September 24

Isaiah 13:1-14:32
Psalm 111:1-5
Proverbs 23:12-14
2 Corinthians 12:11-13:13

A Watershed Truth
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
—2 Corinthians 13:13

That great Christian, Francis Schaeffer, said that he would have remained an agnostic if it weren’t for the doctrine of the Trinity. It was this, he claimed, that gave him the answer—the only answer—to the theme of unity and diversity.

The question I have been asked most often about the Trinity is this: Why didn’t God make clear the truth of the Trinity in the Old Testament, rather than leaving it as something to be deduced in the New Testament? I usually answer like this: Before God could entrust His people with the knowledge of His essential Threeness, He had to lay deep in their minds a piercing conviction of His Oneness. The Bible begins in monotheism (belief in one God), but soon after the Fall comes polytheism (belief in many gods). Which god is the real God? Not until belief in one God was laid deep in the consciousness of the Jewish nation was God ready to reveal more clearly to mankind the sublime truth of the Trinity.

Dr. George Smeaton says: “The biblical idea of the Trinity is the heart of the unique message of Christianity. To explain this mystery is not our province. Ours is simply to conserve the mystery.” Those who call themselves Christians yet reject the doctrine of the Trinity will soon latch onto some other error. It is a strange thing, but I have observed it as a fact of the Christian life that when this truth is modified or pushed aside, it is as if the door is opened to the inrush of all kinds of absurd ideas, bizarre theories, and half-truths.

Prayer
Father, help me hold fast to this sublime truth, and enable me to see that though something is above reason, it is not necessarily against reason. Blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—I worship You. Amen.

Further Study
Jn 14:8-21; 17:22
How did Jesus depict the Trinity?
What did Jesus confirm?

Every Day with Jesus Daily Bible – September 24