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“We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

INTRODUCTION: Last week we began our new series on Biblical Foundations. We talked about the fact that although there are many teachings in Scripture, there are seven areas of teaching in the Bible so important, so fundamental that we may truly call them foundational teachings. Together, they form the core beliefs of Christianity – those underlying truths which help to define the essentials of the Christian faith for all believers in all times and in all places.

We talked about the fact that these seven areas of teaching are so important that we adopted them as our church statement of faith. Once again, these seven areas of teaching are as follows: 1) the Bible, 2) God, 3) Jesus, 4) salvation, 5) the Holy Spirit, 6) the resurrection, and 7) the church.

Last week we began by looking at the first biblical foundation which is the Bible itself. We saw that the Bible is a fully reliable guide for all that we do, all that we believe. And so, this morning we will look at what the Bible says about God. (Read John 1:1-5 and pray.)

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How many of you have ever heard a sermon about God before? I know that probably sounds strange. Basically, every sermon is about God, but have you ever heard a sermon specifically just on God? Well, today’s sermon is just on God. Of course, one single message can never capture the infinite being of God. All the biblical sermons that have ever been preached are all about God, and yet even taken together they only scratch the surface of who God is.

Some people say that God is a mystery – that he is so huge and so vast that we could never possibly know him with our finite human minds. And that is true if you’re talking about knowing God completely, knowing God exhaustively, knowing everything there is to know about God. In that sense, yes, God is a mystery. We can never know him completely.

But as the writer Francis Schaeffer loved to say, just because we do not know something exhaustively does not mean that we cannot know it truly. I do not have exhaustive knowledge of mathematics, but I know that 2 + 2 = 4. Or take persons for an example. I know my wife, Rosi, really well. And Rosi knows me better than anyone else does. We truly know each other. Yet, even so, we don’t know each other completely. We don’t have exhaustive knowledge of each other.

When it comes right down to it, none of us even know ourselves completely. But we still have true knowledge about ourselves. So even though we cannot know God completely or exhaustively, we can still have true knowledge of God.

There are obviously many different conceptions about God in our world today. People have all sorts of ideas about who God is or what he is like. But if we want to understand God truly, we must go to a reliable source of information. And that reliable source once again is the Bible. God has revealed himself to us truly in the Bible. Not exhaustively, but truly.

And so, this morning we will look at some of what God tells us about himself in the Bible. And as we do so, our purpose is not academic, not simply to gain head-knowledge about God, for God is so wonderful, so awesome, the more we learn about him in truth, the more we are drawn to him in love and worship. To know him is truly to love him.

Our statement of faith on God reads as follows: “We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” So, let’s break this statement down and see what the Bible says about each of these points.

I. We believe there is one God

First of all, our statement of faith says we believe there is one God. This is what we call monotheism. Monotheism is just a big fancy word which means “believing in one God.”

   A. One God rather than no gods or many gods
      – Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Timothy 2:5-6

Monotheism is in direct contrast to atheism, which is belief in no God, and polytheism, which is belief in many gods.

Let’s talk about polytheism first. Throughout history most pagan cultures have been polytheistic; they believed in many gods. Usually, these many gods were tied to nature. You would have a god of the wind, and a god of the sky, and a god of the water, and so forth. Sometimes the people would actually worship the various objects they saw around them in nature – they would worship the sun, the moon and the stars themselves.

*Atheism is a more recent phenomenon. With the advance of science and technology and a greater understanding of how the universe works, some people choose not to believe in God at all. I don’t get that at all, because the more I read of science and the more we learn about the detailed precision of the universe, the more I see so clearly the hand of God in the design of everything around us, including ourselves. Although the number of atheists has grown over the past century, atheism still constitutes a very small minority. You can check poll after poll. Most people still believe in God.

So, the first part of our statement affirms that we believe in one God. That’s probably the most basic knowledge you can have of God – that he exists, as opposed to atheism, and that he is one, as opposed to polytheism.

So, what does the Bible say about all this? Or to put it a better way, what does God say about himself in the Bible about all this? Does God reveal himself in the Bible as one God? To answer that question, we turn first to a famous passage in the Old Testament – Deuteronomy 6:4.

The Israelites considered Deuteronomy 6:4 the most important verse in the whole Old Testament. They called it the Shema, which is the Hebrew word for “hear.” Shema also happens to be the first word in the verse. The whole verse reads as follows: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). This one verse defined Israel’s faith more than any other verse in the Bible. God exists, and he is one God.

Israel’s belief in a single God was radical for their time. This was in total opposition to the surrounding nations who worshiped many gods. This one verse of Scripture has done more to dispel the belief in many gods around the world and throughout history than any other verse: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4).

The New Testament also affirms that there is one God rather than no gods or many. We read in 1 Timothy 2:5-6: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Tim. 2:5-6) And those are only two verses in the Bible. You find verse after verse in the Old and the New Testament that confirm this truth again and again: God exists, and he is one.

   B. One true God vs. many false gods
      – Jeremiah 10:10; John 4:24, 17:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:9

Now, there are many false gods, but because God is one, he alone is the one true God. In John 17:3 Jesus addresses God the Father as “the only true God” (John 17:3). In John 4:24 speaking about this one true God, Jesus says this: “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). This is important. God is spirit. God does not have a physical body. The being of God contains no physical matter. He is not only a spirit, but he is an infinite spirit. He is not limited by space or time, both of which are dimensions of the created, physical universe.

This is the problem with idol worship and nature worship. Idols and objects of nature are physical in nature. They are part of the created order, and therefore they are not God. The true God is the living God. That’s why Paul writes to the church of the Thessalonians and reminds them how they “turned from idols to worship the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9). The prophet Jeremiah contrasts the living and true God with false idols in Jeremiah 10:10: “The LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King” (Jer. 10:10). Idols are not alive. And even if you worship living things in nature, you are not worshiping the one true and living God. So, that’s the first part of our statement of faith on God: We believe in one God.

II. Eternally existent in three persons

Now, much of what we have just said about God is also affirmed by other major world religions. Judaism and Islam also believe in one God. But when we come to the next point in our statement, we come to a uniquely Christian teaching: “We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Only Christianity teaches that the one true God eternally exists in three persons.

   A. The Trinity

The word we use for this is the Trinity. Now you will not find the word Trinity in the Bible. It is not a word that God uses to describe himself. God describes himself as one God and yet also as three persons within the godhead. We use the word Trinity as a sort of shorthand to try and capture what God says about himself in this respect.

The Trinity is difficult to understand. It is part of the mystery of who God is. It seems self-contradictory at first glance. How can one being be three persons, and how can three persons be one being? It may be difficult to understand, but the doctrine of the Trinity is crucial to Christianity. The one true and living God has revealed himself to us as three-in-one, and therefore if we do not worship God as three persons in one, then we do not worship God in truth.

As we just mentioned, this doctrine is unique to Christian teaching. Jews and Muslims do not believe in the Trinity. Offshoot groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons do not believe in the Trinity. The Unitarian church does not believe in the Trinity. Their very name, Unitarian, goes back to a rejection of the trinitarian teaching of Scripture.

   B. Biblical foundations of the Trinity
      – John 1:1-2; Philippians 2:6; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:15, 2:9; Acts 5:3-4

So, how do we as Christians arrive at this trinitarian understanding of God from the Bible? What does the Bible teach us concerning this aspect of who God is?

We have already seen that the Bible teaches there is only one God. But the Bible also teaches there are three persons who are God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are three separate persons. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. They are three separate, distinct persons, and yet the Bible clearly teaches that all three are God. And as we’ve just seen, God is one.

We have already looked at a number of passages which clearly present God the Father as God. But the Bible also clearly presents Jesus as God, too. John 1 says this about Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2). John is speaking about Jesus. “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.”

In Philippians 2:6 the apostle Paul writes that Jesus is “in very nature God.” In Hebrews 1:3 we read that: “The Son (Jesus) is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3). Colossians 1:15 says that Christ is “the image of the invisible God,” and Colossians 2:9 says that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” Jesus himself claimed to be God and accepted worship as God.

And then the Bible also clearly presents the Holy Spirit as God. Like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is involved in the act of creation. Like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is given divine names: the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord. In the book of Acts Peter confronts Ananias about lying to the Holy Spirit. Peter then says this: “You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:4). And so, the Bible clearly teaches that there is only one God, and yet consistently reveals the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as all being God.

   C. All three persons of the Trinity mentioned together in the Bible
      – Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2

*Even though we do not find the actual word Trinity in the Bible, we do find places where all three persons of the godhead are mentioned together. I think of Matthew 28:19 where Jesus commissions his followers: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). Notice Jesus speaks of one name – the word “name” is in the singular – and yet three persons.

In 2 Corinthians 13 we find all three persons of the godhead mentioned together in Paul’s benediction: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). And in 1 Peter 1:2, Peter speaks of all three persons of the godhead working together for our salvation. Peter writes to those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2).

   D. The eternality of the Trinity – God has always been three persons
      – Ephesians 1:3-4

*One God in three persons – this is who God is. In fact, this is who God has always been. There was never a time when there was just God the Father and then Jesus the Holy Spirit came later. We already looked at John 1 which tells us Jesus was with God in the beginning. The book of Ephesians tells us that God “chose us in Christ before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

*God has always been three persons. Remember, God is perfect, and therefore he does not change or evolve. God has always existed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in one God, eternally existent in three persons.

So, do you understand the Trinity now? Of course not! It is part of the mystery of who God is, and as such it is beyond our understanding. The early church father, Tertullian, observed that the doctrine of the Trinity must come from God because no human being would ever have invented such a difficult teaching.

The Trinity is not a formula to analyze and dissect. Rather, it is part of the mystery of God’s being. We are not meant to understand the Trinity so much as to worship the triune God who has revealed himself to us as one God and three persons. Someone once said about the doctrine of the Trinity: “Try to explain it, and you’ll lose your mind; but try to deny it, and you’ll lose your soul.” We cannot know the truth of the Trinity exhaustively, but we can know it truly. We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

III. Equally God, equally personal

And then finally we should note that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equally God and equally personal.

   A. All three persons of the Trinity are equally God

First, all three persons of the Trinity are equally God. God the Father is not more God than God the Son. God the Son is not more God than God the Spirit. If any one member of the Trinity were more God than another member, then the other member would not be God. You cannot be less than God and still be God at the same time.

Now although all three persons of the godhead are equally God, the Bible does teach us that they each have distinctive roles or functions in the godhead. The Holy Spirit doesn’t send the Son; the Father does. God the Father does not die on the cross; Jesus does. It is the Holy Spirit who lives within us and convicts us of sin and assures us that we are children of God.

This understanding of varying roles helps to explains some of the statements Jesus makes such as, “The Father is greater than I” in John 14:28. Jesus was not saying that God the Father was more God than he was. Jesus was saying that he as the Son of God had willingly taken on flesh and submitted himself to God the Father out of love for God and mankind. Jesus is God every much as God the Father is God. The difference between the Father and the Son and all the members of the Trinity is a difference of position, role and function, rather than a difference in nature, essence or being.

   B. All three persons of the Trinity are equally personal

All three members of the Trinity are equally God, and they are also equally personal. This should be obvious, for they are all persons – one God eternally existent in three persons.

This biblical teaching that God is personal contrasts directly with the concept of God in many eastern religions. Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism teach that God is impersonal. Think of Star Wars and “the force.” The force is not personal. It has no will of its own. It is just an impersonal force that permeates the universe and can be used for good or for evil by various persons in the universe.

God is not an impersonal force. He is a person. Even better, he is three persons! What are some of the aspects of God’s personality revealed in Scripture? For one thing God has a name. God revealed his name to Moses in Exodus 3:14 – you can look it up. God thinks, feels and acts – these are all basic elements of personality. God relates personally with us as human beings. He talks with us; he communicates with us through his word and through the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the reason you are personal is because God is personal. You were created in God’s image. This is one of the most precious truths of Christianity – you can have a personal relationship with God. Indeed, that’s what God created you for. Ever wonder, “What am I doing here?” God created you so that you could know him. Sometimes people say, “We were made for each other.” The Bible says you were made for God. You were made to know him and to love him in a personal relationship through Jesus Christ.

He is a personal God, and because he is personal, all three members of the Trinity are personal. The Bible reveals that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all have the characteristics of personality.

This is more obvious with the Father and the Son, but people sometimes wonder about the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit a person, or is he more like a force?

The Bible clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person. For one thing, he is always referred to as “he” in the Bible, never as “it.” He is called the Counselor or Comforter, both of which refer to personal actions (John 14:16,26, 15:26, 16:7). The Holy Spirit feels, thinks, acts, desires, teaches, bears witness, prays, intercedes, speaks and is grieved by sin. These are all elements of personality. All three members of the Trinity are equally God, equally personal.

CONCLUSION: Wow! We have covered a lot of ground this morning. And yet, we have barely scratched the surface of all who God is. We can never know all there is to know about God. The Bible says that even the Spirit of God himself “searches the deep things of God” (1 Cor.2:10).

We cannot know God completely, exhaustively. But we can know him truly, for he has revealed himself to us truly in his word. “We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Our God is an awesome God! Let us go to him in worship and in prayer.

© Ray Fowler

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Click here for more messages from the Biblical Foundations series.
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