Transcript & Slides: Father, Son, and Spirit (1 John)

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Father, Son, and Spirit (1 John)
By David Feddes

We’re studying the book of 1 John. I’m going to start a little differently today, with a verse that might not be in 1 John. It’s there in some Bibles and not in others. We’re thinking today about Father, Son, and Spirit, and if you’re a person who believes in Father, Son, and Spirit as one God, there is an excellent verse that you would like to quote—but it might not be in the Bible.

1 John 5:7 says, “There are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” A beautiful statement. It appears in the Latin Vulgate, which was a Latin version of the Bible first translated in the 400s. It’s not in any Greek text that we have, at least before the 1300s, and Greek is the original language of the New Testament. So, most modern translations have that verse in a footnote. The King James Version still has it as part of the main text in 1 John because they used what’s called the Textus Receptus, which was a Greek version of the Bible being used at that time.

Some people get really disturbed if they find out there’s a verse in the Bible that maybe shouldn’t be there, or that was maybe added later. Others may say, “That’s terrible, that somebody may have taken out a verse that was in the Bible.” Sometimes it’s called textual criticism. That doesn’t mean you’re slamming the Bible or saying bad things about it, but textual criticism is the practice of trying to sort out what the best manuscripts say about the original. And probably it would seem that this was not in John’s original. It’s possible, but not very likely.

Now that raises the question, how did it get in there? Well, there were some controversies about the Trinity, so somebody who was copying may have decided to help out the Bible a little bit and make a very clear statement by inserting it at this point. Such things can happen. The challenge I have is this: why would they do that in 1 John in particular? If you were going to stick a verse in the Bible with a clear statement of the Trinity—of God as three and yet one—why would you do that in 1 John?

If it was inserted, it would have been inserted there because, even if this verse isn’t present, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all over 1 John. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are spoken of again and again, and the reality of the Trinity is expressed so clearly in this book, as well as in other books of the Bible, that it doesn’t make very much difference if that sentence were included or not. Everything that sentence says is already there. So let’s look at what is there for sure.

Here’s what’s in all the manuscripts: “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1 John 1:2). What is “the life”? The life is the one who was seen and heard and touched—Jesus Christ. John calls him “the life” who appeared and calls him “the eternal life” who was with the Father and appeared to us. “Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

So you’re barely a few sentences into the very first part of 1 John and you already have the Father and his Son, who is the life, who comes from the Father. In chapter 2 you have “an anointing from the Holy One,” referring to the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20). “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father” (1 John 2:23). “The anointing you received from him remains in you…his anointing teaches you about all things and…is true” (1 John 2:27).

In chapter 3: “This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us” (1 John 3:23–24). You see the Father giving a command, Jesus Christ as the Son, and the Holy Spirit whom God has given us.

It gets even clearer in chapter 4: “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:13–16). The Spirit, the Savior Jesus, and the God who sent him—these are all present, and that is key to understanding “God is love.”

In chapter 5: “It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:6). “Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart.…And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:10–12).

When you listen to those verses from 1 John, some things jump out right from the surface of what the inspired apostle is saying. The thing he says that is probably the most beloved in this epistle is the simple statement: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). That statement really is the equivalent of saying God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one God in three persons.

The second one sounds more complex, but it is an equivalent statement to “God is love.” Before there ever was a world, before anything was made, before anything existed outside of God, it was already true that “God is love.” Because before there was anything, God was. And God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Before anything ever existed, the Father was loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, and the Holy Spirit, in the bond of Father and Son, was loving. There is an infinite love that had no beginning. There is no beginning to the being of God and no beginning to the love of God, because God is eternal and God is eternally three in one.

God does not need a world to be love. God is love apart from any world, because Father, Son, and Spirit are loving forever. So when somebody tells you, “That Trinity, that’s one of those difficult doctrines I prefer not to think about very much,” remember this: it is the reality of who God is that makes the statement “God is love” true. Otherwise, God isn’t love until he makes something to love, until he creates something outside himself to care about. But God doesn’t depend on us to be love. He simply is—and out of that love, he made a world.

We see in 1 John that not only is God love, but God shows his love among us. When we needed it most, he sent his Son into the world—his only begotten Son—that we might live through him. He sends his Spirit into our hearts and pours out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are love in their eternal being and also in the way God has chosen to act toward his people.

God made the world out of love. He didn’t make it because he was lonely. God doesn’t get lonely. The fullness of being, of reality, and of love in the Son and the Spirit is greater than all the worlds put together and all the angels and humans ever made. The Father was not feeling lonely, inadequate, or starved for affection one day and said, “It sure would be nice to have somebody who liked me, so I think I’ll make some.” He was already self-sufficient, completely blessed, full of love. Because God is who he is, he made a world and people, and when we fell away from him, his great gift was not just this or that—his gift was himself.

God is life. That’s one of John’s favorite statements, and of course Jesus himself said, “I am the life” (John 14:6). John says, “The life appeared” (1 John 1:2). Eternal life, what we think of as eternal life, is not just getting off the hook for your sins so that God doesn’t punish you and then sends you to heaven someday. It’s true that in Christ you’re forgiven and that someday you will go to heaven, but eternal life is God giving himself to you and catching you up into the love of God himself—into the very love of the Holy Trinity—and catching you up into the life of God himself, pouring out his life into you, and making you alive. You become more and more alive as you come to know this God of life and love better and better.

That’s what it means to be a Christian—not simply to say, “I’m off the hook,” but to say, “Christ lives in me. Christ dwells in my heart. The Holy Spirit of Christ lives in me.” And that means we must have the Holy Spirit to have Jesus at all, and we must have Jesus the Son in order to have the Father. The Bible says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). It also says, “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23).

That removes a lot of nonsense about there being “just one God” whom everyone worships in their own way, as if the only difference between us and another religion is that they happen not to have Jesus—a minor little difference. If God is Trinity, you don’t have God without Jesus; you don’t have God without the Holy Spirit. The Qur’an, the book of the Muslims, says, “Say not Trinity. Far exalted is he above having a son. Say Allah is one. He begets not, nor is he begotten.” There is no Son, there is no Trinity. Yet it’s sometimes said, “We all worship the same God.” That god is not the God of eternal love, because he is all by himself—no Son, no Spirit.

We must have the Spirit to have the Son, and we must have the Son to have the Father. Those are some of the truths that come from this passage without even thinking too deeply. I know that some of these things go beyond imagination, but the fact that God is love, that he is life, and that you must have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—those are essential. “No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11), and those to whom the Spirit chooses to reveal him. The Holy Spirit has to do a work in our hearts to help us believe and know Jesus in the first place. Through Jesus we receive forgiveness of sins through his blood, we come to know him, and as he lives in us by the Spirit, we come to know the Father and to call him our Father. That’s Christianity: being a child of God and knowing the Lord as your Father.

Let’s think more about what it means to say that God is Father, Son, and Spirit.

God the Father—the Bible speaks of God the Father using that phrase at least twenty-five times, of “God our Father” eleven times (depending on translation), and of “Father in heaven” fourteen times. Jesus calls God “Father” more than a hundred times. When Jesus was about to return to heaven, he said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17)—some of the most beautiful words ever spoken. He declares who he is in relation to his Father, but also who he makes us, thanks to our connection with him—so that his Father becomes our Father, his God our God.

The Bible again and again speaks of the first person of the Trinity as the Father. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 300s at the Council of Nicaea and afterward, begins by saying, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” It speaks of God as the Father.

As I’ve said before, the Trinity is who God is—not who he became at some point in time. He’s always Father, eternally, before ever making a world. It’s his identity, not just a role. That was one of the things the great defender of the faith, Athanasius, had to say in response to the heretic Arius. Arius denied that Jesus is forever the Son of God and wanted to call God “the unoriginated.” Of course God has no origin, but Arius didn’t want to call him “Father,” because, he said, the Son had a beginning—less than God, more than human, but having started at some point. That means, of course, that God isn’t Father by nature. Arius didn’t believe in the Trinity.

The truth is, Father is God’s identity. It’s not just a role that started when he finally “had a kid.” Reverently speaking, God always had a Son. His eternal nature is to be pouring out his life and love and delight into his Son—that’s what makes the Father who he is: the fact that he has the Son whom he is forever giving life and love to and receiving love from. God doesn’t begin to be a Father when he adopts us; he was always a Father. That is his character, his nature, his identity.

Jesus teaches us to pray, not to “the Unoriginated out there somewhere,” but to “our Father in heaven.” That was one of the points Athanasius made against Arius. He said, “You want to talk to the Unoriginated? I’m going to talk to Father.” It’s much better to talk to Father than to an “Unmoved Mover.” Philosophers are always trying to prove some Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause. You can make good proofs that there’s a creator, but it is God’s revelation of who he really is that shows he is Father—and that he is love.

At Jesus’ baptism, we get a glimpse into the life of God. The Bible says Jesus saw the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). You hear the voice of the Father speaking from heaven, addressing Jesus the Son as his beloved Son, with whom he is so pleased. There’s almost a rerun of that later when Jesus is transfigured and his true divine glory shines forth in front of some of his disciples. Again God says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:5).

Jesus himself, when he prays to God, says, “Father…you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). Before the world was made, before Jesus ever came into our world in human form, God always loved Jesus—because God the Father always had a Son.

The Bible speaks of God the Son in many different texts. If I listed them all, we’d be here until next week, but I’ll mention just a few. “The Word was God… and the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:1,14). The Bible speaks of him as “the only begotten God, who is at the Father’s side” or “in the Father’s bosom,” who “has made God known” (John 1:18). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.… I love the Father, and the Father loves me” (John 14:9,31). These kinds of statements appear again and again throughout the Gospel according to John. At the end of the Gospel, Thomas says to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), and worships him.

If we go outside the writings of John, we see the same truth. Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” He is like the light shining forth from the lamp. The light is never separate from that which shines it forth; the Son is never separate from the Father who shines him forth. “The Son is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.”

James, the apostle, speaks of “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1). The apostle Peter speaks of “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1). Those who doubt that the Son is God have to reject Scripture itself, because there is no getting around it. Even if one verse may not appear in certain manuscripts, the verses that everyone agrees on all affirm that the Son is God.

The apostle Paul says that Christ “was in very nature God” and “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:6–7). He didn’t cease to be God, but humbled himself to become one of us. Paul also writes that Christ “is the image of the invisible God… For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:15,19). He says, “Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (Romans 9:5). “Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

So there is a person—not the Father but the Son—who is also called God, and the Bible speaks of him again and again. There are six verses in the Bible that call him “the only begotten Son of God” (monogenēs). The Nicene Creed uses that phrase: monogenēs. “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance [or one essence, or one being] with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

Some of that may sound repetitive—“God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God”—but it emphasizes that the same divine essence of the Father is in the Son. He is “begotten, not made.” There is this eternal pouring forth of the life, love, and being of God the Father that eternally makes the being of the Son. The Nicene Creed was reacting to those who said, “There was a time when he was not.” They said there was a time when the Son did not exist. But the Creed insists: he is “the only begotten Son of God, begotten before all worlds,” or “begotten from eternity.” “God of God, Light of Light”—he has no beginning and no end.

Then the Bible speaks of God the Holy Spirit. I’ll say more about the Holy Spirit next week because next week is Pentecost—the celebration of the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people. But the Bible has Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit very often, especially on his final night with his disciples before his crucifixion. He says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [or Helper, or Comforter] to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.… I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16–18). He promises to send the Spirit and says that in sending the Spirit, he himself is coming to them—in the person of the Spirit.

The apostle Paul says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17). The Spirit of God is the third person of the Trinity, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is a person—a divine person. The Bible shows him as one who knows (1 Corinthians 2:11), teaches (John 14:26), lives within believers (Romans 8:9), chooses (Acts 13:2), speaks, and sends (Acts 13:4).

As a divine person, he can be wronged. You’re not merely offending some impersonal “force be with you” out there; you’re offending a person when you go against the Spirit of God. He can be lied to (Acts 5:3–4), resisted (Acts 7:51), grieved (Ephesians 4:30), and blasphemed (Matthew 12:31–32). The Bible warns against all of these. He’s one with the Father and the Son, and the Bible even calls him God. Peter told Ananias, “You have not lied to men but to God,” after saying, “You have lied to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3–4). The two statements are equivalent—the Holy Spirit is God.

In Romans 8, the Spirit is called “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of Christ,” and “the Holy Spirit.” It’s all the same Spirit. He is divine and personal.

The Nicene Creed, formulated at and after the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.”

The Spirit is the life-giver. The Bible says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:30). At the time of creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2), and “God said, ‘Let there be light,’” and there was light (Genesis 1:3). So even in Genesis 1, you have the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father all spoken of together in creation.

The Trinity is clearer in the New Testament than in the Old, but it’s the same God at work in both. It’s as though God were operating in a room with the dimmer switch turned low, and then he turned it up so that we could see more clearly who God really is—as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When Jesus gave his commission to his disciples, he said, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19–20). Baptism is done in the name—what’s the name? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Some of you may have come across people who call themselves “Jesus-only” folks. They baptize in the name of Jesus only and are sometimes called Oneness Pentecostals. They don’t believe in baptizing in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Not all Pentecostals are like that—most do believe in the Holy Trinity.) But the Oneness Pentecostals believe that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are just one person in three different modes, and that Jesus is the mode we’re supposed to baptize in. That is wrong.

When the Bible speaks of being baptized, it’s “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” When the Bible pronounces a blessing, it’s in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Now, in trying to understand how in the world three persons can be one being, people have made various attempts to illustrate it. One is the egg. An egg has a shell, a yolk, and egg white—and yet it’s not three eggs but one. That may help a little to see that something can be three and one at the same time, but comparing the infinite, eternal God to an egg isn’t very helpful. There’s quite a difference between the boundless being of love, life, and power that is God and an eggshell.

Another is the three-leaf clover. It’s one thing but with three parts. But that can be misleading, because God isn’t three parts. Jesus isn’t 33.3 percent of God, the Father another 33.3 percent, and the Holy Spirit the remaining 33.3 percent. You don’t add them up to get God. All of God—all the fullness of God—is in Christ (Colossians 2:9). All of God is in the Father. All of God is in the Trinity. God cannot be divided. As the old theologians said, God is simple—not made up of parts that can be separated from one another.

Another attempt is to compare God to the three different states of water: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam). Even though these are three different forms, they’re all H₂O. That might suggest something about unity with diversity, but not much, because it leads straight into the ancient heresy of modalism. That’s the idea that God is one person who takes on three different modes—sometimes solid, sometimes liquid, sometimes vapor. But the Bible teaches that God is always all three persons, united in one being, at the same time.

Some of the old theologians compared God to the Nile River, with its source deep in Egypt, the long channel that flows and flows, and the delta where it meets the sea. They said the Father is where everything originates, the Son is the channel through which it all flows, and the Holy Spirit is where the blessing and the life meet us. There may be some truth in that illustration, but it tells us more about how God relates to us than about how he is in himself. In God’s saving work, the Father initiates, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies—but that doesn’t explain how three can be one.

And I’ll just suggest to you that there isn’t any really good illustration that captures it. If you have one that helps you, fine—it might give a tiny glimpse of one aspect. But there is nothing like God. There is nothing like God. You cannot begin to comprehend how three persons can be one being, because there’s nothing in created reality exactly like that.

We know each other as distinct and separate persons, and separation usually means distinction or distance. But in the being of God, somehow, you have three persons who are always one being.

Sometimes people try to get at the “threeness” of God by speaking of the “social Trinity,” likening the Trinity to people in a family, community, or society. There are hints of truth there—working together, loving one another—but those human persons are not one being. Some of the problems with “social trinitarianism” are that it wrongly projects human categories into the inner life of God.

People will sometimes take their favorite social or theological idea and project it onto the Trinity to justify it. For example, some say, “God the Father initiates, and the Son always submits—that shows wives should always submit to their husbands.” Others, who are egalitarian, say, “The Trinity is equal, so marriage must be perfectly equal.” Some church leaders have said, “Because the Father is supreme and initiates, the church must have a hierarchy with bishops and popes.” Others counter, “All the persons of the Trinity are equal, so the church should have a flat, democratic structure.”

The truth is, people often project their social agenda onto God and then use that projection as divine authorization. In doing so, they end up looking in the mirror—they see their own preferences reflected back. Instead of forcing our ideas about society or family onto the being of God, we should approach God as he truly reveals himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one God, eternal and unchanging, beyond our full comprehension yet drawing us into his life and love.

When we’re trying to understand who God is, one true insight is that there is love—interlinking love—in the life of the Trinity. If we can’t find much help from eggs, icebergs, or shamrocks, perhaps we can find help from the Church’s reflections over the centuries.

The Athanasian Creed, written probably in the 400s, bears the name of Athanasius, though he didn’t write it because it came too late for him. Still, it’s fitting that it carries his name. Athanasius was the great defender and preacher of the Trinity. He was exiled five times by hostile emperors who supported Arianism—a doctrine that denied the full deity of Jesus Christ. His enemies mocked him as “the black dwarf” because he was short, dark-skinned, and from Africa. But history remembers him as Athanasius contra mundum—Athanasius against the world—because no matter who opposed him or what was popular, he stood firm in proclaiming the God of the Bible.

The creed that bears his name begins, “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.” You don’t mix God in a blender and say, “Sometimes the Father decides to become the Son, and sometimes the Son becomes the Spirit.” God is not a shape-shifter who switches forms. You don’t blend the persons, and at the same time, you don’t divide the essence.

“The Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one. Their glory is equal, their majesty co-eternal. What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit is incomprehensible. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. Yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. Similarly, there are not three uncreated or incomprehensible beings; there is but one uncreated and incomprehensible being.”

When speaking of the being of God, you don’t say, “There’s God, and then there’s God Junior.” All the qualities of the Father are shared fully by the Son and by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God—yet there are not three gods; there is but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord—yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord. That is the classic statement of the doctrine of the Trinity: God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

That’s why we sing, “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” We sing that way because God truly is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As the creed says, “Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, but forbids us to say that there are three Gods or three Lords.”

We don’t say, “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God—so there must be three Gods.” The Bible says God is one. God is one in his reign over all things and one in his action. It’s a terrible mistake to think that God the Father is somehow at odds with God the Son—that the Son is nicer than the Father and persuades the Father to be merciful. Jesus came into the world because the Father sent him. He came because the Father loves and because the Father chose people for salvation. The Son came to carry out his Father’s will perfectly.

In the Old Testament, in a world filled with beliefs in many gods and goddesses, we find a revealing story. Israel defeated a pagan army, and the defeated soldiers tried to explain their loss. They said, “Now I see the problem! We fought that battle in the hills, and their god is a god of the hills. We need to fight them on the plains—our gods are stronger there.” So they reassembled the same number of troops and the same formations and fought on the plains—and got defeated even worse (1 Kings 20:23–30).

God is not like those little “godlets” or local deities who rule a specific turf. God reigns over all—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is of one mind, one will, one being. There is never a separation or division in the mind, will, or essence of God. He is one God.

When the Bible speaks of the relations within the Trinity, it doesn’t give us every detail, and the Athanasian Creed doesn’t try to go beyond Scripture. It simply uses scriptural language to say: in the one being of God, there are distinctions. The Father was neither made, nor created, nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created—he didn’t have a beginning—but was begotten from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit was neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The creed uses the Bible’s own language: the Son is “begotten” and the Spirit “proceeds.”

I hate to pull you back into the difficulties of biblical scholarship, but sometimes it matters. In the late 1950s, an article argued that the Greek word monogenēs (“only begotten”) should instead be translated “one and only” or “unique.” Many modern Bible versions followed that. But there’s been some re-evaluation, and many scholars now think “only begotten” may still be the best translation. The Son is begotten of the Father—he comes from the Father—and that truth is taught in Scripture. We need to hold fast to it.

What do we mean by those eternal relations? Sometimes we speak of eternal paternity or fatherhood: the Father forever begets the Son, and he forever breathes forth the Spirit. Eternal generation means that the Son is forever begotten of the Father. Now, you can make a mistake here. When we talk about a father begetting a son, that usually means the son starts to exist at some point in time. But with God, there is no “start.” In eternal begetting, there is no beginning. God is always giving out his life in the person of his Son, and that is eternally the case.

Jesus did not begin to exist as the Son of God when he entered Mary’s womb. The Son of God had no beginning. Eternal generation means that he is forever generated—forever brought forth out of the being of God—and he has always existed. There was never a start to the existence of the Son. The same is true of the Spirit: eternal spiration, or breathing out. The Spirit is forever breathed out by the Father and the Son.

The creed says, “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. We must worship their Trinity in their Unity and their Unity in their Trinity.”

That’s a little more complex than simply saying “God is love.” Yet when the Word of God speaks with its living power, as it does in 1 John, it sounds far more vibrant and alive than when theologians try to map things out carefully in the creeds. Still, there is a reason for those creeds. I’ve said many times that Satan believes in recycling—he keeps sending the same old heresies back into the world. Those heresies have been identified and refuted before, and the creeds did a great job of that. So we should hold firmly to the truth of one God in three persons and realize that this is the key to understanding what the Bible means when it says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16).

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are this wondrous, amazing, eternal union of love. “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:13–16).

Now that we’ve thought a little more deeply about who God is, think again of what a wonder it is that God lives in you. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you’ve put your faith in him, you couldn’t have done that unless God’s Holy Spirit had already reached you, drawing you, pouring his life into you, and filling your heart with his love. “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5).

God gives himself. God gives his life. That’s how 1 John begins: “The eternal life, which was with the Father, appeared to us” (1 John 1:2). “Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

You may think, “These things are way beyond me,” but you don’t grasp them with a high IQ. You grasp them through worship—by marveling at the God who is beyond all we can imagine. When we love, he is living and working in us. God is love. Within the eternal being of the Trinity, he is forever loving. He has poured out his love on us in the person of his Son. He is life, eternally generating the life of the Son; the Son loves him and lives to pour out that life in the world and on us. Then we can taste and experience the divine life. We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

That doesn’t happen without all three persons. We must have the Spirit to have the Son. We must have the Son to have the Father. And when we do, what a marvel it is. Jesus says, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.… I have given them the glory that you gave me” (John 17:24,22). Think about that. He gives us his eternal glory. He wants us to see his glory and to be glorified in marvelous ways ourselves.

We don’t get “bumped up” to become members of the Trinity—that would be a terrible misunderstanding. But because, in the person of Jesus Christ, humanity has been united to God, we share an amazing union with God and his glory.

Jesus said, “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known, in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:25–26).

That’s Christianity: Christ wants his life and the very love that the Father has for the Son to dwell in us—the exact same love, to the exact same degree. You are loved with the same love that the eternal Father directs toward the eternal Son—with unceasing, unlimited affection. You do not know how much you are loved until you come to know who it is that’s loving you.

Prayer

Father, help us to grasp and understand more of who you are—and above all, to know not just by concepts and revealed facts (important as they are), but by the experience of your life within us, receiving your love and having our hearts warmed by your Spirit. Strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And may we, being rooted and established in love, have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16–19). In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Father, Son, and Spirit (1 John)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Missing verse

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (1 John 5:7 KJV)

• Appears in Latin Vulgate.
• Not in any Greek text before 1300s.
• Still, the true God is three-in-one.

1 John 1
^1:2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us… ³ Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ… ⁷ The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 2
^2:20 You have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth... ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father… ²⁷ The anointing you received from him remains in you… his anointing teaches you about all things and is true.

1 John 3
^3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 4
^4:13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶ … God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

1 John 5
^5:6 It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth… ¹⁰ Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart… ¹¹ And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Father, Son, Spirit

• God is love
• Eternal loving within Trinity.
• Loves us by sending Son and Spirit.
• God is life: eternal life is love and glory of Father, Son, and Spirit.
• We must have Spirit to have Son.
 We must have Son to have Father.

God the Father

• God the Father (25x in Scripture)
• God our Father (11x)
• Father in heaven (14x)
• Jesus calls God “Father” 100+ times.
• Jesus: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17)

God the Father

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. (Nicene Creed)

• Father is his identity, not just a role. Father’s eternal nature is to give life, to love, and to delight in his Son.

Father’s love

Jesus saw the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11)

Father, you loved me before the creation of the world. (John 17:24)

God the Son

The Word was God. (John 1:1)

The only begotten God (John 1:18)

God’s only begotten Son (John 3:16)

I and the Father are one. (John 10:3)

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)

I love the Father. (John 14:31)

My Lord and my God. (John 20:28)

The Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Hebrews 1:3)

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. (James 2:1)

Our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1)

He was in the form of God. (Philippians 2:6)

He is the image of the invisible God… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. (Colossians 1:15, 19) 

Christ is God over all, blessed forever (Rom 9:5)

Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13)

Only-begotten Son

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds/ages; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. (Nicene Creed)

God the Holy Spirit

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth… I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. (John 14:16-17)

Now the Lord is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

God the Holy Spirit

• Divine Person who knows, teaches, lives within, chooses, speaks, sends.
• Divine Person who can be lied to, resisted, grieved, blasphemed.
• Divine Person who is One with Father and Son. Spirit is called:
 God, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. (Nicene Creed)

Father, Son, Spirit

• Baptism: Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matt 28:19)
• Blessing: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor 13:14)

Nothing compares

• Egg
• Three states of water
• Three-leaf clover
• Nile River: source, channel, delta

Social trinity?

• Likens Trinity to people in a family, community, or society.
• Wrongly projects human ways into the inner life of the Trinity.
• Too often serves a social agenda: socialism, gender, church order
• True insight: Trinity is one in love

Father, Son, Spirit

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. (Athanasian Creed)

One God

The Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has: uncreated… incomprehensible… eternal… almighty. (Athanasian Creed)

Three persons, one God

Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.

Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord. (Athanasian Creed)

One God

Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord [but] forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords. (Athanasian Creed)

• One in reign, one in action
• One mind, one will, one Being

Eternal relations

• The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
• The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone.
• The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son. (Athanasian Creed)

Eternal relations

• Eternal paternity: Father forever begets Son and breaths Spirit.
• Eternal generation: Son is forever begotten of the Father.
• Eternal spiration: Spirit is forever breathed out by Father and Son.

Coequal unity

Nothing in this trinity is before or after, nothing is greater or smaller; in their entirety the three persons are coeternal and coequal with each other. We must worship their trinity in their unity and their unity in their trinity. (Athanasian Creed)

^4:13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶ … God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

Father, Son, Spirit

• God is love
• Eternal loving within Trinity
• Loves us by sending Son and Spirit.
• God is life: eternal life is love and glory of Father, Son, and Spirit
• We must have Spirit to have Son.
 We must have Son to have Father.