Communion With God

The fourth and final assertion about God in the Here We Stand series: He is the God of inscrutable tri-personality. Pastor Martin gives a simple statement of the doctrine from the Shorter Catechism, lays out the four biblical categories that force Trinitarian belief upon the church (monotheism, the Godhood of Father/Son/Spirit, their distinct personhood, and their unity in the one divine essence), traces the doctrine's history as latent in the Old Testament, patent in the New, and articulated in controversy, and draws out two practical implications: the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God and of all our comfortable dependence on Him.

Pastor Martin opens the question of agency in progressive sanctification by warning against two opposite errors: sanctification by naked human effort (which drifts into legalism, asceticism, and self-righteousness) and sanctification by the negation of human effort (Keswick/higher life, 'let go and let God,' leading to subjectivism and antinomianism). He then unfolds the first half of the biblical answer: the triune God is an active agent — the Father sanctifies through pruning and preserving (John 17, John 15, 1 Thessalonians 5, Hebrews 13), the Son by his indwelling, advocacy, and intercession (Philippians 1, Colossians 2, 1 John 2, Hebrews 7), and the Spirit by peculiarly taking the lead in mortification and Christlike fruit (Romans 8, Galatians 5, 2 Corinthians 3). Glory belongs to God alone.