Well, I appreciate the scripture
reading, and I'm rather praying for us. Let's go back to Ephesians
chapter 1, if you would. Ephesians chapter 1. Our subject tonight is, I'll call
it, Trinitarian salvation. That is, I want to talk about
the salvation that is behind the Trinity. In this salvation,
the Father is active. God the Son is active. God the
Holy Spirit is active. Poor sinners like you and me
are passive. And so the Bible says salvation
is of the Lord. It is of the Lord in His purpose. It is of the Lord in His purchase. It is of the Lord in His great
power. It is of the Lord in His preservation. And it is of the Lord in its
perfection. Let me talk to you a little bit
first about the Trinity. I'm sure you remember reading
this. You need not go to this passage
of Scripture. Luke chapter 1 and verse 1. Luke begins the book that the
Spirit of God inspired him to write by speaking of those things
which are surely believed among us. And one of the things that
is most assuredly believed among us is that of the doctrine of
the Trinity. We are Trinitarians. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit are one. They're three persons in one
divine essence. and unity. It's a fundamental
truth. And that is a fact, a biblical
fact, that is so vital that no doctrine can be biblical
and true if it is not consistent with the doctrine of the Trinity. We need to have an understanding
of, as best we can, of our God being Trinity. At the very outset,
I want to say this. We can, to a limited degree,
define Trinity. But no one can really even begin
to describe or go into an explanation of the Trinity. I wrote down something Brother
Mahan said many years ago. He said, that man is a fool who,
in his heart, denies the Trinity. And that man is also a fool who
makes an effort to define or explain the Trinity. You see, all efforts to kind
of clarify the Trinity, all efforts to delve into trying to give
an illustration of the Trinity, they all fail. There is no illustration
of the Trinity. There is really no explanation
of the Trinity. It is just a fact that God sets
forth in His Word. And all efforts to kind of clarify
or go into an explanation of the Trinity are not only useless
and pointless, but will ultimately lead you into further error. See, there's some things in the
Bible, yea, many things in the Bible, many things about God
that we will never comprehend. But we're not told to comprehend. We're not told to have a grasp
or an understanding of the person of God or the workings of God. What we're commanded to do is
believe Him, to rest in Him. And all of the information he
has given us in his Bible, in this book we call the Word of
God, all of this information is all that we've got. We can benefit, no doubt, from
books, from commentaries, from theological essays, we can benefit
to a degree from those things. But we have to remember, all
other writings are the writings of man. And therefore, our subject
to that is without error in its original languages is the Word
of God. This is all we have, it's all
we want, and it's all we need. What God tells us on this subject
ought to be believed, and with the measure of knowledge He has
given us, we should be satisfied with that. To go beyond what God says in
this book on any subject is mere speculation. And that will get
you in trouble. Do not speculate when it comes
to the things of God. Do not draw what you think are
logical conclusions. When it comes to the Word of
God, all human logic and reasoning has to be laid aside. It's not
what you think a verse means, it's what God says, that's what
it means. And the way to arrive at an understanding
of the Word of God is to take this passage, compare it with
another passage, with another passage. That's the best commentary
on the Word of God, is the Word of God itself. And many times,
the writings of men will only further confuse you. That which God has left us is
on permanent record. And heaven and earth may pass
away and will pass away. But God said, not My word. No,
not my word. And there have been efforts down
through the years to eliminate the Word of God, to eliminate
the Bible. But God has profidentially preserved
this book in spite of the enemies of the book, in spite of their
determinations to have it wiped out. and absolutely destroyed,
God has providentially preserved it. And oh, how thankful we are. And beware of this. Not only
don't speculate when it comes to the Trinity or any other doctrine
of the Word of God, don't seek to go beyond what God says. And beware of bringing, and I've
already alluded to this, bringing your human reasoning to the Scriptures. I have in my library various
confessions of faith. Presbyterian, that would be the
Westminster Confession of Faith. I have several Baptist Confessions
of Faith. There's error in all of them. Let me read you something out
of an old Baptist confession of faith. It says, the sum of God's revelation
concerning all things essential to His own glory. and that the
salvation and faith and life of men is either explicitly or
implicitly contained in Scripture." That's a veiled way of saying
God's Word, if it says something very clearly, we must believe
it. I agree with that. But if there's
something about God's Word that we don't understand, then we
have to think about it and come to our own understanding of what
it means, and we apply our human reasoning and our logic to figure
out the meaning of a passage of Scripture. No, we don't. We
don't bring our human logic to understand the Word of God because
our human logic comes forth from our own depravity. The things
of God, spiritual things, are not natural to us. I know we
have been regenerated. I know we have been quickened
by the Word of God and by the power of the Spirit of God. We
come to see Christ as all in all. I know that. but still to
understand the mysterious portions of Scripture. We don't study
those and say, now, what does that really mean? Don't bring
your human reasoning, don't bring your logic to the Word of God. We base our doctrine, we base
our practice upon the clear teaching of the Bible. When men use their
logic and their reasoning to interpret the Word of God, they
come up with confessions of faith and creeds that are absolutely
contrary to the Word of God. For instance, our Lord said, Our Lord was talking to His disciples
and then the Pharisees came up and they said to Him, why do
Your disciples, why do they transgress the traditions of the fathers,
our creeds and our confessions of faith? They set the traditions of men
above the Word of God. Hey, I appreciate what Brother
Gill has to say a good bit of the time, or John Calvin, or
Spurgeon, or any of these guys. But they're by no means the final
authority. I remember years ago, my dad
used to quote, he was quoting one of the professors at the
Bible college he attended. He said, God said it, I believe
it, and that settles it. I said, Dad, that's not right.
Well, he said, well, yeah, it is. God said it, I believe in
that settles it. I said, listen, God said it,
it's right whether I believe it or not. And I must not take
the word of God and then kind of run it through my own mind
and then decide I really believe this is what this is saying.
That's how you come up with false practices in the church. We have absolutely no right to
invent a doctrine or an ordinance concerning the worship of God.
We have no right to do that. Everything we know about worship,
that which we're to do in worship, the way we're to worship is found
in the Word of God. Add nothing to it. I don't care
what the traditions of men are. You see, if I cannot take you,
here I've been pastoring for 45, 46 years, if I can't take
a congregation of people, if I can't take them to the Word
of God and said before them a particular doctrine, if I can't show it
to you very clearly, then I have no right, first of
all, to believe in myself. I have no right to preach it.
and I certainly have no right to ask you to believe it. I must
be able to take you to the Word of God where there is either
a command or an example of an ordinance. Otherwise, I
must not preach it. For instance, the Catholic doctrine
of purgatory. Would you show me one example
in all of the Word of God where a person dies and goes to a place
where they will be purged of their sins by suffering in some
mysterious way, and then people up on earth can pray for them
and give money to the church and buy their way out. Show me
that in the Word of God. Give me an illustration of that.
Give me an example. You can't find it. It's not in
there. The only purging of sins took
place at the cross of Calvary. Our Lord Jesus purged us from
our sins by His bloody sacrifice. That's when He puts sins away.
Sins not put away when we believe Him or when we repent of our
sins. Our sins were purged when He
died. When He satisfied justice. when
he subjected himself to the wrath of God. That's when we were purged. That's the only purgatory ever
at the cross of Calvary in the soul and body of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's when we were purged of
sin. There is no example, there is no command concerning purgatory
in the word of God. Another one is sprinkling. Give me one example. Just give
me one example of a baby, a young child, or an adult being sprinkled
in the Word of God. Or show me in the Word of God
where we're commanded to take some water and just put it on
somebody's head, maybe make a cross in their forehead, and they call
it baptism. Give me one example. You can't do it. It's not there. Another one, I could go on and
on, this barring somebody from taking the Lord's Supper. Give
me an example of that. I know some churches where if
in the pastor's estimation or in the estimation of the elders
or the deacons, They say, well, somebody's life doesn't measure
up, so the pastor says, don't serve them the Lord's Supper.
Where'd you get that from in the Word of God? Our Lord Jesus,
He served Judas. And He knew his heart. And He served Simon Peter, knowing
full well within just a very few hours, Simon Peter's going
to curse his name. He didn't bar him. He didn't
prevent him from taking the Lord's Supper. Another one is closed communion. That is that you can't take the
Lord's Supper unless you're a member of the local church. It's not
the church's supper. It's the Lord's Supper. I remember
years ago when I was working at a church and Walter and Betty
Groover were visiting with us and we were so glad to have them
and Walter He showed us some slides of the work and so forth. We were a supporting congregation,
and that night we had the Lord's Supper. They weren't served. I thought, that's awful. Where
do people get that from? They say, well, it's used as
discipline. Give me an example. Say, that's
what we're talking about. Give me an example. What does
the Scripture say? But to get back to our subject,
here's the subject, the Trinity. Is it taught in the Word of God? And it is. 1 John 5, 7, there
are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. You go to, even
in Numbers 6, The blessing that the priest
pronounced upon the people. The Lord bless thee and keep
thee. That's the Father. The Lord make his face to shine
on thee and be gracious to thee. That's the Son. The Lord lift
up his countenance, his presence upon thee and give thee peace.
That's the Holy Spirit. In the book of Genesis, and God
created the heaven and the earth, the word God there is a plural,
but there aren't three gods. So how are you gonna interpret
that? How are we to understand that
in light of other scriptures? There's no question about that
God used a plural pronoun to describe himself or to speak
of himself. Let us make man in his own image,
in our own image. Well, he wasn't talking to the
angels. This is the Father, Son, and Spirit. Let us make. In Genesis
chapter 11, when the Lord would divide the languages,
the Tower of Babel, with all that false religion, seeking
another way to heaven besides the grace of God and the Lord
Jesus Christ. God said, let us go down, us,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is
not the belief that there are three gods. The Bible never says
that. What it's talking about is triunity
within the Godhead. It is the union of the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit in one Godhead so that all three are
one God, one in substance, but three persons as to individuality. God is revealed to us as Father,
Son, and Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without
division of nature or essence or being. We know there's just
one God, and the Scriptures are very clear on that. Deuteronomy
6-4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. Malachi 2.10, hath not one God
created us? Romans 3.30, seeing there is
one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and the
uncircumcision through faith. 1 Timothy 2.5, for there is one
God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. In the book of James, James says,
thou believest that there is one God, Thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. The Father is God. All of God. The Son is all of God. The Spirit is all of God. He's
all God. See, when it comes to our God, We are studying a subject that
have depths that we will never fathom. God is an infinite being, without
beginning, without ending. His ways are past finding out. There's one God in three persons,
with three distinctions. The doctrine of the Trinity is
beyond our ability to understand. But there are other doctrines
concerning our God that are beyond our ability to understand. Consider
the omnipresence of God. God's everywhere. How can you
comprehend that? When you leave here, wherever
you go, all of God is with you. That's right, isn't it? The whole
God. All of God is with you. And when I leave, all of God
is with me. And wherever the people of God
are, scattered across this world, all of God's people have all
of God with them. Can you comprehend that? No. Our Lord Jesus, when He was speaking
to Nicodemus in John chapter three, He talked about the Son
of Man who was on earth, and then He said the Son of Man who
is even in heaven. How can that be? How can He be
in two places at the same time? We can't comprehend such a fact,
but we believe it because the Bible says it. God is everywhere. He fills all
things. That's the greatness of our God. The Lord is Trinity. Let me talk to you about Trinitarian
salvation then. We often speak of the covenant
of grace. In the work of salvation, Father,
Son, and Spirit, the divine person's ineternal counsel, a purpose
to save a portion of the created race of men that God would bring
into being. He purposed to save a portion
of that race that God would bring into being. Now in that covenant
of grace, it's sometimes called a council, a council of peace. But it was a council that we
can't comprehend because when we think about a council, several
people, maybe it's only three people who form a council here
on earth. They're gonna draw up a contract.
I said, now what do you think? What about you? And here's what
I think. When on earth we think of a council
entering into a contract, entering into a covenant, involves give
and take, Your idea and my idea, maybe some bargaining, some leeway. Well, if you'll give a little,
I'll give a little. But in the covenant of grace,
nothing like that happens. Sometimes God the Father is pictured
as being very stern, reluctant to save anybody. In fact, the
Catholics portray Him that way. And they call on Mary to talk
to Jesus. Mary, would you please get Jesus
to talk to the Father? To be gracious and loving toward
people. That's not the way it is. All
of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, there is total agreement
always on all things. There's no give and take. There's
no difference of opinion. They're of one mind, one essence,
one power, one purpose. The purpose of God has always
been to glorify Himself and glorify the Son of God by giving Him
a people that He would save by His redemptive work and make
them righteous in Himself all to the praise of the glory of
God. That's the way it's been from the beginning. We're never to imagine in the
covenant of grace that the Father proposed to save and then the
Spirit said, well, let's talk about this a little. How are
we gonna do it? See, this is a covenant, this
is a council we can't comprehend. because there's never, never
any disagreement with the Trinity. That's impossible. And in the
salvation of sinners, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have
different offices, but all to bring about the same result,
the salvation of a people to the praise of the glory of God's
grace. Understand this, the purpose
of God is one. One purpose. And due to our own limitations, this purpose of God in salvation,
We understand, and God presents it to us in this way because
of the feeble understanding that we have. It's presented to us
as consisting of different parts. The work of the Father, the work
of the Son, and the work of the Spirit. All three persons of the Trinity
are equally gracious, equally involved, in salvation. So many things about God that
are beyond our comprehension. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit have always loved us. As God is without beginning,
so His love for His people is without beginning. His choice
of a people, the appointment of the Savior, the work that
He would do, the work that the Holy Spirit would do. It wasn't like God at some point
in time sat down and said, well, let's organize this thing. It's
always been. I mean, we're in really deep
water now. It's always been. As long as
God has been God, He's loved you. As long as God has been
God, you've had a surety. Christ Jesus, who bore responsibility
for your salvation. As long as God has been God,
the Holy Spirit has purpose to work in the hearts of all of
God's elect and bring them to faith in Christ Jesus. Can you
comprehend that? No. Can you rejoice in that? Yes. We do rejoice in that. And we see this joint commitment
to save unworthy sinners by amazing sovereign grace here in Ephesians
chapter one. As the three persons of the Trinity
of the Godhead are equal in divinity, but distinct in personality,
so all three persons of the Godhead are equal in grace, but distinct
in their operations of grace. God the Father, number one, is
set before us as the fountain of all grace. Where did this
salvation come from? from the heart of God. From the
heart of God. You see, our Lord Jesus did not
come into this world to put God in the mood to save or to cause
Him to love us. Our Savior came into the world
because God did love us. It wasn't to get God to be gracious
to us. God already was gracious to us. He's always been gracious to
us. Do you know God has never been anything to any of His elect
except a gracious God? Because we've always had, we
have eternally had a representative between us and God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is without beginning and
without end. You say, I don't know why God
would love me. Well, He loves you in Christ
Jesus. All of the blessings of the Godhead are in Christ. I'll
show you that in just a little bit. It's not a matter of your
worthiness or your fitness. If you want to talk about your
worthiness or your fitness in yourself, you're not. So I don't
know why God even care about me. Because He would. He willed to. And that is an eternal will.
God said, I know the thoughts that I have toward you, that
I've always had toward you. Thoughts of love, thoughts of
peace. It's God who in His infinite
wisdom found the way to to receive the banished ones back into His
presence. Oh, the infinite wisdom of God. As we see Him eternally establishing
the way, the way, the remedy for our dilemma. A remedy which
only God could come up with. a problem only God could save. How can the unjust be justified
with God? That would perplex us and perplex
all of the angels, but it didn't perplex God. He always had it
this way, through a suitable substitute. And God the Father is the one
who, he's pictured as the one who foreknew us, predestinated
us, chose us, justified us. I know there are people who believe
that there is no justification of the sinner until the sinner
believes. False. That's not right. Don't think that the very purpose
of God Almighty in the justification, in the declaration of a sinner
being righteous in his sight, don't think that it was ever
dependent upon you or your faith, which, by the way, is God-given.
It's always, you're justified by grace. And it becomes a reality to us
when we believe. But it's always been real. in
the mind and purpose of God. See, our thoughts of God are
way too low. That's man's problem. We have
a two-fold problem. We think too much of self and
not enough of God. And so we bring God down to a
level where we can somewhat grasp Him and understand Him. And in bringing God down, we
lift up ourselves. And that's full of error. God
is always, He's where He's always been, sovereignly on His throne
of majesty. And we're just worms of the dust. But He loved us. And He purposed
to save us. And He said, I choose them unto
salvation. Sovereign choice. God purposed salvation. It was
done. I don't know how anybody, how
anybody could argue against the fact that the purpose of God
in salvation is an eternal purpose. I don't know how they could.
There are people who say, I don't believe in eternal justification.
Well, what will you do with passages like Romans chapter 8? Speaks
of us being justified, even speaks of us being glorified already. Our problem is we try to figure
out things. We try to figure out God. You'll
never figure out God. I'll tell you two things that
are beyond our comprehension. The greatness of God and our
depravity. You don't have any idea how bad
off you are. I don't have any idea how bad
off I am. I know in me dwelleth no good
thing. You're just touching the tip of the iceberg. We just don't, we can't comprehend
it. These things are beyond our ability
to receive by understanding them, but we believe. I believe in
me dwelleth no good thing. That's what Paul said, in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. I got, that comes right out of
the word of God. And yet, in Christ Jesus, I made
the righteousness of God. Figure that out. You don't have to figure it out.
Believe it and rejoice. So in verses 1 through 6, we
see God the Father set before us as the fountain of all grace. And then secondly, from verses
seven through 12, we see God the Son, the Lord Jesus, He's
the channel of all grace. The Father is the fountain of
all grace. The Son is the channel of all
grace. Understand this, all of the grace
of God comes to sinners through one channel, one conduit. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Doesn't come through the church. Church isn't the channel. Baptism
is not the channel of grace. No grace comes to you from being
baptized. The Lord's Supper is not the
channel of grace. No grace comes to you through
taking the Lord's Supper. There's only one channel of grace
and that's the Son of God. Who it says here in verse 7,
in whom we have redemption through His blood. The forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace. All grace comes to sinners through
Christ the Mediator. Over and over again in this passage
of Scripture in Ephesians 1, we're reminded that all things
that come to us are in Christ and through Christ and by Christ.
Am I chosen of God? I'm chosen in Christ. Am I blessed
of God? I'm blessed of God in Christ.
It's the way the Trinity ordained it. Am I predestinated by God? I'm predestinated to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ Himself. Am I adopted of God into His
family? I'm adopted in Christ. Am I accepted
of God? I'm accepted in Christ. He didn't
make me acceptable. I've always been accepted by
God and my Savior. Am I redeemed? I'm redeemed in
Christ. Am I forgiven by God? I'm forgiven
in Christ. Do I know God? Listen, I know
God in Christ. There's no other way to know
God. Do I have an inheritance with
God? I have it in Christ. Am I called
of God? I'm called in and by Christ. There's no other way that the
grace of God can reach a sinner except through this, the Son
of God, the second person of the Trinity. He's the only channel
of grace. He appeared in this world in
human form according to the purpose of God. When he was here, he never ceased
to be God. He willingly took upon himself
a subordinate role to the Father. That is, he answered to the Father.
He was Jehovah's servant. But he was never, never less
than God. He's always been God. Only God
could meet and satisfy the demands of God. Only God could know what
God demanded. And only a man could suffer,
bleed, and die. When we read of our Lord Jesus
coming into this world, we don't mean to say He was therefore
inferior to the Godhead. He wasn't inferior. He is still
God. He was still God. That's the
only way He could save us. He veiled that divinity. He veiled that deity. Every once in a while, He had
a way of reminding people who He was. There on the Mount of Transfiguration,
Peter, James, and John, they got a glimpse and it just blinded
them. It's as though the Lord Jesus
was saying, just a reminder of who I am. I'm still God over all, blessed
forever. So that out on the Sea of Galilee,
when a storm came up, in His own mind, in His own will, even
while he's sleeping physically. He said, okay, wind, start blowing. Storm, come on down here on this
lake. Man, things got rough. And the disciples woke him up.
Don't you care that we perish? And the God-men said, peace,
be still. Now, who else can do that? Those
folks down there in South Florida getting, what, 12, 15 inches
of rain and that wind blowing? Or when the tornado went through,
hit in green up there. Don't you know them people would
have, if they could have stopped that wind, they would have. They
saw it coming. He can't stop it. I know who
starts it. I know who can stop it. And I know the wind blows where
it wants to, even as the Spirit of God. And I'll get to His work
in a minute. Sovereignly moving around according
to the will of God. All things are of God. Amos says,
Can there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? Men are responsible for what
they do, but ultimately, don't ever forget this, God's first
cause of all things. Everything's traveling on a predestinated
path. There's no question about that.
The Bible says all things are of God, 2 Corinthians 5 says
that. And you have to admit, you have
to agree, the ways of God are past finding out. And it just
puzzles us. I've had people say, I wish you'd
explain to me something or other. I say, I'm not in the explaining
business. I'm in the proclaiming business.
Alan, we proclaim things we can't explain. But we believe God. Believe the
Word of God. So the fountain of all grace
is God the Father. The channel of all grace is God
the Son. If I could just take a minute
or two here. Let me read you something John
Bunyan wrote a long time ago. He said, O thou Son of God most
blessed, grace stripped thee of thy glory. Grace brought thee
down from heaven. Grace made thee bear such burdens
of sin, such burdens of curse as are unspeakable. Grace was
in thy heart. Grace came bubbling up from thy
bleeding side. Grace was in thy tears. Grace
was in thy prayers. Grace streamed from thy holy
thorn-crowned brow. Grace came forth with the nails
that pierced thee, with the thorns that pricked thee. Oh, here are
the unsearchable riches of grace, grace to make sinners happy,
grace to make angels astonished, grace to make devils be amazed. the grace of our Lord Jesus,
the second person of the Trinity. So the fountain of all grace
is God the Father, the channel of all grace is God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit is the administrator of all grace. He arranges things so that we'll
be exposed to the gospel of Christ Jesus. I don't know when and
where you were when you first heard the Gospel, but I know
who arranged things. I know who sent you a preacher.
And I know who, with an unseen hand, put you in a position to
hear the message. He's the one who regenerates
the dead through the incorruptible seed, the Word of God that liveth
and abideth forever. He regenerates the dead by omnipotent
power. He's God. He calls the chosen, the redeemed
ones with irresistible grace. He gives faith by His mighty
operation of grace. And He seals God's elect unto
everlasting glory. You're preserved. You're kept. You're not going to spoil. Without the gracious operations
of the Holy Spirit in conversion, no sinner would ever become the
beneficiary of grace. I'll tell you what the Holy Spirit
does. He takes the things of Christ Jesus and shows them to
you. That's what He does. He showed you the things of Christ
Jesus once again today. He quickens those whom the Father
chose unto salvation. He reclaims those whom the Son
of God redeemed. And he leads the sheep to the
good, great, chief shepherd of their souls. It's like the Spirit of God says
to all of the elect, there he is, Christ Jesus. Just like John
the Baptist said, behold the Lamb of God, the Spirit of God
works in you. And He says to you when you hear
the Gospel, that's the message right there. And when someone points out to
you Christ Jesus, the only Savior of sinners, the only channel
of grace, you say, yes Lord, I believe. I believe Him. Oh, watch me. Robe me by your
mighty grace, O great Savior. This is the Trinitarian salvation. Father, Son, and Spirit. Well,
let's sing a closing song for the day. Let's sing number 50,
Fairest Lord Jesus.