94 - The Knowledge of God, The Trinity

The Knowledge of God

In the seventeenth chapter of John we have what is called the true Lord's prayer, the high priestly prayer of our Lord. This is in a transition position between the upper room discourse which actually ended with the statements at the end of chapter sixteen.  By this time they had come to the garden of Gethsemane and this is Jesus' prayer for Himself in the first five verses, then from verses 6 down through verse 19 He is praying for His disciples, and from 20-26 He is praying for the church.

When we look at this we have Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth who claims to be Messiah, called the Son of God, coming before the Father, and he utilises His title "Thy Son," and he concludes in verse 5 with the request that the Father glorify Him "with the which I had with thee before the world was." As we stop and think about that there is one thing to say and to teach about what Jesus is praying for specifically. But we need to back up a little bit and realise that Jesus is praying to the Father. That means that he is performing an act of dependence upon the Father. What does that say about the essential relationship of the second person of the Trinity to the first person of the Trinity? Is this just a temporary dependence that takes place during the period of the incarnation or is this somehow reflective of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Father? That He is eternally dependent upon the Father and subordinate to the Father in some sense? We have to define that sense. Was Jesus subordinate in all aspects of His being, including the essence of His being? If so then He is less than God. How does this work itself out?

Some people get the idea that this is just a lot of abstract theology. But where we are going is that if we do not handle this biblically and correctly then what we end up with is come concepts that are going to radically shift society, culture, marriage, the role of men and women, and indeed it even impacts on political theory and governmental theory. This underlies all of that. This is the ideological foundation from which all these other applications derive. If we don't deal with this correctly or understand or have some grasp of it then what happens is that we are out here trying to apply certain principles but we don't understand the rationale that under girds them. So when we get in certain contexts and certain situations it creates a tension and a problem because we are just trying to do something and we don't understand the whys and wherefores that under gird why we are trying to do that. We have to pay out the argument piece by piece, brick by brick, because we can't just jump to the third floor without understanding what the first and second floors talk about.

As we come to this prayer Jesus is recognising to the Father that His hour has come. This is the time of His suffering, the time of the crucifixion where He goes to the cross to pay the penalty for mankind, to die as a spiritual substitute for our sins. So as we look at this He says, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You." So the first observation here is that the concept of His timing, His hour, His crucifixion, is related in the context specifically to the Father-Son relationship within the Trinity, and we have to take some time to understand just exactly what that is. This prayer demonstrates the dependency of Jesus Christ and we have to ask several questions.

In what sense is Jesus Christ subordinate to God the Father? Is it an internal sense or is it in time? Does it have to do with His time of incarnation or does it have to do with His position of relationship to the Father in eternity past. We need to ask and understand if this subordination is one of role and function or a subordination of essence? Then we need to ask" How is it, how are we to describe, what vocabulary are we to utilise to understand the relationship between God the Father and God the Son in all eternity? Vocabulary is important because we cannot think beyond our vocabulary. Vocabulary is the tool of thought.

2 Corinthians 10:4 ^NASB "for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses." What are these fortresses? [5] "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and {we are} taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." "Lofty thing" is a rather vague term, it could refer to anything, and we have to look at the context. The "lofty things" are raised up against what? Knowledge. Therefore we have to assume that lofty thing is kind against kind, so we are talking about every lofty concept, thinking, idea. The whole concept of warfare that is explained in vv. 4, 5 is talking about warfare in the realm of thought. The Christian life is based upon thinking, it is not based upon emotion, upon gathering together as believers and talking to one another and having social interaction. It is so critically based on thought, learning how to think correctly about reality. And if we think about it, what is more significant than to focus on the ultimate reality in the universe, which is God. Throughout all eternity nothing existed except the Trinity and their mutual love for one another and their mutual interaction. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit had eternal relationship. What is more foundational for us to understand than the ultimate reality of the universe which is how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit relate to one another, because that becomes the paradigm, the example, the foundation for being able to understand how every other relationship in the created order functions.

The importance of the knowledge of God

1. No doctrine is more significant, more foundational and more crucial to our lives than knowing God. Proverbs 9:10 ^NASB "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." It is the fool that has said there is no God. So if we want to guarantee a life of foolishness and a life of mental collapse then we ignore God. But if we really want to know how things are, if we really want to understand reality as it is, then God is the one who defines that, so that which is the beginning point is knowing God. Proverbs 1:29 ^NASB "Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD." Proverbs 1:7 ^NASB "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction." Proverbs 2:5 ^NASB "Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God." So the knowledge of God is foundational to all other knowledge. Not only has God revealed Himself to us non-verbally through creation, He has also revealed Himself to us verbally. He has given us propositional revelation. That means that the Scriptures are given in clear statements. Ephesians 1:17 ^NASB "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit [mental attitude] of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him." Philippians 1:9 ^NASB "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment." Colossians 1:10 ^NASB "so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please {Him} in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." Peter reminds us that this is the essence and the means of our spiritual growth. 2 Peter 1:2, 3 ^NASB "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." Growth is related to knowledge.
2. A warning. Don't fall into the trap of rationalisation that we really can't know God. So many people think that the best that we can hope for in studying God is just some sort of vague, nebulous appreciation for God. That, if we think about it, embodies a blasphemy against God. That is really saying you can't know God. If God is the ultimate reality we ought to realise that the most important thng for us is to think precisely about who he is and to understand Him. We can't love who we don't know.
3. Nothing is more practical than for us to push the boundaries of our thinking to understand God at a greater level.
4. The Trinity is the ultimate and eternal reality.
5. It demands the intricacies of the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. We just can't get through some passages if we don't have a knowledge of the original languages.
6. In terms of its importance, ultimately our very salvation hangs in the balance. This doctrine is so crucial that to not understand it really impacts the very core of Jesus' work on the cross. Jesus' work on the cross is based on the person of Christ. Who He is determines what He can do. So if we tweak out certain aspects of His person then we have problems with His work.

The doctrine of the Trinity 

1. God exists in three equal persons. When Jesus prays to the Father He is not praying to Himself. When Jesus is baptised by John the Baptist we hear the Father speak in Heaven, the Spirit descends on the Son in the form of a dive, and Jesus is incarnate in the water. Those are three distinct entities and yet they have one identical essence that is so closely united that they are said to be one. How we understand that is very important. They have the same identical essence, they are co-equal and co-eternal.
2. The Bible clearly teaches that there are distinct persons in the Godhead. The technical term for this is that there is a plurality in the Godhead, that there is more than one. This is indicated in the Hebrew name for God, elohim, the "im" ending is plural and it is more than just a plural of majesty, as some want to say. In Genesis 1:26 God said: "Let us make man in our image." The first person plural, us and our, indicate plurality. Isaiah 6:3: "Holy, holy, holy" implies a Trinitarian relationship; it is not explicit, it is implicit. Two Lords are mentioned in Genesis 19:24 and Hosea 1:7, another indication of plurality. Hosea 1:7 ^NASB "But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and deliver them by the LORD their God …"
3. In another verse Yahweh is distinguished from the Holy Spirit, Isaiah 59:21 ^NASB "As for Me, this is My covenant with them," says the LORD: 'My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring,' says the LORD, 'from now and forever'." Cf. Isaiah 63:10. Also Matthew 28:19 (note that 'name' as used there refers to essence); 2 Corinthians 13:14. By way of observation we need to realise that if Jesus Christ has the attributes of deity, and the Father has the attributes of deity, and the Holy Spirit has the attributes of deity, this clearly shows that they have all the same elements of deity; they are one. The unity of God is also clearly stated in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 8:4 ^NASB "Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one."
4. The three persons in the Godhead have distinct relationships. The way that this has been developed in church history is that the Father is neither begotten, nor does He proceed. The Son is eternally begotten from the Father. The question is: is that an expression for time or is that an expression for eternity? See John 1:18; 3:16, 18. The Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son. Further it is stated: The Father eternally generates or begets the Son, and the Father eternally spirates the Holy Spirit. So there is a distinct relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and this terminology expresses what that relationship is. Though they have these distinct relationships none is inferior to another.
5. Each member of the Trinity has equal authority towards creation. This is found in the fact that the Father is the supreme authority in 1 Corinthians 8:6; the Son is said to be completely equal to the Father, which means He is equally in authority over the creation, John 5:21-23, and then the Spirit is also equal to them in Matthew 12:31.