River Church NOLA
2026 Aug 2 The Trinity
  • I Am Free
  • The Way
  • Trust In God
  • How Great Is Our God

  • Why the Trinity is Not Up for Negotiation

    Intro

    The Trinity: The Doctrine Everyone Confesses & Nobody Defends

    Probably everyone of us in this room has repeated it at one time or another… in a creed, at a baptism, in a benediction. Father Son and Holy Spirit. We say those words like a zip code… accurately, automatically, and without thinking about them once.
    Now let me ask you a harder question.
    Two weeks ago a man knocked on your door. He had a magazine in his hand and a kind of smile on his face and he asked you where the word Trinity appears in your Bible.
    What did you say?
    Let the silence sink in…
    Here is what I suspect is true for most of us. We know that we believe in the Trinity. But far fewer of us could show someone why we believe in the Trinity… from the Bible, in our own words, without reaching for a book off the shelf.
    This is what I hope to fix this morning.
    There are three basic groups of people who will press you on the doctrine of the Trinity. They are not hypothetical, and they are not far away. They live on your street and may be in your families.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses say Jesus was created.

    He is the first and greatest of all creations, but he was a creation none the less. Only begotten means uniquely created by God. They believe that in his pre-human existence that he was the archangel Michael. He was the only creation of God because Jesus created everything else. They do not believe that Jesus is God… that He is co-eternal or co-equal with God.

    Oneness Pentecostals (Jesus only)

    JW’s give you too little Jesus, Oneness give you too much… in a way. Jesus is the whole Godhead. God is one person wearing three masks at three different times in history. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three manifestations or roles of theone God - Jesus. Jesus is the FAther, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus prayers are Jesus’s human nautre praying to his divine nature… IOW, he is praying to himself. You must Baptize in Jesus name only (Acts 2:38) I’m not sure how they get around Jesus saying to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    Muslim & Unitarian people say you are worshiping three Gods.

    They will look you in the eye and tell you that while you claim to worship one God, they count three that we worship. Muslims will always say, there is no god but Allah. Allah is not God.
    Every one of these positions is held by these three groups, are held by intelligent, sincere, morally serious people who can quote Scripture at you faster than you can find the page. Sincerity is not what is at stake this morning. Accuracy is.
    So take some notes and let’s get at it. We want to do three things.
    We will state the doctrine of the Trinity precisely.
    We will prove it from the Biblical text.
    We will answer 4 objections you are most likely to hear.

    The Doctrine: What the Church Actually claims.

    It’s important to know what we are actually talking about when we talk about the Trinity. Here is the doctrine of the trinity in a sentence.

    God is one in essence and three in person. There is one God. That one God exists eternally as three distinct persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully and equally God. The persons are not each other. And none of the three is a part of God; each one is all of God.

    Read it 2 times…
    There are two words in that sentence that are carrying all the weight. The confusion in most Trinity conversations is a vocabulary problem, not a logic problem. Essence and person.

    Essence (ousia) answers what

    Essence answers the question of what God is. There is only one “what.” God is God.

    Person (hypostasis) answers who God is.

    There are three ‘who’s”
    The historic formula has never been “one God and three Gods” nor “one person and three persons.” Both of these are contradictions. The correct formula is one what and three whos. And those are different.
    A contradiction is "this circle is a square." A mystery is "this is a reality I can describe truly, but cannot exhaust." The Trinity is the second kind, a mystery. We are created. We should expect that the Creator runs past the edges of our categories and understanding. In fact I would put it the other way around:

    A God I could fully diagram on a napkin would be a God I had invented.

    Before we look at the Biblical texts, I want to handle the analogies. We have all used them but none of them is totally accurate. They actually teach a heresy… in a way.

    The Analogies don’t tell the whole Story.

    Water - ice, liquid, steam = modalism

    That’s one substance in three successive states. Water can’t be all three a the same time. This would mean that The Father would have to turn into the Son or to the Spirit. The ancient name for that is modalism which is one persons, three modes, one at a time.

    The Egg - shell, white, yoke = Partialism

    The problem is that an egg takes three parts adding up to one whole. That’s partialism which says the Father is 1/3 God. The Father is not 1/3 God. Jesus is not 1/3 God. HS is not 1/3 God. They are all 100% God.

    A man who is a father, a son, and an employee = modelism

    That is one person playing three rolls.

    The Sun - light, heat = Arianism

    Two emanations from the one real thing. This would make Jesus, the son, a derivative from a greater being making him a lesser being.

    Triangle - 3 sides = Partialism

    Three sides make up one triangle, but none of the sides is the whole triangle. Each is 1/3 of the whole, and Each person of the Godhead are fully, 100% God.
    The reason every analogy fails is not that we haven’t found the clever one yet. It is that there is nothing else in existence like God. He is unique. Analogies work by comparing the unfamiliar to the familiar — and there is no familiar case of one being, three persons, because there is only one God.
    So that’s the claim of the church, but is it in the Bible? I want to build you the doctrine brick by brick so you will know it and can use it.

    Three pillars - Building the Doctrine from the Text.

    8 min
    The Trinity is not one proof text. It is the only conclusion that holds three unbreakable Biblical claims together at the same time. We will call these the three pillars. If you pull anyone of them out, the whole thing collapses. These claims run throughout scripture and they cannot be true unless the Doctrine of the Trinity is True.

    Pillar 1 - There is only one God.

    2 min
    Christianity is not and will not negotiate on this. We are as monotheistic as Moses was.
    Deuteronomy 6:4 NLT
    4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
    Isaiah 44:6 NLT
    6 This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.
    Isaiah 45:5 NLT
    5 I am the Lord; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me,
    There are not three separate gods workng as a committee, there is only one God, Father, Son and HS.
    Just in case you think it changed in the NT,
    1 Timothy 2:5 NLT
    5 For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.
    Ephesians 4:4–6 NLT
    4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.
    When someone accuses you of worshipping three Gods, your first reaction is not defense. We agree that there is one God but then ask them to let you show them why you say what we say about Jesus.

    Pillar 2 - Three distinct persons each identified as that one God.

    4 min
    Most of us can agree that,

    The Father is God.

    John 6:27 NLT
    27 But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”
    1 Corinthians 8:6 NLT
    6 But for us, There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.
    John 3:16 NLT
    16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
    1 John 4:14 NLT
    14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
    Most of whomever you will run into will agree that the Father is God.

    The Son is God.

    This is where people get all goofy and disagree… it’s where the argument is fought. Why? Because the name Jesus is the name above all names… Let’s look at the Scriptures.
    John 1:1 NLT
    1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    John calls Jesus the WORD.
    “With God” is distinct so the Word (Jesus) is distinct from the one He was with.
    “Was God” and not a lesser being. Both in the same sentence. That verse alone will not allow you to be a Jehovah’s Witness or a Oneness Pentecostal.
    John 1:14 NLT
    14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
    Jesus, God the Son, was incarnated and became human. He already existed and became human without ceasing to be God. He experienced hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, temptation, grief and death, but remained sinless.
    John 20:28 NLT
    28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.
    Thomas puts his hand in Jesus side and worships him. Jesus does not rebuke him for worshipping Him. He accepts it. He rebukes him for is doubting.
    Colossians 2:9 NLT
    9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.
    Not part of the fullness - all of the fullness of God is in Jesus in a human body.
    John 10:30 NLT
    30 The Father and I are one.”
    John 14:9 NLT
    9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?
    Jesus is saying that He and the Father are one in essence and that He reveals the nature, character and glory of the Father.
    Hebrews 1:3 NLT
    3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
    Hebrews 1:8 NLT
    8 But to the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. You rule with a scepter of justice.
    That’s the Father addressing the Son as God.
    Titus 2:13 NLT
    13 while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.
    Paul calls Jesus our great God.
    John 8:58 NLT
    58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!”
    After he said this the crowd reached for stones to kill him because He just claimed to be God … the same as in the burning bush and they understood that.
    John 1:3 NLT
    3 God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.
    Colossians 1:16 NLT
    16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.
    Isaiah 44:24 NLT
    24 This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer and Creator: “I am the Lord, who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. Who was with me when I made the earth?
    He is saying that the Lord says he made all things, and unless Isaiah is wrong, Jesus is that Lord.
    Another thing about Jesus. Paul said,
    2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT
    21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
    Jesus died in our place, he was buried, and on the third day He rose from the dead. Because he was fully human, He could represent us. Because He was fully God, His sacrifice has saving power and He is the only bridge between sinful humanity and a holy God.
    Jesus is not one way among many ways, He is the only way. John 14:6
    John 14:6 NLT
    6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

    The Spirit is God.

    This is the one that too many people skip. He is not an impersonal force as many believe. He is the 3rd person of the Trinity.
    Acts 5:3–4 NLT
    3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. 4 The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”
    Peter treats the Holy Spirit as God. Lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. When you lie to Him, you lie to God.
    1 Corinthians 2:10–11 NLT
    10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
    Only God knows God’s mind. The Spirit knows God’s mind because He is God.
    Psalm 139:7 NLT
    7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
    Omnipresence is an attribute of God… only God is omnipresent.
    Hebrews 9:14 NLT
    14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.
    Only God is eternal.

    The Holy Spirit is a He, not an it. He teaches, He can be grieved, He decides and distributes.

    John 14:26 NLT
    26 But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
    Ephesians 4:30 NLT
    30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.
    1 Corinthians 12:11 NLT
    11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
    Forces are not grieved, persons are.

    Pillar 3 - The three are distinct from each other.

    2 min
    Each person of the Trinity is distinct from the other. The Trinity is not one person taking turns being either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
    Matthew 3:16–17 NLT
    16 After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
    At Jesus baptism all three persons are present at the same time. You have the Son in the water, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and the Father speaking from heaven. This one scene ends modalism. A man cannot be the voice, the dove and the one in the river at the same time.
    Matthew 28:19 NLT
    19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
    Jesus just put the Trinity on the front door of the church. Three persons - one God.
    2 Corinthians 13:14 NLT
    14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
    Paul’s benediction is Trinitarian and he doesn’t stop to defend it because He and the churches already knew this about 25 years after the Resurrection. The doctrine of the Trinity was firmly established by this time.
    John 14:16 NLT
    16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.
    Here Jesus refers to three distinct persons in one sentence with each one doing something different from the other.
    John 17:5 NLT
    5 Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.
    Jesus is referring to shared glory between Himself and the Father before creation.

    One God, Three persons with each fully God.

    Every word of the doctrine of the Trinity is the church refusing to drop any verse in order to make the others easier. We did not invent the Trinity. We are driven to it by the Text of Scripture.

    Four Objections Answered

    6 min

    1. The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible.

    That’s true and it’s irrelevant. Neither is incarnation, monotheism, omniscience or the rapture. Doctrinal vocabulary is shorthand for what the text actually teaches.
    Tertullian gave us trinitas around AD 200 not to add a doctrine but to have one word for a pattern already saturating the New Testament. The question is never whether a term appears in the concordance. It is whether the term summarizes the book accurately.

    2. Constantine invented it at the Council of Nicea in 325.

    This belief comes from novels and not from historians.

    Nicea did not vote on whether Jesus was God.

    The church already worshipped him as God for almost 3 centuries. Nicea debated about how to say it, against Arius, who taught that there was a time when Jesus, the son, didn’t exist.
    The vote wasn’t even close. Of roughly 300 Bishops, all but two signed the document.

    Pliny the Younger referred to Christians worshipping Jesus as God in 112.

    Pliny was a hostile governor in the Roman Empire and he wrote the Emperor Trajan in 112 that Christians were singing hymns to Christ as God. Thats 200 years before Constantine from a witness who would be considered a hostile witness.

    3. Jesus said the Father is greater than He is.

    Arian or Jehovah’s Witness
    Here are the texts they try to use.
    The Father is greater than Jesus.
    John 14:28 NLT
    28 Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am.
    The Son dos not know the day or hour of his return…
    Mark 13:32 NLT
    32 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.
    Firstborn
    Colossians 1:15 NIV84
    15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
    He called out to His Father as His God
    John 20:17 NLT
    17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
    Let’s look at some answers to these verses.

    The incarnation

    Philippians 2:6–7 NLT
    6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,
    Note that Paul says, though He was God and that He gave up His privileges. Set aside is probably a better translation here. He didn’t set aside his deity. Jesus speaks from inside a real human life he genuinely took on. Limitation in his humanity is not inferiority in his nature.

    “Firstborn” is a rank, not a birth certificate.

    In Hebrew usage of the firstborn is the heir with supreme status.
    David writes that God says,
    Psalm 89:27 NLT
    27 I will make him my firstborn son, the mightiest king on earth.
    and David was the 8th among eight brothers. Look at Col 1:16
    Colossians 1:16 NLT
    16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.
    Then…
    Colossians 1:16 NLT
    16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.
    He is not the first thing on the created list, He is the creator of everything. He is the reason their is a list. Without Jesus there is no list because He wrote the list.

    4. “Then you worship 3 Gods.” It’s mirror image, God is one person in three modes.

    Muslims, Unitarians and Oneness believe this.
    This objection is coming from opposite sides at once but both are answered by the same answer.
    Remember - one essence, three persons. These are not contradictions.

    To the Tritheism charge, we do not say there are 3 Gods. Three persons share one indivisible divine nature completely.

    Each one is not 1/3 God. Each one of the persons is fully God.

    To the Modelist claim, Jesus didn’t pray to himself when he prayed.

    Matthew 3:16–17 “16 After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”” All three persons of the Godhead are present at the same time. In John 17:5 “5 Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.” Jesus was not praying to himself.
    A mode doesn’t pray to itself. If Modelism is true, it carries consequences. The Cross is the Father dying to satisfy himself. And Gethsemane is a man talking to himself.

    Why it matters. No Trinity, No Gospel.

    You may be thinking OK, that all makes sense, but how does this help me tomorrow?

    1. Your salvation requires it.

    Only God can bear the infinite weight of sin. Only a human can stand in humanity’s place. If Jesus is a creation, no matter how exalted, the Cross become a tragedy and not an atonement. Heb 9:14 puts all three person of the Trinity at the Cross. Heb 9:14
    Hebrews 9:14 NLT
    14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.
    Father Son and Spirit at the Cross. Our rescue is a rescue that the whole Godhed accomplishes.

    2. Your worship depends on it.

    Isaiah 42:8 NLT
    8 “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to anyone else, nor share my praise with carved idols.
    That’s the Father talking but in Rev 5:13
    Revelation 5:13 NLT
    13 And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang: “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.”
    If Jesus is not God, then heaven is committing Idolatry. And so are we every Sunday. There is no middle position here.

    3. Your prayer life runs on it.

    Paul wrote in Eph 2:18
    Ephesians 2:18 NLT
    18 Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.
    Every prayer we have ever prayed has the Trinity involved. We pray to the Father through the Son and by the Spirit.
    Galatians 4:6 NLT
    6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”
    When we become saved, we become his children and we have been living the trinity ever since. God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

    4. It tells you what God is like at the deepest level.

    1 John 4:8 NLT
    8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
    Consider what that requires. Love needs an object. A solitary God could not have been loving before creation — he would have needed us in order to become loving, which makes God dependent on the world he made.
    But the Christian God has been Father loving Son in the joy of the Spirit for all eternity. John 17:24
    John 17:24 NLT
    24 Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!
    God didn’t create us because He was lonely. He created us out the overflow of His love. And when we accept him as our Lord and Savior, he is not recruiting us to be a servant, he is bringing us into q love that existed before anything was created.
    Wrap Up
    So now when that knock comes at the door, you are not being asked to explain the Trinity. Nobody can adequately do that. You are being asked to to sho it’s there. Three persons, each fully God. Truly distinct.
    Lt’s pray this together.
    2 Corinthians 13:14 NLT
    14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
    Maybe you are here and you a skeptic… you don’t understand the trinity, you don’t have to fully understand it. Come anyway.
    Maybe you are here and you are already a Believer. Learn this doctrine.
    For all you worshippers, make sure to sing with your eyes on the ONE we are worshipping.
    One last thing we need to do.

    Know the Father; Trust the Son; Walk in the Spirit; and Worship God with wonder.

    Prayer time

      • Deuteronomy 6:4NLT

      • Isaiah 44:6NLT

      • Isaiah 45:5NLT

      • 1 Timothy 2:5NLT

      • Ephesians 4:4–6NLT

      • John 6:27NLT

      • 1 Corinthians 8:6NLT

      • John 3:16NLT

      • 1 John 4:14NLT

      • John 1:1NLT

      • John 1:14NLT

      • John 20:28NLT

      • Colossians 2:9NLT

      • John 10:30NLT

      • John 14:9NLT

      • Hebrews 1:3NLT

      • Hebrews 1:8NLT

      • Titus 2:13NLT

      • John 8:58NLT

      • John 1:3NLT

      • Colossians 1:16NLT

      • Isaiah 44:24NLT

      • 2 Corinthians 5:21NLT

      • John 14:6NLT

      • Acts 5:3–4NLT

      • 1 Corinthians 2:10–11NLT

      • Psalm 139:7NLT

      • Hebrews 9:14NLT

      • John 14:26NLT

      • Ephesians 4:30NLT

      • 1 Corinthians 12:11NLT

      • Matthew 3:16–17NLT

      • Matthew 28:19NLT

      • 2 Corinthians 13:14NLT

      • John 14:16NLT

      • John 17:5NLT

      • John 14:28NLT

      • Mark 13:32NLT

      • Colossians 1:15NLT

      • John 20:17NLT

      • Philippians 2:6–7NLT

      • Psalm 89:27NLT

      • Colossians 1:16NLT

      • Colossians 1:16NLT

      • Hebrews 9:14NLT

      • Isaiah 42:8NLT

      • Revelation 5:13NLT

      • Ephesians 2:18NLT

      • Galatians 4:6NLT

      • 1 John 4:8NLT

      • John 17:24NLT

      • 2 Corinthians 13:14NLT

River Church NOLA
robert@riverchurchnola.com
504-578-8317
https://riverchurchnola.com
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