Sermon Notes: 5.30.2010

This past Sunday Dr. Bruce Ware spoke at Sojourn about Beholding the Trinitarian God of Our Salvation. It was Trinity Sunday and the Sojourn Pastors asked him to come and speak about the Trinity.

Dr. Ware asked the question, “Have you learned to read your Bibles through Trinitarian Lenses?”

This is fundamentally a Hermeneutics question; “How-to” and “So-what”.  By that I mean, he taught us to How to pay attention to the trinitarian language found in scripture, then he helped us understand its meaning.

One of the biggest “How-to” helps he mentioned was to identify the pronoun’s antecedents. If you work your way through Ephesians 1:1-14, you’ll start to see that each person of the Godhead has a particular role in salvation. Although this is not a comprehensive theology of the Trinity, it does begin to shed light on the doctrine of the trinity and why it was so important to the early church.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

(Ephesians 1:1-14 ESV)?

Here are the notes on the Handout

• Contours of the Trinity – Eph 1:1-2
  • Two themes that form the Pillars of the Trinitarian Formulation of the Early Church:
    • Eph 1:1 – The Distinction Theme
    • Eph 1:2 – The Equality Theme
• Salvation By Members of the Trinity – Eph 1:3-14
  • The Grand Architect of the Salvation is the Father
  • The Glorious Accomplishment of Salvation is through the Son
  • The Gracious Application of Salvation is through the Spirit.
• Life Application
  • Marvel at the beauty of the Triune God and of the Salvation that God, as Father, Son, and Spirit has accomplished
  • Consider the Work of the Trinitarian Persons as one of rich harmony, Not simple unison, one in which there is a unity of work without sameness, and a diversity of Roles without discord
  • Understand the intrinsic authority-submission structure within the relations of the very trinitarian persons themselves, and embrace the relevance to human life made in God’s image–Authority and submission in relationships of husbands and wives, church Leadership and Church members.

One of the more interesting things he mentioned during the sermon is the full trinitarian nature of verse three. Although the text does not mention the proper “Holy Spirit”, it does say “with every spiritual blessing.” Dr. Ware sees that as existential blessings from God through the Spirit so it does in-fact involve the Holy Spirit.

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