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SERMON TOPIC: The Trinity in Genesis

Speaker: Ken Paynter

Language: ENGLISH

Date: 3 August 2018

Topic Groups: TRINITY, GENESIS, APOLOGETICS

Sermon synopsis: God: This is the ancient Hebrew word Elohim. Grammatically it is a plural word used as if it were singular. The verbs and pronouns used with Elohim should be in the plural, but when Elohim refers to the LORD God the verbs and pronouns are in the singular.

Clarke says: 'He must be strangely prejudiced indeed who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words.'

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Foundational Truth.

Creation.

One day, students in one of Albert Einstein's classes were saying they had decided there was no God.

Einstein asked them how much of all the knowledge in the world they had among themselves collectively, as a class. The students discussed it for a while and decided they had 5% of all human knowledge among themselves.

Einstein thought their estimate was a little generous, but he replied:

“Is it possible God exists in the 95% you don't know?”

Creation.

Psalm 19:1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.

Romans 1:20. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

The Bible does not make elaborate arguments for the existence of God, it does however tell us that we can know God exists because of what we see in creation.

Creation.

Genesis is important to the New Testament. There are at least 165 passages in Genesis either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament; many of these are quoted more than once, so there are at least 200 quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament.

Jesus declared the importance of believing what Moses wrote:

John 5:46-47. "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"

We can't say we believe in Jesus if we don't believe in the Book of Genesis.

Creation.

Almost all important doctrines and teachings have their foundation in the Book of Genesis: The doctrines of sin, redemption, justification, Jesus Christ, the personality and personhood of God, the kingdom of God, the fall, Israel, the promise of the Messiah, and more.

Genesis shows us the origins of the universe, order and complexity, the solar system, the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the origin of life, man, marriage, evil, language, government, culture, nations, religion.

It is because people have abandoned the truth of Genesis that society is in such disarray.

Jesus himself said the following.

Matthew 24:37-39. (KJV)

But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Jesus himself said the following.

Luke 17:26-30. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man... It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

God created the heavens.

God's creation is even more amazing when we consider the greatness of God's universe.

A typical galaxy contains billions of individual stars; our galaxy alone (the Milky Way) contains 200 billion stars. Our galaxy is shaped like a giant spiral, rotating in space, with arms reaching out like a pinwheel, and our sun is one star on one arm of the pinwheel. It would take 250 million years for the pinwheel to make one full rotation. But this is only our galaxy; there are many other galaxies with many other shapes, including spirals, spherical clusters, and flat pancakes.

The average distance between one galaxy and another is about 20 million trillion miles. Our closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, about 12 million trillion miles away.

God created the heavens.

For every patch of sky the size of the moon, if you could look very deep, you would see about a million galaxies.

God did all this Himself: Isaiah 48:13. "Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together."

But God is bigger and greater than all His creation:

Isaiah 40:12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

Who created God?

Some are troubled by the questions, "Where did God come from?" and "Who created God?"

The answer is found in the definition of God - that God is the uncreated Being, eternal, and without beginning or end. God Himself was before the beginning:

Psalm 93:2.

Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting

Psalm 90:1-2.

LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God created: The Bible simply and straightforwardly declares the world did not create itself or come about by chance. It was created by God, who, by definition, is eternal and has always been.

The Trinity in Genesis.

We learn something about the character of God right from the first words used in Genesis 1:1.

The Hebrew noun translated God is plural while the verb translated created is singular. This is the first indication in Scripture that God is a Trinity.

The Trinity can be simply defined as follows: within the nature of the one God there are three eternal Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three distinct Persons are the one God. Jesus spoke of the three Persons of the Trinity.

Matthew 28:19.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity in Genesis.

God: This is the ancient Hebrew word Elohim. Grammatically it is a plural word used as if it were singular. The verbs and pronouns used with Elohim should be in the plural, but when Elohim refers to the LORD God the verbs and pronouns are in the singular.

Rabbi Simeon ben Joachi, commenting on the word Elohim: "Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are three degrees, and each degree by itself alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all one, and joined together in one, and are not divided from each other."

Clarke adds: "He must be strangely prejudiced indeed who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words."

Eloah (El) & Elohim (Elim)

SINGULAR: Eloah, El – translated ‘God’.

PLURAL: Elohim, Elim – based on context, translated as God, gods, angels.

Although Elohim is a plural, it is consistently used with singular verb forms and with adjectives and pronouns in the singular. In this case it is translated ‘God’.

Consider Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Now look at the Hebrew, which reads right to left:

  • הָאָֽרֶץ

  • וְאֵת

  • הַשָּׁמַיִם

  • אֵת

  • אֱלֹהִים

  • בָּרָא

  • בְּרֵאשִׁית

  • ha-aretz

    v'et

    ha-shamayim

    et

    elohim

    bara

    Breshit

    the earth

    and

    the heavens

    Gods

    created

    In the beginning

    plural

    male singular

    Eloah (El) & Elohim (Elim)

    Every time the word ‘God’ is used in the OT it is almost always ‘Elohim’ (plural) in the Hebrew, but used with a singular verb.

    This was obviously intentional as it is used with a plural verb when referring to heathen ‘gods’.

    If the plural form ‘Elohim’ was the only form available for a reference to God, then the argument might be made that the writers had no other alternative but to use the word ‘Elohim’ for both the one true God and the many false gods. 1

    However, the singular form for ‘Elohim’ (Eloah or El) exists and is used in such passages as Deuteronomy 32:15-17 and Habakkuk 3:3. 1

    This singular form could easily have been used consistently. Yet it is only used 250 times, while the plural form is used 2500 times. 1

    The far greater use of the plural form again turns the argument in favour of plurality in the Godhead. 1

    1 “JEWISHNESS AND THE TRINITY” by Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum

    The Trinity is evident in Genesis 1:26.

    In the Genesis 1:26, we find God having a conversation about the creation of humankind.

    Then God said, Let Us make humankind in our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

    To whom is God speaking? There are four popular answers to this question:

    Is He speaking to angels.

    Does the Us refer to the members of the Trinity.

    The Trinity is evident in Genesis 1:26.

    1.Angels Some have taught that the reference to Us refers to God speaking to angels. This has been a very popular interpretation among the Jews.

    However this will not fit with the rest of Scripture. Nowhere do we find angels involved in any type of creation. According to the Bible, angels are created beings, not co-creators with God. The psalmist wrote:

    Psalm 148:2,5.

    Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts . . . Let them praise the Lord for He commanded and they were created.

    The Trinity is evident in Genesis 1:26.

    Furthermore, humanity was not made in the image of angels but rather the image of God. Genesis 5:1,2.

    This is the list of the descendants of Adam.

    When God created humankind, He made them in the likeness of God.

    Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and named them Humankind when they were created.

    Creation belongs to the will of God alone. God did not make the decision with the counsel of angels.

    The Trinity is evident in Genesis 3:22.

    Genesis 3:22.

    Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.

    This cannot mean God was concerned that humanity had become like an angel or some other creature.

    Humankind was going to be like God if they sinned-knowing good from evil.

    The Trinity is evident in Genesis 11:7-8.

    Tower Of Babel. In the incident at the Tower of Babel we have God also using the same phrase.

    Genesis 11:7-8.

    Come, let Us go down and confuse their language.

    So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth.

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