Tag: trinity

There is a saying that goes like this: he or she who doesn’t learn their heresy is doomed to repeat it. A heresy is a damnable belief that is outside of the boundaries of Christian teaching. It’s not a difference of opinion on the form of baptism. Did you know that the major false religious and Christian heresies make their deepest mistakes on the nature of God?

• The Mormons, rightly believing that there are three divine persons, deny that He is One God—they think each person is an individual God! (Deut 6:4).
• The Jehovah Witnesses, believing that the Father is God, deny that Christ is God thinking he is merely the chief angel of God. (John 10:30; Acts 20:28; 2 Peter 1:1)
• The Jews and the Muslims, rightly believing that there is only one God, deny that God is Three co-equal co-eternal divine persons in one eternal essence. (John 6:27; John 1:1; Acts 5:3-4).
• Oneness Pentecostals, rightly believing that there is one God, deny that God is three persons instead saying that the One God has three different roles. God is not merely acting in three different ways, or has three different jobs. The Father is a real person who is not the Son; and the Son is not the Spirit; and the Spirit is not the Father ((John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7)

Embrace the truth of this teaching and worship God as he really is. No need to make up different language or come up with different illustrations—let God be true and all men liars! (Rom 3:4)

When God reveals his oneness and plurality in Scripture, he ultimately says five facts. Feel free to look up these passages and meditate on them:

1. There is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4)
2. The Father is God (John 6:27; Rom 1:7)
3. The Son is God (John 1:1, 14)
4. The Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4)
5. The Father is not the Son, and the son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7)

For two thousand years, the church has used this definition: God is a trinity.  God is one in his essence (or being) AND three co-equal and co-eternal persons. This is hard to understand because God is unique! None of us know what it is to be three persons in one essence. Each of us is one person (one mind: one WHO) in one human being (one WHAT). God is special. He is three persons (three eternal minds; three WHOs that existed forever) in one God (one WHAT).

This is massively helpful when we consider that the one God, in all three persons, was involved in our creation and our salvation and our eternal preservation.

We might wrongly say that “It is impossible to know God.” Though we can’t understand the infinite depths and breadth of who God is, God does make Himself known. In so doing we can say with David, “how precious are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps 139:17). One way He makes this clear is by showing His uniqueness. This is what God says in Scripture:

•  “I am the Lord, there is no other; beside me there is no God!” (Isaiah 45:5-6) God negates the existence of all gods. Whatever beings that may or may not be out there, they are not gods.
• “The Lord your God is one” (Deut 6:4-5). God underlines the fact that he is in fact one of a kind. This was an incredible statement to say in a culture that was full of so-called gods. The is only one God and it is the Lord, the God of Israel.
• “the demons know God is one and they tremble!” (James 2:19). These powerful beings, who might try to parade as gods, know the truth: they don’t stand a chance against the actual and only God!

This self-disclosure from God should comfort and strengthen us. There is no being throughout the galaxies that can ever come close to matching who God is—and He deigns to make Himself known to us and call us His!

We can’t know God if he didn’t first reveal himself to humanity. Even in nature, we only know about God because “God has shown it” to us (Rom 1:19). Further, because of sin, we humans have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Rom 1:18, 21, 25) which means that we twist God’s self-revelation even in nature. We need God to reveal Himself.

Jesus says no one knows the Father except the Son. Jesus, both being God and being sinless, had unhindered and total understanding of the infinite God. Jesus continues to say that in addition to the son, there are also those “to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matt 11:27).

Don’t be mistaken. Jesus is not saying that Christian Jane can know the Father, but Christian Tony won’t. Jesus is not saying that he implants thoughts to make us know the Father. Jesus makes the Father known through Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16–17 proves helpful saying that God reveals perfectly, sufficiently, and usefully from Scripture.

We may never fully know the infinite, unsearchable, and unattainable depths of God (Psalms 145:3; Psalm 139: 6, 17). What can be known of God is because the Son (who is the Word) makes the Father known through the Holy Spirit (who knows the mind of God) by moving people to write (2 Pet 1:21).

This week, get to know what God says about Himself by interacting with Scripture.