Join us as we explore the divine symphony of the Trinity—God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This episode promises to unravel centuries-old theological enigmas by examining scriptural passages and offering fresh insights into the complex relational nature of God. We’ll provide clarity and provoke thought on the indissoluble union within the Godhead, bringing you closer to understanding this sacred doctrine.
00:00:00 Introduction to the Doctrine of the Trinity
This is very hard for us to comprehend. How can God be one and yet be Father, Son and Holy Spirit? First, I want to say, God bless you. I love you. I hope you’re doing well today. I just want to pray for you. Father God, I want to thank you for these that you’ve given me to pray for today. Father, I want to thank you for your children. Father, I bless them today. I thank you for your love for us. Father, I just speak life and health over every one of these beloved ones of yours. Father, we worship you and we praise you. We declare that Jesus is high and lifted up. That Father God, we have been raised with him and are seated with him in the heavenly places. Father, we take authority over the devil. We take authority over Satan. Satan, we crush you under our feet in the name of Jesus by the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, we declare your victory released through our lives for your glory. And everyone that agrees with this spoke Hebrew with me and we say together, amen and amen. We’re continuing in a series today that I’m calling Mysteries in the Gospel of John. Now this is a really important series. Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak of much of the historical ministry of Jesus. John speaks of more of the mysterious element of Jesus, more of the mystery that was revealed from heaven. Now don’t misunderstand me. Matthew, Mark, and Luke also speak to some of these mystical realities, but John much more so. Now, on last broadcast, I talked about the mystery of the Word of God that has always been in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. We talked about that mystery that Jesus is the Word that has always been manifested in space and time, clothed in humanity. I want to continue on today church by talking about what the church calls the doctrine of the trinity so i’d like to go to our primary text right now john chapter one we’re going to begin today in verse number one i’m going to read a few verses and then i’m going to talk to you about the mystery of the father the son and the holy spirit let’s look at the word together john 1 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So once again, the Word has always been. The Word has always been. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. So the word is God. In John 1, 14, we read, and the word became flesh. In other words, that Jesus is this word. He’s God that has always been. Listen, once again, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. Get it now. And the word became. was God. I’m going to say it again, and the Word was God. John 1, 14, and the Word became flesh. And so Jesus is the Word who is God that’s always been made flesh. Now we know that Jesus is the Son. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, right, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. So we have God We have the Word who was with God and who is God. Jesus is that Word, and Jesus is the Son. We also know that in addition to having the Father, God, and the Son, we have the Holy Spirit. And so the Apostles’ Creed, other doctrines of our faith, we speak about the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? When we baptize somebody, Jesus told us to baptize them in the name of the what? The Father. the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is very hard for us to comprehend. How can God be one and yet be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? You know, at times the apostles asked Jesus a question, and Jesus said, no one knows the answer to that question but the Father. For example, they asked Jesus when he was going to come again. Jesus said the Father’s fixed that time by his own authority, or no one knows but the Father. So even though the son is God, the father is greater than him. Right. And the father, according to Jesus, even knows things that he doesn’t know. And yet Jesus, the son and the word is God. Now, don’t let me lose you now. I know this is complicated. And, you know, for some of you, it sounds maybe like a little gibberish here because it doesn’t make logical sense. But I want you to stick with me. This message will help many of you. So in the church today, we have a term that theologians coined, listen now, the Trinity. Most of you have heard this term, the Trinity. What do we mean by the Trinity? The term Trinity means that God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that God exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They’re unique, but they’re all God, and God is one. Now, this to us does not make any logical sense. How can God be three distinct persons and still be one? And we’ve had a lot of people try to make sense of this. Some of you have even heard some of these analogies before. For example, how many of you heard somebody say, well, the Trinity is kind of like an egg? An egg is one, but an egg has three parts. We have the shell around the egg, we have the white of the egg, and then we have the yellow center, the egg yolk, and people say, well, that’s kind of like God. He’s three parts, but he’s one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Well, As good of a, well, meaning of an attempt that that is to try to help us understand the mystery of the Trinity, I don’t think that even comes close, beloved ones, to helping us understand the mystery of the Trinity. The reality is, beloved ones, we can’t, get it again, we cannot logically explain the Trinity. We cannot logically explain how God is one, and yet He’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that each one is relating to each other. So for example, Jesus had a relationship with the Father, yet He’s God, and He’s part of God and one with God. So Jesus prayed to the Father. Jesus came to earth. He said He came to do the Father’s will. The Bible says that Jesus, get this now, is in the bosom of the Father, that the Son is in the bosom of the Father, that God has an only begotten Son that’s in his bosom and that Jesus is the physical manifestation of God’s only begotten Son. Now, just hang with me now. I know we’re talking about some complex theological concepts, but I’m going to bring it down to help you understand this in a simple way. So somebody that tells us that they can give us understanding into the mystery of the Trinity, they’re fooling themselves if they think they can fully explain it. It’s impossible. But I’m going to speak some realities about it that will be helpful. First of all, God does not have to be, listen now, singularly unified to be one. So for example… In the book of Genesis, it says a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become, get it now, one. The Hebrew word there is echad, flesh. So you have a situation where husband and wife, man and woman, become one. They’re one unit, and it’s not a singular unity, but it’s a compound unity. The two become one. The same thing is true when the Lord had the Israelites build all the different pieces of the tabernacle, and after all the different pieces of the tabernacle were built, they were joined together to become one, one unit. And so… I’m speaking this way because as a Jewish person, one of the criticisms that I get from the Jewish community is that, you know what, you have fallen away from the faith because our greatest declaration is from Deuteronomy 6, where the Lord says there in Deuteronomy 6, 4, Some of you have even heard it sung before, it goes,
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Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai
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Deuteronomy 6, 4 is what I just sang, and it’s translated, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord, get it now, is one. And Orthodox Jewish men will try to make that the last thing they say before passing on. The word there in Deuteronomy 6, 4, for one, the Lord is one, the Hebrew word there in the original is echad. That’s the same word that God uses in Genesis when he says that a man shall leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one, echad. And so when the Bible speaks about God being one, it’s not speaking necessarily about a singular unity, but rather simply about a unity. And we see in scripture that oftentimes a unity will be a compound unity, as in the case of a man and woman becoming one. All the pieces of the tabernacle becoming one.
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You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus, and Rabbi will be right back. But first, did you know that you can receive real-time encouragement straight from Rabbi through text message? Visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com and click on the link that says Rabbi Text Me, or you can text the keyword Rabbi to the number 88777. Rabbi sends these special text messages as the Holy Spirit leads, and he looks forward to connecting with you real soon. or call 800-777-7835. That’s 800-777-7835. And now, let’s get back to Rabbi’s message.
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When the Lord created the world, going back to the very first few verses of the Bible, go with me now, listen to this. Genesis chapter 1. The Bible said, let us, get it now, let us create mankind In our image. Who was God talking to there when he said, let us create man in our image? Who is the us and who is the our? Who is God speaking to? Well, in rabbinic Judaism, they said that God was speaking to the angels. He wasn’t speaking to the angels. He was speaking, beloved, listen now, to the fact that he has relationship within himself. Let us create. Create man, get it now, in our image. In other words, within God, there is relationship. Let us create man in our image. Inside God, there is relationship. And this is where we get the doctrine of the Trinity from, that within God, We have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s one, God is one. He’s a compound unity or a complex unity, yet He’s one God. And within Him, get it now, is relationship, that God has relationship within Himself. That’s why we have families on earth today. Why do we have family? Where do we get this concept of relationship from? Where do we get this relationship concept between men and women, between parents and children, between people? It all comes from the fact, beloved one, get this now, that within the Godhead, relationship already exists. And so, Because relationship exists within the Godhead, because within the Godhead, the Father is always in communion with the Son, and the Son is always in communion with the Father, and the Spirit is what’s holding everything together. Because there is relationship within the Godhead, we have the concept of relationship woven in to humankind that is created, get it now, in God’s image. And so once again, we see here all the way back to John 1, verse one, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Now, I wanna continue on here and ask you this question. Some of you are still kind of, you’re following it, you’re saying, yeah, that kind of makes sense. You’re not fully convinced. There’s nothing that I can say that will fully convince you because I can’t logically explain all this to the T. But let me say this to you. I’m not apologizing for not being able to fully explain it to you. Here’s the reason why I’m not apologizing to you. And here’s the reason why you can feel free to embrace this concept of God being one, yet existing in three different persons that are distinct. Here’s why you can embrace this fully with your heart without fully being able to intellectually comprehend it. You believe in God. I’m assuming that the vast majority of you believe in God right now. Think about this. You believe in God. I want to ask you a question. Where… did God come from? Can you explain logically where God came from? Obviously, you can’t. It doesn’t make any sense. It makes no sense at all that God has always been. We cannot in any way even remotely connect to that intellectually. It is beyond the intellect. Our mind can only understand where something has come from, get it now, through the laws of cause and effect. We can only understand that this exists because of this, that this came from this. We can only think through our mental capacity through the lens of cause and effect. Where did God come from? There is no logical answer to that. He’s always been. He came from nowhere. But we say intellectually that’s impossible, that he’s always been. Where did he come from? He had to come from somewhere. But the truth is, that’s what makes God God. In the beginning, God. God has always been. He came from nowhere. It is intellectually impossible to grasp that. And every time I remotely get close to touching on that, my mind just overloads. And for some reason, my heart just melts down in love. It must be because God is love. And so by virtue of the fact, beloved one, that you and I cannot in any way comprehend logically the fact that God has always been, neither should we expect to be able to intellectually comprehend how God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet he’s one. You know, an interesting illustration where we see in the New Testament God manifested at the same time in the person of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is when Yeshua was baptized, when He went into the waters, we say in Hebrew, of the mikvah, the mikvah waters. And what happened when Yeshua went into the mikvah waters, when Jesus was baptized? He went into the water, right? And then he came out of the water. When he came out of the water, get it now, the spirit manifested himself above Jesus visibly to John the Baptist as a dove, right? John said, I saw the spirit lighting on him and I saw the spirit lighting on him, John said, as a dove. So the spirit was manifest above Jesus as a dove. So here we have the spirit. Jesus himself, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, is the one that John sees coming out of the water, right? So now we have the Spirit manifested as a dove. We have Jesus coming out of the water in the flesh, the Son of God in the flesh. And then we have the Father speaking from heaven that John the Baptist hears. When John hears the word This is my beloved son and in him I’m well pleased. So at the baptism, we have the father speaking. This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased. We have the spirit manifested as a dove and we have Jesus himself, the son coming out of the water, father, son, and Holy Spirit all in the same act. Well, I want to simply leave you with this truth as we close this particular mystery that God is relationship. There’s relationship in himself. And when you and I try to define God, We need to include in our definition, and obviously our definitions will always fall short, but any definition of God that leaves out the word relationship falls far short of being an adequate description of who God is. We know God has always been. We know he’s self-existent. We know he’s all powerful. We know he’s omniscient. He’s all knowing. We know he’s a God of love. We can describe him in all these ways and all those ways are true. But unless we beloved ones include in our description of God, the word he is relationship, we have fallen, fall short of understanding who God is. You see, Jesus said in John 17, that in him, We have eternal life. And Jesus said, this is eternal life, that you would know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. God loves you today, my friend. He loves us today. And as we seek his face, he’s going to reveal more and more of the mystery of his son to us. I haven’t heard a sermon on the widow’s might lately. Have you? Maybe some of you have. Perhaps you don’t even know the story. Yeshua, Jesus was at the temple one day observing people as they were coming to put their offering forward unto the Lord. And a widow came and she just gave just a little bit. But Yeshua, Jesus commented to his disciples that her offering was actually the greatest of any he had observed, even though it was a small amount, because he said she gave out of her poverty. When the others gave out of their abundance, they had so much money, it didn’t cost them anything to make an offering. It didn’t hurt. But that widow gave out of a position where it was just pure love, pure adoration for the Lord, pure obedience. It was a sacrifice. Reminds me of David that said, I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing. I want to encourage us all. Let’s be faithful to the Lord with our finances. It should hurt a little bit. And God promised it’s going to come back good measure running over into our laps. I encourage you to give unto the Lord through this ministry if it’s feeding you. Now Dustin, can you share with our listeners how they can support us and give?
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Absolutely. As the Lord leads you to support Discovering the Jewish Jesus today, would you go online to discoveringthejewishjesus.com and you can also give generously by giving us a call. Our number is 800-777-7835. That’s 800-777-7835. And, you know, we’re so grateful for your generous financial gifts. They help Rabbi’s teaching touch lives, not only in your local area, but all around the world. And because of you, our reach extends to the UK, to Russia, Israel and beyond. And I’ve personally seen the impact for the kingdom that your giving makes. So please give online today at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And right now, we’re excited to share with you that Rabbi has written a book titled Decoding the Torah. And in this book, Rabbi explores the heart behind the meaning of the laws that God gave to his people in the first five books of the Bible. I want to encourage you to get it because I believe it’ll help you understand who God is personally in a way that you probably haven’t considered before. When is the last time you read the laws and were like, God, how do these apply to my life today? Well, get ready to find out in Rabbi’s groundbreaking book, Decoding the Torah. It’s going to be a blessing to you. I really believe it. If you’d like to get your copy, you can purchase a copy online at our website, discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Thanks so much for joining us today. And now let’s wrap up our message with God’s sacred and special blessing. Rabbi.
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In the book of Numbers, chapter six, we find a personal blessing from God our Father. This blessing should touch our hearts because it’s so personal. Father God wants to intimately bless you, so receive his blessing into your life today with gladness and an open heart.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with His countenance. And the Lord give you, beloved one, His peace. God bless you and shalom.
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I’m Dustin Roberts, your host, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Join us again when Rabbi Schneider talks about what everyone knows, but only a few truly understand. Are you one of the few? Well, you’ll have to find out Tuesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
