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God In Three Persons

Nick Duke, August 24, 2008 39 min and 51 sec. You don't have Flash installed. Please use the download link instead. Low Quality (4.6 MB), High Quality (18.3 MB)

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Outline

The Glory of the Christian Religion

• Embarrassing?
• Irrelevant?
• Invented?

How has God revealed Himself?

• Old Testament
  
  • Unity
  • Hints
• New Testament
  • Complex Unity
  • Revealed in the Son, Jesus
• As ‘Trinity’: ‘There is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What is affirmed:

1. The Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct persons.
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is only one God.

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  ²He was in the beginning with God.  ³All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

What is denied:

1. God has three modes or faces (Modalism)
2. Jesus is a created being, not fully God (Arianism / JWs)
3. That there are three Gods (Polytheism)

Evidence on Jesus

• Matthew 28:16-20
• John 8:39-59
• Implicit References
• Explicit References

What is at stake:

• God’s Character
• God’s Gospel
• Our salvation

Readings

John 1:1–18

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

Matthew 28:16–20

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.

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