I Don't Get It! How Can Three Be One? - Part A

It's not that easy to be able to relate to someone who is all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present, perfectly holy.

He is so unlike us that to relate to Him we find it difficult. The greatest of all conundrums in my view is this three-in-one. See, I don't get it. One plus one plus one equals one.

Is this new math? Very few topics about God have caused as much controversy and confusion as the Trinity. Is God three gods or just one? Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip tackles this challenging topic, exploring what the Bible reveals about the Trinity and what the Trinity reveals to you about God's nature. Before we begin, here's a resource that draws on philosophy and science to help you understand who God is and how you can know Him on a deeper level. Can you imagine reading a biography about your life only to find details about your life that were wrong?

Well, it would be frustrating, wouldn't it? And God's nature, character, and motives have often been poorly portrayed and even intentionally misstated. And that's one of the reasons I decided to write the book, The Biography of God, to open your eyes and heart to a larger picture of God. I hope you will go on this journey with me as we ask and answer the universal question, can we know God? Here's how to get your copy of my newest book, The Biography of God. The Biography of God is our way to say thank you when you give $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach to more people.

Request your copy when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, let's get into today's teaching. We're in Matthew chapter 28 as we begin our study with Skip Heitzig. I read about a man who was in prison and he was in solitary confinement and the place where he was at, the solitary confinement meant a pitch black cell. There was no light at all.

It's the kind of place that would drive anybody nuts. This man had one single object, one thing he owned and that was a marble and he brought it into solitary confinement in this dark prison cell. So what he would do to relieve the tension, the boredom is to throw the marble against the wall of the cell.

It would hit the ground, roll around, stop. He would find it and then he would do it all over again, day in and day out to relieve the boredom. Well, one day he thought, I've done this enough.

I need to try something new. So he thought in the dark, he would throw the marble straight up in the air and then try to catch it in the dark. So he threw it up and he waited and he heard nothing. He didn't catch it. He thought maybe he missed it but he didn't hear it drop. He searched the floor with his hands, didn't find it and he thought, how on earth did that thing just disappear?

Well, it drove him nuts. He went into madness and eventually he died. And the guards who came to pull his body out of the cell, one of them noticed a light that got his attention. And he looked up and he saw something really unusual. He saw a marble caught in a spider web.

And the prison guard said, I don't get it. How did that spider manage to take that marble and put it all the way up there? Well, all of us have marbles in our lives, questions that we can't answer, mysteries that are unsolved and we stumble for answers in the dark. And today we're dealing with the greatest theological marble of all times and that is the Trinity. How can three be one? We've been doing a series, as you know, on the biography of God and one maybe overarching truth that we've discovered is that it's not that easy to be able to relate to someone who is all knowing, all powerful, everywhere present, perfectly holy.

He is so unlike us that to relate to him, we find it difficult. The greatest of all conundrums in my view is this three in one. We say, I don't get it. One plus one plus one equals one.

Is this new math? It's also an issue whenever you try to share your faith with a Jewish person, a Muslim, a Jehovah Witness, a Mormon, a Unitarian, we find it difficult and they have lots of questions about that. And then we in ourselves wonder questions like, well, who should I pray to? Do I address my prayer to the Father? Do I address my prayer to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit or all three at the same time?

If I don't give attention to one over the other, will the other be offended? Or perhaps some have thought, when I pray to these three persons, aren't they just really three different names for the same person? Are there really three distinct beings? And I know that there have been all sorts of formulas that have been created to help us with it. I just want to caution any of us to not trivialize the transcendent God into a clever little formula. Whether you say God is sort of like an egg where you've got the shell and the white and the yolk, but it's one egg, or He's like an apple with the skin and the core and the meat, or He's like water that can exist in three different states of vapor and liquid and solid. And I know that those are simply finite ways to try to reach out and deal with infinite God, but they all fall short.

They are inadequate. And I will say right up front, I'll get this out on the table. I don't completely understand this, all right? I can't totally explain it and I don't trust anybody who will tell me they do understand it and they can totally explain it. This is one of those mysteries that we approach with great humility. This morning what I'd like to do in this text is look at it and paint it with two truth statements, two statements. Statements that are principles that emerge from the text, but we're going to hang everything today on these two statements. And the first is this, the natural resists the supernatural. The natural resists the supernatural. And the second truth is the scriptural remedies the natural. Now, let's look at the first.

The natural resists the supernatural. Let's look at these verses together and get a sense of what's happening. Verse 16, Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted him. Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. It seems that these disciples had always struggled with supernatural truth. From the moment they met Jesus, all through that three and a half year ministry, there are instances in which their natural minds struggled with supernatural truth. For example, when Jesus announced that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be crucified, but he would rise the third day, Peter immediately piped up and said, Far be it from you, Lord.

This will not happen to you. He didn't get it. He wasn't connecting the dots. On another occasion, Jesus announced that he would ascend into heaven and he would return later. And it was Peter who said, Well, how come I can't follow you now? Or the time when Jesus announced to his disciples, Where I'm going, you know, and the way you know. And it was Thomas who said, Ah, excuse me, but we don't know where you're going.

So how can we know the way? There's so many of these occurrences where they just didn't grasp the supernatural that was happening in the midst of the natural. And by the way, this is a biblical principle. In First Corinthians, Chapter two, verse 14, Paul says, The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Okay, so here in our text, this is after the resurrection. Everybody among the group of the disciples, they were abuzz. He's alive.

He got up again. And it's been now two to three weeks since the resurrection has happened by the time we get to this story. But did you notice in verse 17 that strange mixture of worship and doubt? They got to this mountain and Jesus came and they worship, but it says some doubted.

There it is again, the struggle of the natural with the supernatural. I don't know what was going on in their minds. Maybe they thought, Is this an imposter? Is this really another person? Did he really rise from the dead?

Or maybe he didn't die. Whatever it was, some doubted. And there's a principle there. We who are confined to the natural often struggle with the supernatural. So if you have ever struggled with the concept of three in one, the Trinity, I'll just say you're in good company. You're in great company in ancient times and in modern times. Modern theologians still have trouble with this one. R. T. Kendall, a theologian, said, The Trinity is the most difficult subject in Christian theology.

And by the end of the day in studying this, you will feel like you're still out to see. Dr. Billy Graham said, The Bible teaches. The Bible teaches us that God is one, but he's manifested in three persons. Don't ask me to explain it. I can't.

It's impossible for me. I accept it by faith. Then years ago, Saint Augustine was walking on the beach one day and he was struggling with three and one, three and one. How does this work? And he's trying to explain the Trinity, understand the Trinity, that he might explain it. He said he was walking on the beach and he saw a little boy with a bucket, a little pail, and you go to the water and put water in it and dump it into a hole in the sand that he had on the shore.

So he went up to the little boy and said, What are you doing? He said, I, he announced confidently, I am putting that ocean in this hole. And Augustine realized, Well, that's what I've been trying to do. I've been trying to take this vast ocean of transcendent truth of God and stuff it in this hole called my brain and it won't fit.

There's just a point at which it is mysterious, but true. Now I'm going to take you back to 1966. I was alive then.

Some of you were too. 1966, the Gallup organization took a poll of Americans and they discovered in 1966 that 92% of Americans claim to believe in God, a high amount. Of the 92% that claim to believe in God, 83% believed that there were three persons in one God. They believed in the Trinity, 83% of those who claim to believe in God. And we take this up to the modern era. And I would simply announce to you that this whole issue of the Trinity is becoming less important to American Christians.

And though I don't have the exact stats of this year, I'll say this. It's not thought about very much. It's hardly ever taught from pulpits. In fact, there was one member of a lifelong member of a denominational church, a mainline evangelical church.

She grew up in the church. She said, I never remember hearing even one whole sermon from the pulpit or in Sunday school on the Trinity. Now, some churches have what is called Trinity Sunday, and it's sort of a longstanding tradition.

In Western denominational churches, many of them have it. Trinity Sunday historically is the first Sunday after Pentecost. That's the Sunday that the preacher gets up and says something about the Trinity. Well, one Christian leader was visiting a church. It was an Episcopal church, and it was Trinity Sunday, and he expected a sermon on the Trinity, and he didn't get one. And he talked to the rector about it afterwards, and the rector stated, Now, the Trinity is something just for pastors to think about.

Ordinary people don't have to bother with it. Let me remind you of something. The truth need only be untaught for one generation for it to get lost. The truth need only be untaught for one generation for it to be lost.

We are always just one generation away from losing salient truth. Yet the Trinity is criticized by many. Not all believe in it. It is sometimes criticized semantically because the word Trinity isn't in the Bible. It's a very weak argument, but it goes like this. Well, I don't believe in the Trinity because when I read the Bible, I never come across the word Trinity. My answer?

So what? The term second coming isn't in the Bible, but I believe it's going to happen. The word rapture isn't in the New Testament, but it's described.

The word millennium isn't in the New Testament, but the term thousand years is, and the word Bible isn't in the Bible, but I own one. So to say that I can't believe in anything unless it has the exact verbal expression of that term in the Scripture is a very ludicrous argument. The teaching of the Trinity is throughout. It's a biblical concept.

It expresses what the Bible teaches. Then there is the criticism religiously, and it goes like this. Well, you know, there's a lot of religious groups that have attacked the Trinity.

Well, that's sort of my whole point, and the reason they have attacked the Trinity is whenever you turn on the porch light, bugs come. Whenever you turn on any light of any truth from the Bible, expect there to be attacks. In the apostolic era, the era of the apostles, and the post-apostolic era, it was never an issue. They believed and held to and taught three persons and one God, but later on it became challenged.

Later on. And because it got challenged, the church had to respond to the challenge by issuing a creed from time to time of what we believe the Bible teaches about thus and such. But it is true. In the second century, something known as monarchianism arose, and monarchianism is a teaching that says, well, there's not really three distinct persons, but you have three names for the same person. And another name for that is called modalism, or God exists in three different modes.

Sometimes he's the Father, sometimes he's the Son, sometimes he's the Holy Spirit, but it's not three distinct persons, but the same person with three different names. Then, in the fourth century, a guy named Arius, I've told you about him before, he came and denied the deity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit, saying the Holy Spirit's an impersonal force, and Jesus was just a man, and thus there is no Trinity. During the Reformation, a group known as the Sassanians attacked what was going on in the Protestant Reformation, saying that any teaching of a triune God is simply polytheism, the worship of many gods. Well, all those ancient voices somehow get recycled, and they get recycled and they become the modern voice, rehashed, of the cults. One of the hallmarks of any cult is this, the denial of the triune nature of God. You'll find that cults deny the deity of Christ, the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, and the idea of a Trinity, and this is what they say, and I've heard it dozens of times. Well, the Trinity was actually developed around the fourth century. Up till that point, it was never believed in, but suddenly it emerged in the fourth century because of the influence of pagan philosophy, etc. That simply is not true.

It is not true historically. It was developed in the Bible times, and later on in the fourth century it was attacked, and because it was attacked, then the church articulated a position in what is called the Nicene Creed. But, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, the Way International, Unitarians, all are anti-Trinity. They're all anti-Trinitarian. They deny the Trinity.

In fact, the Mormons will say that all of Christendom was wrong for 1800 years until they arrived, and that they have come to be the gatekeepers of all truth. The Muslims have problems with the Trinity. According to the Muslims, the Trinity is not only illogical, but it is the major sin that can be committed. It is the ultimate infidelity to the Muslim. According to their teaching, and I quote, infidels are now they who say God is the Messiah, the Son of Mary. According to their teaching, God will be merciful, or may be merciful, if He chooses, to adulterers and liars, but never to Trinitarians. In the Quran Surah 5, it says, Whoever shall join other gods with God, God shall forbid him the garden, and his abode shall be the fire. And it continues, the Messiah, the Son of Mary, is but an apostle. Now, why am I bringing all that up?

Simply to say this. Cults are making inroads into historic Christian groups at record speeds today. They'll find the disenfranchised. They'll find the people who were burned out in church.

They'll knock on your door and be right there. And they're growing in numbers. And Islam is one of the world's fastest growing religions today. And no wonder, if people can say, I've never once heard just one sermon on the Trinity ever preached. One veteran Jehovah Witness even said, I have never before met a Trinitarian who actually seemed to believe the doctrine.

I can only imagine he met a Christian and then another Christian, and he said, okay, the Trinity, explain it to me. Okay, well don't explain it to me, but at least give me scripture about why I should believe it. So it's an interesting statement for someone to say, I've never actually met someone who actually believed it. So it's pretty obvious the natural resists the supernatural. The natural resists the supernatural in any area. And were it not for God's gracious revelation in scripture, there'd be no hope for truth, but that takes us to our second truth statement. While the natural resists the supernatural, it's also true that the scriptural remedies the natural.

Now let me explain myself. Once scripture becomes the source of truth, it corrects a natural worldview into a supernatural worldview. Once it's this book that we appeal to, once it's this book we look up and everything goes back to what? Sayeth scripture, then that correction can take place from the natural into the supernatural.

It remedies that. So I want you to notice something in verse 18. In the midst of their doubt about the supernatural, just an interesting mix they worship, some doubt it. In the midst of all that, Jesus shows up to speak to them, verse 18. Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And I just suggest that we do this with this Trinity doctrine. We go, I don't know, this Trinity thing, I don't know, what do I do?

You let God come to you and speak to you through the scripture if you're doubting. And let his word be the final authority. Notice something else in verse 19 that Jesus gives the marching orders, but in the marching orders, he includes a statement about the nature of the Triune God. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. You know that when you and I go out to preach the gospel, the Triune God is a partner with you. You enter into a sacred partnership that all three members of the Trinity are very interested in.

It's what they're all about. That's Skip Heisen with a message from the series, The Biography of God. Now, do you want to pursue your education in biblical studies?

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800-922-1888. Thank you. And come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig takes you deeper into the mystery of the Trinity. It teaches that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all on the same level as God. You can't add another name to those three names. You can't say the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and Frank. Or the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and this denomination. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.