Well, we come now to the preaching of God's word,
and we're going to do so from 2 Corinthians chapter
13 verse 14. Now. For those of you who are here
this morning or may who you may have tuned in
online, but you know that this morning's reading
was quite long. This evening we have a shorter
reading, but we will be. Still in many other
scriptures. So just one verse tonight 2nd Corinthians
13 14 and as I said, we're talking about the
Trinity and so we'll see this within this passage
Hb Charles said of this passage that it's beautifully
stated Theologically rich and spiritually comprehensive
and surely you will agree and so here this reading
of God's inspired word The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit be with you all. The classic
way of describing the Trinity would be to understand
that there are three persons of one substance
equal in power and glory. You have God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now, I
have heard some preachers and teachers say that
when you preach a sermon, you got to have three
points. And the reason for the three points is
because of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. And that always made me laugh because
when you examine the preaching of Jesus or of
Paul or of Peter, they don't have those three
points. Nevertheless, tonight, we will have three
points. based on the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. And so tonight, we're looking at
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
And so let's begin with the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the way in which I want to
begin would be to highlight an error, an error
in thinking about the Trinity. And the error,
I've mentioned this before, the error is called
modalism. You may have heard of this. Modalism
was, is a heresy that says God is not three persons
in one, but rather that God is one person who
changes maybe. You could say hats or masks. He
performs different jobs and he does so as Father,
as Son and Holy Spirit, but he's not eternally
these persons. This is. the way that they would
understand this. A motorist would say, well,
when God needs to redeem people, he puts on his
son hat. And when he wants to come at Pentecost,
he puts on the Holy Spirit hat. And when he creates
the heavens and the earth, he puts on his creator
hat. Right? On and on and on. To combat this
erroneous and heretical teaching, there was a
North African theologian named Tertullian. Tertullian
around the year 200 gave us this very helpful
way to think about the Trinity, that the Trinity
is one in essence, three in person. One essence,
three persons. And this makes sense, because
the word Trinity is from the word triune, to
emphasize the three in one. The word can actually
be broken up into two parts. Trinity can be broken
up into tri, three, and unity. One, although
God has always been triune, there was never a
point in God's existence. He has always existed,
but there's never been a point when he was not
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, Tertullian
is credited with giving us the terminology. Now,
to combat this heresy, we look at passages like
the one we're looking at tonight that are clearly
Trinitarian. And we must recognize this, that
the Trinity is a critical, crucial doctrine.
And yet if you just look at one text here and
one text there, you might find yourself a little
bit confused or not fully understanding the Trinity.
The very fact is that the doctrine of the Trinity
is from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. The doctrine
of the Trinity is underneath every other doctrine
of the Bible. And so we do not need to just jump
around and look for the word Trinity. As many
have mentioned, if you try and look for the English
word Trinity in the Bible, you will not find
it. But you do find the truth of the Trinity
located across all of the pages of Scripture.
And so we ought not read the Bible like a concordance.
A concordance is a useful tool that helps you
locate doctrines and verses. But I don't know
anybody who reads the accordance what we need
to do to develop a fully formed understanding
of the Trinity to read our Bibles Again looking
at this passage you have all three persons listed
there But interestingly enough Paul gives this
benediction that begins with the grace of Christ
Now if you're like me You'd probably think well
Don't you think Paul should begin with the love
of God? Shouldn't it start with God? Why does
he begin with the grace of Jesus Christ? Well,
this is probably speculation, but I think it
makes sense that what Paul is doing here is blessing
the Corinthians with the order of salvation.
This is not the order of God's decrees through
redemptive history, but rather it's a hyper condensed
version of the converted life, the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It reminds us that not a single
one of us here or anywhere comes to God upon
our own merits. None of us can earn salvation.
It's completely a gift, isn't it? Well, actually
what we really would earn then would be punishment,
eternal punishment. but for the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, who lived perfectly
without sin, and he lived for us. He lived for
people who have two big sin problems. Here are
two big sin problems. One, original sin inherited
from Adam, who is our representative head. We
have all fallen in sin along with Adam. And so
none of us starts out with a clean slate. None
of us is neutral. We all are conceived in sin.
Further, though, the second part of our big sin
problem is that we struggle with our own sins,
our own personal transgressions. The Confession
says we sin daily in thought, word, and deed.
And so what we need is the grace of Jesus Christ
to come and provide us with His righteousness.
You see, the entire Trinity is at work in our
salvation. And the Trinity is grace, but grace
works through Christ so that those who merit
eternal punishment are given His righteousness
and eternal blessedness. And Paul loves to Benedict
in this way, if I can use that as a verb. Paul
loves to conclude his letters with the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's there in 1 Thessalonians
chapter five. It's there in Galatians chapter
six. It's there in 1 Corinthians 16 and it's
there in Romans 16. Paul loves to speak of the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's our
good starting point for us. We start with the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ before we move
into the love of God. Because you cannot experience
the love of God if you've not experienced the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we are regenerated
at this point, we really experience God's love.
Now it is true there is such a thing as common
grace, theologians like to talk about common
grace, that the rain falls on the just. and the
unjust. But the unjust do not experience the
love of being in relationship with God the Father.
The unjust do not experience the Father's love.
As sons and daughters of him, 1 John 3 .1 says
it the best. See what kind of love the Father
has given to us that we should be called children
of God. And so we are. The love of God does this.
Or what about this scripture? And this is love.
not that we have loved God, but that He loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins. When He has poured out His love on
such a child, nothing at all can separate the
believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
This is communicated in Romans 8. I was in Romans
8 this morning. Let's go back there now for one
of the most glorious pictures of God's love,
Romans 8. I'll read 38 and 39. For I am sure
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation will be able to separate
us from what? The love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord. Isn't that amazing? You are loved by
the one true God. You are loved by the God who
created all that is. He pours his love out on
you. All of us have this deep need to be loved,
right? You are loved by the one who personifies
love. And God doesn't love you because you are
lovable. God loves you because he is loved. That's
what 1 John 4 8 says, God is love. And so he
loves you perfectly. So you are saved by Christ.
God pours out his love upon you. And then you
get the incredible result of these things. You
get fellowship with the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is the glue that binds all of this together.
us together with God and one with another. And
the Holy Spirit is just as real as the Father
and the Son. The Holy Spirit is no it. The Holy
Spirit is a person, equal in power and glory,
just as there is only one Son who saves by His
grace and one Father who pours out His Son and
His Spirit. So there is one Holy Spirit indwelling
in all who believe in Jesus, who are elect in
God. With his indwelling with this fellowship.
We are united to one another into the entirety
of the Godhead I don't remember who said it but
but somebody said recently the fellowship with
the Holy Spirit is fellowship with heaven And
so you see what the Holy Spirit does he binds
us to God The entire Trinity then is involved
in your salvation such that you don't get what
you deserve, but you get God, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. And as we highlight the three members
of the Trinity, we must see there's perfect unity
in the Trinity. This is shown in several scriptures,
like when Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've
seen the Father. In other words, you do not have
the Son without the Father, and you do not have
the Father without the Son, and it's the same
for the Spirit. 1 John chapter 4. Again, by this
we know that we abide in Him and He in us because
He has given us of His Spirit. The Holy Spirit
seals us into salvation and consequently fellowship
with God. These things and so many more verses
show us that the Trinity is perfectly united
and that the members of the Trinity do perform
unique tasks And yet the confession says they
are co -eternal. So there is no hierarchy Within
the Godhead Father Son and Holy Spirit are equally
divine, but not everybody has believed this if
you know your church history you know this has
been a thing throughout the centuries, especially
going back to the first ecumenical council, Nicaea,
in 325. There was a group of so -called Christians
called Aryans, and they were causing quite a
stir within the church. They denied the divinity
of Jesus, saying he was a lesser god than the
father. And what the Aryans would do, is that
they would antagonize the Christians, the Trinitarians,
and they would do so in song. The Aryans loved
to make up songs to pastor the Christians, but
the Christians came up with their own song, too.
And I think you know the song because we sang
it this morning. The Gloria Patri, glory be to
the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
as it was in the beginning. is now and ever shall
be world without end. Amen. This was the fight
song of the Christians against the Aryans. They
were fighting for the truthfulness of the Trinity
presented in the scriptures. It's their fight
song. And so remember, the next time you sing
that song, just sing it like a fight song. Sing
it with great gusto. Now, sadly, it's not just
that the Trinity was attacked centuries ago,
but the Trinity is still under attack today.
Groups that call themselves Christians who deny
the Trinity. Unitarians and universalists do
this, as well as some cults. So you see Christian
theology, Trinitarianism has always been at the
forefront of Christian thought, and there's good
reason for this. Because Christianity is the
Trinity. Christianity is the Trinity. just as
no other world religion has God taking on flesh
to dwell with people. No other world religion
has the Trinity, the three in one. It's simply
too wonderful and it's too high to conceive on
our own, which is why I think that illustrations
to convey the Trinity always fall short. They
usually fall into heresy. Perhaps you've heard
of some of the analogies that people have used
to communicate the Trinity. Anyone ever heard
of the Trinity described like the states of water,
liquid, solid, and gas? What's wrong with that?
Well, because the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are always Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
They don't morph into other states. They are
all co -eternal. the illustration that uses a
person that would say, well, I'm a father, I'm
a son, and I'm a husband, and therefore three
in one. Well, that's just putting on those different
hats. That's just modalism. Or since we just
had St. Patrick's Day, what about the three -leaf
clover? Have you heard that one? What's wrong
with that? Well, it makes God into parts, right?
But God is not made up of parts. God is made
up of persons. And so we should believe in the
Trinity not because of some silly illustration.
And we should believe in the Trinity not just
because Tertullian, Athanasius, Augustine, Luther,
Calvin, Owen, B .B. Warfield, Edwards, or anybody
else said it. We should believe in the Trinity
because the Trinity is true. God is three in
one, Father, Son. Holy Spirit. Take our verse
for this evening. It's the last verse in 2nd
Corinthians, isn't it? Now this is really interesting,
because if you were to comb through 1st and 2nd
Corinthians, you will not find a fully formed
doctrine of the Trinity in those two books. You
won't. Other doctrines are fully formed within
these two letters of Paul, such as the Lord's
Supper. Paul treats that in 1 Corinthians 11.
You can really see that, but not so with the
Trinity. And so why does Paul end this letter
with a Trinitarian statement when he's not been
speaking about the Trinity as much throughout?
I think the reason is this, because it's presupposed.
It's pre -supposed. The church at Corinth has
its issues. They had a lot of issues. But they
knew of the triunity of the God, of God. This
is why he's able to conclude this letter in this
Trinitarian way. Because they already knew of
the Trinity. And you'll find that throughout
the New Testament. That the Trinity is spoken
of as if people already know about this. They
already know about this because it's true. They
know, they know that Jesus, at his baptism, had
God say, this is my beloved son in whom I am
well pleased, and they knew that the Holy Spirit
descended like a dove and rested upon Jesus.
They knew that Jesus sent out his disciples on
the Great Commission, including the words of
a Trinitarian baptism. The earliest Christians
knew of God's triunity, and so my question for
you tonight is do you? Do you know the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit? This is for you.
Look at the last words of the verse. The last
words in the English are you all. The Trinity
is for you all. the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with you all. A blessing upon everyone
who is in Christ loved by God and indwelt by
the Holy Spirit. This is a benediction for you
from the triune God. Now let me not move on from
this without speaking about what a benediction
is. We have a benediction in every worship service
so we should know what it is. A benediction is
not a prayer, but a benediction is a pronouncement
of God's blessing, founded in truths by God.
And this one here is a favorite because it's
a blessing of the entire Godhead upon believers.
It's a good word placed upon believers. And in
this case, it's a good word about the entire
Trinity. And so with our remaining time considering
the Trinity, Let's think for a moment. How can
we further appreciate and know the triune God?
How can we know him better? It's key to know
that the Bible is Trinitarian, so just kind of
three points of application. We need to read
the Bible Trinitarianly. We need to see Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit all the way from the beginning
cover to the end cover. The doctrine of the Trinity
is underneath every other doctrine within Scripture,
and so we need to read the Bible Trinitarianly.
We also need to pray Trinitarianly, and by that
I mean we need to recognize that all of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are involved in
prayer. We pray to God, but do we not also know
that Jesus lives to intercede for us? Of course
we do. We also know that the Holy Spirit helps
our prayers on the way up with those groanings
too deep for words. And so yes, all of the Godhead
is involved in prayer. And then lastly, we know
the triune God as we worship him. We must worship
trinitarianly. When the first commandment says,
you shall have no other gods before me, we must
remember positively. that the one that we worship
is triune and therefore all of our praise goes
to Father, to Son, and to Holy Spirit.