Tag: Father

Trinity (12): 5 Quick Reasons Why It REALLY Does Matter

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Grab your coffee and consider today the glory of the Trinity!

We have had 12 posts on the Trinity.  We have gone out into the “deep end”.  You might be thinking: “ok, ok, the Trinity matters, but does it REALLY matter that much?”

Good question!

Here is an attempt to give a short Answer:

5 quick reasons why the Trinity REALLY does matter:

 

1.)  Atonement Implications

“If Jesus is merely a created being, and not fully God, then it is hard to see how he, a creature, could bear the full wrath of God against all our sins.  Could any creature, no matter how great, really save us?”  

Wayne Grudem

Take the Son out of the Trinity….. and you and I are not and CAN NOT be saved!

Good news…. Jesus IS God!

2.)  Trust Implications

The Trinity gives me reason to trust in God for salvation.

  • If the Father did not send the Son…
  • If Jesus did not come in human flesh, die, rise from the grave….
  • If the Spirit did not breath new life in us….
  • Then who, exactly, are we trusting in for salvation, forgiveness, eternity, etc and is it wise to do so?!?

Good news….. you can trust in the 3 in 1 for salvation!

3.)  Worship and Prayer Implications

If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do not equal God…. why worship Him or pray to Him?  Every prayer ever uttered “in Jesus name” is meaningless.  The reason the words, “in Jesus name” carry meaning is because the Son is our mediator before the Father.  We don’t come before the Father in prayer, in the name of our self or in the name of a priest. We come in the name of THEE great high priest – Jesus Christ.  He is your mediator!    If Jesus is not God, then Christians are the worst of idolaters!

Good news….you can come to the Father!

4.)  Bible Implications

If the Trinity is not God, then the Bible and all of its teachings are meaningless and should NOT be followed.

Good news…. Father, Son, Holy Spirit = God!

5.)  Gospel Implications

The Gospel IS Trinity

Meaning we experience our salvation by all of the Godhead.

“We are saved by the eternal purpose of the Father, by the atoning work of the Son, through the power and wisdom of the Spirit.  We grow in our understanding of God’s grace as we see how each person of the Trinity interacts with the others to bring us out of darkness, into the light.”  

John Frame Systematic Theology

Good news… the gospel IS good news because of the Trinity!

 

For Further Study: 

The Father:  Sends His Son into the world

1 John 4:14

The Son:  Obeys the Father fully by living a perfect life and dying on the cross for to forgive us of our sins.

Phil 3:9

I Corinthians 15:3

The Spirit:  Is sent by the Father and the Son to apply salvation to us.

John 15:26

Galatians 4:6

 

5 quick reasons to once again stand in awe of who our God is.

Praise the Father,

Praise the Son,

Praise the Spirit, three in one!

 

Trinity (12): Drawing Pictures

crayons

I am reading a book with two of my sons.  Tanner and Tim (9 and 14 yrs old).  The book is titled:  Big Truths For Young Hearts by Bruce Ware.  Young hearts…. really?  It seems to me to be: Big truths for old hearts too!  As I read this to my kids I stand in awe of our God!

It is with that in mind that I want to share with you an excerpt from the book.  The chapter is titled One God in Three Persons. The author is explaining that many analogies and illustrations that seek to describe the Trinity fall short of doing so.

Enjoy!

“A question often asked is whether there are any examples, any analogies or illustrations, to the Trinity that can help us understand how God is both one and three.  Some have suggested that the Trinity is like a triangle – three sides make up one triangle, so you have three in one.  This example helps for a bit, but when you think about it more deeply, you can see it isn’t quite right. You see, the Bible teaches that there is one God, and the Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God – not three gods but three Persons, each of whom expresses fully that one God.  But a triangle is not this way.  Yes, it has three sides, but each of the sides is not fully a triangle, right?  So, while a triangle shows one thing made up of three parts, it doesn’t show one thing that is fully expressed by each of the three parts.

Some have thought that perhaps the Trinity is like three men, say Peter, James, and John.  They all are human, but they are three persons.  Will this work to show us the Trinity? Here the problem is the opposite of the problem with the triangle.  Each person is fully human, but in this example you not only have three persons, you have also three human beings.  After all, Peter is a man, but a different man from James, who is a different man from John.  So if we followed this illustration we would end up with three gods as well as three persons who are god.

Yet others have thought H2O (water) shows us the Trintiy since H2O can be three things:  solid (ice), liquid (running water), and vapor (steam).  But the same H2O molecules cannot be all three at exactly the same time. H2O is a good illustration of modalism (a false teaching of the Trinity that we’ll learn more about later) where God is first the Father, then the Son, and then the Spirit, one at a time. But the Bible teaches that God is Father, Son, and Spirit all at the same time. Each person lives eternally as God.

The closest thing I have imagined to the Trinity is drawing a circle using three colored markers (perhaps red, blue, and green). If you draw the same circle three times, with each color overlapping exactly the previous one, you have one circle. But the red line is not the blue line, and the blue line is not the green line. Yet all three lines enclose only one circle. While this illustration may work in a very small part, the truth is that there simply is nothing in our experience that shows us exactly what the Trinity teaches.  Nothing quite works to show what it means for God to be one in his nature as the one true God, yet three in Persons as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each fully God. But we should not be surprised at this. After all, the Bible has told us many times that there is no one like the Lord (Exodus 8:10; 9:14; Deuteronomy 33:26; 34:11; Jeremiah 10:6-7). He is the one and only true and living God, and He also is unlike anything or anyone else.

There truly is no one like the Lord. He is one God, but that one God lives and is expressed through the three Persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Each Person is fully God, yet each Person is also distinct from the other Persons.  We have here a biblical teaching that in the end we must believe even though we cannot understand it fully. And what we can learn from this is that God is greater than we can imagine and more beautiful than anything we’ve seen. The doctrine of the Trinity calls us to wonder and marvel at just how great our God is.

Three in One and One in Three – This is God, and there is no other!”

Bruce Ware

 

Greater than we can imagine…….  Praise Him!

 

 

 

Trinity (6): The Father – By Steve Page

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The Trinity

 It is a baffling irony that this doctrine is the most important for Christians today and yet it is, perhaps, one of the most neglected.

It can be intimidating to confront (or rather, be confronted by) such a unique, deep, and soul-challenging doctrine as the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet, for the Christian, there is nothing left but to dive in- we must know our God because our God has drawn us to Himself. The simple fact is: we cannot know God if we do not know the Trinity.

The Father in the Trinity is the basis for…the Father for us.

I am posting a two-part series on the Father.

  • In part one, we will look at who the Father is in the Trinity.
  • In part two we will look at the Father for us.

To rightly know the Father for us we must know the Father in the Trinity.

“God is Love” (1Jn 4:8,16) This is one of the most basic truths we know about God. But often it is read in the context of “God is love, and so God loves me and saves me.” While this is true, we are missing a point that is definitional to who God is. God is Love. He has always been Love. He will always be Love. But, how can a God be Love before He created anyone to love? We believe God is one, so how could He love anyone before he made us?

Enter: TRINITY!   

Before anything was ever created, the Father, Son and Spirit existed in perfect harmony and unity.

Consider:

  • By the Spirit, the Father loved the Son and
  • the Son loved the Father.
  • God was totally full and complete in and of Himself.
  • He had no need to create.
  • He was not lonely.
  • He didn’t have a “human-shaped hole” in His heart that could only be filled by you or me.
  • To understand this is to begin to rightly understand the Trinity.

To be a Father is, by nature, to be life-giving. It is no surprise, then, that the Father freely chose to create a Universe in which He could bring others into the glorious overflow of the love of the Trinity. The nature of true love is to share in the bounty of love!

Within this “perfect triangle of love” the love of the Father for the Son (through the Spirit) expressed itself by creating a universe in which an elect people could exist.
The elect were chosen by the Father from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1.3-6), they were given to the Son by the Father (John 6.37), they were given the promised Spirit by the Father (Luke 24.49); and through the obedience of the Son and the sealing of the Spirit, the elect will be glorified in eternity (Rom 8.28-30).

This is called “Salvation History” or the “History of Redemption”. The whole sweep of human existence has come about by the overflowing of the love of the Father for the Son in the Spirit. You are here because the live-giving, overflowing, super-abounding love of the Father is being expressed to the Son through the Spirit…all to the glory of God!

When we believe this we realize that our position before God is not dependent upon our performance. God’s love for us is not based upon how good you are. God’s love for you is based on the Father’s love of the Son, and we are sealed in that love by the Holy Spirit.

More on this in part 2, The Father for Us…

Trinity (4): 1 God 3 Persons

bible study

 

We so easily make God to be who we want Him to be. We like a God who is fashioned in our own image. Thankfully, we have the Word of God to adjust our thinking.  To think rightly about who God is, is to think biblically.  We don’t need to guess, nor do we need to make it up.

God’s Word was written to reveal God to us.  It is God… on God.  He makes Himself known so that we can know Him!  Did you catch that?  The Bible reveals God – we can know Him!  As a Christian, I want to know God – but not just any ol’ image of God that I conjure up.  I want to know Him AS HE IS!  And He is:  Father / Son / Holy Spirit.

One of the ways He makes Himself known is by the Trinity.  The 3 in 1.  Think about it:  While the Trinity is beyond our ability to fully comprehend, the Trinity is also easy to comprehend.  Meaning, we can easily grasp aspects of the Trinity.  How helpful is the Trinity for us to begin to know God!

Father

Son

Holy Spirit

All the aspects of each begin to give us a picture of who God is.

Wayne Grudem defines the doctrine of the Trinity as:

 God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.  

Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology

What would we do without the Trinity?

It is the Trinity that helps us to know who God is, what He has done, and how He is involved in sinful man.

It is much more than knowing Trinity “facts”.  Much more than knowing the Trinity factually, the Trinity is:  Father – Son – Spirit.  But we will get to that in future posts. For now, just consider how awesome it is that God reveals Himself as He does…. Trinity!

How Big is your Trinity?

Is the Trinity you hold to, the Trinity of the Bible?  If it is NOT, then you are creating a god in YOUR image.  YIKES!

Consider Today:

Do you hold to God – 3 in 1?  Or do you minimize one aspect of the Godhead?  Does your God have the Father?  Does your God have the Son?  Does your God have the Spirit?  Consider the implications if your view of God is lacking in any of the 3 persons we have in God.

thanks for reading!

Trinity (3): 4 Ways To Think About “Deep End” Theology

Swimming pool

When we talk Trinity we are entering into…. the deep end of the theological pool!  Remember as a small child playing in the shallow end?  The deep end was…. scary.  It was for the big people.  The experienced swimmers!  Not me…. I was a shallow end kid!  Guys like me were sure to drown in the deep end.

And so, I never ventured out… until the lure of all the fun that was being had in the deep end drew me!  It begins by edging your way around the pool while hanging on to the side.  And slowly but surely you found yourself…. in the deep end!  And, while the deep end should be respected by a little kid – it should also be enjoyed!  And enjoy it I did!  Almost daily!

Some think:  Why venture out into the Trinity.  They say: “you can’t fully understand it, so why bother?”   Oh friend, we need to bother.  Yes, it is the deep end and yes the deep end should be respected, but the deep end is GREAT!  It is here that we learn who God is and what He has done for us.  The deep end creates worshipers and it stirs passion and love for God. It is in the deep end that we begin to behold the glory of our God.

So, are you ready?  The following posts are all: deep end theology.  I don’t pretend to have it all figured out!  Nobody has God all figured out!  Are you kidding me?  He is, after all…… GOD!

Ok, here we go – let go of the wall…..

God is both 1 and 3!

Got it!?!

If so, your brain is far better than mine!  Trinity = 1 God 3 persons.  And that is the deep end theology we will be getting into in the posts to come.  But before we venture too far out into the deep end, let’s head back to the shallow end and ask:  “How are we to think about the deep end?”

4 Ways to Think About Deep End Theology

1.) Humility

Pride demands to have it all figured out.  Our pride actually thinks that the created should be able to fully grasp – in entirety – the Creator.  Think about this for a minute.  How silly is that?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that we should throw up our hands and say – If I can’t figure Him out… why bother.  Please…. Bother!  Remember the deep end is fun!  Humility is not opposed to study and diligence or deep thought.  BUT, what do we do when our study brings us to the Infinite, Almighty, Eternal, God?  HUMILITY!

2.)  Joy

Consider…. if you are a Christian, you serve a God who is without limits.  He is beyond us.  The fancy word for this is transcendence.  God transcends us.  Here are some good synonyms for the word transcendence: incomparability, matchlessness, peerlessness,magnificence, excellence, supremacy.

Yep – that is God – the 3 in 1

He is beyond us, He is infinite and that fills my heart with joy.  Because, if He were not transcendent……  then He would not be much of a God!

3.)  Worship

What does it mean that the infinite, transcendent God came and dwelled among us?  (John 1)  That’s right the infinite God took on – human flesh – skin and bones and…. limits to dwell among us!  WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?  He did that so that he might live a perfect life and die on the cross for our sins and rise from the grave ascending to the Father so that He might send us His Spirit and the Father might adopt us as His children.  Deep End Theology stirs my heart to worship Him!

4.)  Hunger

I WANT TO KNOW HIM!  It becomes a Psalms 27 moment for me, how about you?

 

One thing have I asked of the LORD,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to inquire in his temple.

(Psalm 27:4 ESV)