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Podcast 9 - The Trinity
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Come join us as we talk about a critical aspect of our Christian faith.
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Transcript
Introduction to Theology and Faith Conversations
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to the Grove Hill podcast today. We're glad to have you back this week as we continue our journey through what we call our basic theology around here. Some of the basic things that we want you to know, to understand, have a better grasp of, especially when you're having conversations with other people about your faith and why you have faith.
Explaining One's Faith: Preparation and Challenges
00:00:29
Speaker
You know, Ephesians chapter three, I think it is, is where it talks about being prepared in season, out season to give a reason for your faith. And I think you and I, all believers have greater confidence when we understand why it is we talk about the things we talk about and practice the things we practice.
00:00:45
Speaker
So today we're jumping into a very deep part of the pool, right?
The Trinity: Concept and Complexity
00:00:50
Speaker
yeah This one's been a, man, even to this day, is a much-talked-about, much-debated part of our faith.
00:00:58
Speaker
And it is this concept of the Trinity. One God, three persons. And that statement in itself is even controversial. One God, three persons. So first of all, let's talk about what the greatest challenges are with with the the idea of the Trinity, the concept of the Trinity. What what do you think are those biggest problems? The human mind. We have limited capability to understand exactly what God designed in that way.
00:01:22
Speaker
and We try to explain it. We try to come up with analogies to figure it out, like right a pie cut into three pieces, but that's not all whole. And um I think the best one I've ever heard is H2O water. um It's in three different states. It's in a vapor or steam, ice, and then liquid.
00:01:39
Speaker
And it's all H2O. And so, you know, we try to reason and try to ah talk through that.
Biblical References and Debates on the Trinity
00:01:45
Speaker
um But I think the best thing to do is look at the facts of Scripture, scripture and Look at verses that give you um very straightforward definitions of who God is.
00:01:55
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's just hard for the human mind to wrap around that concept. Yes, absolutely. but john what's What's created and what's always been? ah Because we'll probably get into this a little bit, but...
00:02:07
Speaker
What's created is you and i the things that we see in this world, but then you have this element of ultimate creator, God. And then you have the other elements of the Trinity where you're looking at ah Jesus Christ right and the Holy Spirit, which you'll have lot of differing views as you go across the world. But we as believers...
00:02:28
Speaker
believe the Trinity, that all those three ah pieces, the persons that are present in Scripture. But yeah, understanding the differentiation that there wasn't a created element in the Trinity. I want to say something, because we've used the word like seven times already.
00:02:46
Speaker
ah Trinity, yeah it's not in the Bible. right That word is not in the Bible. But what it means is just three in unity, tri-unity. And so when we talk about the Trinity, know that that's not a, foundation. Correct, no. But the concept of what it's describing is in the Bible.
Divine Nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
00:03:01
Speaker
And so we'll look at it that way. And it's literally from the very beginning to the end. The first time that the concept of a Trinitarian God shows up is in the beginning when it says that he created yeah man and woman and it says, let us create in our image.
00:03:15
Speaker
And that's where you get this, it's like the curtain starting to be pulled back a little bit on God and you're going, okay, what do you mean us? I think another one of the challenges is trying to get past this concept. Like you said, our minds are finite. We we try to grasp these things.
00:03:28
Speaker
But trying to get past this concept that we're not talking about polytheism or more specifically tritheism. We are talking about one God. Not more than one.
00:03:39
Speaker
um So let's go back to this in the Bible. Show me some places where it's in the Bible. Where do we begin to develop that and put together the the pieces of that puzzle with that concept? Yeah, so to make sure that we are all on the same page is the Bible describes each one of these three entities as God.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yes. Not a God, but as God. And so the easiest one to understand is God the Father because Scripture says it so many times, right? But the Holy Spirit is God and Jesus is God and we see that through...
00:04:06
Speaker
um I think it Acts 5, 3, and 4, it's Ananias and Sapphira, and he says, you have lied to the Holy Spirit. Yes. And then one verse later, it says, you haven't lied to man, you lied to God, right? So it's referring to the Holy Spirit as God. And then
God's Revelation Through the Bible
00:04:20
Speaker
we see that for Jesus when John 1, 1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then five verses later, says,
00:04:28
Speaker
the Word became flesh. And so, two instances where Scripture says the Holy Spirit is God. Not a God, is God, and Jesus is God.
00:04:38
Speaker
And then the very clear one we know is God the Father. I just think it's cool how God revealed Himself. It wasn't all in one fell swoop. He gave little breadcrumbs from Old Testament to the New Testament, heavy the New Testament. right But He gave breadcrumbs. He probably thought, these people are not going to be able to handle... the revealing of who I am in the Trinity, you know, God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit all at once, but gave those breadcrumbs. And we read actually today in staff meetings, Isaiah yeah chapter six, verse eight, where it talks about, you know, who shall we send?
00:05:14
Speaker
And There's this element, even in the the relaying to whoever God is using, that he uses his full self in in some of those instances. And it's just really cool how God yeah sees fit to communicate and to even equip us today. So you know to that point, we do. We see Scripture revealing little concepts of the character, the nature of God all the way
New Testament Evidence of the Trinity
00:05:39
Speaker
through. We talked about the nature of God a little bit last week.
00:05:42
Speaker
um But in the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6, immediately it starts off with this concept that God is one. There is not multiple forms of this God. There's not multiple ideas of this God. There's not different phases of God.
00:05:55
Speaker
God is one. But when you get over into the New Testament, where they start to develop this this idea, this understanding of God a little bit better. In fact, Matthew deals with it in several places um in the baptism of Jesus, where it says that God's voice spoke out of heaven as the Spirit landed on Jesus. So clearly there's three different things personhoods of God that are represented in one essence.
00:06:20
Speaker
Then you get to the end of the book of Matthew with the Great Commission. He says, go out and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So all three are very distinctly there. um what are What are some other places that you would bring to mind? Anything Well, I was thinking, John said it, there's the created and then the creator. yeah And so neither the Holy Spirit was created by God and neither Jesus was created by God. they They're part of the creator, not the created. And i was looking in John 17 earlier, and in verse 5 it says, and now, this is Jesus speaking, he said, and now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
00:07:02
Speaker
So he's referencing a time before creation um where he was with God and he said, bring me bring me back to that place. you know And so it's just an interesting thing to see that Jesus wasn't created when when the Virgin Mary gave birth to him or when he was conceived in the womb.
00:07:19
Speaker
He has always been and it's declared by scripture. Yeah, there's no there's not a sub as far as I mentioned it earlier about Jesus and the Holy Spirit being created. You see some of that as people in other faiths, like, and I say faiths very lightly. no You have the Jehovah's Witness. You have a Jewish culture who will say, you know, there's one God. And they they look at the element of Jesus in a lower state. Appreciated, but in a lower state. Not deserving of where he's at.
00:07:50
Speaker
ah But in that element of where Jesus and the Holy Spirit are placed at, there was never a creation.
Misconceptions and Analogies of the Trinity
00:07:57
Speaker
They were in unison. Uh, there was such a unison in their nature of, uh, their mission to correspond with us as, you know, hit the created beings and man, uh, what a beautiful picture that, you know, we get in that, you know, you mentioned Matthew 28, um,
00:08:16
Speaker
um I love at the very end of verse 20, it says, I am with you always to the end of the age. He was with us as a God the Father in the very beginning.
00:08:27
Speaker
He sent his son, and we get a sweet picture because we see the Holy Spirit effective and in the work of the and all three of those are e eternal. yeah They're all eternal. Eternal in nature, for sure. Right.
00:08:38
Speaker
So, two of the common heresies that you deal with in this subject, and and there are many because, again, it's a hard concept to wrap our brains around. One of them we actually joked about on the on the front end of this, modalism.
00:08:49
Speaker
modalism is this idea that God just appears... so you know, I don't know that word. This is going to be new to me right now. This is why we have the class.
00:09:00
Speaker
to bring Kyle up the speed. Modalism is this concept that God appears in three different phases. And that when God is the Father, then He's the Father. When He's the Son, He can't be the Father. He's just the Son. and So ah some of the...
00:09:13
Speaker
the simpler illustrations we use to try to demonstrate what the Trinity is all about actually fall into that category. I was just about to say, you know, egg, you have some some different elements of illustrations, and I thought, wow, I've used those before. Oh, yeah. And it could really draw somebody to what most people will look at and we claim as heresy, right?
00:09:33
Speaker
For modalism. There's the egg, there's the apple, even the water yeah that you used a minute ago is... is kind of dangerous. Two of the more famous ones that I think still to me it's it's like you're you you're trying to describe something so incredibly unique and beautiful, you just come up, you no words. you try But C.S. Lewis talks about a dance where each member of the party of the dance is is enhancing the other, which is beautiful, but I kind of like Augustine, the great saint, um referred to it as as like a love relationship between the three.
00:10:11
Speaker
There is the lover, the beloved, and the emotion of the love between them. So God the Father, God the Son, who was described as his beloved Son, and then the Holy Spirit, which is kind of the love between
Roles of the Trinity in Salvation
00:10:23
Speaker
them.
00:10:23
Speaker
i I don't like any of them, quite honestly, because all of them just kind of leave me going, okay, i don't i can't I can't grab that. It's like that movie that leaves you with the cliffhanger. Like nothing's really ever hitting in the exact spot.
00:10:35
Speaker
But what we do know and what we do understand, again, for all the images that are given to us and in Scripture, is this beautiful illustration of what community could even be like.
00:10:47
Speaker
yeah And as believers who live alongside other believers, if we could strive to have that kind of closeness and intimacy in our relationship with others...
00:10:58
Speaker
And I know that's like humanly impossible, but it's a worthy goal to get to that place where I can't ever look at you and say, I can do without you because you can't.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah. You know, if that's, if that's true, where we're supposed to be. So, all right, so let's move to this, this um other important question. Okay. We, we believe that the Trinity is a part of what scripture teaches, even though the word's not in there, we believe it's there from Genesis to revelation, but why?
00:11:25
Speaker
Why the Trinity? Why is the Trinity necessary? What is the role of those three essences in that and that person of God? um How do how do they how did they help us in our journey?
00:11:41
Speaker
I think in that, the the roles of each, ah go back to my first statement about God revealing himself gradually. he knew that out of the love that was manifested, it originated with him that he thought
Trinity's Role in Faith and Community
00:11:57
Speaker
that, man, this is going to be the way that I go about this love towards them.
00:12:02
Speaker
And, grabbing the attention and at least letting us see him manifest in these ways. I think, you know, some simplified answer, but I wouldn't say it is that, that those elements of God, the the three persons ah of God are put to us in that direction because he loved us.
00:12:24
Speaker
To have Jesus in physical form, yeah ah God, the father, in the Old Testament, we see the appearance of ah Him through the the burning bush. You see other elements of God in His presence with meeting with people, right but then adding Jesus, then then throwing those other things in there. I just think that He saw it as a form of His consistent love and communication with us.
00:12:48
Speaker
I think it gives Him the ability to ah be with us in different ways as well. like It's like we have God the Father, and then Jesus dwelt among men. He was the flesh. And then when you Jesus was leaving, he was saying he said, hey, someone's going to be sent to you and that this person is going to dwell with you, right?
00:13:05
Speaker
And so um the Holy Spirit is given to us to dwell within us. And it's all part of the salvation plan, the three of them. And so it's just a... an interesting concept behind it. Uh, one that I can't understand fully with my brain.
00:13:19
Speaker
Um, but I trust that, uh, God knew what he was doing when he put all these facets and plates. Right. One interesting application of this is the understanding that God, the father is the one who who created the plan for our salvation, who knew before the beginning of time that we would need it. So he created this plan.
00:13:37
Speaker
His son accomplished the plan by living the perfect life and living the perfect will that his father had asked of him. And then the Holy Spirit applies that salvation to us and helps us live that salvation in our lives.
00:13:50
Speaker
so Each one of them have unique roles that they're fulfilling. Could God have done this all by himself as God the Father? Yes. Yes. yeah Absolutely. ah The Bible is clear that nothing is impossible with him. He could have pulled it off by himself.
00:14:04
Speaker
But he chose to do it this way, in this form, um in a sense, because... He is one God. He did pull it off by himself. Right. And and even the the way we've been explaining it still makes our brain put him in three different areas, right? You said you said God the Father and he his Son, right? And we automatically go, okay, then there's two, right? But Jesus from his own mouth said, I and my Father are one, yes right? yeah And so it's this this one God concept that
00:14:36
Speaker
He just manifests himself in these ways at different times to again dwell with us. Talk about big concepts. ah Sometimes I'm the like simple guy, give me something that I can digest here. And I go back to the thing of time. you know I see time is start right here, end right here.
00:14:54
Speaker
And it is, it's just far beyond our comprehension that this three persons and being one God, like I'm still walking through this. Like I trust you, God.
00:15:07
Speaker
So to that point, let's wrap all this up by making some really, ah hope encouraging statements to you. Knowing and understanding the Trinity is not necessary for your
Community and Interdependence Modeled by the Trinity
00:15:18
Speaker
salvation. Right.
00:15:18
Speaker
No. It's a concept that has, again, has blown the minds of some of the greatest theologians in the history of this world. Yeah. ah I don't think it's anything that we will ever fully grasp this side of heaven.
00:15:32
Speaker
I think it's important that you continue to dig into that and what it means because it changes how you live. It changes how you worship. It changes how you serve others and love others and community.
00:15:45
Speaker
And of course, it changes your perception of God and what he has done for you. So I think that's really important. Anything else y'all would add to that? Yeah. um The key thing of that is just knowing that Jesus is God.
00:15:55
Speaker
Yes. Absolutely. Because with not just with his death and death and resurrection, um knowing that he is God is absolutely crucial to salvation. Yeah. and We can't just dismiss him as a good man or a prophet. Yeah. I think the...
00:16:09
Speaker
The thing that really hits home with me in the last few months, it's been huge for me, really in the last probably year. The first example, you mentioned it, of community. We live in a world that says you can be independent.
00:16:22
Speaker
But Pastor Kyle and I were talking last week about those who move into seasons of independence are still dependent on something. And so we are relying on ah the model of the Trinity to say, wow, God modeled that we need community yeah and we need community within the body of Christ.
00:16:46
Speaker
So it's so important. and those that are out there that say, I don't know if I need this element of brothers and sisters around me, I can do me, do my own thing and my walk with Christ far
Encouragement for Deeper Understanding and Worship
00:16:58
Speaker
from the truth. I think God starts it from the very beginning and says, uh, there's a beauty to a togetherness and community relational.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, a good friend of ours actually shared a quote this morning. I thought was really, really good. It said, Satan knows there's no way possible for him to make hell look beautiful. So he makes the past to hell look beautiful. Um,
00:17:18
Speaker
And it's true. Satan does such a great job of deceiving us into thinking this way is a better way, an easier way, a shorter way, whatever. But what he's leading us to is the absolute and utter destruction of our souls.
00:17:33
Speaker
um Whereas the way following to Jesus to get to that eternal beauty, Jesus is very clear from the very beginning. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. You're going to be challenged. You're going to be pushed back. You know,
00:17:45
Speaker
There'll be times you want to give up, but the old end result, result the end reward is absolutely worth it. So part of that journey, is as we say quite often right here, is that sanctification process. Sanctification is about going into your faith, digging deeper and being refined in your faith, learning more about what God desires from you. And this concept, as deep as it is, the mysterious foundational concept of the Trinity is something you need to look into, something you need to be aware of and hopefully grow in in that area.
00:18:15
Speaker
Well, thanks for joining us today. That's our time. We're here in Ladybug Central today. right. don't know if any of them through the screen today, but they are absolutely I think it's the 11th plague. The weather can't make up its mind. Yeah.
00:18:26
Speaker
So we are glad you
Conclusion and Invitation to Grove Hill Church
00:18:28
Speaker
joined us. Hopefully you you will like this, share it follow us. Tell your friends about it. We'd love to have you join us back here in the weeks ahead as we continue to dig into our faith. And and if you're looking for a place to worship, we would love to have you come visit us at Grove Hill Church, 8, 9, 30, 11 o'clock. And, of course, at our website, grovehillchurch.org.
00:18:48
Speaker
Hope you have a blessed week.