Transcript

Why is the Trinity so important?

It's the Christian belief that makes Christianity Christianity, because it's how we know who God is.

If we don't have the Trinity, then we don't have the Christian God and we don't have Christianity.

So how do we know what the Trinity is?

Well, from nature, we can know what God is, that there is one God who made everything, but only from the Bible can we know who God is.

Christianity is the religion where we worship Christ.

We worship him because he's God.

But he's also the son of the Father, who is also God.

And they both send their spirit, who is also God.

This is called the Trinity, which is short for triunity, to explain how God is three in one.

God has one nature.

A nature is the thing that makes a thing what it is.

So to say the Father, Son, and Spirit are all God is to say they all have everything that makes God God.

They're all all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, and they share the same will, mind, and nature.

However, they are three distinct persons.

A person's not the same thing as a thing.

A person is only defined in relation to other persons.

So the three persons of the Trinity have distinct roles in terms of how they relate to us.

The Father creates us, the Son redeems us, and the Spirit changes us.

But even so, these actions can't be separated from one another.

But before we were created, before anything except God existed, the Father, Son, and Spirit were only distinct in relation to one another.

Yeah, but how do we know this?

Like I said, it's what scripture reveals.

The Bible's clear that there's only one God, and the Father is God, but Jesus the Son is also God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

And these are not just three forms of the same person because we see them interacting with one another.

In Matthew 3, the Father declares Jesus to be the Son and sends the Holy Spirit upon him.

In Isaiah 48, the Son says that God has sent him along with his Spirit.

And in Zechariah 2, the Lord declares that he is coming, and you will know that the Lord has sent him.

Now let's clear up some common misunderstandings.

Some people think the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are really just three forms of God, but that's a heresy called modalism.

The Bible says that the Father, Son, and Spirit interact with each other, which can't happen if they're just three forms of the same person.

Some people think that the Father, Son, and Spirit are really just three parts of God, but that's also heresy called partialism because it says that the Father, Son, and Spirit are really just one third of God, but God can't be divided into parts.

Each person of the Trinity is fully God, so that's also heresy.

Some people think the Father, Son, and Spirit are three different beings that just sort of work together, but that's a heresy called tritheism, and that goes against the definition of who God is.

The Bible is very clear that there's only one God who has existed before everything else, so if there's three beings that have always existed, then God is not really the first thing to exist at all.

Now another error is that some people think within the Trinity, the Son submits to the Father eternally, but that's also heresy called subordinationism.

But it's easy to see why people fall into this error, because the Bible does speak of Jesus submitting to the Father, but the Bible also speaks of Jesus doing stuff God doesn't do, like getting thirsty and not knowing stuff.

The reason for this is while Jesus is truly God, he's also truly human.

He has a truly divine and a truly human nature.

So these things are really things Jesus does according to his human nature.

So in eternity, the Son does not submit to the Father, but Jesus does submit to the Father according to his human nature, because he's the perfect example of a human, and all humans are supposed to submit to the Father.

So if you're trying to explain the Trinity, don't use analogies, because those almost always end up falling into one of the heresies we just discussed.

Some people say the Trinity is like the three phases of water, but that's modalism.

Some people say it's like the Sun, its light, and its heat, but that says that the Sun and Spirit are really just creations of God rather than being God himself, so that's wrong.

Some people say it's like three leaves of a shamrock, but that's partialism.

Some people say it's like an egg, but that's also partialism.

Also, what the heck?

So yeah, if we're not supposed to use analogies, how do we explain the Trinity?

Luckily, the church wrote a document that explains it called the Athanasian Creed, and all of the historic churches agree on what's in the creed.

But why is this stuff so confusing?

Well, if God is infinite and we are finite, we shouldn't expect to be able to wrap our minds around the infinite.

But think about it, if we were making this stuff up, we would make it a lot more easy to understand.

That's why all the pseudo-Christian groups use heresies to make the Trinity easier to understand so people will fall for what they say.

But God offers eternal life to everyone, including you, so you can come to the Father if you're united to the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, go to your local church if it believes in the Trinity and they'll tell you what to do.

And ultimately, the fact that we know about the Trinity is good news because it shows that God has come to redeem the world.