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Sunday School

Lesson 6: The Trinity, Overview

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Summary

The doctrine of the Trinity is broken down into three foundational premises: there is only one God, God is one in nature, and the three persons of the Godhead are distinct. We are reminded that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each possess 100% of the divine nature — not a divided or partial share — and that this has been the understanding of who God is since the beginning of creation.

Key Lessons:

  1. The Trinity is not three gods but one God existing in three distinct persons who share one divine nature fully and equally.
  2. Jesus explicitly claimed divinity, was present at creation, and was recognized by the Jews as claiming to be God — refuting the idea that He never made such a claim.
  3. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force but is fully God, called eternal in Scripture and equated with God in the account of Ananias and Sapphira.
  4. Ancient creeds like the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed were developed to guard the church against heresy by clearly articulating what Scripture teaches about the Trinity.

Application: We are called to ground our understanding of God in what Scripture actually says rather than relying on imperfect analogies. We should be prepared to explain and defend the Trinity using biblical evidence, and we should worship with deeper reverence knowing that our Father, Savior, and Comforter are one God.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Why is it important to establish that there is only one God before discussing the three persons of the Trinity?
  2. How does understanding Jesus as fully God — not just a good teacher or prophet — change how we relate to Him and trust His work on the cross?
  3. What are some common analogies for the Trinity that fall short, and why is it better to simply state what Scripture says rather than over-explain?

Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 4:35 and 6:4 (there is one God), John 10:30-33 and John 1:1, 14 (the Son is God), Colossians 1:15-17 (Christ as creator), Acts 5:3-4 (the Holy Spirit is God), Philippians 2:5-6 (Christ’s equality with God), and Matthew 3:16-17 (all three persons at Jesus’ baptism).

Outline

Introduction

All right, good morning everyone. We are ready to begin our Sunday school. Thank you, Eric. Today we are going to be beginning our discussion of the trinity. I was just telling Pastor Bobby, I don’t know why they assigned me this topic.

I wanted something that’s a little bit easier to deal with. The trinity is something that is controversial. It can be intimidating. Our goal today is to break it down into smaller pieces so that we can see what the components are and then see how we assemble them together rather than just trying to tackle the big doctrine of the trinity.

We probably won’t have time for questions this time, but in two weeks we’ll be talking about the trinity again and specifically different questions that people have about the trinity. If you have a question that you want to get answered, we can actually incorporate it into the next lesson. Just come to me at the end of the service or, probably better, just send me an email because by the time I get home I may forget.

We can talk obviously about things and questions you have, but email me. The next time, which will be November 9th, we’ll be able to talk more about some of the objections that people have, some of the historic objections and historic questions that have come up. If you have anything specific that isn’t part of that, then we can address it then as well.

What Is the Trinity?

Okay. What is the trinity? Trinity is a word. It’s not found in scripture, which is actually one of the common objections. But it’s used to express the doctrine of the unity of God as subsisting in three distinct persons.

Now, you can tell by these big college words. This isn’t my definition. This is from E’s Bible dictionary. This word is derived from the Greek trios, first used in the second century, or from the Latin trinitas, first used in the third century to express this doctrine. So that’s where we get the actual word from. Even though it’s not in the Bible, it is used to describe a collection of doctrines that form this greater doctrine to teach us who God is.

“Even though it’s not in the Bible, it is used to describe a collection of doctrines that teach us who God is.”

There Is Only One God

Okay. There are three main premises to the trinity. And this is how we’re going to break down our lesson today. There is only one God. That’s a huge one because many persons who aren’t familiar with Christianity hear something about a trinity and say, “Okay, they’re polytheistic.

I thought they believed in one god, but they actually believe in three gods.” There’s actually a group that thinks the trinity doesn’t involve the Holy Spirit, that it’s actually the father, the son, and the virgin Mary. So there’s a lot of confusion about that, and I think even within the church it would be hard for us to defend that unless we look at it in this way.

With the trinity, there’s a thought that there is only one God. God is one. The persons of the trinity have unity in nature but they have distinction in person. Those are the three things that we’re going to look at today. This unity in nature—they all share the divine nature. They all are 100% God. And that’s how we’re going to look at this.

First, we’re going to look at there is only one God, and that’s the first thing that needs to be established in talking about the trinity. I may be a little paused because I’m trying to manage two different slide shows at the same time here.

We look at Deuteronomy 4:35. I will send this out so that you can have all the scripture because I’m going to use a lot of scripture because that’s what the basis is, especially something where we said the word isn’t found in scripture. I want to make sure we have all the scripture to back it up. I will be sending this out, so don’t worry about trying to jump to each place or write down everything. You can take pictures of the slides if you want. There’s going to be more scripture on this slide, so don’t take a picture yet.

Deuteronomy 4:35 says, “To you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh, he is God. There is no other besides him.” It’s very plain from the beginning that God established in the minds of the nation of Israel, and even before Israel was even a nation when God was just dealing with individuals and families, he established that there is one God. There isn’t a group of gods. There isn’t some pantheon of gods. There isn’t some greater and lesser gods or hierarchy.

There is one God. There is one creator.

Deuteronomy 4:35: “To you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh, he is God. There is no other besides him.”

Even when I was a kid, I think a lot of people think of God and Satan being kind of on the same playing field, on the same level. They’re both kind of like the good and the evil. They look at it like some type of Marvel comic book type of way with God and Satan. Satan was created and rebelled. Satan is not a God. There is only one God.

This was something that was established early on, and the Bible continues. In fact, the Bible just assumes that there is God. The Bible doesn’t go about proving the existence of God. I wish we could talk about all of that, but let’s move on and see more of this kind of declaration.

I know it might be a little small, so I’ll be reading each one of them. I tried to make them big, but hopefully you’ll be able to see most of these. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.” Now we see the first and the second premise being described here—that he is God and by this the implication is there is again he is one God. He is the God and that he is one.

When we see others described as God, when we see God the father and then we see God the son, we see God the spirit, the trinity—the doctrine of the trinity is helping us to understand how can we just have three beings, if you will, described as God but only one God. That’s because we don’t have three separate beings. We have one being, one God, and three persons.

This is like some other doctrines where we try to explain where the Bible’s explanation is really just lining up two things that seem to almost contradict or it’s hard to understand how they work together, and we have to trust God that these things work together. In our finite minds we can’t fully understand it. It’s kind of like God’s sovereignty and salvation and man’s responsibility in salvation.

Where does it fit? The Bible will express both, and if you just stay hyperfocused on one, when you hear the other you’ll think it’s heresy. This is why we need to look at the doctrine in this way because we understand that there is one God, but when we talk about the Holy Spirit we’re talking about God. When we talk about the father we’re talking about God, and we’ll look at more of that.

Isaiah 44:6 says, “Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his redeemer, Yahweh of Hosts, I am the first and I am the last and there is no God besides me.” He is not only the God of Israel—and I actually wrote that here—he is not only the God of Israel but the God of all creation. No matter who the nations of the world choose to worship, no matter what idols they choose to set up, no matter who they claim as God, there is only one true God, and that is revealed to us in scripture.

New Testament Witness to One God

We’ll look a little more now. We’re going to look a little bit in the New Testament. Just a couple of passages to talk about there being just one God.

Mark 12:28-29, and this is great because now this is Jesus talking and he’s quoting the Old Testament here. One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and, recognizing that he had answered them well, asked him what commandment is the foremost of all. Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.’” He goes back to Deuteronomy and says this is the foremost commandment. This is the basis of our understanding of God, even understanding of ourselves.

1 Corinthians 8:4 says, “Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in this world and that there is no god but one.”

Mark 12:29: “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.’”

So, not even the idols that have names are gods.

Idols Are Not Gods

And we are told that at times there may be demons behind them that are influencing their followers to believe that they are real, but they’re made by man’s hands. They’re not real. They’re not gods. And that is just a quick little side note that is really a good picture of the deception of sin: that you can create something out of your own hand and then in your desperation believe that that’s God.

Like, you literally just took some metal and other things and fashioned it together and somehow say it’s God, and then raised your kids to believe this is God. And this thing that I created ten years ago is going to be what determines your future, and this is what you have to pay homage to—this thing that I created. And it seems like it’s so far-fetched to do that.

Yet humans in different religions, humans at different points in time have done this. Humans that aren’t even tied to religions, just families are doing this. And we go even further and extend it to superstitions and other things.

And even to the fact that I had somebody tell me recently that we get along well because we both were born close together and we both are under the sign of Sagittarius. And like that’s why we get along. No, we get along because you’re not a jerk.

That’s why we get along. But no, it’s because we’re both Sagittarius. I don’t even know what that means. I know what it is, but I don’t know how we get along because of that. That’s such an odd thing, but we’re so convinced of that.

So when we see these idols being worshiped, we understand that even they are not God. Even though they have names and they’re given characteristics and they’re given a backstory, a lot of times when you look at certain mythology, they are still not God.

“You can create something out of your own hand and then in your desperation believe that that’s God.”

God Is One: Unity in Nature

God is one, right? That’s the next thing. We established that there is just one God.

Now if I can do it. There we go. So God is one. There’s unity in their nature.

God is three distinct persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This collection is sometimes just referred to as the Godhead. They have one divine nature. What that means is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all possess 100% of the divine nature.

It’s not shared where you get these attributes and I get these attributes and you get some of these over here. Holy Spirit, you get the leftover ones or you get these particular ones here. Now based on their role at a particular point in time or based on even their role in the church, they may operate more in one thing or another.

The Bible highlights one attribute over another when talking about a member of the Trinity, but they all possess 100% of the divine nature. We’ll look at that a little bit more when we look at the individual members and see that they all are described as God in the Bible. But for now understand that they all are equally God.

We’re actually going to look at a creed that was formed at the end. We’ll look at this creed that was formed just to express that they are equally God and that in order to be a Christian you have to believe that.

“The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all possess 100% of the divine nature. It’s not shared.”

The Father Is God

Okay. Now we’re going to look at the father is God, which is probably the easiest one, although sometimes confusing because the Bible doesn’t always say “God the Father” when talking about God. Sometimes we just look at a passage and say, “Yeah, this is talking about the father.”

Most of the time when we look at the Old Testament and it talks about God, we say, “Yeah, it’s probably the father.” And it’s specifically why I chose the LSB. What’s the legacy standard Bible? Thank you.

For some of the Old Testament passages, I usually use the NASB, but I chose that in particular because it’s not ambiguous with God and the Lord and some of these phrases that we see. It really expresses what’s written in the original.

So we see here the father is God. We’ll look at 1 Corinthians 8:6.

1 Corinthians 8:6: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for him.”

So God is a creator. And when I’m saying God here, it’s specifically God the Father because we’re talking about God the Father, but we’re actually going to see in a couple of slides that all parts of the Trinity were active in creation.

And so it’s proper to say God the Son is our creator. God the Son is our creator and God the Holy Spirit is our creator. It’s theologically accurate to say that. But many times when we are looking through, we’re seeing a description of what God the Father is doing. And we’ll see one in Genesis 1 in a second that kind of describes that.

Psalm 103:19 says, “Yahweh has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all.” So now we see not only is he God as creator, but the father is sovereign and rules over all.

Again, there is no other god and there is nothing in creation that has been created that hasn’t been created by our triune God.

And so every time we see a description of God the father, it is presenting him in this majesty.

God as Our Father

And when we see the Old Testament and New Testament, I think father is the most, in human terms, the most accurate description that we can have. Many here who are fathers probably can attest to that even better than I can, and the role that you have in the lives of your children. I know many people. I remember talking to Shaji years ago, and he was just talking about how becoming a father really changed his view and his understanding about God’s love as our father. I think it’s such a beautiful picture to be able to see God as a father.

I’m brought to mind of a song, and I’m not going to sing it now, but in Hebrews 12 it talks about those who have no father. This word is sometimes used in the Bible—in the King James Bible, the word “bastard.” Someone who had no father, or in modern terms, someone whose father and mother weren’t married. But someone made a song that was like, “You’re not a bastard because God is your father.” It was meant to be a joke, but it’s very real that there are many of us who get to experience the love of a father in a way that we never have because God is our father and the ultimate father.

So while this is kind of a technical point of the Trinity, it’s still something that we can see the beauty in and we can rejoice in. Specifically, it’s God as father and sovereign ruler. But it’s beautiful to see and to know that the sovereign ruler we talked about is our father and not some far-off distant god who doesn’t commune with us.

Acts 17:29 says, “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” Again, God our father is separate and distinct from these other so-called gods, these ones that were created.

“The sovereign ruler we talked about is our Father and not some far-off distant god who doesn’t commune with us.”

Here the emphasis is on God’s fatherhood. It doesn’t come in Acts 17:29 from his relationship to them in salvation. But Paul here is talking about creation, and from God being our creator, he in a sense is the father of all, and every human in a sense is a child of God because they are created by him, which is why he has authority over them.

So again, a couple more passages looking in the New Testament: the father is God.

Romans 8:14: “For all who are being led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Now we get more specific into God’s fatherhood being relational, and we see him as father because he has brought us into his family. As we said a couple weeks ago when we were celebrating the Lord’s table, we have been adopted now and we can sit at the table with God and we can have peace with him when we were once his enemies. And so in that sense, he is our father.

The Son Is God

And we also see in 2 Corinthians 6:18, which says, “And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” Now, I will say this one is usually met with the least amount of controversy, saying that God the Father is God. But now we’re going to move to one that has a lot of controversy, which is the son is God.

And just in John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the father are one.” It seems like just kind of a somewhat innocent statement, very short. “I and the father are one.” But he wasn’t just stating that they are one because they are united in mission or they’re united in focus or passion. Sometimes a team may say that we are one or we’re acting as one because you’re a group, but you’re making kind of a decision and you’re standing as one body or you’re united for one purpose. This isn’t what he was saying. The statement meant much more.

And the Jews understood what he was saying. They understood that Jesus at this point was claiming to be God. And this is why when people say Jesus never claimed to be God, they are so wrong. They don’t have understanding of the scripture.

And most of the time when people say that, they aren’t really looking for ways that Jesus said he was God. They’re just looking to try to dismiss your faith or to dissuade you from your faith. Most people aren’t saying, “I did an honest reading of the gospels and I can tell you that Jesus never. ..” It’s usually not that. It’s usually some point of contention or debate.

But we should be able to answer and we should be able to say no. Jesus accepted worship and Jesus claimed to be equal with the father. Jesus said he can forgive sin. He did these divine things that only God can do. So in verses 31-33 it says the Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the father. For which of them are you stoning me?” I love that. He really just said, “Of all these wonderful things that I’ve done in your presence, which one of these wonderful things is triggering you to try to kill me right now?”

And they answered him and said, “For a good work, we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you being a man, make yourself out to be God.” They understood that him saying, “I and the father are one,” was Jesus saying, “I am divine. I am God. I am standing before you as a man, dressed as a man in the flesh, but I am God.” And they knew that, and that’s why they picked up stones and wanted to murder him.

And if this wasn’t Jesus and we were reading this story, we would probably applaud it. We would probably say, “Wow, they were great and they were righteous. Maybe they went a little too far in that.” But I mean, they were obeying what they were commanded to do. They just were wrong in this case. They had the wrong person.

“Jesus accepted worship, claimed to be equal with the Father, and said he can forgive sin — things only God can do.”

They didn’t understand that they were actually talking to God.

The Word Was God — John 1

Now we’ll look at a few more. John 1:1 and then verse 14. You can actually look at all of John 1.

But for the sake of this time, we’ll look at John 1:1. It says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” And then in verse 14, we kind of get answered the question: what is this word? It’s just saying the word, but it’s talking about words in a form like it’s talking about a being. And then verse 14 says, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth.”

John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Jesus was not only God, but he was there in the beginning. Jesus didn’t become God. Jesus didn’t live so righteously on earth that he assumed the position of God or was raised from humanity to divinity.

Jesus was God before the earth was created because he created the earth. He created the universe. So Jesus has always been God.

And that is a point that I think a lot of people will miss. If you ever talk to anyone, especially of other religions that also have Jesus as part of their religion, they will diminish his divinity or remove it altogether. Or you’ll have like I believe it’s Jehovah’s Witnesses who just say he was a god instead of God.

And you’ll have others that say, “Nope, he wasn’t at all. He was sinless.” But others, like in Islam, they’ll just teach that other prophets were sinless as well. And that was in fact one of the marks of a prophet of their god—that you had to be sinless.

So that way you can have a sinless Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he’s divine. And the Bible is very clear that Jesus not only claimed divinity for himself as he walked on the earth, but that he was there in the beginning.

And we’ll actually look a little more at John 1 in a minute to see Jesus’ hand in creation as well.

Christ the Creator — Colossians 1

But Colossians 1:15-17 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:15-16: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created.”

The first part simply says when you see Jesus, you see God, right? God has been revealed to us through Christ. He came on this earth and he took the form of a man. We got to see what God would do if he was in certain situations. It’s not a hypothetical. I remember about 20 years ago or something, they had those little bracelets that would say, “What would Jesus do?” You’re supposed to think about that in every situation.

What Would Jesus Do? Seeing God in Christ

Like, what would Jesus do? I don’t know, maybe he’d walk through a wall. What would Jesus do? But it kind of is still a helpful thing to just say, “I’m representing Christ now, Jesus.” But we actually got to see what he would do. What would he do if somebody did something to make him angry? Would he respond in anger?

What would he do if people tried to take his life? What would he do if he saw someone on the road that needed assistance? Would he help them? Would he give them the gospel only? Would he do both?

And sometimes the things that he did, I still am saying, “Why? Why did you do that?” Or, “I wish he did it differently.” I don’t know if you ever say that, but I say that all the time, especially certain things that are written in the Bible. I’m just like, “I wish this wasn’t here or I wish this would have been explained more clearly.” But we got to see because Jesus walked on this earth what he would do. So when we see Christ, we see God. We don’t just see a representative.

“When we see Christ, we see God. We don’t just see a representative or someone who lived a great life.”

We don’t just see someone who lived a great life or who was a pious, righteous man. You can say, “Yep, that’s a real godly person.” So I’m sure about 90% of the time, I see the godly thing being done by this person, but he was actually God in the flesh.

And it tells us that he was the one who created that thing. We were created by him and created for him.

Created For Him

And it’s just such a beautiful thing. I’m using the word beautiful a lot, but it’s hard to think of other words to describe that. Plus, I went to public school, so I don’t have like a big vocabulary. But it’s so beautiful to see and think about—not only did God create, he didn’t create and then just walk away and be like, “All right, y’all good now.

I’ll just let things happen the way they happen.” No, but he’s intimately involved in his creation. So much so that we can say that his creation was created for him and that he gets joy out of his creation and specifically us, his family, the believers, the ones for whom he died. He gets joy from us now. Not just when we’re in heaven and when we’re sinless, but now.

Often times I will sit and if I’m like, “Man, I just sinned this way today and I need to go talk to that person or this happened,” and sometimes I have to say like God knew I was going to do this and still saved me. Like, he didn’t save me saying, “All right, now I’m going to have perfection for the next 50 years of his life.” He saved me knowing that I would continue to sin.

And I’m not supposed to know, but I guess I know in part that inside by side, one of the things that was taught this week or at least said was that there are some people who can testify that they’ve done more sinning since they became Christians just based on when they got saved. Some people got saved two years ago, four years ago, and that’s great. And you can say, “Oh yeah, I was so sinful the first 30, 40, 50 years of my life.”

But there are other people who are like, “I got saved when I was 10. So just about all the major sin I’ve ever done in my life has come after I knew Christ.”

And he still not only saved us, but he gets joy out of us. He gets joy from us. We were created for him. Not just created by him with no relationship, but we were created for him and he enjoys us and we can enjoy him.

“We were not just created by him with no relationship — we were created for him, and he enjoys us.”

Christ’s Equality with God — Philippians 2

Very popular verse, especially here at Calvary. Philippians 2:5-6 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” So when it talks about it, it says he existed as God. When it talks about this equality with God being something to be grasped, it’s given the image of someone who is a thief, someone who is a robber, and they’re taking something and they’re grabbing hold to it, and they hold this thing very dear, and they don’t want to let it go.

And it’s saying that Jesus did not approach his existing in heaven as God something that he had to hold so tightly that he would not come down and take the form of a servant. If anyone uses or has used or is familiar with the old King James version, it says that he thought it not robbery. And there are so many people who would say that about random things like you come over their house and they be like, “I’m glad you thought it not robbery to come visit me today.”

And it’s like, all right, it’s not really saying that like it’s a nice thought. Like you want to apply a biblical term to random things, say that a lot.

You thought it not robbery and just saying like it’s I’m honored that you did that. But that’s not what the picture is. The picture is of a thief who clings on to something and the thing that he held on.

So it’s almost as if you pictured someone who didn’t belong in this space. Let’s say me. If I went to heaven and was granted some type of temporary divinity and then God says, “All right, all right. It’s time to go back and live your normal life now. You experience what it feels like to be God for like 20 seconds and I’m just holding on.” Like, “No, God, please. I know. No, I need this. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced.” And I’m just holding on and I don’t want to go back.

So the Bible was saying Jesus was the opposite of that. He didn’t do that. He didn’t hold on to every aspect of divinity and every privilege of being God to the point that he would refuse his mission to save us.

“He didn’t hold on to every privilege of being God to the point that he would refuse his mission to save us.”

But he was still God. So 100% God.

The Hypostatic Union

And then you get the hypostatic union.

He’s 100% God and 100% man, far beyond what we’re going to talk about today. But when I’m saying he had 100% divine nature, there is a little difference there with him and the others because he had 100% of his divine nature and he had 100% of human nature. So if you hear that and think, “Why are you saying he’s 100%? I thought he also came as a man and was proper as our substitute to save us,” that’s why something else that we can’t fully understand. But we can at least state it because the Bible states it.

“He’s 100% God and 100% man — the hypostatic union — something we can’t fully understand but the Bible states it.”

The Holy Spirit Is God

Okay. I think this is the last one on the sun. The Holy Spirit is God.

This is another that I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around because we see in scripture the Father sending the Holy Spirit, we see in scripture the Son sending the Holy Spirit, we see the word “spirit” being used a lot in general, or “spirit of God,” and so sometimes we may just say okay, this is just the spirit or this is just his force or it’s talking about the Father and he’s sending some power or some impersonal force down to accomplish this thing.

But Luke 1:35 says the angel answered, talking to Mary, answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.”

So the Holy Spirit coming upon her was God coming upon her, was the Most High.

Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

This is not talking about two different beings here. This is not talking about even two different persons of the same being. This is talking about the Holy Spirit in both cases and then also talks about the Son and foreshadowing the Son being born. So we see here the Holy Spirit being called God in this promise to Mary.

And then another one here again talking about the Son.

The Eternal Spirit — Hebrews 9

Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Again, I want you to see this, and this happens a lot with scripture, which is why I first came to believe the Bible because of Isaiah. But after that, this point here is that the Bible, a lot of times, the writers—because they’re divine in their writing and the message is perfect—they’re telling us about something and then just write another little quick statement.

And that quick statement is so powerful.

So here he’s telling us about Christ and Christ’s sacrifice, right? But he talks about him offering himself through the eternal spirit. And we know that the Holy Spirit was also prominent in our salvation, calling him eternal.

This isn’t a verse or a passage that seeks to prove that the Holy Spirit is God. The writers just know that he’s God and are just writing, “Yep, the eternal spirit. Just call him eternal. No big deal.”

Something that would be blasphemy if it wasn’t true. Just saying it like it’s no big deal because it was so true and it was so baked into the understanding of who God is that we know the Holy Spirit is God. So to call him eternal is just describing the Holy Spirit.

And it happens so often. When we’re reading the Bible, we will see the major point being made and even a secondary point being made, but something else that’s written that may be like third or fourth in line supports a major truth somewhere else. It’s not even a point that the person was trying to make, and they don’t even fully understand it.

We know there are certain things that were written in the Old Testament and the Old Testament writers didn’t even understand all what they were saying. They just wrote as they were directed, or they only understood it in a very local sense and didn’t understand the fullness of the vision they were given or what they were directed to communicate to us.

“The writers just know that he’s God — calling him eternal like it’s no big deal, because it was so true.”

So here, what we see is the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Spirit is eternal. All three share these attributes that are seen in God and only God.

Lying to the Holy Spirit Is Lying to God

So they are all 100% God, possess all divine attributes and that’s what it means for them to have unity in nature and that’s why we can say there is one God and then also say God is one as part as as two things that are important in the in the trinity. Just one more passage just to see how the Holy Spirit is described as God and this is Acts chapter 5.

So just a little bit of the background here. There’s a lot of persecution going on with the early church, the early believers. And now the slide is complete if you want to take a picture. Okay. So sorry the print is bigger that you guys see than I see.

What I see is really tiny on mine, but the print is bigger here. So I don’t feel as bad. I was looking up there feeling terrible and I’m just like, “Oh man, Keith got to look at that tiny stuff from way back there.”

But no, it’s not as bad. So the background here is that there’s a lot of persecution going on in the early church. People are coming to Christ. They’re being kicked out of their families, kicked out of their homes.

They’re losing their jobs. A lot of there’s just a lot of now poverty, suffering, persecutions going on because they’re coming to faith in Christ. And so those who could afford it and maybe were not affected or as affected, they were selling their possessions and taking the money and giving it to the apostles.

The apostles would see people who were in need and and and be able to take care of their needs. In this case, there was a couple, Ananas and Safara, who decided they would sell their land and they would bring the money to the church. They would give it to the apostles, but somewhere along the line, I don’t know if it was from the beginning or if they just saw the money after, I don’t know what, they sold it.

Let’s say that let’s use modern. They sold it their land for $500,000 which is probably really cheap in New Jersey but they sold it for $500,000 and they said we’re going to give 400,000 to the church. Let’s keep this 100,000 to ourselves but we’re going to tell them that we’re giving them the full amount that we sold it for.

And that is that part is the wickedness.

It’s it’s the the dishonesty. It’s the lying. It’s not you didn’t give us every every dime that you made. And it’s not even that in this case they did, but it’s not even an indictment if they didn’t sell.

And this is what we’ll see is said by Peter. But this is the background. This is kind of why it’s a big deal that they only brought a portion of the money that they they sold that they received in the cell.

So Acts 5:es 3 and 4 says, “But Peter said,”Ananas, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?

Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.” So very clear verse three he says the Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. And then verse four he says you didn’t you didn’t just lie to us.

You lied to God. You lied to the Holy Spirit. You lied to God. You see the Holy Spirit is God. And again Peter is not he didn’t wake up that morning and say I need to prove to people that the Trinity is real and I need to show them.

Acts 5:4: “You have not lied to men, but to God. The Holy Spirit is God.”

So whenever I mention the Holy Spirit I’m going to slide this thing. No. This is was the understanding of who God is.

This isn’t something that was just invented in in the 4th century. This is something that was always true of God going back to the beginning of creation.

And we’ll see that in a second.

So, he didn’t just lie to me. And and they both dropped dead, by the way, Ananas and Safara because of them lying. So, and I didn’t even bring this up. I don’t know who all is in yam here.

I don’t see too many who who were there on Friday but when we talked about church discipline on on Friday and this is one of the things I didn’t even get to talk about this that this was like the ultimate church discipline this in 1 Corinthians 11 that we see that God actually took some people out to maintain the purity of the church.

Distinction in Personhood

The last point is distinction in personhood.

The father, son, and the spirit are distinct from one another.

We see that in scripture. We’ve seen references to the father, references to the son, references to the spirit. It’s not just references to God that we somehow broke up into parts. They’re referenced and they’re talked about in different times in different ways. There’s a distinction in each member and how each member of the trinity relates to each other and to man. Just two quick examples: Jesus as our mediator and the Holy Spirit as our comforter. There are times where we see different phrases, different tasks, different roles applied to the members of the trinity.

“There is a distinction in each member and how each member of the Trinity relates to each other and to man.”

A lot of times we see that there is overlap in that as well. It’s not that Jesus or the son or the father will never comfort you because that’s the holy spirit’s job. There isn’t something so distinct as that, or at least scripture doesn’t lend itself to that.

I think we have to be very careful in not going past what scripture describes, especially in these doctrines where there are statements that, if you just took them on their own and didn’t actually weave them together through the lens of total scripture, they would seem to contradict each other. We have to be very careful, even when we try to do analogies and we think we’re being helpful. Someone will say, “Well, I’m a father and I am a son and I am a brother, so I’m kind of like a trinity.”

And it’s like, “No, no, you’re not.” That was a horrible, blasphemous, heretic example, but that’s one that many of us have used and said that I’m different things. Or there’s like water and ice and vapor. No, no, just stop.

The Trinity in Creation — Genesis 1

Just say what the Bible says. And it’s trying to be helpful, but just be careful is all I’m saying as we try to describe these things. Okay. Let’s actually move on to Genesis 1:26.

These next few are going to be dealing with creation and just looking at their roles. Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and dominion over a lot of other of the animals and things that were created.” Now this is also a kind of phrase here that is sort of controversial to be applied to the trinity.

People who argue against the trinity say no this is just like when the royal we or the royal plural when a person talks about themselves and do it in the plural and like pastor Bobby does that sometimes he be like yeah we’ll see you and he’s talking about just him right like he’s not talking about like me and Jane and family up we’re going to see you next week. He says that sometimes when he says like a we or like people do that and I think Juliana was doing that last week and she had mentioned that she was doing that and I’m like oh I didn’t even notice but some people will say that that’s what this means.

But we see it here. And then we also see it at the tower of Babel, when he said, “Let us go down and confuse their language.” So again, we see this kind of talk. It seems like a conversation is being had within the members of the Trinity.

But more even more concrete than that we see Genesis 1:1-2 says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters and we see there God the father God the spirit being described as being present and active in creation and then we see John 1:3 says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being which pretty much says everything that was created was created by Christ.

So we see the father, son, and spirit all present and active in creation and all being credited with creation and sometimes just talked about individually as creator and all of those are accurate.

“We see the Father, Son, and Spirit all present and active in creation — all being credited with creation.”

The Trinity at Jesus’ Baptism and the Great Commission

Now we have the New Testament. We’ll look at a couple more ways that the Bible talks about Father, Son, and Spirit moving toward the same purpose.

We’re talking about them distinctly. Matthew 3:16-17 talks about the baptism of Jesus: “After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’” Again, we see the Son being baptized coming out of the water, the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven, and then the Father speaking from heaven all at the same time, right during the time when Jesus was baptized.

We see them distinctly being mentioned as doing different things but accomplishing the same goal and bringing glory to the Godhead, bringing glory to God.

“We see the Son baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking — all at the same time.”

We are told in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” This is called the Great Commission. As we go out and fulfill this great commission, we are told that we are baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three members of the Trinity of the Godhead are working together. In this case, we’re representing all of them and we’re doing the work of all of the Trinity as we go out and witness and bring people to Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 talks about spiritual gifts being distributed: “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit and there are varieties of ministries and the same Lord, there are varieties of effects but the same God who works all things in all persons.” Again, using these words interchangeably—this isn’t a passage about the Trinity. This is about spiritual gifts.

But because this is who God is and this has always been who God was, the writers of Scripture were so free to interchange these phrases when talking about these kinds of things that all are doing together. Now, they’re not so free to say that the Father was on the cross, right? There are some things, some roles that were distinctly meant for different parts of the Trinity.

But in these areas, and I love it here because we saw in creation, and then we see here in Jesus’s baptism, his earthly ministry, and then we see in our earthly ministry that we are to be baptizing and making disciples, and we do it in the name of the Trinity. When people come to faith in Christ through those efforts, they’re given gifts by the Trinity. The Bible really goes into detail in 1 Corinthians 12—if you read through all of it—that the Holy Spirit disperses gifts by its own will.

The Trinity Shield

There is this trinity shield. I think it has an official Latin word for it, but again, public school. I’m going to show it here. It’s kind of like a beautiful picture of—and this will be part of what I send out—but pretty much the Father is God. If you look at the outside circles, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God going to the middle. But the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Father is not the Holy Spirit. So again, they are not each other. They are distinct, but they are all God and they all have the divine nature.

“The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God — but the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit.”

Ancient Creeds: The Apostles’ Creed

Now I’m going to put up two ancient creeds. One is the apostles creed and this is one that I used to have to recite every was it every week? Yes. Every week when I first got saved, I had to recite this in church every week. I don’t know if I could do it now, but it it was I might be able to. It was like like embedded in our mind, but but these creeds, they’re not scripture, but they are attempts that theologians and people who just loved God and loved his word, but had the time to really dive into his word.

There were attempts to describe what we see in the Bible in terms that would protect against heresy.

And so a lot of times there was something happening and there were people saying things like yeah I don’t know if Jesus really we have to consider him as divine really like our salvation still kind of works even if he wasn’t God right and then no no no you need to have him as God and okay well let’s talk about him let’s scripture and then you come out and say okay this is what we’re going to this is kind of the official statement of Christianity and we’ve seen a few of them through history so so this one the apostles creed was was more about just describing a simple way of describing the faith itself. Then we’ll look at one that was in particular trying to describe the trinity and say things that you have to believe about the trinity. So this is the apostles creed here. Yeah. So okay, I’ll read it quickly.

“These creeds were attempts to describe what we see in the Bible in terms that would protect against heresy.”

See if I can say I believe in God the father, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord.

Yeah, I’m going to stop so I can go faster. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day he arose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From then he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit or the we say Holy Ghost, the church universal, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

Every service we had to say this and actually and then on the first Sunday we had to read the ten commandments too and we had to say it and we had to sing a song in between each commandment. I am not making this up.

The Athanasian Creed

I was the musician so I got to just sit and play the stuff and be like yeah I got to recite this every week but hey you learn it and it and it stays with you. And I saw at least Eric Fu just quoting quoting this as well from memory and probably a few others of you were too. But again this was a way and this will be sent out.

We don’t have time to completely dissect it but this is just one of the because this doctrine is so important and just who God is. This was a way to describe these are the essentials of our faith. Another one the Aanasian creed and this is this is a summary and this is partial.

So the first part of the creed was really about oh I didn’t change it I changed it on mine and didn’t change it on yours. So the first part was about the trinity and the second part just was about more about more general generalities to say about about the faith. But I’ll read this part here and we’ll see why there was just such a focus on and specifically using this word that we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.

For the person of the father is a distinct person. The person of the son is another and that of the holy spirit still another. But the divinity of the father, son, and holy spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty co-eternal.

So again, what we’ve been saying today, this middle sentence here is definitely condensing it. It listed each one. So it said the father is uncreated, the son is uncreated, the holy spirit is uncreated, the father is immeasurable, the son is immeasurable. And it went through each each phrase just so you understood. But they’re all my summary unccreated, immeasurable and eternal.

But as one uncreated, immeasurable and eternal being. So again, they’re not separate. They are one being. But they all even in their distinctions are were uncreated, can’t be measured, and are internal, eternal.

Accordingly, there is one father, not three fathers. There is one son, not three sons. There is one holy spirit, not three holy spirits. Nothing in this trinity is before or after. Nothing is greater or smaller.

In their entirety, the three persons are co-eternal and co-equal with each other. And I think that’s a great summary. And again, this is just a partial one. I’ll probably when I send this out at least send a link to a full one so you can kind of just read everything because it’s even more powerful.

It’s just a lot to read, but it’s more powerful if you get to see the the whole thing about who it is, who he is, who we worship.

“Nothing in this Trinity is before or after. Nothing is greater or smaller. The three persons are co-eternal and co-equal.”

Conclusion

My hope, my prayer is that we all have at least a little clearer understanding of the Trinity or at least know more about it and can explain it a little better. Like I said before, in two weeks, we’re going to address questions and we’re going to address the common misconceptions and objections to the Trinity. Next week, we’re going to have one of our kingdom workers with us. We’re going to have Brian and Susan Shortmire with us, and they’ll be leading the Sunday school hour. So on November 9th, we’ll be back talking about the Trinity.

“My hope is that we all have a clearer understanding of the Trinity and can explain it a little better.”

But let’s close in a word of prayer and then you’re dismissed to go fellowship.

Our great eternal God, we want to thank you that you have revealed yourself to us in scripture so that we can understand, even if partially, that we have a great Father, that we have a wonderful Savior, and we have a present Comforter.

We thank you, God, for who you are and how you’ve revealed yourself to us. We thank you, God, that you have saved us and that we all can have a relationship with you and that we know that there will be a day where we will see you face to face and we will probably more fully understand this and understand who you are. God, we can’t wait for that day.

I pray, God, that we live our lives now in light of the fact that our home is with you in heaven and in glory and that what we see now is temporary. I pray, God, that that will spur us to greater worship and greater evangelism. I pray, God, that you will bless our service and the time of fellowship before that.

I pray, God, that we would be able to honor you knowing you fully. I ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you.

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