Sunday Sermon

"The Trinity: One God"
[Deuteronomy 6:4]
January 14, 2007 Second Reformed Church

If the Lord is willing, over the next six weeks, we will look at the doctrine of the Trinity, ending the series with a sermon on the nature of God. I have been approached by a number of people recently asking whether Jesus is fully divine, who or what the Holy Spirit is, and what it means when we talk about "Three Persons." So, it seems good that we look, however briefly, at the elements of this doctrine.

Please understand that we are looking at this doctrine in pieces. The whole picture of the doctrine, Lord willing, will become clear with all of the sermons in this series together. If you want to access these sermons to look at, or if you miss one, go to our blog site, which is listed on the cover of your bulletin.

In the hopes of keeping them all tied together, for the length of the series, instead of The Apostle's Creed, which we usually use as one of our responses, we will be using The Nicene Creed, The Creed of Chalcedon, and The Athanasian Creed on different Sundays during the series to emphasize the whole doctrine.

And don't be afraid of the use of the word, "doctrine." Doctrine simple means, "teaching." We are looking at what we believe as Christians. We are looking at what the Bible teaches us. We ought not to fear the Bible and what it teaches us, but long to understand it and love it, because it is a gift to us form the God Who loves us and desires His people to know Him.

We begin this morning affirm that there is One God. There is One and Only God. All other gods are false gods, demons, creations of our own imagination, etc. There is Only One God. The Belgic Confession, one of our standards, one of the human documents that we believe accurate summarizes the Scripture, begins this way: "We believe with all our heart, and confess with the mouth, that there is one only simple and spiritual Being, which we call God; and that He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good" (Article 1).

Our Scripture this morning is known as the "Shema" after the first word of the verse. It is used as the call to worship in synagogues across the world, even to this day. It can be translated, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one," "Hear, O Israel, The Lord is our God, the Lord alone," and, using the proper names, "Hear, O Israel, YHWH is our El, YWHW one."

Israel proclaimed that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, YHWH, the God Who delivered them from bondage in Egypt, is their God, their One and Only God. And Jesus confirms that the God of Israel, the God of God’s people, the God of Jesus, the God of His followers, is the One God, the Only God, the True God that He preached to them in the Gospels (cf. Mark 12:29).

Paul reminds the Ephesians that Christians believe in "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:5-6). And to Timothy, Paul writes, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5). And to the Corinthians: "yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist" (I Corinthians 8:6a).

Jesus was explaining how God is to be worshiped, and as He did so, He explained that our One God is pure spirit, pure essence, pure being -- He is not a creature, nor does He have a body that can be touched. "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth" (John 4:24).

And this One God of ours, Who is Spirit, is everlasting: He always was -- from before the creation -- and He will always be. God is and God cannot go out of existence. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? YHWH is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable" (Isaiah 40:28).

Our God -- the God of Christianity -- is One God. He is a Spirit. He is eternal. He is One Being. And everything that exists was created by Him and nothing that exists was not created by Him. He is and will always be. The One and Only True God.

As we look at this doctrine, we need to recognize that there is only so far that our minds can understand. We have finite minds. We cannot understand the infinite fully. But let us beware: we cannot understand everything, perfectly, but we can understand some things, and we can understand what God has set before us and told us and given us to understand. So, we ought to do all that we can to understand what God has given us in His Word, and then, like Paul, when we have reached the end of what we can humanly understand, rather than speculate, let us break forth in praise, "Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36).

But what can we know?

We know that our One God is a Spirit, and since He is a Spirit, God is invisible. We know God then, by what God has done, not by seeing Him like you and I see each other. As Paul wrote, "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have ben made. So they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). Even though God is invisible, everyone knows the One God exists through the creation and its witness to Him.

And we know that the God Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses met is the same God that we meet, because God has sworn, "I YHWH do not change" (Malachi 3:6a). Whatever has been known about our One God is and will always be the same, because He never changes.

Isaiah records the words of YHWH, our One God, as God compares Himself to all the other gods that humans invent: "Thus says YHWH, King of Israel and his Redeemer, the YHWH of hosts, 'I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god'" (Isaiah 44:6). In fact, all other gods are merely idols and "all who fashion idols are nothing and the things that they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know; that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsman are only human. Let them assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.

"The iron smith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry; his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. The it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meats; he roasts it and is satisfied. And he warms himself and says, 'Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!' And the rest he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god!'

"They do not know, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so they cannot see, and the hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there any knowledge or discernment to say, 'Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?' He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray; and he cannot deliver himself or say: 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'" (Isaiah 44:9-20).

All other gods are false gods, idols, abominations. Gods of wood, metal, and even the other invisible gods -- they are not God, the One God. Baal, Asherah, Moloch, Vishnu, Allah -- every other god besides the One True God, YHWH, are false gods, delusions, creations of vain minds, and inspirations of demons. We believe in the One True God of the Bible.

Our God is "the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God" (I Timothy 1:17a), "the only wise God" (Romans 16:27a), who makes all other gods foolish, the folly of fools, fables and fairytales. No other god is really God, but the One True God.

"Righteous are you, O YHWH" (Jeremiah 12:1a) -- He is the God of Justice. He is the Only Good God (Matthew 19:17) and "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17).

This is our God. This is the One God. This is the God we affirm in the doctrine of the Trinity. This is the God of the Bible.

"We believe with all our heart, and confess with the mouth, that there is one only simple and spiritual Being, which we call God; and that He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good" (Article 1).

Let us pray:
Almighty and Only God, we thank You that You let us know You through Your Creation and Your Word. We thank You for being a God Who does not change, but always was and always will be, good, holy, perfect, wise, just -- a greater God than we could ever imagine or create. Keep us from being swayed by the false gods of other religions and by the gods that we create in our lives against You. You are Merciful and our Only Hope, so it is we can pray in Jesus' Name, Amen.