“Simply God”

James chapter 1 verse 17 says, “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

That is the doctrine we will be considering this morning. The fact that God cannot change and there is no even shadow within what is called God’s light. This is the final sermon of our Trinity series, and we’ve considered a lot as we’ve come through. And what we are trying to do is to get a accurate biblical understanding of our God. This is a vital practice for Christians. We need to know the God that we worship.

And throughout this series, our aim has been just that, to know more of who God is as he’s revealed himself in his word. And we want to know exactly what Scripture says about God. As one theologian has said, though we cannot comprehend Him as He is, as we’ve spoken of God’s incomprehensibility, that God cannot fully be known because we are finite and He is infinite. And although that’s true, he goes on to say, we must be careful not to fancy Him to be what He is not. We need to, even though we don’t fully have the ability to grasp who God is, we need to know exactly how He has revealed Himself, because we don’t want to be creating our own ideas of who God is. We don’t want to be fancying Him to be what He is not. And again, we’ve covered several Essential doctrines of the Trinity, and I’ll just give a quick recap of where we’ve been, because the doctrine we’re going to consider this morning really ties them all together. It really holds all the things we know of God together.

We’ve seen that God is one being, but three persons. That there are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and yet there’s only one God. We’ve looked at the evidence in Scripture for that doctrine. We’ve looked at all the different places where God is described as one, and yet we see that the Father is called God, the Son is called God, and the Spirit is called God as well. Then we looked at different ways in which people have gotten these things wrong, how they’ve created their own doctrines of God, and the Trinitarian heresies that we looked at. And then last Sunday morning, we looked at the person of Christ. one of the members of the Trinity, and that he took human flesh to himself, that he came to be born as a babe, to be incarnate, to take humanity to himself. And we looked at, in Philippians chapter two, what it means that he emptied himself, and that he emptied himself by taking human form. That he was no less God when he became a man, that he did not give up his deity to take on humanity. Otherwise, He would not be God with us, and He would not be the fullness of deity dwelling bodily. His humanity was veiling His deity as He walked the earth. It was not on full display, and yet, just as a veil partially covers, we can see in Scripture where His deity was still there. We looked at several different places where Jesus fully possessed deity and was able to do things that no one other than God himself can do. And then, last Sunday evening, we looked at some more of the technical language and terminology that we use in that the being and person distinction within God, that the being of God refers to his substance, what he is, and person refers to the agent carrying out different activities.

So as we speak of the being of God, there is only one being who is God. And yet, there are three persons who are God. And we talked about what that distinction is. As we’ve read the last few weeks, different parts of the Athanasian Creed, it very clearly and helpfully explains this. And it says, the Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. And the Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers. There is one Son, not three Sons. And there is one Holy Ghost, and not three Holy Ghosts. And it’s a very articulate way of explaining this doctrine, that there is one God. And yet there’s a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit.

And this morning we’ll look at, it is not proper to say that there are three persons within the one God, but that the one essence and nature of God is shared by all three persons. That God is not made up of parts. As we know from Deuteronomy 6.4, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit from eternity past and until eternity future have always existed as they are. The three divine persons have always been exactly the way they are. And as we looked at the eternal relations of those persons, that the Son has always been the Son. There was not a time where He became the Son. But as a Son, that means He has a Father. And as a Father, that means He has a Son. The same with the Spirit. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son and has eternally done so.

So, this morning I would like to look at the way all of this works and the way we see these things shining forth in the works of God. And the things God does and how those things explain who He is. How we see the Trinity itself revealed. in the very works of our God. And this doctrine is called the simplicity of God’s being and the operations of God. And really, I’ll explain what that word simplicity means, but it basically means that God is indivisible. He cannot be divided up into different parts. And an important thing to remember as we think of these things, and as we try to speak of these things, that we are using human language. And human language is just that, it’s human, it’s finite. It is incapable of fully expressing an infinite, incomprehensible God. So we use what we have and do what we can to try to understand and explain a God that is so vast and so great and so infinite that it is beyond our ability to fully understand, but as one Theologian James Dolezal says, we are using human language to parallel the very form of God’s being. This is impossible, since all our thought and language is drawn from creation, and creation cannot measure the creator.

So we need to understand that our language is a little bit limited in these things, but we can still look at the way God has used human language in scripture to explain himself. So this is how we’re going to approach this morning. I’m going to give you a definition of what this doctrine is, really a more technical explanation of it, so it might seem a little complicated at first, and I’m going to show you how some different theologians have spoken of these things, but then I’m going to break it down into the basics and really kind of flesh out what this means. And then I’m going to take you to scripture and show you some different doctrines that imply that this must be the way that God is. So we’re going to look first at a definition, then we’re going to really break it down into the basics, and then we’re going to look at some scripture that supports these things.

So let’s begin with a definition of this doctrine called the simplicity of God. Now you may be thinking, well, God is anything but simple. It’s not easy to understand God. It’s not easy to understand an infinite God, so how can you say that He’s simple? And He’s not the way we would describe a person who is simple-minded or simple in their understanding. Well, that’s because that’s not what the context of simple means here. Simple is in contrast to complex or compounded. Simple means the oneness of God. God’s simplicity is His indivisibility, His lack of composition. He’s not compounded of multiple things. It means that each and all of His attributes or perfections are one in God’s essence, in His being, in who God is. God is not composed of parts. Whatever is in God is God. God is not dependent on anything to be what He is and who He is. And these are the different ways that this has been spoken of. If you are reading a theology book or reading different theological resources, this is how they will speak of this. And so it does sound a little academic or complicated, but I will break down what these words mean, what they’re saying. And God’s simplicity, even though it may seem at first to do this, God’s simplicity cannot contradict the Trinity. It cannot contradict the fact that we know there are three persons who are God. But instead, this uncompounded, this undivided essence of God exists in all three of the persons. If you remember from the Trinity that we took several weeks ago, one of the questions was, each of the three persons, so the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, each of the three persons is one-third of God. That was true, false, or unsure. Well, 90% of you answered false, and that’s correct. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not one-third of God. They don’t each make up a different part of God. The three persons do not make up God, instead the three persons are fully and truly God in and of themselves.

So how do we understand this? As John MacArthur explained this doctrine in his theology book, there is only one God and He consists of one simple, uncompounded, indivisible essence. God cannot be divided. God cannot be divided into this part and that part. As we think of God and what he is like and the different attributes, those are not all parts that make up God. Now I know, your minds are probably stretching right now as you think of these things because everything we know is made of parts. Everything is compounded. It’s made up of one thing or another. But this is not what God is like. And as we’ve seen in all of these doctrines we consider, We can’t get frustrated when we reach the end of our ability to comprehend. God is incomprehensible. Don’t be confused, don’t be frustrated, but we need to realize there is an end of our understanding. What we do want to do is see what scripture says. We need to be careful not to fancy God to be what he is not. We need to understand what Scripture says. And I think this doctrine, this doctrine of God’s indivisibility, his simplicity, I honestly believe is one of the most important doctrines when it comes to understanding God. And that is because it holds so many of our other doctrines together. It protects us from having a wrong understanding and coming to wrong conclusions about God. If we get this doctrine right, it safeguards us from any errors that have been made either in the doctrines themselves or in the implications of who God is. So, what are some basics of this doctrine? Well, simply put, it is just that God is not composed of parts. If you can simplify it down, the doctrine of simplicity simply means God is not composed of parts.

So as I explain some of these things, just hold on to that statement. God is not composed of parts. That’s where all of this is, all of this information, all this scripture is headed to support God is not composed of parts. A part of anything is something that is less than the whole, right? So if you have something that’s a part of something, that it’s less than the whole thing. Think of anything that’s made of parts. You think of your car. Think of a part of your car, the tire, for example. Well, the tire is not the whole car. It is less than the whole car. It contributes to what is the whole. Well, you and I ourselves are composite beings. We are made up of parts, right? We all have parts. We have body parts. We are made up of things that make us who we are. And if we had one part less than we have right now, we would be less than what we are as a whole. If I lost one of my hands, I would no longer exist as I currently do right now. That’s what it is to have parts. And Paul uses this as an example, as an illustration, when he speaks of the church, right?

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of what the church is. And he speaks of the different parts of the church. And just like a body has parts that’s made up to complete the whole, the church itself is made up of parts, and those parts are you and I. Every member of the church makes up the whole of what the church is. The church is a composite of every single believer. It is made up of all these parts. And without the parts, the church would be less than what it is. If the church was missing something, if the church was missing one of the parts, it would not be what it is as a whole. Well, all that to say, God is not like that. God is not like that. God is not made up of parts. God is not made up of parts like you and I are. God is not made up of parts like the church in that illustration of Paul is. You cannot divide God into parts. You cannot take away any of God’s, anything that he is. If he had parts, you cannot take them away. Really, anything that has parts, anything that is composed, must rely on a composer. something or someone to put those parts together, to hold those parts together. Well, our God is not dependent on anyone or anything. And we will look at that doctrine of His independence here in a moment. He is not dependent on parts. He is not dependent on someone to put His parts together. God is an absolute being. He alone is the reason for His existence. He cannot derive His nature or His being from anywhere else other than Himself.

As several theologians have explained this, all that is in God is God. There’s a good book by the title of All That Is in God written by James Dolezal. R.C. Sproul read this book shortly before he passed away and he said this is one of the best books that he’s read because of the way that it speaks of and explains some of these complex doctrines. But this is not a new idea. Even though that’s a more recent book, this is not a recent development in our thought of God. The early theologians all spoke of this and spoke of this as one of the most important doctrines of God because it protects us from such errors. Stephen Charnock, one early theologian, and he was a Puritan, he said it this way, God is the most simple being. For that which is first in nature, having nothing beyond it, cannot by means be thought to be compounded.”

So because God is first, because God is supreme, everything comes from Him, then God cannot be made up of anything else. He goes on to say, He has nothing in Himself that is not Himself, and therefore He cannot change. I started off by reading from James chapter one. There is no variation or shadow due to change within God. Well, that’s because there’s nothing in God that could change. There’s nothing that God derives his being from that would fail him. God simply is God. And everything that it is to be God is where he derives his essence from. And I’ll go on to explain this a little more. You might be thinking, well, Scripture does explain different things of God. It speaks of His attributes. Now, aren’t those parts of God? Aren’t those parts within God’s being or who God is? You might say something like, well, God has love, and He has truth, and He has righteousness, and wisdom, and light, and life, and holiness, and all the things that we know Scripture describes God as. But you think carefully about those passages of Scripture that describe those things of God. Does it say He has those things within Himself? Or that He is those things? God is truth. God is righteousness. God is wisdom, spirit, life, love, holiness. He is those things.

There’s one helpful illustration that’s been used several times before, is think of it as though a beam of light, pure light. Now what color is a pure beam of light? Well, it really doesn’t have color. We can cover light with some different colored glass or different things to make it shine forth a color, but the light itself does not have color and yet, When that light hits something, like a prism, or like raindrops, it begins to reflect all this color. You see in the rainbow, all the different colors within that. Same thing when a light hits a prism, it shines forth all these different colors, and yet within the light itself, it is one pure beam of light. Well, you can think of scripture or God’s revelation in general that way, that he has to reveal himself in a way that shows us the different characteristics of God, and yet God’s essence is a pure, undivided essence. You cannot take any of those things away. So that’s a few different places where God’s attributes or his perfections are described.

1 John 4:8 says, God is love. It doesn’t say God has love, it doesn’t say God is loving, but God is love. So when we talk of something being, well, that was very loving, or we need to be more loving, what you could also say is, well, that was very God-like, because God is love, and God is how we know what love is. God is the standard of love, so whatever God does, Whatever God does, it is loving. Because he is love. And anything that comes from him must be loving. Because God in himself, in his very essence, what it is to be God, he is love.

The same thing, Jeremiah 10:10 says, God is truth. We don’t measure what God says by our standard of, well, is this true or not? Does it make sense to me, therefore it’s true or not? No, God is the standard of truth. God is truth. We measure our words, our thoughts, our ideas by whether or not God says it is so, because he is truth.

1 John 1:5, God is light. He doesn’t shine forth light, he doesn’t have light, he is light. John 4:4, God is spirit, and so on and so forth with all of these different attributes of God. God isn’t partly any of these things. God isn’t made up of different parts like this. That’s why whenever God does something, we can’t say, well, that was just, but it wasn’t very loving. Whatever God is, is included in everything He does. Because God cannot be divided. Every attribute of God is revealed in every work that he does. That’s why his love is everlasting. And his justice is true. And so on and so forth. All of these things are different ways of describing the one pure essence of God. Really, God has one attribute. And we describe it in different ways. Scripture describes it in different ways. He reveals himself in human language in different ways to explain and describe to us what he is like.

So now that we have a basic understanding, really that God’s attributes unite in him, that they are one. We need to look at what Scripture says and does it support these things. And really, I’m going to put forth to you that simplicity, that this doctrine makes the best sense of what God reveals in Scripture.

So I want to look at a few different truths we know about God because it’s explicitly stated and show you how it demands that God is an uncompounded, undivided, We’re going to look at three different areas this morning, because that’s about all we’ll have time for. Otherwise, we could look at even more. But the three I want to look at this morning are God’s independence, that He is independent of anything. He’s not reliant on anyone or anything to be who God is. We’ll look at God’s independence. We’re going to look at God’s infinity, that He is infinite. And we’ll look at all that Scripture has to say about that and show that that means He cannot be made up of parts. And then lastly, we will look at that He is creator. That He is eternally creator. And we’ll look at the implications these doctrines have on this idea that God cannot be divided up into parts.

So God’s independence, God’s infinity, and God as creator. As Hermann Baving says, if God is composed of parts like a body, then His perfections, His oneness, His independence, His immutability, they cannot be maintained. So number one, we’re going to look at His independence. This is often described as His aseity. That’s just the Latin word for independent. He is not dependent on anything. He is perfectly self-sufficient. He doesn’t depend on anything outside of Himself to be who He is. And you can see this right in God’s name, the name that he gives to Moses.

In Exodus 3:14, God says to Moses, I am who I am. He said, lest you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Here Moses has been given the command, go speak to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go. And Moses says, but, but, but, but, and he tries to think of any excuse why he can’t do this. Who am I supposed to say sent me? And God says, I am who I am. You shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And God’s name, I am, means exactly that. He just is. He is. He didn’t become. He is not becoming anything. He is. I am. Not I was, not I will be. I am. In this context, God is reassuring Moses even in his name. Moses, I told you this will happen. I told you this is how it’s going to go, and I am. Nothing is going to change who He is. Nothing is going to surprise Him. He is. He grounds His covenantal faithfulness to Moses on His name. I am. And then in a passage in the New Testament that reveals this identity with Christ.

In John 5:26, Jesus says, just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son to have life in himself. The name I Am means he is the source of all things. He is the source of life. And Jesus says, just as God the Father has life in himself, even so the Son has life in himself. He’s identifying himself with God. He doesn’t get life from anywhere else. God does not receive his life, his ability to have life from anywhere else like we do. We are living and breathing right now because God gave that to us. Everything that exists in creation, everything that has life, has life from God. God does not have his life from anywhere. He is. He is the source of his own life. He does not receive that from anything. I read Psalm 90 verse two earlier. Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. That’s Moses. And God says to Moses, Moses, I am. And in Moses’ psalm, what does he say? You are. God you are.

1 Corinthians is another place, 1 Corinthians 8 verses 5 and 6, Paul’s speaking of these false gods that they were eating the food offered to these idols. And Paul says, really those idols are nothing. Because in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 8 he says, for even if there are so-called gods, which there aren’t. Even if there are, whether they’re in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us, there’s one God, the Father, from whom are all things. He is the source, and we exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things. All things have their source in the Father and the Son, in God. and we exist through him. We exist through him. He exists through no one. He has no source. He exists in and of himself. He depends on nothing. All things depend on him.

Romans 11 verse 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. He is the source.

Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 39, we’ve looked at this before. See now that I, I am he and there is no God beside me. It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal. There is no one who can deliver from my hand. God is the one who gives life and there is no one beside him. There is no other. And then in Isaiah, in the trial of the false gods. We’ll look at a few passages throughout this section, but God is really measuring these false gods of the nations against Himself and showing how they fall short simply because He is.

Isaiah 45 verses 5 through 7, I am Yahweh and there is no other. Beside me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that you may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am Yahweh and there is no other, the one forming light and creating darkness, producing peace and creating calamity. That word there is the same word for evil, creating evil. I am Yahweh who does all these. Everything has its source ultimately in God. He needs nothing. He is all sufficient.

Paul describing God in comparison to the false gods of the Greeks and Romans of his time, Acts 17, 24 and 25. The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. He needs nothing because he is the source of everything. He is the first and the last. We see that in Isaiah 41. I, Yahweh, am the first and I am the last. I am He.

Isaiah 44, 6 and 7. I am Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer. I am the first and I am the last. There is no God beside me. Who is like me? Let him call out and declare it. A few chapters later, Isaiah 48, I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.

Then you go to Revelation 1:8, I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the beginning and I am the end. He is not the Alpha who’s going to become the Omega one day. He is. He is all those things. He does not change. He is the one, as Revelation 1.8 goes on, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. And then at the end of Revelation, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. God depends on no one or no thing to be who He is. He is.

So then, now that we have that doctrine revealed, God’s independence, He cannot derive who He is from anyone else. He is independent in His being. He owes no one any debts. Who has given to Him that it shall be repaid? Romans 11:35. And Job 41. Who has given to me that I should repay Him? Again, the sense of all these passages is that God does not rely on anything else outside of himself to be who he is. How can we be sure that God will keep his word? If he was dependent on anything besides himself, then it would be that thing that we are trusting in, to not fail. But God has nothing with which he is dependent on. And it follows that if God is composed of parts, then our confidence is not in Him, it is in the source. It is in those parts. If any of those parts fails, then God is not what He is. God’s independence demands that He is not made up of parts.

And secondly, we’ll look at God’s infinity. God is infinite. The Bible teaches that God is infinite, and it speaks of his greatness as exalted above creation. I’ll go through a few more passages here, and you can write these down. I’ll go through them rather quickly. Psalm 8:1, you display your splendor above the heavens. Psalm 148:13, his splendor is above earth and heaven. First Kings 8:27, when Solomon’s speaking of the temple, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built. Psalm 145: 3, his greatness is unsearchable. And then Job 11 again, can you find the depths of God? Can you find the limits of the Almighty? They are as high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than the grave, what can you know? Another passage speaks of God’s immeasurability, his infinity. As we’ve already seen, he is the first and the last. This fullness of his being, this infinite nature, sets him apart from these false gods.

So if God is truly infinite, and this I think is a good way to think about this, if God is infinite, he cannot be made up of parts that are less than infinite. And if they are parts, then therefore they must be less than God. So if God’s love is only a part of Him, then His love is not infinite. If God’s justice is only a part of Him, then it’s less than the whole. God is infinite if His parts are less than Him, then they are not infinite. He cannot be made up of parts.

Thirdly, God is creator. Since he is the first being from whom all things flow, he cannot derive his being from anything else. Revelation 4:11, worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power. Why? For you created all things. And because of your will, they exist and were created.” All things, everything is created by God. Romans 4 verse 17, God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. He calls it into being. He does not take some parts and make it. He calls it into being. This is called God’s creation ex nihilo, out of nothing. There wasn’t a bunch of spare parts laying around when God created the earth and just we’ll put these together and see what it comes out as. No, he spoke and there was nothing and all of a sudden there is everything. He is the source. From him and through him and to him are all things.

If God was made up of parts, then these parts must necessarily exist before him, before they are put together and create the God who is. This doctrine is really preventing absurdity. And much of the Bible’s teaching is compromised if you deny that God is a simple being, if you assert that he is made up of these parts. And we see this in the actions of God, and that’s what I wanna really focus in on as we close this morning, that the actions of God reveal that God is not compounded, that He’s not made up of the Father and the Son and the Spirit as all different parts of God, but they all contain or possess the simple nature, the simple essence of God. I read John 5 earlier. Turn to John 5 this morning. What we really see here is not that the Pharisees are getting Jesus wrong, but they’re getting him right and they don’t like it.

In John chapter five, you have the healing at Bethesda on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees do not like it. He was doing these things on the Sabbath, And in verse 16, for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But he answered them and said, my father is working until now and I myself am working. He’s making a statement there that has a lot of meaning to it. My father has been working until now and I myself am working. He’s saying the Father and I both have been working until now. They’re challenging him because he’s working on the Sabbath. And he’s saying, hey guys, newsflash, I’ve been working since the creation of the world, including every Sabbath day from then till now.

So this is not a new revelation that Jesus, God incarnate, is doing something on the Sabbath day. And the Jews, the Pharisees understand what he’s saying here. Because verse 18, for this reason, for verse 17, what he said, my father is working until now and I myself am working. For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him. Because not only, it wasn’t just the Sabbath, not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but also what Jesus is doing in verse 17, calling God his father, he makes himself equal with God. They understand he’s saying, I’m God. They get it right, and they hate it. Therefore, verse 19, Jesus answered and said, truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something he sees the father doing, for whatever the father does, these things the son also does in the same manner.” Jesus is not saying he is a great copycat, that he’s seen what the father does and he’s pretty good at imitating the father. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying what the Father does is the very same thing and in the same manner that He does, because He is indivisible in His nature, in His essence with the Father. What God does in any one of the persons, all of God is involved in it.

Now, Scripture explains it to us, attributing it to one person or another. so that we may understand it, but anything that the Father does, anything that the Son does, anything that the Spirit does, you can rightfully say God is doing it. Because God, in His being, in His nature, in His essence, in all that it is to be God, is indivisible. He is simple. Jesus gives a few examples. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing. And the Father will show Him greater works than these so that you will marvel. He’s speaking of God working through the incarnation, the human nature that He took on, that the Son took on. And He says, verse 21, 4. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. We just saw that there’s only one source of life. There’s only one source. God is independent. He is infinite. He is the creator of all. There’s only one source of life itself. And Jesus says, it’s the Father and it’s me. And He’s not contradicting Himself there. He is God. God is the source. And he goes on to speak of judgment as well. For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has also given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.

The honor of God is what’s at stake here. If you honor the Son, you are also honoring the Father because they are one. Jesus says in John 10, I and my Father are one. That’s what he means. He is indivisible in His nature, in His being. You cannot separate Him from the Father. To help explain the way the works of God reveal His indivisibility, John Owen, a theologian from the Puritan era, says this about this doctrine. He says, the persons of the Trinity are undivided. in their operations, acting all by the same will, by the same wisdom, and by the same power. Every person, therefore, is the author of the works of God. And the divine nature is the same undivided principle of all the divine operations.

So again, that is to say, any work of any one of the persons can rightfully be said to be the work of God. Here’s some examples. Creation. The act of creation, the creation of the world, what we read about in Genesis 1. Who created? Was it the Father? Was it the Son? Or was it the Spirit? What does Scripture say? Well, 1 Corinthians 8:6, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things. Isaiah 45:12. Speaking of the Father, it says, it is I who made the earth and created man upon it.

So scripture says the Father created. The Father is creator from whom are all things. Then also you have John 1:3 that says, all things came into being through him.

John 1, speaking of the Word, who was with God, who was God, the Son, Jesus, all things came into being through him and apart from him nothing was made that was made. Colossians 1:16, speaking of Christ, for by Him all things were created, both in heavens and on earth.

So you have the Father is creator, the Son is creator, and the Spirit, Genesis 1.2, the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Psalm 33:6, by the breath of His mouth, that is the Spirit, all their hosts were created. Job 33:4, the Spirit of God has made me. The breath of the Almighty gives me life.

So how can the Bible say that the act of creation is done by all three? Because there are three who create, but there is one act of creation. God is indivisible.

In the resurrection, who resurrected Christ? Who raised Christ from the dead? Acts 17:31 Speaking of the father, he will judge the world in righteousness as through man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. And 1 Thessalonians 1.10, and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead. So the father raised him from the dead.

John 2:19 and 21, Jesus speaking, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. He was speaking of the temple of his body. John 10, I lay down my life that I may take it up again. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. Jesus did the resurrection.

And then Romans 8:11, the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.

All three raised Jesus from the dead. Because there is one act of resurrection, but there are three who resurrect. God is indivisible.

This doctrine of God’s indivisibility, it is how we know that we can trust God. It is how we know that God will not change. There is nothing within God that could change. God is. He is the I am. And when we see any act of God, It is just that. It is an act of God, the nature, the being of God. While there are three persons described in Scripture as the ones who are the members of the Trinity, those who at different times and in different ways carry things out in Scripture, they are all the one God. We worship a God who is three persons, who is one being. And that being is not made up of parts. The Father and the Son and the Spirit, they are not different parts of God. Each one of them is holy and truly God. And when God acts, all of God is acting.

As I explained earlier, that is why His love is true, and it’s everlasting, and it’s wise. And that’s why His justice is true and everlasting, and so on and so forth. If you could divide those parts, then you might have a case where his love was not true, or his justice was not wise. But that’s not how Scripture speaks of our God. All of these things unite in the one, simple, undivided essence of God. All that is in God is God. and all that God is works in all that He does.

I hope that this doctrine, all these doctrines we’ve considered, this series, has shown us a more accurate picture, a better understanding of who God is so that we may more accurately worship Him. We want to know the God of the Bible and how He’s revealed Himself. So let us worship and adore this indivisible, unfathomable God.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer this morning. Our Father, these things are challenging. They’re hard to bring understanding to our minds of how these things work. And yet when we read of all of these different realities in your word, we realize that who you are is the God who is the source of all things. And that in everything you do, all of you is acting. None of your acts fall short of every perfection of who you are. We thank you for how you’ve revealed yourself and how you’ve enabled us to know you. While these things may be complex, we know that you are a God who is undivided and who has given us your word so that we may know you. We pray that these things would be imprinted on our minds and our hearts, and that we would strive to know you even more. We thank you for who you are, and we pray that your word would flow through us to those around us, that we may share the God that we worship with those in our world who need to hear it. We thank you for who you are, and we pray all of this in Christ’s name. Amen.