God’s Nature: Attributes of the Trinity

 

Gd’ Nature: Attributes of the Trinity

God is a triune Being: God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The number three signifies Divine perfection and completeness, as in the fullness of the God-head representing all three Members of the Trinity (Ephesians 3:19; 4:13; Colossians 2:9). All three Persons of the Trinity appear together in certain Scripture verses, such as those describing the baptism of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:22).

One way to consider these three aspects of God is that God the Father is the Originator or the “mind” of the plan, including the plan of creation, of salvation, or of anything in between or thereafter. God the Son could be regarded as the Embodiment of the plan, the One Who spoke the worlds into existence (Genesis 1:3); Who wrapped Himself in human flesh to redeem us (John 1:14); and Who will return to reign victoriously forever (Revelation 21:1-3).

The Holy Spirit is the Empowerment of the plan (Micah 3:8; Luke 4:14; Romans 15:19; 2 Timothy 1:7), Who moved upon the waters at the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:2) and Who indwells every believer at the moment of salvation to motivate their walk with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19). The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to draw attention to Jesus Christ (1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 5:6), Who is the only Way we can know the Father (John 1:18; 5:37; 14:7,9).

As we study the Trinity, it appears that His characteristics can each be described in three facets. God is equated with love (1 John 4:8,16), spirit (John 4:24), and light (1 John 1:5). Even the Names of Christ describing His qualities can be grouped in threes!

God is All in All (Romans 11:36), and His three main attributes reflect His command over all things, persons, and events. He is omniscient, meaning that He knows everything past, present and future (Psalm 139; Romans 11:33-36). He is omnipresent, meaning that He can be anywhere and everywhere, at any time point in the past, present and future (Psalm 139; Revelation 1:8). His abode is the three heavens (2 Corinthians 12:2), with the earth as His footstool (Isaiah 66:1).

And He is omnipotent, meaning that God Almighty (Genesis 17:1, 28:3, etc.) created (Colossians 1:16) and has power over all things, persons, and events, no matter when and where they occur (Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:27). God therefore can transcend time, space and physical laws to accomplish His will.

And yet there are three things God cannot do: He cannot change (James 1:17), for He is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), for He is the Truth, the Life and the Way (John 14:6).

And because He is holy (Leviticus 21:8; 1 Peter 1: 15), righteous (Exodus 9:27; 1 Samuel 12:7; 2 Chronicles 12:6; Psalm 11:7; 33:5; 36:6; Isaiah 32:1; 41:10; 1 John 2:1; Revelation 16:5; 19:11, etc.) , and just (Isaiah 61:8; 1 Peter 1: 17), He cannot let a sinner into Heaven (Romans 3:23) unless that sinner is washed clean in the precious blood of the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 1 Peter 1:19, Revelation 5:12), and made righteous by his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only Way to Heaven (1 Corinthians 15).

Despite His infinite power and wisdom, and His wrath at sin, which is fitting for His perfect holiness, God treats His children with three benevolent traits: love, mercy and grace. The Greek word for His love is agape, or self-sacrificing charity (1 Corinthians 13) that led the Father to give His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life (John 3:16). His love is constant and everlasting (Jeremiah 31:3) That same agape love led Jesus the Son to willingly lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).

God’s mercy (Deuteronomy 7:12; 1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 59:17; 66:20) is everlasting (Psalm 52:8; 136:26) and flows from His love and compassion toward us (Psalm 51:1; 86:15), not only for His chosen people Israel but for all who put their faith in His Son (Romans 11:30-32; 1 Peter 1:3). Because of God’s mercy, He withholds the punishment incurred by our sins of everlasting death in hell, so He doesn’t give us what we do deserve (Ephesians 2: 3-5).

And because of God’s grace (2 Thessalonians 2:16), He does give us what we don’t deserve – eternal, abundant life with Him on earth and in Heaven (Ephesians 2:5-9). Praise God that He makes those who have placed their faith in His Son to be His children, joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8: 15-17), and ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

© 2012 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

God’s Nature: Attributes of the Trinity

God is a triune Being: God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The number three signifies Divine perfection and completeness, as in the fullness of the God-head representing all Three Members of the Trinity (Ephesians 3:19; 4:13; Colossians 2:9). All three Persons of the Trinity appear together in certain Scripture verses, such as those describing the baptism of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:22).

One way to consider these three aspects of God is that God the Father is the Originator or the “mind” of the plan, including the plan of creation, of salvation, or of anything in between or thereafter. God the Son could be regarded as the Embodiment of the plan, the One Who spoke the worlds into existence (Genesis 1:3); Who wrapped Himself in human flesh to redeem us (John 1:14); and Who will return to reign victoriously forever (Revelation 21:1-3).

The Holy Spirit is the Empowerment of the plan (Micah 3:8; Luke 4:14; Romans 15:19; 2 Timothy 1:7), Who moved upon the waters at the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:2) and Who indwells every believer at the moment of salvation to motivate their walk with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19). The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to draw attention to Jesus Christ (1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 5:6), Who is the only Way we can know the Father (John 1:18; 5:37; 14:7,9).

As we study the Trinity, it appears that His characteristics can each be described in three facets. God is equated with love (1 John 4:8,16), spirit (John 4:24), and light (1 John 1:5).

God is All in All (Romans 11:36), and His three main attributes reflect His command over all things, persons, and events. He is omniscient, meaning that He knows everything past, present and future (Psalm 139; Romans 11:33-36). He is omnipresent, meaning that He can be anywhere and everywhere, at any time point in the past, present and future (Psalm 139; Revelation 1:8). His abode is the three heavens (2 Corinthians 12:2), with the earth as His footstool (Isaiah 66:1).

And He is omnipotent, meaning that God Almighty (Genesis 17:1, 28:3, etc.) created (Colossians 1:16) and has power over all things, persons, and events, no matter when and where they occur (Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:27). God therefore can transcend time, space and physical laws to accomplish His will.

And yet there are three things God cannot do: He cannot change (James 1:17), for He is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), for He is the Truth, the Life and the Way (John 14:6).

And because He is holy (Leviticus 21:8; 1 Peter 1: 15), righteous (Exodus 9:27; 1 Samuel 12:7; 2 Chronicles 12:6; Psalm 11:7; 33:5; 36:6; Isaiah 32:1; 41:10; 1 John 2:1; Revelation 16:5; 19:11, etc.) , and just (Isaiah 61:8; 1 Peter 1: 17), He cannot let a sinner into Heaven (Romans 3:23) unless that sinner is washed clean in the precious blood of the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 1 Peter 1:19, Revelation 5:12), and made righteous by his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to Heaven (1 Corinthians 15).

Despite His infinite power and wisdom, and His wrath at sin, which is fitting for His perfect holiness, God treats His children with three benevolent traits: love, mercy and grace. The Greek word for His love is agape, or self-sacrificing charity (1 Corinthians 13) that led the Father to give His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life (John 3:16). His love is constant and everlasting (Jeremiah 31:3) That same agape love led Jesus the Son to willingly lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).

God’s mercy (Deuteronomy 7:12; 1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 59:17; 66:20) is everlasting (Psalm 52:8; 136:26) and flows from His love and compassion toward us (Psalm 51:1; 86:15), not only for His chosen people Israel but for all who put their faith in His Son (Romans 11:30-32; 1 Peter 1:3). Because of God’s mercy, He withholds the punishment incurred by our sins of everlasting death in hell, so He doesn’t give us what we do deserve (Ephesians 2: 3-5).

And because of God’s grace (2 Thessalonians 2:16), He does give us what we don’t deserve – eternal, abundant life with Him on earth and in Heaven (Ephesians 2:5-9). Praise God that He makes those who have placed their faith in His Son to be His children, joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8: 15-17), and ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Be sure to join us for the rest of this series, in which we will discuss how the Names of Christ describing His qualities can be grouped in threes; how man is made in God’s three-part image reflecting the signature of the Trinity; how the Resurrection centers on the Divine number three, and how God designed us to honor and worship Him in triplets of praise!

This post was featured this week at What Joy is Mine -- thanks so much and God bless!

© 2012 Laurie Collett

God's Exchange

Would you trade the toaster oven in your hands for what’s behind Door Number 3? It might be a new car or a lump of coal – on a game show, there is no way of knowing. One thing is for sure, though -- you have to give up what you have to get something new.

With God, we have the assurance of knowing that what we will get by trusting Him is infinitely better than what we give up, because you can’t outgive God. When we pray for Him to meet a specific need, He does not just add a little something to what we already have; He takes away a burden and replaces it with a priceless gift (Philippians 4: 4-6).

What’s the catch? There is no catch, except that we have to release the burden to Him before He will bless us with the gift. If we clutch on to the old and familiar because we’re afraid to let go, we lack the faith that He knows what we need before we even ask Him (Matthew 6:8), and that He will answer our prayer exceeding abundantly beyond what we could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20; 1 Timothy 1:14).

This is not a prosperity gospel or a name-it-and-claim-it philosophy, because we should recognize that not all our specific requests are in line with God’s perfect will, and that His blessings are often not in the material realm. As we become more conformed to Christ’s image (Philippians 3:10), and trust Him more and more, He will grant us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4) because those desires become more aligned with His perfect will for us.

When we feel that God is not blessing us as we had hoped, it may be because we haven’t yet asked Him (James 4:2; Matthew 7:8; 21:22; Luke 11:10), or because we’re asking for something to satisfy our fleshly wants rather than our spiritual needs (James 4:3). Or it may be that our heart is not right with God because we have not forgiven those who have wronged us, or we have not repented of our sins, or because we are relying on our own limited resources to solve the problem, instead of trusting in His abundant grace.

But God delights in blessing His children with good things beyond our imagination! (Matthew 7:11; Ephesians 3:20; 1 Timothy 1:14) If we have faith to leave our burdens at the foot of the cross, He will fill us up with blessings beyond measure (Hebrews 11:6). He will exchange:

Our sins for His righteousness (Hebrews 12:11)

Our bondage for His liberty (James 1:25)

Our weakness for His strength (2 Corinthians 12:9; Isaiah 40:31)

Our exhaustion for His rest (Matthew 11:28)

Our loneliness for His presence (Hebrews 13:5; Proverbs 18:24) and for brothers and sisters in Christ (Galatians 6:2)

Our pride for His humility (Philippians 2:5-7; Mark 10:45)

Our limitations for His omnipotence (Luke 18:27; Matthew 19:26; Philippians 4:13)

Our ignorance for His wisdom (James 1:5; Colossians 2:3) and teaching (John 14:26; Ephesians 1:17-18)

Our confusion for His direction (Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 119:105)

Our guilt for His forgiveness (1 John 1:8-9; Romans 8:1; Colossians 1:13-14)

Our doubt and fear for His perfect love, faith, and the peace that passes all understanding (1 John 4:18; Philippians 4:7).

Our sin sickness for His healing (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24)

Our tears for joy in Him (Philippians 4:4; Psalm 5:11; 1 John 1:4)

Our lack for His abundance (Philippians 4:19)

A death sentence of eternity in hell for abundant life now and eternity with Him in Heaven (Ephesians 2:1; John 3:16).

Dying to self for living with and in Him (Galatians 2:20)

Being children of the devil for being children of God and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

A story has circulated on the Internet about a little girl who dearly loved a necklace of plastic pearls she bought at the dime store after scrimping and saving her allowance. Her father asked her to trust him to give them to her so he could give her something better, but each time he asked, she turned away defiantly with pouting and tears, clinging to the plastic pearls even though their coating had long since flaked away. After all, she had worked so hard and given up so much to get them.

Finally she realized that her love for her father and her desire to please him outweighed her attachment to her necklace. Reluctantly, timidly, she removed them from her neck and offered them to him. Imagine her surprise and delight when he placed around her neck a string of perfectly matched, cultured pearls of great beauty and value.

How often are we like the little girl, refusing to give up the childish trinkets we acquire by our own efforts, letting them take on the importance of idols in our life? Why are we so often afraid to exchange what we have for what the Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer longs to give us?

Change Me Now!

A few days ago, when reviewing song lyrics I wrote about salvation, I realized that the climax of the song was the lyric, “Change me now – make me a new creation!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Emphasizing that lyric and expressing the change made all the difference in the interpretation of the song and its power to communicate God’s message. Imagine my surprise when that night, a dear sister in Christ lent me a book entitled, “Lord, Change Me!”

There are no coincidences with God, so I wondered what God was revealing to me. Clearly we are changed so dramatically at the moment of salvation that Jesus referred to it as being born again (John 3:3-7). At that very instant the burden of our sin is lifted from us forever (Romans 8:1-2); its stain on our soul is washed away (Psalm 51:2, Acts 22:16, Revelation 1:5); and the Holy Spirit indwells us (2 Corinthians 5:5) with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5).

From that moment on we have access to the infinite love, power, wisdom and righteousness of God living within us (Colossians 1:27). We are no longer enemies of God (Romans 5:10) condemned to death (Romans 8:7; Colossians 1: 21), but His children, joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:14-17), ambassadors of the Gospel of grace (2 Corinthians 5:20), and even future priests and rulers within His Kingdom (Revelation 20:6). We are blessed with abundant and eternal life (John 10:10; John 3:16).

I was saved 11 years ago, but I feel God has a fresh message for me now about change. As radical as the change at the moment of salvation is from death in sin to newness of life (Romans 6:4), so sudden is the change that awaits us at the moment of the Rapture. In the twinkling of an eye we will be transformed from an ailing, aging physical body to a glorified body that will never get sick, feel pain, age, or die. At the same moment our sin nature will be gone forever, replaced with the perfect righteousness and holiness of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:51-58).

At salvation we receive justification, or positional sanctification, because we are justified in Christ’s perfect sacrifice to pay our sin debt in full (Romans 3:23-25; Romans 5:9; Hebrews 10:10,14). It is “just as if” we had never sinned. When God looks at us, we are holy or sanctified in His eyes, because He sees the perfect righteousness of His Son instead of seeing our sins (Romans 5:15-18; Hebrews 10:14-17). At the Rapture we receive glorification, or complete sanctification, as we become like Christ in every way (Philippians 3:20-21; Colossians 3:4).

But I believe that God was reminding me of what happens in between the moment of salvation and the moment of the Rapture. We are not meant to stagnate during that time, but to increasingly be transformed into the image of Christ, through a process known as progressive sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 2:21). It is not an instantaneous change like being born again or like meeting Christ in the air, but it is a time-intensive, often arduous process causing us to groan in our spirit (Romans 8:19-25; 2 Corinthians 5:2-4).

Paul spoke of it as working out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). We are saved not by works but by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet once we are saved, we must “run the race” (Philippians 2:16; 1 Corinthians 9:24; Hebrews 12:1) and “fight the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7) to become progressively conformed to His image (Colossians 3:1-4).

God allows us to go through trials to identify with Christ’s suffering that will make us more like Him (Romans 8:17-18; Philippians 3:10) and that will bring us patience and hope (Romans 5:3-5). He may not immediately answer our prayers in the way we had hoped because He wants us to wait on Him (Isaiah 40:31), to strengthen our faith and reliance on Him. If we strike out on our own without seeking the wisdom He will freely give us when we ask for it (James 1:5), we will be struggling in our own flesh instead of fulfilling His perfect will for our lives.

Especially for those of us saved later in life, we have a long history of being conformed to the world, of defining who we are in terms of worldly standards, and of following idols of status, power, wealth, and prestige. It takes time, prayer, and meditation in God’s Word to be renewed and transformed in our mind (Romans 12:2). It takes diligent, devoted study and discipline to begin to think with the mind of Christ that entered us at the moment of salvation, and not to fall back on the easy solutions so familiar to our carnal mind (Romans 8:6-9).

I had been praying “Change me now!” but now I realize that it’s like praying, “Lord give me patience, and do it right away!” Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God will change me, not immediately, but continually during my earthly journey. May we learn to wait upon the Lord so that He can complete the good work He began in us the moment we were saved (Philippians 1:6).

Welcome to Saved by Grace!

Welcome to Saved by Grace, a Christian Bible study by Laurie Collett. Through His grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit, it is my prayer that all who read this blog will be strengthened in their faith and encouraged to develop an intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to serve Him and one another.

If you do not yet know Jesus as your personal Savior, please follow this link:

http://www.fbc301.org/bridge.html

to learn how your sins can be forgiven and you can be absolutely sure you will be in Heaven when you die.

Your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. If you would like to be included on our email list to receive our weekly devotional Bible Study, or if you have any prayer requests or I can help you in any other way, please email at it000016@hotmail.com

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Love in Him,

Laurie Collett