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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

The Significance of the Trinity

When you look on a coin, an American coin, the penny, you'll see the Latin words there, Eupleribus Unum.

Out of the many, 1, and this describes and encapsulates a philosophical quest that has been going on through centuries, how to bring unity in diversity.

How do we bring all of the complexities of life and bring them to a unifying principle and the very name University means unity in diversity, bringing all these different disciplines together.

Unity in diversity and I believe that in scripture we have this theme emerging in the notion of the Trinity.

Unity in diversity, 3 co-eternal existing entities, these, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all 1.

I said do you think it's too late to change the sermon topic yesterday and so she said just a wonderful wonderful woman praise the Lord for her wives and and She said sure so So it's a sermon shift and topic and it is Mother's Day weekend.

It's a weekend that we focus and reflect on 1 of the most intimate relationships that we can have this side of heaven, amen?

Relationship between mother and child, between son and daughter and mother.

What an intimate bond that we can have, this relational richness that we can have with our mothers or as a mother.

And I'd like to reflect on the relational dynamics found within the Godhead, the Trinity.

There's not a lot of Trinitarian thinking that's going along, going around today.

Even the notion of the Trinity or the Godhead is questioned even within our community of faith.

People don't believe in certain aspects of the Godhead.

And before we go into the relationality and the community that is found within the Trinity, I'd like to do a quick Bible study this morning.

And I have all of these references in your study guide.

I wanna encourage you to take out your study guide this morning.

All of the passages that I'll be referencing quickly this morning are found there, and I pray that you reflect upon the nature of the Trinity.

Much of it is a mystery, and I believe that even when we get to heaven, we won't fully understand all of the dynamics.

God is bigger than us, that's an understatement.

God is much more vast than we are, and I believe that even in heaven, every day will be a day of wow.

Infinite development, infinite growth, the wonder and the awe of heaven will never cease because God is infinite.

And so as we meditate this morning on the Trinity, it would do us well in humility to figuratively take the shoes off our feet because we're treading on holy ground.

And there's dimensions of this that I believe we are just touching the surface on, like a child on the seashore.

I want to read the introduction, the notion of the Trinity in the Latin, Trinitas, triunity or 3 in oneness is 1 of the most important teachings of the Christian faith although the word Trinity is not found in the Bible neither is the word incarnation, the teaching it describes is clearly found there.

Briefly defined, the teaching of the Trinity stands for the concept that God eternally exists in 3 persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And each person is fully God, and there is 1 God.

God himself is a mystery, how much more the incarnation or the Trinity.

However, that should not trouble us as long as the different aspects of these mysteries are clearly taught in scripture.

In studying the Trinity in scripture we need to be aware that we can only ever achieve a partial understanding of what the Trinity is.

So let's go to the Bible, the very beginning, and go to the book of Genesis here in Genesis 1.1, first chapter, first verse of the Bible.

And when you look at the Hebrew, it's not in the singular sense.

The singular word for God would have been Eloha, but it is Elohim, implying plurality.

In the beginning, God is not in the singular sense, it's in the plural sense.

So at the very beginning of the Bible you have the implication of the plurality of God and then it's much more explicit.

In Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 you see that there is a conversation that takes place within the Godhead and God said, what does the screen say?

Let us, plural, make man in our image according to our likeness.

So the beginning of creation and the creation process was a conversation that takes place with more than 1.

There is a conversation that's taking place in the plurality of the triune God, let us make man in our image.

And then you have more evidence that emerges in Genesis chapter 3, verse 22.

After the fall, then the Lord God said, behold, man has become like 1 of us.

Another conversation that's implied taking place within the Trinity, and then at the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 verse 7, come let us go down, and there confuse their language and they may not understand 1 another's speech.

So you can see some implications about how the Trinity relates to each other.

It's not as though God the Father called in God the Son and said, look you do this, you do that and report back to me in a month.

It wasn't this delegation of responsibility and power.

And the creative process was a community involvement between these 3 co-eternal entities, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then in Isaiah 6, verse 8, the middle of the Bible, It says, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

So this idea of the Trinity and the Godhead is not a new concept that emerges in Matthew chapter 28, where you have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the implications of the plurality of God are found at the very beginning of the Bible.

Now, the question that many people have asked is, what about there being 1 God?

Every faithful Jew would get up in the morning and say the Shema, hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.

Here's the word and the oneness of God emerges and this was a distinguishing characteristic between the Jews, the Israelites, and the surrounding nations.

This is known as monotheism versus polytheism.

So you have this oneness in the plurality of God, even though there are 3 separate individual entities, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is this oneness that emerges.

And the question is, what does this oneness mean?

The Hebrew word there on the screen, you can see it, is the word ikad and this word first comes in the book of Genesis.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and they shall become 1, Ikad, flesh.

So the implication here is that the oneness in the Trinity is analogous to the relationship between the husband and the wife.

When you become married in a sense you become 1.

However this does not mean there is some sort of metaphysical morphing of individual personalities.

You know I'm here and my wife is in another location.

I'm an individual, I have a personality, my wife has a personality.

But in this special sense, in the Iqad sense, we are 1.

So God is helping us to understand the nature of the Trinity is similar in some aspects to the nature of the oneness between husband and wife.

And the beautiful application that we can have is that The community found in the Trinity can be reproduced here on earth between a husband and a wife.

The beautiful self-denial and submission of 1 to the other, The denial of self and surrender can be found in the community, in the Trinity, and also between the husband and the wife.

So the oneness that the Bible talks about in the Trinity is also found in the oneness between the husband and the wife.

Here in Matthew 3, verse 16 and 17, the New Testament, we have this rare occasion where you have all 3 members of the Godhead present at 1 location and 1 event.

When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him and suddenly a voice came from him saying, and this is the Father, this is my son in whom I am well pleased.

So at the baptism of Jesus, there were these 3 members of the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Incidentally, when you're baptized, you're also baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Is this an important event in the eyes of God?

So important that all 3 members of the Godhead pull up a chair, figuratively.

They're like, we want to be there, at your baptism, at the experience of the new life, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You can see them, all 3 distinct individuals here at the baptism of Jesus.

And of course, Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit, the 3 distinct individuals found in the Godhead.

And of course, 2 Corinthians 13, verse 14, you have the 3 individuals of the Godhead that are implied here, the grace of the Lord, Jesus, the love of God, the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Now we can go on and on, There's many other references that imply the Trinity in 1 way or another.

But there's a popular belief in some circles that Jesus is somehow a subpar God.

The idea that Jesus is God but in somehow a lesser sense and this cropped up in Western Europe shortly after the inception of Christianity with the Aryan view.

This is the Aryan view where they believe that Jesus came forth from the Father and was not preexistent and not eternal in the same sense as the Father.

And there are different texts that point out that Jesus is just as much God in the fullest sense of the Godhead as the Father.

Here in John 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Verse 14 says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Here we can see that the Bible is pointing out this is not the beginning of creation, the implication of this passage is this is the beginning of time.

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The Significance of the Trinity

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