The Doctrine of the Trinity

1. The Doctrine of the Trinity

2. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26

3. Examples from the Old Testament… Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

4. Examples from the Old Testament… Genesis 3:22: “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

5. Examples from the Old Testament… Isaiah 6:8: “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

6. Examples from the Old Testament… Psalm 110:1: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

7. Examples from the New Testament… Matthew 3:16: “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him…”

8. Examples from the New Testament… Matthew 28:19: “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…”

9. Examples from the New Testament… 1 Corinthians 12:4-6: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”

10. Examples from the New Testament… 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

11. Examples from the New Testament… Ephesians 4:4: “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.”

12. Examples from the New Testament… Jude 20-21: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

13. Historic Errors… • Modalism • Claims That There Is One Person Who Appears to Us in Three Different Forms (or "Modes"). • Also called Sabellianism, after a teacher named Sabellius who lived in Rome in the early third century A.D. • Another term for modalism is “modalisticmonarchianism.

14. Historic Errors… • Arianism • Denies the Full Deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. • The Arian Controversy: The term Arianism is derived from Arius, a Bishop of Alexandria whose views were condemned at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, and who died in A.D. 336. Arius taught that God the Son was at one point created by God the Father, and that before that time the Son did not exist, nor did the Holy Spirit, but the Father only. Thus, though the Son is a heavenly being who existed before the rest of may even be said to be “like the Father”or “similar to the Father” in his nature, but he cannot be said to be “of the same nature” as the Father.

15. Historic Errors… • Arianism • The dispute with Arius concerned two words that have become famous in the history of Christian doctrine, homoousios ("of the same nature") and homoiousios ("of a similar nature"). • The Jehovah's Witnesses, who are modern-day Arians, also point to Rev. 3:14, where Jesus calls himself “the beginning of God's creation,” and take it to mean that “Jesus was created by God as the beginning of God's invisible creations.”

16. Historic Errors… • Subordinationism • Held that the Son was eternal (not created) and divine, but still not equal to the Father in being or attributes. • In other words, the Son was inferior, or “subordinate” in being, to God the Father.

17. Historic Errors… • Adoptionism • The view that Jesus lived as an ordinary man until his baptism, but then God “adopted” Jesus as his “Son” and conferred on him supernatural powers. • Adoptionists would not hold that Christ existed before he was born as a man; therefore, of Christ as eternal, nor would they think of him as the exalted, supernatural being created by God that the Arians held him to be. • Even after Jesus’“adoption” as the “Son” of God, they would not think of him as divine in nature, but only as an exalted man whom God called his “Son” in a unique sense.

18. Why the Trinity Matters… The atonement is at stake. If Jesus is merely a created being, and not fully God, then it is hard to see how he, a creature, could bear the full wrath of God against all of our sins. Justification by faith alone is threatened if we deny the full deity of the Son. Our worship—if Jesus is not infinite God, why would we worship him? God’s character—if someone teaches that Christ was a created being but nonetheless one who saved us, then this teaching wrongly begins to attribute credit for salvation to a creature and not to God himself. Bible study and prayer look radically different if we know that they are prompted by and done in the presence of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

19. Three Summary Statements… God is three persons. Each person is fully God. There is one God.

20. The Doctrine of the Trinity