Our Triune God
I. Introduction.
A. Do you think that it is right when people say that the Trinity goes against reason?
B. Do you think that it is right when other people say that a complete understanding of the Trinity is ultimately beyond our understanding in this life?
C. True or false: The Trinity means that God has three parts.
D. True or false: It is perfectly logical to say that God is three and one in the same way.
E. A common analogy of the Trinity is that I am a brother, a son, and a student. Thus, I am three and one at the same time. Is this a good analogy?
F. Explain your understanding of the Trinity.
II. Definition of the Trinity: There is one God who eternally exists as three different Persons.
III. There is only one God.
A. Isaiah 44:6-8.
1. Does God allow for the possibility that there are other Gods?
2. Is there anything or anyone else who is like God?
B. Isaiah 45:5-6.
C. Isaiah 45:21-22.
D. Exodus 15:11.
E. Deuteronomy 4:35.
F. Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
G. Deuteronomy 32:39.
H. 1 Kings 8:60.
I. Think through what these verses are saying and answer this question:
1. Some cults teach that God the Father and Jesus Christ are two separate gods. Do you think that these verses allow, in any way at all, for such a conclusion?
III. This one God is three Persons. In other words, there are three Persons who are the one God.
A. What do we mean by Person? A person is a rational subject who thinks, communicates, feels, and makes deliberate choices. We will examine this more deeply later, but for now it is important to be able to identify whether something is a person or not.
B. The Father.
1. He is God.
a. 1 Thessalonians 1:1.
b. John 17:3.
2. He is a Person.
a. What biblical evidence can you think of that shows the Father is a Person?
C. The Son (Jesus).
1. He is God.
a. Titus 2:13.
b. 2 Peter 1:1.
c. John 20:28.
d. We will examine the biblical teaching on Christ's deity more fully in the upcoming Bible Study on Jesus.
2. He is a Person.
a. What biblical evidence can you think of which shows that the Son is a Person?
D. The Holy Spirit.
1. He is God.
a. Acts 5:3-5. According to verse 3, who did Ananias lie to? According to verse 4, who did he lie to? What may we conclude from this?
b. 1 Corinthians 3:16. God's temple is the place where God dwells. Thus, Paul is equating the Holy Spirit with God.
c. Psalm 139:7-8. The Holy Spirit is said to be omnipresent, an attribute that only God has.
d. 1 Corinthians 2:10-11. The Holy Spirit is said to know all that God knows. This could not be true of Him unless He is Himself God, for only God is omniscient and only God can know all of His own thoughts.
e. Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14. The Holy Spirit is placed on the same level as the Father and Son, which we have already seen to be God.
2. He is a Person, not a "force" (like gravity).
a. Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6. The Holy Spirit is placed in a coordinate relationship with the Son and Father. Since they are both persons, this requires that He is also a person.
b. John 14:16-17; Acts 8:16. The Holy Spirit is not an it, but a He.
c. Hebrews 3:7. What is the Holy Spirit doing in this verse that only a Person can do?
d. Acts 15:28. How does this verse indicate that the Holy Spirit is a Person?
e. John 16:13. If the Holy Spirit were not a Person, would it make any sense for Jesus to tell us that He will not speak on His own initiative? Wouldn't that be redundant?
f. John 14:26. How does this verse indicate that the Holy Spirit is a Person?
g. 1 Corinthians 12:11. What quality of personhood is here ascribed to the Holy Spirit?
h. Ephesians 4:30. How does this verse indicate that the Holy Spirit is a Person?
i. 2 Corinthians 13:14. Would this verse make sense of the Holy Spirit was not a Person? Can fellowship come from an impersonal force?
E. The three Persons are distinct from one another. In other words, the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. They are each different Persons.
1. Matthew 28:19.
a. Notice that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another and are thus different Persons.
b. Notice that they are all placed on equal level since they all share the same name and we are baptized into that name. Thus, they must all be God. Since they share the same name, and we saw earlier the Scriptural teaching that there is only one God, then we must conclude that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the one God.
2. Mark 1:10-11.
a. How would you respond to someone who denied that the three Persons are distinct and said that three Persons are simply different ways of looking at the one Person of God?
b. How would you respond to someone who said that God is able to transform Himself by changing from one Person to another, but is not three persons at the same time?
3. 1 Corinthians 12:11.
a. Notice that the three Persons are distinguished from one another.
b. Notice that they are all placed on the same level, and are therefore all God.
4. Ephesians 1:2-3.
a. How would you respond to someone who said that the Father and the Son were the same Person?
5. Ephesians 2:18.
a. How does this verse bring out the fact that the three Persons are distinct?
6. John 1:1, 18.
a. If Jesus is God, how can He also be with God?
b. According to verse 14, who is the word?
7. John 14:16.
a. How would you respond to someone who denied that the Holy Spirit was a distinct Person?
8. Matthew 12:32.
a. How could Jesus distinguish between blasphemy against Himself and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unless they are different Persons?
IV. Each Person is fully God.
A. To be only partially God would be to not really be God at all.
B. Colossians 2:9.
1. Even though only God the Son became incarnate (John 1:14), Paul says that all the fulness of deity dwells in Christ. How can this be?
C. Who created the world?
1. The Father: Isaiah 64:8.
2. The Son: Colossians 1:15-17.
3. The Holy Spirit: Job 33:4.
V. What conclusion shall we draw from all of this? The fact that the Bible teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, calls them each God, and yet also says that there is only one God proves that God is three Persons.
A. It may appear like a contradiction for the Bible to say so clearly that there is only one God, and yet also say very clearly that the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and Jesus is God. The only way to reconcile these two teachings is to conclude that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all the same God -- even though they are distinct Persons. But this is the same as saying that there is one God who exists eternally as three Persons – the definition of the Trinity we gave above. Do you see how this doctrine is biblical? Can you see any way to escape the biblical teaching?
VI. Errors to avoid and the truths we must affirm.
A. We should not think that the Father became the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. Rather, God has always been and will always be three Persons at the same time.
1. Which Scriptures that we have seen teach this and refute the error?
B. We should not think that there are three Gods.
1. What Scriptures refute this error?
C. We should not think that each Person is "one-third" of God, that God's being is divided into three parts. Rather, each Person is fully God. God's essence is undivided. The being of each Person is equal to the whole being of God, for each Person completely shares the same essence. "When we speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. The Father is all of God's being. The Son is all of God's being. And the Holy Spirit is all of God's being" (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 252).
1. Which Scriptures teach this and refute the error?
D. We should not think that the personal distinctions are attributes added onto the being of God.
1. Why not?
E. We should not think of the three Persons as simply three different roles which God plays.
1. What Scriptures refute this error?
2. Does this show you why the analogy of how I am a student, son, and brother is a bad one?
VII. Why isn't the Trinity a contradiction?
A. What is a contradiction?
B. Do the above Scriptures teach that God is three in the same way that He is one?
C. God is not three and one in the same way. God is one in essence, but three in Person.
VIII. What does essence mean?
A. Essence is what you are. God's essence is His being. To say that God is one in essence means that there is only one being of God.
IX. What does person mean? I will explain it from four different angles.
A. Person is who you are. To say that God is three in Person means that He is three "whos."
B. A Person is something which has a distinct center of consciousness. Thus, God has three centers of consciousness.
C. In regards to the Trinity, Person means "A form of personal existence other than a difference in being" (Grudem p. 255). The three Persons are three modes of existence in the divine being, but not a division of the divine being..
D. To make it real simple, Person means a "distinct entity" that is relational Thus, there are three "distinct, relational entities" which each fully possess the one being of God.
X. Thus, within God's one undivided being there is an unfolding into three interpersonal relationships in such a way that there are three "whos," though only one "what." My being unfolds into only one "who." God's being unfolds into three "whos."
XI. But what about...?
A. Jesus calls the Father "the only true God" (John 17:3). Does this deny the Trinity?
1. No. The Father is the only true God. But He is not the only one who is the true God. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that each of the three persons is the only true God because each of the three Persons is the same God. Far from damaging the doctrine of the Trinity, this is one of the verses which proves to us that the three Persons cannot be separate Gods, but are each the same God.
B. Since Jesus is God, was He praying to Himself when He was on earth?
1. How do you answer this in light of what we have learned?
C. What about John 14:28?
1. Jesus is subordinate to the Father in role, not in His being. Just like the president is greater than me–not greater in his being, but in his role.
XII. A brief look at the relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relation to us.
A. "The Holy Spirit sustains the same relation to Christ as does Christ to the Father. Just as the Son has nothing and does nothing and speaks nothing of himself, but receives everything from the Father, John 5:26, 30; 16:15; in the same manner the Holy Spirit takes everything from Christ, John 16:13, 14. As the Son declares and glorifies the Father, John 1:18; 17:4, 6, so the Holy Spirit declares and glorifies the Son, 15:26; 16:14" (Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God).
XII. What are the applications of understanding the Trinity?
XIV. Bonus section: Indications of the Trinity in the OT.
A. Genesis 1:26 indicates a plurality in God.
1. "Some have suggested they are plurals of majesty, a form of speech a king would use in saying, for example, `we are pleased to grant your request.' However, in Old Testament Hebrew there are no other examples of a monarch using plural verbs or plural pronouns of himself in such a `plural of majesty,' so this suggestion has no evidence to support it" (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology).
B. Genesis 3:22; 11:7.
C. Isaiah 6:8
1. Notice the combination of the singular and the plural.
2. John 12:41. Whose glory did Isaiah see?
D. Psalm 45:6-7 speaks of two different Persons, both called "God."
E. Psalm 110:1. Would David have any Lord other than God?
F. Isaiah 63:10.
G. Malachi 3:1-2.
H. Hosea 1:7.
I. Isaiah 48:16.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation.
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