Trinity Series

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.