“What about the Trinity in the Old Testament?”

Steve Brown:
What about the Trinity in the Old Testament? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still love them anyway. That teaching raises a lot of questions, so here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth with answers from the Bible that will make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Peter. How are you?

Pete Alwinson:
I am good. I am good. Believe it or not.

Steve Brown:
You know why you’re so good?

Pete Alwinson:
Why?

Steve Brown:
Because we’ve been sitting here for so long recording these programs and we’re almost finished.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
And then we can get out of here and go get dinner.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
See, I got your number. Cause you would have put a spiritual spin on it. And I knew that you’re not that spiritual.

Pete Alwinson:
Listen, well, that’s true. And we’re both as tasked as it gets.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Isn’t that true?

Pete Alwinson:
Check it off.

Steve Brown:
Check it off and get it done.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
But I love these questions. I mean, we get good ones, don’t we?

Steve Brown:
Love that. This is one of my favorite times is just sitting around talking about the, you know, Ruth Graham told me that one time, we were going to lunch, they would sometimes come to the church that I serve, Mr. and Ms. Graham.

Pete Alwinson:
That’d be intimidating.

Steve Brown:
Well, oh, it was. And I’d like to say we were really good buds, but we weren’t. But I knew them. And so, we went to lunch with Mr. and Ms. Graham one time, and somebody asked a question. And Mrs. Graham got out our big Bible, and she said, I love these questions because I love to search the Scriptures

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
and find answers.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that.

Steve Brown:
And we do too. By the way, Pete, if you check out ForgeTruth.com and if you’re a guy and you’re in Central Florida, anywhere within driving distance. There are a number of different Forge groups that meet, and you’ll be glad if you’re a part of it. Otherwise, go to ForgeTruth.com and you’ll be blown away. The podcast is wonderful. And Pete comes in and we answer questions and we, as we said, we love doing that. You can ask a question by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE anytime, following instructions, and record your question. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

or in Canada

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can send your question e-mail to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, be as generous as you can and we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it. And we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. If you can’t, we understand. Say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer, and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You got it. Let’s pray. Our Great Father, we do come into your presence today, and we call you Father because you teach us to call you that. Our Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we honor you and we feel close to you because of your work for us, Lord Jesus. In your death, burial, and resurrection, you did everything that was necessary to provide peace between man and God. And so, we come into your presence today, just remembering that we are at peace with you because of the bloodshed by Jesus Christ. And Lord, we ask that you would continue to work in us. You know our needs and we have so many. You know the relationships that bother us, the, the people that we need to be restored with and we can’t fix it. And you know the jobs that we need, you know the attitudes that we struggle with and need to be changed. Lord, you know us and we pray that you continue your good work in us, create in us your Fruit of the Spirit. Make us holy as you are holy. And we do now pray for our leaders, as the week-end approaches, as the church approaches, Lord, be with our pastors and priests and teachers and leaders, worship directors, all those who will serve. Lord, we ask that your Spirit would be poured out in a powerful way, that we could understand your gospel in a deep way, grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and advance your kingdom. And now, we commit this time of Q&A to you. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to the phone lines.

Caller 1:
Presently evangelicals think of the Trinity as the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit. But that wasn’t the Trinity in the Old Testament, right? Although, it was foretold, or prophesied, in Isaiah 9:6, that’s the Trinity, in correlation with Colossians 1:19 and 2:9. But the Trinity in the Old Testament was the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. Right? According to John 1:1. Am I off base? You can let me know. I’ve been off on a lot of things.

Steve Brown:
That’s a, well, I love that. And I bet, me too, I get that. Well, the Old, depends on how you look at it. The Trinity is referred to throughout the Old Testament, in some ways. Even in Creation, it was the plural, the Creator says, let us. Now, there are people that would say that was the, being the king, us. But I personally think it was not an accident that that was said and that fellowship was going on in the Trinity. And you find, in the Psalmist, some that are Messianic Psalms that are clearly, and God’s Spirit is referred to, and certainly the Father, the God, the Sovereign Ruler is all over. So, it’s there.

Pete Alwinson:
It is. Absolutely. No, you’re right on.

Steve Brown:
And when he said the Word was the Old Testament thing, that John 1 passage is a great passage, but it’s connected in an interesting way with the Old Testament. It’s connected to wisdom, it’s personified in the Old Testament. The Word, according to the Rabbis was in a sense the spoken Word of God, and therefore alive. And it held the world together. So, it was, it’s pretty heavy. And once you get Trinity and this gentleman seems to, in a good way. Once you get it, you find it everywhere.

Pete Alwinson:
Boy, that is really true. And I think from his standpoint, we have to say. I think he got it. I think he got it, he got it. But I think from from our standpoint, you’ve got to look at the Scriptures. The Scriptures are not really a systematic theology.

Steve Brown:
Good.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, when we start thinking about systematics, then you come up with terms that are outside the Bible to explain the phenomena of God’s self revelation.

Steve Brown:
And clearly taught.

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s right. And so, Trinity is, Trinitate was, Augustine the one that first wrote on that in a powerful way. And so, the church had to wrestle with what does this mean as they tried to do systematic theology. But, God doesn’t have any problem just revealing himself as he is, as father, as Spirit, as Son, pre-existent Son, as well in different ways. So, you just, by the time the New Testament is complete, you can’t deny there are three persons that are worshipped.

Steve Brown:
It’s everywhere.

Pete Alwinson:
One God, three persons, with three titles of deity.

Steve Brown:
And we came up systematically with the word Trinity.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s a good answer.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Well, there it is.

Steve Brown:
I agree with that. And the good thing about that, I used to think that was a hard doctrine to explain, and it is. But you kind of avoid it when you’re witnessing. But you know, it’s one of the most important.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is.

Steve Brown:
I mean, it is a very, what we are invited to is a fellowship of love that was going on before we were ever born. It’s a relational God in a wonderful and profound way.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And other religions, Islam in particular, simply, you’ve just got God, who’s a creator, and it’s not a relational thing, and it’s different. It’s very different.

Pete Alwinson:
Ah, well put, well put. It is crucial, and yet it makes sense in one, in the macro sense when you read all the Testaments. It makes sense. But we just, we have that intellectual finitude that, and they can’t let us grasp how three could be one.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
Or one could be three, but there it is.

Steve Brown:
But there it is. And it’s taught. Speaking of the religions, how do I know, this is an e-mail, that my belief is right and all the other religions of the world are wrong. Well, how do you know that the guy who’s providing herbs to heal your cancer is right? Or your oncologist is right?

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, how do you know, they both could be right, right?

Pete Alwinson:
Could be.

Steve Brown:
No, they can’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, I mean, the herbs might help and so might the chemo.

Steve Brown:
Or you, or if you, you don’t want to fly in an airplane with a pilot who says it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe something. So truth exists. Truth exists. Words matter. They reflect reality. So, use the brain that God gave you, and begin to check it out. You know, I kind of came to at least serving Christ intellectually. It was a long time before I got it emotionally. People used to cry when I was teaching, and I didn’t know what that was about. I really didn’t. But, that was good that I did because it allowed me to see what is true and what is not true.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. And then you nailed it. It’s true. And that’s why in the New Testament we see that key line John 8:32.

You shall know the truth, the truth will set you free.

And I think that’s what Pilot was struggling with, which is what is truth. And that’s what philosophers were always. What is true? What is real? What’s the ultimate nature of reality? So, check them about, and I think you’ll, you have to come to a point where you say. You know, I really think that Jesus, this is where we came, Jesus is the ultimate truth teller.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
And nobody does it better. And so, I’m going to take his grid and funnel everything through his grid.

Steve Brown:
I’m going to run with that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, and we’re not saying that there is no truth in other religions.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
There’s truth everywhere. There are some religions that have more truth than others, and some that have less truth than others. But the Christian faith, the Biblical revelation, and Jesus himself is the measurement of that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And that is an intellectual statement as well as a spiritual one.

Pete Alwinson:
It is. What did Schaeffer say?

All truth is God’s truth.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
So, that’s why others can have elements of it. But Christianity has all of it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, and that means we’re right and you’re wrong. Try to keep that in mind. Guys, we’ve got to go. Thanks for taking the time to be with us each Friday. We consider that a high and holy compliment. One other thing before we go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.