2: The One True God 

          There is only one living and true God. He is Creator of all things, infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere present Spirit, perfect and complete, unchangeable in all His attributes. He is one in essence, yet eternally existing in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each equally deserving worship and obedience. Genesis 1:1-31; Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 139; Isaiah 45:5-7;              Matthew 28:19; John 4:24; 2 Corinthians 13:14.


God The Father

          God the Father, the first person of the Trinity, orders and disposes all things according to His own purpose and grace. By His own will the universe was created. As the only absolute and omnipotent Ruler in the universe, He is sovereign in creation, providence, and redemption. Genesis 1:1-31; Psalm 102:25; 103:19; 145:8-9; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 3:9.


           His fatherhood involves both His designation within the Trinity and His relationship with mankind. As Father within the Trinity, He is the source, initiator, planner, and director of divine ideas and actions. He is Father to all men as Creator, but He is spiritual Father only to believers. Romans 8:14; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Ephesians 4:6; Hebrews 1:2; 10:7.


           God has decreed, for His own glory, all things that come to pass. He continually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and events. In His sovereignty He is neither author nor approver of sin, nor does He abridge the accountability of moral, intelligent creatures.     1 Chronicles 29:11; Habakkuk 1:13; John 8:38-47; Ephesians 1:11; 1 Peter 1:17.


           God the Father has graciously chosen from eternity past those whom He would have as His own. He saves from sin and adopts as His own all who come to Him through believing in His Son, Jesus Christ. John 1:12; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:4-6;         Hebrews 12:5-9.

 

 

God the Son

His Nature

           Jesus Christ is the eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity. He possesses all of the divine perfections and in these He is coequal, consubstantial (made of the same essence), and coeternal with the Father. In His incarnation He united to His divine nature a true human nature in an indissoluble union and so became the God-Man. These two natures comprise one person. Micah 5:2;                     John 14:9-10; Colossians 2:9; 1 John 5:20; Jude 25.


          In His incarnation (God becoming man) the eternal Son laid aside the manner of existence of God to assume the manner of existence appropriate to a servant, but He never divested Himself of His divine attributes. In His incarnation Christ surrendered only the prerogatives of deity but nothing of His divine essence either in degree or kind. In His incarnation Christ Jesus is fully God and fully man, and He represents humanity in indivisible oneness with God. Micah 5:2; John 14:9-11; Philippians 2:5-8; Colossians 2:9.


          Jesus Christ was virgin born with His personhood and nature begotten by the Holy Spirit and so was preserved from contamination with the stream of fallen humanity. He was sinless in nature as well as in deed. The Lord Jesus Christ was God incarnate, and the purpose of the incarnation was to reveal God, redeem men, and rule over God's kingdom. Psalms 2:7-9; Isaiah 7:14, 9:6; Matthew 1:23-25; Luke 1:26-35; John 1:1, 14; 14:30; Philippians 2:9-11; Hebrews 7:25-26; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 2:22.


His Work

          God the Father created the universe according to His own will and through Jesus Christ. By Christ all things continue in existence and operation. John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:2.


          The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished redemption through His sacrificial death on the cross. His death was voluntary, vicarious, substitutionary, propitiatory, and redemptive. John 10:15; Romans 3:24-25; 5:8; 1 Peter 2:24.


          On the basis of the efficacy (adequacy) of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the believing sinner is freed from the punishment, penalty, power, and, one day, the very presence of sin. The believer is also declared righteous, given eternal life, and adopted into the family of God on the basis of the death of Christ. Romans 3:25; 5:8-9; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18.


          A sinner’s justification is made sure by Jesus Christ's literal, physical resurrection from the dead. Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father where He currently mediates between the Father and believers as our Advocate and High Priest.                     Matthew 25:6; Luke  24:38- 39; Acts 2:30-31; Romans 4:25; 8:34; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24; 1 John 2:1.

  

          God the Father confirmed the deity of His Son and gave proof that He has accepted the atoning work of Christ on the cross, in His resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Jesus' bodily resurrection is also the guarantee of a future resurrection life for all believers.       Isaiah 53:10-11; John 5:26-29; 14:19; Romans 1:4; 4:25; 6:5-10; 1 Corinthians 15:20, 23.


          Jesus Christ will return to receive the Church, which is His body, unto Himself at the rapture. He will also return with His Church in glory and establish His millennial kingdom on earth. As the mediator between God and man, the head of His body the Church, and the coming King who will reign on the throne of David, Christ is the final judge of all who fail to place their trust in Him as Lord and Savior. Isaiah 9:6; Luke 1:31-33; Matthew 25:14-46; Acts 1:9-11; 17:30-31; Ephesians 1:22; 5:23; Colossians 1:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18;    1 Timothy 2:5; Revelation 20.


          The Lord Jesus Christ is the One through whom God will judge all mankind. He will judge believers for rewards at the Bema seat and the unbelieving dead at the Great White Throne. Matthew 25:31-46; John 5:22-23; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15;                                                  2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 20:11-15.


God the Holy Spirit

His Nature

          The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is a divine person who is eternal and underived (not created), possessing all the attributes of personality and deity, including intellect, emotions, will, eternality, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and truthfulness. In all the divine attributes He is coequal, consubstantial (made of the same essence), and coeternal with the Father and the Son.   Psalms 139:7-10; Isaiah 40:13-14; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 28:19; Acts 5:34; 28:25-26; John 16:13; Romans 15:13; 

1 Corinthians 2:10-13; 12:4-11; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 4:30; Hebrews 9:14; 10:15-17.


His Work

          It is the work of the Holy Spirit to execute the divine will with relation to all mankind which He does by working through the Church that He indwells. The Holy Spirit's sovereign activity includes creation, the incarnation, written revelation, and the work of salvation. Genesis 1:2; John 3:5-7; 2 Peter 1:20-21.


          The Holy Spirit began His work in this age at Pentecost when He came from the Father, as promised by Christ, to initiate and complete the building of the body of Christ, which is the Church. The broad scope of His work includes convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, and transforming believers into Christ’s image. 

John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:7-9; Acts 1:5; 2:4; Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 12:13; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 2:22.


          The Holy Spirit is the supernatural and sovereign agent in regeneration who baptizes all believers into the body of Christ. He indwells, sanctifies, instructs, empowers to service, fills, and seals the Church until the day of redemption. 

1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Ephesians 1:13; 5:18.


          The Holy Spirit is the divine teacher who guided the writers of Scripture into all truth as they committed into writing God's revelation, the Bible. The Holy Spirit teaches the Church with the Scriptures. John 16:13; 2 Peter 1:19-21; 1 John 2:20, 27.


          Every believer possesses the indwelling of the Holy Spirit from the moment of salvation. It is the duty of all those born of the Spirit to be filled (controlled) by the Spirit. Romans 8:9; Ephesians 5:18.


          The Holy Spirit administers gifts to the Church. He glorifies neither Himself nor His gifts by ostentatious displays, but He does glorify Christ by implementing His work of redeeming the lost and building up believers in the faith through the gifts He bestows on the Church. John 16:13-14; Acts 1:8; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 14:33, 40; 2 Corinthians 3:18.


          God the Holy Spirit is sovereign in the bestowing of all His gifts for the perfecting of the saints today. Speaking in tongues and the working of other sign gifts in the beginning days of the Church were for the purpose of pointing to and authenticating the apostles as revealers of divine truth. The sign gifts were never intended to be characteristic of the lives of believers throughout the church age. 

1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 13:8-10; 2 Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 4:7-12; Hebrews 2:1-4.