WHAT IS THE HOLY TRINITY?

WHAT IS THE HOLY TRINITY?

This is a sermon I have done on the Trinity at my church. It is one of foundational doctrines of the church and often the most neglected. It is important to have the true biblical knowledge of who God is and not our own interpretation. Any low thought or false idea about God is sin, it is idolatry. I hope this small sermon will challenge you to study God’s Word and begin a study of systematic theology. Now the sermon………

The Holy Trinity

(Deu. 6:4 KJV) Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
(2 Cor. 13:14 KJV) The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

Today I have a very hard subject to preach about. All churches that totally believe that every word of the Bible is true believe this foundational doctrine. What can it be? Today we will talk about the Holy Trinity. The Trinity is not something we can study and easily explain. In fact it is impossible to explain; we can only read the truths of scripture and believe them even if we cannot explain it. I believe in the Holy Trinity, whole heartedly I believe and rejoice in that fact about who and what God is like. There is an ancient saying which warns those who try to understand the Trinity lose their minds and those who deny the Trinity lose their souls. We will never understand it fully but we must believe the teachings of God’s word about our triune God.
I. How do we define the Trinity?
We believe that there is one God (Deut. 6:4) in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are not three Gods (tritheism) that is a false doctrine and He is not one God that has expressed Himself in three different ways which is also false teaching (modalism). These are not new but are very old heresies that were condemned by the early church fathers. This doctrine was established very long ago.

A good definition is that there is “three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory”; this statement is from the Westminster Confession of Faith. The divine triunity of God is understood as three-in-one. God is one being, and yet He is three persons. I think of it this way to make it clear, one What and three Who’s. These three have one nature.

We can’t make distinctions in there character or attributes. If God is holy then the Son and the Spirit is holy. If God is love then the Son is love and the Spirit is love. If God is eternal then the Son and the Spirit is the same.

They are the same in purpose and will, They work together in unity. What one wills, then all wills unify in that one purpose. When Jesus walked on this earth He made this very clear because He said in John 5:30 that He came not of His own initiative, not by His own will but the will of the Father. What He came to do to die for lost humanity was not an arbitrary action it was the will of all three persons of the Trinity agreeing together.

Because God is love, He chose to save mankind from their sins. The Father so loved lost man that He sent His Son to earth. The Son, Jesus Christ, so loved us that He willingly came, added humanity to Himself, born of a virgin into the world, and suffered and died to save us from our sins. And the Holy Spirit conceived the Son in the womb, worked through the Son, guided the Son, and raised Christ from the dead, and proceeded the Son after His resurrection to bear witness of Jesus. This was their will before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all did this in harmony with each other and their will was in agreement.

You see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally God. Each one is God. And they are one. Jesus said in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” They are one in every way but distinct in Person and will, Jesus in Mt. 26:39 said while at Gethsemane, “not as I will, but as thou wilt”, which shows that Jesus’ will was distinct from His Father, but we see they always work in unity and harmony. As distinct persons we find this, the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. Each person of the Trinity is eternal. The Father has always been the Father, the Son has always been the Son and the Holy Spirit has always been the Holy Spirit and they have always been God. One Person of the Trinity is not lesser or inferior in regards to their Deity or their position. Let me sum this up about the Trinity in this, God is one God eternally existing in three Persons.
II. Scriptures about the Trinity
In the O.T. let’s talk about the verse Deut. 6:4, “…The LORD our God is one LORD”, the word that God is translated from is Elohim, and this word is plural. It is also used in Gen. 1:26-27, “26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The plural name of God being used in relation to a discussion where the Persons of the Godhead are discussing creation of man. Also, we see all three persons of the Trinity at work in creation of the world (Gen. 1:1-2 – 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters;

John 1:3 – All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that has made; Col. 1:16 – For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him). We see the Trinity involved in creation.

Now what about some scriptures in the N.T.: Mt. 3:16-17 – 16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. That verse explicitly shows us each distinct person of the Trinity. What is the baptismal formula Jesus gave to His disciples in Mt. 28:19, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. Remember 2 Co. 13:14 that we read at the beginning of the sermon (read it) and Jesus specifically taught the Trinity when He told the disciples after He would be crucified, resurrected, and ascended that the Spirit would come in John 14:16, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever”, the Father would send the Holy Spirit another Comforter, the same kind of Comforter like Jesus was to them. Although the word Trinity is not found in the Bible we can see from just these few verses we used, it is very much taught by the Old and New Testament scriptures.

III. The Trinity is Incomprehensible.
What we know of God is only that which he has revealed to us through the creation around us, the incarnation of His Son, and through the written revelation of His Word, the Bible. And what we have is what is sufficient for us to understand how to be saved from our sins, how He saved us, and just enough for us to know God is incomprehensible. The Bible teaches us that God is eternal but how can we mortal men understand that when we see all around us things that end, decay, and die. How can we understand the infinite god with our finite minds. How can we understand the Triune God if there is nothing else like Him. There is nothing and no one in all creation like God.

The Trinity is a divine mystery but it is taught in the Scriptures and we believe in it because we believe God’s word.

http://excharismania.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-holy-trinity.html

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