Word of Salvation – Vol. 29 No. 29 – August 1984
The Trinity
Sermon by Rev. H.O. Berends v.d.m. on Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 8
Scripture: Psalm 102; Hebrews 1
Suggested Liturgy: Hymns 198; 317; 319; 4 BoW; 702 BoW
Brothers and sisters,
Perhaps sometime this week there will be a knock on your door when you least expect it. And when you have wiped your hands on your apron, or jumped out of bed, or run from the shower and draped a towel around you; when you have dragged yourself away from your favourite TV programme, or interrupted whatever else you were doing and have opened the door wondering who it could be, you will find there two neatly dressed strangers, with smiles on their faces and some literature in their hands. And as you glance down you will see there the word “Awake!” or perhaps “The Watchtower” and a little light will pop on in the back of your mind and you will think by yourself, with an inward groan, “Oh no, not them again; Jehovah’s Witnesses!”
But Jehovah’s Witnesses they will be, come to tell you the message which Jehovah-God has commanded them to bring to all people: that they belong to the only true Church, and that all others are nothing less than organisations of the devil. They come to inform you that Christ has already come back to earth and that, though right now his return is still secret, the millennium is near and Armageddon is just around the corner. They come to deny many of the doctrines of the bible which you believe, and which Bible they too profess to believe in. For they do profess to believe the Bible. Only what they read in it and what we do are often totally different things.
Yes, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and of course also other similar sects, with which we may come into contact, do maintain that they too believe the Bible. But sometimes theirs hardly seems the same as our Bible. For many of the doctrines which we find amply confirmed there and hold dearly, they do not believe in; and many of what to us are the most cardinal teachings of scripture they will deny outright.
One of the doctrines these people will call into question is the doctrine of the Trinity, and especially that of the divinity of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
“Since there is but one God, why do you speak of three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?” asks the Heidelberg Catechism in question 25, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as many other so-called Christian sects, would emphatically deny this. Not, of course, that there is a God. They too believe in Jehovah, in God the Father. But that there is also a ‘God the Son’, and a ‘God the Holy Spirit’. For Jesus is not God, they say; neither is the Holy Spirit. And the bible does not teach this; and then they will (by means of well-memorised proof-texts, taken totally out of context) try to convince you of the biblical accuracy of their view.
What would you do in such a situation? What could you do, brothers and sisters? Oh, of course, you could take the easy way out and slam the door in their faces. But just imagine you didn’t. Just imagine you weren’t quick enough and they managed to get a foot inside the door and keep talking. Just imagine you were in a good mood and asked them if they wanted a drink and they ended up in conversation around your table. Just imagine that you allowed them to open their bibles and that you went to the bookshelf and fetched your Bible, and opened it; what then? Would you be able to show them? Would you be able to prove to them that their texts were taken out of context, or were based on a faulty translation, and that the Bible, when read properly, does clearly show the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the divinity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit; would you be able to prove to them from the Bible that God is indeed Three in One?
For the bible does so teach. There is no doubt about that! “Since there is but one God, why do you speak of three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?” asks the catechism. And the answer is, because that is how God has revealed himself in his Word; these three distinct persons are one, true, eternal God.” “Because that is how God has revealed himself in his Word….!”
The Bible clearly teaches the doctrine of the Trinity; in particular it teaches the divinity of Jesus and of the Spirit. But how does it do so? That is what we will seek to answer, in order not only that we may understand it for ourselves, but also that we may be able to show it to others to show them where and how the bible teaches that God is indeed a Triune God that he is indeed Three-in-One.
First let me make a few preliminary observations. When we look for the Trinity, we must look primarily in the New Testament. That should be obvious, surely.
In Old Testament times God was concerned mainly with showing the Israelites that He was one God. The Israelites were continually exposed to polytheism. The gods of the nations around about, Baal and Ashtaroth, Moloch and Dagon, were never far from their thought and they were often drawn to these, to serve them. And so in the Old Testament God seeks to show them that these are no gods. That only He is God and that He is One God. “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One,” says Moses in Deut.6:4 – in what has since become the most important creed of Judaism. The LORD is One! We do not worship many gods but one God and all other gods are but idols. That is the chief message, the major doctrine concerning the person of God in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament emphasises the unity of the Godhead as opposed to the polytheism of the heathen nations. It does not emphasise the Trinity, and yet already in the Old Testament there are some indications, there are some implications that in this unity of the God-head there is also a plurality. Right there in Gen.1:26 for instance, when God says “Let us make man in our image”. Or in Isaiah 6:8 where he exclaims, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And in the fact that one of the Hebrew words for God, the word Elohim, is really in the plural though always translated in the singular. And in the mention, on occasions, of the Spirit of the Lord; and of the Angel of the Lord – who, when viewed with New Testament hindsight may well have been the Son of God. In these ways and others the Old Testament too already gives us some hints that there is more to the Godhead than merely a simple unity.
But that which is only hinted at in the Old Testament is amply confirmed in the New Testament. The New Testament clearly teaches, in such a way as to render beyond doubt, that the Godhead consists of Three Persons that Jesus too is God and so is the Holy Spirit, so that our God is a Triume God, he is three in one.
How does the New Testament teach the divinity of the Son and the Spirit? Firstly it does so, at least in the case of Jesus, in those verses where it directly calls Jesus, God. There are not many of these, and some are rather ambiguous at that. The most important would be John 1:1 where we read that, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word was God. Not: the Word was a god, small ‘g’, as the J.W.s try so desperately to prove and as they translate it in their bibles. The Greek simply will not allow their translation and all unbiased experts are here in agreement. No, the Word was God. And this Word, we read a few verses further on, was Jesus.
John 1:1 is perhaps the clearest direct proof of the divinity of Jesus to be found in the New Testament.
But there are some others. In John 20:28 we find the confession of Thomas, “My Lord and my God”, he calls Jesus. In Romans 9:5 we read: “Christ who is God over all,” in our translation though not in some others. And in 1John 5:20 we read, again in our translation, of Jesus that, “He is the true God and eternal life.”
In these verses, then, Jesus is directly called “God”, though admittedly some of them are open to different translation. And there are no equivalent texts in the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit. You will find or in the K.J. version, where in 1John 5:7 we read that, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one,” – and that would be a very useful text if only it was genuine. But unfortunately it isn’t. It was a late addition by some overzealous scribe not found in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament and so all modern translations, including ours, omit it.
There are no verses in the New Testament that directly call the Holy Spirit God and only very few concerning Jesus. But that doesn’t really matter. The strongest proof concerning the divinity of Christ and of the Spirit does not come from such verses anyway. And the fact that there are so very few direct proof texts stems from a very good reason. The New Testament writers didn’t bother usually to state the obvious. To them it was so obvious that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is God, that they never bothered to state it in so many words. Just as it was so obvious that children of believers ought to be baptised that they never stated that either. But although they did not directly state it, they obviously assumed it. And they often implied it. And these assumptions, these implications that Jesus is God and that the Spirit is God are found on every page of the New Testament. And it is these that are our strongest proofs, these proofs by assumption and implication; the verses which, though they do not put the equation Christ = God or Holy Spirit = God, yet have the implication and assumption of those truths written all over them.
Well, what do I mean by that and which are these verses. We can place them into 3 categories. First of all, there are those which mention two or all three of the persons of the Godhead all in one breath, as it were, without drawing any distinction of rank or position between them.
Matthew 28:19 springs immediately to mind here – the baptismal formula given by Jesus himself. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,” said Jesus, “baptising them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Why should we baptise into those three names and not just into the name of the Father or of Jesus? Well, the implication is obvious, isn’t it? Because these are the three persons in the Godhead. They are mentioned here without distinction or division. You ask a JW to explain this text. You ask him why he was baptised into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as he will have been. Ask him just after he has proved to his own satisfaction that Christ and the Spirit are not God. He will find it very hard to tell you, may be embarrassed even. For the implications of the verse are so obvious. These three are so obviously equal in importance and status. And if one of them is God, and even the JW will not deny this, then all three of them must be. If they weren’t, Christ would have drawn a distinction, would have indicated if in some way, surely. But he doesn’t; he mentions all these in one breath. Because all three are God.
There are other verses, similar to this one. I don’t have time to mention or consider them all this evening. There is the blessing, the one we often use at the end of a service and which is taken from 2Cor.13:14 – the one that talks about “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” And, with regard to the deity of the Holy Spirit there is Acts 5:3 and 4 where Ananias is said to have lied against the Holy Spirit and then to have lied against God in 2 consecutive verses and 1Cor.3:16 where we are told in one and the same verse that our bodies are God’s temple and that the Holy Spirit dwells in them. It is verses such as these and there are others, verses which mention two or more persons in the Godhead without drawing any distinction – except perhaps that of role between them. It is verses like these which prove by implication that these persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each equally and truly God.
And then secondly there are those verses in which both the Son and the Spirit are mentioned as possessing divine qualities or doing divine actions, qualities and actions which only God can possess and do.
Jesus is said (in John 1:1,2 and in other verses) to have eternal existence, and (in Hebrews 9:14) the bible speaks of the “eternal Spirit”. Jesus is said (in John 21:17) to know all things, and so does the Spirit (1Cor.2:11).
Jesus is all-powerful, says Rev.1:8 and so (1Cor.12:11), is the Spirit.
Jesus is the Creator of all things (John 1:3 and Col.1:16) and the Spirit too was active in creation, especially in the creation of life (Gen.1:2 and Job 26:13).
That Jesus is the Provider and Sustainer of the creation and that through him and by him God the Father rules the world and upholds it is the teaching of Col.1:17 and of many other verses.
Jesus forgives sins as we see in Mark 2:5 and even the unbelieving Jews realised that in claiming to do so he made himself equal with God, although of course they didn’t believe him.
The Holy Spirit not only creates life but is also the creator and giver of new life. To be born again means to be born of the Spirit, as John 3: 8 teaches.
These qualities of being eternal, of being omniscient, all knowing, of being omnipotent, all powerful, are divine qualities. These actions of creating and upholding, of forgiving and giving life and new life are all divine actions. And in claiming these qualities and postulating these actions for the Son and for the Spirit, the New Testament writers are implying and assuming that both the Son and the Spirit are divine; that they are God.
The New Testament writers show their assumption that Christ and the Spirit are God by mentioning them in one breath with God the Father. And they imply the divinity of the Son and the Spirit through the actions and qualities they attribute to them. And then, thirdly they also imply their conviction that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God by their use of the Old Testament. By their use of the Old Testament as they allude to it or quote from it. For we find again and again that where the Old Testament mentions God, where the Old Testament speaks of God or attributes certain words or actions to God, there the New Testament writers will take these verses and apply them without any hesitation to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit.
Take the term “Lord” for instance. The word “Lord” in the Old Testament always refers to God. It is in fact the word which is used to translate the Old Testament covenant name of God, the name Yahweh or Jehovah. But when the New Testament writers use this word “Lord” or rather its Greek equivalent, they use it invariably to mean Jesus. “God” in the New Testament generally refers to God the Father. But “Lord”, which in the Old Testament stands for God, in the New stands for Jesus.
And notice the way in which the New Testament writers take Old Testament passages which refer to God and apply them to Jesus. The writer of the book of Hebrews especially does this very extensively. That’s why we read that first chapter. For in that first chapter he quotes the Old Testament no less than 7 times. And of these 7 passages, 2 at least obviously refer in the Old Testament to God. I mean that quote from Ps.45 which starts, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever” and from Ps.102 which began, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth..!” In these two psalms there is no doubt that those passages refer to Jehovah. And yet here in Hebrews the writer has no hesitation whatsoever in referring them to Jesus, God the Son. “But about the Son he says,” we read in vs.8, “Your throne, 0 God, will last forever and ever.” To the writer of Hebrews, as to the other New Testament writers, what is said in the Old Testament about Jehovah can be applied directly to Jesus. For Jesus too is God.
And it is the same with the Holy Spirit. Not only in Hebrews, though here again we find the most obvious examples. But also in other New Testament books. In Acts 28, for instance, Paul the apostle quotes from Isaiah. In Isaiah 6: 9-10, in that well known chapter where Isaiah is commissioned by God Himself and sees God in a vision in the temple, God says to him, “Go and tell this people:” Be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” God, it says there clearly, said these words to Isaiah. But in Acts 28:25-27 Paul, quoting this same passage and applying it to the people of his own generation, says, “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet:..” and then follows the text. “God spoke”, says Isaiah. “The Holy Spirit spoke”, says Paul of the same words. And in this he sees no contradiction. For to Paul, as to the other New Testament writers, the Holy Spirit too is God.
Brothers and sisters, let me conclude. The Bible, and the New Testament in particular clearly teaches that there are three Persons in the God-head. It does so not so much in a direct way, because to prove the Trinity was not the main concern of its writers. To them that was obvious. And so, more usually it does so in an indirect way, by showing us the assumption of its writers. The assumption, the conviction that Jesus is indeed God and that the Spirit is indeed God. And that these two Persons were co-partners with God the Father in all His works, sharing together with Him of all His attributes. Whatever the Old Testament states about Jehovah can be applied also to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit. That these three Persons are, in the words of the Westminster Catechism, “One God, the same in substance and equal in power and glory.” This conviction shines through and underlies all of the New Testament.
The doctrine of the Trinity is clearly taught in the Bible. So next time the Jehovah’s Witnesses darken your door to try to convince you it isn’t, don’t slam the door in their faces. No, invite them in and give an account of the faith that is in you, also your belief in the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And may the Spirit Himself help you as you do so, so that you may lift up Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.