Do I Need to Understand the Trinity to Be Saved?
Chapters
0:00:57 What are the three parts of the Holy Trinity?
00:00:00.000 | It's a great question, and we get it a lot.
00:00:06.680 | Can I only be saved if I comprehend the Trinity?
00:00:10.260 | And if so, how much of the Trinity must make sense to me?
00:00:13.520 | The complexity of our triune God, of course, leads to this question from many listeners,
00:00:18.420 | including one named Paul.
00:00:19.800 | "Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the podcast.
00:00:23.320 | What happens to the people who trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ but do not have
00:00:28.400 | a clear grasp of the Trinity?
00:00:30.920 | Are they saved?
00:00:32.920 | What degree of clarity in this life must one reach about the Trinity to affirm one's true
00:00:37.960 | understanding of and trust in the God of the Bible?"
00:00:43.400 | Pastor John, what would you say to him and to the many others asking this same question?
00:00:47.880 | First, let's provide, because I think this is just a golden opportunity for help to lots
00:00:54.260 | of folks who believe it and are not sure what they believe.
00:00:58.600 | So I want to take the opportunity to provide a brief introduction to the biblical teaching
00:01:04.800 | that God exists as Father, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each
00:01:11.760 | of them a person, each of them God, but each of them comprising one divine essence, one
00:01:22.160 | God, not three gods.
00:01:25.440 | When Jesus was asked, "Which is the most important commandment?"
00:01:30.080 | He began his answer in Mark 12 29 by reaffirming the ancient Jewish belief in monotheism, one
00:01:41.720 | God, monotheism.
00:01:44.420 | From Deuteronomy 6 4, he said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
00:01:54.200 | Those are the words of Jesus quoting Deuteronomy.
00:01:58.420 | So Christians are not, nor ever have been, polytheists.
00:02:03.860 | We don't believe in multiple gods, like the ancient Greeks had their pantheon of gods.
00:02:11.300 | We're not like that.
00:02:14.180 | As Jesus comes into the world, we have this revelation from him and from his apostles
00:02:22.600 | that goes like this.
00:02:23.820 | John 1 verse 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
00:02:34.780 | was God."
00:02:36.980 | Amazing.
00:02:38.860 | With God and was God.
00:02:42.140 | Verse 14, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory
00:02:49.300 | as of the only Son."
00:02:51.740 | So the word "Word" changes to "Son."
00:02:54.060 | Now we know we're talking about a divine Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
00:02:59.340 | And then he gets a name in verse 17, "This grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
00:03:05.380 | Oh my goodness, those are important words.
00:03:09.020 | So from the beginning, there was God, and there was the Word who became flesh in Jesus
00:03:17.860 | Christ.
00:03:18.860 | And from the beginning, that Word was God, and the Word was with God.
00:03:25.180 | So Jesus Christ is the God-man, God in flesh, the one who was God and came into flesh.
00:03:36.740 | And though he was God from all eternity, he was also with God from all eternity.
00:03:43.780 | Now these are the kinds of texts from which is built the doctrine of the Trinity.
00:03:52.900 | We have God the Father, and we call him that, the Father, because in chapter 1 verse 14,
00:04:01.060 | it says that the Word became flesh as the Son from the Father.
00:04:07.260 | And we have the Word co-eternal with the Father, who is called the Son.
00:04:13.980 | So right here in John 1 verses 1 to 17, we have God the Father and God the Son, one God
00:04:23.580 | in two persons.
00:04:26.820 | Then we have the Holy Spirit.
00:04:29.740 | And the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, Matthew 3.16.
00:04:35.820 | The Spirit of God was descending on him like a dove, and he's called the Spirit of God's
00:04:42.260 | Son, Galatians 4.6.
00:04:46.140 | So if the Spirit is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son of God,
00:04:55.460 | and if God is God and the Son is God, then the Spirit is God, if the Spirit is a distinct
00:05:04.660 | person from the Father and the Son, which clearly he is in the way Jesus talks about
00:05:12.580 | him in John 14 and 15.
00:05:15.100 | For example, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will
00:05:24.540 | teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you, John 14.26.
00:05:32.340 | Or here's John 15.26.
00:05:35.300 | When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,
00:05:42.220 | who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
00:05:48.220 | Now that's the way you talk about a person, not an influence.
00:05:53.980 | So these are some of the biblical building blocks of the doctrine of the Trinity, and
00:06:02.220 | there are many, many more.
00:06:04.300 | Now the question Paul is asking in this episode of Ask Pastor John is, what degree of clarity
00:06:13.060 | in this life must a person have about the Trinity to affirm their true understanding
00:06:22.500 | of and trust in the God of the Bible?
00:06:24.620 | Now here's the way I want to try to answer this question.
00:06:28.460 | Let's take the first letter of John, for example.
00:06:34.700 | What we can see in this letter is a backdrop of some heretical teachings which determine
00:06:43.500 | what aspects of Christ's nature are required for the congregation to believe.
00:06:50.140 | That's why it's so relevant for Paul's question.
00:06:53.300 | And it appears that what is being emphasized in this first letter of John is both the deity
00:07:00.980 | and the earthy incarnation of the deity of the Son of God.
00:07:08.500 | Both are necessary, in other words, to believe, to know about, and to distance yourself from
00:07:13.380 | the false teachers who are disputing these things.
00:07:17.140 | And the point that I'm drawing out is that what we need to embrace about the Trinity
00:07:23.860 | or any doctrine, what we need to embrace explicitly or reject explicitly about the nature of Christ
00:07:32.100 | is often determined by what is being denied in our milieu, in our church, in the neighborhood
00:07:41.760 | where we live, or what is being falsely affirmed around us.
00:07:46.420 | In other words, I don't know of any way to describe in the abstract which precise
00:07:55.540 | contours of the Trinity one must be clear about in order to be saved.
00:08:03.100 | Rather, it seems to me from 1 John, as an example, and elsewhere, that we need to be
00:08:11.060 | authentic enough in our grasp of Christ's reality that when false things are said about
00:08:20.540 | him the authenticity of our faith recognizes those things and pushes them away rather than
00:08:29.580 | embracing them.
00:08:30.860 | So let me give an example from 1 John.
00:08:34.180 | Here's chapter 4, verse 9.
00:08:35.900 | "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into
00:08:42.100 | the world so that we might live through him."
00:08:46.540 | Chapter 4, verse 15.
00:08:48.260 | Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him.
00:08:55.340 | So you need to know that.
00:08:57.100 | Or chapter 5, verse 10.
00:08:59.420 | Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself, and whoever does not
00:09:06.260 | believe God has made him a liar.
00:09:08.620 | Or John 5, 11.
00:09:10.300 | This is the testimony that God gave us eternal life.
00:09:14.220 | This life is in his Son.
00:09:17.940 | Or one more, verse 13 of chapter 5.
00:09:20.740 | "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may
00:09:27.900 | know that you have eternal life."
00:09:29.900 | So it seems to me all of those verses stress the necessity of knowing Jesus as the Son
00:09:38.220 | of God, which is John's language for God the Son.
00:09:43.860 | And then you read this in chapter 4, verse 2.
00:09:46.980 | "By this you know the Spirit of God.
00:09:50.680 | Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."
00:09:58.340 | Now there the emphasis shifts from the deity, the Sonship of Christ, to his nitty-gritty,
00:10:05.220 | earthy coming in the flesh, his incarnation.
00:10:09.500 | So in John's situation, where these truths are being challenged, they have to be confessed
00:10:16.820 | and believed.
00:10:18.880 | So here's my suggestion.
00:10:19.940 | My suggestion is that what 1 John shows us is that authentic saving faith is of such
00:10:29.880 | a nature that when false views of Christ's deity and false views of Christ's humanity
00:10:39.500 | are taught in the church, that authentic saving faith smells a rat and will at least have
00:10:48.980 | a big question mark and will go to the Scriptures and search out the truth and believe it.
00:10:57.720 | So the practical implication of this for our life and our teaching, our families, our churches,
00:11:06.440 | is that we not spend too much time trying to discern what is minimally necessary to
00:11:15.340 | believe about the Trinity, but rather devote a lot of our time to helping all believers
00:11:22.540 | have authentic, well-informed, biblically grounded faith in God the Father, God the
00:11:30.420 | Son, God the Holy Spirit, who are one God in three persons.
00:11:35.700 | Glorious.
00:11:36.700 | Amen.
00:11:37.700 | Thank you, Pastor John, for walking us through this incredibly important question.
00:11:42.380 | And thank you to everyone who is listening today, even with all the disruptions in this
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00:13:54.640 | Pastor John and I thank you, and we will see you back here on Monday.
00:13:58.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:14:06.980 | you