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. This is an exclusive club and only the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are a part of that same level.
Exclusive group. How do you explain the Trinity? Is it several separate individuals who work together?
Is it multiple personalities contained in one? Often our explanations just don't seem quite right. Today on Connect with Skip Heisen, Skip takes you deeper into the mystery of the Trinity.
At the end of the program, Skip and his wife, Langi, share more helpful insight about the Trinity with you. So you're trying to comprehend someone who is incomprehensible. You're trying to go to the Pacific Ocean with your little cup and put in the ocean.
You can't do that. So you can't stuff all that God is into our brain. Somebody once said, if God were small enough for our brain, he wouldn't be big enough for our needs.
So good. Thank you, Skip and Langi. Be sure to stay with us after today's message to hear the full discussion. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that explores God's character and nature and shows you what it truly means to be his friend. Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, C.S. Lewis, all are outstanding men with amazing life stories.
But in all of history, one biography stands out above the rest. I'm excited to announce the release of my new book, The Biography of God, which gives an in-depth look at God's character and nature, diving into the theological and personal profile of our Heavenly Father. I invite you on a journey to search the scriptures to discover who God is and how sensitive he is to the human condition.
This process will both lift you up and humble you. Here's how to get your copy of my newest book, The Biography of God. Skip's new book is our thanks when you give $35 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air.
Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now, we're in Matthew chapter 28 as we get into the message with Skip Hyten. It was developed in the Bible times, and later on in the 4th 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. And 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 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 worshiped, some doubted, 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. Now this one verse, verse 19, is pregnant with truth. 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. This is an exclusive club and only the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are a part of that same level exclusive group. Also this teaches us that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit all enjoy a unity together that they want to share with us.
When you go out, and I have all authority Jesus said in heaven and on earth to say this, when you go out and you preach the gospel and you win people and you make disciples of nations, you baptize them in the name of the Godhead, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Well, what does the Bible say about the Trinity? What does scripture say? Well, the scripture calls the Father God, the Bible calls Jesus the Son God, and the Bible calls the Holy Spirit God. It's interesting to me that every now and then I'll meet a person who will say, well, you know, Jesus never claimed to be God and the New Testament never says that he did. And I can only think this, what Bible do you read?
It's all over the place. Jesus accepted the worship of Thomas who after the resurrection saw him and said, my Lord and my God. And Jesus didn't say, I can't say that Thomas, that's wrong. No, don't do that.
Don't go there. He accepted it. He received it. Or the time when Jesus saw the paralytic that was brought before him through the roof and he claimed to be as God to forgive sins. He said, Son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven. And the leaders of the time were right when they thought, hey, nobody can forgive sins except God.
That's the whole point. He was exercising his authority. Or the time in John chapter eight when Jesus made this statement, before Abraham was, I am. I existed before Abraham ever was. Or in John chapter 10, when even his enemies knew who he was claiming to be. They took up stones to kill him and Jesus said, I've done many works, what work you starting me for? He said, not for a good work, but because you being a mere man, they said, are always making yourself out to be God. Then the Bible declares that the Holy Spirit is God.
The most famous of these texts is Acts chapter five. Remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira and Peter sort of gets in their face and says, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? For you have not lied to man, you have lied to God. Equating the Holy Spirit with God.
That's what the Bible says. But you still say, I don't get it. How can three be one? How can there be unity and yet diversity?
Seems illogical, doesn't make sense. Because in reading the Old Testament, you have observed something. Israel was fiercely monotheistic, saying there's one God in contrast to the polytheistic cultures around them.
And you remember that great anthem of theirs in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, called the Shema Israel, Adonai Echad, Adonai Eloheinu. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is echad, one God, one.
So what do we do with that? He's one. Well, when it says he is echad, or one, it doesn't mean one with a isolation of one or stark singularity of one. It can mean one in unity.
How do I know this? Well, remember the first wedding that was performed, I guess, by God, Adam and Eve? And I was reminded of this yesterday. I went to a wedding of, I'd say, a kid.
Now he's a man, but I watched him grow up. And I was reminded of this passage where God said to Adam and Eve, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, echad. They become one. What does that mean? Does that mean they morph into one human being?
No. It is odd, however, that the older couples get sometimes, they sometimes even look like each other. It's a phenomenon I've noticed.
And sometimes they'll even buy pets that look like them. Don't ask me to explain that. It's another mystery, but when it says they become one flesh, it doesn't mean that they lose their individuality or their personhood, but they become one unit, one family, one couple, one in spirit. That's how the word is used often. So when it says God is one, it can still include the Trinity, the three in one, this one unit. Here's another example, the tabernacle. God spoke to Moses in Exodus 26 and he said, you shall make 50 clasps of gold and you shall couple the curtains of the tabernacle together with clasps so that it may be one tabernacle, echad, one unit.
50 clasps, lots of curtains, an altar, a laver, all these different articles that are in there, but it's one, it's one. Also, Israel was called to be one people, even though there was a multiplicity of them. So there is multiplicity in unity when it says one God. Now, the Trinity, I believe, is hinted at throughout the Bible, even in the Old Testament, even in the very first verse of the Bible, listen to it. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The word is Elohim, that's masculine plural.
In fact, literally, it could read in a very literal wooden way. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, Elohim. And then if you read down a little bit, down to verse 26 and 27, it says, then God said, Elohim said, let us make man in our image. And so in the image of God, he created them.
It's an interesting mix of pronouns. Now, who's God speaking to? Let us make man in our image. He wasn't speaking to angels.
If that's the answer, it's wrong. No angel ever helped God in creation. We learn from the New Testament that God created the heavens and the earth, and it was Jesus who was given the authority and through his agency, the worlds were created. This is the Godhead speaking, the Trinity speaking, let us make man in our image. We see this again in the prophets, Isaiah chapter 6, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, remember we covered this last week, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then Isaiah predicted the coming Messiah. And to us a child is born, a son is given. This child that will be born, said Isaiah, will be called the everlasting father, the mighty God, the prince of peace. And now we have this, go in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have the benediction of Paul in 2 Corinthians 13. He writes, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
He uses that formula of the triune God in that benediction, that little wish, that hope, that prayer. You know, I grew up with a Bible in my home. It was there, we never read it. In fact, to open our Bible, you first have to go, and then probably break the spine. We didn't really read it that much. All the truths were in there, but we just never saw them because we never read them. In fact, somebody once said, if all who profess to be Christians ever decided to read their Bibles at the same time, we would experience the worst dust storm in history.
Sad, isn't it? So, the natural resists the supernatural. But it's the scriptural that redirects or corrects or remedies the natural. That's what the Bible teaches. Not only that.
Not only does the Bible teach that, but Bible teachers throughout history have taught what the Bible teaches. That's historical. And I just quickly want to address that. And first of all, let me just say, I'm bringing this to a close, by the way. So, thank you for listening so carefully today. I know we're covering lots of ground and pushing it all into a little time.
And I appreciate that. But this whole notion that it wasn't until the fourth century that the church started believing in the Trinity is just nonsense historically. You can go back to 96 AD when Clement of Rome formulated an oath using all three members of the Trinity. He said, As God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and as the Holy Spirit lives.
That's 96 AD. 107 AD, Ignatius used the formula, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the second century, Hermas spoke of God existing as one God in three distinct personalities. Second century, Justin Martyr defended veneration and worship given to all three members, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then in the second century, Irenaeus, one of the greatest theologians ever of church history who fought against the Gnostics and articulated the Trinity said, God the Father, the Word, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made among us men, visible and tangible, the Holy Spirit, who at the end of the age was poured out in a new way. And then at the end of the second century, beginning of the third century, was a guy named Tertullian who first coined the term trinitas in Latin or Trinity. Although some believe the word goes all the way back to 180 AD, the guy by the name of Theophilus of Antioch, not the Theophilus in the Bible, but another church leader.
So it has long standing roots. In fact, if you have a New King James version, perhaps not the most recent edition, but one a few years older, it's in my Bible right up front. It used to be right on the spines, but there's a symbol. And I know it's too far away for you to see, but it's a little three cornered symbol that they explain in my version that is called the triquetra. And the triquetra is an ancient symbol of the Trinity that they used for the New King James version.
It's three interwoven arcs, distinct yet inseparable, that always historically symbolize the triune God. So to deny the Trinity is to deny the revelation found in both the Old and the New Testament. And to deny the Trinity is to take the arrogant position that everybody throughout church history has been wrong except you and your group. Now all of that aside, all of that aside, I want to ask this question. How does the Trinity matter to me on a daily basis?
I mean, what is the practical big deal? I understand this is all fine to discuss a theological concept, but when I go to work tomorrow and I live during the week, how can I relate to the Trinity personally? How could I enjoy the presence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Could the Trinity make a difference in my prayer life?
Could the Trinity become a model for me being successful in interpersonal relationships? And the answer to that is yes, yes, yes. And that's what we will show you next week when we continue this.
So stay tuned. I just wanted to lay the foundation before we show you the real application of this in our personal lives as believers. But can I end with an encouragement? I know there's tension when it comes to the Trinity. I know we enter the discussion, we go, oh, man. Okay, here it goes. I'm going to really try to understand this. And then we leave the discussion, we go, I don't get it. Happens every time. And so there's this tension. Let the tension remain. There's a mystery to God. We don't get it.
We'll never get it. Anybody who says, I got it, don't trust them. It's like a suspension bridge. A suspension bridge stands by tension moving in two different directions. They pull opposite each other. Try to remove that tension and that bridge will collapse.
Allow this important truth of one God, three persons, have all of the tension that it has so that you and I never lose the mystery of it. There was a girl who failed her anatomy test, a little school girl. She took the test. She failed. She was the only one in class, by the way, who failed the test.
And when I read you her answer, you'll understand why, is what she said on her test. The human body is composed of three parts, the branium, the borax instead of the thorax, and the abominable cavity instead of the abdominal cavity. The branium, she continues, contains the brain. The borax contains the lungs, the liver, and living things.
The abominable cavity contains the bowels of which there are five, A, E, I, O, and U. Can I just tell you that I don't feel a whole lot different when it comes to the subject of God? I feel that no matter how much I read and study and compare Scripture to Scripture, I just get a tiny little shade of understanding. This is a marble that we wonder, where is it? Explain it.
It's a mystery. We see through a glass darkly. One day we will see face to face. Until then we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And next week we'll discover how that makes a personal difference. That's Skip Hightake with a powerful message for you from the series The Biography of God. Now here's Skip and Langa as they share more helpful insight about the Trinity with you. The Trinity is one of the most difficult things in Christianity to understand, but today you mentioned that we should leave some things to the mystery of God and maybe the Trinity is one of them. Why do you think it's important to do that and are there other things we can leave to the mystery of God?
Yeah, sure. You know, first of all, we have to leave it to the mystery of God. We really have no other choice because you're trying to comprehend someone who is incomprehensible. You're trying to go to the Pacific Ocean with your little cup and put in the ocean.
You can't do that. So you can't stuff all that God is into our brain. Somebody once said, if God were small enough for our brain, he wouldn't be big enough for our needs.
So good. So I look at it that mystery fuels majesty, that the fact that God is unfathomable or totally unknowable, that makes him more attractive to me. Because it makes my life and relationship with him a journey that I won't fully satisfy until I see him face to face, but I can be discovering new things about him.
And I love that ongoing relationship. But yeah, there are others besides that one, not just the Trinity, but what about predestination and human choice? What about God judging people and sending them to hell versus taking them to heaven? All those things are deep and profound and have eternal consequence, but tough for us to grasp. Thank you, Skip and Lenya.
When some people think about God, they might only think about his love, grace, and forgiveness, but we must also remember he is holy. Our desire is to help believers grow in holiness and help you draw closer to the Lord by sharing these Bible teachings you love. And you can help keep these messages coming to you and others. Give a gift today when you call 800-922-1888. Again, that's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip Heiseck explains how all three persons of the Trinity are at work in your life. Connect with Skip Heiseck is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-03 03:32:25 / 2024-02-03 03:42:24 / 10