Bethlehem Baptist Church
September 17 – December 10 2014
January 14 – April 29 2015
The aim of our charge is love
that issues from
a pure heart and
a good conscience and
a sincere faith.
(1 Timothy 1:5 ESV)
 Introduction
 Scripture: 2 lessons
 The Trinity
 God’s Eternal Purposes: 2
 God’s Creation: 2
 Man’s Sin and Fall
 Jesus Christ: 2
 The Saving Work of
Christ (Jan. 2015)
 The Curriculum
 One God in Three Persons
 God the Father, God the Son
 God the Holy Spirit
 The Happy God
 Other Writers
 John Piper – Desiring God
 Jonathan Edwards – Essay on the Trinity
 Fred Sanders – The Deep Things of God: How the
Trinity Changes Everything.
 Deuteronomy 6:4 The Lord is One
 Isaiah 45, 46, 42 “there is no other”
 Matthew 28:18-20 In the name of . . .
 2 Corinthians 13:14 The three
 Matthew 3:16-17 The members of the Trinity
 Romans 11:34-36 Supremacy of God
 John 1:1-3, 8:57-59 Diety of Christ
 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 The HS searches the depths of
God
 Trinitarian work – many verses
 1) God is three persons
 2) Each person is fully God
 3) There is One God
 Definition:
 God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is
one God.
 “ We always tend in our folly
to consider things as antitheses
which are meant to be complementary.”
 Martyn Lloyd-Jones
 Sermon on the Mount (p. 182)
 There is One God
 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
 (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV)
 Isaiah 45:
 I am the Lord, and there is no other.
 And there is no other God besides me,. . . There is none
besides me.
 For I am God, and there is no other.
 There is One God and He is Unique
 Isaiah 46:
 I have made and I will bear, I will carry and will save.
 I am God , and there is no other; I am God, and there
is none like me, declaring the end from the
beginning and from ancient times things not yet
done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will
accomplish all my purpose.”
 There is One God and He is Three
 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,
I am with you always, to the end of the age
 (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)
 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all
 (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV)
 There is One God and He is Three
 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up
from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to
him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from
heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well pleased
 (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)
 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom
are all things and for whom we exist
 (1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV)
 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
 or who has been his counselor?”
 35 “Or who has given a gift to him
 that he might be repaid?”
 36 For from him and through him and to him are all
things. To him be glory forever. Amen
 (Romans 11:34-36 ESV)
 Ontologic Equality of the three persons of the Trinity
 They are of the same substance
 They are each fully God
 They are each eternal
 They are fully unified
 They delight in love towards each other
 The Economic relationship within the Trinity
 The Father is preeminent
 The Son submits to His Father’s will
 The Spirit acts on behalf of the Father and the Son
 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the
beginning with God. 3 All things were made through
him, and without him was not any thing made that
was made
 (John 1:1-3 ESV)
 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old,
and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus
hid himself and went out of the temple
 (John 8:57-59 ESV) [cp. Exodus 3:14]
 22 “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!For I
am God, and there is no other. 23 By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that
shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue
shall swear allegiance. ’
 (Isaiah 45:22-23 ESV)
 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on
him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father
 (Philippians 2:9-11 ESV)
 John 1:14-18
 The Word. . . Has made him known.
 Hebrews 1:1-3
 The radiance of God, the exact representation
 Colossians 1:11-15
 He is the image of the invisible God
 Colossians 2:9
 In Him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
 2 Corinthians 4:4
 the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God
 And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters
 (Genesis 1:2 ESV)
 For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. . . . So
also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit
of God
 (1 Corinthians 2:10-11 ESV)
 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie
to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the
proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not
remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your
disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your
heart? You have not lied to man but to God
 (Acts 5:3-4 ESV)
 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all the truth, for he will not speak on his own
authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he
will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He
will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and
declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine;
therefore I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you
 (John 16:13-15 ESV)
 He (refers to a person) has a mind and a will, can be
grieved, lied to, resisted, and insulted.
 “To generalize:
 The Father foreordains,
 The Son accomplishes,
 And The Spirit applies the work of Christ to the heart”
 John Frame, Salvation belongs to the Lord
 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed
God with which I have been entrusted
 (1 Timothy 1:11 ESV)
 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the
blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of
lords
 (1 Timothy 6:15 ESV)
 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in
you, and that your joy may be full
 (John 15:11 ESV)
 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to
make it known, that the love with which you have loved me
may be in them, and I in them
 (John 17:26 ESV)
 Desiring God by John Piper
 God is never frustrated in any of His plans.
 Therefore He must be the happiest of beings.
 He loves Himself absolutely; to do otherwise would be
idolatry.
 Within the triune Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), God
has been uppermost in His own affections for all eternity. This
belongs to His very nature, for He has begotten and loved the
Son from all eternity. Therefore, God has been supremely and
eternally happy in the fellowship of the Trinity.9
 P 43 Desiring God, reference 9 (Jonathan Edwards)
 A Essay on the Trinity
 Jonathan Edwards
 A view of the Trinitarian relationship from eternity
past
 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ui5izq59v600pr0/An
Unpublished Essay on the Trinity by JE.pdf?dl=0
 The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes
Everything
 Fred Sanders
 He outlines C S Lewis’s Trinitarian views
 His evangelism is Trinitarian
 The doctrine of salvation is itself the doctrine of the Trinity,
“he shows us the dance of divine love and indicates that there
is room for another dancer to join in.”
 Our Sanctification (practical Christian living) is a “constant
reenactment of that same movement – [the dance of divine
love] – of stepping into the place that the Son of God is
holding open for us.”
 What analogies for the trinity do you recall?
 Are they helpful or misleading?
 What do you think typical evangelicals think about the
Trinity today?
 What is at stake in the doctrine of the Trinity? Ch. 14
 Doubt the atonement
 Justification by faith alone is threatened
 It would be idolatry to worship Jesus
 We must attribute salvation to a creature
 The independence and personal nature of God are in
question
 The unity of the universe is undermined
 Modalism
 God exists in different “modes” at different times.
 Arianism
 Jesus was not fully God
 Nicene Creed 325 AD (p 1169 in Grudem)
 And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made,
 being of one substance with the Father. . .
 Modern Day Arianism: Jehovah’s Witnesses
 2.1 We believe in one living, sovereign, and all- glorious
God, eternally existing in three infinitely excellent and
admirable Persons: God the Father, fountain of all
being; God the Son, eternally begotten, not made,
without beginning, being of one essence with the
Father; and God the Holy Spirit, proceeding in the full,
divine essence, as a Person, eternally from the Father
and the Son. Thus each Person in the Godhead is fully
and completely God.
 2.2 We believe that God is supremely joyful in the
fellowship of the Trinity, each Person beholding and
expressing His eternal and unsurpassed delight in the
all-satisfying perfections of the triune God.
 Why is this section in the Affirmation of Faith?