The Trinity

  • Father, Son and Holy Spirit
  • Deuteronomy 6:4 – Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
  • Exodus 20:3 - You shall have no other gods before Me.
  • Mark 12:28-31 - One of the scribes came up and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”  Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, ISRAEL! THE LORD IS OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE;  AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’  The second is this: ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
  • Acts 17:23-31 - Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.

 

  • 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 - Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

 

  • What we know about God is very little as He is beyond our understanding and greater than what we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20)

 

  • God is in Heaven and man is upon the earth. He can see us but we cannot see Him.  He dwells in the spirit realm and we dwell in the natural realm (invisible and visible)

 

  • How does God communicate to His creation? In the OT through prophets.

 

  • Consider Moses – God spoke to Him. Now, God’s voice is greater than the thunder but He limited Himself so Moses could understand and this shows God’s nature of humility and love.  He spoke in the fire, through a voice in our language.  He also spoke to Abraham through an Angel.

 

  • Hebrews 1: 1-3 - God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high

 

  • God manifested in many ways to communicate to mankind and always used a language we could understand.

 

  • If God did this for many centuries (manifesting in different ways) it makes sense that under the new covenant He now reveals Himself through Jesus. This manifestation of Himself is more perfect than His voice or a writing.

 

  • John 1: 1-3,14 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

  • Before we speak words we think about what we will say. One may say that words are like “the children of your mind.”  In John 1 the gospel is saying that before God created the world He thought about it.  In the Greek, thought is logos.  In Hebrew it is wisdom and in Arabic it is the Word.

 

  • John 3:12,13 - If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.

 

  • We are limited in our understanding. The words that we speak are a tangible manifestation of our minds.  Jesus is the physical, tangible manifestation of God; God is the great mind and intelligent power.

 

  • A physical bucket is like the body of Jesus, and water that goes into the bucket is like the Spirit of God.

 

  • Consider the sun. It is 93 million miles away.  If we try to approach the sun we burn up.

 

  • Exodus 33:20 - He further said, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!”

 

  • So, while we cannot approach God directly face to face, He still comes to us in another form for our benefit.

 

  • The sun comes to us by its light.

 

  • John 9:5 - While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

 

  • So, the light of the sun (Jesus) comes from the ball of fire (God) but they are still one. It is like the fire is the Father of the light.

 

  • The light is not separated from the fire even though the light travels millions of miles. God and Jesus have the same nature and cannot be separated.  While we cannot go to Him, He came to us, in Jesus, so that we may live in the light, not in darkness.

 

  • Holy Spirit: What is an attribute of the light?    The Holy Spirit is the “heat” or the “power – Dunamos” in the Greek.

 

  • 1 Corinthians 2:14 - But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 

  • God must reveal this truth about the nature of Himself (Trinity). We must pray and ask God to open our eyes.

 

  • Matthew 16:13-17 - Now when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.” He *said to them, “But who do you yourselves say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
  • To see and hear our spiritual eyes must be opened.