Turning the page…
Turning the page…
Glory · The Holy Spirit
Not exhaustively, no; but truly, yes. The Trinity is a revealed mystery, not a puzzle to be solved: God has shown us who He is, and He invites us to know Him. We can know the triune God truly, the way a child knows a father, without comprehending Him fully, the way no one can fathom the depths of God.
https://glorystudy.com/questions/can-we-understand-the-trinity · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
Deuteronomy 29:29
As you read: God keeps His secrets, and gives us what He reveals: enough to know and obey Him.
29The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Job 11:7-9
As you read: Zophar's question is a good one even if his application was wrong: God is beyond our measures.
7“Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
8They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?
9Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
1 Corinthians 2:6-16
As you read: We know God's depths because His Spirit has searched them and revealed them to us.
6We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing.
7But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
8which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
9But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
10But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
12But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.
16“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.
Isaiah 55:8-11
As you read: God's thoughts and ways tower over ours, and He calls us to come and listen.
8“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” says Yahweh.
9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
John 17:20-26
As you read: Eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son, and Jesus prays for us to enter that love.
20Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word,
21that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
22The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one;
23I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.
24Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.
26I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Moses drew the line honestly: 'The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.' God has not left us guessing. He spoke through the prophets, and in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, inviting us to glory in the one thing that matters: knowing Him.
“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”Deuteronomy 29:29
“God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.”Hebrews 1:1-2
“but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh.”Jeremiah 9:24
No one sat down and invented the Trinity. The church confessed it because Scripture kept saying it: the Father and the Son and the Spirit all present at Jesus' baptism, all at work in redemption, all joined in one name at the Great Commission. We know it the way we know anything about God: because He showed us.
“Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.””Matthew 3:16-17
“Go,and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”Matthew 28:19
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.”2 Corinthians 13:14
'Can you fathom the mystery of God?' Job is asked; Paul answers, 'How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!' Yet Jesus says that eternal life is knowing the only true God. Knowing a person is not the same as comprehending a person: a child knows his father truly, and has not yet begun to fathom him. So with God: we know Him truly, truly enough to love and trust and follow, and His greatness is unsearchable.
““Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”Job 11:7
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!”Romans 11:33
“This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”John 17:3
“Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.”Psalm 145:3
The Bible does not teach the Trinity as a doctrine to memorize; it lives it. Creation and redemption move on three-fold rhythm: the Father sends the Son, the Son accomplishes the work, the Spirit applies it. We have access to the Father through the Son, in one Spirit; God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit; and the Spirit makes us cry, 'Abba, Father!'
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”John 3:16
“For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”Ephesians 2:18
“and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”Romans 5:5
“And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!””Galatians 4:6
Paul does not end his survey of God's ways with a quiz; he ends in doxology: 'For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.' He prays for us to be strengthened to comprehend the love of Christ, and his prayer ends with glory in the church to all generations. The mystery we cannot exhaust is the mystery we were made to praise.
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.”Romans 11:33-36
“may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”Ephesians 3:18-21