Last spring at the conference in Amish country near Berlin, Ohio, Columbus preacher David Reid, also a lawyer with degrees from Yale and Duke, gave a great message on the absolute necessity of the godhead being three distinct "persons" in one.
Here's an outtake:
“Is there any time in the gospels where Jesus Christ says, ‘Well, the majority text says this and the best reading is this’?" asks Reid.
“What He does is He just quotes the Word of God with the
firm conviction that it’s true. He doesn’t appeal to logic, or reason, or
anything else. He takes it as a given that it’s available and it’s truthful.
“Well, what God said in Exodus 3, when Moses asked for a
description of His name, was, ‘I am that I am.’ There’s no appeal to logic or
reason. There’s also no appeal to any creative being. He doesn’t say, ‘You can
believe it because so-and-so says that He says I am that I am and that’s
sufficient.’
“If you think about that, what’s the Old Testament’s
standard of proof? Is one witness enough? Deuteronomy 19:15 says, ‘One witness
shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin
that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three
witnesses, shall the matter be established.’
“What Deuteronomy does is it establishes under the law a
principle that two witnesses are required. Notice II Corinthians 13:1: ‘This is
the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall
every word be established.’
“Is the two or three witness’s requirement something that
only happened in the Old Testament or is it a standard of proof that God
operates according to throughout time? It’s throughout time. It applies during
the ‘dispensation of grace.’
“Numbers 35:30: ‘Whoso killeth any person, the murderer
shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not
testify against any person to cause him to die.’
“That simply says that if all you have is one witness you
can’t testify. It’s inadequate. It’s incompetent as a matter of proof.
“Jesus Christ says in John 5:31, ‘If I bear witness of
myself, my witness is not true.’ That’s interesting, isn’t it? Can Jesus Christ
lie? No, because we saw it’s impossible for God to lie. What He’s saying is
even the testimony of a single member of the godhead is insufficient, according
to the standard of the Scripture.
“Verse 32 goes on, ‘There is another that beareth witness of
me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.’ Obviously
three witnesses is preferable and it’s better than two. What’s interesting to
think about is what is the strongest geometric shape? A triangle. When you mount
a camera or microphone, what do you mount it on?
“John 1:1 says, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.’ That tells you clear as can be that God
has existed in more than one person. Luke 22:42 says, ‘Saying, Father, if thou
be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be
done.’
*****
“Some people will say God is one God and He doesn’t really
exist in three persons; He just has three different ‘modes,’ or three different
manners of operation, but in that verse isn’t it absolutely clear that there’s
a conversation between two different people going on? They’re apparently
different persons with different wills and they can have an actual conversation
between them.
“Matthew 3:16 says, ‘And Jesus, when he was baptized, went
up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and
he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.’
“God has to exist in three persons or what do you do with
that passage? Plainly there’s something going on there that involves three
different people all doing something different at the very same time.
“The very fact that God has a Son is a refutation and a
disproof of the notion that monotheism in one person is the correct view.
*****
“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, there is no one
else for God to love. Is there anyone else for God to glorify or to have
fellowship with? If God existed in only one person than He would be dependent
on some created being in order to have a relationship.
“John 3:35. John 14:31. John 17:24. What happened in
eternity past is the three persons of the 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.
“John 17:1 says, ‘These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his
eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy
Son also may glorify thee.’ The reason the three persons of the godhead exist
is to glorify one another.
"There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.
"There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.
“Exodus 3:13 says, ‘And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I
come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your
fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what
shall I say unto them?’
“There’s a fundamental order to the universe making three
the strongest shape. I John 5:7 says, [7] For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
one.
“Look at verse 8: ‘And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’ The idea there 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.
*****
“Let me read to you all of verse 7 in the NIV: ‘For there are three that testify:’
“Listen, people tell you that what the modern versions do is
change the ‘thees’ and the ‘thous,’ but that’s not all. When you leave them out
in verse 7, then it goes to verse 8 and you think all that’s being talked about
in the passage is the water, the blood and the Spirit.
“What verse 7 is really about is it’s saying the three
members of the godhead in heaven bear record, testifying to the exact same
thing. That ensures that God the Father has satisfied the two or three
witnesses standard of proof.”
“The three persons of the godhead allow God to testify fully
and completely, according to His standard of proof, that He exists, without
being dependent on anything else in creation. If there was only one God in one
person He couldn’t do that. 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.
“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.
“The beauty of tying your terminology and your phrasing and
vocabulary to the Word of God is you can always come back to the source and
figure out whether you’re right or not. The use of extra-biblical terms cannot
lead anywhere else but to confusion. It’s just bound to happen. The scriptural
word for ‘trinity’ is godhead.
“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 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 1:18 says, ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth
in unrighteousness.’
“The first thing that verse tells you is that God’s wrath
has been revealed. Does mankind have an awareness of that? Yes, they do. Is the
truth elusive, difficult to find and has to be searched out, or is it so close
you can actually grip it?
“The first part of the verse tells you it’s a revealed fact
that God has wrath against ungodliness. They hold that truth in the midst of
unrighteousness, so what that means is man has a keen understanding that he is
at enmity with God.
“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.
*****
“Daniel 3:24-25 says, ‘Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was
astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, Did
not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said
unto the king, True, O king. [25] He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.'
“What do the modern versions do in that passage? They change
it so that it’s the lowercase ‘son’; in fact they change it to ‘a son of the
gods,’ but that’s not what it says. It’s the capital Son of God.
“What Romans 19 said is that ‘being understood by the things
that are made’ included God’s eternal power in the godhead and Daniel 3:25 is
just a proof of that.
“Nebuchadnezzar looks into the fire and what does he think
he sees? The Son of God, who is in fact, there! Is Nebuchadnezzar a
Bible-believing, Pauline, mid-Acts dispensationalist? NO!
“And yet what happened is when he sees that individual there
you can tell by what he says that he has a knowledge that God has a Son. It’s clear
as can be!”
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