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THE TRINITY EXPLAINED _ How Can the Father_ Son _ Holy Spirit Be ONE God · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: How can God be three persons and one God at
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the same time? Not three gods. Not one God wearing
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: three masks. Three and one. It is the hardest question
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: in the Christian faith, and most people have never been
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: given a straight answer to it in their lives. Because
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: almost every explanation starts in the wrong place. At Nicaea,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: at church councils, in theology classrooms, centuries too late. We
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: are starting at the beginning, in the Hebrew, in the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: first verse of the Bible. And what is written there
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: leads to a word almost everyone gets wrong, a verse
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that names God twice in the same sentence, and a
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: courtroom where one sentence got a man killed. This was
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: never invented. It has been sitting in the text for 3,000 years,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in plain sight, waiting for somebody to read it slowly.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: By the end of this video, you will understand it perfectly.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Before we open Genesis, we need to be honest about
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: what people say, because you have probably heard this before.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The strongest objection goes like this. The Trinity is three
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: gods dressed up as one. A pagan doctrine borrowed from Rome,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: invented at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. by
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: politicians who had never read the Hebrew Bibles. That is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the hardest version of the argument. And we are not
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: going to ignore it. We are going to test it,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: not with theology textbooks, not with church tradition, but with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the text itself. Starting at verse 1, Genesis chapter 1,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the earth. The Hebrew word used for God in this
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: verse is Elohim, and Elohim is a plural noun. You
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: may have heard this used as evidence for the Trinity.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: God's very name is plural. Therefore, God is more than
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: one person. But here is the problem. That argument on
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: its own does not hold. Elohim takes singular verbs throughout
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Genesis 1. God created, singular. God said, singular. God saw, singular.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: A plural noun doing singular things. And it is not
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: only the God of Israel who is called Elohim. The
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Philistine God, Dagon, is called an Elohim. The Moabite God, Chemosh,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is called an Elohim. If the plural noun alone proved
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the Trinity, it would prove that Dagon is also a Trinity.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: The argument fails. We are not going to build this
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: case on an argument that does not hold. We are
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: going to find what does. Genesis 1, verse 26. Then
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: God said, Let us make man in our image according
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to our likeness. Plural pronouns. Us. Our. But then verse
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: 27 says, So God created man in his own image. Singular. His.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Verse 26 is plural. Verse 27 is singular. Why? The
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: most common alternative explanation is the divine counsel. Psalm 82,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: 1 Kings chapter 22 says, Job chapters 1 and 2
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: all describe a heavenly court where God presides among spiritual beings.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And some scholars say God is speaking to that council
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: in Genesis 1.26. Let us make man. But the council
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: has a limit. The divine council never creates anything. The
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: divine council never shares the divine image. Nowhere in the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible is a created being invited to to participate
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: in the act of creation. And humanity is made in
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: God's image, not in the image of angels. Something else
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: is happening in that verse. And the text does not
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: explain what it is, not yet. But there is another verse,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the most famous verse in all of Judaism, that everyone
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: brings to this debate. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4. The Shema. Hear,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is one. You may
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: have heard this argument. The Hebrew word for one in
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the Shema is Ekad, which means a compound unity, like
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: one flesh in Genesis 2.24, where two become one. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the Hebrew word for absolute singularity is Yachad, which God
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: did not use. Therefore, the argument goes, the Shema itself
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: contains the Trinity. It is a popular argument. And it
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is not as strong as people think. Echad is used
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: throughout the Hebrew Bible in ways that have nothing to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: do with plurality. One day, one man, one place. The
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: word itself does not demand compound unity. It simply means one.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So what does the Shema actually say? This is the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: part no one talks about. The Shema is not a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: statement about God's internal structure. It is not a metaphysics
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: lecture about what God is made of. It is a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: loyalty oath. YHWH, our God. YHWH alone. It tells Israel
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: who to worship, not what God is. It was written
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to a nation surrounded by polytheism, and its message is simple.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: There is one God, and His name is YHWH. Worship
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Him and Him alone. Both sides, Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians, have
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: been arguing the wrong verse for centuries. The Shema does
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: not prove the Trinity, but it does not disprove it either.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: It is silent on God's inner life. It never tells
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: you what God is like on the inside. It tells
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you He is the only God and that your loyalty
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: belongs to Him alone. The question is not whether the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Shema says God is three. The question is whether anything
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: else in the Hebrew Bible does. God is one, but
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: he has never been alone. Genesis chapter 18. YHWH appears
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. The text does
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: not say an angel appeared. It does not say a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: messenger appeared. Genesis 18 verse 1 says, YHWH appeared to Abraham,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: God himself. Three visitors arrive. Abraham runs to meet them.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: He bows to the ground. He calls them, My Lord. Adonai, singular.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: not my lord's. Singular. Three figures standing before him, and
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Abraham addresses them as one. He prepares a meal. He
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: kills a calf. He brings bread and curds and milk.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: He stands under a tree while they eat. And then
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: one of them speaks, and the text identifies him as YHWH.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: He promises Abraham a son. Sarah laughs, and YHWH says,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Is anything too hard for YHWH? Genesis 18, verse 14.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Then two of the three go on toward Sodom. One
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: stays behind. The one who stays is God. And Abraham
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: does something extraordinary. He stands before YHWH and negotiates face
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: to face for the lives of the people in that city.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: He bargains God down from 50 righteous people to 45,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: then to 40, then 30, then 20, then 10, And
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: then YHWH leaves. And what happens next changes everything. Genesis
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: chapter 19 verse 24. Then YHWH rained down burning sulfur
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: on Sodom and Gomorrah from YHWH out of the heavens.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Read that again. Slowly. YHWH on the ground. The one
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Abraham had been speaking to face to face. Raining fire
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: from YHWH in heaven. Two persons both called by God's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: personal covenant name. In the same sentence, in the same verse,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: in the same Bible that has been sitting in your
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: hands since the day you first opened it. This is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: not a Christian interpretation forced onto a Jewish text. This
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: is what the Hebrew says, YHWH on the ground, YHWH
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: in the heavens. Two, and both are called by the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: name that belongs to God alone. That verse has been
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: there from the beginning. and almost no one stops to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: ask what it means. Because this is not the only
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: place it happens. There is a figure who appears throughout
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament called the Angel of YHWH, and this
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: figure does things that only God can do. He appears
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to Hagar in the wilderness, a runaway slave, alone, desperate,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and he speaks to her, and she says, I have
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: seen God. Genesis chapter 16, verse 13. She is the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: first person in the Bible to give God a name,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: El Roy, the God who sees. And the one she
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: saw was the angel of YHWH. He speaks to Moses
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: from a burning bush, and the text says, God called
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: to him from within the bush. Exodus chapter 3, verse 4.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: The angel of YHWH is in the bush, and yet
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: it is God who speaks. The angel and God are
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the same figure. He appears to Manoah and his wife
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to announce the birth of Samson, and Manoah says, We
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: have seen God. Judges chapter 13, verse 22. The pattern
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: is consistent. This figure is sent by God. He speaks
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: as God. He is identified as God. He accepts worship,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and he is worshipped as God. And yet, he is
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: distinct from the God who sends him. He is not
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the Father, because the Father is the one who sent him.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He is a second person, carrying God's name, exercising God's authority,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and and receiving God's worship. Now, not every angel in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament is this figure. Many are ordinary messengers.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: The claim is not that every Malik is God. The
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: claim is narrower, and that is what makes it stronger.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: There is one specific figure who carries God's name, speaks
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: God's words, and is called God. And he is not
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the same person as the God who sends him, And
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: there is one more passage that must be laid on
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the table before we go further. Psalm 110, verse 1.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: YHWH said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. David,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the king of Israel, wrote this psalm. And David calls someone,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: my Lord. That Lord is not Y-H-W-H, because Y-H-W-H is
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the one speaking. And yet this Lord is invited to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: sit at Y-H-W-H's right hand, on God's own throne, sharing
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: God's own authority, in God's own presence. Who is this
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: person who sits down next to God? Leave that question open.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: The answer is coming, but not yet. Y-H-W-H on the ground.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: YHWH in heaven. An angel who is God, but is
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: sent by God. A Lord who sits at God's right hand.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: God is one, but He has never been alone. But
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: everything we have seen so far was scattered, embedded in narratives,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: tucked inside psalms, spread across centuries. Something happened 700 years
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: before Christ that brought it into the open. And it
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: happened in a vision that changed everything. Daniel chapter 7.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: The prophet Daniel receives a vision of heaven itself, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: what he sees is extraordinary. Verse 9. Thrones were set
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: His clothing was white as snow, the hair of his
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and its wheels were all ablaze. Thrones, plural, not one throne, thrones,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: The Ancient of Days sits on one. Who sits on
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the other? Then, verses 13 and 14. In my vision
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: at night I looked, and there before me was one
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: All peoples, nations, and men of every language worshipped him,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,
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  Speaker 1: and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Read that carefully. This Son of Man comes with the clouds.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: He receives worship, and His dominion is everlasting. Now here
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: is what most people miss. In the entire Old Testament,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: riding the clouds is YHWH's exclusive action. No one else
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: does it. No prophet rides the clouds. No angel rides
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the clouds. No king rides the clouds. Only God. Deuteronomy 33,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: verse 26. There is no one like God who rides
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: across the heavens to help you and on the clouds
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in his majesty. Psalm 68, verse 4. Sing to God,
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  Speaker 1: extol him who rides on the clouds. YHWH is his name.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Psalm 104, verse 3. He makes the clouds his chariot.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Isaiah 19, verse 1. See, YHWH rides on a swift cloud.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: The clouds are God's chariot. The clouds are YHWH's exclusive transport.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And in Daniel chapter 7, a second figure is riding them.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: He is doing what only YHWH does. He receives pilash,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the Aramaic word for divine worship. Not respect, not admiration,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: not honor given to a servant. Worship. the same worship
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: given to the Ancient of Days himself. His dominion is everlasting,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the same word used for God's own eternal reign. His
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: kingdom will never be destroyed, the same permanence attributed to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: God's own throne. This figure is not an angel. This
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: figure is not a human king. This figure is doing
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: everything YHWH does, riding the clouds, receiving worship, reigning forever.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and he is doing it alongside the Ancient of Days.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Two figures, both divine, one vision. And this was not
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a Christian discovery. Jewish scholars, before Jesus was ever born,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: saw the problem. Rabbi Alan Siegel's landmark research documents that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: pre-Christian Judaism already had a theology of two divine figures,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: based on Daniel 7, Genesis 19-24, and other passages. The
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: rabbis called it the two powers in heaven. It was Jewish.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: It was pre-Christian. It was part of the theological conversation
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: for centuries before a single church council ever sat down.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: The rabbis later declared this theology heretical, but they only
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: did so after the Christians adopted it. The idea of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: a second divine person in the Hebrew Bible is older
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: than the church. And now we come to the courtrooms.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the one promised from the very first minute of this video.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Mark chapter 14, verses 61 and 62. Jesus stands before
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the Sanhedrin, the highest religious court in Israel. It is night.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: The trial is illegal by their own laws. The high
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: priest stands, and he asks the question directly, Are you
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? Every person
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in that room holds their breath. And Jesus answers with
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: one sentence that fuses two Old Testament passages into a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: single claim. You will see the Son of Man sitting
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: at the right hand of power and coming with the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: clouds of heaven. Daniel 7, verse 13, the cloud rider,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the one who rides YHWH's exclusive transport. Psalm 110, verse 1,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the one who sits at God's right hand. the Lord
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: that David called My Lord, combined, in one claim, under oath,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court of Israel. In a single breath,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Jesus claimed to be both figures, the one on the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: throne and the one on the clouds. The high priest
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: tears his robes. The verdict is immediate, guilty of blasphemy,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: worthy of death. But here is what most people never realize.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Claiming to be the Messiah was not blasphemy. A century later,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a man named Simon Bar Kokhba claimed to be the Messiah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Rabbi Akiva endorsed him publicly, and nobody tore their robes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Nobody charged him with blasphemy. Messiahship was a political claim.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: It was dangerous, but it was not a capital offense
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: against God. The blasphemy was the sitting. Jesus told the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: highest religious court in Israel that he was the one
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: who would sit on God's throne and and ride on
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: God's clouds. He claimed to be the second power, the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: divine figure of Daniel 7, the Lord of Psalm 110.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: He claimed equality with God, not in vague terms, not
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: in philosophical language, but in the exact scriptural categories that
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the Jewish leaders understood better than anyone alive. That is
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: what tore the robes. That is what triggered the death sentence.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: This is the courtroom. This is the sentence. And this
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: is not the only passage where the Old Testament reveals
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: more than one divine person in the same scene. Isaiah
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: chapter 6. The prophet sees the Lord on his throne.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: The seraphim cry, holy, holy, holy, three times. God says,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: who will go for us? Plural. And the New Testament
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: identifies every person in that room. The Apostle John says
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Isaiah saw Jesus' glory in that throne room, John chapter 12,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: verse 41. And Paul says the Holy Spirit was the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: one who spoke through Isaiah, Acts chapter 28, verses 25
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: through 27. Three persons, all identified by name in the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: New Testament, in one throne room, in one vision, 700
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: years before Christ. For 4,000 years it was scattered. a
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: plural name here, a double, Y-H-W-H there, a cloud rider
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in a vision, a throne room with three persons. Then,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: on an ordinary day, on the bank of an ordinary river,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: God did something He had never done before. He showed
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: all three at once. The Jordan River. a crowd stands
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: on the bank John the Baptist is waist deep in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the water and he has been baptizing people all day
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: then Jesus steps in John lowers him beneath the surface
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and when he rises everything changes the heavens tear open
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: not part tear And from that opening, the Spirit of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: God descends, not as wind, not as fire, not as thunder,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: as a dove, slowly, visibly, landing on the sun. And
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: then a voice, not from the crowd, not from the water,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: from heaven itself. The Father speaks, This is my beloved Son,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3, verses 16
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and 17 Three persons, visible, simultaneously The Son in the water,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the Spirit in the air, the Father in the voice.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Not one person switching between roles, not one God wearing
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: three masks, not a force and an energy and a voice.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Three persons, present at the same moment, in the same scene,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: doing three different things. The Son in the water, the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Spirit descending, the Father speaking. God is one, but He
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: has never been alone. you have watched the evidence build.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: You have seen God show himself in a garden, in
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a fire, in a vision, on a river. Now you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: deserve what you came here for. Who are they? Let
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the text answer. The Father is the source. 1 Corinthians 8,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: verse 6 says, From whom are all things. Everything originates
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: from the Father. He is the beginning of every divine action.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: The Father is the sender. He sends the Son into
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the world. John 3.16 Galatians 4.4 He sends the Spirit
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to the church. John 14.26 Every divine mission begins with
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the Father. And the Father is the one no one
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: has ever seen. John 1.18 No one has seen God
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: at any time. 1 Timothy 6.16 He dwells in unapproachable light,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: whom no one has seen or can see. Every visible
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: appearance of God in the Old Testament, every theophany, every
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: burning bush, every figure who stood before Abraham at Mamre,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: every angel of YHWH who spoke to Hagar and to Manoah,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was not the Father. It was the Son. The Father
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: has always remained invisible. known only through the Son who
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: reveals Him. And the Father is the one Jesus prays to.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: John chapter 17 verse 5 Father, glorify me in your
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: presence with the glory I had with you before the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: world existed. The Son does not pray to Himself. He
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: speaks to another person, a person who shared glory with
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Him before anything was created, before the stars, before the earth,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: before time itself. The Son is the Word. John chapter 1,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Word was with God, and the Word was God. Two
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: truths in one sentence. With God, that is distinction, two
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: persons face to face. Was God, that is unity. The
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: same essence, the same nature, the same substance. The Word
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: is not a lesser God. The Word is not a God.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: The Word is God, with the full undiminished nature of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: God Himself. The Son is the visible expression of the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: invisible Father. Colossians 1.15 He is the image of the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: invisible God. Hebrews 1.3 The exact imprint of His nature.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: The Father is unseen. The Son makes Him known. He
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is the face of the faceless God, the voice of
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the silent source. the visible radiance of an invisible glory.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: In John chapter 10, verse 30, I and the Father
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: are one. The Greek word for one here is hen, neuter.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: It means one thing, one essence, one substance. If Jesus
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: meant one person, he would have used he's, masculine. He
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: did not. He is not saying I am the Father.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: He is saying I am the same thing the Father is,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the same nature. the same God. The Jews standing around
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: him understood exactly what he was claiming. They picked up stones,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: not because he claimed to be the Messiah, because he
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: claimed to be God. And then Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the Father speaks directly to the Son and says, Your throne,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: O God, is forever and ever. God the Father calls
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the Son God. There is no ambiguity. There is no metaphor.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: The Father looks at the Son and says, You are God.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But if that is true, and the text says it is,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: then what about the verses where Jesus says the opposite?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: John 14, verse 28 The Father is greater than I.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Mark 13, verse 32 No one knows the day or hour,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: not even the Son, but only the Father. 1 Corinthians 15,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: verse 28 The Son will be made subject to the Father.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: If Jesus is equal to God, why does he say
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: these things? Because there is a difference between who he
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is and what he chose to do. Philippians chapter 2,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: verses 6 through 8. Who, being in very nature God,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: being made in human likeness. in His divine nature, equal,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: in His voluntary human mission, submitted. He did not stop
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: being God. He chose to lay down the privileges of God.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: The Father is greater in role, not in nature. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: when the mission is complete, the glory He had before
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the world existed returns in full. And the Holy Spirit
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: is not a force. The Spirit is not God's energy.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: The Spirit is not an influence or a power or
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: an abstract presence. The Spirit is a person, and that
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: person is God. Jesus calls the Spirit another helper in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: John chapter 14, verse 16. The Greek word for another
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is alon, another of the same kind. Not heteron, another
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of a different kind. Jesus says the Spirit is alon,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the same kind of being as himself. fully divine, fully personal.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And in John chapter 16, verse 13, the Greek uses
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the masculine pronoun ekinos, he, for the spirit, overriding the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: neuter noun pneuma. The grammar itself fights to make the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: spirit personal. He is not an it. He is not
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a thing. He is a he. The spirit does what
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: only a person can do. He speaks. Acts chapter 13,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: verse 2. He forbids. Acts chapter 16, verses 6 and 7.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: He appoints leaders. Acts chapter 20, verse 28. He distributes
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: gifts as He wills. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: He can be lied to. Acts chapter 5, verse 3.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: He can be grieved. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30. He
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: intercedes for believers with groaning too deep for words. Romans
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: chapter 8 verse 26. Forces do not grieve. Forces do
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: not will. Forces do not forbid. Forces do not intercede.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Only a person does these things, and this person is God.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Peter proves it in two verses. Acts chapter 5 verse 3.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: He tells Ananias, Why has Satan filled your heart to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: lie to the Holy Spirit? Verse 4. You have not
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: lied to men, but to God. lied to the Spirit,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: lied to God. Same act, same person. The Holy Spirit
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: is God, and He was there from the very beginning.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Genesis chapter 1 verse 2. The Spirit of God was
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: hovering over the waters. Ruach Elohim. He is not a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: New Testament edition. He has been there since verse 2
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of the Bible, since before light, since before land, since
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: before life. The Father and the invisible source who sends.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: The sun, the visible word who reveals. The spirit, the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: active person who indwells. Three persons, one God, all three defined,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: all three divine, all three present from the beginning. And now,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the circle closes. 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6. Paul, a Pharisee,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: trained under Gamaliel, a man who knew the Shema before
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: he could walk, writes this, For us there is one God,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the Father, from whom are all things and for whom
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: all things and through whom we live. we exist. Read
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that again. Paul has taken the Shema, YHWH our God,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: YHWH is one, and restructured it. One God, the Father,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that is the Shema. One Lord, Jesus Christ, that is Jesus,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: placed inside the Shema itself. Inside the most sacred confession
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of monotheism in the history of Israel, Paul did not
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: abandon monotheism. He completed it. One God, now understood as Father, Son,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and Spirit. Not two gods, not three gods. One God,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: whose oneness is richer, deeper, and more relational than anyone
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: had imagined. And no apostle corrected him. No letter was
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: written to challenge it. No counsel was called to reject it.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: The church received it because the truth had been in
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the text from the beginning. It took three centuries for
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: someone to give it a name. The Didache, the earliest
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: post-apostolic document, written sometime between 70 and 100 A.D., instructs
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: believers to baptize in the name of the Father and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one generation
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: after the apostles. No debate, no council vote. Just practice.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Ignatius of Antioch, writing around 110 A.D., whom the early
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: church remembered as a student of the Apostle John, calls
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Jesus our God in his letters, repeatedly, casually, as if
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: it were the most obvious thing in the world. Tertullian,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: around 200 A.D., became the first person to use the
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Latin word trinitas, trinity. Three persons, one substance. He did
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: not invent a doctrine. He named one that the church
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: had believed for 170 years before anyone found a word
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: for it. And if someone tells you the word Trinity
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: is not in the Bible, neither are the words monotheism, incarnation,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: or Bible. The church did not invent the reality. They
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: gave it a name. Then came the crisis. A priest
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: in Alexandria named Arius began teaching that the Son was
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a created being, the first and greatest of God's creations,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: but not eternal, not equal, not truly God in the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: way the Father is God. Arius had a slogan. He
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: said of the Son, There was a time when he
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: was not. It was elegant. It was simple. It made
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the math easier. And it contradicted everything the apostles had written.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: In 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea was called. Bishops
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: gathered from across the Roman Empire, and some of them
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: carried the scars of persecution, men who had been tortured
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for the faith they were now being asked to define.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And these bishops, not politicians, not emperors, bishops, chose one
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: word to settle it, homoousios, of one substance. The Son
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: is the same substance as the Father, not homoousios, of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: similar substance, same, not similar. One Greek letter, the Iota,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: separated truth from heresy. Constantine wanted unity. He did not
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: dictate theology. The bishops debated. The text decided. And what
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the Trinity rejects is as important as what it affirms.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Because throughout history, people have tried to make the Trinity
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: simpler than it is. And every simplification has produced a heresy.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Modalism says God is one person wearing three masks, Father
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: at one time, Son at another, Spirit at another. He
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: changes modes like an actor changes costumes. But at the baptism,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: all three are present simultaneously. The Son stands in the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: water while the Father speaks from heaven, while the Spirit
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: descends as a dove. Three at the same time. The
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Son prays to the Father throughout the Gospels. you do
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: not pray to yourself. Arianism says the Son is a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: created being, the first creation of God, but a creation nonetheless,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the highest angel, the first thing God ever made. But
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: John chapter 1 verse 3 says, all things were made
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Read that logic carefully. All things that were made were
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: made through him, If he made all things, he cannot
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: be a made thing. He is on the wrong side
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: of the equation to be a creature. Tritheism says there
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: are three separate gods who cooperate, like three members of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: a committee. But the Shema still stands. YHWH our God,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: YHWH is one, one essence, one God. Three persons sharing
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: that one divine essence completely and equally. Not three gods
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: in a partnership one God in three persons. The Trinity
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: is none of these. The Trinity is one God, three persons,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: one essence, each person fully God, not three gods, not
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: one person wearing masks, not a created being promoted to divinity,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: one God who has existed in eternal relationship, Father, Son,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and Spirit, from before the foundation of the world, and
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the Phileo, whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: or from the Father and the Son. This question divided
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the Church in 1054, and it remains unresolved. Scripture does
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: not settle it. We say so honestly, and we move on,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: because what the Trinity means is bigger than any one debate.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Strip away every created thing. Remove the stars. Remove the earth.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Remove every angel and every human soul. Go back before
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the beginning, before Genesis 1 verse 1, before let there
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: be light, before anything existed at all. What remains is
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: not silence. What remains is a Father who has always spoken,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a Son who has always been the Word, a Spirit
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: who has always been the breath between them. Before there
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: was a universe to fill, before there was a single
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: soul to save, before there was anything at all, The
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Father loved the Son. The Son loved the Father. And
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the Spirit was the eternal bond of that love, not
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: love as a concept, not love as a command, love
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: as a relationship, living eternal before time began. God did
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: not create because He was lonely. He was never lonely.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: He created because love, by its very nature, overflows. It
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: cannot be contained. It spills outward, and when it spilled,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it made you. The Trinity was never a math problem
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to be solved. It is not a puzzle for theologians
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to argue over in a classroom. It is the reason
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: love exists. It is the reason relationship exists. It is
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the reason you were made, because a God who has
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: always existed in relationship made you for relationship too. If
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you were ever told this doctrine was too complicated for
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: you to understand, you were lied to. It was never complicated.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It was hidden. And now you have seen it. God
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: is one, and he has never been alone, neither are you.
• 37:39
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• 37:42
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• 37:45
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• 37:49
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• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And if you want to go deeper, we have a
• 37:55
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• 37:59
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• 38:03
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• 38:07
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