The Oneness of God
John 17:20-26
In Deuteronomy 6:4-5 we read a verse that every Jew has cherished the Shema Israel - (Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad) "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. There is but one and only one God manifested in three distinct persons in perfect harmony. God’s whole and undivided essence belongs equally, eternally, simultaneously, and fully to each of the three Persons of the Godhead, so that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each is fully God while each is his own personal expression, in role and activity, of the one eternal and undivided divine essence. There is one God, but three personal expressions of the one undivided, infinite, and eternal nature of God. By "nature," the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each is equally God, and each is fully God, as each possesses fully the one undivided nature. Yet each is a different Person, and as such, each is different in role and position within the Godhead. The Father is supreme in authority, the Son under the Father, and the Spirit under the Father and the Son. Not three God’s but one God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
I. The Triune Godhead
A. The Trinity is Scriptural.
1. F.F. Bruce said, "Let us not be misled by the foolish argument that because the term "Trinity" does not appear in the Scriptures, the doctrine of the Trinity is therefore unscriptural.”
2. The Eternal Godhead is revealed in the Word of God as one God existing in three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three are co-eternal, co-equal and co-existent in attributes, power, nature and glory.
3. Genesis 1:26-27 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
4. Deuteronomy 6:4 “"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
5. Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
6. 2 Corinthians 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”
B. The Father is God
1. 1 Chronicles 17:13 “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; and I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before you
2. Isaiah 9:6 that he is called the Everlasting Father. This passage however is referring to Jesus and refers to Him as being the father of salvation.
3. Psalm 89:24-26 “But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, and in My name his horn shall be exalted. Also I will set his hand over the sea and his right hand over the rivers. He shall cry to Me, ’You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’”
4. Isaiah 63:15-16 “Look down from heaven, and see from Your habitation, holy and glorious. Where are Your zeal and Your strength, The yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me? Are they restrained? Doubtless You are our Father, Though Abraham was ignorant of us, And Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O Lord, are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.”
5. In the New Testament there are 43 references to God as Father in the Gospel of Matthew alone.
C. The Son is God
1. Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
2. John 1:1, 14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
3. Colossians 1:16 “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”
4. John 14:8-11 “Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ’Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
D. The Holy Spirit is God.
1. Acts 5:1-4 “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God."
2. Isaiah 40:13-14 “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or as His counselor has taught Him? 1With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, And showed Him the way of understanding?”
E. Romans 8:9 “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
F. Patrick Coman speaking on the trinity states that “The sun is like God. The sun is like God the Father in that it is the source of heat and light. The rays of light coming down from the sun are like God the Son who is the visible manifestation of the source, and the heat coming from the sun is like the Holy Spirit who is the felt manifestation of the source.” – copied
II. The Oneness or Unity of God in the Work of Salvation
A. ” The work of God (e.g., creation, redemption, consummation) can be rightly understood only as the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unified in the purpose of the work but distinct in the participation and contribution of each member.” – Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, p. 17
B. The Architect of Salvation is the Father
1. Ephesians 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
2. 1 John 4:9-10 “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
C. The Accomplishment of Salvation is through the Son
1. Ephesians 1:7-10 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him.”
2. Romans 5:8-9 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
D. The Application of Salvation is through the Spirit
1. Ephesians 1:13-14 “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
2. 1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.”
E. Concerning salvation someone has said, “The Father wrought it, The Son bought it. The Spirit taught it. The devil fought it. The rich man sought it. The dying thief caught it. Praise God, I’ve got it!
III. The Unity of God’s People
A. The work of the Trinity is one in which there is a unity of work without sameness and a diversity of roles without discord. God exists in the Trinity as a perfect community. God the Son submits to God the Father, while God the Spirit submits to God the Father and God the Son.
B. This model is the model that God instituted in the family when husband and wife become one. You have the husband, the wife and the children.
C. Christ further speaks of this unity in His high priestly prayer in John 17 when He prayed that we would have that same oneness or unity.
D. John 17:20-23 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
E. Romans 12:4-5 “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”
F. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free--and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.”
G. Just as the unity of the Trinity is necessary for salvation even so the unity of the church as the Body of Christ is necessary for the fulfilling of its ministry in the world – “that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
H. Bees have jobs, just like you and I. You may be familiar with some of the tasks which are necessary in the daily life of a beehive--building honeycomb, storing food, foraging for food, and the like--but here’s a line of work for our buzzing friends you may not have heard of: "undertaker bees." It seems, according to a 1997 study, that in each bee population there is a distinct subgroup--about 1% of the population of a typical hive--whose job is to remove dead bees from the hive. Further (and here’s the most interesting part!), the undertaker job isn’t a permanent assignment for the bee. Rather, the bees perform this task on a "rotation" basis, with each bee putting in a turn or two at "undertaker duty" at some point in its life. This phenomenon raises an interesting point about our daily Christian duty: Inevitably, your service to the Lord and to His church will require you to accept some undesirable, less-than- glamorous responsibility. In those moments, it is essential that we remember that, just as the beehive could not sustain life without the diligent work of the undertaker bees, so also the church cannot accomplish Christ’s will without the willingness of every member to fulfill the responsibilities he or she has been given. Even if you feel you’ve been given the worst possible job, you need to commit to give your best possible effort. - Science News, 9/27/97, p. 200
I. 1 Corinthians 12:20-22 "As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ’I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ’I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable."
J. Vance Havner used to point out “Snowflakes are frail, but if enough of them get together they can stop traffic.”
