Word of Salvation - July 2018

 

B.C.8/9 – Faith in a Tri-une God

Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp

Bible readings: Isaiah 63:7-16 & Luke 1:26-38

Belgic Confession: Article 8 & 9

 

BC stands for Basic Christianity.  What are the fundamentals of the faith?

BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.

When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.

Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.

 

Introd:  I don't think that in the State Secondary school I attended the subject of religion came up very often.

However there was one instance when it did - that stands out in my mind.

I'm not sure what led to the discussion
but one of my peers had announced to the class that it didn't make sense to believe the Bible
      or to believe in God.
            After all how could anyone really believe that God was One yet at the same time Three?

To him, believing in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... and yet One God did NOT make sense.

To him that sounded like one of those tricky maths puzzles that have been designed to fool people.

That class discussion was also my first introduction to ecumenical co-operation.
As a Calvinist I stood side by side with a Roman Catholic classmate.
Together we defended the doctrine of the Trinity against the attacks of those young sceptics.

I don't remember all the details of the debate...
...or whether we managed to convince the opponents.
            But I do recall that it became quite a heated discussion.

A]        CONFESSION OF A BIBLICAL FAITH.

1. It shouldn't surprise us when non-Christians have trouble with this teaching.

Unbelievers find the doctrine of the Trinity a major stumbling block.

Even many Christians have struggled with it over the years.

Why is our faith so complicated at this point?  One God... yet three persons!
Didn't Jesus say we were to have a "child-like" faith.
This hardly seems like the faith of a child.
This teaching about God being One and yet Three is confusing - to say the least.

So people from other religions that deny the Trinity ask:
"Why do you make things so terribly difficult?"
Others call this teaching blasphemy... as we are teaching that there are three Gods.
Some will even point out that the word "TRINITY" is not even in the Bible.
And why use all those fancy terms used in the Belgic Confession?
            Terms such as "essence" and "incommunicable properties"?

To answer that we need to say two things:

Firstly our confession bases this squarely on Scripture.
We teach this because the Bible teaches it.
Okay - we use a few fancy words here and there.
But by and large the material is thoroughly Biblical.
            Our Confession even devotes a separate article (art.9) to Biblical proofs for the Trinity.

Here the order of things in the B. Confession. is important.
It has just spent 5 articles dealing with Scripture.
And now the first two articles after that are devoted to the Trinity.
IOW: It gave all that time to Scripture because there we find the basis of our faith.
Having dealt with that basis it now tells us the central content of that Bible is a tri-une God.

So even though the Bible doesn't use the word "Trinity"...
or any of those fancy words in our confession
            it nevertheless does teach the meaning behind those words.
            There is a reality at the back of that teaching that is grounded squarely in God’s Word.

So today I have to talk about this:      not because clever theologians made all this up
                                                but because the Bible talks about it.
                        God has revealed Himself to us in this way.

God is calling us to listen to what He has to say about Himself.

IOW: This is not a confession of what we have worked out.
It is not even a confession of what we can understand.

In fact anyone who has ever tried to explain the Trinity to someone
            soon begins to see that it could hardly be a human invention...
                        Why would anyone make up something so complicated?

This is simply our confession of what we believe Scripture to be saying to us.

2. That brings us to a second point.

We must add that this is a confession of FAITH.

It is the Christian's statement of what he or she believes.

We believe in One God.
But we also believe that this one God exists in three persons...
      persons who are really, truly and eternally distinct from each other:
            The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

IOW - ultimately we can never prove this by reason... by argument.
It is a matter of FAITH.
I believe in God the Father...
                        I believe in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son...
                                    and I believe in the Holy Spirit.
This is what we BELIEVE.
And we believe it because this is what Scripture tells us.

It's interesting though that the B.C. does add another ground for believing this.

It states: We believe this not only from the testimony of holy Scripture:
but also from the effects of the persons - and especially from those we feel within ourselves.

What that means is this:
We know about the Trinity first of all because that is how God reveals Himself in Scripture.
But we also know it because we experience the persons of this tri-une God at work within us.

So our discussion of the Trinity must never become a dry intellectual matter...
   something for a lively debate that we can argue about with others till the cows come home.
No - we are talking about the way God works in our lives as One God... yet as three persons.

So let me ask you:
Do you have serious difficulty with this teaching about the Trinity...?  Do you have reservations?
If so... is that because you have not personally experienced...
            each of these three persons of the Trinity at work in your own life?

We know it from Scripture... from all those proof texts in Article 9.
But we also know it from God’s work in our lives moment by moment.

B]        THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.

1. As we read our Bible we cannot escape the strong emphasis on the uniqueness of our God.

There is a great stress on the oneness of God.
There are not many gods!  There is only One God!
- One God to whom we owe all our devotion.
- One God only whom we are to obey.
            It is this One God of the Bible who is at work in us and for us.

So whatever we may say about the three persons
must never detract from this very important Biblical theme...
            that the God of the Bible is the only God.

At this point we might well argue that we have common cause with some other world religions.
The Jewish faith believes in the one God of the O.T.
The Muslims believe in one God whom they call Allah.
            With them we are at least united in this matter:
            That we reject the many gods of the Hindus and of many pagan religions.

So on Biblical grounds we oppose all idolatry.
            Whether it be the idolatry of pagans bowing to images of wood or stone
            or whether it be the idolatry of sport ,entertainment, popularity or money.
                        Anything that pushes this one true God out of first place is sinful.

2. It is especially in the O.T. that God's oneness is stressed repeatedly.

Central in the whole O.T. scheme of things was what was called the "Shema".

"Shema" is the first Hebrew word in Deut. 6:4. There we read these words:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one."
Or:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord is God, the Lord alone."

Of course that was especially important for the Jews living among their pagan neighbours.

All those countries had MANY gods.  Fertility gods.  Gods for travel.  Gods for trade.
So the O.T. stresses again and again that Yahweh alone is God.
The greatest possible sin for Israel
            was to have other gods in place of... or alongside that one true God.

Jesus also quoted the ‘Shema’ on one occasion.
And in the rest of the N.T. too we find a stress on the oneness of God.
The apostle Paul is quite specific about it.
            In ICor.8:4 he says: We know that there is no God but one!

That is a reminder to you and me that we too have to avoid idolatry.

Modern idolatries as well.
There is only ONE God whom we are to worship.
            - It is not modern science that has all the answers.
            - It is not the State/Government that controls all things.
                        Although they more and more try to play god!

If there is only one God then we must serve Him, love Him and obey Him alone.

We as N.T. Christians must love this one God with all our being...
totally - with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

That emphasis on the oneness of God is also a reminder
  that whatever the Bible may yet say about the three persons...
  it NEVER gives us the slightest idea that there are two Gods or three or more.
            Three persons?  yes!  But always, only one God.

C]        THE THREE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY.

1. Yet if we want to be Biblical then we must also speak about THREE PERSONS.

We cannot avoid that.

In fact we must do that - not only because the Bible does so - but for two other reasons as well.

Firstly because there are those who claim to be Christians but who deny the teaching about the Trinity.

The Confession lists some names in article 9.
People who denied the Trinity as it is formulated in our creeds and confessions.
Today those names don't mean too much...
            unless one is prepared to do some solid study of Church History.

Yet those false teaching of centuries ago lives on in many of our present day Christian cults.
For example, when the Jehovah's witnesses come knocking on your door
            they hold beliefs about God that deny He exists in three persons.
(Similarly the Mormons also fall down in their teaching at this point.)

We have to know how to defend our faith over against those who deny this truth of God's Word.

Actually I find this extremely helpful when I talk to those from the Christian cults.
They simply follow ancient heresies that were already there in the early Church.
And the Church already dealt with their false teachings and rejected them centuries ago.

So I don't have to start from scratch and work it all out.
I have confidence that these are Biblical truths
      which the Church thru the ages has confessed repeatedly in its creeds and confessions.

A second reason for needing to understand this teaching is because other world religions deny it.
You and I must know where we stand over against those religions.
Today Islam is a growing rapidly here in our nation - with mosques going up in all our major cities.
How is our faith different from theirs?

When we think of the teaching that God is one
it would be easy to conclude that we are on common ground.
            Often we hear it claimed: Are we not after all worshipping the same God?

Yet when we focus on this God existing in three persons then we realise that we are poles apart.
Neither Jews nor Muslims accept Jesus as fully God...  one with the Father.
Neither do they accept that the Holy Spirit is a person...  one with the Father and the Son.

2. Let’s have a quick look then at the Scriptural proofs - the texts that have been given are quite clear.
In the O.T. already the three persons of the trinity are mentioned.
True - not as clearly as in the N.T. where the fuller light of God's revelation shines.

Let’s go to the 63rd chap of Isaiah - there we find a number of references to God the Father.

Verse 16:
"But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us;
 You, O Lord, are our Father our Redeemer from of old is your name."

In verse 10 we find a reference to the Holy Spirit:
"Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit."  (And by the way – only a person can be grieved)

And in verse 9 we read of "The Angel of His Presence".
And that the Angel of His presence saved them.
Many Bible scholars take this to be an OT pre-incarnation appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But what is still rather obscure in the O.T. becomes very clear in the N.T.

But the point is that nothing new is added that is not already there.

Someone has compared this teaching to a flower bulb.
When you hold the bulb of a daffodil in your hand...
            then you are holding what will one day become a beautiful blossom.
The blossom is in a sense already there deep inside the bulb.
All that needs to happen is that with time and proper care the flower will bloom.

So too the teaching of the Trinity is already there in the O.T.
But it is in the N.T. that God nurtures that teaching into full blossom.

And the reason for that is obvious.
Because when the fullness of time came...
      God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to overshadow a maiden in Nazareth
            and the child that was born to her was the Son of God.

God revealed Himself in three persons.
But He did that especially in the event of Christmas.
And in the events that followed - Jesus showed that He was true God.
And later still He poured His Spirit upon the church.
So these things are confirmed to us in the events of history.
            In the Christmas story.... in the Pentecost event.

Before we said that we know these things not only from Scripture.

We know them also from our own experience as the triune God works in our lives.

Now as we speak about the three persons we also see more clearly how this God works in our lives.
Each of the three persons fulfils a special task and work in us and thru us.
            It is the Father who cares for us and protects us in His providence.
            It is Jesus who died on the cross, in whom we find forgiveness.
            It is the Holy Spirit who works within us renewing us, nurturing us.

The Father is our Creator by His power.
The Son is our Saviour by His blood.
The Holy Spirit, the one who makes us holy by living in our hearts.
It’s wonderful to know and experience this one God at work in our lives in these three persons.

An early mistake was to see Father, Son and Holy Spirit as roles;
Like a man who is a Father, an elder, a mechanic.
But we must never think that way of the Trinity.

The Scriptures show them as distinct persons.
And we must honour each of the persons of the Trinity for their work in our lives.
Only in this way will the One true God be fully honoured and glorified by us.

As we struggle with this mystery a quote from John Calvin helps put it in proper perspective.
"I'm not really such a stickler for arguing about the meaning of words.  Some of these terms used in talking about the Trinity are useful in opposing false teaching.  But the main thing is not the words but the Biblical truth that lies behind it.  As long as men are prepared to worship the One God in Three Persons."

Tonight we must confess that we can never fully work all this out logically.
  But what we can do is simply bow and worship Father Son and Holy Spirit.
    To our Triune God be the glory and praise.

Amen.