 Oh, yes, let's begin. So last class we looked at the doctrine of God, but then we left out one aspect of his nature, his triune nature, because we wanted to discuss that in greater detail. So you will find a few brief notes in your, you know, the notes which have been given to you. But then I would be covering a whole bunch of stuff which is not mentioned in your notes. So if you would like to, you can take down notes, you know, write down your written handwritten notes or you can always just watch the video and all the information that you require will be there in the video anyway. So we'll get started with our doctrine of Trinity. As you know, this is a very unique concept that we find only in the Bible. Here it is talking about God, but he is one in three persons. Did you say something? What would I need? I need to mute my laptop thing. Even my laptop is unmuted. Should I mute my laptop? I can go ahead. Okay. Thanks a lot. Ouch, now I'm going to get this feedback. Is it? Yeah. So what was I saying? Yeah, in the Bible you have this concept of God being one, but he is one in three persons. And it's not something that we quite understand because we humans have not been created like that. And so we don't understand things which are beyond what is human. So it is difficult for us to grasp. Also we observe that the word Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible. We don't have any verse in the Bible which says, behold, I am Trinity. You know, so it is no such verse in the Bible. The scholars came up with this term to try and explain what they are observing about God in the Bible. Because when they were looking at the Bible, they noticed that there are three persons of the Godhead being mentioned. But at the same time there are verses which clearly say God is one. So they were trying to come up with a word which will try to explain the oneness of God. And at the same time express the fact that this one God is three persons. So they came up with a word, you know, try unity to express oneness. But there are three in the oneness. So they came up with the term try unity, which, you know, later on became Trinity. That's how we got the word Trinity. And it's just trying to express the fact that God is completely one. I mean, I totally totally one, but that oneness is expressed in three different persons. So that they try to bring out that concept using this particular term Trinity. And in the Old Testament times, the people were not very, very clear about this whole idea of Trinity. They just mainly thought of the Lord as Yahweh. They never really thought about Him as three persons. So they didn't have a very clear picture. But we do find many, many Bible verses in the Old Testament, which express this triune nature of God. It's just the people at that time did not really have a clear picture. So we are very familiar with the verses which everyone mentions with regard to the Trinity Old Testament. We have Genesis 126 where the Lord says, let us make man in our image. So over there, God is speaking among the persons of His triune being. And He's saying, let us together make God in our image. Then you have Genesis 322 where the Lord says, man has become like one of us. So yeah, that would be Genesis 322. We have Isaiah 6, 8 where you have the Lord speaking and the Lord says, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Okay, so first He says, whom shall I send? And then He says, who will go for us? So again over there, the triune nature of God is being mentioned. So the people of the Old Testament were aware that these verses existed. But I'm not sure to what extent they really thought about these wordings. I don't know whether they really understood why this us is being used again and again. And actually it is expressing the three persons who are there in the One God. So there are scriptures in the Old Testament which bring out this concept. We also have Psalm 110 verse 1. Now that if someone could read out, Psalm 110 verse 1 please. So here you have L-O-R-D in caps. All the four alphabets are in capital letters. So like we had discussed earlier, that would mean that the word Yahweh is being translated. So the Lord over here is Yahweh. So Yahweh says to my Lord. Now the second Lord over there, you have the capital L but then the O-R-D are in small alphabets. So that would be your Adonai. So the Hebrew wording would actually be Yahweh says to my Adonai. So obviously Yahweh is God who is being talked about over here. And God is saying, you know, this is David talking. So David is talking, he's writing down the Psalm and he says, Yahweh says to my Lord, to my Adonai. Okay, so whom is he talking about? If you look at the next few verses in Psalm 110, we see that he's talking about the Messiah who is going to come one day. So he's talking about the Messiah as my Lord. Okay, so and he's using the term Adonai. Now when we come to the New Testament, Jesus Christ quotes the same verse. And in the New Testament, maybe if someone could read out Matthew chapter 22 verses 43 to 46. And it's interesting to see the, you know, the point that is being made over here. Matthew chapter 22 verses 43 to 46, if someone could read out. Yeah, and then 45 and 46. All right, so in the Old Testament, the wording was Yahweh says to my Adonai. And over here, it's David is saying, you know, Yahweh is saying to my Lord, to my Adonai, sit at my right hand. Now Jesus is quoting this in the New Testament. In the New Testament, the wordings were all in Greek. So obviously they could not bring in that Hebrew word and put it over there. So the word Yahweh is not mentioned in the Greek Bible. So the word courios is used. The word courios basically is similar to Adonai. It would be, you know, Lord, Master. And so here in Matthew 22 verse 44, Jesus is quoting and he says, the Lord said to my Lord. Okay, and then he goes on to ask the question. Why was David calling one of his future descendants, you know, the Messiah who's going to come in his lineage? Why is he calling this future descendant of his as Lord? No, you would say my son, maybe that's the term that you would use, you know, Yahweh said to my son. Son as in a descendant of mine, but he doesn't use the term son. He says, the Yahweh says to my Master, to my Lord. And so Jesus asks them this question because you see, they're kind of saying that Jesus is not Lord. And so Jesus says, if that is the case, then why, why is David referring to me as his Lord? Does that not mean that I am divine is the question that he's asking? And then it says in verse 46, no one could say a word in reply. When Jesus poses this question and says, you know, why, why is David calling his descendant his Lord? Instead of just saying, you know, my son. So when they ask that, when Jesus asks that question, the people, they do not say anything in reply. So there is this argument which is made by some people about Psalm 110 verse one. They argue and they say, you know, when David was talking about my Adonai, he was talking about a human master, a human Lord. Because in those days, the word Lord was even used for, you know, humans. So they say David was just talking about some human Adonai. He was not talking about a divine Adonai. And so they tried to dilute what is being said in Psalm 110. But when you look at Matthew 22 and the way Jesus interprets it, he is using the word couriers for both, you know, he sings the couriers said to my couriers and both of them mean the word Lord. And the listeners who are listening very clearly understand that he's not talking about a human master at all. They clearly understand that he is talking about a divine Lord. And they understand that David, when he was talking at that time, he was not talking about a human Adonai. He was talking about a divine Lord. And so they don't reply back to Jesus and say, ah, no, no, no, actually David meant it like that. They all know what David meant. David was talking about how Yahweh said to his divine Adonai, sit at my right hand. They all know that that is the correct interpretation of Psalm 110. And so they keep their mouths shut. They do not reply back to Jesus and say anything. They don't contradict him. And so in our Matthew 22 verse 44, when it says the couriers said to my couriers, both the couriers over there, both the Lord mentioned over there, they are divine. That is what is being talked about over there. So in the Old Testament, there was always this understanding that the one whom they know as Yahweh is Lord. He is divine. But there is also this Messiah who is going to come and he also will be Lord. He also will be divine. They always did have that understanding. And then we have one more scripture maybe which we could just refer to, which would be Isaiah 63 verse 10, where it talks about how the people rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So over there the Holy Spirit is being referred to as the Holy Spirit of Yahweh himself. So in that sense, the Holy Spirit is also divine. So there are scriptures in the Old Testament talking about how Yahweh is actually three persons and all these three persons have divinity. All three of them are divine. Now to the New Testament. Again, we have a whole bunch of scriptures which talk about all the three persons of the Godhead being divine. They are mentioned together in different Bible passages. Just to give you some scriptures, Ephesians 4, 4-6. We have one spirit being mentioned, then one God and Father of all being mentioned and you have one Lord being mentioned. So you have the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ the Lord and also God the Father being mentioned in Ephesians 4, 4-6. Maybe we could read out 1 Peter 1 verse 2. So over here in 1 Peter 1, 2, you have all the three persons of the Godhead working together to help in the redemption plan for mankind. So you have God the Father who had four knowledge. He planned all that he would be doing for humanity to redeem them. So he is the one with the four knowledge. He decides what would be done. And then it is the Holy Spirit who carries out this work. After Jesus Christ has finished his work on the cross the Holy Spirit continues that work of sanctification and why are the Father and the Holy Spirit doing this? They are doing so that everything can be brought under the dominion of Jesus Christ who will be made Lord over all. So it's not only God the Father who is Lord over all even Jesus Christ is Lord over all because both of them the God the Father and the Holy Spirit are over here working together to bring everyone under obedience to Jesus Christ who actually did that work of redemption on the cross when he shed his blood. So we see all the three persons of the Trinity participating in the redemption plan. We also have Jude chapter 1 verses 20 and 21 where it talks about it urges the people to pray in the Holy Spirit and why are they praying in the Holy Spirit so that they can keep themselves in God's love to remain in God's love and then it goes on to say keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. So the Lord Jesus Christ has shown his mercy and because he has shown his mercy we take that privilege and we choose to keep ourselves in God's love how do we do that? We do it by praying in the Holy Spirit so we have again all the three persons of the Trinity being mentioned over here So when we look at all of the scriptures if we gather all the scriptures which are there in the Bible about the Trinity and if we put all of them together three main points come out the first point that we have to accept is that God is three persons God is one but in that oneness there are three persons so that's one basic fact which comes out very very correctly and very very strongly and if we look at John 3.16 which is a very familiar verse over there it talks about how God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son in some versions it would say God sent his one and only son and yeah because there are scriptures which say God is one so he's most definitely if you're doing a count it would only be one so if I have three persons standing in front of me I would count them as one, two, three but then if I have to count God and he comes and stands in front of me he doesn't need to but if he were standing there if and when I'm counting I would only be able to count one being because he is literally one but in that oneness there are three and it does not give the details the technical details in the Bible of how that is possible but if you're doing a head count God would only count as one so that's something that we would have to accept so here in John 3.16 it's talking about how God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son or he sent his one and only son if God is sending his son it literally means that there are two persons over there so he is one in his being but he is sending someone out so he is in heaven and he's sending someone out to the earth so we cannot just say oh God and Jesus are the same because we see one the God had been there continuing to be over there in heaven but that God is sending someone into the earth was actually going to be living in the earth for a number of years so we have to admit that God and the son are two separate persons but there are verses which say that he is one as a being so it is a controversy to us in our minds in our thinking simply because we humans have not been created in that way so we find it difficult to comprehend but it is important to accept these things by faith as the truth because the scriptures says that in the same way when you go to John 14.26 if someone could read out John 14.26 for us please so over here Jesus is speaking and he says the Father will send in my name the Holy Spirit so now you have Jesus and God the Father together sending a third person to us believers to indwell us and to sanctify us and to guide us into this redemption which Jesus Christ has won so here again we see that there are three distinct persons because at first you had father sending the son now you have father and son together sending the Holy Spirit so they are functioning as three separate persons so we have to accept that they are distinct they are separate from one another we can't just say sometimes God appears as a father and sometimes he makes his appearance as a son and sometimes he appears as a Holy Spirit no they are three separate persons but we always have to come back to all the verses which talk about how God is one so we cannot just cancel out those verses and another aspect of frenity is we discover when we look at all these scriptures we understand that each of these three persons is fully God so it's not like if you have a cake a birthday cake and you cut it into three portions and you say this is first portion of the cake this is the second portion of the cake and this is the third portion of the cake so what are you doing with the cake you are actually dividing it into three portions and you are saying this is one portion of the cake so if I were to pick up that one portion and I were to give it to Ren then she would say you are giving me one portion and I tell her this is the cake this is the birthday cake she will say this is not the birthday cake this is just one portion of the birthday cake so you see there are parts and there is the full now what we are saying about this divine being this one God is that if I were to place the Holy Spirit in front of us he is not one portion of the of the Godhead he is fully completely absolutely God he is completely God if I were to place God the Father in front of us it is not that he is just one portion of the Godhead he is fully completely God please bear with me I am trying to explain in human terms to humans about something which is not at all remotely human we are discussing someone who is completely unique someone who is completely other and I am trying to use ordinary words to express that and obviously we are not going to quite catch it but we have to accept that there are verses which talk about him being completely one and there are verses which seem to be talking about him operating as three persons so it is just something that we try to grasp and to the extent possible we make that part of our doctrine so let us not just ignore this and leave it out of our doctrine just because we are not able to catch it all in the Old Testament times a lot of the true followers of Yahweh they held on to a lot of doctrine which they never really understood at all now we who are living in New Testament times we are able to understand oh Messiah was actually this, this, this he was actually meant to accomplish this, this, this they never understood a lot of things but they held on to it faithfully so now we who are in the New Testament times even though we don't quite understand this doctrine let us faithfully in faith believe it and hold on to it because who knows when we get over there to heaven maybe we will be given some more details I think nobody will ever be able to completely understand God because you would need to have an infinite mind to understand infinity and we created beings whether we are angels or humans will always be finite so but maybe we will get a clearer understanding we know maybe we will have a session over there on doctrine of Trinity in heaven and when we are all sitting in that classroom we will be able to understand better but right now let's adjust with because I have a lot of puzzled people looking at me and it makes me feel so unhappy because I like explaining things clearly but you know let's do the best that we can with whatever information we have right now which God in his wisdom decided to give to us now later on he may give us additional information so good when that happens you know let's enjoy that additional information at the moment we have to accept that each of these three persons in the Godhead are fully completely God they are not just one portion of Godhead each of them is completely fully God some verses which talk about each of the persons of the Godhead being fully divine Philippians 1-2 can be the verse that we could take for God the Father and if we could just have someone read out Philippians 1-2 here it very clearly says God our Father so it's talking about the Father God and the Father God is referred to very clearly over here as God our Father now I really don't know how many of the scriptures are there in your notes so in case you would like to jot down these verses even as they are being given you know you can always jot it down now God the Son a scripture a couple of scriptures which really bring out the divinity of Jesus Christ so beautifully Titus chapter 2 verse 13 if someone could read out I really love the way Jesus is being described over here Titus chapter 2 verse 13 Jesus is referred to as our great God no doubt about his divinity okay he's our great God and Colossians 2-9 also makes a powerful statement if someone could read out Colossians chapter 2 verse 9 so even though Christ when he was on the earth he was in bodily form all the fullness of the deity was living in him okay so that's so clearly stated then moving on to the Holy Spirit there's one passage which is very clear which places the Holy Spirit on equal position with God the Father and know Jesus Christ that would be Acts chapter 5 verses 3-4 it's like a portion from a story we will obviously not get into the entire story but just to read that one portion Acts chapter 5 3-4 okay so here we have an interesting story happening which we will not discuss but you know most of us must be already familiar with it but look at the wording over here in verse 3 Peter says to Ananias you know Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit so he says to him Ananias you know what you are lying to the Holy Spirit and then when we look at the last portion of verse 4 there Peter is saying you have not lied just to human beings but to God so the Holy Spirit is being addressed as God fully God so in no way is he a lesser being than the rest of himself the rest of the Godhead okay so he is fully God the Holy Spirit is also fully God so the first main point which comes out is that we have to accept the fact that this one God is in 3 persons is in the form of 3 persons the second fact that we have to accept is that each of them has been described in the Bible as being fully God and the third thing you know coming back to the fundamental fact God is one because this is something that God says about himself he declares that about himself he doesn't want anyone to have any doubts about his being one single being so maybe one verse that we can look at regarding that would be Isaiah 45 verses 5 and 6 so if someone could read out Isaiah 45 5 and 6 okay so he says I am the Lord and there is no other and over there he is addressing himself as one Lord okay so we have to accept that there is only one Lord but that one Lord is has 3 persons so that's just something that we find puzzling now what does Jesus say about the Trinity before we look at the quotation which Jesus uses you know just to look at the background of the quotation which Jesus quotes that would be the Shema I am not sure if you have heard that term before it is something that the Jewish people would be very very familiar with because every single day they would recite the Shema I don't know whether they meant it as a prayer or whether it was just some kind of a ritual but every single day a good godly faithful Jewish person he would you know rise up in the morning and he would recite the Shema the word Shema just literally means here and that's just the first word of that particular portion of scripture because you know Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 to 9 they begin with the word Shema here listen so they just use that word to describe that entire passage so Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 to 9 are called the Shema and people recite that every day at least they used to in those days and the first word it begins Shema O Israel here O Israel listen O Israel it begins with that wording and it goes on to say the Lord our God the Lord is one is what it says now in the New Testament Jesus quotes this first portion of the Shema and you know someone comes to him and they are asking him about which is the greatest commandment and that is when Jesus speaks these words that would be Matthew Mark chapter 12 verses 28 to 30 Mark chapter 12 verses 28 to 30 maybe you could just read out 29 and 30 so Jesus also accepted that the Lord is one he never predicted that he never said what I am also God like as if he is a separate person he did not say it in that way like as if he is a separate being he did not say that he says the Lord is one so he also accepts the fact that the Lord is one but there are many places where he speaks of himself also as being part of that divinity so this is what Jesus says about the Father maybe we can look at a couple of scriptures Matthew chapter 6 verse 26 if someone could read out Matthew chapter 6 verse 26 please over here who is feeding the birds of the air it is your heavenly father who is doing the feeding he is feeding them and then a few verses later was 30 if someone could read out Matthew 6 was 30 so over here just a few sentences later this heavenly father is also being addressed as God it is like as if these two terms are being used interchangeably by Jesus in one place he refers to God as Father and in another place he just calls him God so God the Father in Jesus mind God regards the Father as being divine that is how he sees him but when we look at John 10 30 he includes himself in that Godhood John 10 30 is just a few words John 10 30 so he has just made that very very clear he says I and the Father are one so in the Matthew passage we saw him referring to the Father as God God clothes the grass of the field he says so he says that God is divine God the Father is divine and now he is saying I and this divine Father are one is what he very very early says and then we let's look at what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit we could maybe look at one verse even connection to that John 14 16 if someone could read out so the Father would give you another Advocate and now this is something that you might have studied in one of the other subjects or otherwise maybe you're covering this for the first time when it says I will give you another Advocate that word another which is used over there it is referring to someone who is of a similar type it's like two apples you have one apple and then you have another apple both are apples both are of the same type it's so Jesus is saying over here now don't feel bad that I'm going away when I go away another will be given to you but that another will be exactly like me same type so you don't have to feel bad you don't have to feel worried so you know this Holy Spirit is going to be sent this Advocate is going to be sent he will be another exactly like me and so the Greek word that is used over there is the Greek word allos so in that particular verse you know because of the grammatical construction it would come out as he will give you alone you know the root word is allos the word allos is basically another but of the same type so if I'm holding an apple in my hand you know I would say to you please can you give me allos apple so another apple I already have one apple and now I'm asking you for another one but it's going to be of the very same type on the other hand there's another word that is used you know if you want to talk about another thing of a different category of a different type then you would use the word heteros you would not use this word allos so let's just look at one example of that Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 if someone could read out Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 so over here the other that is being talked about that would be your heteros and these are completely two different types two different categories the comparison is being made between God and money so God is one type of a master money is completely a different kind of master so over here the word heteros is used so it's like as if I'm holding an apple in my hand and I say to you give me heteros fruit so I'm asking you for another fruit but this should not be an apple this should be a separate category so you'll probably give me an orange or a mango or something else okay so when Jesus is over here saying the father will send you allos okay allon the father will send you allon advocate he is clearly saying this Holy Spirit is going to be sent he's going to be exactly like me it's the statement which Jesus so because Jesus knew his Greek it's not mistakenly using the word allos instead of the word heteros he clearly deliberately used the word allos to refer to the Holy Spirit he did not use the word heteros why because the Holy Spirit and he are both one single being of the same nature okay so they are both equally divine so yeah what else can we look at maybe we can look at 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16 yes and then 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 so in 1 Corinthians 3 16 we people are you know we believers we are described as being God's temple and that God's Holy Spirit dwells in us and so in 1 Corinthians 6 19 we are told that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit so you have God's temple being mentioned God's Spirit being mentioned and over here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 we are being referred to as temples of the Holy Spirit basically the you know the terms God and Holy Spirit are being applied to the same temple so I am a dwelling of God I am also a dwelling of the Holy Spirit is fully God okay so the reason that we are looking at all these scriptures is to you know clarify in our minds that yes all these 3 persons of the Godhead are fully God okay so now looking at just to look at a few verses which talk about the 3 in 1ness the most popular verse that you know people quote to talk about the 3 in 1ness of God Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 to 20 Matthew 28 19 to 20 if someone could read out okay so let us say I want to ask for 3 volunteers and so I would say you know I am going to be calling out 3 names you know I would say Vimal and Francis and Rin I am going to be calling out 3 names I will not say I am going to call out 3 names Vimal, Francis and Rin because they are 3 different persons and they all have 3 different names they are 3 different beings and so I would say the worship will be conducted today by these 3 persons with these 3 names Vimal and Francis and Rin but over here this baptism is not happening in the names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit if you look over there so clearly it is you know the Greek has been translated correctly and it says over there the disciples when they are going to be getting baptized they are not going to be getting baptized in the names of 3 they are going to be getting baptized in the name of 1 God so the word over there is name singular not plural the baptism is going to be happening in the name not the names okay so the baptism is happening in the name of 1 single God who is in 3 persons Father, Son, Holy Spirit the baptism is not happening in the names of 3 beings the baptism is being done in the name of 1 single being who is in 3 persons okay so so that can be your question number 1 when you go to heaven you can say you know Lord Jesus please explain this concept to me okay so then he will explain it to you if he believes that that is the correct time for you to have that knowledge so we so that was Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 to 20 can we look at one more structure 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14 if someone could read out 2 Corinthians 13 verse 14 verse that we all know because at the end of every single church service it ends with this benediction now some people they say when the baptism is being done you are being baptized in the name singular name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Father's name is coming first in the order so he must be the greatest the Son is coming second in the order so he must be a little great Holy Spirit last is coming so he is not that great but then if you look over here in your 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14 the order gets changed so here you have Lord Jesus Christ being mentioned first and then you have the love of God being mentioned second and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit being mentioned third so the order in which they are mentioned is not in any way signifying any kind of ranking they are equal they are equal in their Godhead it's just that in different places may be based on the convenience of the sentence construction they are being mentioned in a particular order but just because you have put someone's name first and someone's name second over here in these verses it is not indicating that one is superior to the other though they are all equal in their Godhead one is not superior to the other now there are some people who kind of want to establish the fact that when you are saying God is one in three persons you are not contradicting yourself because they they are just good people and they want to bring out the fact that scripture does not contradict itself and so if someone were to raise the argument and say look when you open your mouth and start talking about your God already there is a contradiction over there you are saying God is one and then you are saying God is three persons though you are contradicting yourself so these callers and goodness out of the goodness of their heart they have tried to come up with this explanation of how this this statement is actually not contradicting itself now if the explanation for that makes sense to you accept it if it doesn't make sense to you leave the explanation just by faith accept the fact that he is one and he is in three persons just accept that but there is an explanation which they tried to give to establish how this is not a contradiction so that would take a lengthy explanation and I cannot get into that within the four minutes that we have over here so maybe we can take a slightly early break but if you are going to take a slightly early break you must also come back a little early so those of you who are going to be logging in please do that by 4 minutes to 10 itself if you could just log back in we will continue with our study of the trinity so 4 minutes to 10 please if you can all log back those of you who are online those of you who are over here enjoy your tea coffee a little early and come back a little early alright yeah thank you so much go ahead