Just a reminder about this. The church is very close to the train station and by visiting Swansea you can treat yourself to a Joe's ice cream too.
TrinityDay Conference
at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Swansea
Saturday 14 November from 10am, £10 including lunch. Creche facilities available.
- Paul Blackham will present two sessions on the Trinity in the Pentateuch.
- Richard Bewes will speak on the pastoral implications of the Trinity.
- I will be speaking on ‘Whatever happened to the Angel of the LORD?’
My friend Steve Levy, the pastor there and author of Bible Overview, says that they can provide accommodation for anyone travelling from a distance. You can contact Steve and the church here.
Why is the Trinity so important?
Here's what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about the Trinity and the Christian life:
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18)
…. Our chief trouble, and the whole trouble with the church, is that we do not realise the meaning of the statement like this. Were we to do so the Christian church would be revolutionised. Were we to do so we would be lost in wonder, love and praise. We should realise that the most marvellous, wonderful thing that can ever happen to anybody in this world is simply his becoming a Christian.
This is Christianity, this is what makes one a Christian. The Christian church really consists of people who realise that this is the whole object and purpose of everything – access by one Spirit unto the Father. We must meditate upon this , we must pause with this, we must look into it and we must take time to do so; for , as I will try to show you, we find gathered together in this one verse the most stupendous things that we could ever be told or can ever realise about ourselves.
There are certain things that stand out on the very surface of this verse. For instance, we are brought at once by this verse face to face with the mystery of the blessed, holy Trinity. Through Him (the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ) we both have access by one Spirit (the Holy Spirit, spelt quite rightly with a capital S in all the versions because it is a reference to the Holy Spirit) unto the Father.
Here is one of the great Trinitarian verses of Scripture, and we pause for a moment before this ineffable mystery. Do we realise, I wonder, as we should, that the doctrine of the Trinity is in a sense the essence of the Christian faith? It is this doctrine, of all others, differentiates the Christian faith from every other faith whatsoever.
We believe in one God. And yet we assert that the one God is three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. A great inscrutable mystery! We do not understand it, we assert it. It is taught here, it is taught in other places in the scripture. The bible teaches clearly that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, and likewise that the Holy Spirit is truly God and yet it says that there is but one God. God is one, and there is only one God, subsisting in three persons.
Do not ask me to explain it. But you do not begin to understand your bible, you cannot possibly understand the Christian faith, unless you accept it, believe it, and bow before it, and humble yourselves, and say, I worship, I adore, I praise thee great Jehovah, three in one.
It is vital, therefore, that we as Christian people should be constantly reminding ourselves of this. And as we do so, our services will be filled with reverence, with worship, with sense of awe, with a sense of glory, and with a sense of praise, true praise. Whenever we pray, whenever we come together to worship, we are worshipping the triune God.
We cannot conceive of the glory and of the majesty and of the greatness, but we must try to do so. We must prepare our spirits, we must meditate, we must ponder this matter, we must search the scriptures for it, we must see it; and having recognised it, like the men of whom we read in the scriptures, who have come near to God, we shall take our shoes from off our feet, we shall feel we are men of unclean lips, we shall be conscious of the ineffable glory.
… The three Persons in the blessed, holy Trinity are interested in us and are engaged together in our salvation. Now you see what I mean when I said that this is a staggering verse. That is exactly what it says, that the three Persons, eternal in their glory and their holiness and their might, the three Persons in the blessed holy Trinity are interested in you if you are a Christian, and are interested in your salvation.
The world talks about honours, and it is interested in honours and in privileges and in getting admission to clubs and positions and being introduced to great people. Here in fact: the three Persons in the Trinity are interested in you and have done something about your salvation! What if every Christian realised that!
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