July 21, 2025 • 6 mins
The familiar doctrine of the Trinity is often dismissed as a New Testament invention, but what if it had deeper roots in Jewish thought than we typically acknowledge?
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today a smaller, bite-sizedpiece from the larger lesson.
We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
When you come into the New Testament, they just
speak of this as like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinitydoes not appear in the New
Testament in the making but asalready made, which is super
(00:33):
interesting because most peoplethey don't think the Trinity is
in the Old Testament.
They think, oh, that's the NewTestament, the New Testament
gave us that.
But no, the way the NewTestament authors speak of it is
something that's not reallynovel and they're not making
this doctrine.
They're showing that it'salready on the table and was in
the Jewish mindset.
(00:53):
They don't have a problem withit at all, which I find so
interesting.
Right, because I mean of allpeople you'd think who would be
like strict monotheists, you'dthink of somebody like Paul,
right, or Saul you know he was aPharisee, right, yet he didn't
struggle with this.
In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, itsays many of the Sadducees
(01:14):
believed.
I think this verse getsoverlooked.
Like the Sadducees, I mean, areyou kidding me?
These are the people who didn'teven believe in resurrection,
by the way, these are the peoplewho didn't even believe in
resurrection, by the way, and inActs, chapter 6, verse 7, it
says many of the Sadduceesbelieved.
That's kind of striking,because they would not be the
(01:39):
people you would expect tobelieve, and so to believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, they'dhave to be believing that he's
God.
They'd have to believe, ofcourse, in the resurrection.
So their beliefs were beingchallenged.
And yet these ideas werealready in the air.
The concepts of Trinity werealready in the air, and they
were familiar with theseconcepts, so it was not that
great a leap.
Let's go into the person of theHoly Spirit and the deity of the
(02:01):
Holy Spirit.
It's an interesting discussion.
The reason we have to do this,especially about both
personality and deity, isbecause not all groups claim
that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity.
Many groups claim that he isjust an impersonal force of God,
(02:21):
something that God uses toaccomplish things, but something
that is simply literally asimpersonal as gravity, and so
these would be non-Trinitarians.
They would also beanti-Trinitarians or Binitarians
.
Okay, binitarians would justhold to two members of the
(02:41):
Trinity being God, but groupslike, for example, jehovah's
Witnesses or Mormons.
They don't believe that theHoly Spirit is a person.
They think of the Holy Spiritas a force from God by which he
accomplishes things.
Now, the Spirit is not a force,as we'll show, but he is in the
background, which is veryinteresting, and this is
(03:03):
intentional.
It's intentional that he's inthe background and not at the
forefront or taking center stage.
Now, this is seen from the wordsfor spirit In the Hebrew ruach
and in the Greek pneuma.
You know, if you have pneumonia, that's a problem in your what,
in your lungs, and that's wherewe breathe.
(03:26):
And we have a diaphragm that,you know, presses up on the
lungs to push the air out, thebreath, the wind out, and then,
of course, the diaphragm allowsalso us to breathe in.
But that's where we get ourword pneumonia from, which is
from the Greek word pneuma.
So we have these two words.
The Hebrew word is translatedvarious ways.
(03:48):
Spirit doesn't always have to bethe Holy Spirit, right, it
could just be a spirit, like ademonic spirit or the human
spirit, or a good spirit, a goodangel, wind, of course, breath,
breeze, blowing, nothingness,and of course I've put some
passages down here where itrefers to the Spirit of God.
That should be, I think,genesis 1-2, not Genesis 12-3.
(04:12):
Genesis 1-2, I mean he's in thesecond verse of the Bible.
I always find this amazing.
People think, well, how couldyou get Trinity out of the Bible
?
I mean, did you read the firstthree verses?
If you read the first threeverses and you actually know
some more of the Bible, you seeall three persons in the first
three verses.
In the beginning God, pluralElohim, created singular verb,
(04:37):
so unity and diversity.
Already he created the heavensand the earth and it says the
earth was formless and void anddarkness was over the surface of
the deep and the Spirit of Godthere's the Spirit in the was
moving over the surface of thewaters.
And then God said verse 3, letthere be light.
And that's word, that's speech.
(04:59):
Who is the word?
Who is the word?
Become flesh?
Who dwelt among us in the NewTestament?
Well, that's the second personof the Trinity.
So you really have all threemembers of the Trinity in
hindsight in the first threeverses of the Bible.
But there it is Ruach.
There in verse 2, the Spirit ofGod.
(05:19):
He's also used in Genesis 6,verse 3, where just before the
flood, the Lord said my spiritshall not strive with man
forever, because he's also flesh.
Nevertheless, his day shall be120 years.
So he was restraining prior tothe flood, but he would not go
(05:40):
on restraining forever and under120 years, and then God would
judge which he did.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(06:06):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today a smaller, bite-sizedpiece from the larger lesson.
We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
When you come into the New Testament, they just
speak of this as like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinitydoes not appear in the New
Testament in the making but asalready made, which is super
(00:33):
interesting because most peoplethey don't think the Trinity is
in the Old Testament.
They think, oh, that's the NewTestament, the New Testament
gave us that.
But no, the way the NewTestament authors speak of it is
something that's not reallynovel and they're not making
this doctrine.
They're showing that it'salready on the table and was in
the Jewish mindset.
(00:53):
They don't have a problem withit at all, which I find so
interesting.
Right, because I mean of allpeople you'd think who would be
like strict monotheists, you'dthink of somebody like Paul,
right, or Saul you know he was aPharisee, right, yet he didn't
struggle with this.
In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, itsays many of the Sadducees
(01:14):
believed.
I think this verse getsoverlooked.
Like the Sadducees, I mean, areyou kidding me?
These are the people who didn'teven believe in resurrection,
by the way, these are the peoplewho didn't even believe in
resurrection, by the way, and inActs, chapter 6, verse 7, it
says many of the Sadduceesbelieved.
That's kind of striking,because they would not be the
(01:39):
people you would expect tobelieve, and so to believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, they'dhave to be believing that he's
God.
They'd have to believe, ofcourse, in the resurrection.
So their beliefs were beingchallenged.
And yet these ideas werealready in the air.
The concepts of Trinity werealready in the air, and they
were familiar with theseconcepts, so it was not that
great a leap.
Let's go into the person of theHoly Spirit and the deity of the
(02:01):
Holy Spirit.
It's an interesting discussion.
The reason we have to do this,especially about both
personality and deity, isbecause not all groups claim
that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity.
Many groups claim that he isjust an impersonal force of God,
(02:21):
something that God uses toaccomplish things, but something
that is simply literally asimpersonal as gravity, and so
these would be non-Trinitarians.
They would also beanti-Trinitarians or Binitarians
.
Okay, binitarians would justhold to two members of the
(02:41):
Trinity being God, but groupslike, for example, jehovah's
Witnesses or Mormons.
They don't believe that theHoly Spirit is a person.
They think of the Holy Spiritas a force from God by which he
accomplishes things.
Now, the Spirit is not a force,as we'll show, but he is in the
background, which is veryinteresting, and this is
(03:03):
intentional.
It's intentional that he's inthe background and not at the
forefront or taking center stage.
Now, this is seen from the wordsfor spirit In the Hebrew ruach
and in the Greek pneuma.
You know, if you have pneumonia, that's a problem in your what,
in your lungs, and that's wherewe breathe.
(03:26):
And we have a diaphragm that,you know, presses up on the
lungs to push the air out, thebreath, the wind out, and then,
of course, the diaphragm allowsalso us to breathe in.
But that's where we get ourword pneumonia from, which is
from the Greek word pneuma.
So we have these two words.
The Hebrew word is translatedvarious ways.
(03:48):
Spirit doesn't always have to bethe Holy Spirit, right, it
could just be a spirit, like ademonic spirit or the human
spirit, or a good spirit, a goodangel, wind, of course, breath,
breeze, blowing, nothingness,and of course I've put some
passages down here where itrefers to the Spirit of God.
That should be, I think,genesis 1-2, not Genesis 12-3.
(04:12):
Genesis 1-2, I mean he's in thesecond verse of the Bible.
I always find this amazing.
People think, well, how couldyou get Trinity out of the Bible
?
I mean, did you read the firstthree verses?
If you read the first threeverses and you actually know
some more of the Bible, you seeall three persons in the first
three verses.
In the beginning God, pluralElohim, created singular verb,
(04:37):
so unity and diversity.
Already he created the heavensand the earth and it says the
earth was formless and void anddarkness was over the surface of
the deep and the Spirit of Godthere's the Spirit in the was
moving over the surface of thewaters.
And then God said verse 3, letthere be light.
And that's word, that's speech.
(04:59):
Who is the word?
Who is the word?
Become flesh?
Who dwelt among us in the NewTestament?
Well, that's the second personof the Trinity.
So you really have all threemembers of the Trinity in
hindsight in the first threeverses of the Bible.
But there it is Ruach.
There in verse 2, the Spirit ofGod.
(05:19):
He's also used in Genesis 6,verse 3, where just before the
flood, the Lord said my spiritshall not strive with man
forever, because he's also flesh.
Nevertheless, his day shall be120 years.
So he was restraining prior tothe flood, but he would not go
(05:40):
on restraining forever and under120 years, and then God would
judge which he did.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(06:06):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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