Sovereign Grace Baptist Church Meets weekly at 907 Hillsboro Boulevard, Manchester, TN, 37355. Currently, our church is without a pastor/elder and the members meet weekly for praise and worship in hymn, prayer, reading of Scripture, study of the word, and fellowship.
This is a sketch. No comprehensive attempt is made to cover all scripture. Here is a sampling.
Of course, we should begin where it is most clear, in the New Testament. This is significant, as God’s Word has been disclosed to us piecemeal in stages. Each phase of revelation builds on the previously given record till we reach the full canon and the complete revelation.
When Christ comes on the scene, we see very early in His life that He is the promised Messiah (Luke 1:30-33; 2:25-35). His exchange with the religious leaders in the temple, while He was just a twelve-year-old boy end with His declaration that He must be about His Father’s business. This clearly establishes Jesus’ own belief of Himself as the Son of God.
This next becomes evident at the time of Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:13-17). Here a picture of the Trinity begins to emerge, as God the Father speaks of His Son, Jesus, and also the Spirit comes upon the Son.
In Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 10, Jesus claims that He is the point of reference as to whether men will be saved in the final judgment (Matthew 10:27:27-39). This exclusivity of Jesus as the Messiah, making His person the decisive point of a person’s salvation would be blasphemous if He were nothing more than a man. At the end of Matthew’s gospel, in the passage known now as the Great Commission, the three persons are mentioned, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What is significant is that those baptized are so in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The word “name” is in the singular, as there is only One God, but all three persons are mentioned as our Monotheistic faith affirms, not in a Unitarian god, but a Trinitarian God.
The doctrine of the Trinity receives a lot of support from the writings of John. Particularly the Gospel of John is a stronghold of Trinitarianism. At the very beginning of the Gospel (1:1) we are introduced to the Word. This designation, as becomes evident in 1:14, refers to Jesus after His incarnation, and so must refer to the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ in 1:1. The very grammar of the text is instructive. The word “was” in the original Greek refers back to a kind of “time before time.” Whenever the “beginning” can be designated, the Word of John’s gospel already exists. He is in a sense the beginner of all things cf. Revelation 3:14). The Word is “with” God, denoting a fellowship between Father and Son. The Greek word used is the preposition, pros, which expresses a “face to face” kind of relationship. There is no hint in this expression of any derived status for the Word. In fact, the very next statement affirms absolutely that the Word was God, in the same way that the Word was in the beginning. Emphatically in Greek the word for “God” appears first. Literally, it reads: “God was the Word.” Clearer testimony of the Son’s deity could not be given. Further explanation is forthcoming in John’s discussion that the Word also is the Creator (cf. Colossians 1:15-17). This is the foundation for understanding the Trinity to emerge more clearly in this gospel.
When Jesus speaks of the gift of salvation, He speaks of Himself as the mediator (John 4:10). This is clearly found in passages such as John 5:24-40; 6:32-40; 10:1-21. The kind of salvation Christ mediates requires that He be God as only God can save. This same saving activity Jesus says explicitly comes through the Holy Spirit (cf. 3:1-8; 7:37-39; 16:5-15). Only God can do this kind of saving work, so the Spirit is another member of the Godhead. Indeed, John’s gospel reveals a Trinitarian God.
The Trinity is also found in John’s Revelation. This is found early on in the opening of the Book: “Grace to you from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ . . .” (1:4-5).
This same Trinitarianism becomes evident in Paul’s writings as well. There are various avenues that we may see this. In 2 Thessalonians, Paul affirms that God chose the believers to salvation. Part of this saving work is accomplished by the Spirit, which, leads to the Gory of Jesus Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 13:14, we see all three persons of the Godhead in what is known as the Apostolic Benediction: The Grace of Jesus, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit wished upon all believers.
In Ephesians 1:3-14, an unmistakable expression of the Triune God’s work in our salvation is evident. The Father selects, the Son Saves, and the Spirit Seals. Again, in Ephesians in 2:18, while discussing the entrance of Gentiles into the Household of God, particularly says, “Through Him [Christ] they have access to God by the Spirit. This triadic Godhead is also found in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21.
One may also find similar testimony in Titus 3:4-6; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 (God, Lord, Spirit); and Galatians 3:11-14; 4:6.
Indeed, the New Testament reveals One God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to Whom belong all Glory for now and forever. Amen.
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