Systematic Theology (18 of 27). The Holy Trinity (4 of 4) (53 min)

Today we finish our brief tour on the Doctrine of the Trinity. All of the ministries you’ll find me recommending are Christian and will therefore uphold this doctrine. I highly recommend Dr. James White's book, "The Forgotten Trinity. Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief" for in-depth further study. John Calvin outlines the historicity and biblical certainty of this doctrine in Book First of his "Institutes of the Christian Religion". Every single solitary affirmation of the Faith throughout history defines this doctrine from Scripture. It is the cardinal

doctrine of true religion. Those who deny it are not teachers of the Faith. Here online is another wonderful treatment on the subject from Louis Berkof: "https://www.monergism.com/holy-trinity-louis-berkhof." It's this

article that Dr. Grudem cites on pg. 256 of his Systematic Theology. This is the quote (expanded) that I read nearing the end of today's class that I said was a favorite of mine. It is so good I wanted to cite it here as well for you: “The Trinity is a mystery, not merely in the Biblical sense that it is a truth, which was formerly hidden but is now revealed; but in the sense that man cannot comprehend it and make it intelligible. It is intelligible in some of its relations and modes of manifestation, but unintelligible in its essential nature. The many efforts that were made to explain the mystery were speculative rather than theological. They invariably resulted in the development of tritheistic or modalistic conceptions of God, in the denial of either the unity of the divine essence or the reality of the personal distinctions within the essence. The real difficulty lies in the relation in which the persons in the Godhead stand to the divine essence and to one another; and this is a difficulty

which the Church cannot remove, but only try to reduce to its proper proportion by a proper definition of terms. It has never tried to explain the mystery of the Trinity, but only sought to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in such a manner that the errors which endangered it were warded off.” Berkof "Systematic Theology," pg. 89.

Lord willing, next time we're together in two weeks we're going to move into chapter 16 on "God's Providence". We'll do from pg. 315 through section 6 entitled "All Aspects of Our Lives" which ends on pg. 322.

God bless!!!

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