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STUDY IN THEOLOGY #3 -- The Trinity

1.  Proof The Trinity Exists

In this study we will deal with the Trinity.  The Trinity, of course, is not
a Roman invention as you hear falsely presented by the Campbellites, nor is
the Trinity the half accomplished thing taught by the followers of Judge
Rutherford and Pastor Russell, nor is the Trinity some "Jesus only" doctrine
picked up by many charismatic groups.  All of these groups have trouble with
the word of God and none of them are sound in doctrine, nor can their
adherents study the Bible properly; therefore, they get into all kinds of
trouble.  One group says, "Well, if you've seen Christ, you've seen the
Father; therefore, the Father's name is Jesus," which, of course, is
nonsense.  Jesus is the name of a human being--a man.  God is a spirit.  On
the other hand, when the followers of Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford
get into the same mess, they would not think of calling the Father "Jesus,"
so they bend over backward the other way, go clean overboard and make as bad
a mess and try to pretend the Father is one God and the Son is another God.
This ancient heresy was called "Arianism" and it was discussed in the
Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.  The followers of the Watchtower Society have
never yet corrected the false teaching, nor have they analyzed it, nor can
they discuss it.  Men who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to
repeat the lessons of history.  So, we find the New American Standard
Version in John 1:18 teaching the ancient Arian heresy of two Gods, an
uncreated God--God the Father, and a created God--Jesus Christ.  This heresy
is called Russellism or Arianism and was supposedly settled at the Council
of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

Now we know that there is one God and that this God is Creator of the world
and the universe.  This God is the God of Genesis 1:1 who spoke the world
into existence.  Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is
one Lord."  There is only one God.  However, a careful study of the
scriptures will show that this God exists in three persons; that is, the
Godhead is manifested in three persons.  We read about the Godhead in Romans
1:20 where Paul says, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen,...even his eternal power and Godhead."  In
Colossians 2:9 we read that in the Lord Jesus Christ "dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily."  Bodily is a reference to a man.  This
brings up a problem.  How can God be three persons and one God at the same
time?  Wouldn't this make three gods?  And then, of course, this would
resemble a pagan philosophy and would contradict Deuteronomy 6:4.  Now, the
idea of three created gods is an old pagan idea that one can find in all the
pagan "mystery religions."  The mystery religions of Rome and Greece had
three-headed gods, so the Trinity itself, as a doctrine, is nothing new.
The pagan religions have trinities, but their gods are a plurality of gods
which we call "polytheism."

Note that there is only one God, but the doctrine of the Trinity presents
God manifested in three persons.  Now, I will explain this very briefly so
that the uninitiated can understand it.  One person is one person.  I am
only one person.  I am not two.  And yet, by any scripture standard, I am
three.  There is nobody who is reading this right now who is not a body,
soul and spirit.  First Thessalonians 5:23-24 says,

"...I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is he that calleth you,
who also will do it."

Every person is a body, soul and spirit--yet, they are one unit--and yet,
they are three.

Notice that we have invisible red heat waves--the picture of the Father.
Yellow light rays that are seen--picturing the Son.  Blue chemical rays that
can be seen by their effect--picturing the Spirit.  Or, an even more
accurate picture is the sun itself.  The sun puts out alpha, beta and gamma
rays.  These rays are classified as light, heat and actinic rays.  Now, no
one will deny that the sun is one unit.  It is one star--it is certainly not
three separate stars.  The sun is one unit.  Anyone who knows his scientific
facts knows that the sun puts out light rays which can be seen but not felt,
heat rays that can be felt but not seen, and rays that can be neither seen
nor felt, actinic rays.  The actinic rays very plainly picture God the
Father.  The rays which can be seen but not felt picture Jesus Christ the
Son showing up in human form.  The rays that can be felt but not seen
picture the Holy Spirit.

Again, we have a beautiful illustration of the Trinity in water.  Water is
classified as H0, and yet anybody can see in a minute that the term H0 is
three units.  One unit of oxygen and two units of hydrogen.  Does this make
three separate things?  No, it is water; it is one thing.  And yet water can
appear in ice form, in liquid form or in steam form.  Do you know what ice
is as a liquid?  It is water.  Do you know what liquid is as ice?  It is
water.  Do you know what liquid is as steam?  It is water.  Or as someone
said one time, "Three in one, one in three, and the one in the middle died
for me."  Now, the unsaved man cannot understand these simple facts nor can
the people who teach "Jesus oneness, onlyness."  These people are not able
to grasp simple, basic, primitive, primary, grade school truths.  The facts
are that water is water appearing in three forms and sunlight is the sun
appearing in three forms.  That is a fact.  It can be proved.  And yet the
uninitiated (who spend a lot of time quoting scripture they know nothing
about and preaching the Bible without studying it and perverting the word of
God because they are not interested in what the doctrines have to say) can
never understand this simple basic truth that a trinity is a common ordinary
phenomenon of nature.

Every person is a body, soul and spirit.  I am one person, but I am revealed
as the son in a physical body; as a spirit--there is in me a spirit, the
spirit of man;  and as a type of God the Father--a soul in me that you
cannot see and you cannot feel.  Every person is a trinity--they were made
in the image of God; and, of course, although Adam fell and his spirit died
and men became dead in trespasses and sin, they still have a spirit;
howbeit, it is a dead spirit.  Hence, Christ says, "Ye must be born again."

Now, Isaiah 55:8-9 teaches us that human reason has no bearing on a study of
God if a person is trying to figure out something that God has already shown
them.  The Lord said,

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith
the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

We cannot find the word "trinity" in the Bible nor can we find "triune God"
in the Bible, but as far as that goes, the word "sacrament" is found in no
Bible.  The word "Catholic" is not a Bible word by the wildest stretch of
the imagination.  And there will be a hundred dollars reward for anybody who
can find the word "rapture" or the word "millennium" in the Bible.  We are
not now dealing with technicalities of whether or not a word is found in
Scripture.  We are dealing with the fact that the Trinity is demonstrated in
nature.  In Romans 1 he says the invisible things (for example, the Godhead)
are "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."  So, we
can understand the Trinity by our study of sunlight and water.

Now, the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity is very clear in the Bible.
For example, at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 3:13-17 we
see the Trinity at work.  God the Father spoke from heaven and said,

"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, was being baptized.  God the Holy Spirit
descended like a dove and alighted on the Saviour.  Here is a perfect
picture of the three persons of the Trinity at work, and although all
members of the Trinity are God, God is not split into three separate gods.
We are referring to the fact that Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and
the Father is God.  This is brought out very clearly in the New Testament in
Matthew 28:19 where we were told to

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of (in
the NAME--SINGULAR) the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

Now, there is only one name that will match the Father, the Son and Holy
Ghost.  This name is not Jesus.  The one name that will match the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost is the Lord; so, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Ghost and baptizing in the name of the Lord is the same operation.

Now, we realize that all American heretics who are trying to be saved by
baptismal regeneration prefer the Jewish baptism of Acts 2:38--baptism in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.  But this is the
standard characteristic of all unsaved preachers who are going to hell while
quoting scripture because these verses deal with Israel before the gospel of
the revelation of the grace of God was given to Paul.  In Acts 2:38 there
are NO Christians present.  The term "Christian" does not occur anywhere in
your Bible until Acts 11:26.  In Acts 2, you are dealing with pork-
abstaining, temple-worshipping, Sabbath-observing, circumcised Jews whose
salvation had an element of faith and works mingled with it.  This is why
all unsaved preachers try to get you to Acts 2:38 to give you the plan of
salvation, because there is no plan of salvation in Acts 2:38.  Acts 2:38 is
Simon Peter's Pentecostal message to the house of Israel.  This is more than
apparent by the briefest study of verses 14, 22, 29, and 36.  Baptism for a
Gentile is said to be in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Jesus is the Lord.  The Holy Spirit is the Lord.  The Father is Lord.  Jesus
is God.  The Father is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The name "Jesus" is
never applied to the Father.  Now, it is true that Christ said,

"...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father..." (John 14:9),

but not once did Jesus ever call the Father "Jesus."  That is a mistaken
blasphemy that comes from not reading your Bible.  Not once in the Bible is
the Holy Spirit called Jesus.  The Holy Spirit is called the Holy Ghost, the
Comforter, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Truth.
The Lord Jesus Christ is called the Messiah, Immanuel, Christ, the Lord, the
Lord Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus, and the Son of man.  Not once is Jesus
Christ ever referred to as the Father.  That is not all.  The Father is
referred to in the Bible as Jehovah, and Jeh, and Lord, and Lord God, and
God, but never Jesus.  Therefore, we see the correct scriptural position is
right between two heresies.  The first of these is the oneness, onlyness,
Jesus only, Acts 2:38 heresy, which has no real salvation in it.  And the
second is the heresy of the Russellites (whom Southerners call "no-hellers")
that teaches three separate gods when, of course, there are not.

Notice in the benediction in II Corinthians 13:14 Paul says,

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion
of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.  Amen."

Notice in Genesis 1 that we find the Lord speaking of Himself in plural
terms when He says in Genesis 1:26,

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion...."

God is plainly speaking of Himself not as a plurality of gods but as a
plural God.  Now, that is what you have to get.  You say, "I can't
understand it."  You can understand it if you can look in a mirror.  You are
not three people, but you are looking at body, soul and spirit.  Christ
said,

"And fear not them which kill the body,...but rather fear him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).

Now, why would you think they were the same when Christ said they were
different?  Paul said,

"For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit..."
(Col. 2:5).

Why would you think they are the same when they are not?  The Bible says in
Hebrews 4:12-13 the word of God is able to divide asunder the soul and
spirit.  Then, if they are different, why would you think they are the same?
They are the same because you yourself are body, soul and spirit.  You are
not three individuals, but you exist in three manifestations.

God is not a plurality of gods, but He exists in three manifestations.  His
body is the Lord Jesus Christ.  His soul is God the Father.  His Spirit is
plainly the Holy Spirit.  Now, as we said before, water is a beautiful
illustration of this great truth.  Water is H0, three components, yet it is
one unit.  However, this one unit appears as liquid and when it is frozen it
appears as ice, and when it is heated it appears as steam, yet it never
ceases to be water.  You can have water existing in all three separate
forms.  It is still the same stuff.  It is still H0.

Another good illustration is a business firm, Smith and Company, composed of
three brothers, Bill Smith, Henry Smith and John Smith.  All right, they
have one name, one firm, and each brother is the head of a department--the
three work together without friction as a single unit (as does the Lord),
and all three have the same power.

It must be emphasized that the Trinity still remains a mystery, basically,
and that no single illustration can possibly explain everything about the
Trinity.  For example, you can't explain Christ saying, "The Father is
greater than I," when they actually have the same essence.  You can only
explain that in view of the fact that when Christ makes that statement He is
on the earth in human form and the Father is not.  You cannot fully explain
the collapse of the Trinity into a Unity in eternity after Revelation 22
when the Son will deliver up the Kingdom into the Father and then He Himself
will submerge into God the Father so that God may be all in all the way it
was before Genesis 1:1.  However, we can use some illustrations to throw
some light on the difficult and complex problem of the Trinity.

The most important thing we know about the Trinity is that it exists.  It is
not a Roman doctrine.  It is a Bible doctrine.  It is not the doctrine of
Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford.  We firmly believe, any Christian
firmly believes, that there is one God eternally existing and manifesting
Himself to us in three persons:  the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Trinity can act as a unit.  The Holy Spirit and the Son and the
Father work as a unity in the following operations.  The Trinity acts as a
unity in creation, in the incarnation, in redemption, in salvation, in
communion, in prayer, in glory, and in regeneration.  I will show you how
the attributes of God the Father are the same attributes given to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit by the scripture.

2.  The Trinity Acting in Creation

All right, first of all, in creation, notice this, please.  God the Father
spoke in Genesis 1:3 and said, "Let there be light."  That is God the Father
speaking.  But, notice in John 1:1 that He is acting in unity with the Word
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.  In John 1:1 we read, "In the beginning was
the Word."  We also see in John 1:3 that "All things were made by him: and
without Him was not anything made that was made."  So, the Son was active in
the world creation back there in Genesis 1.  But notice, the Holy Spirit is
not left out either.  God the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters
in Genesis 1:2.  We read in Genesis 1:2,3, "...darkness was upon the face of
the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God
said...."

Then, we plainly have Bible references no matter who thinks what or no
matter whose opinions may be taken above anybody else's.  We plainly have
three scriptural references that teach that in creation God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all active.

3.  The Trinity in The Incarnation

All right, in the incarnation (that is, the coming of God the Father to
manifest Himself in the flesh as a man), God the Father is said to have
given His only Son.  John 3:16,

"For God (there is the Father) so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son" (there is Jesus Christ).

So, the Son was born into the world.  You know what the Lord said about that
Son?  He said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye
him" (Matt. 17:5).  Plainly, the Son is active in the incarnation.  After
all, the Son was born and was called Jesus Immanuel, which means "God is
with us."  So, the Son is born into the world, but that is not all.  When
the Son was born into the world, the Holy Spirit was the medium of
conception.  In Luke 1:35 Mary was told,

"...The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee;"

the holy thing born of her shall be begotten of the Holy Ghost.  Therefore,
we learn that God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are not
only active in creation, but they are also active in the incarnation.  The
coming of God to this earth will be as a man, the super-humanoid from outer
space to bring peace on earth, the real peace, from the real humanoid, from
the right God.  Therefore, all space programs--Outer Space, Twilight Zone,
Star Trek, The Thing From Outer Space and the Jupiter and Venus kick--and
all the pretty little television shows put on around plots about getting the
folks from outer space to come and help you to bring peace on earth are what
we call contradictions of the truth.  That is, they are direct falsehoods
and direct blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and they are aimed against the word
of God.

In the word of God the "visitor from outer space," who has been here and
returned, told you what to do to get life, told you what to do to have
peace; and ninety percent of the population of the world has never paid any
attention to Him and never will.  Therefore, Christ said in John 5:43,

"I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come
in his own name, him ye will receive."

This one is spoken of in II Thessalonians 2; he is called the son of
perdition, the son of damnation, the man of sin, Apollyon, the destroyer,
and the Antichrist.  So, the next man from outer space, of course, will be
the wrong man.  Once you put that negative construction on the beings from
other planets, you set yourself at odds against all modern scientific
research, for it is based on the evolutionary hallucination that if we can
contact life on other planets it is bound to be a superior form of life that
will come down here and help us solve our problems.  That form of life has
already been here and returned.  And, I might add, is coming again after the
world accepts the Antichrist as the head of the United Nations.

4.  The Trinity Acting in Redemption

The Father and Son are active in redemption, and so is the Holy Spirit.
Notice that God the Father accepted the sacrifice as a perfect sacrifice in
Hebrews 10:8-12.  No one has to be told that the Son Himself offered Himself
up as the sacrifice.  In redemption, God the Son is the main person
involved.  He offered Himself up as our substitute.  The Bible says, "...the
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God..." (I Peter 3:18).  The
Bible says, "For he (that is, the Father) hath made him (that is, Christ the
Son) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him" (II Cor. 5:21).  The Bible says, "But he (that
is, the Son) was wounded for our transgressions, he (that is, the Son) was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him (that
is, the Son); and with his stripes (that is, the Son) we are healed" (Isa.
53:5).  And he goes right on to say in Isaiah 53:10, "Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him."  The reference plainly is to God the Father.

God the Father is active in redemption, and God the Son is active in
redemption.  That is not all.  God the Holy Spirit is active in redemption,
for we read in Hebrews 9:14 that when Jesus Christ offered up the perfect
substitute, the perfect, propitiatory, vicarious atonement for sinners,
Jesus offered Himself "through the eternal Spirit."  Then, we see the
Trinity acts as a unity in creation, in the incarnation and in redemption.
God is one God in three persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--and there is
no order of importance down the line.  The three are not one at the top and
one on the middle level and one at the bottom.  The three are on the same
level, with the Father coming first, the Son coming second, and the Holy
Spirit coming third.  The Son is related to the Father by regeneration; the
Holy Spirit is related to the Son by procession.  Suffice it for now to
understand that Jesus Christ was the Father manifest in the flesh.  Although
not being a substitute for the Father, He was God the Father manifest in the
flesh as God's Son.  You cannot explain how God the Father could have still
been up there and Him down here, but it was so.  You can't explain how the
Holy Spirit could have descended upon Him while He was being baptized, and
yet, He had not the Spirit by measure (John 3:34) for all the fullness of
the Godhead dwelt bodily in Him, but we know it is so.  The Trinity is a
great mystery, but it is a scriptural mystery.  It can only be understood
and comprehended by reading the word of God itself and believing the word of
God as the word of God stands.

5.  The Trinity Acting in Salvation

Now, speaking further in these matters, the Trinity acts as a unity in
salvation.  The perfect picture of this in the Bible is the Father who
received His son home.  The Bible says God "hath made us accepted in the
beloved" (Eph. 1:6) and Christ said, "no man cometh unto the Father, but by
me" (John 14:6); therefore, the prodigal son coming home from the far
country is a beautiful picture of a boy being welcomed and accepted by his
father upon his return.  Notice in Luke 15:22 and 23 that the father
welcomed the sinner, forgave him, supplied his clothes, and put on a
celebration.  It's a perfect picture of the reconciliation of the sinner.
The Bible says in II Corinthians 5:21 that God "hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
The Bible says we are "accepted in the beloved."

The Father welcomes and accepts any sinner who receives His Son.  This is
perfectly apparent by the fact that the Bible says when a man receives
Christ he is predestinated to be adopted (see Eph. 1:5), and when a man
receives Christ he is predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son
(see Rom. 8:29).  Both of these operations, the conformation of the image of
Christ and the adoption, begin when the sinner receives Jesus Christ.  He is
accepted by the Father, placed in the family, and his final destination will
be to be conformed to the very Son of God Himself.

Notice that the Son is also active in salvation.  He goes to see the lost
sheep to save them.  He said in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost."  In Luke 15:4 we have a perfect
picture of this in the parable of the lost sheep where we are told there
were sheep on the side of the mountain and the shepherd goes out there and
finds the lost sheet.  John 1:11,12 says, "He came unto his own, and his own
received him not.  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God...."  So, God the Son is active in salvation.

Furthermore, God the Holy Spirit seals the new convert when he is saved.  We
read in Ephesians 1:13 that when a man believes on Jesus Christ he is sealed
with the Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, we read in Ephesians 4:30, "And grieve
not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of
redemption."  In I Corinthians 6 we read about the Holy Spirit active in
this work and saying the born again sinner is not only sanctified by the
blood of Christ but he is also sanctified by the Spirit of God.  So, God the
Trinity works in unity.  God the Holy Spirit, God the Father and God the Son
are all active in salvation.  That is not all.

6.  The Trinity in Communion

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are active in communion.
God the Father invites us to come to Him for fellowship in Ephesians 2:18,
"For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."  But
this is on the grounds of God the Son being our reconciliation, II
Corinthians 5:19, "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation," and it is God the Holy Spirit that
effects this union and communion.  Read Ephesians 2:18 again.  We read about
the Holy Spirit Himself making intercession for us which shows us that the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit act conjunctively in prayer.  God the Father is
the one who receives the request.  Requests are made to the Father, but they
are made in the name of the Son (John 16:23, "...Whatsoever ye shall ask the
Father in my name, he will give it you"), and it is God the Holy Spirit who
directs us in our requests and leads and guides us in our praying.

So, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a Catholic or pagan doctrine at all.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a Biblical fact.  The two stupid blasphemies
that come from perverting this fact were set up, first by a group of people
who insisted that there were three separate gods, with Jesus Christ as a
minor God--and these people lay very little emphasis on the Holy Spirit, if
any emphasis at all.  The second blasphemy is what we call the "Jesus
oneness, onlyness `blasphemy'," which teaches that God the Father is Jesus
Christ, which of course is nonsense.  Jesus Christ is the name of God the
Son.  Now, the scriptures appealed to by the reprobates who pervert the word
of God are numerous and, of course, to the uninitiated and to the student
who does not study "to show himself approved unto God" it all seems very
logical.  For example, if I wanted to prove the name of God the Father was
Jesus Christ, I would turn you to Isaiah 9 and John 14.  I would point out
that Jesus Christ said, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father."  That
is a good boffo to try to prove a lie with.  Then I would turn to Isaiah 9
and try to show that Christ's name shall be "called" the everlasting Father.
You see?  Now, this is the kind of jam that people get into by taking two or
three verses out and trying to make the Bible line up with the two or three
verses.  All heretics operate in this fashion.

The Campbellite heresy prevalent since 1800 was erected on the stupid
grounds that the whole Bible was to be regulated to Mark 16:16 and Acts
2:38.  The Catholic blasphemy that will be used by the pope to control the
United Nations teaches that the whole Bible is to be regulated according to
Matthew 16:16-18.  There is not a charismatic nut in this country that isn't
trying to make the whole Bible line up with Acts 2 and I Corinthians 14,
which is the height of folly, the uttermost stupidity of the very worst,
vulgar, blasphemous and obscene sort.  After all, the Bible was not written
just to prove two or three verses that you and your friends have perverted
to attract attention.  The Bible is the word of God.  The Bible clearly,
from cover to cover, presents the Father, Son and Holy Spirit working as a
unit.  And you will notice the verses we use to prove this are not two or
three verses lifted out of context, but verse after verse in the context in
which it appears.

For example, when the Lord Jesus Christ said, "he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father," He was speaking of His bodily appearance in the flesh--God
the Father appearing in the flesh.  At no time does He imply that anybody
has seen God the Father as God the Father is in the Spirit.  The Bible says
in John 1:18, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."  And again we
read that God is a spirit and he dwelleth "in the light which no man can
approach unto," nor man can see, nor any math hath seen (I Tim. 6:16).

So, we see by the scripture that these cute little denominational
perversions that are erected on the grounds that "this verse teaches this,
therefore, the whole Bible should be regulated to this verse" are obscene
vulgarities of the very worst sort and beneath the serious student of the
word of God.  Of course, we have trouble with the interdenominational groups
who say, "Well, any doctrinal teaching is denominational teaching," which is
also a lie.  The scriptures were written primarily to teach doctrine.  This
is apparent from II Timothy 3:16 which says, "All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine...." The very first
purpose that God had in writing the Bible was to teach sound doctrine.  The
Bible tells us that in the last days they will "heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears" and they will not endure "sound doctrine" (II Tim. 4:3-
4).

Now, in "sound doctrine" the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are said to be
spoken of as working together in creation, in the incarnation, in
redemption, in salvation, in communion, and in prayer.  You say, "How many
verses?"  Eighteen in a row, and more coming up.  When the Bible said Christ
the Son shall be called "The everlasting Father" (Isa. 9:6), it is merely
saying the Son shall be called that.  At no time are the titles ascribed to
God the Father addressed to Jesus Christ.  Now, Jesus Christ the Son has the
same attributes, since He was God manifest in the flesh, but the term
"Jehovah" is the name applied to God the Father in the Old Testament; and
although we know Jesus as a member of the Trinity and not as a created god
or a separate being from God, in His earthly life He is never called
Jehovah: He is called Jesus Christ.  And when He says, "I AM," to the group
and applies to Himself the name of "Jehovah I am," He lets us know that He
is a member of the Trinity, coequal with God, and He is coequal with
Jehovah.  As a matter of fact, the term "King of kings and Lord of lords" is
the "Jehovah of jehovahs" in the book of Revelation.  But again, this is
dealing with the manifestation of Jehovah God the Father as the Son, and at
no time are you ever told to believe in two separate distinct gods.  Nor at
any time do the distinctions of the Trinity become muddled and lose their
lines of delineation; that is, it is a clear presentation of truth and yet a
mystery which an unsaved man cannot understand.

So, everybody who teaches three created gods or two created gods or only one
God with one person and all have the same name--these people are unsaved
people who cannot understand the word of God.  The Bible says in I
Corinthians 2:14,

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they
are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned."

7.  The Trinity Acting In Glory

The Trinity acts in unity in glory.  God the Father is to eventually receive
the eternal kingdom, I Corinthians 15; God the Son is the one who will
change our vile bodies to be like His glorious body, Philippians 3:21; God
the Holy Spirit gives the invitation in Revelation 22:17.  Again, God the
Father records our new name in glory, Luke 10:20;  God the Son cleanses our
sins in His precious blood, Ephesians 1:7;  God the Holy Spirit performs the
transforming miracle of the new birth, John 3:3-6, making all three
operative in regeneration.

8.  Attributes Of The Trinity

Now it is time to talk about the attributes of God.  First of all His
incommunicable attributes:  His eternity, His omnipotence, His omniscience
and His omnipresence.  Then we are going to talk about His communicable
attributes:  His truth, His benevolence, His communion and His holiness.
Then I am going to give you the scripture references to show you that God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all have these same
attributes although all three are distinct persons.

First of all on the eternity of God.  God the Father is said to be eternal,
Psalm 90:2.  God the Son is said to be eternal, Revelation 1:8.  God the
Holy Spirit is said to be eternal, Hebrews 9:14.

We will now take God's omnipotence or His all-powerfulness.  God the Father,
I Peter 1:5.  God the Son, II Corinthians 12:9.  God the Holy Spirit, Romans
15:19.

We shall now deal with God's omniscience or His all knowledge.  God the
Father, Jeremiah 17:10.  God the Son, Revelation 2:23.  God the Holy Spirit,
I Corinthians 2:11.

Now we will see God's omnipresence, the fact that He is everywhere at once,
His immensity.  God the Father, Jeremiah 23:24. God the Son, Matthew 18:20.
God the Holy Spirit, Psalm 139:7.

We shall now deal with God's holiness as an attribute.  God is holy.  God
the Father, Revelation 15:4.  God the Son, Acts 3:14.  God the Holy Spirit,
Luke 1:15.

Next we will look at God's truthfulness or honesty.  God the Father, John
7:28.  God the Son, Revelation 3:7.  God the Holy Spirit, I John 5:6.

We will now deal with God's goodness or kindness or longsuffering.  God the
Father, Romans 2:4.  God the Son, Ephesians 5:25.  God the Holy Spirit,
Nehemiah 9:20.

Finally, we will deal with the communion of God--God communing with man and
communicating with man.  God the Father, I John 1:3.  God the Son, I John
1:3.  God the Holy Spirit, II Corinthians 13:14.

Now, there we have proof that the Son is deity and that the Holy Spirit is
deity as well as the Father, without being three separate gods.  They act as
a unit.  The same attributes ascribed to God the Father are ascribed to the
Son and Holy Spirit but not the same titles.  For example, although God the
Father is Lord and God and God the Son is Lord and God and God the Holy
Spirit is Lord and God, the exact titles are not applied.  God the Father is
not called the Paraclete or the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of Christ.  The Son
is not called by title Jehovah-jireh.  He is not called Jehovah-nissi or
Jehovah-rapah.  He is not called Jah.  Nor is the Son called the Holy Ghost;
nor is the Son called the Comforter.  They maintain absolutely their
separate distinctions in one Godhead.  A man said, "I don't understand it."
You are not told to understand it.  You are told to believe it.  And no
church told you that.  The word of God told you that.  The Father maintains
His separate distinction although the same attributes ascribed to Jesus
Christ are ascribed to the Father and vice versa.  The Father is never
called Christ.  The Father is never called Jesus Christ.  And the Father is
never called Jesus.

Three in one and one in three and the one in the middle died for me.  You
say, "I don't understand this perplexing doctrine."  Woodbridge said, "He
who will try to understand the Trinity fully will lose his mind.  But he who
will deny the Trinity will lose his soul."  And that is as good as you ever
heard it.  These unsaved people trying to make the Father Jesus and the Son
Jesus and the Holy Spirit Jesus are unsaved people who will not study the
word of God or believe it.  These unsaved people who are trying to make God
the Father one God and Jesus Christ another God are in the same boat but on
opposite ends.  And the boat is sinking.

The Trinity is a mystery that will remain a mystery until we meet the Lord
in glory.  However, this doesn't mean we can't believe it--it doesn't mean
we shouldn't believe it.  A Christian must believe it--it is the word of
God.  It is the teaching of the word--it is what the word says.  The
attributes ascribed to God the Father, His eternity, His omnipotence, His
omniscience, His omnipresence, His holiness, His truth, His mercy and His
communion, are ascribed to Jesus Christ, His eternity, His omnipotence, His
omniscience, His omnipresence, His holiness, His truth, His mercy, and His
communion are ascribed to God the Father.  When Jesus Christ was baptized He
came up out of the water as the Son, the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove
came down from heaven, and the voice of the Father above said, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:16-17).

Now, if you start this Jesus oneness, onlyness, holiness bit, you are going
to get into a mad situation because Jesus Christ was in the garden of
Gethsemane praying to Himself--almost like that neurotic freak in Jesus
Christ Superstar!  Jesus Christ was not praying to Himself in the garden.
He said, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:
nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt," Matthew 26:39.  In plainer
words, these two obscene, blasphemous, vulgar, non-biblical teachings which
were erected from five verses of scripture are the teachings of unregenerate
people who have no more respect for the word of God than for a telephone
book, not even when they quote it.

CONCLUSION

All right, in conclusion, we realize that God the Father and God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit are members of the triune Godhead, exactly as an
individual has a body, soul and spirit.  The individual's body is a picture
of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  It can be seen.  The individual's
soul is a picture of God the Father which can neither be seen, felt nor
heard.  And the individual's spirit, like air, is a picture of the Holy
Spirit, for man was made in the image of God.  Now, you would think that
somebody could get this.  If I stood on a platform in front of you and said,
"He that has seen me has seen Pete Ruckman," you would believe me.  But, if
I turned around and said, "No man has seen Peter Ruckman at any time," you
would think I was contradicting myself, wouldn't you?  But the truth of the
matter is that when Christ said, "He that hath seen me has seen the Father,"
and then turns right around and says, "No man hath seen God at any time," He
is telling the truth and the contradiction is in your noodle.  You see,
nobody has ever seen Peter Ruckman.  You have never seen Dr. Peter Ruckman a
day in your life nor has anybody on this earth who has ever taken my picture
or eaten a meal with me.  No man has ever seen Peter Ruckman at any time in
the sense of my soul, for my soul, my bodily shape within me, is invisible.
But, he that has seen me has seen Peter Ruckman.  Why?  Because you have
seen his body.  Now, do you understand that?  Why don't you?  That is a
common illustration for understanding the Trinity.

If man was made in the image of God then the image of God has to be a triune
image.  There is no way around it.  Now, you can say, "Well, now, my body is
Bill Smith, and my soul is Bill Smith, and my spirit is Bill Smith."  Well,
that may be true of you.  It is not true of God the Father.  God's body is
Jesus Christ.  The Bible says we are predestinated to be conformed to the
image of His Son.  God's body manifest is Jesus Christ.  The Bible says in
II Corinthians 4:4, "Is the image of God."  Therefore, God's appearance on
this earth is the Lord Jesus Christ.  His first title, "Lord," matches God
the Father who is also Lord.  His second title is unique to Himself,
"Jesus," a human man.  And His third title indicates the work of the Holy
Spirit, for Christos or Messiah means anointed.  So, we see in the very name
of the Lord Jesus Christ the Trinity.  His first name, "Lord," indicates He
is coequal with God the Father.  His second name, "Jesus," indicates that He
is a human man, the Son of man born of a human woman, God's Son.  His third
title indicates His birth is by the Holy Ghost as the anointed Messiah to
Israel.  They are never the same.  But they are equal.  Now, that's where
people have a rough time with the word of God.  The Bible doctrine is equal
but separate.  That is the basic Bible doctrine on the Trinity.  And if that
were not enough, it is the basic Bible doctrine of the people reading this
booklet.  When you die your spirit will leave your body.  James says in
James 2:26, "...the body without the spirit is dead."  And when you die your
soul will leave your body because Paul said in II Timothy 4:6, "...the time
of my departure is at hand."  In Genesis 35 we read that as Rachel died,
"...her soul was in departing."  Therefore, to teach they are the same
without distinction and to indiscriminately mix them and integrate them
without regard for their various distinctions is a non-biblical approach to
life, philosophy, the universe and the truth.

Equal with separate distinctions is the Bible approach to the Trinity.  As
far as that goes, it is the Bible approach to everything else.  In Christ
there is neither male nor female, they are equal (Gal. 3), but they are
plainly separate and distinct physical creations.

So, we see that there are two kinds of people who work on our minds to try
to get us to think like a bunch of morons.  The first class is trying to
tell us that things are different and, therefore, because they are different
they are unequal.  Then the second class of morons is trying to tell us that
they are all the same and since they are equal there is no difference.  Now,
this idiotic ideology is what is known as the American mentality of the
twentieth century.  It is the standard college curriculum taught to produce
people who cannot think straight, clearly or honestly.  This kind of people,
when they approach a thing like the Bible doctrine of the Trinity, come
apart and the nuts, bolts, pinwheels, kingpins, fan belts, carburetors and
spark plugs fly all over the highway.

The Bible teaches a triune Godhead composed of God the Father typified by
your soul, God the Son typified by your body, and God the Holy Spirit
typified by your spirit.  The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from
the Son.  The Son was regenerated and brought forth and produced by the
Father.  The Father, God the Father, the Creator, Jehovah of the Old
Testament was manifest in this flesh as the Son of God and manifest in this
flesh as Jesus Christ.  He was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He was the Holy
Spirit incarnate.  He was the Godhead incarnate, and the Bible says in
Colossians 2:9, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
God is honored and God is blessed when Christian people believe what they
are supposed to believe, and that is what you are supposed to believe.

So, let us worship this great God, this One who is superior to us, this
great One, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the
Almighty who can manifest Himself in three different ways: as the Eternal
Spirit He sustains the universe; as the Eternal Spirit in glory sustains and
upholds all creation, He knows all the thoughts of man, His eyes are in
every place beholding good and evil; He can manifest Himself as a literal,
visible human man in physical flesh, who can suffer like we suffer, who was
tempted like we are tempted, who died like we die, and who shed blood like
we shed blood.  It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His
brethren that He might be tempted, that He might suffer, that He might die
as a man, and that by the grace of God He might "taste death for every man"
so that He might be able to take the sinner's place and save us poor
wretched sinners.  This Great One can also manifest Himself as the breath of
the wind of God entering the defiled, degenerate, darkened body or vessel of
the unholy, cleansing that temple, sweeping it out and cleaning it,
regenerating that man and giving him a new life and a new birth and placing
him into the body of Christ and making sure of his eternal destination--to
be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He manifests Himself as
the Holy Spirit of God who teaches and guides us into all truth, who
inspired the word of God, for holy men of God "spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost."  He preserved that word intact for us to this day--the
scriptures that He Himself had "God-breathed" and preserved.  He is the Holy
Spirit who can guide and lead us into all truth and show us things to come,
the Holy Spirit who will glorify Christ and speak not of Himself, not of the
"Holy Ghost," but will speak of Jesus Christ Himself.  Let us worship that
One.

Let us each thank God for the Trinity--the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, for
that which they have personally done for those of us who are saved and that
which they are doing right now in this world, keeping it from falling apart
and becoming a den of terror, which it will become after the body of Christ
is caught out and the great Tribulation begins.