We began a series on the attributes of God. I didn't intend it to be a series. The first message I did was on God's sovereignty. And then after talking to a few of you, I decided to do a few more attributes. Then I thought the study would really be incomplete without a message on the Trinity, which has now turned into three messages. which is where we're at this morning. So, what we as Christians need to understand is that the doctrine of the Trinity is the foremost doctrine that sets us apart from any other religious group. There is no other religious group or religion that remotely resembles a triune God. And although this doctrine is incomprehensible, to our human minds, it is nevertheless necessary for belief in order to be a Christian. This is primarily why John wrote his gospel. If you want to turn there with me to John chapter 20. Sometimes authors of biblical books tell us why they wrote what they wrote, and John happens to be one of those authors. In verses 30 and 31 in John 20, John is talking about the signs or the miracles that he recorded in the Gospel of John, seven or eight signs. that he revolves his gospel around. And he says in verse 30, truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. So Jesus performed many signs. John says in the next chapter that if he recorded everything that Jesus did, all the books in the world could not contain what Jesus did. But he selected seven or eight And he says, but these that I've recorded are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. So that's why he wrote his gospel. It's evangelistic. Now you might say, well, this verse really doesn't say anything about the Trinity. Well, Yes, it does. Because the term, if you look at verse 31, that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God. The Son of God is a Trinitarian term. The Son cannot be a son without the Father. And you've heard me say this before, Jesus did not become a son when he was conceived or when he was born. He is a son from all eternity, as his father is a father from all eternity. The term son of God is a divine Trinitarian term. by virtue of Him being the Son of God, makes Him God. So when John says he recorded the signs or miracles in his book, in order for you to believe in Jesus as the Old Testament Christ, so you can be saved, he means you must believe in Him as the eternal Son of God, God Himself, in order to be saved. This is John's whole point as he begins his gospel. I wanted to show you the end on why he wrote it. Now let's go to the very beginning. In John chapter 1, in verses 1 to 4, John's point is to show us that Jesus is God as part of a Godhead. or as we would call it, as part of the Trinity. Look at verses 1 to 4 with me. And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Now in verse 1, we immediately see that the Word, that Jesus Christ is the Word, which verse 14 tells us. If you look at verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So clearly, the Word in verses 1 through 4 is Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Word, was in the beginning with God. That's what it says. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God. This means that when the beginning began, Jesus was already there. In other words, He was prior to the beginning. In the beginning, the Word already existed. That's what John is saying. So He existed, He already existed before time and space was created, meaning He existed in eternity before time and space began. But notice in verse 1, John says that not only was the Word with God, He was God. Now, some might say after reading this, well, we have two gods. The Word is God. But he's with God, so there must be two gods. But John is careful here not to say that. He says there is God and that the Word was with God. So at the very least, we have two persons here who are God. A strict translation would be this, God was the Word. God being the subject and the Word being the predicate nominative. God was the Word, which is even a stronger emphasis on Jesus being God. Now, we've talked about this before, and I'm not going to go through it again, but John's absence of the article before God at the end of verse 1 also shows us that the Word was and is God. Now, contrary to what the Jehovah's Witnesses argue, that the absence of the article makes Jesus a God, or a smaller God. The absence of the article in this particular case shows us the quality of the subject. That's how Greeks use the absence of the article once the article is stated the first time, and it's stated the first time in verse 1 before this. With God. Pros tan theon. The article is tan. So leaving the article out means it's a qualitative designation. That simply means that the second God mentioned is of the same quality as the first God, the same substance, the same essence. John couldn't have found a stronger grammatical way to say this. So in the first two verses of John's Gospel, we have two persons who are the triune God. If you look at verse 2, he, that's the word in verse 2, was in the beginning with God. He says it again so you don't get confused as to thinking there is one God in one person. There is one God in two persons. Then when you go to verse two, so there's no, as we just said, he was in the beginning with God making that very important distinction. But when you go to verse three, to show that the word, the second person of the Godhead was before the beginning of all things, as John stated in the first verse, he says, all things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made. All created things were made through Him. Without Him, nothing was made that was made. Now this shows us that the Word made everything that was ever made in the universe. Jesus Christ created all things out of nothing. When it says in Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, it's referring to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, creating all things. And to make sure you get the emphasis that John is making, he states it in the negative. Without Him, nothing was made that was made. Nothing that was created was created without Him. He is the creator of all that is created. Now that should automatically tell us that He Himself couldn't be created, because He would be part of the all, and obviously He can't create Himself. So He must be outside of creation. This is not hard to understand. If He created all things, He cannot be created. Otherwise, He would be part of the all things. In verse 4, John moves to what was made by the Word from the physical into the spiritual realm. He says, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. In the Word was life. You say, what kind of life? Well, John doesn't distinguish what kind of life. So that would tell me all kinds of life, any kind of life. Whatever life there is, it's in Christ. So when the writer of Hebrews says that in him he holds all things together by the word of his power, he's holding life together by the word of his power. This is every kind of life, inanimate and animate life. Plants and trees, to animals, to people, anything living is in him. It exists because he says it exists, and it stays existing because of him. So in the first sense, he means biological life, whether it's inanimate or animate. without the word, none of that would exist. But beyond that, John says here, the word is the light of men. This means soul life. Men are different than plants and animals, are they not? So he must be talking about the soul, because the soul is what differentiates us between animals and plants. There's an obvious distinction between trees and animals. One is inanimate, one's animate. But there's also a distinction between animals and men. Men have souls and animals do not. He's the light of men. The Word, Jesus Christ, created them all with life. They get their life from Him. Their life is borrowed from Him. Our life, as we sit here and stand here this morning, is borrowed from Christ. He's the source of our life. But beyond even this, in the Word is life, He's the light of men. Ultimately, John is talking about the life of regeneration for those who believe in Christ, in Him. This is ultimately where he's going with this. in verse 12, "...as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." He's talking about regeneration. He's talking about the impartation of spiritual life. That's the light of men. It's Jesus Christ alone who gives eternal life to men. Now, He can only do that if He's God. Angels can't give eternal life. No created person can give eternal life. Only God can do that. Speaking of this very thing, Jesus said of Himself in John 5, 21, The Son gives life to whom He will. He is the sole judge of who He grants eternal life to or who receives eternal life. Jesus. There's not a person on this planet that can determine who gets it and who doesn't. Only Christ. He said again in John 17 to his father, if you remember that last night in the garden, you have given me authority over all flesh that I should give eternal life to as many as you have given me. Eternal life comes from Christ. So at the very beginning of his gospel, John wants absolute clarity. If you don't understand the first four verses of this gospel as to who Christ is, there's no point in reading the rest of the gospel. He wants to precisely explain that the Jesus you believe in is according to these exact designations. And at the head of all of this is the plurality of the Godhead. He's God and He's with God, which we identify as the Trinity, the Holy Spirit being the third person who John introduces to us in the rest of his gospel, showing that He is as well as God. So from a biblical standpoint, according to John's gospel, from a salvation standpoint, from an evangelistic standpoint, the Trinity is at the head of all discussion. This issue of Jesus being God and the second person of the Trinity is John's theme throughout the book. No other New Testament writer presents Jesus as the Son of God more than John does. And every time he uses the term Son of God, it's in a Trinitarian sense. Every single time. Jesus uses it of himself. He uses it the first time in John's Gospel in John 3.16. where he calls himself God's only begotten Son. It's a Trinitarian term, meaning God's only Son who came forth from Him. And if he came forth from God, in this begetting sense, he must be of the same nature as God, making him equal with God, just as those who come from human fathers, in a begetting sense, are fully human and fully equal humanly with their parents. This is why John uses human analogies. My children are no less human than I am. They are of the same substance and nature. Why? Because I beget them. It's the same way with Jesus. He's begotten of His Father, therefore He is as much God as His Father is God. He is equal in substance and nature. Now, I don't want you to miss this. I'm not going to go through it. There could be another message, but I just want to give you something to look at later. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of God or God's Son in this beginning sense in John's Gospel 34 times. Five more times, Others in this gospel call him the Son of God in the same divine sense. The Jews do, because he called himself the Son of God. They say, you're making yourself equal with God. They understood what it meant. It's amazing how many people today don't understand it. His own enemies understood what he was saying. So the Jews called Him the Son of God once, John the Baptist called Him the Son of God once, Nathaniel called Him the Son of God once, and Peter called Him the Son of God twice in John's Gospel. All these instances designating that Jesus is or claimed to be God Himself. This is why the Jews were so furious with Jesus because he called himself the son of God. Not just some kind of lesser God or demigod, as much God as his father. But even more amazing than that is, and I thought that was pretty amazing 34 times in the gospel, John also uses the term father, which is a Trinitarian term. If the son's a Trinitarian term, then the father has to be a Trinitarian term. But he mentions the term father in his gospel, speaking of God as his father, 122 times. 120 of which Jesus refers to God as His Father to designate His Trinitarian relationship to Him. He even makes a distinction, if you look at John chapter 20, after the resurrection. In verse 17, you remember when Mary came to the tomb and she was weeping and Jesus talked to her and He said in verse 16, Mary, I'm in John chapter 20, and she turned and said to Him, And Jesus said to her, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. He makes a distinction between God being our father and God being his father, because God is not a father to us in a Trinitarian sense. He's a father to us in an adoptive sense. We are adopted sons, Jesus, is a begotten Son. He couldn't say, Our Father, in this situation, because He talked about it in a Trinitarian sense. And what He was talking about here is My Father and Your Father, My God and Your God. He's His God in His human sense, not in His divine sense. He's a father in relation to his deity, and he is his God in relation to his humanity. And here we have Jesus speaking of his incarnation and the hypostatic union. Paul. makes this distinction in a couple of his books. Peter does the same thing. In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God, is the God of Jesus' humanity, and he's the Father of his deity. Those aren't just words that Paul just decided to throw out in a poetic sense. He's designating the Trinity and the Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son. So basically, with the Gospel of John, we have an entire New Testament book dedicated to the doctrine of the Trinity. And if you understand this, you will never read the Gospel of John the same again. emphasizing the Trinitarian nature of Jesus Christ in the divine union with his Father. But just to review, because I've been gone for a couple of weeks, first we talked about the definition of the Trinity. I gave you a definition. In the nature and substance of the one true God, there subsists three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are each, in each person, 100% God. You don't have 33 and a third, 33 and a third, and 33 and a third. They're all 100% God. I don't know how that math works. It doesn't work in human calculations, that's all I can tell you. That's what makes Christianity unique. We really don't have to compete with any other religion. We are set apart by ourselves. The Trinity and the Resurrection are the two unique doctrines in Christianity that set us apart from everything else. This is why we can't fellowship with or acknowledge the salvation of Jews, or Muslims, or Mormons, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Trinitarians, or any other such groups. We can evangelize them. We can pray for them. We can befriend them. We can love them. But we cannot fellowship with them as Christians. I mean them being Christians. It's not possible. So if you do not know who truly embraces the doctrine of the Trinity and who does not, how are you going to know who to evangelize? We also looked at the attributes related to the Trinity. I told you that there was true the attribute of unity, the attribute of simplicity. These two refer to God being uncompounded, unmixed in His nature and His substance. We're complex. God is simple. God is pure spirit. We have bodies and souls. God doesn't have a body and a soul. He's pure spirit. Indivisible. We can be divided between soul and spirit. The writer of Hebrews even told us that. But you can't divide God. It's not possible. So we also looked at third, the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. And I gave you a number of quotes last time by the early church fathers. I'm not going to repeat those. Church fathers who even existed or lived in the time of the apostles. They were already, the church was already embracing the Trinity. And we have statements of the Trinity all through the New Testament. We also have extra-biblical history showing that the church was actually embracing it before the apostles had all died off. And although it was a very crude doctrine at the time, By the late 3rd and 4th centuries, the Church had formulated very sophisticated statements about the Trinity because of its absolute importance in the Church. The Trinity was the number one doctrine in early Church history. By the 4th century, the end of the 4th century, The church had made such sophisticated statements of the Trinity in their creeds and affirmations that nothing since has ever been done better. We keep going back to those creeds and statements. As I also noted, there was a controversy over the Trinity that had been brewing for the first 300 years of the church. I mean, stop and think about it. If this was the number one doctrine, and I say number one doctrine behind the scriptures, although the scriptures were actually formulated, or at least agreed upon, even later than the Trinity was. But if this was the number one doctrine, what do you think Satan's going to do? He's going to come in and just drive a wedge right in between the churches. He's going to do it. And that's what he did. This was the most controversial issue in church history. What the church went through the first 300 years is unprecedented anywhere else in history. And it demanded that the Orthodox wing of the church formulate what the Bible taught concerning the Trinity. You don't have Christianity without the Trinity. And the church did this in their creeds, which were produced at various church councils. So the creeds we have today from early church history are not theological discourses formulated in a vacuum. They are an answer to early church heresies that were tearing the church apart. You didn't have a bunch of early church fathers sitting around a table one day saying, hey, why don't we come up with a few creeds? That's not how it worked. These are theological responses and defenses against heresy concerning the Trinity. And for the early church, this doctrine was very literally a matter of eternal life and death. But sadly, there really is a lot of ignorance and arrogance in the church today concerning the creeds. And when I talk about creeds, I'm talking about the history of the church. You cannot divorce the creeds from their history. The creeds are not in a vacuum. And when somebody rejects the creeds, they're rejecting history, their own heritage. I mean, I go to some churches today, and you'd think the church was started 20 minutes ago. The church is 2,000 years old. It took a lot to get where we're at. There are many who reject the creeds as having any kind of influence on the church today. And it's not so much that they deny what the creeds say, it's that they deny that the creeds are of any importance or value. And I believe this only shows their ignorance of church history. It shows their arrogance. Ironically, this was, how God would have it, right? One of the churches that Paul and I visited in the last few weeks was a church that vehemently rejected the creeds and their value in their church denomination. We go back to John the Baptist. We don't need the creeds. Isn't it ironic, though, they believe what the creeds say? And I believe it's a real loss to Christians today not to be taught the church's rich doctrinal heritage and how our brothers and sisters of the early years of the church fought and were persecuted for the doctrines which we cherish today. Now, just to be clear here, I don't believe that the creeds are of equal authority, frankly, of any authority in the church today. But they are important formulations to teach us the truth of the authority of Scripture on crucial doctrines. If for no other reason to guard us against the same heresies the early church had to battle with. And sadly, by neglecting what the creeds teach us, many churches today ignorantly embrace non-Trinitarian groups and even say that these groups worship the same God that we worship. I don't get it. It's not possible. You don't even need to know church history. You just need to know what the creeds say to know that. And if they don't know what they say, I'm sure they don't know what the scriptures say because the creeds just reflect or mirror what the scriptures say in condensed form. That's why we have creeds. So there's an enormous value in knowing the Orthodox creeds and embracing what they teach us about biblical doctrine. Now, last time we talked about the subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. There's no question that the New Testament teaches that there's a subordination in the Trinity. You can't get around that. And some heretical groups have seen this subordination as proof that the Son and Holy Spirit are somehow not equal to the Father. Going so far as to say that the Father is eternal, but the Son and Spirit are not eternal, but created beings. This, of course, is precisely what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe, the Unitarians, and some other groups. But I explain to you that although there is admittedly a subordination within the Trinity, it's not an ontological subordination. It's not a subordination of being, or substance, or nature. That's what I mean by ontological. It's a subordination of role or activity within the Trinity. It's clear in Scripture that the Father directs the Son, and the Father and the Son direct the Spirit, and the Spirit never directs the Son, and the Son and Spirit never direct the Father. You will never find one time in Scripture where those things occur, ever. There is a subordination, but it's a functional subordination. It's a subordination of how the Trinity acts, not only within itself, but outside of itself in its creation. But again, this subordination is not in the sense of deity, which is where the Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians go. They want to subordinate the Trinity as far as their substance goes. In other words, the Father is eternal, but the Son and the Spirit are created. The Father is God, big G. The Son and the Spirit are little g. That's not biblical subordination. We said last time the Bible gives us the analogy of men and women in the same sense. Ontologically, women and men are completely equal as human beings, completely. No woman or no man is any more human than any other man or woman. Functionally, however, there's a subordination. The Bible doesn't apologize for that, although many churches do today. Men are the head of their wives and wives are to submit to their husbands, according to Ephesians 5.22. You can't read the law of Moses without seeing anything differently. But this is referring to roles and activity, not to equality as men and women. And if you don't make that distinction, you're gonna be completely confused on what the Bible teaches about men and women. And if you don't understand the difference between ontological and functional subordination, you're not going to understand the Trinity either, or at least as much as you can. But this subordination within the Trinity was not inconsequential. It sparked one of the most, if not the most, heated controversies in the church. And it was tearing the church apart at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th centuries. You had people on both sides of the fence. You had the Orthodox on one side and the Heterodox on the other side. The true and the false. At the head of the Orthodox assembly was a man named Athanasius. He was a Bishop of Alexander. And at the head of the heterodox, or the heretical assembly, was a man named Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria. And for right or wrong motives, we don't know, Emperor Constantine brought these two groups together, the orthodox and the heterodox, in the town of Nicaea, located in northwestern Turkey, in AD 318, to resolve the controversy. We want to get everybody in one room and figure this out. It was a good move. Now Arius, who led the heterodox or heretical party, used scripture to support this heresy. This was very scriptural, scripturally based. Both sides used scripture. The question is, which one was right? Arius reasoned that if the son was subject to limitations or incompleteness, as the New Testament describes, then he could not be equal to his father. But Arius didn't understand the difference between ontological and functional subordination. He didn't understand it. Or he refused one of the two. And last time I gave you a whole list of verses that he used and how he interpreted those. I won't go over that again. But there came a time in the debate at Nicaea, the council of Nicaea, that the Arian party had to formally submit its belief in the Trinity. I mean, you can only go so long before you say, you know what, just put it down on paper. We want to see exactly what you guys believe. That's what happened. So later in this controversy, one of Arius' peers, Eusebius of Caesarea, submitted a creed to the council at Nicaea that the heterodox party thought would be accepted by the orthodox party. And if the Orthodox Party did accept it, it would give the Aryans interpretive room to insert their heretical views. They purposely submitted an ambiguous statement so it could be interpreted either way. Trust me, it happens the same today. Just put a fog over it, and nobody will know what you really mean. And that's what they did in this creed. So I want us to look at this. This Arian creed, which the Orthodox Party would not accept. And I hope, did I put that in the notes? I hope I did. If you want to put that up. Did you get that? Should be the next one down. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty. Is that on there? There it is. This is the Arian Creed, the first part of it. I left the prelude off and I left the conclusion off because it doesn't really pertain to what we're talking about. I want you to look at this and I want you to think through it and see if you can pick up on any of the errors, potential errors in this. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, light of light, life of life, the only begotten Son, firstborn before all creation, begotten of God the Father before all ages, by whom all things were made. Now many today can read this creed and find nothing wrong with it. Maybe many of you. This is a crafty creed. We're not going to see any flashing neon lights here with error. It's in the ambiguity. The orthodox minds of the early church saw that it was fraught with problems, allowing for both an orthodox as well as a heterodox interpretation. And they're right. They were right. And I want to see how sharp your interpretive skills are and if you can find the problems in this creed that the Orthodox party in the early church found. And there are a lot. Maybe we should just close up here and come back next week and see what your answers are. All right, here we go. I'll break it down phrase by phrase. Number one. maker of all things visible and invisible. Sounds good? God created all things visible and invisible. But this could refer to angels who are invisible, but it could also allow for the Son, who is also invisible, to be made or created by the Father. It can be interpreted that way. You see? You can interpret it either way. We're conditioned to believe that the Son of God is eternal, so we don't even see it. But it's there. Number two. God of God. This states that the Son is God. but he could be God in a different sense, or a different form, or a different substance, which is exactly why the way the Aryans wanted it, wanted to interpret it once the creed was accepted. He could be of a different substance from his father. As the next phrase shows, number three, the only begotten son, first born before all creation. The first part of the statement is biblically true. The only begotten Son, you can't argue with that, that comes right out of the Bible, right out of John. But the second part could refer to the Son being begotten by the Father, here it is, at a point before creation. Which means that the Son would not be eternal but came into being at a certain point. He had a beginning. Now, what this says is that He existed before creation, and then He created all things, but it doesn't say it leaves room for Him not being eternal, meaning He's less of a God. Number four, begotten of God the Father before all ages by whom also all things were made. This again is like the previous statement in that the son could be begotten at a point in eternity, but not from all eternity, making him have a starting point or a beginning. This says he was begotten of God the Father before all ages, but not necessarily from all eternity. Again, making him a created being. So in this intentionally ambiguous statement, the Son could be a demigod, a lesser God, who is an intermediary between God and his creation. The Son being the first created being in eternity, who then created all things at the beginning of time. And the reason this beginning at some point where the son had a beginning means he cannot be equal to God in substance and nature because God's substance and nature is what? Eternal. God can't break a piece of himself off and have a son and the son be eternal. Can't do it. The sun would have a beginning. This is precisely what the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unitarians teach. Nothing's changed in 2,000 years. So with a clear, interpretive, and precise mind, you can see the problems with this creed, that it could be taken as orthodox or heterodox, depending on how you interpret it, which is exactly what the intent of the Aryan party was. So what do you think the council did? It tightened up the language of the Aryan Creed to make it an airtight orthodox statement. That's what it did. They didn't come up with a brand new statement. They just fixed the problems with this one. And here's the corrected version of what we call the Nicene Creed. which particularly focuses on the Father and Son being of the same substance in nature, meaning they are both eternally divine beings, because that's what was at stake. And here it is, we have the, okay, Nicene Creed is up there. We believe in one, and see if you can see the changes now that take care of the problems. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, of the same substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth. You see, everyone understood that if you're of the same substance, you have to be of the same eternality. That's why they said, the same substance, which the Aryan Creed didn't say. And then, to make it completely airtight, The council added this ratification to the end of the creed to ensure that no Arian heresy could be interpreted from it. And this was crucial, this is the ratification. And this is really, this is point blank. And those who say there was a time when he, that's the son, was not, or that before he was begotten, he was not. And it's speaking of eternity here, not in time. or that he was made out of nothing, or who say that the Son of God is of any other substance, or that he is changeable or unstable, these the Catholic or the Universal and Apostolic Church anathematizes." They closed all the loopholes. So now, I hope you can see the absolute importance for the doctrine of eternal generation of the Son of God. The eternal begetting of the Son of God. This doctrine of eternal begetting or eternal generation. The act of generating something. guards against the sun coming into being at any point in time or eternity. The doctrine of eternal generation states that the Son was begotten of the Father, which John 1.14 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Or John 1.18, no one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. John 3.16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. that whoever believes in Him has eternal life. This is a Trinitarian statement. You cannot just ask somebody to believe in Jesus Christ if they don't know who He is. There's got to be some explanation like John does at the beginning of his gospel. Or John 3.18. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed, here it is, in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Every single word is important. You know, you walk up to somebody, you believe in Jesus? Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. Oh, good. I met another Christian. Really? You could walk up to a demon and ask them that, and they're going to say, yes. I only spent 10 messages on that, I think. But here's the point. The beginning cannot be a beginning in time or at any point before time. Do you see what the problem with that is? If this beginning was in time or at any point before time, it would mean that the sun had a beginning. That's why we believe in an eternal beginning or an eternal generation of the Son. Otherwise, it would make Him less than God. He had no beginning. It was, He was eternally begotten of the Father. And I know we as humans can't comprehend an eternal begetting. I can't comprehend it. I don't even know where to start thinking about that. I mean, when I beget something, it happens in a point in time, right? It's called conception. It doesn't work like that in the Godhead. It's an eternal begetting. We all have a beginning. Jesus didn't have one. But that's the closest analogy that John could come up with to communicate where Jesus came from. He came from His Father from all eternity. It means he is eternally being, get this, he is eternally being generated from all eternity. There wasn't a, you know, he started being generated and now it's complete. You can't say that because now there's a change. It's got to be a constant beginning through all eternity. Even as we speak, the Father is still begetting the Son, because if that ever comes to a completion, there's a change, and we have a problem with the immutability of God. Now that's something to really blow your circuits, because I have no idea how that works. But if you understand that concept and deny it, you cannot be a Christian. I'm not saying you can't be ignorant of it, you can. But if you understand it and deny it, like the Jehovah's Witnesses do, or the Unitarians do, you cannot be a Christian. They flatly deny the doctrine of eternal generation. The sun is eternal by nature. So he could not have a beginning or generation at any point. So we see that this doctrine to some people is purely academic. Why are you even talking about that? We have better things to do. It's not purely academic. It's not unimportant. And it's not inconsequential. God wants us to know who He is. This is why the early church so vehemently fought for a precise statement on the Trinity. The Father then, and don't tune me out, I know it's, give me a couple more minutes, we'll be done. The Father is the source of the divine substance of the Son in an eternal beginning. What's an eternal source? It never had a beginning. And the Father and the Son are the source of the divine substance of the Spirit. And this source of the divine substance coming from the Father is referred to, as I said, eternal generation. And the source of the divine substance coming from the Father and the Son is referred to by theologians as the eternal procession of the Spirit or the eternal spiration of the Spirit. You say, well, why don't they use the word begotten because the Spirit is the same as the Son, right? They're both equal with God. Why wouldn't it be eternally begotten, the Spirit be eternally begotten by the Father and Son? Why? Because the Bible says so. The only begotten Son. There is no other begotten. So you have to come up with a different term. The Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Arguments for the Spirit are the same arguments as the Son. If there was ever a time that the Father and Son began, even in eternity, to spirate the Spirit, the Spirit wouldn't be God. And if from all eternity they were spirating the Spirit, but then that came to a completion, the Spirit wouldn't be God because now we have a change We have an ontological change in the Trinity, impossible, destroys the doctrine of immutability. Since the son is eternal with the father, and the Bible says that he is the only begotten of his father, he must be eternally begotten of the father. And since he's the only begotten of the father, the spirit cannot be begotten by the father or the son. The spirit must be eternally something else, and we call it eternal procession, or eternal spiration. You see, we're going back. We are logically going back to what has to be to protect a pure doctrine of the Trinity. Because if you believe anything else, by default, you would be a heretic. if you fully understood the arguments. Because the only default position is the Son and the Spirit had to have a beginning point. Now, of this, the Athanasian Creed. A hundred years after the Nicene Creed says this. Do we have that? The Athanasian Creed. You've got to back up. There it is. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but preceding. The Westminster Confession also says, in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons of one substance, power and eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. To come up with any other conclusion, and this is a conclusion by default, but to come up with any other conclusion would violate what the scriptures teach about the Son and the Holy Spirit. Well, what I presented to you this morning is a very simplified account of what happened at the Council of Nicaea. I mean, I've crammed in 30 minutes what happened in eight years. The council met for eight years. Took them eight years to hammer this out. From AD 318 to AD 325. And it still wasn't over yet because 100 years later, they even had to tighten up what the Nicene Creed was with the Athanasian Creed. I was gonna give you biblical passages related to the Trinity. We're not gonna do that. I can give you those if you want those. Old Testament, New Testament, there are plenty of passages on that. Father, thank you for this time and patience of my brothers and sisters. I pray, God, that they would love you, that they would understand as much as they can about your person, that you are so much greater than we are. You are incomprehensible. You are eternal, you are omnipotent, you're omnipresent, you're omniscient, all things that really we can't understand, but you are the God who is for us and not against us. And as Paul asks a rhetorical question in Romans 8, if God is for us, if this incomprehensible God is for us, who can be against us? There is no one or nothing that could be against us. And with you on our side, there is not a problem that ever would come into our lives that we should fret over. We should be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and supplication, make our requests known to God, and know that the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, because we have this incomprehensible God on our side. Thank you for being our God. Thank you for Jesus our Savior. And thank you for the Holy Spirit who indwells us and sanctifies us daily. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.