“Three to the Power of One” For the next three weeks we will take an in depth look at an important doctrine called the Trinity. This is a doctrine that is frequently attacked and misunderstood. The first and most common line of attack is that the bible itself never actually says the word “trinity”
The earliest known use of the word is by the church father Tertullian in about 200ad is first credited with use of the name. About a century later, in 325, the First Council of Nicaea established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and adopted the Nicene Creed.
Wayne Grudem defines the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: “God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God”
Why? Community, taste of that through marriage Gen 2:24
And through the church 1 Cor 12:27
There are three main issues that the Bible teaches which leads to the logical conclusion of the trinity, here are the 3 key issues we will be working with during this series
-There is one God (The Bible teaches Monotheism, one God)
-God is three persons
-Each person is fully God
We must accept all three of these because they are all truths taught in the Scripture
If we do not we fall into heresies
-Unitarians-One God and one person
-Modalists the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is God in different Modes ex when He is the Father there is no Son. There are series problems with this, one being the baptism of Jesus Mark 1:10-11
-Tritheism-there are three gods
All of these are based on some Scriptures but ignore others, as Christians we need to look at the entirety of Scriptures.
Each week I am going to give you verses that support that there is One God, Trinitarian verses (three persons) and then we will explore each person of the Trinity and their personal Deity and what their function is in toward us.
-One God Verses
Duet 6:4 the shama, Isrealites said this 3 times a day, Duet 4:35 “there is no one else besides Him”
-Trinitarian Verses
Genesis 1:1-3 (compare with John 1), Gen 1:26 3:22
Genesis 19:24 Jehovah used two times, When you are refuting a Jehovah’s Witness a verse like this helps to show that Jesus is Jehovah
Father OT 15 times, Father in NT 245 times
Function of the Father in our lives
1. Authority: Psalm 147:4, Philippians 2:5-11 and Matt 28:18 The Father gives Jesus Authority
Isaiah 64:8 In control or Authority “we are clay and He is potter”
In life we don’t take well to authority, the role of God the father teaches us that there is someone we have to answer too. We will also see in the coming weeks how Jesus and the Holy Spirit respond to the authority of the Father which gives us an example on how we should live.
Sometimes when we have authority we throw it around and abuse it.
App. Questions 1. What authority do you hold in life? Do you use it in a Biblical way? 2. Do you respond in a biblical way to authority in your life?
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