David Platt on the Trinity

If you were to ask me to explain the Trinity, I would put in front of you these three foundational truths, three truths that explain or put together the Trinity. Again, how they fit together, that’s the mystery. But these are the three truths.

David Platt’s Three Truths About the Trinity

And keep in mind when we talk about mysteries, some of the best advice my dad gave me was, “When you don’t know what to do, do what you know to do.” And there’s some things, how do you put this together, but you focus on what you do know. We do know these things.

God Is Three Persons

Number one, God is three persons. Three persons. God is three persons. Scripture talks about God with plural pronouns. Genesis One, “Let us create man in our image. Let us go down.” Genesis 11, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah Six. We got a plural picture of God, with plural pronouns.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are persons. And this is key. When we think about God the Father, He’s a person. We think about and we talked about God as person and spirit, how we get this picture. We got God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit in particular here. Sometimes we almost discount the fact that spirit’s a person.

We think of the Spirit as some force or some energy or something like that. But the Spirit is a person. You look in John Chapter 16, and He is referred to with masculine pronouns, not neuter or neutral pronouns. He’s referred to as masculine pronouns. The word spirit would normally not be masculine or feminine, but you look in John 16, “When He the spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own. He will speak only what he hears.”

And you look through scripture and you see the scripture doing what a person does. The Spirit teaches, the spirit testifies, the spirit intercedes, the spirit searches all things of God, which is what we talked about earlier. The Spirit searches. The Spirit knows, the spirit gives gifts, the spirit speaks, searches and speaks. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” The Spirit is grieved. So the Spirit is a person.

Plural pronouns, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all persons. At the same time, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct. Now, this is really important to see. You look in Matthew Chapter Three at the baptism of Jesus, you see all three persons of the Trinity. You see Jesus being baptized, the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove and the voice from heaven, the Father saying, “This is my son, whom I love. With Him I am well-pleased.”

Great commission, “Baptize the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Shows a distinction there. Same in Ephesians Four, and 1 Peter One. The Son is distinguished from the Father. The Spirit is distinguished from the Son and the Father is distinguished from the Spirit. They’re distinguished from each other. So truth number one, God is three persons. That’s foundational.

Each Person Is Fully God

Truth number two, each person is fully God. Scripture teaches this. God the Father is fully God. That’s really throughout the history of Christianity, never really been debated. You got Genesis One and a couple verses from Matthew Six there. God, the Father is fully God. Not part God. It’s not part Father, part Son, part Holy Spirit. God the Father, fully God. God the Son is fully God. I would encourage you, we need to know why we believe that the Son is fully God. If I were to ask you to turn over on the back of your notes there and write out every verse that you know that says the Son is fully God, how many verses would you be able to write?

And I ask you that because I think there is a famine when it comes to understanding the deity of Christ, the person of Christ, in the church today. We need to know. This is huge. This is very key in our faith as we’re going to see. Philippians Two, Five through 11 is really the Christ hymn, the great passage on this. For being in very nature God. He is God. There’s four truths that are kind of contained even here in this little passage.

Is God, being in very nature God and not considered equality with God, something to grasp. And made Himself nothing taken the very nature. The servant being made in human likeness. He is God. He’s man, being made in human likeness. Being found in appearances a man, He humbled himself, became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

He’s God, He’s man, he’s Savior. God exalted Him in the highest place, gave Him the name that’s above every name, the name of Jesus, every shall knee shall bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is Lord. He’s God, He’s man, He’s Savior, He’s Lord. He’s all those things, Philippians Two, Five to 11.

Hebrews 1:3. He’s the exact representation of the being of God. He is our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. We already talked about John, how John emphasizes His humanity. How in John 20:28, Thomas bows at Jesus feet and says, “My Lord and my God.” God His father is fully of God. God the Son is fully God. And God the Spirit is fully God. Acts Chapter Five, “You’ve not lied to men but to God,” when Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit. It’s equating God with the spirit of God. We’ve already seen the Spirit is omnipresent. The Spirit is omniscient. God the Spirit is fully God. So that’s truth Number two. God is three persons, number one. Number two, each person is fully God.

There Is One God

Truth number three, there is one God. One God. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. I am the Lord. There is no other.” God makes it very clear. There’s no question from cover to cover in scripture. There is one God. We’re not talking about many gods.

So you take those true three truths, here’s the mystery, putting them together, but the three truths are God is three persons. Each person is fully God. There is one God. Now, I want to throw in three additional notes here that we need to keep in mind. The Trinity is not a contradiction. This is why we did that little vocabulary thing in the beginning.

When we are talking about God being three persons and there being one God, we need to realize that God’s threeness and His oneness are different. God is three in a way that is different from Him being one. You kind of just let that soak in at 11:15 at night, okay? God is three in a way that is different than Him being one. We’re not saying God is one and not one. That would be a contradiction. Instead, we’re saying God is one and three. That’s what makes this a mystery, not a contradiction. We’re not saying that His oneness and threeness are the same. God is not one and one at the same time. He is one in three.

The Trinity is Eternal

The picture that scripture gives us, second little additional note, the Trinity is eternal. What I mean by that, and you’ve got the verses there. One person of the Trinity did not come into being at some random time. The Father has always been and always will be God. The Son has always been and always will be God. The Spirit has always been and always will be God.

Third additional note, the persons of the Trinity have different functions.

Now, here’s what’s key. They function in different ways at different times, but that doesn’t mean that in their essence they’re different. What I mean by that, at times the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father. Not essentially. I put that with exclamation point. When we see Jesus obeying the Father in the Gospels, He’s functionally subordinate to the Father, but that doesn’t mean He is less than God at that moment. Same thing when Jesus, at times the Son is functionally, not essentially, dependent on the Spirit. Jesus is led by the Spirit. Luke Chapter Four, Verse one. And so the picture is He’s functionally dependent on the Spirit, but that doesn’t mean he is less than God at that point.

You think about creation. They’re functioning in different ways. God the Father is speaking. God the Son is implementing, Colossians One tells us. God the Spirit is hovering above the waters. Consider salvation. God the Father plans. God the Son obeys. The Father didn’t come and die on the cross. The Spirit didn’t die on the cross. The Son died on the cross. God the Son obeys. God the Spirit applies salvation to our lives.

Here’s the difference. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal in their attributes, equal in their essence. There’s not one person of the Trinity that is inferior in essence. But second, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different in their relationships. They relate to each other differently at times, just like we saw. The Son is subordinate of the Father, the Son dependent on the Spirit, that sort of thing.