2 CORINTHIANS CH 13 V 14
INTRODUCTION
‘While our friends from India travelled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service. "I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too," she said. When we inquired what she meant, she added, "You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast.”’
In 2 COR 13:14 ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.’ is a powerful declaration that God is one and yet three; that in the one Godhead there exists three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what has theologically and historically been known as the Trinity. The little Indian girl got confused about what she heard - with rather humorous results, but so many people get confused over the Trinity in more serious ways, even true believers!
2 COR 13:14 fittingly closes Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth. It demonstrates that, though he’d had to say strong things to the Church, his overarching desire was that the believers would enjoy more and more of God’s great riches – that the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit - might be with each and everyone. By wording like this, Paul shows that the Trinity is at the very heart of the Gospel and the Christian’s prayer life. This morning we’ll explore Trinity itself. Then, DV, over the next two Sundays we’ll go into the Trinity’s link to salvation and prayer.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY
The Limits of Human Knowledge
The story goes that St. Augustine was struggling to understand the teaching of the Trinity so he decided to go for a walk on the beach. There he saw a little boy digging a hole in the sand with a seashell. The boy ran off to the ocean, filled the shell, and rushed back to pour it into the hole he had made. ‘What are you doing?’ St. Augustine asked. The boy replied: ‘I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole.’ Augustine realised that this was precisely was he was trying to do…to fit the great mysteries of God into his mind.
The fact is we can never fully understand God our Maker, that is, have total exhaustive knowledge of Him. That shouldn’t surprise us at all. There are two reasons for this:
Firstly, God is the Creator - we are His creatures; He is infinite - we are limited. To know anything about God exhaustively we’d have to know it as He knows it – and that’s impossible! That He is immeasurably exalted above us is part of His unique glory and majesty. Look at PSALM 145:3: ‘Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom.’
Anon: ‘If the reality of God were small enough to be grasped, it would not be great enough to be adored.’
The second reason, is the negative impact of sin on our minds and understanding. When Adam disobeyed God in Eden the whole of His being was spiritually and morally corrupted – not only his body and desires but also his mind and intellect. Bruce Milne: ‘The fall has affected every aspect of our being, not least our perception of moral and spiritual reality.’
EPH 4:18 ‘They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.’ Here we have a chain reaction: It starts with the hardened (insensible and unresponsive) heart that produces ignorance which causes a darkened understanding and separation from God’s life. We are all spiritually blind and ignorant without God.
Lesson:
This shows us is that no human being can ever achieve a right knowledge of the true God through his or her own wisdom and understanding. There’s a natural inability – the creator/creature relationship – but there’s also the blameworthy spiritual ignorance we have that has come about because of disobedience to God.
God who Reveals Himself
On the news recently was the story of a great sandstorm blowing over Arizona in the US and the city of Phoenix was put under warning. A TV camera in a helicopter high above showed an immense wall of dust and sand rolling across the Phoenix valley smothering everything. It reduced road visibility to just 30 metres. A choking blinding blanket. That’s like the sinful spiritual sandstorm that blinds us to God’s truth and power. It affects us all!
Because we can never truly know God by our own capabilities, in His great goodness He has communicated with us. This is where the Bible comes in and why it’s so important: it’s God’s book. Through it God reveals Himself; declares to us His reality and character. 2 TIM 3:16 ‘All scripture is God breathed.’ EJ Young: ‘[Paul] wished to make as clear as possible the fact that the Scriptures did not find their origin in man but in God. It was God the Holy Spirit who breathed them forth…’
Because the Bible is God’s book – He is its ultimate author using human beings to flawlessly write His words – we can know Him truly. With the Bible - the written word of God. But in order for the Bible to come alive to us the Holy Spirit within us gives light and understanding so that we’re privileged to know God’s mind, His will and purpose. The Spirit blows the sandstorm away.
Lessons:
(1) The Bible is our perfect teacher and guide; we’re to submit to its authority and not stray from what it tells us. JC ‘Let us not take it into our heads either to seek out God anywhere else than in His Sacred Word, or to think anything about Him that is not prompted by His Word, or to speak anything that is not taken from that Word.’
(2) Let’s praise God and thank Him for the Bible, and value it and study it, not for its own sake, but because through it we know God. The great thing is that because God is infinite there’s always more for us to learn and grasp about Him; we’ll never run out of things to find out about Him. CHS ‘Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of divine revelation; a faith that paddles about the edge of the water is poor faith at best. It is little better than a dry-land faith, and is not good for much.’
THE ONLY TRUE GOD
God is One
What does God then say about Himself in His book? It can be summed up like this: He is the one and only true and living God who eternity exists in three distinct persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Theologically and historically this teaching has been identified by the Latin word: Trinity. DG Barnhouse: ‘The word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, but the truth of this doctrine is found in every part of the book.’
So firstly, the Bible insists that there is one God only, not a multiplicity of god’s. He’s supreme and without parallel. He alone created all things and sustains alls things. All other gods’ are false and have no basis in reality. ISAIAH 44:6 ‘This is what the LORD says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty; I am the first and I am the last; apart from Me there is no God.’
MH ‘There is no God besides Jehovah. He is infinite, and therefore there can be no other. He is all-sufficient, and therefore there needs no other.’
In the NT the Apostle Paul makes the same point: 1 COR 8:4 ‘We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.’ Other gods’ simply don’t exist in reality; they’re simply the creation of peoples’ imagination.
He alone is to be worshipped and glorified. ISAIAH 42:8 ‘”I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.’
Lessons:
(1) In 7 Marc 1997 issue of the CofE newspaper Rev Timothy Watson wrote this article: ‘Last week I went to a meeting that was attended by several thousand people. The offering was taken on the way in and everyone gave £12 or £14, which was well above the necessary Diocesan average. There was a great air of expectancy. The singing was enthusiastic, often spontaneous, if not particularly tuneful. People seemed very relaxed in talking to strangers sitting near them. There were bursts of clapping and general applause from time to time and at particular moments many thousands raised their arms. The whole event went on for nearly two hours and at least half the crowd went home rejoicing. Watford won 1-0.’
Today we have a multitude of gods which modern society gives a place to, be they religious or secular. William Ullathorne: ‘Whatever a man seeks, honours, or exalts more than God, this is the god of idolatry.’ As Christians we must strive day by day to give the true God alone the praise and glory that due to His Name.
God is Three
The Bible is just as clear that this one and only God exists as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who relate to each other, who love each other and enjoy fellowship as distinct persons. We have to be careful to realise that the term ‘person’ isn’t used in its normal everyday sense where it means an identity completely distinct from other persons. Rather, as J Hampton-Keathley puts it: ‘According to the teaching of Scripture, the three Persons are inseparable, inter-dependent, and eternally united in one Divine Being.’ That’s the great unfathomable depths of God that we can’t fully grasp, but nevertheless receive by faith.
In the OT we get glimpses of the Trinitarian nature of God: GEN 1:26 ‘’Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”’ We haven’t got time to go into other OT pointers to the Trinity, but they’re certainly there. Then in the NT we get the fuller revelation. The best approach I believe is to look at it like this: the NT speaks of three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit- and to each of these persons are attributed divine qualities. JMc ‘The Bible teaches that there is only one God. Yet it calls three persons God. Therefore the three persons are the one God.’
The Father – God the Father is first of all the Father of the eternal Son: JOHN 17:5 ‘…Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.’ In other words, God the Father and God the Son have existed and related to each other as Father and Son from eternity.
For all true Christians God is our heavenly Father who cares for and
watches over us as His adopted children. EPH 3:14-15 ‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.’
The Son - We have unmistakable proof that the Lord Jesus Christ was God in the fullest and highest sense. JOHN 1:1 ‘In the beginning was the Word [Word’s eternity], and the Word was with God [Word’s distinct personality], and the Word was God [Word’s divine equality].’ JIP puts it like this: ‘Though personally distinct from the Father, [the Word] is not a creature; He is divine in Himself, as the Father is.’
What does John mean by saying Jesus is the Word? We, of course, use words to communicate our inner thoughts as accurately and clearly as we can to others. So by His Son God has spoken to us finally and definitively His heart. All that God intends for us to receive, therefore, all that we need to know, is in the Son. PL “The prophets spoke God’s early words; Jesus is God’s definitive word.”
In HEBS CH 1 the writer contrasts the Lord Jesus with the holy angels pointing out that whereas the angels were created spirits made to worship and serve God, Jesus was God’s unique Son and was God: (7-8) ‘In speaking of the angels [God] says, “He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire.” But about the Son He says, [PSALM 45] “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever…”’
If Jesus Christ’s deity is denied then whatever else is said of Him means nothing. No matter how exalted and wonderful a created being you make Him He is still a creature. There is an infinite gap between Him and God and He is not to be worshipped. But the Bible says He is God and therefore to be praised as Lord of all; the King of Glory.
The Spirit – In the OT the Holy Spirit is said to be everywhere present - an attribute than belongs only to God. PSALM 139:7-8 ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I fell from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.’
In the NT MARK 3:29 the Lord Jesus warns against blaspheming against the Holy Spirit – only God can be blasphemed, therefore, it follows that the Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit is identified as God in ACTS 5:3 ‘Then Peter said,
“Ananias, how is it that Satan has filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received from the land?…You have not lied to men but to God.’
It’s vital to truly acknowledge and honour the Holy Spirit as God. He is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, who brings Jesus’ presence into our lives and who reveals to our hearts the truth of God’s Word and the glory of Jesus. He’s not simply a mystical force or an impersonal power to plug into, but the third person of the Blessed Trinity and is to be honoured as such.
So the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all identified as God, and at the same time are distinct from each other. The three persons interact with each other; have personal loving relations: the Father delights in and loves the Son. He sent His Son and gave Him up to the cross. Jesus loves, obeys and prays to the Father, at His death He committed His soul to His Father; The Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son; He glorifies the Son and so on.
Thomas Watson: ‘In the body of the sun, there are the substance of the sun, the beams, and the heat; the beams are begotten of the sun, the heat proceeds both from the sun and the beams; but these three, though different, are not divided; they all three make but one sun: so in the blessed Trinity, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost proceeds from both; yet though they are three distinct persons, they are but one God.’
Lessons:
What then should our response be to God in three persons, the blessed Trinity?
(1) We should humbly accept this knowledge is too high for us; that we can’t fully grasp God’s triune nature and being. John Wesley: ‘Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God.’ And we should submit to God’s Word - this is what God says that He is, and we should take His word for it! As J Hampton Keathley puts it: ‘The truth is, we must recognize our need to simply trust in God’s special revelation to us, the Bible, and submit our minds to that teaching
which is truly expressed in its pages.’
(2) We should bow the knee and worship God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each possesses together and at the same time the infinite fullness of the Godhead. No one or more or less than the other: they are co-equal. GH ‘The Father is first but not senior; the Son is second but not junior; the Spirit is third but not inferior.’
That worship involves the mind. You shouldn’t switch of intellectually in worship – it’s not meant to be simply an emotional high. Worship involves thinking, thinking about God, and having such thoughts about God that your heart is lifted in praise to Him! God is unique and the only true God, and we have the honour to proclaim Him and glorify Him in our lives and before other people. Thomas Watson: ‘A sight of God’s glory humbles. The stars vanish when the sun appears.’
(3) The teaching of God as Trinity has been, and will always be, under attack. The Muslim faith; the Jehovah’s Witnesses and a number of other cults, and the ‘Jesus only’ groups in Pentecostalism deny and reject it in their different ways.
So does it matter whether we believe that God is Trinity or not? It’s the very nature in which God has revealed Himself in His Word. To deny any of the three divine persons in the Godhead is to speak blasphemously. And it makes a nonsense of the Bible. It’s essential to distinguish between those who consistently reject and deny the Trinity and speak in terms of it being blasphemous, and those true Christians who are mixed up in their heads but right in their hearts; who can’t fully get their minds around the Trinity and speak in muddled terms.
(4) The Trinity has a basic bearing on how we understand the Gospel and prayer and helps us see the bigger picture. This way our assurance is strengthened and we can live a more confident Christian life in God. The Bible teaches us to think in terms of the Father planning salvation, the Son purchasing salvation and the Spirit applying salvation and also that in prayer we approach the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. DV next Sunday we’ll explore the Blessed Trinity and salvation and then the Sunday after prayer.
