One God In Father, Son, And Holy Spirit

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

I do not, as a general rule, care much for abstractions of theology.

By habit, by training, and by personality, I am a practical man. These sermons of mine are always oriented around how I can put the teachings of Scripture into practice in my daily life. My hope is they provide something useful for others to apply in their lives as well.

When I speak of forgiveness, I do so because we all stand in sore need of forgiveness, and we are all called to be forgiving in our daily lives (which is to say most of us probably need to be more forgiving than we are).

When I speak on authority, I do so because we all have to stand for ourselves, to judge right and wrong for ourselves, and we cannot outsource that work to anyone else. How we judge right and wrong is how we will live our lives in the here and now.

When it comes to many issues of theology, I generally do not care one way or another. Many theological abstractions such as “Penal Substitutionary Atonement”, or the notion of a predestined elect already set to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, simply do not interest me. They do not alter how I apply Christian teachings in my daily life. They should not alter how others apply Christian teachings in their daily lives.

That application of Christian teachings is always my overarching concern. My concern is that we pray, not whether we should pray on one knee or two.

This will annoy some Christians, and surely add to the number who already denounce me as a heretic and blasphemer!

There are some points of theology, however, which I do see as relevant to how we put Christian faith into practice in a Christian life. One such point, which recently wandered across my very narrow attention span, was the concept of the Triune God—one God expressed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Why does it matter?

It matters because if we are to pray effectively, if we are to cultivate the mindset conducive to prayer, we must be clear in our own minds to whom we pray.

It matters because if we are to worship with honesty and integrity, we must be clear in our own minds who it is whom we worship.

It matters because, when we submit before God, we need to be clear in our own minds who it is who receives our submission.

Is Jesus a different entity than God? Is the Holy Spirit separate and apart from God or Jesus? If we worship Jesus are we still worshiping God?

The answers to these questions, of course, must be found in Scripture, if they are to be found at all.

This is a challenge, because neither “trinity” nor “triune” appears in any translation of Scripture in relation to God. There is no verse which explicitly says “God is in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” There is no verse which explicitly says “God is the Father. God is not the Son. God is not the Holy Spirit.”

There are verses which do shed light on how Jesus presented Himself in relation to God. There are verses which shed light on how God presented Jesus and the Holy Spirit in relation to Himself. From these we must discern how to apprehend Jesus and the Holy Spirit in relation to God. From these we must apprehend the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel appears before Mary, and tells her the Holy Spirit will cause her to conceive, though still a virgin, and the child she bears will be the Son of God.

In this passage we have three divine entities portrayed: God, Jesus (the Son of God), and the Holy Spirit. The question we must ponder is whether these are in fact three separate entities, or instead three presentations of the same entity.

In Matthew 3, when Jesus receives baptism from John the Baptist, the same three presentations again appear. The Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus, and God declares that Jesus is His Son, with whom He is well pleased.

In Matthew 12, when Jesus is seen performing miracles and healing those possessed by demons, He informs His critics in the crowd that if Jesus is working through the power of the Holy Spirit, there must be unity and not diversity. Again, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are referenced together.

Again we must ponder whether these passages present three separate entities, or three presentations of the same entity.

Jesus Himself provides an answer to that question in John 10:30 when He declares “I and the Father are one.”

Nor do we need to ponder how this statement landed on those whom Jesus addressed. The crowd around Him was outraged and attempted to stone Him for blasphemy. We know this because the crowd explicitly says this in John 10:33

They understood Jesus to be saying that He was indeed God. We can safely presume that Jesus was saying exactly that.

The crowd was similarly hostile to Jesus when, in John 8:58, He declared “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” The crowd recognized in Jesus’ words a reference to the passage in Exodus 3 when God appeared before Moses in the form of a burning bush, and God told Moses His name was “I Am Who I Am”.

The Gospel accounts do not indicate in either passage that Jesus sought to correct the crowd in their understanding, leaving us to conclude that the crowd understood Jesus correctly, even though they did not believe Him. As the crowd understood Jesus correctly, we must conclude Jesus said explicitly He is God.

When the disciple Philip begs of Jesus to show the disciples the Father in John 14, Jesus rebukes him, saying “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Jesus doubles down on this a few verses later, telling the disciples “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me”.

In that passage not only do we not have Jesus correcting those around Him for their understanding of His words, we have Jesus correcting those around Him for their misunderstanding of who He truly is.

When Jesus is brought before the priests in Mark 14, the high priest asks Jesus directly “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”, and Jesus replies equally directly, saying, “I am; and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Jesus very explicitly claims divine status for himself in this passage.

If Jesus is divine—and He absolutely is—how do we apprehend him? This is no minor question, for the first of the Ten Commandments given to Moses is "you shall have no other gods before me.” If Jesus is not God, we cannot worship Him. If Jesus is God, we must worship Him.

Note that Jesus’ own disciples worshiped Him after He calmed the storm in Matthew 14. If Jesus is not God, His own disciples blasphemed.

When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His Resurrection, they again worshiped Him in Matthew 28. If Jesus is not God, His own disciples blasphemed.

Obviously, we cannot rationally conclude that Jesus’ own disciples blasphemed. Such a notion would explode the whole of the New Testament. As we are compelled to conclude Jesus’ disciples did not blaspheme, we are also compelled to conclude that Jesus is God.

Jesus, the only begotten Son, is therefore God.

God the Father is of course God.

Is the Holy Spirit also God? Necessarily so—and easily so. The opening passage of John leaves little room for alternative interpretations.

The Great Commission at the close of Matthew also leaves little doubt that God as presented in Scripture is the Triune God, manifesting as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As there can be only one God, Jesus explicitly charging His disciples to baptize all nations “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” demands that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all be manifestations of God. Any other formulation runs counter to the First Commandment.

The First Commandment is why we are compelled to ponder this question. The First Commandment is why we are compelled to apprehend God as presented in Scripture as the Triune God. The First Commandment is why, as we worship God, we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We worship God.

We do not worship saints.

We do not worship angels.

We certainly do not worship the inventions of men!

We can only worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if all three are manifestations of God. We can only baptize—or be baptized—in the name of all three if all three are manifestations of God.

We must worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if all three are manifestations of God. We must baptize—or be baptized— in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if all three are manifestations of God.

The Gospels are clear on this. All three are manifestations of one God, and He is God. We worship all three because we worship one God, and He is God. We must worship all three because we worship one God, and He is God.

My prayer this day is that all people everywhere will come together and worship God—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—for He is God. My prayer this day is that all people everywhere will have their eyes opened to the Triune wonder of God, that He presents in three manifestations yet is always one God. My prayer this day is that all people everywhere will seek God as He presents to us, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and will come to know God in all three manifestations.

Jesus, the only begotten Son, is God.

God the Father is of course God.

The Holy Spirit is God.

All three are manifestations of one God, and He is God. We worship all three because we worship one God, and He is God.

We have but one God, and He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.