The Bible and the Trinity
Sunday May 26, 2024
Titus 2:11-14; Matthew 26: 36-46
Titus 2:13 …looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,…
- Introduction
Pablo G. Pérez González, an astrophysicist writing in the English language version of El Pais, indicated that we should not exist. He wasn’t making some sort of moral condemnation of humanity, but making a point as a physicist. The Big Bang theory of the universe should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would have completely destroyed the other. Yet here we are, and antimatter is very hard to find. By the end of the article, which he wrote in plain language so people like me can understand, he suggested that we are a one in a billion chance in which two pockets of matter and antimatter got separated in the Big Bang, and that somewhere in the near-infinite distance there are a billion galaxies all made of antimatter. We will never reach that far, and if we did, we would be instantly destroyed.
In another form of life that should not exist, we find the nature of God described as a Trinity. The word is not in the Bible, but the concept is all through the New Testament. God is one; as much one as I am one person, but God is also three, as much three as I, you, and the person next to you are three people. The nature of God does not switch back and forth, from three to one and back to three again. God is three and one all at the same time. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. If God is not one then we are tri-theists. If God is not three then Jesus is either a human and no more or He is God who masquerades as a human, and both contradict Scripture.
- Set the stage
Titus
One of the pastoral epistles is Paul’s letter to Titus, usually categorized with 1 & 2 Timothy. Like other pastoral epistles, Titus is about dealing with problems or questions in the church, but there is something that scholars have noted in the construction of one of the verses. It’s Titus 2:13. Like many of Paul’s epistles, it is part of a longer sentence that takes several verses. So the whole sentence starts with verse 11 and goes through verse 14. Here it is.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” Now there is much to consider here but for today I ask you to note especially the phrase “glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Matthew
Toward the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in earnest prayer as He awaits Judas and a group of soldiers to arrest Him. Here we see the Lord Jesus at the point of crisis. Matthew 26:36-39. It says: “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and siad to the disciples, ‘Sit here while I go and pray over there.’ And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.’ He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.'” This passage presents an entirely different vision of Jesus that cannot be reconciled if you do not understand the Trinity. In fact, the New Testament does not make sense without a Trinity.
- Main Point: The New Testament does not make sense without a Trinity
Titus and the divinity of Jesus
That phrase in Titus that mentions “great God and Savior Jesus” is constructed in such as way that the writer clearly intended that “God” and “Savior” referred to the same person. It is one of the boldest claims to Christ’s divinity in the entire New Testament. It is, by all means, not alone. In His famous confrontation with the religious authorities in John (8:58 and then consider also18:6) Jesus said that He is the “I am”, the meaning of the most sacred of the names of God. They knew exactly what He said, and so do we. Jesus is God. Our Savior is not just a mighty man, He is God having entered the human condition. As God He claims all the attributes of divinity and there is no other, for there is only one God. So when we pray in His name, we pray in the name that has more authority than any other name. But compare this to Matthew.
Matthew and Jesus’ prayer to the Father
Here Jesus is in crisis and under great stress. He even says that He is sorrowful, and He is talking to His Father, who is God. So is Jesus God and His Father is God and we have two Gods in conversation? No. Is Jesus human and not God and is praying to God the Father? There are churches, such as the Unitarian Universalist Church that believe that, but it contradicts Scripture. Is Jesus God and the Father is God and yet there is only one God because the terms “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” all apply to Jesus? That they are merely three roles that He plays, that He wears “three hats?” Only if you want to admit that Jesus is losing an argument with Himself and needs professional help. If you apply the fact that God is a Trinity, then this all starts to make sense, and is a great comfort that the Jesus who is Almighty is also the Jesus who knows stress. Thus, it is ok to be stressed and sorrowful and unsure. He understands it. He has been there.
- Conclusion
The term, “Trinity” is not in the Bible, but the concept is throughout the New Testament. In it we find our Savior is Almighty yet understands when we disturbed and sorrowful. He has been there. It is with the Trinity that the New Testament makes sense.