The Trinity (HC 22-25)

Matthew 3 “The Trinity” October 7, 2007

Heidelberg 24-25

Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important to the Christian religion?

The word “Trinity” cannot be found in Scripture.

Nowhere can you find the language of “one essence, three persons” in the Bible.

So why is it that the doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely necessary for the Christian faith?

We’re working our way through the basics of the Christian faith,

utilizing the structure of the Heidelberg Catechism.

Last week we started a miniseries on the Apostles’ Creed.

Questions 24-58 of the Heidelberg Catechism expound the Apostles’ Creed.

And as we saw last time, the Apostles’ Creed summarizes very nicely

those things that a Christian must believe.

22. What, then, must a Christian believe?

All that is promised us in the gospel,

which the articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith teach us in a summary.

The Apostles’ Creed is a summary of the gospel.

The gospel – the good news –

is the message of what God has done for our salvation in Jesus Christ.

And it is that message that we confess in the Apostles’ Creed:

23. What are those articles?

I. 1. I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

II. 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, our Lord;

3. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;

4. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell.

5. On the third day he arose from the dead.

6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty;

7. from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

III. 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit;

9. I believe a holy catholic Christian church, the communion of saints;

10. the forgiveness of sins;

11. the resurrection of the body;

12. and the life everlasting.

Question 24 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks:

24. How are these articles divided?

Into three parts: the first is about God the Father and our creation;

The second about God the Son and our redemption;

The third about God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.

The Creed follows this three-part division,

I believe in the Father,

and in the Son,

and in the Holy Spirit.

But why?

Why does the Creed follow this three-part division?

Indeed, with question 25, we may ask:

25. Since there is only one God, why do you speak of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Because God has so revealed himself in his Word that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God.

Even as the Bereans searched the Scriptures to see if Paul was teaching the truth,

so also we must search the Scriptures to see if the HC is telling the truth!

The oneness of God is one of the central teachings of the Old Testament.

We sang Deuteronomy 6 earlier.

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

This is called the “shema” – from the Hebrew word “to hear.”

It is the most basic statement of faith in all of Judaism.

In Deuteronomy it is the foundation for THE commandment.

And THE commandment is

“You shall love the LORD your God will all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your might” (Dt 6:5)

Because there is only one God, therefore you shall love, worship, and serve him alone.

It is worth pointing out that as always in Scripture,

doctrine is the foundation of practice.

It does no good to affirm that God is one

if you do not therefore love God with all your heart!

If you confess “Yhvh Elohenu, Yhvh echad” (The LORD our God, the LORD is one),

but then you do not worship and serve him,

so what?!

The basic confession of faith in OT religion is that God is one –

and that this one God is our God.

Therefore we are devoted to him alone.

What does it mean to be devoted to the LORD our God?

It means that we love him with all our heart.

It means that we love him with all our soul.

It means that we love him with all our strength.

If we confess one God,

but in practice we serve many gods,

then we are liars.

You will become like the thing you worship.

If you love the LORD your God, you will become like him.

If you love any other god, you will become like it.

As Psalm 115:8 says regarding idols:

“those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

Take a good look at yourself.

What are you becoming like?

That will tell you what you are worshiping!

Deuteronomy 6 speaks of confessing and loving the one God, Yahweh,

in the context of the warning against serving other gods.

Our confession of “one God” is a rejection of the “many gods” or idols.

Paul talks about the same sort of thing in 1 Corinthians 8.

We saw this morning that Paul’s central concern in 1 Corinthians 8-11

is dealing with some misconceptions about the Jerusalem Council,

particularly dealing with the question of food sacrificed to idols.

In this context, Paul says that the conviction that there is one God

means that all other supposed “gods” are not actually gods at all.

We know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one.

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—

as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”

In other words, Paul acknowledges that the “gods” of the nations

are in some sense “gods” (he will later point out that they are demons in ch 10),

but they do not rise above the category of “so-called” gods.

That is why Paul concludes,

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist. (8:6)

At this point, if Paul was still a good Jewish monotheist, he should have stopped.

He is echoing the “shema.”

He is confessing the one God of Israel.

But he continues:

and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Paul takes the ancient confession, “the LORD our God, the LORD is one”

(yhvh elohenu yhvh echad)

and he says that this one confession in two parts

must be understood to refer to the confession of one God – the Father,

and one Lord – Jesus Christ.

There are those who argue that Paul is confessing one God (the Father),

and one king (Jesus) – since the word “lord” can either mean “yhwh” or “king”

but the additional phrases militate against this.

Because Paul says that the Father is the one from whom are all things and for whom we exist,

in other words, the Father is the origin of creation as well as our destination or goal,

and Jesus is the one through whom are all things and through whom we exist;

in other words, Jesus is the instrument of creation.

The Lord Jesus is plainly described here as having a major role in the creation of all things.

You cannot talk about the Father without talking about his Son.

In the old testament, references to the creation are invariably focused on God alone.

The one exception is in Proverbs 8,

where it says that wisdom was with God in the beginning.

But the very heart and soul of Jewish monotheism

was found in the unity of the Creator God.

The New Testament does not reject this picture.

Rather, the New Testament reinterprets this picture.

Yes, it is true that the one God created all things.

But you need to understand that this one God has now revealed himself in three persons.

The Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.

The Lord Jesus, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

And while Paul does not emphasize the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 8,

he corrects the omission in 2 Corinthians 3:17,

where he points out that the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is freedom.

When Paul talks about “the Lord” – he is ordinarily talking about Jesus.

In 2 Cor 3 he is saying that we must turn from Moses to the Lord – to Christ.

And now he says that the Lord is the Spirit.

Listen to how Paul says this:

For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted,

because only through Christ is it taken away.

Yes to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:14-18)

The Lord is the Spirit.

Jesus has revealed himself in the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had told his disciples that he would never leave them nor forsake them.

Then he tells them that he must go away so that the Spirit can come to them.

The coming of the Holy Spirit is the coming of the exalted Christ to be with his people,

as he had promised.

The work of the Spirit and the work of Christ is so closely related in the work of redemption

that Paul can go so far as to say that “the Lord is the Spirit.”

Given this emphasis in 2 Corinthians,

we should not be surprised to find that the benediction of the book is clearly Trinitarian:

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)

But even this way of talking demonstrates how remarkable is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Because in the OT, you never get confusion between God and that which is not God!

The only place where divine language is used of a human being

is in the Psalms’ discussion of the Davidic king.

But those Psalms invariably distinguish between God and the king.

In the NT the language of what God does and what Jesus does is woven together.

In the early church, the arch-heretic Arius taught that the Son had a beginning –

“There was when the Son was not.”

Arius insisted that God was too high and exalted to come into contact with “the flesh.”

Therefore, Jesus could not be God in the same way that the Father was God.

And throughout the fourth century, the Trinitarian controversy raged.

At the council of Nicea in 325, the church tentatively settled on the word “homoousion”

to resolve the controversy.

Homoousion means “of the same substance.”

And so the council of Nicea set forth its conclusion that the Son was

“of the same substance with the Father.”

But there was still a problem.

The council of Nicea had found a way to talk about the oneness of God –

the Father and the Son are of the same substance –

but if that is all you say, then the tendency is towards “modalism.”

Modalism is the view that God has revealed himself in three modes,

Father, Son and Spirit.

Sometimes God reveals himself as Father,

Sometimes God reveals himself as Son,

And sometimes God reveals himself as Spirit.

Modalism certainly enables you to maintain the unity of God –

and so there were many Jewish converts who found various forms of Modalism attractive.

But Modalism runs into the impossible difficulty of saying that God talks to himself.

In Matthew 3, Jesus is baptized by John,

and the Father says, “this is my beloved Son”

and the Spirit descends like a dove.

Matthew 3 plainly demonstrates that the Father is NOT the Son,

and the Son is NOT the Spirit,

and the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son!

So if all you say is that the Son is of the same substance with the Father,

then you haven’t really gotten the doctrine of the Trinity.

And so for more than 50 years, the church battled over the doctrine of God.

Some councils rejected Nicea and tried to come up with better ways of saying it—

ways that would stick to biblical language,

and leave out this strange “homoousion” business!

But the problem is, if you say that the Son is not homoousion with the Father –

if he is not of the same substance,

then he must be of a different substance!

Some tried to argue that all we can say is that the Son is similar to the Father.

But the problem with “similar” is that “similar” is still “different.”

Margarine is similar to butter!

Walnuts are similar to pecans!

But built in to the very definition of the word “similar”

is the unmistakable result that things that are similar are yet not the same.

In the final analysis, they are different.

And so, very slowly, the church came back to this word “homoousion.”

Do you know what it was that sealed the deal?

Do you know what convinced the church that there really was no other way to say this?

Baptism.

In Matthew 28:19 Jesus said,

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

God has one name.

We are baptized into one name.

But that one name of God reveals three distinct persons.

The Father

The Son

The Holy Spirit

Many have pointed out that the words “trinity” and “homoousion” do not appear in Scripture.

But when you read the remarkable claims that the NT makes about who Jesus is,

attributing to him things that the OT insisted belong to Yahweh alone,

then you cannot help but see that the name of the LORD

is none other than the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

So please turn to your hymnals, page 845 if you need it,

and let us confess together the articles of our holy Christian faith: