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Episode Summary:

The Doctrine of the Trinity is at the very heart of the Christian faith. Learn why we must worship God as Father, Son, and Spirit with pastor Terry Johnson on this week’s episode of All of Life for God.

Transcript

Turn to Matthew 28:19-20. There we read of the Great Commission. "Jesus said to them, 'all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'" Notice from the text is the word name, is that in the singular or is that in the plural? It's in the singular. In the name. It is in fact preceded by a definite article. The name, the one and only name, and in the Old Testament there could be no question about what that name would be. It would be the Tetragrammaton. It would be the Jehovah, Yahweh. It would be the divine name, usually translated Lord or LORD.

So Jesus is teaching us to baptize in the name of the God, the Covenant God of Israel, but what is that name that he then gives? The name is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The name, singular, is in fact three names. The names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Jesus' words is implied there is but one God. That's absolutely clear in the Bible from cover to cover. The creedal statement of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4 is that the Lord our God is one. There is but one God and that is the God of Israel. And yet Jesus here speaks of a threefold name of the one God directing us as he does so to the threefold identity or the threefold personhood of that one God.

And so it is in the name of the Father, again with definite articles, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is a distinction of persons within the Godhead. Calvin in his comment on this verse says, "What else is this than to testify clearly that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God?" Another great theologian of the church, B.B. Warfield, I'll cite him a couple of times throughout this sermon, Warfield said, "Jesus could not have been understood otherwise then as substituting for the name of Jehovah, this other name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And this could not possibly have meant to the disciples anything else than that Jehovah was now to be known by the new name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. There is no alternative therefore to understand Jesus here to be giving for the community a new name to Jehovah and that new name to be the threefold name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

The Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity is the defining doctrine of Christianity. It's what separates orthodoxy from heterodoxy, the church from the cult, and the faithful from the heretical. Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian from the turn of the century, 20th century said, "It is only when we contemplate this Trinity that we know who and what God is." And it is a revealed doctrine. It's not a doctrine that's to be found in nature. There are no parallels in other religions. Even when some of them like the Hindus and the Egyptians speak of divine triads, yet they have nothing in common with the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is revealed only in Scripture and especially it is revealed in the context of redemption. It is a vital doctrine. Whenever the doctrine of the Trinity is denied, it means in the long run the death of the church. Whether we're speaking of ancient Arianism which saw Jesus as the greatest of the creatures or 19th century New England Unitarianism.

In the long run, non-Trinitarian religions more broadly either begin to move in the direction of a pure transcendence as in Islam where God is remote and removed and distant and unapproachable and unknowable or religions will tend to move in the direction of pure eminence so that God is everything. The pantheistic religions of the East being the example of that. God is everything and everything is God. Everything is an emanation of God and will one day be reabsorbed into his impersonal personhood, if we can put it that way. Only in Christianity with our understanding of the triune nature of God, do we have that balance between the transcendence or otherness or greatness of God, balanced as it were by our understanding of the eminence of God, particularly in the incarnation of Jesus Christ our Lord.

So let us then look at the doctrine of the Trinity. Let's explore, first of all, its biblical basis, then its historical development and then finally its experiential or practical application. So let's begin with the biblical. This is a difficult doctrine. Why is it so difficult? Well, because it's taught more by allusions than explicitly elaborated. There's no deliberate development of the doctrine to be found in the Bible. It's more of an overheard doctrine rather than heard directly. How does the Bible then teach the doctrine of the Trinity? It does so like this, it teaches this. There is but one God. Secondly, it teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each God. Then it teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each distinct persons and therefore the conclusion must be drawn that there is one God in three persons. You follow that? There's one God and yet the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God and yet they are each distinct persons. Leading us to the conclusion that there is one God who exists in three persons.

We begin with the Old Testament. The Old Testament teaches this slowly and cumulatively more by the way of hints, again then explicit teaching. Here are some of the hints. The name God itself is a plural noun and in Genesis one and other places we find plural pronouns being used, "Let us create." Leading us to wonder about the diversity that is within the Godhead himself. God is distinguished from God in places like Psalm 110:1, "The Lord said to

my Lord," Psalm 46:6-7, "God thy God has anointed thee." There are the threefold formulas. "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up his countenance and it's upon you." Or the cherubim, "Holy, holy, holy." These threefold formulas.

There's the angel of the Lord who is identified in several places as God in what might be considered a pre-incarnational visitation of Christ. There is the identity of the Messiah who would come in the name of God and yet be God as in Isaiah 7:14. He would be called Immanuel, Isaiah 9:6. He is called a mighty God and the eternal Father. So the God of the Old Testament, we would be led when we look in detail at this kind of evidence, is not an abstract unity. He is not a simple solitary being. We find the germ of distinction within the Godhead within the Old Testament.

Then as we come into the New Testament, we find that it elaborates on that which the Old Testament introduced. It makes patent what was latent in the Old Testament. And Warfield uses I think a very helpful analogy of walking into a room that is dimly lit. As you walk in, there are things you cannot see and then there are things that you can vaguely see. Then as you turn the lights on, nothing new comes into the room, but you're able to see now with clarity and distinction all that was in the room but you were not able to see because of the inadequacy of the light. I think that's a good description of what happens when we go from the Old Testament to the New Testament. There isn't anything new per se that's being taught. Rather what was taught in the Old Testament is now being further illuminated so that we're able to see what lies behind the Old Testament teaching. Here's how the New Testament, especially in redemption, reveals the Trinity. We'll have to go through this fairly quickly.

A, it assigns distinctive roles in redemption. We are saved by the Father's electing and planning love. "God," the Father implied, "so love the world." We are saved by the Son's sacrificing and accomplishing love. "He loved me," Galatians 1:20, "and gave himself up for us," speaking of Jesus, "and we are saved by the Spirit's applying and enabling love." Jesus said that we must be born of the spirit if we are to see the Kingdom of God.

So if we look at Titus 3:4-7, we find this kind of a Trinitarian description of our salvation. There the apostle Paul writes, "When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared," that's God the Father, "He saved us." God the Father saved us, not because of the works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, "by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the," what? "Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." What the Father plans the son accomplishes and the Holy Spirit applies. There it is in Titus 3:4-7.

And so we find ourselves quite naturally in our prayers and in our hymnody, celebrating, rejoicing in all that which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have accomplished on our behalf. For example, there's this new relatively new hymn, How Great The Father's Love For Us. That's a Getty and Townend's hymn. Or we'll sing, "Alas and did my Savior bleed? Was it for crimes that I have done? He groaned upon that tree, amazing pity, grace unknown and love beyond degree." Well hope we'll celebrate the grace of the Son in accomplishing our salvation. We'll sing similarly, "Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, with all your quickening powers."

So we find ourselves worshiping and celebrating and rejoicing in the saving work of the three persons of the Trinity. As the Father planned our redemption, the Son accomplished our redemption and the Holy Spirit applies our redemption. So A, the New Testament assigns distinctive rules and redemption, B, it assigns common divine attributes. Each is identified with God. For example, to each is given the divine names and titles, each is called Lord. Each is called God. Each is called Savior. God our Father. Romans 9:5, "Christ who is God blessed forever." John 1:1 "The word was God." The Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer is God's temple. The believer is God's temple, being the temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 3:16. Divine attributes are a tribute to all. They are each said to be eternal and omniscient and omnipotent and immutable.

The Son of God was there in the beginning with God. John 1:1-2. The Spirit is the eternal spirit. Jesus searches the heart. Revelation 2:23. Likewise, the Spirit is said to do the same. Jesus is omnipresent. "I am with you always." Psalm 139, God's presence cannot be escaped. The psalmist describing the father's ever presence with us. Omnipotent, Jesus is called mighty God in Isaiah 9:6. So the divine attributes of eternality and omniscience and omnipotence and immutability are attributed to each. Colossians 2:9, all the fullness of deity dwells in Christ. So to each is assigned divine names, divine titles, divine attributes and divine works. Creation, providence, redemption, judgment are attributed to each person of the Trinity. Creation, "In the beginning, God created." Next verse, "And the spirit moved upon the face of the deep." And yet in Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, John 1, creation is attributed to the Son. All things were made through Him by Him. So creation, providence, Ephesians 1:11, "God is working all things after the council of His will." And yet Colossians 1:17 says that, "in Christ all things hold together."

Judgment. God is the judge. "Abraham shall not... The God of all the earth do right in His judgments." And yet Jesus says in John 5 that the Father has committed judgment to the Son. And as we've already seen, the work of redemption is attributed to each one. So we have divine names, titles, attributes, works, and by the way, who else but God can be said to create, govern, redeem and judge the world? Whoever does that is God and yet the Father, the

Son and the Holy Spirit are each said to have done those things or is doing those things or will do those things.

And then divine honors. Isaiah 48, God says He will not give His glory to another. John 5:22-23. Jesus says that we are to honor the Son just as we honor the Father. John 17:5. Jesus calls on the Father to glorify Him with the glory that they shared before the world existed. Jesus receives worship in John 20:28 when Thomas falls down and cries out, "My Lord and my God." He receives the worship of John in Revelation 1:17 when he falls on his face like a dead man. And then the unforgivable sin is to blaspheme not God generally, but God the Holy Spirit. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit being the only unforgivable sin.

The larger Catechism asks this question, how does it appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are equal with the Father? This is question 11. It answers, the scriptures manifest that the Son and the Holy Spirit are God and equal with the Father, ascribing unto them such names, attributes, works and worship as are proper to God alone.

How does the New Testament teach the doctrine of the Trinity? It does so, A, by assigning distinct roles to each of them in redemption. B, it assigns common attributions to each of them such as the names, titles, attributes, works and honors that are due to God alone. And then, C, it reveals that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are distinct persons. And I think of Jesus at His baptism, Matthew 3:16-17. The voice comes out of heaven. "This is my beloved son." The Holy Spirit descends the dove and rests upon Him. The Father's voice, the Son being baptized, the Spirit coming to rest upon Him. Or we might look at John 14:16-17. Jesus says, "I will ask the Father," a distinct person, "and He will give you another helper," another distinct person, "to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you."

And yet Jesus says a couple of verses later, "I will come to you." So there's the Son praying to the Father who will give another helper who is the Spirit, who will come to the believer and yet Jesus says, in the coming of the Spirit, I will come to you so that there is both diversity, there's three distinct persons and yet there is unity amongst the persons. Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the church fathers said, "I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three, nor can I discern the three without being straight away carried back to the one." Calvin quotes Gregory of Nazianzus with approval. "When we think of the three, we think of the one. When we think of the one, we think of the three. One God and three persons."

That's the biblical doctrine as we understand it. Then the church in history hammered out its doctrine on the anvil of time. It took 400 years to formulate the precise nuances usually in battle with heretics who were saying otherwise. So let's answer three

questions about the Trinity. Number one is the Son merely the highest creature? Is he more than man but less than God, and likewise the Holy Spirit? Are the two of them together, as Packer put this I think rather cleverly, "God's two top creatures doing top jobs." The answer of the church, the Council of Nicaea in 325 guided by Athanasius contra mundum against the world, standing for the doctrine of the Trinity, affirmed of Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth that He was God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made being of one substance with the Father.

Second question, are the three merely three roles or three modes of existence called modalism of the one true God? This is an ancient view known as sabellianism, which the church rejected. In the words of the Athanasian creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are not three gods but one God. The Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one. The glory equal, the majesty co-eternal and in this trinity, none is afore or after the other. None is greater or less than another, but the whole three persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.

The third question was, in what sense is the Son subordinate to the Father and the Spirit to both? It's clear there is some element of subordination in the New Testament. Jesus says he comes to do the will of the Father. John 6:35, John 4:28. He says. "The Father is greater than I." The answer that the church gave is that these distinctions are economic, not ontological. Is that perfectly clear? It's a matter of division of labor. It's a matter of order. It's a matter of function. It does not touch the essence, the substance, the being of God Himself. There is a hierarchy for the sake of the accomplishment of redemption where the son voluntarily subordinates Himself to the Father, and the Spirit to them both.

Back to the larger catechism question, number 10, what are the personal properties of the three persons and the Godhead? Answer, it is proper to the Father to beget the Son and to the Son to be begotten of the Father and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and from the Son from all eternity. That is the Church's doctrine based upon its best thinking from all that the Bible presents on the nature of God.

That then brings us to the so what, the practical question. How does this touch us experientially? Immanuel Kant, the skeptical German philosopher, said, "Absolutely nothing worthwhile for the practical life can be made out of the doctrine of the Trinity." And Packer asked the question, "Is it just useless lumber for the mind?" On the contrary, it's been an teaching of our tradition that communion with God is the very reason for our existence and specifically we are meant to enjoy distinctive fellowship with each member of the Trinity. Let's cite a couple of passages. 1 John 1:3. John there says that he writes so that you, that's us, may have fellowship with us, that is with the Apostles, and indeed "our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ."

There's a distinction there between fellowship with the Father and with the Son and it's noteworthy to consider who's writing those words. This is John the Apostle. This is John who knew Jesus in the flesh, who lived with Him for a three-year period, walked with Him, ministered with Him, who was in the inner circle, who knew Jesus in an intimate way, who leaned on Jesus' breast at The Last Supper, who took his meals with Jesus. And he says, our fellowship is, not was, but is with the Father and with the Son. Then in the grace of 2 Corinthians 13:14, there the apostle Paul takes that same word fellowship. Now having been illuminated by the Apostle John, fellowship, this is a man who had walked with Jesus and knew what it was to have flesh on flesh fellowship as it were, face-to-face, person-to-person, incarnate fellowship who says we have fellowship, our fellowship is... And then the Paul says, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all evermore."

The apostles speak of distinctive fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit. Apparently this is an aspect of the way that we are meant to relate to God. We are meant to experience, we are meant to enjoy fellowship with the Godhead united and with each person separately in distinction one from the other.

Now let's unfold in the time that we have left something of what this means. Let's begin with communion with the Father in love. John Owen wrote, "The most important work that's ever been written on this subject," and it was entitled, On Communion with God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each distinctively. Several hundred pages he spends developing the idea of fellowship. First, our fellowship or communion with the Father in love. And he says in love because that's what's emphasized. Again and again we find in the New Testament, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father. That's the aspect of our relationship with the Father that receives the emphasis in the scriptures. Quoting from Owen, "The father's love is the fountain from which all other sweetnesses flow." Our fellowship is with the Father. Love is singled out as that special characteristic of the Father in relation to us. God so loved the world, He loved us. 1 John 4:8, "and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sin." Since Jesus, lest there be any doubt, John 16:27 says, "the Father himself loves you."

So in our and in our prayers we would contemplate and meditate upon and give thanks for the eternal and everlasting love of God for His children, the freeness of that love, the immutability of that love, the changelessness of it, the infinite character of the love of God for his people. We are not to think of the Son coercing the love of the Father, a reluctant father whose love has to be purchased or secured. Rather Jesus is the expression, the cross of Christ is the expression of the love of the Father who initiated and planned our salvation. So we rest and delight in the love of the Father.

Secondly, we enjoy communion with the Son in grace. Back to the Apostle Paul 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." 1 John 1:3, "Our fellowship is with his son Jesus Christ." Jesus, according to John's prologue, John 1:14-17 is full of grace and truth. He's characterized by grace upon grace. So in our worship, we meditate upon and contemplate and give thanks for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Owen makes I think a helpful distinction between Jesus's personal grace, that is all the virtues that make Him desirable, His mercy, His love, His patience, His kindness, His tenderness. "The bruised reed He will not break, the smoking flax He will not quench." He deals so tenderly and kindly and gently and graciously with us. That's His personal grace. We contemplate that, we meditate upon that. And then purchased grace. All that is ours through the cross, all that He did that God's grace might be extended to us, by contemplating the atonement, His suffering, the forgiveness of sin that is offered through the cross, reconciliation, justification, adoption, Christ's ongoing intercession on our behalf, sanctification and persevering grace. Jesus, says Owen, "is an endless, bottomless, boundless source of grace and compassion."

And then finally, communion with the Holy Spirit in comfort. Comfort is the aspect of the Spirit's work that receives special emphasis. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. What the Father plans the Son accomplishes, the spirit applies.

And so John three again, Jesus says that we must be born of the Spirit and He speaks of us in John 14 of being indwelt by the Spirit and comforted by the Spirit and assured. John, rather Romans 8:16 assured by the Holy Spirit, 1 John 2:1, anointed by the Holy Spirit. He is our teacher, our advocate, our guide. The scripture speaks of the spirit of adoption and the spirit of supplication. He is our helper. We are charged to walk in the spirit and be led by the Spirit and be filled with the Spirit and avoid resisting the Spirit or grieving the Spirit or quenching the Spirit. The whole Christian life can be summarized as life in the Spirit. He is the pledge of our heavenly inheritance. And so when we worship and when we pray, it is to the Father through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit who is sent to comfort, to calm, to give us rest and assurance in our relationship with God.

Ephesians 2:18, another important Trinitarian passage there. The Apostle Paul says, "Through Him," that is, through Jesus, "we both," speaking of Jews and Gentiles, "have access in one spirit to the Father." Through Jesus we have access to the Father in one spirit. Our worship and our prayers, our Trinitarian and our fellowship with God, fellowship in the Father's love, fellowship in the Son's Grace, fellowship in the Holy Spirit's comfort is a Trinitarian worship and a Trinitarian faith, and ours is a Trinitarian piety.

Now let me cite just one more quotation. This one is from Thomas Goodwin, another English Puritan. Here's the way he summarizes this experience that we have of fellowship or communion with the Holy Trinity. He says, "Sometimes a man's communion and converse or conversation is with the one, sometimes with the other. Sometimes with the Father, then with the Son, then with the help of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes his heart is drawn out to consider the Father's love in choosing, and then the love of Christ in redeeming and then the love of the Holy Ghost that searches the deep things of God and reveals to us and takes all the pains with us. And so a man goes from one witness to another distinctly, which I say is the communion that John in 1 John 1:3 would have us to know."

Again from Goodwin, "Take the opportunity to come into God's presence on purpose, to have communion with Him. And when you come into His presence, don't just come in order to transact business." And Goodwin says, we get annoyed with each other when all we do is conduct business with each other. And you might find yourself saying to one of your friends or one of your friends saying to you, "It is so good to see you, but why don't I ever see you except when you have some business to conduct with me" why don't you ever come just to visit?" So Goodwin picks up on this. When you come into His present, don't just come in order to transact business. Be telling Him still how well you love Him. "Labor to abound in expressions of that kind than which there is nothing more moving with the heart with any of our friends."

We confess a Trinitarian faith. We practice a Trinitarian practice. Our relationship with God ought to be Trinitarian, and I believe that we will find ourselves enriched if in our prayer life and in our worship increasingly, we begin to think distinctly of the role of each person of the Trinity in our redemption. Considering the Father's love for us in planning our redemption and sending His son, contemplating the Son's grace, His graciousness, His own, and His grace in His sacrificial work on our behalf, contemplating, meditating upon the work of the Holy Spirit in comforting the people of God, drawing alongside of them, helping them, assuring them, advocating for them, that is our Holy Spirit.

And I believe that we will have a richer walk with God if we begin to think more clearly and distinctly. Even as we pray, the united Godhead, praise Him for all of His benefits, we begin increasingly to seek fellowship with each member of the Trinity as we pray together.

Our Father in Heaven, we give thanks to you, oh Lord our God, for your love from all eternity, for sending your beloved son and for the gift of your Holy Spirit. Great triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless us oh Lord, with a richer experience of yourself, a richer fellowship. We give thanks that John can describe his fellowship with you in person with the same term that he uses to describe his fellowship with you in the Spirit. Oh, that we might enjoy such rich fellowship with you, oh God. In Jesus' name. Amen.