Sermon Tone Analysis

Before you begin your Bible study, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, be sure you have named your sins privately to God the Father.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

(Known, Unknown and Forgotten sins) (1Jn 1:9)

 

 

You will then be in fellowship with God, Filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to learn Truth from the Word of God.

 

"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth," (John 4:24)

 

 

*The Trinity*

 

 

       THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY is unique to Christianity.

No other faith, religion, sect, or philosophy advocating one God also proclaims there are three who are God.

This apparent paradox does not mean there are ‘three gods in one --- but that one God exists as three Persons — co-equal, co-infinite, and co-eternal — All Three possessing the same essential nature.

(Gen 1:26; Matt 28:19; (2Co 13:14)

       The Trinity defines the unity of God as having one Divine nature with specific and describable attributes.

However, each member of the Godhead — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit — is a separate Person who possesses these attributes individually.

No one member of the Trinity, in His essential being, is subordinate to another member.

(Eph 4:4-6) Each person of the Godhead has a purpose related to the eternal will and plan of God.

The Scripture ascribes to each person distinct roles not jointly shared by the Trinity.

The Father is the planner, the source of all things.

The Son is the agent through whom the Father’s plan is enacted.

The Holy Spirit is the revealer and empowers the plan in our lives.

Trinitarian tenets are not abstract Theology.

There is a practical reason for every believer in Jesus Christ to fully comprehend this Doctrine.

Our view of the Trinity determines our understanding of Christology, the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our view of the Holy Spirit affects our Concept of living the Christian life.

Our worship and Spirituality are possible only with a Biblical Perspective of the Godhead.

In short, we must Spiritually Understand the Trinity, to have a maturing relationship with God.

(1Co 2:12)

  

       *THE TRINITY DEFINED *

 

       The word Trinity is not found in the Scripture, but the Concept is Biblical.

Historically, the formal Doctrine of the Trinity derives from a succession of early church controversies and councils which sought to explain the Biblical Testimony regarding:

       1.

The oneness and unity of God in three Persons.

2.

The Deity of Christ.

3.

The personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit.

The councils were in response to heresies such as monarchianism and Arianism.

The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) declared God the Son to have the same nature as the Father.

The Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381) asserted the Deity of God the Holy Spirit.

In the intervening centuries Trinity’ became a technical word for the three Persons of the Godhead.

Rarely does a single passage of Scripture define point-by- point a complex Doctrine.

Rather, pastors filled with God the Holy Spirit formulate the Thoughts of any major Doctrine by comparing and correlating all related Biblical passages.

The believer accepts Truth derived from many passages just as he would accept a Biblical Principle directly stated in a single context.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is likewise formulated by combining all passages related to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

All that God has made known about Himself can ONLY be understood by believers filled with God the Holy Spirit, even the fact that He is singular in one sense and plural in another.

(Deut 29:29; (1Co 2:12-14) You may wonder how one God can exist in three Persons; yet from Scripture you can know that They so exist!

Your finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite, but through the Ministry of God the Holy Spirit who Reveals the Scriptures, you can understand and accept Spiritual Thoughts by means of faith.

(Matt 11:25-30; Luk 10:21-24; (2Co 5:7; Heb 4:2-3)

       Man possesses four basic systems of perception: (A believer has five; Spiritual faith) rationalism, empiricism, mysticism and faith.

Nothing is known that is not learned through one of these systems or through a combination of them.

Rationalism relies on human reason and logical consistency as the criterion for reality, totally apart from authority or revelation.

Empiricism establishes reality based on the experience of the senses.

Reality is what you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch.

Mysticism is demon revelation from and through the old sin nature.

(Eph 2:2) The fourth system is faith, the only nonmeritorious system of thinking.

The fifth system is Spiritual faith, God the Holy Spirit's Revelation of Divine Thinking to the unbeliever, (The Salvation Message) and to the believer, (The full realm of Scripture) based on confidence in the Authority and Veracity of God's Word! Faith Comprehends infinite Spiritual Thoughts that are beyond the finite reasoning powers and sensory systems of human thinking.

(1Co 2:13-14; (1Th 2:13) The Concept of the Trinity is established in both the Old and the New Testaments.

The oneness and equality of the Trinity is emphasized in the Old Testament:

 

       /“Hear, O Israel!

The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!”

(Unique)/ (Deut 6:4)

 

       However, a plurality is clearly confirmed in another passage.

/       “Come near to Me, listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, From the time it took place, I was there.

And now the Lord GOD has sent Me, and His Spirit.”/

(Isa 48:16)

 

       The Hebrew word for “God” is /Elohim/ — a plural word indicating the existence of more than one Person in the Godhead.

When, (Gen 1:1) Declares “/Elohim/ created the heavens and the earth,” the plural asserts that all three Persons had a part in creation: The Father conceived the plan; (Gen 1:26) the Son accomplished creation; (John 1:1-3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2) the Holy Spirit restored creation, (Gen 1:2) after Satan’s first fall and or rebellion.

The Old Testament generally uses the word /JHWH/ when referring to one member of the Trinity.

This proper name for God or Lord, called the Tetragrammaton, when these “four letters,” are in this arrangement --- they are considered sacred and are never pronounced by devout Jews.

We translate /JHWH/ as Jehovah or Yahweh, Actually, this word is the doubling of the verb “to be,” meaning “absolute existence.”

The context of Scripture may indicate which member of the Trinity the Tetragrammaton describes.

For example, the appearance of /Yahweh/ to man, a Theophany of the Old Testament, always refers to the Son, the manifest Person of the Trinity.

(John 6:46; cf., John 14:9-10; Isa 6:8-11; cf., John 12:39-41) Occasionally, Yahweh implies all three Persons, as in the general blessing,

 

/       “The LORD [Yahweh] bless you, and keep you; the LORD make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you.

The LORD lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.”/

(Num 6:24-26)

 

       Another Old Testament reference to the Trinity is in the pronoun “Us.”

God again refers to Himself in the plural.

/       Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."God

created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

/(Gen 1:26-27)

 

       While these words imply a heavenly convocation among the members of the Godhead --- a decision-making process within the Trinity --- there has never been a time when omniscient God did not know all that is knowable.

God cannot be indecisive; rather, He Speaks from His infinite and eternal knowledge.

And He Communicated it to us in a form of expression we could fathom.

He described His indescribable person and plan in terms of human experience.

His language accommodated our limited ability to comprehend the infinite.

Thus, human beings can understand what God set forth in the Divine decrees.

Such Biblically recorded “convocations” among the members of the Trinity serve to verify the existence of the threefold Personality of God.

(Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8)

 

       *THE ESSENCE OF THE TRINITY *

 

       While the present study emphasizes God as a Triune Being, understanding Divine essence is essential.

You must Comprehend the unity of the Godhead before you can begin to grasp the Concept of the Trinity.

Immediately you face a problem: You need a specialized vocabulary.

The terms you learn must convey the exact meaning of each Divine characteristic.

Once mastered, this vocabulary will save thousands of words of explanation and lay the foundation for further categories of Divine Thinking.

(Isa 28:10) The first vocabulary term is essence.

Essence is the being or nature of a person, what that person is like.

A second vocabulary term is /attributes/ or those qualities which compose the essence of a person.

Each Person of the Godhead has identifiable and identical attributes.

Therefore, God has one essence — the oneness or unity of God refers to the identical essence of the three Persons.

God’s essence can be known only through His attributes.

There are ten major attributes of Deity, all of which are equally ascribed to each person of the Godhead.

No individual attribute is separate from His essence as a whole.

Each attribute is an intrinsic quality of the nature of God.

What are these attributes?