There are three foundational truths that Bible describes to us about the Trinity.  I can grasp those, but ultimately my mind and my ability to explain the Trinity is very limited.  The important thing to remember is God describes Himself as One and yet Three not to confuse us, or give us a reason to debate, but because He wants us to know Him more and relate to Him fully.  Some notes from my message Sunday are below.

There are three foundational truths about the Trinity:
1. The trinity consists of three persons:

• The father is not the son. –John 3:16-17: 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
• The Son is not the Spirit  and The Spirit is not the Father. –John 14:26 : 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

2.  Each Person is fully God:

• The Father is fully God.
• The Son is fully God…He claimed it “If you ‘ve seen me, you’ve seen the father.”  When Jesus was tried in Luke 22 they asked him point blank,  “Are you the Christ, are you the Son of God?”  He said, “Yes.”
• Thus, since Jesus claimed to be God, He must be one of the following:

–1. Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but believed that he was.
–2. Liar: Jesus did not believe he was God, but spoke as if he did.
–3. Lord: Jesus is God.

• The Holy Spirit is fully God.  …Act 5 “You have lied to the Hs, not to men, But God”
  And Jesus himself speaks of the three on equal terms in the Great commission

3.  There is only one God.

• Deut 6:4: Jesus himself would pray this a number of times a day…”Hear o Israel, the Lord our god, the Lord is One.”   when asked about the most important command, Jesus said this was it.
• The First commandment of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
• Isaiah records these two statements from God:  “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no god” and “I am the lord, and there is no other.”
• In the New Testament:  “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Working in a penitentiary, I see a lot of tattoos.  Some are really awesome and extreme.  One guy in particular has a word that wraps around the front of his neck in three inch letters.  But, there is one problem.  There’s no spell check for tattooing. Across this guy’s neck is the word, “DENSTINY.”  I’m guessing he was going for “Destiny” or perhaps “Density” had some significance for him, but he didn’t quite get either one.  I guess the moral of the story is some of us are destined to be dense.

I kind of feel a little destined to be dense with the topic of the message this weekend.  The message is on the Trinity.

That is the word we use for the Biblical truth that God is One, and yet Three persons, and yet not multiple gods.  This is a mind-blowing mystery, and the Bible even says so.  But it is a major truth that the Bible describes about God.  And it is important to realize that while it describes God as the Trinity, the Bible isn’t trying to completely explain how God is Three in One.  In other words, we need to believe God through faith in the the way inwhich He has revealed Himself through the Bible, but when our finite minds can’t comprehend the infinite mysteries of God, …I suppose we’re destined to be dense.  Well maybe dense isn’t the right word.  It can sound insulting, but we certainly are like naive babes who can’t comprehend truths beyond our maturity, and yet our job is still to believe. Jesus un-apologetically told us…”Unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you wil

l never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Trinity is the subject for Sunday, see you then.

By the way, I’m planning on giving you a poll on Mondays.  If you haven’t answered the poll for this week, please vote:  Least Consistent Practice.