Trinitarian Worship

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.

Moving from the exceptional universal call to the normal New Testament usage, Pastor Martin examines the effectual call of God under two heads: its author and its results. From 1 Corinthians 1:9, 2 Timothy 1:8-10, and Romans 8:28-30 he shows that calling is God's activity exclusively and the Father's activity particularly — not God plus the sinner, not loving sovereignty plus moral suasion, but the same raw material of grace and the same hand of loving sovereignty that forged election and predestination. He then lays out the three results of this call: it effects vital fellowship and union with Christ, it always issues in holiness (the called are constituted saints and brought from darkness to light), and it always culminates in glorification. He closes by answering the common objection: calling is God's work, but believing and repenting remain the sinner's responsibility.