Video Transcript: Trinity (13:13)

Hi, I'm David Feddes. And this talk is about the Trinity. The statement of faith of Christian Leaders College and Institute says, God is Trinity and eternal loving unity of three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

The doctor, the Trinity is the statelet of who God is. And it is at the very heart of the Christian faith. God, the Father is revealed in the Bible. Many times the scriptures use the phrase God the Father, at least 25 times, God our Father, 11 times, Father in heaven 14 times. Jesus calls God His Father over 100 times. And here's a statement that he made near the end of his ministry, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to my God, and your God.

 It's a tremendous privilege that the father of Jesus, the father of the Son, is also our Father, for Jesus sake. And the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed and the Great Creed's of the church all confess believes in God, the Father hears the Nicene Creed, I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 

Now when we hear that we need to remember that father is the identity of the First Person of the Trinity, it's not just a role that he happens to have. He's always been father, it's his eternal nature, to give life. It's his eternal nature, to love. It's his eternal nature, to delight in his son. There has never been a time when the first person of the Trinity was not father. 

The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Sun means that God has forever been giving life and loving his son, there was never a point when the sun began to exist. And therefore there was never a point at which God, the first person of the Trinity was not the father, he's always been the father. And it's important to know that because God is father as the Life Giver, that's what fathers do. They give life. 

Fathers love their children, and God has always loved His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, even before he came into the world as Jesus, he was the second person of the Trinity, the son, beloved of his father, and it is the father's nature, to delight in his son, and to deny in all those whom he's adopted through His Son, we should never fall into the mistake of thinking that God the Father has a somewhat different attitude toward us, than God the Son, that sometimes the misunderstanding that God the Father's kind of mean. 

But luckily for us, God, the Son is really friendly, and he makes things right for us so that God the Father will accept us. But the Bible teaches that the son came into the world because of the Father's love, in sending him. God is love. And in His love, the Father sent His Son. Now, the fact that God the Father is God is disputed by nobody in the history of Christianity. If you believe in one God at all, you certainly believe that he's divine, but sometimes God the Son, has been doubted. 

There have been those who said that God the Son was not fully God, that Jesus was a great prophet, or high being but not the second person of the Trinity and himself God. Well, what does the Bible say? One book that's very clear about Jesus as God is the Gospel according to John, which says the Word was God. 

It says, In the beginning was the word referring to Christ before he came into the world, in the beginning was the Word the Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It speaks to them as the only begotten God. Jesus speaks of God's only begotten Son.

In that famous verse, God so loved the world that is gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus said, I am the Father are One, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Thomas, sometimes called Doubting Thomas might better be termed maybe believing Thomas because he makes the tremendous confession of faith that is the climax of the Gospel according to John, he calls Jesus my Lord. 

And, my God, it's very clear from the Gospel of John, that Jesus is God. Other books of the Bible sound a similar note Philippians 3:6 says of Jesus, he was in the form of God Colossians1 says He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were made. And For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Hebrews 1 says, The Sun is the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature. 

Now, even if we didn't have these very direct statements, that Jesus is God, we can also gather just from the way Jesus behaved. He gives commands to a storm, and the storm stops. The Old Testament says that it is the Lord God who commands the storms. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The Old Testament says The Lord is my shepherd. So when somebody says, I'm the Good Shepherd, it means that he's God. 

Jesus says to a couple of different people, your sins are forgiven. And immediately when he says that, his opponents say, well, he has no right to say that who can forgive sins, but God alone, the Right? that only God can forgive sins. So when Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven, and says that I'm the authority of God, they know that he's claiming to be God.

So that's why in the history, the church, those who formed doctrines, said, Well, we have to believe that Jesus is divine, because the Scriptures reveal it so clearly, in so many different ways. 

The Nicen Creed says, 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 big of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. 

Now that creed was stated in opposition to the false teaching of areas areas, believed that Jesus was the greatest of all creative beings, that he had a beginning that he was made, not eternally begotten of the Father, but made in time. 

And the Nicene Creed says, No, he was begotten, he was never created, He has always existed. And he's of one substance, one being with the Father. And then the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity is also said in the Bible to be divine, and to be a divine person. Jesus Himself said, 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. 

So Jesus is saying that in the sending of the Holy Spirit, it's Jesus himself coming to us, when the third person of the Trinity comes to us, the whole Trinity is coming to us, because the third person of the Trinity is also God. The apostle Paul writes, Now the Lord is the Spirit. So this unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father, and the son is taught in many different places in the Bible. 

And the Holy Spirit is not just a power, there are some strands of heretical teaching that say, yeah, the Holy Spirit is divine, but just refers to the Divine power of God, or God's influence. But the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is personal. He's a divine person, who knows, who teaches, who lives within us, who chooses and makes choices, who speaks, who sends. 

If you study your Bible, you'll find the Holy Spirit doing all these things that a person does. Not only that the Bible says that he's a divine person who can be lied to. The apostle Peter said to someone, how could you lie to the Holy Spirit, you have not lied to men, but to God, when you lie to the Holy Spirit, you're lying to God. He can be resisted. 

The Scripture says, Don't resist the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, only a person can be grieved. And he can be blaspheme the terrible, terrible sin. So the Holy Spirit is a divine person who is one with the Father and the Son. The spirits called God is called the Spirit of God is sometimes called the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of God's Son. 

It's very clear from the scriptures, that the Holy Spirit is a person, and that he is one with God. And therefore, the Nicene Creed says, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who when the father and the son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

When the Bible speaks of baptism, Jesus himself commands to baptize disciples in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. All three titles of the three persons of the Trinity are to be spoken when people are baptized. 

When giving blessing, sometimes the blessing is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, we are baptized in the name of the Trinity, we are blessed in the name of the Trinity, and all three persons of the Trinity must be divine in order to be baptized, and blessed in the sacred name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Now, sometimes when we think about the doctrine of the Trinity, we begin to get puzzled. And we try to think of comparisons or word pictures, to say what the Trinity is like, but nothing compares. Perhaps you've heard some of these, where the Trinity is compared to water, the three states of water, it can be ice, and a solid. It can also be liquid, as water, or it can be a vapor as in water vapor. And so when you look at an iceberg, you see the ice, you see the water, you see the vapor, and you see, and yet it's all water, just in different forms. 

And so some will save and that's kind of what Father, Son and Spirit are like, it's all God just in different forms. But it's not helpful to take something that's just a thing, and attribute it to the super personal God. Same thing, when you use an egg as a, as a comparison to the Trinity. You say, Well, there's a shell, there's a yolk, there's the egg white.

And yet, it's not three eggs, it's just one egg with different components. But we should not think that God is different components. God can't be divided. He's without parts. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in ways that go far beyond just combining combining three different parts. Or the old comparison to a three leaf clover, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are like three leaves of a clover, or like parts of a river, the Nile River, the source, and then the great stream bed, and then the delta where it meets the ocean. 

And yet, it's not three rivers, it's all one Nile River. Now, if these comparisons help somebody with one little aspect of the Trinity, they might be okay and helpful. But let's keep in mind that nothing, absolutely nothing compares to God. He is beyond all that we can understand.

But we need to keep in mind always that he's fully personal, that his being is not divided, that there are not three different gods. And yet there are three persons in the one being of God. 

The Athanasian Creed, one of the great statements of faith and the Church says the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one their glory equal, their majesty, co eternal, 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. And that's the doctrine of the Trinity that we can fast Christian leaders college and Institute God is Trinity and eternal loving unity of three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.