The sermon explores the doctrine of the Trinity, emphasizing its importance as the foundation of all communion with God. The speaker defines the Trinity as one essence or being of God existing in three distinct, co-eternal, and co-equal persons. The sermon highlights the biblical basis of the Trinity, discussing the monotheistic nature of God and the identification of three persons as God. The sermon concludes by emphasizing the truth, significance, and worship implications of the Trinity.

Well, good afternoon church. It is as always a tremendous blessing to be before you. Let's, I know Nate just prayed, but let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Father, we do come before you and we ask Lord for your help. Help me, Lord, to speak as I ought to speak.

And Lord, may you by your Spirit work through and in spite of my own weakness and frailties, may you be in power here, changing hearts and opening minds to see wonderful things in your Word. May you be glorified in our time this afternoon. Amen. Well, we have been going through, or I have been going through, a series on the parables of the kingdom. We are going to be taking a break from that for a time.

As we heard this morning, our elders are taking a break from their expositions through their books and are doing something of a recalibration on certain elements of orthopraxies, some certain practical elements of the Christian life. And we have the beginning of that today and it was marvelous. Similarly, In our afternoon sessions, I am going to be doing a short series, kind of recalibrating some of our theological foundations. So we're having a biblical and practical theology in the mornings and a bit of a systematic theology in the afternoons. This has been something that's been on my mind for a while and I thought it would be appropriate with New Year and the elders are doing this in the mornings.

I thought it would be appropriate to do that now. To get a good foundation, that we are all on the same page when it comes to the most essential doctrines of our faith. So speaking of foundations, if I were to say to you that there is a particular doctrine that is the foundation of all our communion with God and of our comfortable dependence on him, you would most likely want to know what that doctrine is and you would want to understand that doctrine better. If your communion with God rises and falls on a particular point of theology, you should want to grasp it as best as you can. Now, if I ask that question, what is the foundation of all our communion with God?

What would you say that doctrine is? Some of us would say justification by faith, or perhaps the incarnation, maybe even the doctrines of grace, but it's none of the above. That line is actually a quotation from our Confession of Faith, the Second Lenten Baptist Confession of 1689, and it's the last line of chapter two in the Confession, which fully reads, Which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God and comfortable dependence on Him? The Trinity. This doctrine is the foundation of everything we do and believe and think as Christians.

It is the most essential, because if God were not triune, if there was not a Trinity of persons in the godhead, then redemption would not be possible. It is because the Trinity exists that you are saved. Without the Trinity, there is no hope. Salvation is only a possible because our God is triune. Now, sadly, most churches, and I would probably bet that even to many of us here we don't act or think that this is the case.

In reality we're much closer to another famous quote from church history written about 130 years after that line from the confession by a man named Frederick Scheirmacher. If you know anything about him, you will know that that man was the father of Protestant liberal theology. And he wrote in his book, The Christian Faith, that even if one were able to prove the truth of the Trinity, it is, quote, of no sort of use in Christian doctrine, end quote. He said the Trinity has no use. In practice, we are far too often more like Schleiermacher than what our Baptist forefathers said in the 17th century.

And so I want to work to correct that today. We ought not to think of it in that category. That has no use. This is an essential doctrine. It is the foundation of all theology.

It is the foundation of all our practice. If we don't get this right, we are making a God in our own image. It is that foundational. As the Athenation Creed puts it, whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the Catholic faith. Quick note, Catholic, don't stumble.

Lower C Catholic means universal, has nothing to do with Rome. Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the Catholic faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally. Now this is the Catholic faith. We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.

Now I want to confess at the very outset of this that by the end of this some of you will probably have more questions than you started with. I will probably end up confusing some of you. That will partly be my own fault and my own weaknesses. It is also because this is one of the most mysterious doctrines in all of scripture. Second, possibly only to the mystery of the incarnation of the Son.

It is a hard doctrine to understand, to really grasp, because there is nothing and no one else like our God. So it is hard for our finite minds to fully comprehend. And because God is so unique, you will not be getting any analogies from me to help you try and understand what we mean when we talk about the Trinity. Any and all analogies fail spectacularly. They all fall short and they almost all communicate actually heretical views of the Trinity.

So if you use analogies to try and understand or communicate the Trinity, I would recommend that you not do that. It doesn't work very well. And so with the difficulty of the subject and my own weaknesses, I'm sure that some of you will be confused and I do apologize for that. But at the same time, that is a good thing because I want you to be intrigued and I want you to come away from here with a greater desire to know this Triune God, to understand and to try and plumb the depths of these mysteries. This is also why I will probably interrupt myself with several clarifications and corrections because often the Trinity is best defined negatively by describing, well, it's not like this, rather than stating positively, it is like this because there is nothing like our God.

I hope to do a little bit of both today, positive and negative definition. So what, when we get to the actual definition, what do we mean when we say the Trinity? The simplest definition of the Trinity is that the Trinity is there is one essence or being, we can also say nature, of God. And this one essence or being exists in three distinct co-eternal and co-equal persons. That's just about the most succinct way of putting it.

James White has put it this way, and it is a little bit shorter. There is one what, but three whose. That is what we mean when we talk about the Trinity. One being three persons. Now that can cause a stumbling to begin with because often when you discuss the doctrine of the Trinity, especially with unbelievers or those who do not believe in the Trinity, they will attack the doctrine on this very point of how can there be one and three at the same time?

How can you have one and three? But what they are doing is they are confusing person and being. And this is often confused in this topic and I want us to be sure that we have these distinctions clearly in mind. We are not saying that there are three beings and one being. That is not the Trinity.

We are also not saying there are three persons and only one person. That's not what we're saying. We are not saying that the three and the one exist in the same way at the same time. That's, the doctrine of the Trinity is not illogical, it's not incoherent. It's difficult, but it isn't illogical.

We must make a careful and necessary distinction between being and person, and this isn't hair splitting, and we intuitively do this all the time. Everything that exists, everything that is, has being. You and I have being. This pulpit has being. Your clothing, your chair you're sitting on, the table you're sitting at, it has being, it has an existence.

But only us, creatures made in the image of God, have person, we are persons, we are more than beings, We are persons. This pulpit has being, but it has no personhood. I can kick it. I can do whatever I want to this pulpit, and it's not going to complain. If I go over here and try and kick Jonah, he'll probably smack me in the face, and he'd be right to do so.

Because he can respond, he can interact, he has not just being, he has personhood. We make this distinction all the time. A rock has being, but it has no person. A person, a human being has being, but they are also a person. God, man, and angels are the only things that have personhood.

The failure to make this distinction, Like I said, we make it every day, intuitively. The failure to make this distinction would make life unlivable. It would either reflect some sort of pagan superstition where you think that everything that exists has some sort of personal attributes, or it would be a sign of some serious mental issue. But this distinction between being and person is very basic and is very necessary. Now listen how the 1689, I quoted the end of the 1689's chapter on the Trinity, on the Godhead, I should have quoted that earlier, but listen to that whole paragraph three.

So 16 and nine confession chapter two, paragraph three says, in this divine and infinite being, there are three, and this is a key word, subsistences. The Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit, of one's substance or essence, power and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, all infinite without beginning. Therefore but one God who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations." I would encourage you to make a note and read that yourself.

Again, that's the second London Confession, chapter 2, paragraph 3. As an aside, I would just encourage note taking generally this afternoon. We're going to be moving fast and it would be helpful for you to look things up later. Now in this paragraph, our Baptist fathers deviated from their brother confession, the Westminster, by using the word subsistences. The Westminster confession used by the Presbyterians uses persons.

But I think this is a spot, another one, where the Baptists improved on the Presbyterian confession. Not simply in the section on baptism. But what does it mean? What is a subsistence? A subsistence, and this is not to be confused with substance, a subsistence is also known as a mode of existence or a the state in which something exists or has its being in other words this is a state in which God eternally is this is not something God does This is who God is by nature, not something he does.

The essence or the being of God exists in three subsistences or his being is shared by these three persons and this is key Because these three modes of existence exist eternally and share the one divine nature, this means that each person fully is God. Each person fully participates in the divine nature. The Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Spirit is fully God. Yet we're still able to make the distinction, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods, there is but one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord, yet there are not three Lords, there is but one Lord.

Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both Lord and God, so Catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or three lords. Now, If these three, the Father, Son, and Spirit, these three subsistences, these three modes of existence are co-equal, meaning they are the same in their nature because they share the one nature. They are co-eternal. None of them, there was never a time when any of them did not exist. They are co-equal, they are co-eternal, and fully God, how do we distinguish them?

This is where the language of person comes in handy. And note that we're saying person, not personality. There is a difference there. We're not saying that the persons are marked by certain personality traits. They are marked by personal relations, one with another.

In the one essence of God, you have these three persons, but how are they distinguished? Well, the confession tells us they are distinguished by relative personal properties, or what are also called the eternal relations of origin. Now again, when you hear origin, don't think something that happened in time. These are eternal relations. The confession rightly says the father is of none, but the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the other two.

Do not, again, think that these are temporal or time-bound ideas. These are eternal processions, eternal begetting. And this sounds very complex and in a sense it is. But at the same time don't overthink this. It's not as difficult as we want to make it out to be, I believe.

Simultaneously, and I don't believe this is contradictory, simultaneously it is infinitely mysterious and I challenge you to think if you think you have it fully grasped. So it simultaneously isn't as complex as it may first sound, but it's also infinitely mysterious. Understand what makes the Father the Father is that He simply is the Father. What makes the Son the Son is that he is the son of the father. And what makes the spirit the spirit is that he is breathed out.

The Greek and Hebrew both, the word for breath and spirit is the same word. The spirit is breathed out or spirated by both father and son. And again, I think this is the third time I've said it, these are eternal relations. This is not something that happens in time. This isn't saying that the father existed first and then had a son who then helped him make the spirit.

That's a heresy known as Arianism. That's not what we're talking about. The relations is regarding their order or it's a logical category. It's not a statement about nature or time or even authority in their nature, their authority, their glory, their harmony, their beauty, all these things, the three persons are equal and co-eternal. So that's the definition and the explanation of the doctrine.

And we see it's it's what our confession teaches. We've referenced the creed, the Athanasian creed that goes back to probably about the sixth century. Before that you have the Nicene Creed in 325. And no, what you read on the Internet is not true. Constantine did not invent this at the Council of Nicaea.

Our fathers, the Church Fathers, were writing about this and using this kind of language to describe our God from the first century. Yes, the use of language developed over time, but to help us understand better and primarily to refute error. But that does not mean the doctrine itself was something that appeared out of nowhere in the fourth or fifth or sixth century. So we've defined the doctrine. We see it's creedal, we see it's confessional, but is it biblical?

That's the real question. What does the scripture say? When we turn to the scripture, we will see the biblical foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity. And I categorize this into three different points. Consider it to be the three legs of the stool holding up the doctrine.

Without any one of these legs, the whole doctrine collapses. But we see these three legs of the stool holding up the Trinity in Scripture. First, the Bible teaches there is only one God. The Bible unquestionably teaches absolute monotheism. There is and has ever and will ever only be one God.

Second, in the Bible three persons are identified as God. That is the second leg of the stool. Three persons are identified as this one God. And the third leg of the stool. These three persons are distinct but equal.

These persons are distinct but equal. They are not the same as one another, but they are equal with one another. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and I'm going to look in the little bit of time I have left. I'm going to look at multiple passages. If you're taking notes, I would recommend you just jot them down because I'm going to be moving fast and you're probably not going to have time to flip there with me.

First point, there is only one God. The Bible teaches absolute monotheism. There is very little debate about this first point. Very few people argue against it. About the only group, the largest, at least, organized group that debates this basic doctrine would be the Mormons.

They do not teach monotheism. They believe in a kind of social trinity where the Father, Son, and Spirit are separate beings who merely work together and are themselves three men who became gods in a vast pantheon of countless gods who used to be men. So the Mormon trinity, as it were, is no trinity at all. It is a false god. But that's probably the largest organized group that would actually argue with the point that the Bible teaches absolute monotheism.

But the scriptures are crystal clear on this point. The central confession of the Old Testament church is in Deuteronomy 6,4, the Shema, the so-called the Shema, because Shema is the first word of this sentence. Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one. Or you could render it, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, or Yahweh alone. That is a confession clearly of Israel's unique practice of worshiping only one God but does it necessarily mean there are no other gods?

Well as the rest of the scripture say. Deuteronomy 4.35, to you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh himself is God, and there is no other besides Him. Few verses later, Deuteronomy 4, 39, know therefore this day and take to heart that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth below there is no other. First Samuel 2 2 No one is holy like Yahweh, for there is none beside you, nor is there any rock like our God. Isaiah 44 8 do not fear nor be afraid.

Have I not told you from that time and declared it? You are my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Indeed there is no other rock. I know not one.

It's God speaking to his people. And we could go on and on, but you get the point. There is no other God. The Bible teaches there is one true and living God who gives his personal name as Yahweh, or Jehovah if you prefer that rendering. And so we confess with Old Testament Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one, Yahweh alone is our God.

The second point, three persons, there are three persons in the Bible that are identified as God. Despite the claim of absolute monotheism there are clearly places in the Bible where there are multiple persons who are identified as God. Now because of the shortage of time, I'm going to completely skip over trying to prove that the Father is God. It's so obvious it's almost pointless for me to take the time to try and prove it. Everyone agrees the Father is clearly God.

But it's not even just that they're called God. The scripture actually identifies three persons as Yahweh. It's not just the Father who is Yahweh. There are three that are identified as Yahweh. And one of the most fascinating of these in my opinion is in Genesis 19.

Three people appeared to Abraham in chapter 18 and Abraham figures out he's speaking to God. He's speaking with Yahweh. Then two of the three go to Sodom rescue Lot and his daughters and what happens? They escape in verse 24 then Yahweh rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh out of heaven. Yahweh on earth calling down fire from Yahweh in heaven.

Two Yahwehs but there's only one Yahweh. How is that possible? We go to the other end of the Bible, almost the other end. Hebrews chapter 1 is a fascinating study in this regard of the nature of God. Hebrews chapter 1, the writer quotes Psalm 45, 6, and 7.

He says, You are thrown, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. The psalmist is addressing God.

But then he says, God your God has done this. God has a God, but there's only one God. And then the writer to the Hebrews says the psalmist is really talking about Jesus. This is about the sun. And the next citation in Hebrews 1 is even more incredible, I think.

Psalm 102, verses 25 through 27, the writer of the Hebrews quotes, of old you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak, you will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end. And it's clear earlier in the Psalm that the psalmist is addressing Yahweh in verse 12 He says but you oh Yahweh shall endure forever, but the writer to the Hebrews says this is about the son This is Jesus that the psalmist is writing about in Jude verse 5 we read that Jesus is the one who brought Israel out of Egypt.

Well, what did Moses say? It's Yahweh. Second Peter, one, one, Jesus is our God and savior. John 12, 41, John quotes Isaiah six and says this, Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory and spoke of him and he's quoting Isaiah 6 well who did Isaiah see in Isaiah chapter 6 he saw Yahweh high and lifted up and people will tell you the Bible never calls Jesus God. Insanity.

The Spirit, The Spirit is called the Spirit of God. It seems obvious. Interestingly, there's very little debate about the divine nature of the Spirit. He is the Spirit of God, after all. Instead, it's often his personhood that is attacked.

The Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, claim that he is a mere force like electricity used to affect God's will. But that's not how the Bible talks about the Spirit. Genesis 1-2, the Spirit is present and hovering or perhaps better understood as brooding over the waters like a hen broods over her chicks, as the earth is brought into existence. Psalm 139, seven, the spirit is identified as Yahweh and is omnipresent. First Corinthians two, 10 through 16, the Spirit is all-knowing.

He is, after all, the Spirit of God and searches out the things of God and communicates some of this knowledge to God's people so that they might have the mind of Christ. Clearly Trinitarian text. The Spirit speaks to and sends Peter on his mission and even uses personal pronouns to describe himself in Acts 10, 19 and 20. An impersonal force does not do these things, cannot do these things. Jesus himself spoke of the Spirit as a person, John 15, 26, and 16, 13 through 14 in particular.

Here the Spirit testifies, guides, speaks, teaches, and glorifies the Son. These are not the actions of an impersonal force. Ephesians 4.30, the Spirit can be grieved. Mark 3.28-29, the Spirit can be blasphemed. Ephesians 4.30, the Spirit can be insulted.

Acts 5.3-4, the Spirit can be lied to. On and on and on. The testimony of Scripture is crystal clear. Yes, there is one God, Yahweh, but at the same time there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are all identified as this one God. Maybe the answer is what the modalists say, that this is only one person who reveals himself in different ways at different times.

This doctrine known as modalism or Sibelianism named after Sibelius early church heretic who taught this says that God is only one person. He appears and manifests himself in these different ways like an actor switching his masks in a play. But that's not what we see in Scripture. His doctrine is also sometimes called modalism, subalienism, monarchianism. It's also sometimes called patropashianism.

Patropashian meaning the father suffers because that's the logical conclusion. If you think it's really one person just performing different roles, then you're saying it's ultimately the father who suffered and died on the cross. A statement which I do want to point out, I have heard in our own prayers in this church. Now I'm not saying anyone here is a modalist. I'm not saying anyone here is a heretic.

But I do want to point out that we ought to be very careful with our language when we speak about God and when we speak to God. But the Bible makes this conclusion of modalism untenable because the third pillar, the third leg of the stool is that the three persons are distinct. They are distinct but equal. The three persons are clearly distinguished from one another in Scripture. The Father loves the Son and shows him his works, John 3, 35 and 5, 20.

The Father and the Son exist together but distinct from one another, and the Son reveals the Father to mankind, John 1, 1 and 2 and then verse 18. The father audibly speaks while the spirit visibly descends while the son is being baptized, Matthew 3, 16 to 17. In the baptism of Jesus, the son is not speaking to himself. The Father is not descending on himself. There is clearly a distinction being made.

There is no confusion or conflation of the persons in Matthew's gospel. Each person is doing what's appropriate for him to do as a distinct person in the moment. Jesus is not the Father. He is the way to the Father, John 14, 6. And the Father and the Son together sin the Spirit, John 14, 16.

The nations are to be taught to obey Jesus and are to be baptized in the singular name of the Father, Son, and Spirit." Matthew 28, 19. We as Christians are to experience the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, 2nd Corinthians 13-14. The distinction of persons is completely obvious. Completely obvious. We have three distinct persons.

All are called to God and yet there is only one God. One God, one essence or being of divinity, and three persons who share this divine essence. The Trinity, yes it's creedal, yes it's confessional, it is also inescapably biblical. And you must believe it, if you are to be a Christian. Why does this matter?

This is not mere academic speculation. This is not just ivory tower theology. This is, as we read earlier, the foundation of our communion with God. Why does it matter? I want to give four reasons why it matters.

Firstly, it matters because it's true. Truth is valuable and important for its own sake. We ought to know and believe the truth, period. That in itself is its own reason. We are obligated to believe what the Bible teaches is true.

Second, this is who our God is. To believe in a Unitarian God as the one is Pentecostals or an Aryan God as the Jehovah's Witnesses is to believe in a false God. God is not satisfied with idolatry no matter how sincere you are. Thirdly, it matters because it is vitally important to our worship and to our life as Christians. Again, our confession says that this doctrine is the foundation of our communion and our comfortable dependence.

Without the Trinity there could be no redemption. The Father, Son, and Spirit operate together to accomplish the salvation and the whole covenant of redemption and the economy of salvation is only possible because these three persons exist and operate together to save God's people. And we are to worship this God through the Spirit. Come to him by the Son, to the glory of the Father. It is vitally important to our worship.

Fourthly, this it matters because it helps us to really appreciate how awesome and glorious our God is. We come to this doctrine and we are left somewhat, if not significantly, mystified and humbled. We try to grasp it and we start to get something of a handle on it but we can't quite grasp it with our finite minds and we are simply left humbled in the dust stammering who is like the Lord our God. It matters because it helps us understand how great our God is. So I want to end with a short quote from James White's book on the Forgotten Trinity.

He ends his book and he says, I love the Trinity. I honor the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I have been baptized in that one divine name and I gladly call myself a servant of the triune God. Do you love the Trinity? I hope and pray that our journey through the scriptures has solidified your faith in this divine truth and given you great boldness and courage to share that faith with others.

But most of all I hope and pray that it has helped you to fulfill the greatest commandment of all, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Truly, I hope you can join with me in singing, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise father, son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, we come to you in the name of your Son and we are again humbled as we consider what your word teaches us Lord to consider who you are in your nature, in your being, and what you have taught us about yourself. God, we are left amazed. Who is like you, oh God?

Oh God, I pray that you would help us to understand and help us Lord to be changed. May we grow in our knowledge, may we grow in grace, and Lord may you, by your Spirit, help us to grow in likeness to your Son. In His name we pray, amen.