Word of Salvation – Vol.45 No.08 – February 2000
We Believe In One God
Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 8 (Heidelberg Catechism)
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 6:1-5; John 14:8-11
Suggested Hymns: BoW 155; 167; 209; 164:3,4
Beloved in the Lord.
I want to share with you a story about the church father Augustine from Hippo, North Africa. He lived in the late fourth century and early fifth century. The story was in the preface of an old children’s bible. I can’t even tell you if the story is true because there was no reference given to any of Augustine’s writings.
The story went like this: Augustine was working on a book in which he was trying to explain how the Bible saw God. He found it very difficult to describe God. Taking a break he went for a walk along the beach where he came upon a little girl who had dug a hole in the sand and was busy running back and forth to the water’s edge with her bucket. On each trip she filled her bucket with water and then emptied it in the hole she had dug. Intrigued by her hard work and noticing that the water disappeared into the sand almost as quick as it was poured into the hole, Augustine asked her what she was doing. Cheerfully she replied, “I am emptying the sea into this hole…!” then ran off to get some more water.
Walking on, Augustine silently thanked God for teaching him a lesson from what he had just seen. The sea was so vast and seemingly without limits. How could the girl ever hope to empty it in a small hole? He realised that he was doing a similar thing. He, a human being created by God and dependent on God, was attempting to explain the nature and being of God who is eternal, almighty, infinite, and therefore incomprehensible to the human mind.
Since Augustine, many theologians have written about God in their books, and preachers, like myself, try to make sermons about God. It’s a daunting task, and yet we cannot avoid it.
The Bible says about God, which is really God speaking about Himself, that “no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” [1Cor.2:11]. Yet God has given His Spirit to His children, “…so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” [vs.12]. But what God has given us to understand is only a part of Him. After dealing with the doctrine of election, which is such a comfort to the believer but at the same time beyond our full understanding, the Bible says of God, “Oh, the depth and the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord?” [Rom.11:33,34].
With these reminders to stay humble and small as we try to describe God, we approach the doctrine of the Trinity and our theme is: We believe in One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- How did the Christian church come to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity?
This is not the same as saying, how did the Christian church come to believe in God? Christians have always believed in God. But they believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, because that’s how the Bible speaks about God. However, when you look at the Athanasian Creed, for example, then you have there a formulation about God, put together by Christians a long time ago, which is quite complex. In this Creed, great care is taken to show how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each fully God, how they are inter-related, what the work of each one is, and yet how we cannot speak of three gods but of only one God. The Belgic Confession and the Westminster Confession also give a careful formulation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
What value is there in having these formulations? What’s the good of theologians writing books about the nature and being of God? Why am I preaching a sermon on the Trinity?
This doctrine is not an invention of the early Christian church, as the Jehovah Witnesses keep telling us. And when they further point out that the word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible, then they are not telling us something we didn’t already know ourselves. The word ‘Trinity’ comes from the word ‘tri-une’ or ‘tri-unity’ which simply points to God being one but existing in three Persons. What the JWs don’t want to hear, of course, is the Christian’s confession that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are also fully God from eternity.
The JWs are not the first to deny this. In the third century AD, a teacher in the church by the name of Arius, was already saying said that Christ was not eternal but a created being. Athanasius, a contemporary of Arius, opposed this teaching. The Creed that we have by his name was not actually from Athanasius. The early church developed it and it became widely accepted.
Now even if the early church did not discover from Scripture that God is one and that He consists of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each being fully and eternally God, then the church in later years would have discovered this teaching for the simple reason that the Bible points to this in so many places. But saying this leads to two questions. One, how come the early church began to discover this teaching in the Bible about the third century and why was this not seen by believers before them? And two, why can’t the JWs see this if it so plainly taught in Scripture?
If we answer the last question first then we can say that the beliefs of the sects, like JWs, have usually come from their founders. Their beliefs were often a reaction to what they regarded as false or neglected teachings of the Christian church of their day. Their own personal and individual Bible study also resulted in often strange and unwarranted conclusions. Their errors became entrenched in their followers, especially when these were challenged and even persecuted.
Someone might well say that maybe the JWs are right and the teachings of the historic Christian faith are wrong. How can we tell who has truest understanding of God? What if the Trinity is not what the Bible really teaches? The answer to these kind of questions is that whoever is having doubts about the Trinity should carefully examine what both the sect and the historic Christian church teach on the subject in the light of Scripture. And try to learn from those who have already gone down that path.
Returning now to the first question, which asked: how come the early church discovered that the Bible taught God as a triune being and why did believers before them not see this? Well, the believers in the Old Testament had no doubt that God is one being and the existence of the Holy Spirit and the coming of the Messiah never threatened this belief in the oneness of God. There is also no evidence from the gospels that Jesus’ followers, like the apostles, had any doubts about God being one distinct Being. They came to confess Christ as God’s Son and believed He was God in the flesh because of what Jesus said and did. And when Christ ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, then the very early church believed that God who had revealed Himself so wonderfully in Christ was continuing His work among them through the work of the Holy Spirit.
What made the early Christians think more deeply about all this were the attacks on their faith from those who started to teach strange things. Some, like Arius, began to say that Christ was not eternal but a creature like other humans. A very important person, said Arius, and even different to other people, but not on the same level as God. Others said that Christ was not even a person but just a quality of God. They claimed that the titles ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ were given to Christ out of mere courtesy.
The Holy Spirit was also not a person but a mere influence, a special power flowing out of God. Again, a very important power, but definitely not having a personality or distinctive qualities of His own. These views rejected Christ and the Spirit as God and saw only the Father as God [Monarchism].
There were others who also denied that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate persons and explained them simply as different ‘modes’ or ‘manifestations’ of the one person of God [Modalism]. They held the view that God was first Father, then at a later time He became the Son, and still later, the Holy Spirit. This made God more like an actor who plays all the three different characters one after the other.
These attacks actually came from within the church and were supported by statements from the Bible. In the confusion and turmoil that resulted, the Christian church had to work out what the Bible really said about God. They realised that they had to understand individual texts in the context of the whole of Scripture, and any formulation they arrived at had to do justice, not just to some texts, but to all that the Bible said about God. In these difficult church struggles, God raised godly men whom He used to help the church understand more clearly how to see God. It was really the Holy Spirit preserving in the church the truth about God.
Inevitably these struggles resulted in divisions in the church. What became obvious to many, and then carefully formulated, was that the Bible taught two clear facts about God. One fact said that there is only one true God. The second fact said that this one God had revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that each one is as fully God as the other. And those who continued to believe differently were declared false teachers and their teaching heretical.
You must realise that this struggle was a very difficult one. Within the church a line had to be drawn and on the one side were the believers faithful to Scripture and on the other side were those whose beliefs were false and undermining the very foundation of the church. They could not be part of the Christian church unless they repented of their false teachings. In this way the Lord preserved His church, but many true believers experienced persecution and had to pay with their lives for holding on to the truth.
We can be thankful today that Christians of so long ago defended the truth about God against false teachings. But on what did they base their defence? What does the Scripture say?
- The witness of Scripture to the doctrine of the Trinity
In Deuteronomy 6:4 we read: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Or, “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” This reminder to Old Testament Israel that God was the only God, was given to them before they entered the promised land and faced peoples who had many false gods. Many years later, God said about Himself through the prophet Isaiah, “I am the Lord and there is no other, apart from me there is no God” [45:5]. This one true God, “does not change like shifting shadows” says the letter of James in the New Testament.
The orthodox Jew and the conservative Muslim are in full agreement with the Old Testament witness that God is one God and the only God. But they regard it a terrible mistake when the Christian church says, on the basis of New Testament teaching, that Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are each also fully God. To them that is a denial of the Old Testament teaching that God is one. For these reasons, therefore, Judaism and Islam have deep misgivings about the New Testament. But already in the Old Testament there are indications that this one God is a plural being. Right at the beginning of creation the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters [Gen.1:2]. And when God speaks of how He created man, He said, “Let us make man in our image” [1:26]. Here God speaks of Himself in the plural. But God, referring to Himself in the singular, immediately follows it, “So God created man in His own image” [vs.27]. God says He is both one and more than one.
In the time of Abraham, and on other occasions as well, we read about “the Angel of the Lord”, but elsewhere this same Angel is simply referred to as “the Lord” [Gen.16:7,13; 22:15,16]. The Angel of the Lord, or, the Lord, is none other than the eternal Christ. At His incarnation many years later, Christ took on human nature permanently. But as the eternal Son of God, Christ on special occasions in Old Testament times, briefly appeared on earth also in human form.
In addition there are many Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah who is the Son of God, and one such well known prophecy plainly refers to Him as God, “And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” [Is.9:6]. Yes, this is Christ before He was born in the flesh in Bethlehem and described as “Mighty God” and even “Everlasting Father.”
And many times the Old Testament speaks of the Spirit of God. The prophets were moved to speak by the Spirit of God, but it is very clear that this Spirit is God Himself.
The New Testament flows on from all this and fully upholds the Old Testament teaching on God as a triune Being and gives this teaching more detail. We read about God the Father sending God the Son into the world as the Saviour. And God the Holy Spirit is given to God the Son to enable Him to do His saving work. This took place at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus the Son of God is baptised, the Spirit of God descends on Him, and the voice of God the Father is heard from heaven speaking approval of what the Son will do as the Saviour [Mat.3:16].
Furthermore, Christ can only be God when He raises the dead, judges the world and forgives sins. He did mighty miracles. Had Jesus only been a man then He would have remained dead. But as God He arose. As God He ascended to heaven. Christ is called God in Scripture in a number of places [Jn.1:1; 20:28; Rom.9:5; Heb.1:8].
In various places the Scriptures also makes Jesus’ name equal to God’s name [Mat.28:19; Acts 2:38; Rom.6:3; 1Cor.1:3; 12:4-6; 2Cor.2:14; Jn.5:23; 14:1]. In the book Revelation, He is frequently honoured and worshipped as God. In the opening vision in Revelation He speaks of Himself as the Lord God who is “…the Alpha and the Omega who is, and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” [1:8]. Here is a clear reference to Jesus’ eternal existence. The letter to the Philippians describes Jesus as “being in very nature God” [2:6], and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth …and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” [2:10,11]. And Thomas, who had such deep doubts about Jesus’ resurrection, was made to say when the risen Christ stood in front of him, “My Lord and my God” [Jn.20:28]. And God the Father sent the Holy Spirit, and the New Testament speaks of the Spirit as “He”, not as an ‘it’. The Spirit is the source of guidance [Jn.16:13; Acts 8:29,39; 13:4; 15:28; 16:7], renewal [Tit.9:31], life [Jn.3:5-8; Lk.1:35], power [Acts 1:8], comfort [Acts 9:31], joy [1Thess.1:6], faith [12:9], hope [Rom.15:3], love [1Jn 4:7,13]. He also gives a wide variety of gifts [Rom.12:6ff; 1Cor.12:14]. The Spirit is also the One who taught the apostles not words of human wisdom but spiritual words of God [1Cor.2:13; 1Pet 1:11ff]. The Spirit prays for the believers [Rom.8:16,26] and can be sinned against. He will come and live in you, said Jesus to His disciples and to all believers. He will comfort you. [Jn.14:16ff]. He is the Spirit of truth and He will guide you into all truth. [Jn.16:13]. The Spirit of God is God with the church, God with the believer. And when Peter accused Annanias of lying to the Holy Spirit, then he made it plain that it was the same as lying to God [Acts 5:3,4].
The church is commanded to say at every baptism, “I baptise you ‘into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ “ [Mat.28:19]. And many a greeting and benediction of New Testament letters were given in the name of the Father and the Son, and a few times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [2Cor.13:14].
From all this evidence from Scripture the Christian church came to confess that God is one but that this one God exist in three Persons. That’s how God is and that’s how He will always be. Always and ever, it is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The three Persons in the Trinity are distinct and yet not separate. They do different things and yet are always one glorious divine Being.
God the Father is mostly associated with the work of creation, God the Son mostly with the work of salvation, and God the Holy Spirit mostly with the work of sanctification. Or, to say it in another way, the Bible shows the Father being the origin of all things, and He sends the Son to redeem what sin made crooked, and the Holy Spirit is of both the Father and the Son and is given to the believer to live in his heart or mind. Yet, in other ways the Bible speaks of God creating the universe through the Son and the Son being the exact representation of God’s being, sustaining all things by His powerful word [Heb.1:1-3].
The use of the word ‘Person’ in the Trinity is a bit confusing. We say that God is one but that He exist in three Persons. But the word person to us is an individual. You are a person and I am a person. To speak of three individuals in God would not be in keeping with what the Bible says of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But the word ‘person’ when used with the Trinity means to say that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all have a personality of their own. They each have distinctive roles. But there are not three personalities, there is really only one. It is God and He reveals Himself as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. But always each is fully God and God is fully in each.
There is no doubt that the doctrine of the Trinity is difficult to understand and difficult to explain in words. We are dealing with God who in many ways is incomprehensible to us. Yet, the Christian church must confess God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and insist that this confession is essential to salvation. In other words, you cannot be saved when you deny God as the Triune Being. Sects and movements such as Christian Science, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormonism, Christadelphianism, all commit the same basic error when they refuse to confess Christ and the Spirit as fully God. And unless they confess Christ as God we must continue to say that they bring a false gospel.
I like to close with a quote from a book called “The Living God”, by RT France. He says:
“The person who will get the nearest to understanding the Trinity as the New Testament understands it, is not the philosopher or the historian but the man who knows for himself the God who made him, who has redeemed him, and whose power is undeniably producing in his life the fruits of holiness.
He is the one who can read the New Testament and say, ‘This is where I belong, this is the life I know.’ And this person is also the one to whom the doctrine of the Trinity, while it may stretch his mind to the limit and beyond, is a warm, living, vital echo of his authentic Christian experience. And as he comes to see it in this light, he will realise that the early Christians did not invent this doctrine from sheer cussedness, to make faith as difficult and unreasonable as they could, but that it forced itself on them as part and parcel of a revolutionary new way of seeing things, the only way they could account for what God had done and was doing for them still.
And as this person sees the doctrine in this light, he will thank God for it, and rejoice in the loving, redeeming, sanctifying work of the triune God.” [pp 114-115].
That is the language of faith. It’s the language you and I must speak when we as Christian believers confess: “I believe in one God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
Amen.