“Three distinct agencies, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost work together for human beings. They are united in the work of making the church on earth like the church in heaven.”

<p>“Three distinct agencies, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost work together for human beings. They are united in the work of making the church on earth like the church in heaven.”</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

South Brisbane SDA Church

The Trinity

Glyn Parfitt

1. The Unity of God and The Holy Spirit

There is no subject more profound or awesome than the subject of God.

And what should be our attitude as we approach such a study.

No attitude but humility, I'm sure, is appropriate in a study like this, both in our attitude to God and in our attitude to 1 another.

Micah 6, 8 we are told, What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

And we are told in Philippians 2.3, In loneliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

I pray that nothing that I say tonight will give the impression that others might not understand the matter better than I do.

All I can do is to present the facts as I see them and leave the rest to your judgement guided by the Holy Spirit.

The first thing that we need to realise is that God is infinitely beyond our understanding.

As you would know, there are many scriptures which plainly teach that we cannot completely understand God.

We are finite, he is infinite, we must humbly sit in the seat of the learner.

Great is our Lord and of great power, his understanding is infinite, it says in Psalm 147 verse 5.

Because God's ways are so infinitely beyond us, Our only safety is to remain within the boundaries of revealed knowledge and not speculate about things that have not been revealed.

We are told in Deuteronomy, The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.

How thankful we should be, as I said before, that God has seen fit to reveal anything about himself.

It is important also when considering matters such as these to judge everything on the weight of evidence.

Ellen White put it this way, God does not propose to remove all occasions for unbelief.

He gives evidence which must be carefully investigated with a humble mind and a teachable spirit and all should decide from the weight of evidence.

We must be patient with 1 another and patient with God, for there will be some pieces of evidence for each side of a particular question.

We have to make the effort to weigh the evidence and have the courage to make a decision based on the weight of that evidence.

I do not have time to give you all the evidence tonight or during this weekend.

I've tried to do that in my book, which many of you no doubt have.

Since writing my book on the Trinity, I've been led to write a book on Islam.

I've called it Islam or Christianity, Where Lies the Truth.

In preparing this book, it has dawned on me that the main argument that Muslims have against Christianity is that they believe in 1 God and we believe in 3.

Trinitarians believe in 1 God, 1 God in 3 persons.

So I thought that before talking about Christ or the Holy Spirit, I should begin by considering the unity of God.

In Deuteronomy 6.4 we read, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord.

And of course there is the commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

And Paul said, For though there be many that are called gods, But to us there is but 1 God, the Father, of whom are all things.

Thus Christians have nothing to do with the many gods and goddesses of the pagan philosophers or as we see it in Hinduism today.

It is essential that we be grounded and settled on the concept of 1 God before we move on to consider the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

But when we come to consider Christ, we find that he is called God.

In John 1.1 we read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Isaiah said that God would give us a sign.

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

2 chapters further on we are told more about this amazing son.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." So the Virgin's Son would actually be the mighty God.

You couldn't get anything clearer than that I don't think.

Moreover Paul tells us that being God, Christ is equal to God the Father.

In Philippians 2.6 we read, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God?

Other translations express this more clearly.

God's word translation says, although he was in the form of God and equal with God, he did not take advantage of this equality.

1 translation makes it even more emphatic, calling Christ co-equal with God, that is, equal in all respects.

Who, as he was in the likeness of God, deemed it no trespass to be the co-equal of God.

That's Murdoch's translation of the New Testament.

Here we have 2 beings, the Father and the Son, who are both equally God.

No worries, Jesus has resolved it for us.

He said when questioned by the Jews, I and my Father are 1.

It was clearly something very startling, for the Jews tried to stone him.

Ellen White says, It seemed that divinity flashed through humanity, as Jesus said, I and my Father are 1.

The words of Christ were full of deep meaning as he put forth the claim that he and the Father were of 1 substance, possessing the same attributes.

Now Alan White later said that in mind and character they are 1, but a statement that they are of 1 substance goes way beyond that.

For it is the phrase that is used in translating the Nicene Creed of 325 into English.

It has thus become a very common statement of belief among Christian writers both in our day and in Alan White's time.

For example, John Knox, the Scottish Presbyterian reformer said, I offer myself without further delay to prove that Jesus Christ is of 1 substance with the Father.

Jones in his book The 2 Republics put this statement of 1 substance in a rather negative light, but Ellen White clearly supported it.

It was important that we be established on the matter of the unity of God before Ellen White began making statements like the third person of the Godhead, indicating that there were in fact 3 persons in the 1 Godhead.

It was also important that it be made clear that all our doctrines are based on the Word of God and not on Ellen White's writings.

Lacey made clear biblical presentations on Jesus as the I Am and on the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Godhead at the convention at Avondale College in 1896.

It was not until after those presentations that Ellen White published In Desire of Ages in 1898 that the Holy Spirit was the third person of the Godhead.

Now, some of you may be wondering how there can be 3 persons in the Godhead and yet only 1 God.

I recently had to deal with this problem when writing my Islam book for 1 Muslim writer had said, 1 plus 1 plus 1 is not equal to 1.

Therefore, 1 God plus 1 God plus 1 God is not equal to 1 God.

To this I responded that God is infinite, so each member of the Godhead must also be infinite.

Mathematically we can say infinity plus infinity plus infinity equals what?

So that's how 3 gods who are each infinite can be 1 infinite god.

If you're not mathematically inclined, you may find the following illustration helpful.

Light is made up of 3 colours, red, green and blue.

If we mix the light of these 3 colours in the right proportions we see only 1 colour, white.

This is what you're seeing on the screen at the moment.

We don't see the 3 colours, we just see 1 and it's white.

Not a good illustration of the Godhead but it does show how 3 can be 1.

With that in mind I would now like to share with you a biblical presentation showing how we can know that the Holy Spirit is a divine, personal being distinct from the Father and the Son.

We will consider first the deity of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven them.

It is an amazing thing that blasphemy against the Father may be forgiven, Blasphemy against the Son may be forgiven, but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

This says volumes about the deity of the Holy Spirit and also about his distinction from the Father and the Son.

Now from time to time people become very troubled, thinking that they may have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit.

My friends, let me assure you that if you are troubled by such thoughts, It's a sure sign that you have not actually gone that far.

If the Holy Spirit is still convicting you of sin, you have not blasphemed him.

If you are worried about it, you haven't done it.

Another instance that reveals the deity of the Holy Spirit is the story of Ananias and Sapphira who tried to deceive the apostles about the price of the land they had sold to give to the church.

2. The Eternity of Christ

Last evening we looked at the Holy Spirit and we also looked at the unity of God.

God, our God that we worship is 1 God, 1 God in 3 persons and as we've been singing.

Today we will look at the eternal pre-existence of Christ as portrayed in the scripture.

During the church service we will look at Proverbs 8 and how that might apply to Jesus.

It is 1 of the main passages that has been relied on through the centuries to come to the conclusion that Jesus was brought forth from the Father.

We'll see how that cannot be sustained from scripture.

And then this afternoon we will look at some of Ellen White's handwritten statements relating to the Tinnitin.

And we will also look at the only begotten passages in scripture.

I presume that you all believe in the full deity of Christ.

And we saw last night that Jesus is the mighty God.

Isaiah says that Jesus is the mighty God, John says the Word was God, and Paul says that he was equal with God.

The question that we want to ask today is, has Jesus always existed like the Father has always existed?

There's 1 verse in the Bible that addresses this question directly, So let us start with that.

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, thou thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

The significance of this text for our study hinges on the meaning of 3 key phrases, goings forth, from of old and from everlasting.

We will look first at the phrase goings forth.

The Hebrew word translated goings forth occurs only twice in the Old Testament.

It is here in Micah 5 2 and it's in 2 Kings 10 27 where it refers to a toilet house of all things.

This doesn't tell us very much about the meaning of the word in Micah 5.2.

But happily there is a solution because this Hebrew word moza'ar is feminine and there is a masculine form of the same word which is moza'.

The next question is, do masculine and feminine forms of the same word have the same meaning, like king and queen for instance.

So we want to look at the masculine Hebrew word Mozart and what does that mean.

It is found 27 times in the Old Testament and is used in a variety of ways, all with the same basic meaning.

It is used 6 times of water springs, that is water coming out of the ground.

It is used 5 times of words coming out of the mouth.

It is used 3 times of going out on a journey.

What is of the most significance to us is that it is used twice for a king going about his business.

In 2 Samuel it says, Thou knowest Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive thee, and to know thy going out, and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest.

So it's used there of David's business as a king.

It is used once of God, the king of the universe.

Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain and the former rain upon the earth.

So we see that the masculine word motsa, when it is used of a king or of God, is translated going out or going forth in the sense of going about their business as a ruler.

These are the only 2 verses that give a meaning that is appropriate for the feminine word moza'ar in Micah 5.2.

The translation goings forth is particularly significant in this context.

It refers both to God and a king going about their business of ruling.

This is especially appropriate in Micah 5 2.

The verse is about the birth of Jesus, the 1 who is to be ruler in Israel.

Jesus is well qualified to be such a ruler because his goings forth, that is, doing the business of a king, have been from of old, from everlasting.

The idea that some have expressed that the Hebrew word means a birth or an origin does not fit in this verse at all well, for the word is plural.

I doubt if anyone would wish to contend that Jesus had multiple births in the distant days of eternity.

So let us take the very appropriate meaning given in the King James Version, goings forth, in the sense of doing his business as king of the universe.

I trust that you are all with me on that.

We will now look at the expression from of old.

It is found in the Old Testament 87 times.

The word is most frequently used of people or things that, although old, are not eternally old.

However, when used of God, it always refers to the eternity of his existence.

For example, the eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God?

Since Jesus is God in the fullest sense, Kerem must also mean eternal when used of Christ as here in Micah 5.2.

The next expression we'll look at is from everlasting.

This word is found in the Old Testament 439 times.

Sometimes it only means for a long time, as you would probably know.

For instance, Jonah says, the waters compassed me about, even to the soul.

I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.

The earth with her bars was about me forever.

Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God." However, There are a large number of verses where this word is used to describe the eternity of God.

Among these verses are, And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God.

Another 1, blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting and to everlasting.

Another 1, before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

I don't know that there's a more definite scripture relating to the eternity of God than that.

From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

Now since Jesus is God in the fullest sense.

Olam must mean eternity when used of Christ in Micah 5.2.

There is only 1 other word that is used in the Old Testament to indicate the eternity of God.

It is used 48 times and is mostly translated for ever.

For example, the Lord is King forever and ever.

Another 1, for thus saith the high and lofty 1 that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.

I dwell in the high and holy place with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, etc.

The scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter.

This is a messianic psalm which can be seen from the next verse.

Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness.

Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

The second verse where ad meaning forever is used of Christ is in Isaiah 9.6.

We looked at this 1 last night but here's another thought.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful, counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Christ is here called the everlasting Father.

In the meantime we note that all 3 Hebrew words that refer to the eternity of God are also used of Christ.

Since Christ is the fullness of the Godhead as we learn in Colossians 2.9, these words must be telling us that Christ has always existed just like the Father.

Thus everything that is said of the Father's eternal existence is also said of Christ.

If the Son is not eternally existent in the past, we have no scriptural grounds for saying that the Father has always existed.

3. Jesus and Proverbs 8

Dear Father, I pray that you will open your word to us today, that your spirit will speak to us and guide us as we study that we may be thinking your thoughts after you, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Now, as I mentioned last night, no attitude but humility is appropriate in any study like this.

We read in the book of Isaiah, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.

Here Jesus, the child who is to be born is called the everlasting father.

Not that he was God the father, but that Jesus, before his birth in Bethlehem, was a father to Israel.

It was Jesus who taught us that his father was also our father, and so he taught us to pray, our father who art in heaven.

And he told us that the Father himself loveth you.

But returning to our first text, Jesus is described as the everlasting Father.

As we saw earlier today, this is 1 of a number of verses where we are told that Jesus existed eternally before he came to this earth.

However, there are some who claim that Jesus' existence was not eternal in the past.

There was a time, they say, when he came into existence.

And the principle verses they rely on to prove this idea are found in Proverbs 8.

And so we will examine this passage today.

It says, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth.

When there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.

Notice that this passage says, when there were no depths I was brought forth and before the hills I was brought forth.

There were those that claimed that this passage is a prophecy about Jesus and how he came into existence.

We will begin by noting that whenever we examine any piece of writing, we must first of all determine what sort of writing it is.

The way we understand any piece of writing will be affected by the kind of literature it is.

For instance, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan and then said to the lawyer who had asked him who was my neighbour, he said, go and do thou likewise.

Did he mean that he should spend his time walking up and down the Jericho Road with a donkey in tow so that he could pick up wounded travellers?

Now, if I were to quote to you the following words, "'I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high or vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.

Cloud rhymes with crowd and hills rhymes with daffodils and it has a regular rhythm.

It also has something else that poetry often has.

It is treating non-personal things as if they were actual persons.

In our poem, clouds are said to be lonely.

The Bible also uses personification and we need to realise that.

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Series

The Trinity

4. Ellen White & Trinity (Part 1)

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Early and Latter Rain: Our Need of the Holy Spirit

The Third Person of the Godhead

51m

1 Defending the Trinity

51m

The Doctrine of God

The Trinity, Part 3 (Adventism and Trinitarianism)

27m

Alpha, Omega, Meet It!

Alpha, Omega, Meet It! Part 3

1h 22m

The Godhead

3. The Godhead: A Historical Narrative

46m

Questioning Faith: Making Sense of God, the Universe, and Eternity

02 What Was God Doing Before the Universe?

1h 4m

The Doctrine of God

The Trinity, Part 2 (The Trinity in the New Testament)

39m

Ron du Preez: The 'Day' that Changed the World

The Babble About the Bible: Versions, Diversions, or Perversions

43m

Godhead Questions and Answers

Pioneers and the Trinity- Part 2

1h 2m

Apologetics

Mystery of the Godhead

57m

Sound Doctrine