The Trinity is an unfathomable, and yet unmistakable doctrine in Scripture. As Jonathan Edwards noted, after studying the topic extensively, “I think [the doctrine of the Trinity] to be the highest and deepest of all Divine mysteries” (An Unpublished Treatise on the Trinity).
Yet, though the fullness of the Trinity is far beyond human comprehension, it is unquestionably how God has revealed Himself in Scripture—as one God eternally existing in three Persons.
This is not to suggest, of course, that the Bible presents three different gods (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4). Rather, God is three Persons in one essence; the Divine essence subsists wholly and indivisibly, simultaneously and eternally, in the three members of the one Godhead—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (We considered the deity of Christ last Thursday, in this post .)
The Scriptures are clear that these three Persons together are one and only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4). John 10:30 and 33 explain that the Father and the Son are one. First Corinthians 3:16 shows that the Father and the Spirit are one. Romans 8:9 makes clear that the Son and the Spirit are one. And John 14:16, 18, and 23 demonstrate that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one.
Yet, in exhibiting the unity between the members of the Trinity, the Word of God in no way denies the simultaneous existence and distinctiveness of each of the three Persons of the Godhead. In other words, the Bible makes it clear that God is one God (not three), but that the one God is a Trinity of Persons.
In the Old Testament, the Bible implies the idea of the Trinity in several ways. The title Elohim (”God”), for instance, is a plural noun which can suggest multiplicity (cf. Genesis 1:26). This corresponds to the fact that the plural pronoun (”us”) is sometimes used of God (Genesis 1:26; Isaiah 6:8). More directly, there are places in which God’s name is applied to more than one Person in the same text (Psalm 110:1; cf. Genesis 19:24). And there are also passages where all three divine Persons are seen at work (Isaiah 48:16; 61:1).
The New Testament builds significantly on these truths, revealing them more explicitly. The baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 designates all three Persons of the Trinity: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” In his apostolic benediction to the Corinthians, Paul underscored this same reality. He wrote, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God [the Father], and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14). Other New Testament passages also spell out the glorious truth of the Triune God (Romans 15:16, 30; 2 Corinthians 1:21–22; Ephesians 2:18).
In describing the Trinity, the New Testament clearly distinguishes three Persons who are all simultaneously active. They are not merely modes or manifestations of the same person (as Oneness theology incorrectly asserts) who sometimes acts as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Spirit. At Christ’s baptism, all three Persons were simultaneously active (Matthew 3:16–17), with the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking from Heaven. Jesus Himself prayed to the Father (cf. Matthew 6:9), taught that His will was distinct from His Father’s (Matthew 26:39), promised that He would ask the Father to send the Spirit (John 14:16), and asked the Father to glorify Him (John 17:5). These actions would not make sense unless the Father and the Son were two distinct Persons. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit intercedes before the Father on behalf of believers (Romans 8:26), as does the Son, who is our Advocate (1 John 2:1). Again, the distinctness of each Person is in view.
The Bible is clear. There is only one God, yet He exists, and always has existed, as a Trinity of Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (cf. John 1:1-2). To deny or misunderstand the Trinity is to deny or misunderstand the very nature of God Himself.
Самир (Samir’s) translation into Russian
Дорогие родственники и друзья,
По мере приближения 2018 года, мы должны понимать что те из нас кто встретил Рождество отвергая Иисуса Христа, имел самый глупый вид
удовольствия.
Это тоже самое как веселиться на тонущем Титанике. Это можно назвать “игнорирование реальности.”Если бы люди знали что их
вечная судьба зависит от Иисуса Христа которому посвящен праздник Рождества, то я думаю у них не было бы никакого повода для веселья.
В Священном Писании мы читаем радикальные слова Иисуса Христа: “…Кто не со Мною, тот против Меня..”. А в Евангелии от Иоанна 3:18
написано: ” Верующий в Него (Иисуса Христа) не судится, а неверующий уже осужден”
“Верить” означает принять и доверять что что то является истиной, особенно без доказательств!
У тебя здесь есть только два выбора. Или вы осуждены на ад или же вы оправданы, и вопрос заключается в том верите ли вы.
Ты можешь спросить:” Ты говоришь мне верить, но во что я должен верить чтобы стать христианином. Во что?
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что вы являетесь грешником
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что вы отдалились от Бога и должны искренно покаяться и отвернуться от греха
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что вы уже осуждены и нуждаетесь в Божьем помиловании
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что вам нужно покаяться (отвернуться от греха) и произвести достойный плод покаяния
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что Иисус Христос понес ваше наказание на Кресте вместо вас и ждет чтобы простить вас
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что Божья справедливость была удовлетворена когда Бог воскресил Иисуса Христа из мертвых
* Поверить признать и согласиться в том что сведетельство того что вы истинно верующий состоит в том что вы прозводите “плоды послушания”
Вот то во что вы должны верить. Это – Евангелие. И когда вы верите в это просто доверяя Богу, то Он по своей милости
берет праведность Иисуса Христа и вменяет ее тебе потому что твои грехи были вменены Ему когда Он умер на кресте.
Во втором послании Коринфянам 5:21 мы читаем:” Ибо не знавшего греха(Иисуса Христа) Он (Бог)сделал для нас жертвою за грех
чтобы мы в Нем (Иисусе Христе) сделались праведными пред Богом.”
В Деяниях 2:37,38 людям услышавшим Евангелие стало известно об их вине и греховности перед Богом и они спросили:”Что нам делать?”
На что Петр ответил им: ” Покайтесь и да креститься каждый из вас во Имя Иисуса Христа и получите дар Святого Духа”.
В Евангелии от Луки 18:14, раскаивающийся грешник говорит:” Господи, будь милостив ко мне, грешнику”.
Так что если вы по настоящему каетесь перед Богом, поверьте в то что Иисус Христос совершил для вас на кресте, как те люди поверили.
Бог услышит вас и ваша жизнь измениться в одно мгновение.
Если ваша вера слаба, попросите Бога чтобы Он помог вам верить. Если вам необходимо больше информации, читайте Евангелие от Иоанна
и просите чтобы Он научил вас истине Христовой.
Dear Family & Friends,
As we approach 2018 we need to realize that those of us who have celebrated Christmas, while rejecting Christ we’re having the most foolish kind of fun. It’s like having a party on the sinking TITANIC. It’s just ignoring reality. If people really knew that their eternal destiny was determined by the Christ of Christmas and they had rejected that, I doubt whether there would be much to celebrate.
Jesus put it simply and summed up all of Scripture when he said, “You’re either for me or against me.”
John 3:18, “He that believes on Jesus is not condemned: but he that believes not, is condemned already.”
“Believe” means to accept and trust that (something) is true, especially without proof!
You only have two things here. You’re either condemned to Hell or not condemned, and the issue is whether you believe.
Well you may say « You tell me to believe,
So, what am I supposed to believe to become a Christian! BELIEVE WHAT? »
*Believe,Admit, and Agree you are a sinner.
*Believe, Admit, and agree you are alienated from God, and must truly repent and turn from your sin.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that you are “condemned already” and need a pardon.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that you need to repent (turn your back from sin) and produce fruits of obedience.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that Jesus took your punishment on the cross as your substitute, and is waiting to pardon you.
*Believe, Admit, and Agree that God’s justice was satisfied by the fact that God raised Jesus…from the dead. And when God raised Him from the dead He was saying, “I am satisfied.”
*Believe, Admit and Agree, that the evidence that you are truly a believer is that you produce “fruits of obedience.”
That’s what you believe. That’s the gospel.
And when you believe that by faith, simply trusting God, He, in His mercy takes the righteousness of Jesus Christ and credits it to you because your sins were credited to Christ when He died on the cross.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read
“GOD made JESUS who did not know sin to be sin for US, so that WE might become the righteousness of GOD in Him. “
In Acts 2:37-38, after hearing the gospel the people became aware of their guilt as sinners and said, “What shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 18:14, the repentant sinner said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
So, if you truly repent, place your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross like these folk did, God will also hear you, and your life will be transformed in a moment.
If your faith is weak ask Him to help you to believe. If you need more information read the Gospel of John, and ask God to teach you the truth of Christ.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/45-49
Sin, is the most devastating, the most debilitating, the most degenerating power that ever entered into the human stream. It kills everyone and ultimately, except by the intervening grace of God, would send everyone to an eternal hell.
The Bible calls it “the accursed thing,” Joshua 7:13. It is compared in Scripture to the venom of snakes and the stench of death. It is defined for us in 1 John 3:4 as “transgression of God’s law.” Now, the Scripture characterizes sin in many ways. And I don’t want to go back over some of the ground we’ve covered, but just as a reminder, let me state a few of the ways in which the Bible describes sin.
First of all, it says sin is defiling. It is a pollution of the soul. You might see it as this: It is to the soul what rust is to gold. It is to the soul what scars are to a beautiful face. It is to the soul what a stain is to silk, what smog is to an azure sky. It is a pollution. It makes the soul black with guilt. It is a bloody cloth in Isaiah 30. It is sores from a deadly plague in 1 Kings chapter 8. It is filthy garments in Zechariah chapter 3. And even God, according to Zechariah 11:8, loathes the sinner. Paul calls it in 2 Corinthians 7:1 “filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” So, sin is defiling.
Secondly, the Bible tells us that sin is rebellion. It tramples God’s Word. It rebels against God’s law. Sin is, as one man said, “God’s would-be murderer.” If sin had its way, it would eliminate God. God would cease to be if the sinner had his choice.
Thirdly, sin is ingratitude. Romans 1 says, “Neither were they thankful.” Like Absalom, who as the son of David, his father the king had kissed him and taken him to his heart, then went out and plotted treason against his own father. Having been the recipient of all of his father’s treasures he then turned to be a traitor. So the sinner indulges in God’s goodness, indulges in God’s treasures, indulges in God’s blessings in the world around him, and then betrays God by serving Satan, God’s archenemy. The sinner then lives in abuse of all God’s gifts.
Fourthly, the Bible says that sin is incurable. Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leopard change his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to evil.” In other words, you have no more chance of changing your nature than a leopard does his spots or an Ethiopian his skin.
Paul wrote to Titus in chapter 1:15 and says, “Their conscience – ” that is the inward part of them, even that which triggers their right behavior “ – is defiled.”
Sin is so utterly devastating, it is so utterly destroying, it is so incurable that even the eternity in hell cannot take it away.
The Bible also says that sin is hated by God. In Jeremiah 44, God says, “O do not this abominable thing which I hate.” Sin is also overpowering. It hangs like blackness hangs to night. It dominates the mind, it says in Romans 1:21. It dominates the will, it says in Jeremiah 44:15-17. It dominates the affection it says in John 3:19-21.
And then sin brings Satanic control. Ephesians 2 says that one who is a sinner walks “according to the prince of the power of the air.” He is a child of disobedience. Jesus said in John 8:44, a child of the devil himself.
And then sin brings misery to life. In Job 5:7 it says, “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” In Romans 8 it says the creature is subject to emptiness, uselessness. It takes away man’s honor, it takes away his peace, it takes away the meaning of his life.
Then finally, sin damns the soul to hell. Revelation 20 talks about all those who know not God and Christ being cast into the lake of fire.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-136/a-warning-to-the-indifferent
As a believer I am here to tell you that God will forgive sinners; that God desires to be reconciled to sinners through that forgiveness.
* He will forgive those who repent of their sin and believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ:
* Those who believe that He died in their place and rose from the dead.
* For those who believe, God promises the forgiveness of all their sins and a place in the joy and bliss of His eternal heaven.
That’s the gospel. So here we are in the world with good news. However, there is an element of the good news that is very, very bad news. In fact, the good news is predicated on an understanding of the bad news.
The news about salvation is only good if one understands the bad news about what happens to those who don’t possess that salvation. In fact, part of our proclamation of the gospel is to tell people the worst news they’ve ever heard, the worst news there is, that God has created a hell, a place of eternal punishment for those who reject Him.
And those who do not repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will spend forever punished in that place called hell. That is the bad news that is foundational to the good news being good news.
True evangelism then, an accurate presentation of the gospel, must include the strongest negative reality as part of the motivation of the sinner,
* not just the attractiveness of heaven,
* not just the attractiveness of the love of God, but the fear of hell and the dread of the wrath of God.
*All faithful endeavors in giving the good news must clearly convey the bad news.
* It is not just the promise of heaven; it is the threat of hell.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/CONF-RC08-10
Well, the problem is you can’t avoid hell just by not wanting to go there anyway. You have to avoid hell by following the path of salvation revealed in Moses and the Prophets. He said to him, verse 31, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.” Was that true? Who rose from the dead? Jesus. Did they believe? No, no, no. In fact, in an interesting divine coincidence, Jesus raised a man from the dead by the name of Lazarus. The rulers knew it, and it was what motivated them in part to execute Jesus. We don’t want to go to hell. He warned, and religion won’t protect you—only the truth, the gospel truth, the saving truth, the salvation truth revealed on the pages of Scripture completed in the New Testament through the work of Christ will rescue you from hell and take you escorted by the angels into the full fellowship of all the saints, including Abraham and all faith.
So, how do you escape hell? How do you enter heaven?
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-216
By believing the saving gospel revealed in this Bible, and knowing that there’s no other name under heaven given among men where we must be saved than the glorious name Jesus Christ. Trust Him and Him alone. Put your faith in Him. Repent of your sin. And the grace of God will pour into your life, and you will be redeemed and regenerated and renewed. And you will spend forever in the glory of heaven.
So, what am I supposed to believe to become a Christ Follower and escape hell?
BELIEVE WHAT?
*Believe,Admit, and Agree you are a sinner.
*Believe, Admit, and agree you are alienated from God, and must truly repent and turn from your sin.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that you are “condemned already” and need a pardon.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that you need to repent (turn your back from sin) and produce fruits of obedience.
*Believe, Admit and Agree that Jesus took your punishment on the cross as your substitute, and is waiting to pardon you.
*Believe, Admit, and Agree that God’s justice was satisfied by the fact that God raised Jesus…from the dead. And when God raised Him from the dead He was saying, “I am satisfied.”
*Believe, Admit and Agree, that the evidence that you are truly a believer is that you produce “fruits of obedience.”
That’s what you believe. That’s the gospel. And when you believe that by faith, simply trusting God, He, in His mercy takes the righteousness of Jesus Christ and credits it to you because your sins were credited to Christ when He died on the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For GOD hath made JESUS to be sin for US who knew no sin; that we might be made the image of God in him.
If you have a desire in your heart to believe, the best way to know how is to repent and trust in the Lord simply and quietly in your heart:
“God, “be merciful to me a sinner”. I want Jesus Christ as my Lord, and am glad to be his slave. I receive him now. I don’t want to die in my sin. I want to go where you are. I now repent of my sin and turn my back upon them. I want to follow you, and obey you and your word. Please save my lost soul. Amen.”
If you do that in faith trusting, He will hear that prayer and your life will be transformed in a moment. If your faith is weak ask him to help you to believe. If you need more information read the Gospel of John, and ask God to teach you the truth of Christ.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-215
This is our fourth look at this very important parable. What sends people to hell? How they respond to Scripture, it’s that simple.
Heaven is for those who exercise repentant faith and believe the Word of God.
Heaven is for those who believe the gospel, who believe the good news that God saves penitent sinners who believe in Him.
The divine gift of saving grace that spares the guilty from eternal punishment and brings them to eternal joy always comes through faith in the Word of God, faith in the truth of Scripture, not mystical spirituality, not faith in faith, not some vague spiritual feeling.
Heaven is for those who believe what God has clearly revealed in Scripture, who believe what God has said, and who respond, who read it, who understand it, who believe it, and who assent to it or embrace it. It’s about what you do with the Scripture. That is why it is so important to preach the Scripture. Faith comes by hearing. We are begotten again by the word of truth.
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