The power of Three

(editor’s note: working on a new article and memoir update to post tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s another great outtake from a study given by Ohio preacher David Reid):

“If God existed in only one person then He would be dependent on some created being in order to have a relationship. But God can’t be incomplete and He can’t be dependent on His creation.

“Does God need something from man or a created being? You know why that matters? If God existed in only one person, there would be no one for Him to love in the absence of His creation.

“If there’s only one person in the godhead, is there anyone else for God to glorify or have fellowship with?

 “What happened in eternity past is the three persons of the godhead (the scriptural word for ‘trinity’ is ‘godhead’) got together and decided what they were going to accomplish throughout time. They decided they were going to use time to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

“The reason the three persons of the godhead exist is to glorify one another (John 17:1). There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself, but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.

*****

“There’s a fundamental order to the universe making three the strongest shape (Exodus 3:13, I John 5:7-8). The idea is there are three that testify. So there are three that bear record in heaven—the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

“Apparently there’s a divine design to the universe that reflects the character of God Himself.

“The godhead has to exist with one God in three persons for God to be able to bear fully accurate testimony of Himself without being dependent on anything else in the universe. This allows God to be complete by Himself.

“Like I’m saying, God didn’t need us to give Himself someone to love. What our role is we have the privilege, honor and the incredible grace of God to participate in the love that already existed between the three members of the godhead before the world began.

*****

“Guess how many times the word ‘godhead’ appears in Scripture? Three. Isn’t that interesting? You’d almost think there was a design intelligence that inspired it and put it that way. If you believe coincidences like that are just coincidences, my personal opinion is you’re naïve.

“They’re not coincidences. They’re there because in the divine intelligence of God that’s the way it’s been designed.

“I would suggest to you that if all you believed were those three verses and nothing else, it would RULE OUT all the other religions of the world as to the godhead.

“Acts 17:29 says, ‘Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.’

“What that verse tells you is the godhead is fundamentally different from the dumb gods of this world that are carved, made by human hands. It tells you how to think about the molten calf in Exodus, for example.

*****

“Romans 1:20 says, ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’

“Verse 19 is a problem for the lost man. It says, ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.’

“What they learn is God has power. If God didn’t have any power, but He had all sorts of wrath against sin, no one would care. The verse indicates the godhead is known to man.

“What Romans 19’s saying is that ‘being understood by the things that are made’ included God’s eternal power in the godhead.”