Over the past few times I have spoken to you, I’ve talked about the attributes of God. First, there are the incommunicable attributes that belong wholly to God and to no other creature, nor could belong to anything created. God is eternal and eternally self-existent – the attribute of aseity. God is infinite, without any limit on his abilities or perfection. And God is unchanging – God is always who He must be. For this reason, God is also independent of His creation.
God’s communicable attributes are those He possesses in perfection, which He also imparts to us. These attributes give human beings their unique personalities that set us apart from other animals, and our spirit, which gives us our immortal soul. All of the Abrahamic faiths generally agree that God has both communicable and incommunicable attributes that set Him apart as holy from the creation.
Last week, however, I taught on the one attribute that is uniquely Christian in belief – the Triunity of God. The term most commonly used is the Holy Trinity. Wayne Grudem’s definition of the Trinity is:
“God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.”
This doctrine of God being a multi-personal deity is implicit in the Old Testament. Genesis 1, 3 and 11 all have verses where God uses plural pronouns “us” and “our” with reference to Himself. David, in Psalm 110:1, says, “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” Jesus quoted this verse as evidence that Messiah is the Son of God, not just a son of David.
Recall also Isaiah 48:16, where the pre-incarnate Messiah, who is God, says, “And now the Lord GOD [Adonai Yahweh in Hebrew] has sent Me, and His Spirit.” If God were only one person this verse would mean something absurd: “And now I, the Lord God, have sent myself and His Spirit, which is really my Spirit, or me.”
Here’s another verse which affirms the plurality of God’s personhood. Zechariah 2:8-9 says, “For thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye. For behold, I will wave My hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.’” The LORD of Hosts is speaking and says He has been sent against the nations; but then He concludes, “You will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.” Either Zechariah is mixing up the subject and object of who is sending whom, or else both persons in this sentence are worthy of being called the LORD of Hosts. The two persons in this sentence are both equally and inseparably God.
One might also ask from this verse: “Who besides God could possibly send the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Himself, on a mission?” From a New Testament perspective, God the Son is saying God the Father has sent Him to punish those who afflict the Jews. God is reaffirming that He will keep His covenant promise to Abraham to curse those who curse his descendants.
Let me give you one final, strangely wonderful example, of God’s multi-personal nature in the brief period after Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. Exodus 24 begins, “Then He [that is, God] said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship at a distance. 2 Moses alone, however, shall come near to the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him.” God is telling Moses that he alone shall come near “the LORD” instead of saying simply “Me.” Two persons who are equally God are clearly implied.
Now moving to verse 9: “Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet He did not stretch out His hand against [that is, kill] the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.” So Moses, Aaron, and his sons and seventy elders all saw the God of Israel, but did not die.
Now, let’s look at Exodus 33, starting in v. 18. Moses has successfully interceded with God to spare the people of Israel from annihilation for worshipping the golden calf. “Then Moses said, ‘I pray You, show me Your glory!’ 19 And He said, ‘I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.’ 20 But He said, ‘You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!’
So in Exodus 24 the people of Israel are directed by God to approach Yahweh, the God of Israel. They see Him but do not die. Yet in Exodus 33, the same God tells Moses “no man can see Me and live!” Either God is contradicting Himself, or there are two different persons implicitly revealed: God the Son whom Israel saw, and God the Father, whose face no man can see and live.
There are lots of Scriptures in the Hebrew Bible that point to God’s plural personhood. Yet it is in the New Testament that the doctrine of the Trinity becomes clear, as Jesus Christ is progressively revealed to be God. And the Holy Spirit is also revealed to be equally God, yet distinct from the Father and the Son. At His baptism, Jesus is declared by God to be His beloved Son, while the Holy Spirit descends upon Him. The three persons of God are performing three separate functions.
The proofs of Jesus’ divinity within Scripture are manifold. First, His life was preannounced by the Hebrew prophets in such a way that His divinity is not in question. Psalm 2, Psalm 110, Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6-7, and Micah 5:1-4 all validate His deity. Jesus receives worship without objection, something only God may receive. Unlike any other prophet before Him, He does miracles and innumerable acts of healing. He exercises authority over demons – something no Hebrew prophet has done before. He is transfigured before Peter, James and John; and once again God declares of Jesus “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!” So Jesus speaks with the authority of God.
John’s Gospel, in particular, begins with a declaration of the equality of “the Word” who is Jesus, with God. Jesus uses repeated “I AM” (ego eimi) statements that refer back to God’s declaration to Moses, “I AM who I AM.” Thus, Jesus equates Himself with God the Father. “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48); “I am from Him who sent Me” (John 7:29); “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12); and “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).
And John 10:28-30 is perhaps the most explicit self-declaration of Jesus’ divinity: “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Finally, Jesus commissions His disciples with a Trinitarian command, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). The equality of the three Persons of God in substance, but differing authority and honor, where the Father is always first, is clearly stated by our Lord.
I won’t go into depth about the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, there are numerous verses where God equates the Spirit with Himself; but His distinct Personhood isn’t explicitly revealed. In the New Testament, the distinction of the Spirit from the Father and Son is made explicit. The Spirit regenerates, fills and empowers Christ’s disciples. He searches the depths of God. God will forgive all manner of blasphemy against Himself or the Son but won’t forgive blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit foretells prophecy and so knows the future like God. He imparts spiritual gifts, which enabled Jews from other lands to hear the gospel spoken in their native tongues on the Day of Pentecost. He empowers believers to preach God’s word with boldness. He loves, can be grieved by our poor attitudes, and is offended by lying. He is a comforter and counselor to us. All of these are clear marks of the Holy Spirit’s divine Personhood.
So it is evident that God is three Persons, and each Person is equally God. Yet the Bible clearly affirms thirdly, there is only one God.
The Hebrew Bible emphasizes the absolute uniqueness and oneness of God. Moses declared to the people of Israel, “The Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him.” He then issued the great declaration of Hebrew faith in Deuteronomy 6:5, known to Jews as the Shema: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” So monotheism, belief in only one God, was deeply ingrained in the Jews for almost 15 centuries before the coming of Jesus.
Isaiah’s grand prophecy, beginning with chapter 40, has numerous declarations by God that He is the only God who has ever existed, and that Yahweh alone is the Creator of the universe.
So each of these three statements concerning the Trinity must be true, and together they reveal the great Truth which has defined the Christian faith from the beginning. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three co-equal Persons who together compose the one, true God.
Yet the inner working of our Triune God is a holy mystery which we will never be able to penetrate or know, for it is beyond human understanding. Our limitations in comprehending the fullness of the Trinity should not cause us to doubt that it is true. Why should a multi-dimensional, infinite being like God, who exists outside of all nature, be fully comprehensible to weak and finite creatures like us? Trinitarianism simply affirms that God is wholly other to us, but is personal and gives of Himself to us and loves us.
Scripture wisely does not state: “God is three persons in one Godhead.” First, the Holy Trinity is the greatest of all mysteries that we cannot fully explain; so these words would fall short of the truth as a flat declaration.
Second, I don’t believe people must comprehend the three-in-oneness of God in order to be saved; for Scripture never says they must. God wants people to believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose from the grave. While it is a grave heresy to deny the divinity of Jesus, I believe there are genuine Christians who misunderstand the Holy Trinity.
Understanding the doctrine of the Trinity, however, is essential to having the richest and truest understanding of our God and how each Person works and relates to us. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the apostolic fathers who clearly enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity and explored the richness of its implications.
The most important statement of belief, or creed, affirming the Trinity is the Nicene Creed. It was formulated in 325 AD at the behest of one church leader, Athanasius, who opposed the errant teaching of a bishop named Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was created by God before the creation; so He was not co-eternal with God. Arius misapplied the Greek word for “only begotten” in John 3:16, monogené, to liken Jesus’ begetting with the common human usage of a woman begetting a child. Arius failed to interpret the verb in light of everything else Scripture teaches about Jesus’ divinity and equality with the Father in substance, though not in authority.
The Emperor Constantine summoned a church council from throughout the Roman Empire to the city of Nicaea to examine and discuss what Scripture taught about the divinity of Jesus Christ. They formulated a concise statement on the core beliefs of the faith, expanding the well-known “Apostle’s Creed” to give explicit affirmation to the triunity of God. This is the Nicene Creed.
This creed is historically important, because it succinctly defines the essential elements of the Christian faith in ways that an intelligent person can grasp. It also helps us identify contradicting beliefs which are untrue to Christ’s gospel and, therefore, unchristian.
Let’s read the Nicene Creed together.
The Nicene Creed
(325 A.D. Council of Nicaea)
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. AMEN.
Brethren, the truths in this statement of faith have instructed millions of Christians the core beliefs of the Christian faith. So let me highlight what it says, and why each line in this creed is important to our faith.
It begins with a declaration of the unity of one God who is Almighty and maker of all that exists. The Christian faith repudiates any form of polytheism, which was the prevalent view in ancient times among most peoples.
Secondly, the Nicene creed affirms the divinity of Christ as our “one Lord” who is God’s only Son and is our Savior. This section about Jesus Christ comprises more than half of the creed because our salvation depends upon Him above all.
Why is affirming Christ’s divinity so important? If Jesus were not fully divine, then He is not the worthiest Lord of all that the apostles affirmed, nor would his sacrifice for us be a full self-giving of God, as John 3:16 declares. If Christ were not fully divine, then God would not be fully invested in our redemption.
But Jesus is fully divine, and God regards His sacrifice on our behalf as His holiest demonstration of love ever for His creation. It is the perfect, redemptive act that fully reconciles God’s infinite justice with His infinite mercy. Our proper response to this holiest of acts is worship and thanksgiving for God’s “indescribable gift.” I like to say,
Jesus Christ alone is true; for He’s the best that God can do.
The Nicene Creed goes on to spell out the gospel of Jesus Christ as the central life story that grounds our faith. Jesus came down from heaven through the virgin birth, the most intimate of God’s miracles. Therefore, Jesus is God incarnate in human flesh.
Christ is “eternally begotten of the Father… begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” These words are critically important, but are impenetrable as to their full meaning. Jesus was not begotten of the Father when He was born of the Virgin Mary, but eternally begotten… not made. Thus Jesus is co-eternal with the Father, “of one being with the Father”, and “true God from true God.” And “through him all things were made.” He is co-Creator with the Father.
It then leaps forward to His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. Connecting his death to an authentic Roman Prefect like Pilate affirms that His death is no myth but a genuine fact of history. Islam has sought to deny Jesus’ crucifixion and death; but their argument flies in the face of eyewitness testimonies, not only in the gospels but among Jewish or Roman historians who were not Christians. They acknowledged that Pontius Pilate ordered His execution.
The creed then says, “he suffered death and was buried.” Again, these words state as fact his death; and His burial confirms it. But the empty tomb forever points to His resurrection as the only logical outcome of the gospel story. So the next words in the Nicene Creed are “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of a climactic, four-part exaltation of Jesus Christ stated succinctly in this creed.
Yet the resurrection is the linchpin of Jesus’ Passion story, because it validates that His death atoned for humanity’s sin, that our salvation through His death is assured, and that we, like Him, will one day rise from the dead to know everlasting life with Him.
The Nicene Creed says that Jesus “rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” There are scriptures like Psalm 16:10 and Isaiah 53:12 that explicitly assert His triumph over death. But there are many more that point to Messiah being the ruler of an everlasting kingdom, which logically required He live again after death.
The closing phrases of the creed on Christ says, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” These three phrases give closure to the meaning of Christ’s redemption. He not only rose from the dead supernaturally, but also ascended into heaven, proving that the man Christ Jesus has reassumed all His divine prerogatives. His session at the Father’s right hand literally fulfills the Messianic 110th Psalm and points to His coming again as the Supreme Judge of all mankind.
Next, the Nicene Creed affirms the divinity of the Holy Spirit, as “the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. I would point out that the phrase “and the Son” was not in the original Nicene Creed, but was tacked on in the Western Churches aligned with Rome, starting in Spain in the seventh century. The Eastern Church, governed at that time from Constantinople, never added the Filioque Clause, as it is known from the Latin.
This simple addition has been one of a few critical differences that historically led to a complete break between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches of the east. I believe this break has added richness and complexity to Christ’s Body; and the Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church and Reformed / Evangelical Churches exhibit a global yet inferior, triune co-existence as the work of our Triune God.
The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father is something incomprehensible to us, just as is the eternal begetting of the Son. We believe it because Scripture states it; but it affirms the supremacy of the Father within the Godhead, and the distinction of the Spirit from the other two Persons.The final phrases of the Nicene Creed now speak to our life of faith as a consequence of believing in our Triune God. These three phrases are strongly affirmed in New Testament teaching.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Christ’s Church, which is His people, is holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is holy, separated for God’s possession as Jesus’ beloved bride forever. The Church is spotless and without blemish in God’s eyes, because God sees us through the lens of the New Covenant which was founded upon Jesus’ perfect sacrifice.
The Church is also catholic, meaning universal. All who profess genuine faith in Christ and are born again of the Holy Spirit belong to His Church. The universal or catholic Body of Christ is the most inclusive community on Earth. It encompasses people from every ethno-linguistic group in the human race, as Revelation 5 and 7 reveal prophetically.
And the Church is apostolic. It is built on the teachings of the apostles who transmitted the gospel of Jesus Christ to us and its implications for how we ought to live as the holy people of God. The apostolic nature of the Church means that is has carried a living tradition from the first century until today. The outward practices of different churches within the apostolic Church vary greatly; but the bedrock of its focus on the life of Christ and His mission remain the same. The Church lives to transmit the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to provide a community of fellow believers for nurturing each other in the faith.
Within the Church we acknowledge “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” The Greek word, baptize, means immersion; and we can only be immersed once within Christ, just as the Holy Spirit only forms Christ within us once by His indwelling presence. Baptism, according to different traditions, either effects the forgiveness of sins sacramentally, or symbolizes the forgiveness already bestowed upon us when we are regenerated and respond in faith. I do believe baptism, properly received, has power to seal us deeper in Christ because we are identifying ourselves closely with His great act of redemption.
“One baptism” does not mean there is only one way or time to baptize believers. I received and practice believer’s baptism for those old enough to appreciate its significance. But I accept the ancient notion of infant baptism as an initiation into a faith community as a valid expression of faith, equivalent to infant dedication in my church. The venerable Churches understand that infant baptism is just the beginning of a life-long nurturing of faith.
The “one baptism” the Church fathers had in view was being immersed into the “names” or character and identity of the Triune God. This kind of baptism means to enjoy the richest and most intimate intertwining of one’s life and aspirations with the eternal purpose and glory of God. There can be no higher and richer life than that.
Baptism symbolizes and sacramentally re-enacts within us Christ’s own death, burial, and resurrection. Thus it unites us with the central act and mystery of our redemption. Paul, in his letter to the Colossian Church (3:1-4), combines both senses of baptism in our mystical bonding with Christ in God. “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Finally, the Nicene Creed concludes with the great promise “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” This is the reason for which believing all the credal statements is so compelling to the faithful. They guarantee that through faith in Christ we will rise from the dead and live with Him forever. There can be no richer or higher hope or reward in living than eternal life in the loving embrace of the eternal God.
I bid you to look into your hearts and consider whether Jesus is truly your first love, and whether you are committed to being a worshiper of the Triune God forever.
Let us pray.