The Triune God Is Our Source Of Eternal Salvation

THE TRIUNE GOD IS OUR SOURCE OF SALVATION

JOHN 16:12—15 JUNE 15, 2003

JOHN 16:12-15

12I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

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Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:

Each one of us learned many different things as we grew up or as we are growing up. From early on, in order to learn about the foundation of reading and writing we had to learn the ABC’s. We went on to learn that these letters made words and sentences, paragraphs and entire books. That’s the way our culture is. If you went back in time to the time of Jesus or the time of the Old Testament, you would find that the parents instructed their children on who God was. They taught their children that there was only one God, the Lord God, the Triune God. That was the way of their culture. That is what we are going to study today. The Trinity is a foundation doctrine of the scripture and our Christian faith. At times some find it difficult to understand and completely believe. That is why in the Old Testament and the New Testament the Jewish children would learn what it meant that the Lord their God is One. They learned a little song (we might call it today) or a ditty. In Hebrew it went,

:dÿÿ½Òxe’ |hœAwÿÿhÌy ûnyYÿÔh×lé’ hœAwÿÿhÌy l¡ÿÔ’ßrüWÇy vYÿÑmüH.’ They would sing that verse ‘Sha`ma Israel, Adonai elo`hanu, Adonai ekhad.’ “The LORD our God, the LORD is one,” from Deuteronomy. The verse right after that says, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength"(DEUTERONOMY 6:4,5). So it is today that we look at what some refer to as the mystery of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The only God that is like that is our triune God. We have come here today that we might love Him with all of our mind and our soul and our strength.

Our theme as we look at what John writes and tells us this morning is the fact that

THE TRIUNE GOD IS OUR SOURCE OF ETERNAL SALVATION

I. Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son

II. Everything that belongs to the Son belongs to the Spirit

III. Everything that belongs to the Spirit belongs to believers

These words were written before Jesus was put to death. Because of that, the disciples were having a hard time understanding everything Jesus had to tell them. Our text begins 12I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. Jesus had already told them that He was going to go to Jerusalem to suffer at the hands of Pontius Pilate and be put to death. They didn’t want to hear those things. But Jesus also told them that He was going to come back to life. When they heard He was going to be put to death, they tuned Him out that He was going to come back to life on the third day. Jesus realized that He had much more to tell them but they were not able to bear it yet. So, we realize that after Jesus arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, He sent to them the Holy Spirit who would give them a full understanding of God’s great plan of salvation.

That is why Jesus says at the end of our text 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. You have to picture that here is Jesus in physical form, standing before His disciples. He had told them many things. They didn’t want to see Him go to Jerusalem and be put to death. They were troubled and saddened by that if you read the rest of the chapter sixteen. Jesus reminded them that yes, He would be put to death but He would come back to life because His heavenly Father was His true Father. Whatever His Father in heaven had was His because He was God the Father’s Son—so He says, ‘Whatever the Father has is mine.’ Everything, in other words, that belonged to the Father belonged to the Son. What belonged to the Father, the Son enjoyed to have.

So it was, when we look at what the will of the Father was for the world, His will is that none would perish but everyone would come to repentance. That was the will of God’s Son Jesus, also. It wasn’t something that was a new teaching. It was something that the people of the Old Testament knew and that they looked forward to, that the Messiah would come and that believers would be saved. The prophet Ezekiel wrote: "For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!"(EZEKIEL 18:32). That was God the Father’s will for mankind and that was Jesus’ will for mankind also. We see that Jesus was sent to earth that He might live and die and rise again.