The Trinity: The Unity and Oneness of God

The Trinity: The Unity and Oneness of God by Dr. Gary S. Linton

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The trinity is one of the most important and foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. It is extremely important that we be well equipped and versed in what we believe concerning this doctrine.

Dr. Walter Martin said that cults twist the majority of Christians into doctrinal pretzels because we know what we believe, but not why. Peter said, “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). We are admonished to “Contend (fight) for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).

The term “trinity” is not mentioned in the Bible. It was first used in the second century to describe the Godhead, which is a biblical term (Colossians 2:9, Romans 1:20). So trinity is merely another word to describe the Godhead. The planet Jupiter existed before it was ever named. Therefore, just because the term trinity came along later, doesn’t make it any less valid.
For more information about the trinity read The Trinity: One God, Three Persons and Illustrations and Examples of the Trinity.

Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Lord is Yahweh in the original and is singular. On the other hand, Elohim is plural for God. It could read, “Yahweh (singular) our Elohim (plural) is one Yahweh (singular).” This is referring to the oneness of God, but it also refers to plurality. There is no other way to properly explain this other than the trinity.

There is only one God.

There is only one God that we worship and serve. There are not many gods, but only one true and living God. The following scriptures make this fact abundantly clear:

• “Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
• “So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me” (Isaiah 43:10).
• “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me” (Isaiah 44:6).
• “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).
• “There is none like You, and there is no God besides You” (2 Samuel 7:22).
• “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
• “There is no God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4).

God is a compound unity.

God is a compound rather than an absolute unity. There are plenty of places in scripture where God is speaking in the plural:

• “Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
• “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:22).
• “Come, let Us go down” (Genesis 11:7).
• “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” (Isaiah 6:8).

The following prophecy refers to each member of the trinity (Godhead) within the verse:
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

Notice how the pronouns are interchanged or intermingled in the verse “I will,” “They will look upon Me,” “They will mourn for Him,” and “They will weep bitterly over Him”. The wording here can only be explained by viewing it as the compound unity of the Godhead.

Let’s look at a few examples of compound unity in other things. Remember, no illustration is perfect, it merely sheds light on the subject. A wise man of ancient Greece once said, “Every illustration limps.” The following examples will help bring understanding to the composite unity of the Godhead (trinity). They will help us see this doctrine as a composite rather than a solitary unity.
Marriage. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24, Mark 10:8). Obviously, Adam didn’t become Eve, but they became as one before God.

A cluster of grapes. “Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men” (Numbers 13:23-24). Moses sent twelve men to spy out the promise land and bring back samples of what the land had to offer. They brought back one cluster of grapes that was so large they had to carry it on a pole between two men. It was one cluster of grapes, clinging from the same stem, and drawing it’s life from the same source. There were many grapes within the one cluster.

A group of people. A group often says they “stand as one” in time of crisis, to defend themselves, to protest, or to fulfill some purpose:

• “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same (one) language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6).
• It was said of the early church, “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart” (Acts 2:46).
• On September 11, 2001 America was attacked on it’s own soil and our entire nation came together as one like few other times in history.

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God is Able

God is Able

by Dr. Gary S. Linton

Do you believe God can do anything? Is there something you’re facing that makes you wonder if God is able to handle it? There are five accounts in the Bible where God declared that nothing is too difficult for Him.

When Confronting Abraham about Sarah’s Laughter and Unbelief

Abraham was entertaining three persons who appeared to him (God appearing in human form) and they gave him the promise of having a son. Abraham and Sarah were advanced in age and way past child bearing age.

I assume she had already gone through menopause. It was impossible for them to have a child in the natural. Sarah heard the promise from her tent door and laughed. And the Lord said, “Is anything too difficult for the LORD” (Genesis 18:14)?

Is there something you feel God has promised you that seems impossible? It may be so outlandish that if you told someone they would laugh. God’s question for you today is the same question He asked Abraham, “Is anything too difficult for the LORD” (Genesis 18:14)?

In Relation to God’s Purposes Being Fulfilled

In the midst of all his trouble, trials and testings, Job said, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You” (Job 42:2). What are you presently going through? What trial or time of testing are you facing? Do you believe God can do anything, and that nothing can thwart His purposes from being fulfilled?

It’s one thing to believe in God’s ability when all is well, but quite another when, like Job, you’ve lost everything and your world is falling apart.

When Comparing His Ability to His Creative Power

In contemplating the creation of the universe, Jeremiah wrote, “Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jeremiah 32:17).

If God was able to create the heavens and the earth with His spoken Word, could there possibly be anything that is to hard for Him?

When Dealing with Mary’s Astonishment that She Would Give Birth to the Son of God

Mary was engaged to be married, and unlike most today, she had never slept with her fiancé. An angel appeared to her, telling her she was going to give birth to a son. In her astonishment she said, “How can this be, since I am a virgin” (Luke 1:34)?

The Angel’s response was, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:35 and 37).

I love Mary’s response. It was one of faith. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Let’s respond to His promises in faith like this young women did.

When Dealing with the Impossibility of Man to Save Himself

Jesus had just finished ministering to the rich young ruler, who said he had kept all the commandments from his youth. Jesus told him he lacked one thing, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions” (Matthew 19:21-22).

Jesus went on to tell his disciples it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples responded, “Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26).

God is omnipotent and is able to do anything. No matter what you are going through or facing today, our God is able! It may seem impossible in the natural, but let me assure you on the authority of God’s Word, He is able.

I’m personally going through something right now that seems impossible. There have been times that the situation seemed dealt with, but the same thing continues to raise it’s ugly head over and over again.

I’m reminded of something I read in Dake’s Annotated Bible. “All men (Christians) believe God can do anything, but few believe He will.” Will we dare to believe God is not only able to work in our situation but that He will?

God is Able to: God is Able to Save

“Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). The word uttermost in the King James Version can also be translated, completely and forever.

God is able to save us completely and forever. No matter how messed up you are, or how far you’ve fallen into sin, God is able to save you completely and forever if you will surrender to Him with all your heart.

God is Able to Deliver Us

The three Hebrew children expressed confidence in God’s ability and said, “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king” (Daniel 3:17). They not only expressed faith in God’s ability, but that He would deliver them – “He will deliver us”.

God is able to deliver us from sin and peril. “He shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:26-27 KJV).

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).

God is Able to Heal

“The blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord” (Matthew 9:28). Jesus is still in the healing business. He is able to heal us from whatever ails us. Whether we are suffering physically, emotionally, from depression, mentally, mental illness or from some sin that has us in it’s grip. God is able to heal us.

The key is, will we let Him? Jesus said to a lame man, “Do you wish to get well” (John 5:6)? Do we really want to be made well? That was Jesus’ condition of healing and deliverance. Frequently, people hate their illness and sin, but they do not really want to be made whole.

For those whose lives have thrown them into intense bondage, there is something that is necessary on your part. You must give your life to Jesus. It’s usually the case of those who have sold out to sin that they must fully surrender to Christ with all their heart. It’s then that salvation, deliverance and complete wholeness comes into their life. On the authority of God’s Word, God is still in the business of saving, delivering and healing.

God is Able to Keep Us from Falling

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24). Once He has delivered us, God is more than able to keep us from falling into the same sins and traps that have held us in their grip. If we will cling to and hold onto Him, He will sustain us and keep us from stumbling.

God is Able to Keep Us from Temptation

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

When we are facing temptation on every front, God is able to deliver us and will provide a way of escape. We must, however, walk through the escape route He provides.

God is Able to Provide

“God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). The context of this verse is referring to financial provision. The key is, God is able to bless us financially so we can abound to every good work – and not just lavish it upon ourselves.

There are some who are reading these words that God has blessed abundantly. If you want to continue in His blessing, you must find an outlet for the blessings you have received. Find a reputable ministry and sow into it. God has blessed you for that very purpose, in order that you might be a blessing (Genesis 12:2).

If you don’t use some of your abundance to abound to every good work, God may take away that which you have. “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matthew 25:29). In closing, let me share a few encouraging verses from God’s Word:

“Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Ephesians 3:20).

“The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

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10 Reasons Your Church Needs Philemon

10 Reasons Your Church Needs Philemon
by: N. T. Wright

#1: Slavery has immediate connections to our world.

The slave Onesimus has probably run away; the slavemaster, Philemon, has probably been shamed (at least in the household); Philemon probably was also financially damaged. So we are looking at a slave who has offended the honor of a slavemaster. We are looking at a slave who is willing to return.

How Philemon treats his slave Onesimus puts the Christian gospel and Christian ethics on the line.

In our world, any situation where status differentials are at work is immediately addressed by Paul’s letter to Philemon.

In our world there are millions of slaves, and this letter tells Christians in cultures where there are slaves to fight for the brothers and sisters and to establish cultures where siblingship not slavery becomes the norm. (I have a long section in the book on modern slavery; this section was researched by Justin Gill, an assistant of mine.) We may not have slavery as some cultures today but we’ve got status differentials not unlike slavery.

Racism, white nationalism, populism, elitism, marginalization, power differential, economic privilege, economic power, political power … I could go on but I leave you to fill in the blanks. Paul’s letter to Philemon addresses each of these and many more situations.

What is Paul’s answer to the Philemon-Onesimus differential in status and power? “No longer a slave, better than a slave, a brother or a sibling.” That’s the Christian answer to these differentials: No longer! No longer equality, justice, eradication of status differentials by the Body of Christ in the Body of Christ and beyond!

#2: Power is perennially a problem.

This point is entailed in #1, but power itself deserves to be addressed. It is too easy to create a culture of power and authority that becomes a culture of authoritarianism and inequality and injustice. It is far harder to create a culture where power is surrendered for the good of the other. “No longer a slave, better than a slave, a sibling.” Power that is not used to create cultures of siblingship are not Christian cultures3.

Everything learned about power in our culture — well not everything but almost everything — is challenged by what the gospel teaches and announces as true in Christ: power is not Christian until it is power-for, power-with, and power-unto. Power is not Christian when it is coercive, forceful, and empire-building.

#3: Reconciliation is the message.

The slaveowner Philemon had options: he could punish Onesimus and in that punishment implicate any other slaves connected to Onesimus. He could diminish his status in a number of ways. Philemon could “bring justice” to use the language of so many in our culture.

What was Paul’s message? Welcome him as you would welcome me, he tells Philemon. Which means Paul wanted reconciliation: he wanted Philemon to welcome, to embrace, to forgive, to restore, and to reconcile. To start all over again, but no longer as a slave and no longer as a slaveowner. To start all over again as siblings — Paul, Philemon, Onesimus. Three brothers, not three levels of power or hierarchy.

#4 Decision is the implication.

What is perhaps most amazing about this letter, and what is most needful for churches today in reading and preaching and teaching this letter is this: Philemon is put into the corner of decision by Paul.

The audience who heard this letter publicly read would have been asking all along: “What will Philemon say? What will he do?” This isn’t a theoretical letter about pre-emancipation theories about slaves. This is a pastoral letter from an apostle, who refuses to claim his authority (and so models what he wants Philemon to do), to a co-worker named Philemon who ran a household and who had slaves and who had power.

Paul asks Philemon in front of everyone: “What’s your answer, Philemon?” Or better yet, “How Christian are you, man?” Or for the whole audience, “How gospel-shaped will your household be?”

#5 The way of the empire is not the way of Christ.

A striking flash of a new way of life is found in Philemon: the way of the empire was most likely the way of punishment — from beatings and diminishment and permanent scarring and life-long shackles to capital punishment.

The way of Christ is conversion, is gospel, is advocacy for the runaway by the apostle, is sending him back to Philemon for Philemon’s decision, is confessions and forgivenesses and embraces and and reconciliations. The way to undo injustice is not to strike back but to offer the healing graces of reconciliation.

#6 The church is the location of kingdom realities taking form.

I am unpersuaded this was Paul’s agenda for the Roman empire. It was well beyond his scope. What he had in mind was something smaller and something deeper: No longer a slave, better than a slave, a brother.

Paul thought the local church was the embodiment of the kingdom, kingdom space taking root in Colosse itself. In tangible ways. In concrete realities. In real relationships. In turning the way of the empire into the way of Christ the kingdom of God would become visible to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Paul is not trying to change Roman laws — and that would take centuries of moral failure and ethical vision for the church to see through slavery to the radical reality of “no longer a slave, better than a slave, a brother.”

But Paul did see that the church could be a different place; that the church could be kingdom space embodied.

#7 Churches need to perform the letter.

It’s too easy to preach a sermon on Philemon and move on to Hebrews or to move to another Bible book. It’s too easy to teach a course on slavery and then fill in details about Onesimus and Philemon.

Instead, I suggest this: read yourself full of what we know about slavery (my Introduction has a lengthy study of slavery) and then read yourself full of how letters were read in the ancient world, and then instead of forming talking points about Philemon create Philemon’s household all over again and march this letter into the congregation/housechurch and then read the thing. 

Get a Philemon to stand up in a corner; stand an Onesimus next to the reader, and call the letter reader Tychicus (our best guess); and don’t let the congregation sit there and take it in. Urge them to participate — to ooooh and aaaah and to ask questions aloud and to make comments from the peanut gallery and to express their opinions. First Century audiences didn’t sit like posh Christians in posh churches. They were minimally Pentecostal Amen-ers!

#8 Persuasion can be gentle.

Paul’s letter has an agenda: to get Philemon to welcome Onesimus back and to reconcile and perhaps even to send Onesimus back to Paul to support his gospel mission work. So he persuades.

Persuasive is the point. But Paul is subtle if not obvious to us: he pushes himself into Philemon’s presence and then backs off a bit, and then pushes back, and then gets emotional (I’m an old man, I’m in prison) and then pushes, and then says Don’t do this because I say so but out of love and Do this willingly and not out of duty and then, surprise of surprises, he says “Confident of your obedience.”

This back and forth, this pressure and letting up, this is gentle persuasion.

It’s all in Philemon’s lap, but Paul spells out the implications of the gospel and wants Philemon to get this right.

#9 An example of how to read a book in the Bible.

Philemon can be used to help people learn how to read a whole Bible book. Move then to a letter of John or to Jude or then to a shorter book like Philippians or Galatians then finally to Romans and Corinthians. Perhaps then on to a Gospel.

Reading each line in light of the whole book is possible for Philemon and it’s a good starting point for inductive Bible study methods. Also for historical context (study Roman slavery) and also for Paul’s house church movement of how they learned to live as Christians in an old institution: the house, the home, the family.

#10 A marginalized letter (appendix to Colossians) with a marginalized voice.

A slight beef: for a long time I’ve complained in classes that Philemon deserves to be more than an appendix to Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Which if you look at most commentary series it is.

It’s been a marginalized letter and that is sad because Philemon provides a marginalized voice: the voice of a slave who stands silently next to Tychicus as the letter is read. The whole time Onesimus is reading the response on Philemon’s face and all the other slaves in the household and cheering for Onesimus. The slave gets to be a character in the performance of this letter and he deserves a place in our churches too: this time, No longer as a slave, better than a slave, a brother.

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