THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

O gracious Father, glorious Son, powerful Holy Spirit: be pleased to look upon us in favor, according to the riches of redemption which You, O God, in Trinitarian fullness, have mercifully lavished upon us. Send forth Your Word, illumine us with Your light, sanctify us with Your truth, and be glorified in our midst and through our lives, we pray, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one and only true and living God. Amen.

THE ASCRIPTION OF PRAISE

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen!

THE SERMON

"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" [Second Corinthians 13:14]. It may seem like a strange thing to begin a sermon with a benediction, with the concluding verse of the Apostle Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. But this verse sets before us the mystery of the Trinity — one God in three persons — the foundational doctrine of Christianity which has been rightly called "the mystery of mysteries."

Now it is true, of course that we cannot fully explain or understand the mystery of the Trinity. But the fact that we cannot fully comprehend the mystery of mysteries does not mean that it is not important, or that it is of no value to us, or that we should not seek to understand what little bit of it we can. Dear friends, the doctrine of the Trinity is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions, including Judaism and Islam. The historic test of true Christian orthodoxy is ultimately the doctrine of the Trinity, which exposes the heresies of cults and sects which deny the eternally divine nature of Jesus Christ and the personal deity of the Holy Spirit.

The Christian gospel flows out of the eternal, divine reality of the Trinity. Without the reality of the Trinity, there would be no "only-begotten Son" whom God sent into the world to save sinners [John 3:16]. Without the reality of the Trinity, there would be no personal Holy Spirit who would give us new birth and unite us to Christ in the power of His death and resurrection. Without the reality of the Trinity, we would have no assurance that God Himself is really at work in us, preserving us and perfecting us in salvation unto eternal glorification. And so, dear friends, the Trinity is not only a doctrine of the "mystery of mysteries," but more importantly the Trinity is the doctrine of the gospel of God who acts in love to redeem His creation, save sinners, and give them eternal life through His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, let’s take a moment to consider some of the basic points of the doctrine of the Trinity. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach us that there is only one true and living God. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"(Genesis 1:1); "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4); "I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God" (Isaiah 45:5). The New Testament affirms that there is only one true and living God, saying, "There is no God but one" (1^st Cor. 8:4); and, "there is one God and one mediator between God and men" (1^st Timothy 2:5). The God of the New Testament is not different from the God of the Old Testament. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity does not — does not — teach that there are three gods. Christian doctrine teaches that there is only one God, and that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each Person of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is acknowledged to be God. Though all three Persons of the Trinity are active in every divine act, each Person is especially identified with a particular work: The Father, with creation; The Son, with redemption; and The Holy Spirit with regeneration and sanctification.

The Biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity is present in the Old Testament as well as the New, though it is more fully and clearly revealed in the New Testament. For example, the Old Testament reveals that there is a plurality in God. In Genesis, chapter one, God says, "Let us make humanity in our own image" (Genesis 1:26). The beautiful Aaronic benediction, in Numbers 6:24-26, says,

The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make His face to shine upon you ...;

The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

In this benediction, the eternal reality of the Trinity is reflected in the three-fold repetition of the divine name, "the LORD":

The LORD (God the Father) bless you and keep you;

The LORD (God the Son) make His face to shine upon you ...;

The LORD (God the Holy Spirit) lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

The eternal reality of the Trinity is also reflected in that three-fold ascription of praise which the seraphim call out before God’s throne, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty" just as Isaiah the prophet saw and heard in his vision of heaven (Isaiah 6:3). In the Old Testament, there are references to God’s divine Son (Psalm 2, Psalm 110, and Isaiah 9:6, "unto us a Son is given"), and also to the Holy Spirit (Psalm 51:11, "take not Your Holy Spirit from me," and the many other references to the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the LORD). So, even though the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicit in the Old Testament, it is implicit, and is revealed more fully and clearly in the New Testament.

In the New Testament, with the resurrection of Jesus and His ascension into heaven, followed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the doctrine of the Trinity becomes more clear. Referring to the eternal Son of God, the Gospel of John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). That passage goes on to say, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,"[John 1:14] referring to the incarnation, the birth of Jesus. We could therefore rightly say, "In the beginning was the Son of God, and the Son of God was with God, and the Son of God was God. ...And the Son of God became flesh (was born of woman) and dwelt among us." And so Colossians 1:15 says, "He (Jesus, the Son) is the image of the invisible God," and the Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus, God’s Son, "is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being" (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus Himself said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Philippians 2:10-11 tells us that God has given to Jesus "the name that is above every name," that is, the name "Lord" corresponding to the holy name of God revealed to Moses, "I Am who I Am." And so, when Thomas saw Jesus after His resurrection from the dead, Thomas worshiped Jesus, saying, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

Likewise, the Holy Spirit is revealed to be a divine person, equal with God the Father and God the Son. One of the most powerful illustrations of this is found in Acts 5:1-4, which records God’s judgment upon Ananias and Saphira because of their deceitfulness. Both were struck dead because they told a lie about their financial stewardship. But the point here is that the Apostle Peter first said to Ananias, "...you have lied to the Holy Spirit," and then Peter told him, "You have not lied to men but to God." In this passage, the Holy Spirit is clearly equated with and identified as God.

The Holy Spirit is also referred to as "the Spirit of the Lord"[Luke 4:18] and "the Spirit of God" and "the Spirit of Christ"(Romans 8:9), because the Holy Spirit is sent to us from the Father and the Son and communicates to us the benefits and blessings which God the Father has poured out upon us through His Son Jesus Christ. But it is clear that the Holy Spirit is a distinct, divine Person. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power like electricity. The Holy Spirit is a divine Person with divine authority. Therefore, when Jesus instituted the New Covenant sacrament of baptism, He commanded His apostles to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:20). Here in the baptismal formula pronounced by Jesus, we have the clear indisputable, and undeniable affirmation that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three divine persons in the unity of the Godhead, equal in power and glory.

Likewise, in the apostolic benediction at the conclusion of Second Corinthians, we have again the affirmation of three persons in the One God: "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" In this benediction, the name "Father" is not used, but it is implied. Often in the New Testament, when only the word "God" appears, the clear understanding is that it refers to God the Father; for example, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son ..." (John 3:16); and, "in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son..." (Galatians 4:4); and, "God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:11). And so, this Corinthian benediction gives honor to all three persons of the Trinity, pronouncing the blessing of "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit" upon the church at Corinth. This is a clear affirmation of the Trinity, in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are honored and worshiped as equals in deity, power, and glory.

But the mystery of the Trinity, though revealed in Scripture, continues to boggle our minds: one God in Three Persons, Three Persons in One God. There is no perfect way to explain or to illustrate this "mystery of mysteries." Yet, who am I? I am a man, a human being. I have a physical body, a rational soul, and a living spirit. There is a sense in which I am one in three and three in one. Yet, the analogy breaks down and fails, because I am not a perfect unity, and there is not a perfect harmony between by body, soul, and spirit. Sometimes, I have a divided heart, and am double-minded, torn between two desires; my head and heart often are in conflict, and my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak, and therefore I am often not happy in myself and with myself. But you see, there is no such internal division, no internal contradiction, in the perfect unity and harmony and eternal felicity, eternal happiness and fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the eternal communion of love, joy, and peace in the eternal unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Or, here’s another illustration. Think of the sun: s-u-n, the sun in the sky. Now, imagine the sun without the light of the sun. You can’t do it. Imagine the sun without the heat of the sun. You can’t do it. In your mind, you can make a distinction between the sun itself and the sunlight, and the heat of the sun. But you cannot imagine the sun without light or heat. The sun generates sunlight. It has always generated sunlight. It never did not generate sunlight. Sunlight has always come from the sun. And heat has always come from the sun and the light of the sun. The sun generates light, and the sun and the sunlight send forth heat. In this analogy, which is not perfect, God the Father is like the s-u-n. God the Son (S-o-n) is like the light that is generated by the sun. God the Holy Spirit is like the heat that proceeds, is sent forth, from the sun (s-u-n) and the light of the sun. In the same way that you cannot have the sun (s-u-n) without sunlight and heat, so also the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally, triunally co-existent. You can make a distinction between the three persons of the Godhead — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — but in reality you cannot have one without the other. God the Father out of His eternally divine nature has eternally begotten the Son of God, and God the Holy Spirit proceeds from, is sent from, the Father and the Son.

Now, of course, this analogy breaks down because the sun, sunlight, and heat are impersonal, non-living entities bound together by chemical reactions. The sun, sunlight, and heat have no joyful, loving fellowship with one another, and do not in themselves have an intelligent purpose which they have covenanted together to fulfill. Our Triune God is a living, personal, purposeful God whose very nature it is to enjoy eternal loving fellowship within the mystery of His Triune Being. And the gospel, dear friends, is that this mysterious, living, personal, purposeful Triune God of love has revealed Himself to the world through the life, death, and resurrection of the Man, Jesus Christ, who is the eternal, only-begotten Son of God in human flesh and blood. Here is the gospel of the Triune God, which you must believe and trust in, in order to be saved:

God the Father sent His Son into the world, that the world might be saved through Him. God the Son united Himself with a human nature and was born of woman as One of us, and came to seek and to save the lost, and so He humbled Himself and was obedient unto death, even death on a cross, bearing in His own body the suffering of the wrath of divine justice against all our sins, so that the rich mercy of the Father might instead be lavished upon us. God the Father, then raised Him from death, and exalted Him to the highest place as the Victorious Savior and Lord over all! And now from Heaven, God the Father and God the Son send forth the promised Holy Spirit so that sinners may be born again, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and adopted as the beloved children of God, united by the Spirit to their Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Each Person of the Trinity is involved in this great work of salvation. The love, grace, and wisdom of the Father planned it; the love, grace, righteousness, and humility of the Son purchased it on the cross; and with love, grace, and power, the Holy Spirit enables sinners to believe and receive it today, and seals it upon their lives through the gift of faith in Jesus Christ .

You see, dear friends, the Triune God who is holy, holy, holy is the Triune God of grace, love, and peace toward sinners. Do you know this God who is the personal "mystery of mysteries"? Do you bow before Him? Do you tremble before the Triune holiness? Do you trust in Triune grace, love, and mercy? Do you see in this great and glorious God your only hope of salvation, and your eternal happiness? Do you rejoice in the knowledge that your redemption is rooted in the eternal, covenant fellowship of the Triune God who works sovereignly to grant salvation to His people through faith in Jesus Christ? Does your spirit rejoice with the hope of glory because your life is united to Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore your very life has been lifted up and secured in Heaven, and therefore your life, in Christ, is lovingly embraced by the Triune God and you are included in the eternal fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! This is the gospel of the Trinity! And may God grant us the faith to believe it! And so, "May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all." Amen.