Whenever we think about the Trinity, certain images come to mind. I remember as a kid trying to comprehend what my Sunday School teacher was teaching, and I had a picture in my head of three people sitting around in heaven deciding whether to send fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.
That would be, of course, three gods, and the Christian faith doesn’t teach that there are three gods. There is only one God, and this belief is a vital, essential part of Christian theology.
Then, though, the Bible comes along and challenges our understanding of God as One. It teaches us that there is one God, but he eternally exists in three persons. That changes things.
The Old Testament gives us the first hints of this. In the first two chapters of the Bible, we learn that there is a Spirit of God who is a personal being (see Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 63:10) distinct from Yahweh.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
There’s no mention of three, but we can see that at least two persons are present.
Later in the same chapter, more than one person is involved again. Notice the pronouns “us” and “our.”
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
There are also verses where someone is called ‘God,’ but is not the same person as another who is also called God. Psalm 45, quoted in Hebrews 1:8 and applied to Jesus, is a good example.
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. (Psalm 45:6-7)
The writer talks to God and says to him that “your God” has anointed you. Here’s another:
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Psalm 110:1)
Jesus knew that David was referring here to two different people as “Lord” (Matthew 22:41-46). David is saying, “God said to God, ‘Sit at my right hand.’” So, again, the Bible identifies two people as God.
It’s in the New Testament that we see this fleshed out. Right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, we see the Trinity in action.
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17)
God the Father says about Jesus, “This is my beloved Son,” and the Holy Spirit descends from heaven. All three persons of the Trinity are here, and each one is doing something different.
At the other end of Matthew, we have the Great Commission:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)
Jesus is saying that baptism is to be done in the name of all three persons of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Notice that Jesus didn’t say to baptize “in the names of the three,” but in the one name that’s shared by all three. He also didn’t say, “in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,” as if he was mentioning three different characteristics of God. No, Jesus said, “in the one name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There is one name and three persons.
The Apostle Paul writes this in his letter to the Galatians:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4-6)
Of all the things Paul is saying here, and these verses are packed with truth, one is that the Father sent his Son to us and also sent the Holy Spirit to us (the Holy Spirit is both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son), and the Spirit testifies to us that we are God’s children. The Spirit cries out and leads us to join him in crying out, “Abba! Father!” as we recognize our true relationship with our Heavenly Father. All three persons of the Trinity are involved in our salvation.
Finally, the Gospel of John is filled with references to the Trinity. Among other things, Jesus claimed to have the power to give life, which is something only God can do:
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. (John 5:25-26)
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:28)
Also in John, we see that Jesus is the God of Israel, the Great I Am of Exodus 3:14, when he said, “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).
These are just some of the passages that show us that, while there is only one God, there are three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are eternally God in perfect relationship. These aren’t three roles they play, and there aren’t three gods. They are one God working in harmony as three persons.
The three persons are unique from one another. The Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father nor is he the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son.
God is one God who is eternally three divine persons who are in perfect relationship, equal in essence but with different functions.
Does all this sound complicated? If so, great! Because if you had understood all this, I’d reach out to you for help. The reality is that the Trinity is beyond our comprehension, but it’s a vital part of our faith. It’s normal not to fully grasp every aspect of it, and that’s part of the wonder of our belief. Faith involves trusting in what God has revealed through his Word whether or not we understand it.
We mentioned in the previous post that there are four essential affirmations about the Trinity, and we’ve now covered the first two:
- There is one and only one true and living God. God is One.
- This one God eternally exists in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But are each of the persons of the Trinity really God? Stay tuned, as we’ll dive next into evidence for the divinity of each person in the Trinity.