Text: Isaiah 11:1-9
Theme: Trinity
Greetings: The Lord is good and His Love endures forever.
Introduction: "The Trinity is the foundational Christian belief that God is one Being who exists in three Persons.”What is the Trinity? Three-in-one. The word Trinity does not appear in the Bible. But clearly taught, absolutely believed by the Church from its inception. Trinity is often described as being one God existing in three distinct persons as God the Father. God the Son. God the Holy Spirit.”
I would like to leave with you the following three: The Basis for the Trinity, The Belief in the Trinity, The blessings of the Trinity.
1. Understand THE BASIS FOR THE TRINITY
I would like to bring the explanation to the Trinity from the Old Testament passage Isaiah 11:1-9. This passage gives the base for Trinity which is intrigued complexion of the identity; The Father; The Son and The Holy Ghost.
Isaiah 11:1 refers to a future. A shoot and a branch of Jesse means in the line of David. We understand this branch is Jesus Christ through Matthew 1:1. The Spirit of the LORD reveals another two identities of one essence of one God. The Shema is unquestionable (Deuteronomy 6:4). The three persons of one Godhead is explained. The Son of God is known as the WORD of GOD (John 1:1), the Holy Spirit is Known as the Spirit of God (Acts 10:38).
If we carefully examine the scriptures, we can understand the TRINITY. ‘Jesus willingly kept Himself in a place of submission, respect, and honour to God the Father. Jesus displayed in His ministry flowed not from His “own” divine resources, but from His reliance on the Spirit of the LORD who filled Him.’ (Enduring Word Commentary).
Britannica: ‘The doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be one of the central Christian affirmations about God. It is rooted in the fact that God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the “Resurrected One”; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life.’
The first and foremost source for the doctrine, belief for the Trinity in the NEW TESTAMENT is The Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19); and in the Apostolic Benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:13).
John 17:5: The Son is addressing the Father and we have distinct persons “Father” and “Son” and a generative relationship. John 15:26: The Son declares that I shall send the Holy Ghost but proceeds from the Father. Thus, the relational distinction is real, and personal.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but not in a generative sense; rather, in a spiration. “Spiration”comes from the Latin word for “spirit” or “breath.” Jesus “breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Holy Spirit is depicted in Revelation 22:1-2, as a river of life flowing out from the Father and the Son and bringing life to all by way of bringing life to the very “tree of life” that is the source of eternal life in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 22:19).
The Council of Nicaea in 325 stated the crucial formula for that doctrine in its confession that the Son is “of the same substance [homoousios] as the Father,” even though it said very little about the Holy Spirit. Over the next half century, St. Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene formula, and, by the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since (The Britannica).
2. BELIEVE THE TRINITY
God can’t be fully understandable. God is infinite. He is beyond our comprehension. We will never fully understand the Trinity as long as we live on the earth. But we need to completely believe HIM.
Job 11:7-8…"Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?” I Corinthians 2:10 reveals that the Holy Spirit is an omniscient “… no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” If God was small enough for my brain to fully understand, then He wouldn’t be God.
How can something be one and three at the same time? (Riemer Roukema, Professor of Early Christianity). The unbelievers think that Christians are having three Gods, especially the Islam. There is a logical contradiction in this understanding, e.g., 3=1, and 1=3. We believe that each of the three persons in the Godhead possesses the same eternal and infinite divine nature; thus, they are one, true God in essence or nature, not “three Gods.” Yet, they are truly distinct in their relations to each other (Catholic Answers).
There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 6:8; Matthew 28:19; John 3:16 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22; 13:14; Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2.) (Seventh Day Adventists).
The Son is uniquely “begotten” of the Father, and proceeds from the Father (John 1:1, 3:16; 1:18). This “generative” procession is one of “begetting,” and not in the same way a baby is born, human being “begets” a human being. But here, this is an intellectual “begetting,” as a “word” proceeds from the knower at the same time remaining in the knower. Thus, this procession or begetting of the Son occurs within the inner life of God not through consummation and physical intercourse. There are not “two beings” involved; rather, two persons relationally distinct, while ever-remaining one in being.(Catholic Answers).
Human tripartite: Body, Soul and Spirit. We are in the image and likeness of God. We relate with God. We are not able to understand ourselves fully, so we can’t understand God fully.
Genesis 1:1 says: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew word for God is ‘Elohim’. The verb for created is ‘Bara’. Elohim is the plural form of the word God. However, Bara is the singular conjugation of the verb. Every time the word Elohim (plural) is used throughout the Old Testament referring to the one, true God, it is used with a singular conjugation of the verb (Keith Ferrin).
3. Receive BLESSINGS OF THE TRINITY
The more knowledge we have of God from the Bible, the more of his reality we grasp, and the more mysteries we learn which increases our faith in God’s greatness (John Piper). THE TRINITY IS A MYSTERY of faith in the strict sense, one of the mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God. The New Testament increases understanding of the Trinity, while at the same time turning up more mysteries. Our language is insufficient to carry the greatness of God. Now, we see in a mirror “dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:9, 12).
Accepting Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour, we accept the fullness of God. “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). “In the beginning was the Word . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:1, 14). “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).
The baptism of Jesus, which has profoundly inspired Christian iconography, is a manifestation of the Trinity. The Gospels display in particular the active presence of the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus. When Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus, he “remains” on him (John 1:32), and the Father declares that Jesus is his “beloved Son” (Mark 1:11; Matthew 3:17). We also experience, and enjoy the Trinity in our lives.
“Beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 20, 21).
God the Father and his Son Jesus are a unit. So, we address God through Jesus, pray to God the Father “in the name of Jesus” (John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:26). During his ministry, Jesus was inspired by God's Spirit, as we read in the four Gospels (Luke 3:21-22; 4:14, 18).
The faithful, united with their bishop, have access to God the Father through the Son, the Word made flesh, who suffered and has been glorified, and so, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they enter into communion with the most holy Trinity, being made “sharers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).“God was made man, so that man might be made God”(St. Athanasius).
Conclusion: The Basis for the Trinity, The Belief in the Trinity, The blessings of the Trinity.
