Trinity Part 1 - Matthew 3:16,17

Matthew 3: (16) And when Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. (17) And a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." 1. The Holy Spirit descended upon Christ, just as upon other people. There is nothing special about this, except that the Spirit is initially something outside the Son. It is worth remembering this. 2. Christ had to receive the Spirit, and he was not the Spirit himself. 3. Outside, or independently of Christ, appears God the Father, or more precisely, his voice. Why do God, Christ, and the Spirit appear in one place yet are described independently of each other? Why did the three persons not publicly unite at this point? The answer is simple, because they are not one person, much less one God. 4. God the Father bore witness to his Son. He gave him credibility. Later, Christ will cite various testimonies and say in John 5:31: "If I were to bear witness about myself, my judgment would not be true. If you believe Christ, then understand that the voice from heaven did not authenticate himself, but rather his Son, who was a person completely separate from the Father. If it were otherwise, this testimony would be untrue." 5. God called Christ his beloved Son. If the Triune God existed, such a statement about "son" would be misleading because it would suggest a separate personal being. The Israelites, hearing "son," would have understood, in accordance with their own understanding, that this person was of the same nature as the Father, because God had called him into being and endowed him with special love. If God used the phrase "this is my Son," it means he wanted to convey precisely that information. If God and the Anointed One were the same person, the suggestion of a separate being would be misleading, i.e., a lie, and it is impossible for God to lie. That's why the voice from heaven was so important in validating the Anointed One, because lying is impossible with God. It was irrefutable testimony. No one should question this testimony today. There's also no need for the Creator to use half-truths, especially since the flip side of a half-truth is a half-lie. Let's theoretically assume that there is a triune God who reveals Himself in three persons. In such a case, the testimony of truth should be: "This is I in human form." The point would be obvious, but since God presented his Son to the Israelites, not himself in human form, he said what he said. Amen. Praise God for revealing this truth to us!