The Trinity

Thank you again, Mr. Call. And I've got a clarification on one of those announcements. The study questions or discussion questions for the next Bible study are also available on our website. So you can download those if you'd like to have them. Of course, we try to make some hard copies available for anyone who doesn't have a fast connection or printer or anything like that. But we'll make some copies available. You can download them also as well. Here's something else I wanted to do. It's interesting. We do, at the start of the Pentecost season, it's natural to relate it back to the days of Unleavened Bread because, of course, Pentecost is the one Holy Day of the year that's not on a specific date. Instead, there's a calculation involved for you begin counting from the Sabbath that falls during Unleavened Bread and go forward 7th Sabbath, and then the day after that 7th Sabbath is the 50th day, which we say count 50 or Pentecost. So thinking back to the previous Holy Day season, probably as a matter of course, many of us probably read the account in Exodus of God leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. I know I referred to it some degree in, I believe I referred to it in a sermon. That seemed like a long time ago. But there's this one memorable scene in the whole account. Of course, it'll come to mind, I imagine. And I'm not going to turn there, but it's in Exodus 5.2, where Moses has gone to Pharaoh and he says, you know, the God of Israel, the Eternal, or if you want to say Yahweh or however you would pronounce that, Tetra-Gramaton, I'm comfortable with saying the Eternal, says, let my people go, let them go into the wilderness for three days to worship me. And what does Pharaoh say? He says, who is the Eternal that I should obey his voice? I don't know the Eternal. And it's interesting because when you put it that way, it's obvious that it was a rhetorical question when he said, who is the Eternal? He didn't say, well, Moses, now, who is this Eternal? Explain it all to me because I'm not sure who he is to obey his voice.

I'm pretty sure Pharaoh was the other way. Who is that? Why should I listen to him? And partly we think it's that way because Moses doesn't proceed to explain. I suspect if Pharaoh really wanted to know, he could have found out. But Pharaoh probably didn't want to know, didn't care.

Just think, though, if he had wanted to know, say Pharaoh had that question today and walked into most churches that we find in our neighborhoods. Not this one, but most churches where the people will be meeting tomorrow. And they said, well, who is this God you worship? What's he like? He would have been very familiar with them telling him, well, our God is this special type of entity that's three and one and one that are three.

Pharaoh wouldn't have been surprised to hear that because the Egyptians believed in at least one Trinity and we believe many. The one Trinity that you hear of in the hymn to Amun, it says, hidden is his name as Amun. He's raw and faced, his body as pata. And so they saw Amun, Reh, and Pata as one Trinity.

But looking at several books by Egyptologists, there's one by Simpson-Nadjovitz, a book titled Egypt, The Trunk of the Tree. And he says, the Egyptian belief was theologically in a crude form. It came strikingly close to the later Christian form of plural Trinitarian monotheism. Now, let me say that again. Plural Trinitarian monotheism. That's quite a, that's quite a mouthful.

Let me put it this way. Another Egyptologist, Arthur Weigel, wrote a book titled, Paganism in Christianity. And he wrote this.

So if we come back to Moses and Pharaoh in that era, Pharaoh would have expected to be told that a Trinity was the type of God that the Israelites wanted to go worship. So if Moses had told him that, he goes, oh, okay, that's what I'm used to. But that's not what he was told at all, was it?

Matter of fact, as I said, actually, he wasn't told much at all about who and what this God was, because he wasn't that interested. What he normally did here was what the God, this God was going to do. Let my people go, or else. Or else this plague will happen, that plague will happen, and Pharaoh was hard-hearted. He didn't heed, and so his people suffered.

However, in the midst of God warning what terrible things would happen to the nation of Israel, God did tell Moses one thing he could tell Pharaoh that provided a pretty easy to understand picture of what God was like. That was in Exodus 4, verse 22. I'm going to turn there. Exodus 4 and verse 22.

This is what God told Moses in advance, that he could tell Pharaoh. There's not a record of him actually saying it in quite these words, although the message did come through later.

In Exodus 4 and verse 22, God is speaking to Moses, and he says, You shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Eternal, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. And if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I'll kill your son, your firstborn. And we know that's exactly what happened. Pharaoh would lose his firstborn son because he refused to obey. And of course, the plague of the death of the firstborn on Passover occurred. It's not my purpose today to go through and revisit all of that story. As I said about seven weeks ago, we went through it fairly thoroughly. But I wanted to use our knowledge of this to show that when God wanted to explain who and what he was to a stranger, he didn't go to a concept that was familiar to them, that of a Trinity. Instead, he went to a concept that was even more familiar, that of a family. I didn't realize when I was putting that on paper how much it rhymes. Not a Trinity, but a family. Now, at the Feast of Pentecost, which will begin when the sun goes down tonight, we celebrate God pouring out the Holy Spirit. First, of course, on the New Testament Church that was gathered that special morning. But on 31 A.D., we believe that was the date. The members of this brand new church that Jesus Christ had founded had the Holy Spirit suddenly dwell in them and empower them greatly. But it's also been poured out on the Church ever since then, including on us here today. Now, we're not speaking in tongues or having what looks like fire sit on our heads, but that doesn't mean God's Spirit is any less present. But it could lead to that question, though. As I said, Pharaoh said, Who is this Eternal? And he could have said, What is He? We could say, Who or What is the Holy Spirit? Now, we've been talking about what God is. And most religions that call themselves Christian teach that the Holy Spirit, along with God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, form what they call a trinity or a triune God. Three is one, and one is three. I was really tempted to bring a can of oil up with me. But the one that I've got in my toolbox is kind of grimy and dirty, and I'm getting grimy and dirty all the time enough as it is. But I should mention that most churches, though, accept this teaching without being able to very well explain it. And they consider any group, any organization, any person that does not believe in the Trinity to be grossly heretical.

One of the definitions that if you say, What is a cult? If you don't believe in the Trinity, you're a cult by modern, most groups. Over the years, we as a church have had trouble renting facilities, sometimes looking for a meeting place to use on the Sabbath. And I've run into it looking for facilities for summer camps. About four years ago, three and a half, four years ago, sometime in the past, before we found the Catubic facility, I was looking for camp facilities in Ohio, because we decided we'd like to get a place closer to where more of our population lives.

And I found that many of them asked the question, Do you accept the Trinity? And if not, they don't want to deal with you. It's interesting. They don't shun us because we keep the Seventh-Day Sabbath. They don't shun us because we believe that the Millennium will occur after Jesus Christ returns to establish His Kingdom on Earth. But they do view us as heretics and a cult because we don't believe that God is a Trinity. That's funny. I didn't have my notes, but I remember actually when I signed a contract with the camp at Catubic every year, they actually have a provision that says, you know, by signing, you state that you believe that God is a Trinity and has some other things, but they haven't had a problem with me scratching that out and saying, by signing this, we have no...

or something where we acknowledge that the Catubic facility believes that God is a Trinity. So we don't have a problem with them believing it because we know God will explain them the truth when the time comes. But if we don't believe that God is a Trinity, how do we explain His nature? And in particular, how do we explain this Holy Spirit? It's obviously important. We focus on it a great deal on one of the High Holy Days. Well, I'd like to spend the rest of the time today going one step at a time to answer that question.

Let's look at what the Bible tells us. First, let's consider what Scripture tells us that God is. If we turn to the beginning of the book, we're not far from there. Genesis 1 and verse 1... Actually, probably most of you just have that Scripture memorized. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That tells us something very powerful. God is the Creator of both this earth and the heavens. Actually, I'm going to come back to Genesis, but I also want to read in Isaiah chapter 45.

There's a stronger statement, or I think at least a more poetic and beautiful statement. Isaiah 45, beginning in verse 11. In Isaiah 45, 11, here, it's not third person, but God speaking in first person. Thus says the Eternal, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker. Ask me of things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands.

You command me. In other words, yeah, tell me what to tell you. I have made the earth and created man on it. I, my hands, stretched out the heavens, and all their host I have commanded. That's a pretty big claim. I'm not going to turn there. I'll add in Psalm 103. 19 is where it says, The Eternal has established his throne in heaven. His kingdom rules over all. It's funny, three letters, but all is a lot. This does say a lot. It says God made all of it. And he has absolute authority over everything in the universe.

Anything we can think of, it's under his care. He made it. He rules it. I thought of a common...well, it used to be a common slang term. It might be old fashioned by now. I thought, out on the street, they might say of God that he is large and in charge. Now, I'm looking for younger people. Is that outdated by now? Or...yeah. So am I. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say it. Actually, how large, that's difficult to say how to apply that to God.

But of course, none of that, none of what I've just said about God creating everything and ruling over it all, necessarily means that he's not a Trinity. Let's consider some other things. Back in Genesis 1, without reading all of this, you'll notice the word God appears. Not that capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Because it's not the tetragrammaton that's used here that's translated to the word God. The Hebrew word that's translated as God is Eloim. I think most of us are familiar with that. Eloim is a plural word. In Hebrew, instead of putting S at the end of a word to make it plural, they put the letters I-M makes it plural. If you would translate Eloim into English exactly, it means mighty ones or strong ones.

It's interesting, it is a plural word, but it almost always has what's called a singular usage. Plural word singular usage, which we don't do very often in English, but in this country we do for the term United States of America. The United States, with that S on the end, is a plural, but we always use it as a singular.

The United States is a great country. The United States is wealthy, is powerful, we could say all kinds of good things. The United States is heading for trouble in a lot of ways. If you look at verse 26 of Genesis 1, the plurality of God is further expressed by the pronouns used. Then God said, let us make man in our image. And of course it goes on from there. Let's give him dominion over everything. I'm not going to read all that.

But we get this impression that from the beginning what we know of as God was somehow more than one. Without any indication of how many more than one. That's not answered, it's just a plural. But yet, we can find scriptures that seem to contradict that. And I'm going to set up a contradiction and then work at a resolution, but in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, Deuteronomy 6, 4 is one of the more famous scriptures in the Bible. And the Jews call it the Shema, because the first word in Hebrew is Shema, which would be translated into English as here. Deuteronomy 6, 4, the Hebrew Shema means here, and that's what it says. Here, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, the Eternal is one. Or, if we use the word, Lord. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

That does seem to contradict this whole thing about plural from Genesis 1. Well, it's good for us to understand that the Hebrew word here that's translated as one is ichad. We would spell it in English as E-C-H-A-D, ichad.

If I'm getting the guttural, you know, clearing my throat sound properly. Now, that is often translated as the word one, but it also can have other meanings that are related. Like, it can mean unified. It can mean alone. It also can mean first, which makes available several other translations of this.

That could have been translated, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is God alone. Or, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God only is God. Now, that's not near the contradiction of, as I said, let us make man in our image and saying, God is only one. But it still leaves us a question. How can God be one and at the same time plural? And people have been struggling with that question for hundreds and thousands of years. In fact, we believe it was centuries after this Bible was written that men who I believe did not have God's Holy Spirit opening their mind to understand, they were trying to explain this and they looked at that pagan teaching that had been around a long time.

Remember, I said the Egyptians organized their gods in trinities. So that Trinitarian belief had been around a long time before Christ walked the earth. And so theologians borrowed that term and that idea and tried to use that to answer the question. Which in some ways you might say, well, could that be right after all? Is God three and also one? And I would say, no, that's not right. Because to say that you also have to ignore or explain around several other scriptures that seem to be pretty clear. I want to go from Genesis 1.1 that seems to be the beginning of the Bible instead to John 1, verse 1.

John 1.1 we commonly say is the real beginning because it predates even Genesis 1.1. John 1.1. We know in Genesis it speaks of God in the beginning creating. But before God created, God was or existed. And that's where we pick up in John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God and all things were made through Him.

Without Him, nothing was made that was made. Now think back to the statements I read in Genesis and then turned to Isaiah and quoted from Psalms about how God made everything. Everything that exists, He made and He's in charge over it. So unless the Bible really is contradicting itself, the same God that we read about in Genesis 1 is this God. Which I don't think anybody was saying that it's not the same. But whereas Genesis 1 used the word Elohim, plural, without saying how many, we see here in John two entities. We see the Word which was God, but the Word also was with God.

And in John 1.1 where it says the Word was with God, the original Greek could be well translated to say the Word was with the God. So the Word was with the God, but also was considered to be God. Now how that could be is not some incomprehensible idea of being plural and singular at the same time as in a Trinity. And if so, why would it not be a...

I'm trying to think what's the word... Trinity is three, it's not a duo, I guess. I was going to say a duinity. A duo is the word for it. No, it's not that either. The simple way to explain it, which I think most of us well know, is the concept of family. You can be plural and singular at the same time when you're talking about members of a family. And we see that down in verse 14. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld as glory. The glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Okay, we have a Father. And if you have a Father, then you have a Son. Even those who do believe in a Trinity seem to accept the idea that there is God the Father and Jesus who is God the Son. They have to. It's all through the Bible. You'd have to ignore so much.

If you said, no, God's a Trinity, He's not a Father and a Son. Well, it says He's a Father and a Son. It's them trying to fit the Trinity concept into that that doesn't work very well. Let's see it clearly in Christ's Word when He's praying to the Father. If we go to John 17. John 17 in verse 1. And I realize that please don't take it as I'm trying to explain something to you that you've known for years and years. But it's good to review these simple things every now and then.

And it dawned on me as I was coming up to this Holy Day that I don't know if I've given a sermon on the Trinity before. And I thought I should. John 17 verse 1. Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.

So we have a Father and a Son, once again, two. The same two we saw in John chapter 1. And verse 3 said, this is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God. Remember I said in John 1, it could have been translated as, the Word was with THE God.

The only true God is THE God. And it says, AND Jesus Christ. That's the one who was the Word who also was God. Jesus Christ whom You've sent. This describes two beings in a family relationship, a Father and Son. Now we might still wonder, and a lot of people bring up, well, what about God being one? We read statements, God is one. Well, of course we know in the Hebrew, as I said, where the word ekad is used, sometimes it can mean God is unified, rather than just one, like the digit one.

But I think it becomes even more clear if we read verse 11 of this chapter, John 17 verse 11. Jesus is still praying to the Father, and He says, Now I'm no longer in the world, but these are in the world, referring to His disciples who are there listening to Him. And I come to you, Holy Father, keep through your name, those whom you have given Me, that they may be one, as we are one. I want to ask the question, how could Jesus Christ and God the Father be one?

Well, the same way that all of us in this room can be one. We are one. We're one congregation. We're one family of God's people. We are unified, hopefully in mind, attitude, and in purpose. We're not all some multiple personality of some weird creature that has schizophrenia in some way. And the same way we're not that, God is not that. God is not three in one oil.

Which, that's why I didn't put that in my notes. It's not really that funny. But you know what I'm getting at here? One means unified. Let's look in verse 20.

I don't pray for these alone, but for those who will believe in me through their word, that's directly relating to us. That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also may be one in us. So, we're to be one with the Father in Christ. Well, then it can't be a trinity because we're more than the third one.

And of course, in the glory which you gave me, I've given them that they may be one, just as we are one. This seems to be taking plural very quickly from two in the God family to many. Not just two, then that there's many, many, and more than the number we know of, yet all one family. Also, all of the same kind of substance.

Let's turn over to Hebrews 2, verse 10. Hebrews 2, verse 10, I think this matches very well with the idea of, as I said, going from two to many.

Hebrews 2, verse 10, It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. And this here is referring to, it was fitting for Him, this is referring to the God, God the Father, the one who's the captain of their salvation is referring to Jesus Christ. Once again, those are the original two, but then there's also the many sons, and remember, He's using the generic. That doesn't preclude those who would be called daughters, but Christ explained in the resurrection, they'll be neither male nor female, they'll all be children of God.

This matches well also if we'll turn to Romans chapter 8. Let's read Romans 8, verse 14. I find that I've read these scriptures a lot lately, and actually I'm going to read two or three of them again tomorrow, but it's hard, I hope we never get tired of reading about us being children of God. That's an exciting concept. Romans 8, 14, As many as are led by the Spirit of God, and remember, the Feast of Pentecost focuses much on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

You didn't receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, you received the Spirit of adoption. And we also like to point out that that word that's translated adoption means literally of a son, or we could say sonship, because it's not adoption just like a legal adoption. But rather, we are actually begotten and literal sons of God, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, which could be translated like saying, Daddy, we cry out, Daddy.

The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God, join heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we all may be glorified together. This passage shows what it is that makes us children of God.

It is the Spirit, the Spirit of God. So let's move on from there. We've been talking about what God is, and I think, as I said, the simplest way to say it is, God is a family. And we're going to add a little bit more to that later, but let's discuss then what the Holy Spirit in particular is.

But I want to back into it by first talking about what the Spirit obviously is not. The Holy Spirit, I want to say clearly, is not a person. It's not a separate being, not a conscious entity. And in spite of the mistranslation that appeared in the original, the 1611 version of the King James Bible, the Holy Spirit is not a Holy Ghost.

Now, the Hebrew word for Spirit is Ruach. And that means pretty much the same exact thing as the Greek, which is Numa. And those words are translated Spirit. They're sometimes translated as wind or breath.

Or the most generic translation possible would be invisible force. The Spirit, the Numa or Ruach, is some unseen force. Now, why do so many people say, well, the Holy Spirit is a person? It's a being, whether part of a Trinity or not. One of the biggest sources of that is a section of Scripture where Jesus Christ explains quite a bit about the Holy Spirit. That's where we just were. And we're going to go back to John chapters 14, 15, and 16. That's where we can find quite a bit, you know, in some ways Jesus Christ was introducing the idea of what the Holy Spirit was.

Not that people hadn't heard of the Spirit before. You see it referred to many times earlier in the Bible. But the Spirit was not commonly available to very many people, but it was going to be. And, of course, Pentecost marks that time when the Spirit was given to many people. Perhaps as many people in that one day as had ever had it throughout history. We don't know for sure. But that was a big change. And we get some misunderstanding if we turn to John 14 and verse 16.

John 14, 16, Jesus is telling the disciples, I'll pray to the Father and He'll give you another Comforter. Or your Bible might say Helper, that He may abide with you forever. As I said, the original King James used the word Comforter. The new King James says Helper. Both are translated from the Greek word paracletos. Paracletos means intercessor or consoler. Or, you know, that which comforts and helps. Now, of course, that doesn't tell you exactly what it is.

He didn't mean I'm going to send you a Comforter like I'm going to box up a quilt and send you that type of Comforter. What he meant is explained in verse 26. The Helper, the paracletos, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

Now, I've been going ahead and reading the pronouns as they're translated into English, but I want to explain. Jesus used that word paracletos three or four times, and all the rest of the times, He referred to it using pronouns. You all know what a pronoun is from back in English. You know, he, she, or it are our pronouns in English. And there are some others like we, our, they. But they're the short words you use instead of listing someone's name.

And the reason we see He several times when we believe it shouldn't be He is because of two main things. The first is that paracletos is a grammatically masculine-gendered noun. Boy, that seems simpler when I wrote it down. But masculine-gendered, according to grammar. Greek, like many languages that aren't English, group all their nouns into either male, female, or neuter. And matter of fact, actually, some other languages don't have any neuter. Every noun, every thing is either male or female. Which, when I started taking French as a 15-year-old, kind of, it was hard for me to get my mind around. And French, book, livre, is male. And pen, which, if I remember correctly, anybody here is studying French, I was trying to remember, it was crayon or stilo. It's stilo. Then crayon means pencil, I think. I should have asked her at home. But, yeah, the stilo is female. So my book is a boy and my pen is a girl. Oh, they're not. Of course, in French people know that they don't have genitalia or any other aspects that make them male or female. It's purely a grammatical thing. But in French, there's no word that means only it. They can use the word for he means it if you know that it's not really a living creature. So when we translate from French and English, where they use the word he, but it is appropriate, we use the word it. Now, in the Greek, as I said, paracletus has the he. Without that meaning, anything theologically. Because it means comfort or a consoler, it can mean he, but it's not the same as a table as it necessarily is she.

But that fits in with the second reason that I wanted to mention. The second reason we keep reading he and whom instead of which is that the English translators 400 years ago, and I could say only 400 years ago, because the original manuscripts were written like 2000 years ago. So by 400 years ago, most of these translators had already been taught the incorrect teaching of the Trinity and the incorrect idea that the Holy Spirit is some type of a person who should be a male.

So they did it incorrectly. Now, I should mention perhaps I said that numa is what's translated as spirit. It in Greek is neuter. It would just be it. Most of the places in the New Testament where you see just spirit or Holy Spirit, they use the word it. You will occasionally see he used.

That was because of the false belief that the Holy Spirit is a boy. And so they violated the rules of grammar to put he when it was appropriate. And I literally put it in my notes to say, boy, that was a lot of talking to explain a grammatical error.

And as I said, most of you have heard and read that before, but I wanted to make it fresh in our minds. But just think of it this way. If a person who had never been introduced to that grammatical error, just picked up and read the Bible on his own, would he have ever gotten the idea that the Holy Spirit is a being, would be a he?

I don't think so. I don't think they'd get that idea at all. As a matter of fact, let's look at some places in Scripture where the Spirit is described in a way you'd never speak of a person or a being. The first we'll go to in the book of John, chapter 7. John 7 and verse 37. John 7. This is picking up Jesus' ministry during a different Holy Day season. We believe he was at Jerusalem because of the Feast of Tabernacles.

And it says, on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, saying, He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now, he was speaking poetically. We don't literally have water flowing out of us even though we believe in Christ. And in verse 39 we get the explanation.

This he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive. And here it should have said, which those believing him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. If the Holy Spirit were a being, a person, it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about it being given to someone. We only spoke of people being given to someone when they were held in chattel slavery, which we'd done away with in this country a long time ago. It certainly wouldn't be appropriate to describe a person or a being as flowing like water out of a person, or being something that you could drink.

Like I said, you wouldn't read that and think, oh, that's a person. Let's also go to Acts 10 and verse 45 to see a similar usage. Acts 10 and 45. This is one of the cases... this is actually the famous story, which I'm not reading of Peter coming to Cornelius's house after having seen the vision of all the unclean animals in a sheet and being told, kill and eat. I never eat any unclean meat. What I've cleaned, you shouldn't... what I've cleaned, don't call unclean. And Peter's wondering, what in the world does that mean? Is God going to make us start eating unclean animals?

And then immediately he's taken to Gentiles and he sees the Holy Spirit given to them, and then he learns God's not changing the dietary laws. He's allowing non-Israelites to come into his church. And in verse 45, it says, Those of the circumcision, meaning Jews who believed, were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

Once again, the Holy Spirit is a gift, and it's poured out. To me, that makes me think of a substance, not of a person. It's poured out and it's a gift. Now, a couple of scriptures, well at least one I'm not going to turn to, but 1 Thessalonians 5.19 is one of those short scriptures in the Bible.

Paul writes simply, Quench not the spirit. Quench not the spirit. You don't quench a person. I thought the only way I would think you might possibly use that is if you were using quench as a euphemism for kill. And of course, you couldn't say, don't kill the spirit. Well, actually I guess you could if you meant the same way as when I kill my stereo, I don't literally kill it, I just turn it off. But what he means is don't cut off that supply, because if the spirit were a person, you couldn't quench it, you couldn't kill it.

But obviously it's not. Let's go to Hebrews 6 in verse 4. One more scripture along these lines, and then we'll turn to a different way of looking at things. Hebrews 6, 4.

Remember when Connor's gotten this weird idea that he wants to come up and lick Sue and I? You don't go around tasting people or beings, but a substance is something that you can take and you can partake of. This is leaning again. As I said, if you read the Bible without having the wrong pronouns used, you wouldn't think of the Holy Spirit as being a he or a person. Now, we'll also see there are a number of places where God allowed certain people to have a vision of his throne, of heaven, or what God was like. And interesting what they saw. If you'll turn with me to Revelation 4. Interesting what they saw and what they distinctly did not see. Revelation 4, of course, this is the same John whose Gospel account we've been reading, would be given a vision of God's throne and, of course, of things to come. Revelation 4, verse 2, he says, immediately, I was in spirit. Meaning, he was in a vision. He didn't literally go to heaven, but he saw things. And behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. Who is this sitting on a throne? Well, if we drop down to verse 8, we'll see, because there are four living creatures, each having six wings full of eyes around, and they don't rest, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. That's the one sitting on the throne, Lord God Almighty. Now, let's drop down to chapter 5, verse 1. I saw on the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll, written on the inside and on the back with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and loose the seals? Okay, so we're seeing this one that we know is God sitting on the throne. He's got the scroll on his hand, and apparently there's also an angel. There's also these four creatures, which we know were angels. They're there. And I'm saying, who can open this scroll? And we'll see in verse 5. One of the elders said to me, Don't weep, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God. And he came and he took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Now we know that this is referring to Jesus Christ. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He was the Lamb who was slain before the foundation... well, was destined to be slain before the foundation of the world, then really was slain.

But it's interesting, if we read all through the book of Revelation, we will see God the Father. We'll see Jesus Christ, and we'll see that there are more angels than we can count. But we don't see anyone called a Holy Ghost. Where was he? It's the most important thing happening ever, not the time you take a vacation. You know, you have that if you work in an office or a shop, there are some times when the boss says, No one can take vacation this week. It's a very important thing going on.

For some reason, I thought that'd be humorous. But we don't see any Holy Ghost there because it's not an accurate way of portraying it. Let's go back to Acts 7. We'll see a similar scene. Acts 7 and verse 55. This is at the end of Stephen, who soon became known as Stephen the Martyr, because that's what happened at the end of this chapter. But before that, he was just Stephen the Deacon who gave this powerful sermon, and God gave him a vision of his throne.

We'll see that in verse 55.

He, that is Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. And they cried with a loud voice. They thought he was blaspheming and they stoned him and killed him. But what did Stephen see? Two God beings and not a third. Interestingly, some people read this passage of Scripture and say, See, this proves there's a trinity because it mentions the Holy Spirit and God the Father and the Son in one Scripture. But it mentions Stephen being filled with the Holy Spirit. You know, that's not the same thing. You can be filled with the Spirit because it's a substance. And he saw the two God beings. We'll see a similar thing back in the book of Daniel. Daniel, chapter 7, verse 13. Daniel 7, 13.

Daniel, as it said, the number of people who are given this vision of God's throne is fairly small, at least assuming they all recorded what they saw in the Bible. So not very many people have had a chance to see this, and Daniel is one of them. Daniel writes here in Daniel 7, 13.

I could have stopped earlier because we see here one that's like the Son of Man, which Jesus Christ often referred to Himself as that, and one that's called the Ancient of Days. I suspect that the reason He's not called the Father here is because this was written before Jesus Christ was born and became the Son. But regardless of that, what we see is two.

One, the Almighty, the Ancient of Days, and the one like the Son of Man, we do not see a third.

I'll mention one other thing grammatically. Of course, along with there not being any third being or part of a Trinity mentioned in any of these images, these visions of God's throne, the man who wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else also seems to be oblivious to the idea that there would be one. I'm speaking of Paul, the Apostle. If you'll turn with me to Romans 1. Romans 1 and verse 7. Of course, the Apostle Paul wrote many of these letters, which we call epistles, to various church congregations, and he started them all pretty much the same. Romans 1 and verse 7. He sometimes had a different introduction, but here he says, to all who are in Rome, actually I believe he means all who are in the congregation at Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And? No, there's not an and. God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, I thought, well, what? Was the Holy Spirit on vacation that week or the Holy Ghost? No, that's not the case. Because if so, he hadn't come back by the next time Paul wrote a letter. If you look over to 1 Corinthians, you can just let me read this to you if you prefer. 1 Corinthians 1.3, and actually I'm aware that the epistles are not all listed in the order that they were written chronologically, at least we don't believe, but 1 Corinthians 1.3 says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This was no fluke. In every single one of Paul's epistles, this is what he says. God our Father, Lord Jesus Christ. No mention of a Holy Ghost. He was an ignorant of the existence of the Holy Spirit. He just realized that that's not a third personage. Not part of a trinity.

The only one, well, I'm going to say this is in every single one of Paul's letters. The book of Hebrews doesn't have that greeting. And there's some debate. Some scholars believe Hebrews was written by someone else. Some people believe it was written by Paul. If it was written by Paul, we know at least it was written, we believe, in Hebrew rather than in Greek originally. And he was writing to people of a different culture, so even if it was Paul, he used a different phraseology. But of course he doesn't refer to a Holy Ghost, either way.

We read again and again of God the Father and of Jesus, who is God the Son, not of any third part of a God being. There's another scripture that we have to look at in this regard, and that's in Matthew 1.

Matthew 1, beginning in verse 18, Here's where we start looking at not only grammar and what people see, but the logic of the situation.

Matthew 1, 18, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

Drop down to verse 20, because here we see Joseph, and it says, While he, that is Joseph, thought about these things, he said, Hey, I'm engaged to this woman and she's pregnant, and I know it's not mine. So he's considering this, and an angel of the eternal appeared to him, saying, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take you and marry your wife, for that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if the Holy Spirit were an individual being, whether part of a trinity or not, this would be saying that Jesus was the son of the Holy Spirit, not of God the Father. Which means, of course, all those things we read about Jesus praying to the Father, he would have been mistaken all this time. Well, we know that's not the case. Of course, I thought, well, if God is really a trinity, and all three were always one, then Jesus would have been his own son.

And would have been praying to himself when he prayed to the Father. And to me, that's just ridiculous. Of course, those who teach the trinity say, well, of course you can't understand it. Well, there are some things I can't understand, like calculus. But I know that it can be understood. It's just I don't understand it. Because I haven't been trained in it. But most things, if it can be understood, God would make it so we could understand it. But the teaching of the trinity can't be understood, because it's just not right.

There's where, was it about 15 or 20 years ago, when some false doctrines were being introduced to the church, actually including the trinity, a lot of people would say, well, you just need to study it better. You don't believe it because you don't understand it. And I looked at them and I said, I understand exactly what you're teaching. I understand that it's not right, but it's not because I don't understand.

Okay. To move into explaining what the Holy Spirit then is, let's read another account of Christ's conception. If you'll go over to Luke 1. Luke 1 and verse 34.

We're going to read pretty much the same account, but with slightly different wording. And remember, these don't disprove each other, but the different accounts complement each other and give a more full picture. Luke 1 and verse 34.

Of course, this is the angel Gabriel coming to Mary and telling her she's going to become pregnant. And Mary said to the angel, how could this be since I don't know a man? You're basically saying, I'm a virgin. How am I going to get pregnant? The angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also that Holy One who is to be born of you will be called the Son of God.

Now, Gabriel was in a position to know a thing or two about God and about the Holy Spirit.

And I want to make it clear, he wasn't saying two different things would happen to Mary. That the Spirit would overshadow her and the power of God. He was using two different ways of saying the same thing to make sure she got it. You know, the Holy Spirit, the power of God, or the power of the highest is what's going to make this happen. Which you could say, that means the Holy Spirit is the power of the highest, not two separate things.

Now, I would add there's a slight clarification because sometimes we almost want to simplify things and say, well, the Holy Spirit is a power like electricity or heat. That's not totally inaccurate, but it might be falling short. I mean, it's a good metaphor, especially one of the electricity. But we could also say that the Holy Spirit is the essence of God. God is made up of spirit. Actually, we could see that in Luke 4 and verse 20...or not Luke 4, John 4. John 4 and verse 24. Actually, I just want the first three words, so you could take my word for it if you're not turned there. But Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, and he said, God is spirit. And those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I could have, of course, read this earlier when I was discussing what God is, but I thought it was more appropriate at this point. God is spirit. I've heard ministers sometimes use the phrasing to say God is composed of spirit, since He wasn't made. I don't want to say He was made of spirit. That implies He was made. But He's not made up of physical stuff like we are. Now, it's interesting, though, the Bible...and I'm not going to turn to all the Scriptures to show it, but again and again in Scripture, God is portrayed as having a specific form and shape that He has a body. What kind of form and shape does He have? We know what it is. We read Genesis 1.26. When He said, Let us make man in our image and our likeness, that means His form and shape is the same as ours. Now, there is a bit of variety. We've got different sizes and different outward appearance, but most of us, basically, we look the exact same. We all look like people. None of us look like lizards or snakes or chimpanzees. God looks like us. We were made after the God-kind, as it says. And the Bible portrays God as being in specific places at specific times. Or we could say it portrays God as having location, spiritually speaking. Now, because it also shows Him as being able to exert influence far beyond that location. That's because another way we could say it is He exudes the Holy Spirit. Without limits that are measured in any dimensions that we understand. And here's where I start saying things we understand because Spirit is beyond our physical way of understanding. But think of this brought to mind a passage in the Psalms. If you'll turn to Psalm 139, I think this, to me, this helps me grasp a little bit of how God can be someplace, and yet the Spirit exercises influences beyond that particular place. Psalm 139, verse 7. We sing this fairly often and don't read it as often. Psalm 139, verse 7. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there. If I make my bed in hell, this is from Sheol, which can mean the grave. Behold, you are there. If I take wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, your right hand shall hold me. And it goes on from there. So I said this is speaking poetically about God being in a place, but also being able to exert His influence in other places. If we use some theological terms, they often use the term omnipotent.

That means God is all-powerful. They use the term omniscient to mean God is all-knowing. And the term omnipresent, or omnipresent, to mean God is everywhere present. Now, that would be impossible to reconcile with the idea of God having a body and being in a specific place. If not for the Holy Spirit, theologians often use the word emanating. He is constantly emanating the Holy Spirit, which I'm not sure if that sounds better than exude, but God is here. He's made of spirit, but His Holy Spirit emanates out and has influence everywhere. As we read in verse 7, it says, where can I go from your spirit? That spirit is the extension of God, and by His Spirit, God does great works. Let's read Romans 15, verse 19.

Romans 15, verse 19. And I'm willing to admit that some things, it's hard to explain the way I could explain how you thread a bolt, a nut onto a bolt. There I can describe those physical things. The Spirit, I can go by what the Bible says. And the one thing I can say, it doesn't say that God is three and one and one and three, but it does say God is made of spirit or composed of spirit, and yet His spirit is everywhere. And if we read Romans 15, verse 19. In many signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about a Lyric, I fully preach the gospel of Christ. I broke into a thought here, but Paul was talking about how he was doing great things by the power of the Spirit of God. God can do great things, and that's not unique to Paul. If we read in verse 13, verse 13 of this chapter says, Now may the God of hope fill you all with joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. That said, the Holy Spirit and power often are used in the same phrase. God's Spirit does works of power. That's why I say it might be good to go beyond just saying that it is a power, like electricity. Maybe it's more subtle than it needs to be. I remember in the class I was taking, once, Dr. Ward said, rather than just saying simply, the Spirit is the power of God, he said it's more grammatically correct to say God does works of power by His Spirit. Okay, and I think my thought is the Doc was trying to work out a way to express a teaching that can't even come close to contradicting something in Scripture. But I like to say, you know, I know there's no contradiction or problem, though, if we say the Holy Spirit is not a person, it is God's power, His glory, and His presence. The Holy Spirit is not a person. That's pretty easy to establish, I think. It is God's power, glory, and presence. That's a good way for... that's one of the ways I like to say, this is what the Holy Spirit is. The power and glory of God and His presence, that's no small matter. That's a big deal.

Especially when we read Scriptures where it says, God tells us that's what's going to be in us. The glory, power, and presence of God in God's people. We'll see that actually over in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. Acts 1 and verse 8.

This is, of course, one of the... well, actually we believe the last time Jesus Christ appeared to the original disciples. And basically told them, look, I'm going up to heaven, you know, I'll be back later. He didn't tell them when, they were expecting it in His lifetime, just like we were expecting it in our lifetime. But He told them something else was going to happen. In verse 8 He says, That's something. The Spirit of God in a person can do powerful things. Matter of fact, yeah, I want to read one example, someone we don't think of that often. If you'll turn back to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 10.

1 Samuel 10. I want to read early on in the story of King Saul. I like to look at this every now and then because poor... maybe I shouldn't say poor Saul. He brought it on himself, but he comes across as a bad guy, most of our stories. You know, King David would take his place and Saul was chasing David around wanting to kill him. Because basically Saul turned bad, but he wasn't always like that. Sort of like, for some reason it popped into my mind to think of the Star Wars trilogy. Darth Vader. And then you see the earlier movies and find out he used to be a good guy. And of course, how I got into this. I was just thinking, at the end of The Return of the Jedi, he redeems himself just before he dies. Saul doesn't get to do that, except I'd like to think Saul will come up in the second resurrection. That's my hope, and then he'll get to redeem himself. Let's read where he first finds out he's going to be king. 1 Samuel 10. Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head, that is Saul, and kissed him and said, Isn't it not because the Eternal has appointed you commander over his inheritance? So he's anointed with this oil. Let's skip down to verse 6. And Samuel is telling Saul what will happen to him. He says, Then the Spirit of the Eternal will come upon you. You will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. You're going to be turned into another man. I like who I am. It doesn't mean you'll change and you won't be you anymore, but you're going to become a better you. Let's look at verse 9. Samuel predicted several things and they started happening. So it was, when he turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart.

This isn't like the Wizard of Oz. This is God literally, how did he give him not another physical heart, but God's Spirit would enter into Saul and he would change his mind. So God gave him another heart and all those signs came to pass that day. When they came to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him there. And the Spirit of God came upon him and he prophesied among them. The power of God changed Saul.

He became a different person, a much better person. And if we could read through, he did accomplish good things. He led the children of Israel to throw off oppression by foreign power and he started building up the nation. It's just sad he got sidetracked. He started building confidence in himself instead of realizing where his power came from. And because he defied guidance by God's Spirit and obedience to his law, Saul suffered. Eventually that Spirit was taken from him. And that's something we want to be aware of because we know that it's possible because of what King David wrote in Psalm 51 where he wrote, asking God, please don't take your Holy Spirit from me.

It shows us it's not necessarily easy. You can commit some grievous sins before God will take it from you. But eventually he will because we see that's what happened to Saul. Eventually he will if you're not obedient and striving to have God renew that Spirit in you. But as long as that Spirit is in us and we're willing to follow God's lead and obey him, that Spirit will change us. It will make us into newer, better people. Change our hearts.

Change our minds. I was going to turn to Nehemiah 30. Let's read there because we believe not many in the Old Testament had the Holy Spirit but we just read Saul did. We know David did. And apparently all those who took a hand, I'm reading Nehemiah 9 and verse 30, all those whom God used to write the Old Testament, I believe, had that Spirit.

Nehemiah, in verse 30, this is a Nehemiah is actually giving a long prayer to God and he makes this comment. So long it's on the next page even. Nehemiah 9.30, he's praying, guys, says, Yet for many years you had patience with them and testified against them, testified against them by your Spirit in your prophets. And it says, yet they wouldn't listen. That's not the prophets, but the people that the prophets were testifying to, the children of Israel. So basically God put his Spirit in the prophets to get his message out to the people.

That's the same Spirit. The Spirit of God is powerful. And like it was given to the prophets, like it was given to Saul and to David, it's given to us. I'll not turn there. Timothy 1, verse 7, is where it says, God has not given us the Spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That's God's Spirit in us.

I said it'll give you a new heart or a new mind because it works in us. I'm not going to look at all the things it does in us. Actually, I'm going to save that for another day. Much of it being tomorrow being the next day. I'm going to look at some of that then. But I felt like I'd verge on negligence if I didn't at least turn to Galatians, chapter 5.

Galatians 5, 22. Because I want to read some of the results of what happens in that new mind that we get from the Holy Spirit being in us. As I said, in what way will God's Spirit make you a new person? You'll become like this. Galatians 5, 22.

The fruit of the Spirit or the results of God's Spirit in your mind is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There's no law against these things. Now, if I say you can be a better person, well, how better? Because you're going to be suspicious of most people and say, here, let me change you.

You're going to have love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness. You say, hey, okay, I can deal with that. I love having joy and love and peace. And of course, it won't be just the thoughts in our minds that comes out in our actions. As you read in verse 25, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let those things in your mind transform into actions, how you live your life.

And this can be taken to mean that the Holy Spirit in us gives us a new life. That's a new life that's going to lead to eternal life. I want to go back to Romans 8. Romans 8 and verse 9. Romans 8 and 9. We were in Romans 8 earlier, but I started further down. It says, You're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

So that means you're becoming Spirit. Now if anyone doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he's not his. That is not Christ, not a Christian. But in verse 16 it says, That Spirit bears witness with your Spirit that we're children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. As I said, we read that before, but it says that Spirit is in us. We're children of God. Now, most of us, we know we only live so long in this body, so how's that going to happen?

Well, I'm going to go over to Ephesians. I don't want to go into it in the long form today. But we know God, there's one, a scripture that says God likes to describe things that will be as though they already are. That's in Romans 4. So the things that will be, he describes as though they are. So that's why he calls us his children. We're in the process of becoming that. And those who have the Holy Spirit, I'm going to Ephesians 1.13. They have what he sometimes calls a down payment or a deposit of that eternal life. That's Ephesians 1.13. Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love for the...

Wait a minute. Oh, I started reading the wrong verse. Verse 13. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. And were sealed, set aside. Who is... Who, once again, instead of who it should be, which is the guarantee of our inheritance.

Until the redemption of the purchase price. That guarantee is like I said, and I believe the original King James says, it is the earnest. Now, when you make a contract to buy a home, they talk about putting down earnest money. It's a deposit, a down payment. God says, I'm going to give you a little bit of this power of my spirit now to show you in good faith of what you're going to have later when you're made of spirit.

That's getting into, as I said, what I want to talk about more tomorrow, but it's the start of a new life. As God's children, with Him dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit. And it struck me, that comes back again to that idea that God is a family. God is a family. There is God the Father. Jesus Christ is God the Son. And there are the many children that God is bringing to glory. If Pharaoh says, who is the eternal? I don't know Him. Well, we don't say, well, He's this Trinity that you can't understand, but there's three and there are just one. And I say, God is a family.

Father, Son, and many more children on the way, including us. We're conceived or be gotten by God through His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. And that pertains to one of the biggest reasons why we don't want to look at the Trinity. The Trinity teaches that that's what God is, and it's a closed circuit. The three and one and one and three, and that's what God is, all God ever will be. But if God is a family with many children on the way, then that family will be expanding.

We will be born and be children of God. God isn't a closed unit. God is a family that can grow. And that's something exciting. And we could say God is one, one family. And to close, I would say if God were to give one message to us on this Holy Day season, He might be saying, welcome to the family.

Thank you.