Let's turn to John chapter 14. John 14, beginning in verse 7. John 14, beginning in verse 7. Give heed to the reading of God's word. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long you still do not know him? Know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his work. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Let us pray. Father, show us yourself in Jesus Christ. May your spirit rest upon us that we might know Jesus Christ and that knowing him, we might know the Father also in the spirit too. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. So as many of you know, this past Monday was December 6th, which is St. Nicholas Day. Now, while the chief manner that I thought of that as a kid is you put food outside the door and you wake up and you have candy in it. Although one year I did have a bundle of switches in there, but that's another story for another day. Now, there's candy too. And by the way, what that's hearkening back to is St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra, which is in modern-day Turkey, and there was a Roman official. who was seeking to enslave, debts enslave, the daughters of a particular townsman. And so Nicholas took a bag of gold and threw it through the window to pay off their debt. So they woke up in the morning and here's their debt. That's where we get Santa coming down the chimney and all of those traditions come from the generosity of Nicholas. But now my personal favorite story of Nicholas has nothing to do with that. happens to do with the Council of Nicaea. And so every December 6th, my kids wake up and they have a test. Homoousia or homoousia? Now some of you are thinking, what did he just say? Is Christ of the same substance or of a similar substance as the Father? Because at Nicaea, Arius was teaching there is when he was not. a.k.a. Christ the Son, not Christ, the Son was a created being. And so he's of a similar substance. And so the story goes that Santa Claus wiped up, I'm sorry, Saint Nicholas, Nicholas of Myra, walked up and decked him. And so every December 6th, my kids would fear that they're gonna say homoousia and get whacked. Now, usually Anne answers first and then funnels the question, the answer to the retinum, so it doesn't generally happen. But of the same substance, homoousia, or of a similar substance, homoiousia, it's one letter difference, a little I. It looks like an I without a dot, that's an iota. So there's an iota's difference between heaven and hell, is what that boils down to. So Christ is of the same substance, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all the same substance. Now some of you are thinking, oh no, oh no, he's going egghead today. Oh yes, I am. But as J.I. Packer once wrote, doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites. But it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ's sheep. The preacher's job is to proclaim the faith not to provide tamers. In other words, to feed the sheep rather than to amuse the goats. Our passage this morning can be dealt with on a surfacy kind of pragmatic way, I guess. I'm not sure exactly how, but I'm sure you could do it that way. But as you should see, it is the difference between life and death, heaven and hell. The errors of Sabellianism and Arianism are exposed in our passage. Or if you prefer, that's modalism, Patrick. And that's Arianism. Modalism teaches that God is not three distinct persons, but that he reveals himself in three distinct modes. So Sibelius was a early heretic who taught that there's one God who sometimes he looks like the father, sometimes he looks like the son, sometimes he looks like the spirit, or axe if you prefer. Arianism, on the other hand, teaches that God is not one substance and three distinct persons. Rather, there's God, and then he creates similar beings, the Son and the Spirit, later on, but before he creates time. And that's why Arius' song was, there is when he was not, to which the Orthodox group would sing back, there is not when he was not. So remember, Homoousia, and there is not when he was not. In other words, the Son was always the Son, the Father was always the Father, and the Spirit was always, even in eternity, passed before there was time. So that's the difference between those two songs. And I mean, these groups would go around town singing over top of each other, sometimes ending in brawls, there is not when he was not. There is when he was not. And they'd get into fights over this. I mean, this was serious stuff. They understood that doctrine is life and death. If only we could remember that. If Christ is not of the same substance as the Father, if Christ I keep, I'm gonna get stumbled. The Son. See, I'm falling in my own, and it matters, because he does not become Christ until the incarnation. So, the Son, if the Son does not always exist, so if the Father is always the Father, neither begotten nor proceeding, the Son was always the Son, always begotten, but not proceeding, and the Spirit was always proceeding, not begotten. Those things, oh, and just be happy we're doing the Lord's Supper today or we'd be doing the Athanasian Creed after this, but we don't have time for that this morning. But you should all study it this afternoon for your Sabbath meditation. There, I'll put it that way. But if the son is not of the same substance of the father, a different person than the father, there is no hope of salvation. And that's why Sabellians, Arabs, of every stripe, you might call them Jehovah's Witness or Mormons or other things, always end up as legalists. Because there is not a Savior capable of forgiving all of your sins, atoning and propitiating for all of your sins. And that's why Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, and all other ones, Pentecostals, fill in whatever heretical group you want that deny the full orb trinity always end in legalism, work salvation. So our outline this morning is knowing the Father, the Son, and the Father also, and three, the Father and the Son and the son and the father. So one, know the father. Two, the son and the father also. Three, the father in the son and the son in the father. So let's look at knowing the father. We have to remember the context of the saying. Remember where we were last week when we dealt with Christ's declaration that he is the way, the truth, and the life. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. So the talk of the triune nature of the Father, Son, and the Spirit comes in a very pragmatic setting. It's not just some esoteric thing about, well, I wonder if we were to imagine this thing about, no, how can you be alive? Remember, theology, the science of living blessedly forever. How can you have life and life eternal? Well, so happens that you must know the Son so that you can know the Father. But you can only do that by the power of the Spirit in you. See all three persons of the Godhead in perfect operation. For while the word pragmatic might bring into your mind some idea of 10 steps to a better life, 10 steps to a better marriage, that's where you can find that. You won't find it here. Here, we're going to look at what does the word of God say that we might know Jesus Christ, that our joy might be complete. And I forgot who it was, it might be Lewis, who pointed out that the, that the more doctrinal the work, the more devotional it often is, and the more devotional the work, the more garbage it is. If you want a really good devotional work, go get Bavinck's Reform Dogmas. Go get Berkhoff's, if the four volumes of Bavinck's too much for you, go get Berkhoff's one volume. Now it's not going to be light, easy reading. but it's going to lead you to worship of the triune God in a way you could never imagine. Or you could go to, I mean, those are just two off the top of my head. I could go to Calvin, I could go on and on. The more doctrinal, the more devotional. Because as you come to study theology as it is meant to be done, you come to know God as he has revealed himself. Because there is no Christian living apart from knowing who God has revealed himself as. You can't just say, ooh, I want to feel this way. You need to know who Jesus Christ is, and in so doing, you'll be led in life. There's no liberty apart from Christ. Now, you can't seek Christ, you can't seek the Godhead as a means to liberty. If you're seeking liberty and using God as the means to it, you'll miss both. you must come to know who God is and in so doing you will find true liberty, true freedom. Because liberty is not the freedom to do what you want, it's the ability and freedom to do what you were meant to do. Which can be summarized as man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's true liberty. That's where liberty is found, is in glorifying and enjoying God. So to know the Son is to know the Father. To say Father and Son is not a distinction without a difference. It's not just some made up word. I mean, you'll find authors, that's the word I'll use, authors, I have a different word in mind which I won't share, who want to use that these are constructions that we can do away with. So you'll find authors who wish to refer to the parent, the child, and I forgot what they do with it. I mean, garbage. No, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God's chosen words, and we're to conform ourselves to the pattern of sound birds. To go after made-up claptrap because it makes you feel something or other is slavery. God has revealed himself, and we conform ourselves to the pattern of sound words. God has ordained to reveal himself to you as the Father, as the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is how he has done it. That's how he identifies, if you will, from all eternity, and to mispronounce him is sin. As Calvin says, God has condescended, or if you prefer, he uses baby talk. So he uses baby talk when he calls himself the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, so you can't mess it up. But sinners being sinners, they can mess anything up. And so he has done this so that you can see, think, you can move from the known to the unknown, from the seen to the unseen. You don't get to be like Plato or Aristotle or the pre-Socratics and contemplate what the right is despite what gods and men say it is and just kind of, well, I kind of conceived that. It's called idolatry, by the way. It's self-idolatry that your brain is able to do it. God has spoken. God in the person of the son took on flesh, made himself known. He tabernacled amongst us. This is one mode of self-existence that, before that, he was unseen as, I guess, father, and then he tabernacled and took on son-ness, which gets us, by the way, Sabellianism, my preferred word for that, and my favorite name for a heresy, heresy, so I don't like it, but I like the name, is Patrapossianism. Father, thank you for dying on the cross. We've all accidentally said stuff like that. It's one thing, that's not, that's accident, it's still sin, because we've missed the mark. But yet the, a Sabellian, a modalist, actually thinks in those ways. So a Oneness Pentecostal, famous one would be T.D. Jakes, would think in those manners, would deny the reality of the gospel, because of heresy. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit have from all eternity existed as the begotten Father, the begotten Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit person of the Father and the Son. That is their native existence before anything is created. That is who they are. That's who the Godhead is. You could strive forever and never come to know them in your own doing. You must come as they have ordained through the means that He has ordained, preaching of Christ and Christ crucified. And so you come to know Christ, the Son of God incarnate, fully God, fully man, revealed to you that you might know the fullness of God in Him. So He spoke in the person of His Son, Son Tabernacle. from his conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, when he took flesh, when he entered into the estate. That's why John can tell you, you know, everyone wants to know who was so-and-so the Antichrist. I mean, when I was a kid, it was Gorbachev because he had that weird birthmark on his forehead. I can tell you, you've all met many Antichrists. Matter of fact, all of you have been an Antichrist at one point. He who denies that Jesus is God come in the flesh is Antichrist. So all of your agnostic friends, they're Antichrist. All your atheist friends, Antichrist. All your friends of anything but a full affirmation of the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the Son of God are by definition Antichrist. So to answer the question, yeah, probably he is whoever you want to fill in the blank with, but not saying he's the, he's an Antichrist. So when he took on flesh in the state of humiliation, it wasn't a temporary thing. Right now, seated at the right hand of the Father, He's very God and very man. Fully God, fully man. So he still has that glorified body that the disciples saw after the resurrection. And he will for all eternity. And so we shall always see the Son. We won't see the Father, because the Father is incorporeal. The spirit is, well, spirit and corporeal. When we all get to heaven, as the song says, we shall see the Son. And seeing the Son, we shall see the Father also, and the Son and the Spirit also. So that takes us to our next point, the Son and the Father also. The also is important there. Because without also, we might have Modalism. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father because, hey, we're the same. It's just a different mode. That's modalism, Patrick. So continuing on, so the persons of the Father and the Son, notice Jesus says, if you had known me, you would have known my Father also. Also there indicates there's a distinction. There's a difference between the Father and the Son. If you'd known me, you'd know my Father also. If you know Jesus, then you also know the Father. They are not identical. Though the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are of the same substance, they are different persons. In logic, by the way, the word substance has a particular meaning, and it's distinct from existence. Now, a substance is an entity that is self-existent. So, in logical construction, God, being of one substance, is the only substance. Everything else is a created thing, and therefore is subsistence, because it is contingent, dependent upon God. If God for a nanosecond ceased to uphold the cosmos by the word of His power, all things would blip out of existence. All it would take for everything to cease to exist is God to just for a second, you know, have a brain freeze. It all ceases because we are that contingent upon Him. Now, God is good and unchanging and eternal and cannot and will not do so, but that is our reliance upon Him, not just for breath, but for very existence. Jonathan Edwards took this too far and said that God was continually recreating moment by moment. to bring out the vividness of this fact. No, it's just that He upholds all things by the word of His power and He is constantly upholding it. Yet while the one divine substance is indivisible and equally shared by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they are distinct persons and have eternally existed as such. What is true nature? What is true reality? It's the Father, Son, and Spirit as the self-existing God from all eternity. Everything else is contingent, dependent upon Him. So you guys don't have to recite from the Athanasian Creed, but here's part of it. Whoever desires to be saved should, above all, hold to the Catholic faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally. Now this is the Catholic faith, that we worship one God and Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confounding their persons nor hiding the essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person. The person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit is still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit is one. the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal, such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated, the Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable, and on and on and on. And so we see in this the confession of the church Catholic, the universal church from all times. And as Augustine said, I confess in order to understand. It's not that, well, I need to understand this and then I'll confess it. That's the exact backwards of the way it works. We confess what has the faith once for all delivered to the saints as set forth in scripture. We use the creed because they're accurate summaries of it. And so we confess these things in order to understand, or if you prefer, in order to know. And then finally, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father. So now we've been talking about their distinctions and their unity, but now we talk about their interpenetration or as the divines would call it, perichoresis, the interpenetration of the divine persons. And another way to talk about this is divine simplicity. There's no parts in God. So you can't say, well, that part over there, that's the father, that part over there, that's the son. No, there is no, there's no way to do it. You can't divide them in that way. There's not divisible in that way that you can say there are parts. The Father is coextensive with the Son and the Spirit. The Son is coextensive with the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit is coextensive with the Father and the Son. And so we have equally, you know, there's not, you know, I stopped early, in there it says, you know, the Father's immeasurable, the Son's immeasurable, the Spirit's immeasurable. Not that there are three immeasurables. Each of them has this, but not that there's three of these. There's one. The work that the Father has been doing through the Son is the same work that the Son and the Spirit are doing. While we speak rightly of the works of the Son as revealed in Scripture, we must not think that they are done independently of the Father and the Spirit. The works of God are properly speaking the works of the whole Godhead. Yes, it is right and proper to look to the Father and the Son as they revealed themselves, But as we think about their principles, their properties, and their works, they are one. And now your brain's probably, if anything like mine, it's starting to turn to mush. This is where Gregory of Nazianzus is very helpful. No sooner do I think of the three that my mind is drawn to the one. No sooner do I think of the one that my mind is drawn to the three. And that our mind is constantly in this interplay of, well, that's the sun, but it's really the whole Godhead. Well, that's the whole Godhead, but that's the spirit at work. And on and on and on and on. And we do this because, guess what? We have finite, pea-sized brains. trying to comprehend the infinite. And one of my favorite Latin phrases is, Finitum non capax infinitum. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. I mean, think about it. Something this big can't figure out something this big. And your brain might be that big, but the infinity of the entire cosmos is nothing compared to the infinity of God. When Jesus told the disciples to believe that he is in the Father and the Father is in him, he's commanding you to believe the very essence of the gospel. For apart from the Christ being the incarnate Son, true God, and true man, there is no salvation. Skipping down in the Athanasian Creed. But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully. Now this is the true faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and man equally. He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time, and he is man from the essence of his Father, born in time, completely. Completely man with a rational soul and a human flesh, equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity. Although he is God and man, yet Christ is not two but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one man is both rational soul and flesh, so too The One Christ is both God and man. He suffered for our salvation. He descended to hell. He arose from the dead on the third day. He ascended to heaven. He is seated at the Father's right hand. From there, He will come to judge the living and the dead. At His coming, all people will arise bodily and give an account of their deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire. In that context, what is eternal good? To believe what God has revealed of himself. And what is eternal bad? But to deny the Incarnation and to deny the Trinity. And so, Jesus is telling his disciples here, know me, know the Father. See, it's not just Nicaea where they invent this idea of Trinity. Jesus is teaching it here. He didn't use the word. but he's teaching it. And if you would have life, you must know God, and to do so, you come to know the Son, and in knowing the Son, you know the Father also, by the power of the Spirit at work in you. Come to Christ, rest and trust in him. Let us pray. Father, we ask that you would grant us life in Christ, that you would give us the power to rest and trust in him, that we might know Jesus Christ, that we might know and rest in him. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.