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January 13 - January 20, 2024
It’s the topic we won’t talk about: no one dares question the Trinity for fear of being branded a “heretic,” yet we have all sorts of questions about it, and we aren’t sure who we can ask. Many believers have asked questions of those they thought were more mature in the faith and have often been confused by the contradictory answers they received. Deciding it is best to remain confused rather than have one’s orthodoxy questioned, many simply leave the topic for that mythical future day “when I have more time.” And in the process, we have lost out on a tremendous blessing.
When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he indicated that he was praying for them. He did not pray that they would obtain big houses and fancy chariots. He prayed that they would be blessed by God in the spiritual realm with spiritual wealth. Note his words: That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)
One is rich spiritually who has a “full assurance of understanding.”
God has not revealed himself in such a way as to allow us to have true and balanced knowledge of the Father outside of such knowledge of the Son, all of which comes to us through the Spirit. A person who wants to “know Jesus” must, due to the nature of God’s revelation, know Him as He is related to the Father and the Spirit.
There is the utterly false idea that God does not want us to use our minds in loving and worshiping Him (anti-intellectualism), as well as the idea that “theology is for cold, unfeeling people. We want a living faith.”
It makes no sense whatsoever in human relations to say “I love my wife” while doing our best to remain ignorant of her personality, likes, dreams, etc. And even worse, if my wife has put forth the effort to make sure that I can know these things about her, and I go about ignoring her efforts, what does that say about how much I really love her?
We do not just sit back and expect God to zap us with some emotional surge. Instead, the Spirit drives us into His Word, enlightening our minds and filling our hearts with love for the truths we discover.
but the motivation for doing so will be so much richer, and the end result will be the edification of the believer and the church at large rather than a mere “victory” in a particular debate or argument.
Instead, we must always be asking Him to graciously open our clouded mind and reveal himself to us so that we may love Him truly and worship Him aright.
Sometimes, only mentioning a single word caused my heart to burn within me; or only seeing the name of Christ, or the name of some attribute of God. And God has appeared glorious to me on account of the Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons; the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel. Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a
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But most importantly, Edwards was drawn heavenward by the very attributes of God that turn the worldly person cold and, in fact, are often the most offensive to the natural or unsaved man. Do we love God—all of God, including the “tough” parts of His nature—or do we refuse to bow before those elements that cause us “problems”? If we love Him and worship Him as He deserves, we will not dare to “edit” Him to fit our desires. Instead, we will seek to worship Him in truth.
The Trinity is a truth that tests our dedication to the principle that God is smarter than we are.
Same with God's sovereignty and our freedom
As strange as that may sound, I truly believe that in most instances where a religious group denies the Trinity, the reason can be traced back to the founder’s unwillingness to admit the simple reality that God is bigger than we can ever imagine.
It is difficult to say which is most baffling to human comprehension, the all-comprehending, simultaneous, successionless consciousness of the Infinite One, or his trinal personality. Yet no theist rejects the doctrine of the Divine Eternity because of its mystery. The two doctrines are antithetic and correlative.
On one of the Northern rivers that flows through a narrow chasm whose depth no plummet has sounded, there stand two cliffs fronting each other, shooting their pinnacles into the blue ether, and sending their roots down to the foundations of the earth. They have named them Trinity and Eternity. So stand, antithetic and confronting, in the Christian scheme, the trinity and eternity of God.
Such an attitude cannot be forced on anyone. It takes a miracle for the naturally hostile[4] soul to be made willing to love God and seek His face.
It is basic to human communication to define terms. Yet so many people have so much emotional energy invested in the Trinity that they often skip right past the “definitions” stage and charge into the “tooth and claw” stage.
Such frustrating experiences could be minimized if we remember that we cannot assume that the other person shares our knowledge or understanding of the specifics of the doctrine under discussion. As tedious as it may seem at first, we must resist the temptation to bypass the necessary “groundwork” and insist that everyone define what they believe the Trinity to be, and how they are going to be using many of the key terms that come into play. Without this first step, little else will be accomplished.
Christians have struggled for centuries to express, within the limitations of human language, the unique revelation God makes of His mode of existence. We struggle because language is a finite means of communication. Finite minds are trying to express in words infinite truths. At times we simply cannot “say” what we need to say to adequately express the grandeur that is our God.
The problem is, of course, God is completely unique. He is God, and there is no other. He is totally unlike anything else, and as He frequently reminds us, “To whom then will you liken Me?” (Isaiah 40:25).
Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
definition. First, the doctrine rests completely upon the truth of the first clause: there is only one God. “The one Being that is God” carries within it a tremendous amount of information.
Second, the definition insists that there are three divine persons. Note immediately that we are not saying there are three Beings that are one Being, or three persons that are one person. Such would be self-contradictory. I emphasize this because, most often, this is the misrepresentation of the doctrine that is commonly found in the literature of various religions that deny the Trinity. The second clause speaks of three divine persons, not three divine Beings.
What “person” means when we speak of the Trinity is quite different than when we speak of creatures such as ourselves. These divine persons are identified in the last clause as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
when speaking of the Trinity, we need to realize that we are talking about one what and three who’s. The one what is the Being or essence of God; the three who’s are the Father, Son, and Spirit. We dare not mix up the what’s and who’s regarding the Trinity.
Thirdly, we are told that the relationship among these divine persons is eternal. They have eternally existed in this unique relationship. Each of the persons is said to be eternal, each is said to be coequal with the others as to their divine nature.
Foundation One: Monotheism: There Is Only One God Foundation Two: There Are Three Divine Persons Foundation Three: The Persons Are Coequal and Coeternal
These three foundations not only provide the grounds upon which the Trinity is based, they explain to us why Christians who accept all of the Bible believe this doctrine. This is very important. Often the discussions Christians have with others about the Trinity flounder and go in circles because we do not identify these three truths as biblical teachings. When someone says, “How can you claim to only believe the Bible, when you use terms like ‘Trinity’ that don’t appear in the Bible?” we must be quick to point out that we are forced to do so by the teaching of the Bible itself on these three
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“Where do you find the word ‘Trinity’ in the Bible?” they ask. Yet just the opposite is the case. The only folks who are truly biblical are those who believe all the Bible has to say on a given topic. If I believe everything the Bible says about topic X and use a term not found in the Bible to describe the full teaching of Scripture on that point, am I not being more truthful to the Word than someone who limits themselves to only biblical terms, but rejects some aspect of God’s revelation?
We must always remember that we are trying to define and describe something that is absolutely, universally unique. It is far easier to say, “I don’t mean this,” than it is to say, “Well, it’s like this,” since there is nothing in the created universe that really, fully is like an absolutely unique thing. That’s what makes it unique in the first place!
“But Jesus prayed to the Father! How could He be the Father?” is what I often hear. It is important to emphasize that we are not saying that the Father is the Son, nor that the Son is the Spirit. That is not the doctrine of the Trinity, despite how many people in honest ignorance think otherwise. No true Trinitarian believes the Father was a “ventriloquist” at the baptism of Jesus, nor that Jesus was praying to himself in the Garden of Gethsemane.
He dragged a big, thick, foreboding-looking book from under the podium and held it up high. “I am sick and tired of theology!” he yelled, slamming the book down. “Don’t give me theology, just give me Jesus!” The crowd, with the notable exception of my wife and me, seated in the back row, roared its approval. Yeah, but as soon as you make one statement about Jesus, I thought to myself, you are speaking theology.
I think I know this person
Anyone who thinks that the doctrine of the Trinity compromises absolute monotheism simply does not understand what the doctrine is teaching.
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).
Hear, O Israel! The LORD[1] is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. (Deuteronomy 6:4–6)
“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and My servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me” (Isaiah 43:10).
God knows the future, not because He has some kind of crystal ball, but because, as these passages assert over and over again, He is the Creator of all things, including time, past, present, and future.
You will note the idols never respond. Aside from the fact that they are dumb (mute and blind as well), even if they could speak, what would they say? They have no defense.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. (Isaiah 40:21–28)
None but the true God can say, “My purpose will be established.” James wisely warned us against boasting of tomorrow, for we don’t know what tomorrow will hold. Instead, he taught that we, as finite creatures, should say, “If the Lord wills I will do such and so” (James 4:13–16). But God is completely different than man: He can say that His purpose will be established, and beyond all question, it will be.
God provides His people with the very words to say to those who would lead them after other gods: unless those gods created the heavens and the earth, they will perish from the earth. The irony of a god “perishing” is meant to point out the foolishness of making a god out of anyone but the Creator himself.
It is best to think of omnipresence more in the realm of “lack of spatial limitations” than anything else. As with most things, God is far beyond our creaturely categories.
“Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:24)
God’s omnipresence flows from the fact that He created all things: how could His creation be greater than He? How could there be anyplace in His creation beyond His presence?
God’s being cannot be divided. What is half of omnipresence? How can the infinite be divided into parts? We will see why this is important when we consider how all the fullness of the being of God is shared completely by each of the Divine Persons of the Trinity.
Moses: Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting,[5] You are God. (Psalm 90:2)
Rather than thinking of eternity as a long, long time, think of it here as a way of existence that does not involve a progression of events and moments. That is how God lives.
“For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6).
Later in the same chapter God mocks the idols who do not exist beyond the realm of time as He does. He challenges them to do two things that only the true God can do to perfection. One is easy to see: tell us the future. This is a common challenge, one God can fulfill because He created time and is not limited to it. Secondly, God asks the idols to tell us what has taken place in the past, and, even more importantly, the purpose of what happened.
