Charlie:
The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that’s why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word and the way that he’s called us to live. Hey everyone thank you for joining us at the Cultivate podcast with The Grove Church I’m charlie Lofton the lead pass pastor there, and we have with us our creative director, podcast producer, really good friend

Abigail:
Hey, o.

Charlie:
Awesome question asker, and just generally good person.

Abigail:
Thank you. And the staff member that Charlie

Charlie:
loves. Big big Gail.

Abigail:
Is she what I said?

Charlie:
Big Gail. What’d you say?

Abigail:
Big Gail. I said the staff member that Charlie loves. Oh, it’s not wow. That’s We’re gonna keep that going.

Charlie:
That’s a that’s a blast on the path. That’s a that’s a deep cut into, Cultivate Podcast Lore right there.

Abigail:
But it’s good.

Charlie:
It it’s good. It’s good.

Abigail:
I wear it with a badge of honor.

Charlie:
You should make a shirt.

Abigail:
I will. We have our staff overnight coming up, and so I should get something together to show up like that and see what the rest of the staff thinks about it.

Charlie:
Probably will I have my my picture on it?

Abigail:
Mhmm. Okay. It’ll be like a quote bubble coming out. Say, this is the staff member that I truly love.

Charlie:
Indeed. That’s that’s really that would be something. Yeah. We’ll see how that goes.

Abigail:
Don’t go good.

Charlie:
We’ll keep you posted. We are starting a series, and we kinda introed it, last episode talking about systematic theology. Mhmm. Which is what? What is systematic theology?

Abigail:
It is a way to organize the beliefs that you have about God.

Charlie:
Perfect. And in that, we talked about the why, about staying grounded, helping us understand what we believe, why we believe the things that we do, help us kind of have the categories necessary to make sure we’re even asking all the right questions. It allows us to kind of go deeper in our faith and our understanding about who God is, who we are. We talked a lot about the motivation. We also talked about kind of 10 primary categories Yeah. For systematic theology. And I had notes over here to make sure I didn’t forget the 10.

Abigail:
So you did it.

Charlie:
But I did it.

Abigail:
Yeah. So

Charlie:
now it’s your turn.

Abigail:
So it’s just a flex.

Charlie:
Now it’s your turn. How many of the 10 can you name?

Abigail:
I can’t do those fancy names that you did.

Charlie:
Perfect. Doesn’t matter. God Yep. Theology proper. Jesus Christology. Bible Biblology.

Abigail:
Angels. Angelology. Sin.

Charlie:
Harmartiology.

Abigail:
Anthropology.

Charlie:
Yep. People.

Abigail:
End times. Eschatology. Holy Spirit. Pneumatology. Oh, I don’t know if I know the rest of them.

Charlie:
Ecclesiology Church and Soteriology Salvation.

Abigail:
Oh, that was close.

Charlie:
Really, really good. 8 out of 10 on just as little as we’ve talked about it.

Abigail:
That’s really good memory.

Charlie:
And depending on the grading scale of your professor, that’s clearly a b.

Abigail:
I’ll take that. Right? I mean,

Charlie:
well well done.

Abigail:
Thank you.

Charlie:
When I I’m old, I’m way older, and so I came from a much harder grading scale than that.

Abigail:
That’s fair.

Charlie:
So it would have been it would have been a solid c plus. But

Abigail:
I floated around the

Charlie:
we live in a different world now.

Abigail:
And I be

Charlie:
I’ll take it. The b. So we’re gonna start right now talking about theology proper, which is the study of who God is.

Abigail:
Yes.

Charlie:
And the the first and I think the most important topic for us to talk about there, and I would like for us to maybe just maybe spend the whole episode here unless we just solve it solve it in 5 minutes.

Abigail:
I doubt it. Is I’ll have questions.

Charlie:
Is the trinity.

Abigail:
Oh, yeah. We’re not isn’t gonna be a quick conversation.

Charlie:
Okay. So if I were to say I was I’m just I’m just gonna launch that topic right now. Hey. I would like for us to we’re assessing about who God is. We’re gonna talk about the trinity. Are there just any immediate questions that pop into your head, thoughts that you have?

Abigail:
Well, my first initial thought is I’m surprised that that’s the first topic that you bring up because there is the category of Holy Spirit and Jesus. Right. But you’re saying we’re gonna introduce all 3 in theology proper. Right.

Charlie:
I mean, we’ll we’ll come I mean, obviously, within the fancy word, within the Godhead, the Holy Spirit and Jesus have some uniqueness compared to God the father, and they have individual roles that they play unique to and different than the other ones. But if we’re gonna talk about who God is, I mean, it’s not God the father ology.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
But if we’re gonna talk about who God is, we need to understand first that concept.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And then we can break out, and we can do this next episode, and kinda break out and talk about really kind of the unique characteristics that we see that really are kind of the way that the God the father is described and the things that apply to God, all persons Sure. Within the Godhead. And I’m already kind of using fancy Trinitarian language, and we

Abigail:
haven’t even signed

Charlie:
it yet.

Abigail:
That made sense to me.

Charlie:
I did?

Abigail:
Yes. It did.

Charlie:
I feel really good about

Abigail:
that that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes sense that we would initially tackle the collective, which is probably not the great way to describe the trinity, but that we would we believe in a triune God.

Charlie:
Okay.

Abigail:
And so it makes sense

Charlie:
that good trinitarian word there. Triune. Triune. There’s words that feel like we only use in the context of talking about the Triune. Yeah. Sure. Which is interesting because it’s like we had to invent words to describe to describe who God is.

Abigail:
My mind is going. We this wasn’t on air of 1 of our podcasts, so we were doing the doxology and the end of it. Yes. Or it’s like, yeah, God had bought their 3 in in 1.

Charlie:
So if we if we if

Abigail:
we talk we

Charlie:
talked about this before that we should have a Patreon page, and on it, we just put the thing The

Abigail:
off air?

Charlie:
The thing that just gets recorded, just put it on there.

Abigail:
I’ll set that up

Charlie:
for us. A Patreon page and the stuff that just Abigail randomly records, just let us know.

Abigail:
Yeah. We’ll we’ll get that up.

Charlie:
So, Trinity, first, I think it’s good to to to start with this. We are theists. When we talk about God, we are theists, which is different than obviously an atheist, which doesn’t believe in God, and is different than a deist. A deist believes, and there is a God. The God is powerful enough to create, but is not personal. The God is disinterested. So he created the universe or created the earth or even he created people, but he’s not interested in a personal relationship. There’s just a powerful creator separate from the universe that exists.

Charlie:
That’s a deist. We we are theists. We believe in that powerful god, but we believe that that god desires to know us. Mhmm. Okay? And can be known. And can be known. Wants to know us, can be known. Different than a pantheist.

Charlie:
A pantheist believes that the universe and God are all one thing.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And so not necessarily that that tree is God, but every everything is God. Like, we are we are a part of God. Like, everything that is. There’s not, like, here’s the universe and here’s God. It’s They would believe it’s all one. One entity. So it’s not 2 separate entities. So it’s not that you don’t believe in a spiritual realm.

Charlie:
Just believe that we that creation is a part of who God is Right. Different than panentheism, which is kind of more of a here’s the universe, here’s god, there’s a bit of an overlap, and or it’s it’s kind of a it’s also kind of a weak model god. Like, when I when we say god, we’ll talk about this in the next episode. One thing to talk about is that he’s all powerful. Mhmm. This God is not all powerful.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
He’s kinda bound a little bit by the limits of the universe.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I mean, he he was able to kinda create some stuff, but really is fairly limited in his power. But we believe in kind of the traditional theist, all powerful God. And so we are we are theists just like Jewish. The Jewish faith are theists. Muslims are theists. Mormons And the Mormons really aren’t theists. My bad. Jehovah’s Witnesses are theists, and so we believe in in in one God and that that God is knowable and desires to be known.

Charlie:
Yeah. Beyond that too, we are monotheists.

Abigail:
There’s one god.

Charlie:
There is only one god. Yeah. There are not multiple gods competing to be gods. It took kinda competing to be the best god or, like, you know, some pantheon of gods working together on some sort of council. So we are theists. We believe in a personal god. Monotheists, we only believe in one god. But then it gets a little tricky when you start talking about a Trinitarian

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Monotheist. If you were gonna give me just a, a base level, hey, I’ve I’ve studied theology this much.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Like, hey, I mean, what is the trinity? And you would say

Abigail:
The trinity is made up of God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, but they are 1.

Charlie:
That is that is actually really, really, really, really good. God is a there is only one God. Mhmm. And he exists as 3 persons that are distinct but are of the same substance. Yeah. And there is only one of them. 1. Okay.

Charlie:
And here’s the thing that I have always said, that the more that you try to explain that

Abigail:
The harder it gets.

Charlie:
The more words that you use, the more likely it is that you’re going to say What? Something wrong.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
Right? The more so let me let me tell you what that let me tell you what that means. Right. I tell you what that means. It’s like, like, the more that you talk, the more you try to add to it, the more you try to add more explanation than what you did Mhmm. The more likely is you’re going to delve into, again, one of the historical,

Abigail:
fallacies

Charlie:
Fallacies. Right? The heresies that were put down by the church a really, really long time ago.

Abigail:
Do you remember what I asked you? It was similar to when the first time you explained this to me.

Charlie:
No. Hit me.

Abigail:
Voldemort and Horcruxes.

Charlie:
Yeah. It’s not that.

Abigail:
That’s why he’s all powerful.

Charlie:
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever that was. I don’t necessarily remember it. Whatever it was, it is. It’s not that.

Abigail:
That was not correct.

Charlie:
Yes. So the the the the classical phrase that gets used a lot is this, that there is one God who eternally exists as 3 distinct persons, the father, son, and holy spirit. 1 in essence, 3 in person. Okay? Yeah. And so sometimes it gets you drawn out with a visual of, like, you got the father, the son, and the holy spirit, and and you write write the word God in the middle and connecting all three of these to that is the Jesus’ son is god, the father’s god, the holy spirit is god, but the arrows that point to each other is is not. The father is not Jesus. Jesus is not the holy spirit. Holy Spirit is not the father, but they all 3 are God, and there is only one God.

Charlie:
Would it be

Abigail:
this is gonna be one of the podcasts that you’ll have to stop me from saying something that’s completely wrong. But would it be fair to say it is God and these are 3 different ways that you can experience him?

Charlie:
Okay. So here’s here’s here’s where we go. So, there are 2 classic heresies that when people start trying to think about who God is and how the Trinity works, there are 2 very distinct heresies that you want to avoid. Okay. The first one, the most obvious one, is polytheism.

Abigail:
K.

Charlie:
So there are 3 gods. 1 is the father, 1 is the g 1 is Jesus, the son, and 1 is the holy spirit. 3 different gods Mhmm. All kind of working together as a team. That’s polytheism.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And that’s not that’s not what

Abigail:
we Christianity.

Charlie:
And we all know we all know that that’s not it. Whatever it is, it’s not it’s not that. That. Yeah. That is what we get accused of by Muslims and by Jewish people. And even Jehovah’s Witnesses will criticize Christianity in that way as you are you are functionally polytheist because you believe in multiple gods.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And we try to say it new more nuance, but sometimes when we’re trying to even explain to them, no. It’s not that. It’s blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Then what comes out of your mouth sounds very much like well, I don’t know. That is it sounds like polyphyseism to me. Right. So we know not that. On the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum is a, what kind of kind of a radical Unitarianism or Sibelianism named after a dude.

Abigail:
Sibelius?

Charlie:
Sure. Sibelius or, modalism.

Abigail:
Okay. With the

Charlie:
that’s the word mode in there somewhere. And that belief is really there is only one God, one person, and he puts on different

Abigail:
hats Yeah. Masks Yeah.

Charlie:
Outfits. He relates to you differently Yeah. Depending on what the situation calls for.

Abigail:
When I compared it to Venom.

Charlie:
The like, the

Abigail:
The movie?

Charlie:
Even that. That’s that again, that’s different. That’s a symbiote. Right? I mean, that’s like a parasite. It’s like a symbiotic relationship of 2 things that work together. Really, Venom is more polytheism. Oh, really? Venom and the dude. What’s his name?

Abigail:
I can’t remember.

Charlie:
Anyway, Hardy.

Abigail:
Hardy.

Charlie:
Tom Hardy and and, and the alien thing. That’s 2 different things working together. Okay. Sure. That would be more of a, you know, polytheism. There’s there’s 2 things, but they’re kind of they work together in tandem as a team. Right. They’re not 2 persons, but one being.

Charlie:
Yeah. K. And so in modalism, again, if you just say, hey. Like, it’s just like, oh, you know, you just you just kinda show yourself differently.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But, like, could God the father and God the son have a conversation and it be between 2 different people. Can they? Right. Because they’re 2 different people, and you see it. So you you say that. Is praying to the father. That’s true. Yeah. Right? And then there’s the moment, and this is kind of one of the big trinitarian passages is that Jesus’ baptism.

Charlie:
You got the person Jesus

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And and the holy spirit comes down like a dove. And then you hear god. Hear the voice of the father say, this is my son.

Abigail:
Oh, my lord. Please.

Charlie:
With him. Right? And so in that moment, you you experience you definitely experience 3 different people. Yeah. And I guess it’s important to say what we mean by the word person.

Abigail:
Yes.

Charlie:
When I say person, most people think

Abigail:
A human body. Human. Right.

Charlie:
And, really, there’s only seems to be 1 human involved here. Mhmm. That’s Jesus. Mhmm. So person is I’m not trying to get too technical here. Like, someone who has their own will, their own emotions. Right? And so I’m a person. You’re a person.

Charlie:
We’re not the same person.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I have a different I I have different will. I have a different emotions. I am different than you.

Abigail:
So the godhead is person.

Charlie:
And so there are 3 persons that have different emotions, different thoughts, but there is only one god. And you’re like, well, we think about personhood as necessarily being separate beings, separate entities. You can’t you can’t be the same. And so at this point, you’re describing something that doesn’t really make sense.

Abigail:
Work in our normal frame of reference.

Charlie:
Which some people then because you if you talk about separate persons, but only one god Mhmm. It doesn’t make any sense. There isn’t any really good parallels for it. And so it people would just begin to knock it for its absurdity.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
My response to that has always been this. If the very nature of god could be described

Abigail:
Like us.

Charlie:
Like, oh, it’s just like this

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And something that is common to every human’s experience.

Abigail:
And being created.

Charlie:
Right? That would just that would that’s that that’s not who God is.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
In fact, I’m of the controversial belief, maybe controversial question mark. We’ll see. That there are things that are true about God

Abigail:
That we don’t know.

Charlie:
That he just they there’s not even words to describe it. Yeah. There are things about God that he can say about himself that makes sense. He describes himself as a king. He describes himself as a father. Mhmm. I’m like a dad in this way. I’m like a king in this way.

Charlie:
Mhmm. I’m like a shepherd in this way.

Abigail:
Because there’s no better way.

Charlie:
I know what a shepherd is. Right. I know what a king is. I know what a dad is. Okay. So you’re like that. Okay. Oh, got it.

Charlie:
Mhmm. And you can learn limited number of things through human metaphors.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And then there are some things like the trinity where you’re just seeing these descriptions. They don’t make sense necessarily, but you put them together, and it’s like, okay. There’s It’s very clear the Bible teaches that there’s only one God.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Bible is also very clear that the father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. That’s also it’s also clear that they’re different and they converse with each other and have different wills, and that they are different, but there’s also one God. Mhmm. And so all these words that we’ve used, like, Godhead and Trinitarian Triune, all these things are words that we made up. They’re not bible words. Right. They’re words that we made up to try to gives we had to invent words to describe the phenomenon that that that the Bible seems to be describing to us about who God is. Right.

Charlie:
Which I

Abigail:
feel like does kind of back in the idea of us being theist, and we’re not one and the same with creation or with God and all of those things. And there is one God. We are set apart from our maker, and we are the created, and he is the creator. So it kind of, like, all comes back around to, like, well, yeah. He should be otherworldly. He should be something else altogether.

Charlie:
Yeah. So there’s there’s things that he can describe via metaphor. There’s things that he can describe to us that we can understand a little bit, and we have to invent new language to describe it, but then it’s not completely clear. But I believe that there’s even another level out there of things that are true about God and his nature That we could do. That there that he I’m like, I I can’t I can’t Yeah. You know, and the the metaphor I like to use is trying to describe the color purple to a tree. Yeah. I mean, you could try.

Charlie:
You could go right out there right now to that tree and try to describe there’s but there is there are there are no ways for you to describe the color purple to a tree. And it’s not and it’s not that a tree is not capable of knowing things. A tree a tree knows where water is and has the ability to look for water. There are things or, like, even if we go even one better. Right. An ant. There’s certain things that you can you can you could teach an ant. Don’t go here.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Right. I mean, there’s there’s certain things that can be communicated, but you could you could you can’t teach the concept of loneliness. Right. The color purple.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
You can’t you know, I mean, there’s just there’s there’s just you just can’t there aren’t words to describe it. And so I think that that there I think there’s that category out there too. So it does not surprise me that there is then this middle category of he he he he gives us the concept, but is a concept that our brain can’t

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Fully comprehend. And I think as we make this journey through systematic theology, we’re gonna find it quite a few things like that. Mhmm. This is true, and this is true. My normal brain says these two things can’t be true at the same time, but the Bible says that they’re both true simultaneously. So I just have to figure out how to make sense of it Right. Which is very often what the Bible describes as mystery.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And we

Abigail:
use be a little comfortable with it.

Charlie:
Yeah. We use the word mystery to describe, like

Abigail:
Murder mystery.

Charlie:
Solve a solvable problem.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
The Bible describes mystery differently Mhmm. As just something that

Abigail:
Too hard to comprehend almost.

Charlie:
Is is it’s true, but your brain can’t quite get there. And a lot of it gets often gets associated with Jesus, very often gets associated with Jesus, God becoming a person.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
How does that work exactly?

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
There is mystery in that. How does it kind of

Abigail:
talk about the gospel that way.

Charlie:
Yeah. How, yeah, how does how does a, yeah, how does a a God who never changes become something?

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
What does that mean? Or, like I said, the gospel.

Abigail:
How are you born again?

Charlie:
Yeah. How do you how how does how do you really fully experience the forgiveness of God? Right. And if we can and I think this is one of our my big systematic theology takeaways. If you can put everything that you believe about God or really any of these categories, if you feel like that you can put all of it in a neat tidy box

Abigail:
He’s not big enough.

Charlie:
Yeah. You’ve you’ve missed you’ve missed something. And so we talk about systematic theology. It’s important, like, we are we’re talking about categories. Mhmm. Here’s a category, but that doesn’t mean just because I have this category that I contain I can contain all of the knowledge of it in a way that is understandable.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I just have a some of it’s like, here’s some things that I definitely know about God, and I put them in this category.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And here are some things that are said about God that are clearly true. I put them in this category, but I don’t necessarily fully understand them. And then once I have everything in the box Then

Abigail:
you can kind of make out a

Charlie:
Yeah. But I I can’t necessarily connect all of the dots. And the point in which I feel like I can fully connect all of the dots, I have I’ve missed something.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And so there are 2 extremes here, and I I know you’re trying to say something. I’m sorry. There’s 2 extremes here. 1, there is I think I’ve got this all figured out Mhmm. Which is your god is too small. And then there is well, if I can’t figure it all out, then I can’t and I can’t really know anything that it kinda moves you to a frustrated agnosticism.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And it’s not either of those things. There are things that I can say about god that are true, and I put these true things here, and these are knowable things. But that there are some knowable things is not the same as that. Everything is knowable. And so somewhere there’s, again, there’s a third point on a triangle between you can’t really know anything, I think I know everything, and being comfortable being grounded in truth and comfortable in with mystery.

Abigail:
Right. Yeah. And I think yeah. There well, when and you said, or agnosticism. That’s the idea of there is a creator, but you can’t know him.

Charlie:
No. Agnosticism is is that you can’t know. Is there a God? You have no idea. Okay. Well, again, I I’m gonna try to be super precise here. Sure. Agnosticism is not I don’t know. That’s how that’s how that’s how let’s see something kinda ugly here.

Charlie:
Okay. I’ll say it. Mediocre thinkers use the word agnosticism. If you say, is there a god and you say, I don’t know Mhmm. That doesn’t necessarily make you an agnostic.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
That just means you don’t know. Sure. I don’t know. I don’t know. Agnosticism is it is not possible to know. Okay. Yeah. You don’t

Abigail:
think anyone has the capacity

Charlie:
to know? One has the capacity to know. It is not it is not a knowable thing. Yeah. And so when I use I try to, for the most part, when I say, you’re thinking about things in an an agnostic sort of way. What I what I what I mean is not just I don’t know. But I mean, it’s, like, it’s not possible to know. And so, like and someone with someone who maybe believes in God, let’s say, how may you gotta be really careful because there isn’t any really thing that we can know for sure about God because God is unknowable. Which is not true.

Charlie:
Again, again, with the again, there are some things he has communicated to us, and we can take those things at face value. Mhmm. Now we’re kind of crossing over and we’ll see this a lot. Now we’re crossing over into biblology. And do we believe that the Bible is an accurate reflection

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Of God trying to communicate things that are true about himself to us.

Abigail:
Yeah.

Charlie:
And so theology proper, bibliology, Christology, pneumatology, they all kind of overlap in not only is God knowable, but what are the or angelology to? What are all the very are there varying trustworthy vehicles by which God has communicated truth to us Right. That I can that I can take as true. I don’t know everything that is true about God, but that is not the same as that there isn’t anything I can know

Abigail:
about God. Yeah.

Charlie:
I can know these three things even if I can’t I can’t know these infinity other things.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I can know these three things. Yeah. And even if I can’t connect the dots on them

Abigail:
They can still be true.

Charlie:
They can still be true.

Abigail:
Yeah. I

Charlie:
don’t fully under I I can know something is true and not fully understand it. Yeah. My guess is you don’t have a whole lot of doubts about calculus. You believe calculus is true. Sure.

Abigail:
I don’t know how to do any of it.

Charlie:
I don’t know. I I I don’t know calculus is different than calculus is unknowable.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Calculus is knowable and trustworthy, and I don’t know it.

Abigail:
Right. Well, and we do have and this may be you can tell me if this would fit better in another episode, but we do know that the Trinity was in existence before the creation of the world. Yes. And it’s not something that it wasn’t a belief that came about when humans entered the picture. This was I think a lot of people picture God as the eternal and then Jesus is a New Testament figure.

Charlie:
Right.

Abigail:
But really, this concept was not born out of situations that God was like, oh, maybe we should introduce this character. This is something that is is you can look at the very beginning of the Bible and see we’ll get into other episodes talking about if that’s an accurate representation of what happened or whatever. But you can see that God had the Trinity, that was something that was true and eternal from the very beginning.

Charlie:
Yeah. So the the the characteristic that we’re looking for here is immutable

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
Which means unchanging.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Who God is now is who God has always been. God does not change. I mean, there’s God is not growing. God is not learning. He’s not becoming something. He’s not changing into something. He is not on a journey with us. He is unchanging, unwavering who God is, is who God is.

Charlie:
I don’t have to wonder if he’s going to be in a bad mood tomorrow.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I don’t have to I mean, he’s not he’s he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Mhmm. God God is the same. So if if we discover, the trinity, that is not the same as we invented the trinity. Right. Yeah. Right? I mean, so fossil fuels always existed.

Abigail:
Discovered. Yes.

Charlie:
We discovered them. Yeah. I guess that’s not I guess fossil fuels, they come from a father.

Abigail:
I understand what you’re saying.

Charlie:
Anyways, then it that’s that’s that’s not the best metaphor. Science is discoverable. They existed. Fossil fuels existed long before we discovered them.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And that’s the same with the nature with of who God is. We aren’t we did not invent the trinity. We created language to describe something that was revealed to us in the new testament. Yeah. You know, the fact that Moses wasn’t a trinitarian, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was wrong or that we invented trinitarianism. There are truths about god that he did not reveal until later.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
So these truths were revealed later. And so that doesn’t mean we invented them because, again, that’s a criticism that Trinitarians, Christians can get from people outside. That’s it’s something we just made up. No. We made up the word. Mhmm. And we created terminology to describe what we believe God revealed about himself. Yeah.

Charlie:
But these things are always true. And, again, if we take the Bible at face value, which ultimately we will is when we get to the biblology category, You know, Genesis 1 describes the spirit as hovering above the waters of creation, and Colossians describes Jesus as the one who did the actual creating. So even in that, we see all you take the Bible as in its totality, all three persons were involved in the creation of the universe.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And so it’s not it’s not something new that happened. And I this god didn’t just, like, think I’m gonna think I’m gonna make a more relatable part of me and send that down there. Jesus. Right? And he just invented you know, because in new testament theology makes it very, very clear that Jesus always was.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And Jesus said as much. Mhmm. He’s talking about Abraham. He’s like, what do you what do you know about Abraham? You’re, like, 30. And he’s like, I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was born, I am Mhmm. Which is a a, you know, a very clear eternal statement that he’s making. He didn’t say how I was around back then was I am, which is both also a reference to the name that God gave himself

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
When Moses asked what his name was. Yeah. You know, he gave yeah. You you you tell him you tell him my my name is I am, and that Jesus both speaks to the fact that he was around when Abraham was around, but in doing so, intentionally invokes the name that God gave to Moses. Yeah. And so I think it’s important just real quick. I mean, not only do we talk about the, the baptism of Jesus where we see all 3 of them, We see them all 3 together in different places, put it together. They were all involved in creation.

Charlie:
I think the the great commission that Jesus gives to baptize in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. I mean, he could have used a plural word.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
The names. Right. He didn’t. He used a singular name. Yeah, bro. That’s you’re just reading too much into it. It’s it’s implied. The name of the father and the name of the son and the name of the holy spirit.

Charlie:
And I’m like, one that he is kind of his intentional grouping of them Mhmm. I think speaks to the trinity. And then I also think the singular the singular noun name speaks to it.

Abigail:
But,

Charlie:
really, again, the idea of the trinity, the fact that that word’s not there or it’s not really fleshed out very much in the new testament, that’s not problematic. Because, again, we created language to describe things that god is revealing about himself. Yeah. And that’s not a problem just because we just because we have to make up a word to describe something. You know, immutable is a is an English word. Right? I mean, well, it says that God is not changing. Yeah. We we we still you just kind of omniscient, omnipresent.

Charlie:
All of these words that we use to describe God are words that we make to describe a phenomenon that is clearly described in the scripture. Omnipotent. The Bible clearly describes that the father is God. The son is God. The holy spirit is God. They’re different, but there’s only one God. We’ll just call that trinity. Yeah.

Charlie:
Let’s just give it a word, and then we can kind of build our understanding around it. Yeah. And so we kinda we kinda went a long ways here, but really kinda launched out of your question of we’re talking about avoiding modalism. But I do I do think again, I think we’re all gonna very naturally avoid polytheism.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But I think in our description, you make sure that we’re also avoiding modalism. Yeah. They are they are distinct.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
They have conversations with each other. Yeah. Jesus says, not my will, but yours. Mhmm. To have 2 different wills

Abigail:
That’s very true.

Charlie:
2 different persons. Right. But, also, Jesus says the father and I are 1. Mhmm. And and and in the context in which he said it, they picked up rocks to throw stones at him. They knew that he was what he was saying, that I am of the same essence of as as God. Right. I am I am I am what God is.

Charlie:
I am on God’s level. I am I am

Abigail:
And he makes those claims a lot. They’re like, who are you to forgive sin?

Charlie:
Yeah. And again, he’s not he’s not he doesn’t say I’m God’s delegated agent.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And when he says, we have one mission, you know, I am a prophet. I mean, he doesn’t say any of those things. He he uses oneness as a description, but, again, in theological councils in the 1st few centuries would describe the the word that was used then was homousios, which is of the same substance. Yeah. So you and I are different, but we are we’re made of the same stuff. Mhmm.

Abigail:
Cut from the same cloth.

Charlie:
You know, we are we are people. What does that mean? Well, hearts and brains and skin and DNA and those sorts of things, we’re distinct from each other, but we are homoousios. We’re the we are we are people. Yeah. Right? Different than a rock, different than a tree, different than a dog. I mean, there’s some similar stuff between us and dogs, but there’s a distinction. Yeah. And so that was kind of the the the question that the early church fathers were asking about Jesus and the father.

Charlie:
Are they of different stuff, similar stuff, or the same stuff?

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Same stuff. And that’s what Jesus is saying. The father and I are 1, not 1 in purpose, not 1 in ideas. We we are homogeneous. We are we are we are we are the same.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
So and so, again, we’ll spend some more time talking about that when we’re talking about the nature of Jesus, the nature of, the holy spirit, why we believe Jesus is God, why I believe the holy spirit is God. So we’re just kinda just putting the overall package together, and we will, again, spend many, many weeks exploring the

Abigail:
Seems like this is gonna be never ending. Yeah.

Charlie:
So I’m sure you you you just keep putting those questions in

Abigail:
your pocket. I will. I will. Keep putting it in

Charlie:
your back pocket, and we’ll keep coming back to them. And so I hope you enjoyed this. Hope you kind of are launching into, the nature of who God is. We’re gonna spend some time next week kind of talking about all the omnis that we kind of touched on, the immutable nature, kind of all the the superlatives that describe God. We’ll spend some time talking about the love of God, the the mercy and grace and justice and how all those things work together, just kind of some things that we can know about God’s character. Kind of talk about nature today, and we’ll talk about character next time. And hope you will join us back for that. And as always shoot us any questions [email protected].

Charlie:
And you can find out everything that you would like to know about getting connected at our church at the grovechurch.org. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening to the cultivate podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith that you’re asking big questions and you’re looking for answers. We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts including YouTube. And, again, thank you so much for joining us.