesley was absolutely right when he put that expression in his head. That thou, my God, shalt die for me. Yet God cannot die. Charles knew this. He wrote that thou, my God, shalt die for me. He knew that. That God cannot die. And yet God as man can die. God incarnate can die. As true man. And as true man, God gave himself up to death. The Father gave the Son. And Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God. On the cross, the thorns were dying. The wonder of it. Now, this is a great proof of the Holy Trinity. That, first of all, there could not be, God could not be loved and yet be alive. Therefore, from eternity to eternity, the three persons in one God, but in that precise order. The order is important. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. God creates. Creation falls. And this is the proof that Arius was wrong and Athanasius was right. taught that the second person of the Trinity was truly God, but he was not eternally God. There was a time when he became God, when he was named by proceeding from the Father. Not in the same sense in which we are named, no we didn't make that error, but in his proceeding from the Father. So that Christ was not really God. The Holy Spirit was not really God. and it was Athanasius who apprehended this great danger and we can build upon that foundation she laid and we can say this and this is important and this is the final key to all theology and all the mystery of God. Now unless Christ was God, absolutely, not as Arius guilt him, but a tenacious sort of, as we say. If Christ was not absolute God, he could not die for my sins. He could not, because he'd only be a creature himself. He might die for his own sins. He had no sins to die for. But unless he was God, absolutely, in the sense in which the Father is God, eternally God. He could not die for my sins. Only God can die for my sins. No creature, and Christ would be a creature unless he was eternally so, for that nation was right. And the doctrine of the Holy Trinity lies right at the very root of your salvation and mine. If it can be proved that Christ was not God eternally, that he was a created God, like the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and others said, then he could only die for his own sins if he had any, which he didn't. He could not die for mine. Else God would be, the Father, would be guilty himself of something which he ought to have done, which he didn't do. And we brought in a second party whom we know as the Son, to do what he should have done. But God was in Christ. reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses on children. And so you see, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is proved, not only by the incarnation, but by the crucifixion, by the atonement, the atonement proved. There must be three eternal persons, and yet in that order, the father must give the son to die, the son must consent to do the father's will, The Holy Spirit must sanctify the offering and through the Eternal Spirit Christ be offered without spot to God. This is the important thing. The doctrine, the true doctrine of the Holy Trinity as expounded by Athanasius, and he only expounded the Scriptures to bring this on, is absolutely essential to your salvation and mine. Without it we have no hope. We have no assurance. but with it we sing the glory of God. That wondrous love, love of the Father for the Son in the eternal Spirit, poured out for me, for you. And if this is true, I need not fear. If this isn't true, there is no truth. If this isn't true, there's nothing to it, to creation at all.