It's a great question, and we get it a lot. Can I only be saved if I comprehend the Trinity? And if so, how much of the Trinity must make sense to me? The complexity of our triune God, of course, leads to this question from many listeners, including one named Paul.

"Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the podcast. What happens to the people who trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ but do not have a clear grasp of the Trinity? Are they saved? What degree of clarity in this life must one reach about the Trinity to affirm one's true understanding of and trust in the God of the Bible?" Pastor John, what would you say to him and to the many others asking this same question?

First, let's provide, because I think this is just a golden opportunity for help to lots of folks who believe it and are not sure what they believe. So I want to take the opportunity to provide a brief introduction to the biblical teaching that God exists as Father, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each of them a person, each of them God, but each of them comprising one divine essence, one God, not three gods.

When Jesus was asked, "Which is the most important commandment?" He began his answer in Mark 12 29 by reaffirming the ancient Jewish belief in monotheism, one God, monotheism. From Deuteronomy 6 4, he said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Those are the words of Jesus quoting Deuteronomy.

So Christians are not, nor ever have been, polytheists. We don't believe in multiple gods, like the ancient Greeks had their pantheon of gods. We're not like that. As Jesus comes into the world, we have this revelation from him and from his apostles that goes like this. John 1 verse 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Amazing.

With God and was God. Verse 14, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son." So the word "Word" changes to "Son." Now we know we're talking about a divine Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

And then he gets a name in verse 17, "This grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Oh my goodness, those are important words. So from the beginning, there was God, and there was the Word who became flesh in Jesus Christ. And from the beginning, that Word was God, and the Word was with God.

So Jesus Christ is the God-man, God in flesh, the one who was God and came into flesh. And though he was God from all eternity, he was also with God from all eternity. Now these are the kinds of texts from which is built the doctrine of the Trinity. We have God the Father, and we call him that, the Father, because in chapter 1 verse 14, it says that the Word became flesh as the Son from the Father.

And we have the Word co-eternal with the Father, who is called the Son. So right here in John 1 verses 1 to 17, we have God the Father and God the Son, one God in two persons. Then we have the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, Matthew 3.16.

The Spirit of God was descending on him like a dove, and he's called the Spirit of God's Son, Galatians 4.6. So if the Spirit is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son of God, and if God is God and the Son is God, then the Spirit is God, if the Spirit is a distinct person from the Father and the Son, which clearly he is in the way Jesus talks about him in John 14 and 15.

For example, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you, John 14.26. Or here's John 15.26. When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

Now that's the way you talk about a person, not an influence. So these are some of the biblical building blocks of the doctrine of the Trinity, and there are many, many more. Now the question Paul is asking in this episode of Ask Pastor John is, what degree of clarity in this life must a person have about the Trinity to affirm their true understanding of and trust in the God of the Bible?

Now here's the way I want to try to answer this question. Let's take the first letter of John, for example. What we can see in this letter is a backdrop of some heretical teachings which determine what aspects of Christ's nature are required for the congregation to believe. That's why it's so relevant for Paul's question.

And it appears that what is being emphasized in this first letter of John is both the deity and the earthy incarnation of the deity of the Son of God. Both are necessary, in other words, to believe, to know about, and to distance yourself from the false teachers who are disputing these things.

And the point that I'm drawing out is that what we need to embrace about the Trinity or any doctrine, what we need to embrace explicitly or reject explicitly about the nature of Christ is often determined by what is being denied in our milieu, in our church, in the neighborhood where we live, or what is being falsely affirmed around us.

In other words, I don't know of any way to describe in the abstract which precise contours of the Trinity one must be clear about in order to be saved. Rather, it seems to me from 1 John, as an example, and elsewhere, that we need to be authentic enough in our grasp of Christ's reality that when false things are said about him the authenticity of our faith recognizes those things and pushes them away rather than embracing them.

So let me give an example from 1 John. Here's chapter 4, verse 9. "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." Chapter 4, verse 15. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him.

So you need to know that. Or chapter 5, verse 10. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself, and whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Or John 5, 11. This is the testimony that God gave us eternal life. This life is in his Son.

Or one more, verse 13 of chapter 5. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." So it seems to me all of those verses stress the necessity of knowing Jesus as the Son of God, which is John's language for God the Son.

And then you read this in chapter 4, verse 2. "By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." Now there the emphasis shifts from the deity, the Sonship of Christ, to his nitty-gritty, earthy coming in the flesh, his incarnation.

So in John's situation, where these truths are being challenged, they have to be confessed and believed. So here's my suggestion. My suggestion is that what 1 John shows us is that authentic saving faith is of such a nature that when false views of Christ's deity and false views of Christ's humanity are taught in the church, that authentic saving faith smells a rat and will at least have a big question mark and will go to the Scriptures and search out the truth and believe it.

So the practical implication of this for our life and our teaching, our families, our churches, is that we not spend too much time trying to discern what is minimally necessary to believe about the Trinity, but rather devote a lot of our time to helping all believers have authentic, well-informed, biblically grounded faith in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, who are one God in three persons.

Glorious. Amen. Thank you, Pastor John, for walking us through this incredibly important question. And thank you to everyone who is listening today, even with all the disruptions in this crazy year. It has been an insane year. Ministry for us has been full throttle in 2020. In fact, it feels like the Lord has given us even more work to do this year in addressing the pandemic, particularly with the international launch of Pastor John's book, Coronavirus and Christ.

We invested tens of thousands of dollars to get that timely book translated and distributed around the world, working to make it available free of charge in 30 different languages, including American Sign Language. And at a time when so many organizations are slashing budgets and scaling back what they do, we are actually spending more money than ever to freely give away the best news in the world, the truth of our triune God and the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection for sinners.

And all of our ministry, all of it, the website, the books from Pastor John, and of course this podcast, all of it is possible because God continues to raise up generous ministry partners around us. People who just regularly pray for us and who donate to support all of our work.

If that's you, thank you for your partnership. We can't do it without you. I know a bunch of ministry partners listen to this podcast, and I wish I could say thank you to each and every one of you. And hopefully at donor retreats, I will be able to do that more and more.

If this is not you, maybe you've been a listener to the podcast or a reader of the website for a while, or maybe you've downloaded free books from Pastor John or watched our YouTube videos and you've been blessed by the content our partners have made free of charge to you in the past.

And now maybe you want to become someone who will now make those resources available to a new generation who will experience all of Pastor John and Desiring God's content free of charge for themselves. If that's you, now is a great time to join us as our fiscal year ends in a few days at the end of June and our new fiscal year begins in July.

And we are dreaming about all the things we want to make, the new resources to come in the year ahead, and the new audiences we want to reach as well. You can join us today by going online to DesiringGod.org/donate. That's DesiringGod.org/donate. Pastor John and I thank you, and we will see you back here on Monday.

you