Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology defines the Trinity as follows: “God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God” (p. 226).

Broken down, this amounts to three propositions:

• God is three persons.
• Each person is fully God.
• There is one God.

In addition, it’s helpful to elaborate on the fact that when we say “God is three persons,” we mean that he is not just one person, and that the persons of the Trinity are not to be confused. So we can also say:

• The Father is God.
• The Son is God.
• The Holy Spirit is God.
• The Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.
• The Holy Spirit is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit.
• The Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son.

If your head is starting to spin—then perhaps this little diagram can help give you a snapshot of what we’ve been saying:

Theologians have typically described God as being of “one essence” but “three persons.” But what exactly do we mean by “essence” and “person”? In its simplest terms, essence answers the question, “What are you?” Person answers the question, “Who are you?”

So when we say that the Trinity entails “one essence” (God) and “three persons” (Father, Son, and Spirit), we are saying that the Trinity has one What and three Who’s. We can draw this as follows:

For an excellent collection of resources for further study on the Trinity, see the Theopedia entry.

Bruce Ware has written an excellent book entitled, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance. This book can be read in conjunction with Dr. Ware’s lectures delivered at the 2005 Desiring God Conference for Pastors, "This is My Beloved Son": Exulting in the Trinitarian Relationships of Jesus Christ. Here are links to the talks and outlines:

• The Trinity of Persons: Unity and Distinction, Equality and Differentiation (MP3), (PDF)
• Jesus and the Father: Love and Obedience, Authority and Submission (MP3), (PDF)
• Jesus and the Spirit: Trust and Reliance, Exaltation and Glorification (MP3), (PDF)

Pastor John has often commented on how helped he is by David Powlison’s thoughtful, biblical reflections on Christ and life. For example, Pastor John has written:

Among living authors who think deeply about the Word of God and the workings of the human soul, I know of no one who writes more perceptively or ministers more deeply to me than David Powlison. As I write this, for example (August, 2000), I am reading his article in The Journal of Biblical Counseling, titled “‘Peace Be Still’: Learning Psalm 131 By Heart.” I am finding myself naked before the Word of God, as if David Powlison were living inside of me and exposing the anxieties and obsessions of my heart. I am convicted and made to cry out for deeper, far deeper, freedom from pride and fear of man. There are many today who specialize in soul-care or deep, faithful grasp of Biblical theology; but there are few who do both. David Powlison does both.

At last year’s New Attitude Conference, C. J. Mahaney recommended and made available the following resources from Powlison that can aid you in knowing and enjoying Christ more:

• Personal Reflection
• X-Ray Questions

Additionally, Dr. Powlison has given a number of talks at DG conferences. Check out:

• God, Psychology, and Christian Care of the Soul, Part 1
• God, Psychology, and Christian Care of the Soul, Part 2
• God, Psychology, and Christian Care of the Soul, Part 3
• Christ's Grace and Your Sufferings
• Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken

Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” (John 17) is only about 650 words. It takes only 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read it aloud. But it will take all eternity for us to fully understand it!

I recently found it helpful to break down Jesus’ petitions and propositions into the following categories:

Another fascinating part of Jesus’ prayer is the various ways in which the theme of “indwelling” serves the cause of unity. Jesus teaches that:

1. The Father is in the Son (vv. 21, 23)
2. The Son is in the Father (v. 21)
3. Believers are in the Father and the Son (v. 21)
4. The Son is in believers (vv. 23, 26)

Of course, if we do not recognize that these are different sorts of “indwellings,” we’ll quick descend into heresy! But it still may be instructive to see this illustrated:

Jesus’ high priestly prayer is worthy of our greatest study, as we seek to learn from and imitate our great co-heir as he approaches our Father.

For more thoughts on this prayer, listen to D. A. Carson’s talk on The Supremacy of Christ and Love in a Postmodern World, which will also be a chapter in the forthcoming book, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World.

Twenty years ago this year John Piper and Wayne Grudem were instrumental in founding The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

CBMW has now redesigned their website.

Among the hundreds upon hundreds of free, helpful resources, I’d draw attention in particular to a special half-conference for pastors and church leaders that took place prior to the Desiring God Conference for Pastors (January 31, 2005). Wayne Grudem offered a biblical defense of God’s design in creation and marriage, then C.J. Mahaney followed with practical instruction on how to implement this vision in your church.

R.C. Sproul gives a masterful response to this common explanation:

It is common to say that hell is the absence of God. Such statements are motivated in large part by the dread of even contemplating what hell is like. We try often to soften that blow and find a euphimism to skirt around it.

We need to realize that those who are in hell desire nothing more than the absence of God. They didn’t want to be in God’s presence during their earthly lives, and they certainly don’t want Him near when they’re in hell. The worst thing about hell is the presence of God there.

When we use the imagery of the Old Testament in an attempt to understand the forsakenness of the lost, we are not speaking of the idea of the departure of God or the absence of God in the sense that He ceases to be omnipresent. Rather, it’s a way of describing the withdrawal of God in terms of His redemptive blessing. It is the absence of the light of His countenance. It is the presence of the frown of His countenance. It is the absence of the blessedness of His unveiled glory that is a delight to the souls of those who love Him, but it is the presence of the darkness of judgment. Hell reflects the presence of God in His mode of judgment, in His exercise of wrath, and that’s what everyone would like to escape.

I think that’s why we get confused. There is withdrawal in terms of the blessing of the radical nearness of God. His benefits can be removed far from us, and that’s what this language is calling attention to.

R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2007), pp. 157-158.

Jerry Bridges’s new book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate, should be available at the DG conference. NavPress has posted the table of contents and the first chapter online for free as a PDF. It looks as if the book—which I have not yet seen—not only offers an overview theology on sin and its remedy, but specifically addresses the following sins:

• Ungodliness
• Anxiety and Frustration
• Discontentment
• Unthankfulness
• Pride
• Selfishness
• Lack of Self-Control
• Impatience and Irritability
• Anger
• Judgmentalism
• Envy, Jealousy, and Related Sins
• Sins of the Tongue
• Worldliness

In the preface Bridges summarizes his intent for the book:

This book, as the title announces, is about sin — not the obvious sins of our culture but the subtle sins of believers, the target audience of this book. So let me say up front that I am not without the sins addressed in this book. In fact, you will find that I sometimes use my own sad experiences as examples of some of these sins.

The motivation for this book stems from a growing conviction that those of us whom I call conservative evangelicals may have become so preoccupied with some of the major sins of society around us that we have lost sight of the need to deal with our own more “refined” or subtle sins.

While seeking to address these “respectable” sins, however, I also want this to be a book of hope. We are never to wallow hopelessly in our sins. Rather, we are to believe the gospel through which God has dealt with both the guilt of our sin and its dominion over us.

The gospel, though, is only for sinners, for those who recognize their need of it. Many Christians think of the gospel as only for unbelievers. Once we trust in Christ, so the thinking goes, we no longer need the gospel. But, as I seek to bring out in this book, the gospel is a vital gift from God not only for our salvation but also to enable us to deal with the ongoing activity of sin in our lives. So we still need the gospel every day.

Bridges has also partnered with his friend Bob Bevington to produce a new book on the cross and the “blessed exchange,” entitled The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness. It takes its organizational cues and arguments from George Smeaton’s classic work on the atonement.

In a helpful summary article, entitled Sovereign Grace and the Mystery of Election (PDF), C. J. Mahaney cites the following quote by Philip Ryken, who in turn quotes Donald Grey Barnhouse:

The famous American Bible teacher Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895–1960) often used an illustration to help people make sense of election. He asked them to imagine a cross like the one on which Jesus died, only so large that it had a door in it. Over the door were these words from Revelation: “Whosoever will may come.” These words represent the free and universal offer of the gospel. By God’s grace, the message of salvation is for everyone. Every man, woman, and child who will come to the cross is invited to believe in Jesus Christ and enter eternal life.

On the other side of the door a happy surprise awaits the one who believes and enters. From the inside, anyone glancing back can see these words from Ephesians written above the door: “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Election is best understood in hindsight, for it is only after coming to Christ that one can know whether one has been chosen in Christ. Those who make a decision for Christ find that God made a decision for them in eternity past.

Philip Ryken, The Message of Salvation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), pp. 68-69

This weekend thousands will be coming to Minneapolis to participate in Desiring God’s national conference, Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints.

Whether or not you are coming to the conference, I think you’ll find the following DG Conference YouTube videos to be both instructive and edifying:

John Piper

• What Is This Conference About?
• Why These Speakers?
• The Message of this Conference

Helen Roseveare (by Noel Piper)

• A Biographical Overview of Helen Roseveare
• A Word Picture from Helen Roseveare

Randy Alcorn

• A Message to 20-Somethings

Jerry Bridges

• Who Exemplifies Faithfulness?
• Relationships, Dependence, and Responsibility
• The Middle Class Threatens Faithfulness
• Bitterness and a Demanding Spirit Threaten Faithfulness
• The Fear of God
• Godliness
• Pursuing Faithfulness
• The Time I Almost Gave Up
• Why Is It Hard to Get Excited?

Nearly four years ago our friends Dustin and Kellie Shramek lost their precious son, Owen. In the book Suffering and the Sovereignty of God Dustin wrote a chapter about some of the lessons that God taught him--lessons about God, and also lessons about how and how not to minister to those in nearly unbearable grief and pain.

After the book was published, Women Today Radio did a brief interview with Dustin, that I thought might be helpful to reprint here:

If some female member of your household has influenced your life for Christ, share her story.

My wife has had a significant impact on my life for Christ. One thing I didn't mention in my chapter was what took place right after our son Owen died. He was delivered by an emergency C-section and only lived for twenty minutes. Since my wife, Kellie, had to undergo general anesthesia, she never got to see him alive as I did. I was with Owen in the operating room after he died while they were finishing sewing Kellie up and then waking her up. I was trying to imagine how I would tell her that Owen had died. As she was waking up she was still quite disoriented because of the anesthesia and not quite sure where she was or what was happening. But she knew that something serious was happening so she began to tell the anesthesiologist that we must pray and then she lifted her hand into the air. She wasn't coherent enough to know that she had just given birth to our first child and yet on a deep subconscious level she knew that she needed God.

This was a great encouragement to me as I stood by our son. I believe that God is so much at the core of who she is that even when she is drugged from anesthesia her first response is to call out to him. This display of faith was God's grace to me, telling me that he would carry us through.

How has Jesus sustained you through the dark days?

At first it was hard to see how Jesus was sustaining us through the dark days. Yet deep down I knew that he was. My mother died when I was sixteen, two years after I had become a believer. After her death God lead me to Romans 5:3-5, "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Having endured through her death I had come out on the other end with my faith intact and I again had hope that God was for me.

After Owen died my wife, who had not experienced the death of one so close, never believed that she would be able to have joy again. And while I certainly didn't feel joy, I knew that one day I would. The suffering I had endured through my mother's death had indeed produced hope. Even though my firstborn was dead I believed that I would again have joy. I had experienced God's faithfulness and I knew that he would be faithful again.

The text, though, that impacted me the most was 2 Corinthians 7:6, "But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus." During the first months after Owen's death we felt very little comfort from God. At times I struggled with anger thinking, "God, I know you are sovereign and so you are the one who brought this about. I accept that, but the least you could do is draw near to us and give us comfort." On the six month anniversary I was reading through all the e-mails and cards we had received from God's people and I was reflecting on the help we had received from his people in the Middle East and in Istanbul where he was born. Then I read this verse and it dawned on me. God was and is comforting us by the coming of countless brothers and sisters in Christ. Often we don't feel the warm presence of the Lord in our suffering, but that does not mean he has left us alone. We are a part of the body of Christ and it is through this body that he ministers to us in our darkest days.