Why the Trinity Matters
Matthew 3:13-17
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - June 11, 2006
*Does the trinity matter to me? As Baptists, we believe that God exists as a trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. The Baptist Faith and Message puts it this way:
-“There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.” (1)
*One God, three persons, but why does the trinity matter to me?
1. First of all, it matters because God has confirmed the trinity to us.
*We see one of God’s clearest confirmations of the Trinity here in Matt 3:16&17,
16. Then Jesus, when He had been baptized, came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.
17. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’’
*Here we see God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God has confirmed the trinity to us, and we have much more evidence from His Word. Nave’s Topical Bible gives over 50 references to help point us to the trinity.
*Scriptures like Luke 1:34-35...
34. Then Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?’’
35. And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
*John 3:34-35 is another example. Speaking of Jesus, these verses say:
34. "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.
35. "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.
*John 14:15-17 shows us the trinity. There, Jesus said:
-“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
*Then in John 15:26, Jesus said:
-But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
*We have evidence of the trinity many places in God’s Word, and Dave Hunt helps us understand it this way:
-The Bible presents a God who did not need to create any beings to experience love, communion and fellowship. This God is complete in Himself, being three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, separate and distinct, yet at the same time eternally one God. They loved and communed and fellowshipped with each other and took counsel together before the universe, angels or man were brought into existence.
-Isaiah "heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (Is 6:8). Moses revealed the same counseling together of the Godhead: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."
-If God is [not a trinity], then why is the plural Hebrew noun elohim (literally "gods") used for God repeatedly? That Hebrew word elohim (gods) occurs about 2,500 times in the Old Testament. Genesis 1:1 reads, "In the beginning, elohim created the heaven and the earth"; i.e., literally, "gods created the heaven and the earth." Though a single noun is available, yet the plural form is consistently used for God.
-And in violation of grammatical rules, with few exceptions, singular verbs and pronouns are used with this plural noun. Why? Because our God is 3 in 1. (2)
*We have evidence of the trinity both in God’s Word and in His world. In Romans 1:20 Paul says that God’s "eternal power and Godhead" are seen in the creation He made.
-Dr. Nathan Wood pointed out years ago that the triune nature of God is stamped on His creation. The universe is divided into three: space, matter and time, and each of these is divided into three.
-Space, for example, is composed of length, breadth and width, each separate and distinct in itself, yet the three are one. Length, breadth and width are not three spaces, but three dimensions comprising one space.
-Time also is a trinity: past, present and future, two invisible and one visible. Each is separate and distinct, yet each is the whole.
-Man himself is a tri-unity of spirit, soul and body, two of which are invisible, one visible. (2)
*Church, that’s no accident. It’s not a coincidence. God has confirmed the trinity to us in His Word and in His world. And to deny the trinity is to deny God as He has revealed Himself.
2. The trinity matters, because God has confirmed it to us, and because the trinity helps reveal God’s character to us.
*What is God really like? God wants you to know, and His revelation of Himself as a trinity helps you to know. For example, the Bible tells us that God is love, but God could not be love in eternity past if He didn’t exist as a trinity. The existence of God as a trinity makes love, fellowship and communion possible within the Godhead.
*Jesus said, "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand." So God’s love is not just toward mankind but first of all among the three Persons of the Godhead.
*Not only is the Son presented as a person, but so are the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Bible presents each as having His own personality. Each wills, acts, loves, cares, can be grieved and can become angry.
*What is God really like? God wants you to know. And His revelation of Himself as a trinity helps you to know. Father, Son and Holy Spirit each help us to understand the truth about God.
1-God is a Father. He wants you to know Him as a loving Heavenly Father. Having a good earthly dad can help us understand what this means, and I hope you did. Unfortunately, all earthly dads fall short, but picture a perfect dad: One who guards, guides and provides for us, one who never lets us down, one who is always there for us.
*King Duncan tells about a new dad who said he read that when your baby is teething, you lose one night’s sleep for every tooth. When that worn out dad read that, he said, “By that measure, my baby girl would have about 150 teeth!” (3)
*That dad had been up a lot, but our Heavenly Father is always on the job. He is up all night, every night for us! And we can safely put our lives in His hands.
*Ellsworth Kalas told about a friend of his, a Christian dad who taught in a middle school and operated a small summer business. One day, one of his sons asked him, “Dad, what is your goal in life?”
*And that dad answered, “To put the hands of my family into the Hand of God” (3) *We can safely do that, because God is the best Father of all.
2-God exists as Father, and He exists as the Son who was baptized in these verses.
*Why was the Father pleased with the Son in vs. 17? It was because of the perfect obedience of the Son, who came to earth, lived a perfect life, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. So the Son reveals the holiness, goodness, kindness, compassion and love of our God.
3-God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each person in the trinity helps to reveal God’s character to us.
*Here in vs. 16, the Holy Spirit revealed Himself as a dove, but why a dove? He could have been a roaring lion or a majestic eagle. That’s what I would have chosen, but God chose a dove, innocent and harmless, to show us that with all of His strength, He has a tender, peaceful nature.
*God wants you to know what He is like, and His revelation of Himself as a trinity helps you to know.
3. Why does the Trinity matter to me? Because the trinity reveals God’s character to us, and because the trinity carries out God’s work on our behalf.
*When God works in our lives, no person of the Godhead is left out. The Father, Son & Holy Spirit, all three have a part.
1-We see this in the crucifixion; the Father had a part...
16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)
*Of course the Son had a part in the crucifixion, as He died on the cross for our sins. But if you will listen in Hebrews 9, you will see that the Holy Spirit also had a part in the crucifixion:
11. But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.
12. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
13. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,
14. how much more shall the blood of Christ, WHO THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT TO GOD, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
2-The Father, Son and Holy Spirit all had a part in the crucifixion. And they all had a part in the resurrection...
*Many times we see that God the Father raised Jesus up. For example, Acts 13:32-33 says:
32. And we declare to you glad tidings that promise which was made to the fathers.
33. God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”
*God the Son had a part in the resurrection, for in John 10:17-18, Jesus said:
17. "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.
18. "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.’’
*And in Romans 8:10-11, we see that God the Holy Spirit had a part in the resurrection. There Paul said:
10. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead WILL ALSO GIVE LIFE TO YOUR MORTAL BODIES THROUGH HIS SPIRIT who dwells in you.
*So Christians, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all have a part in your salvation. Ephesians 2 talks about Jesus reconciling both Jewish and Gentile believers to God. We see that Jesus did this through the cross. Then Eph 2:17-18 tells us that Jesus: . . . “came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
*There it is again: the trinity. And 1 Peter 1:2 calls Christians “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ . . .”
*The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are there, working together to carry out God’s work in the world, working together to carry out God’s work in you and me.
*In John Masefield’s drama “The Trial of Jesus,” there is a striking passage in which the Roman centurion in command of the soldiers of the cross comes back to Pilate to hand in his report of the day’s work. After the report is given, Pilate’s wife beckons to the centurion and begs him to tell how the prisoner died.
*When the story had been told, she suddenly asks, "Do you think He is dead?"
*"No, lady" answers the centurion, "I don’t."
*"Then where is He?"
*The Roman replied, "Let loose in the world, lady, where . . . [no one] can stop His truth." (4)
*That’s what really happened on the Day of Pentecost, because of the trinity.
Conclu:
*We believe in the trinity: One God, three persons. And it matters.
-Because God has confirmed the Trinity to us.
-Because the Trinity reveals God’s character to us.
-Because the Trinity carries out God’s work in us.
*Are you letting God work in your life tonight?
1. The 2000 Baptist Faith & Message
2. Adapted from The Trinity by Dave Hunt - The Berean Call - Publication Date: 10/1/1989
3. Found in sermon on Sermons.com: “With a Little Help from My Friends” - Sermon by King Duncan - Mark 2 1-12
4. (Adapted from The Trial of Jesus by John Masefield, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. p. 111) (Found in: Proclaim The Tomb Visitors David Jenkins John 20:1-18)
