This article is part of our series on the Great Doctrines of the Bible. You can find all the articles in this series here. You can view the previous post here.
There is no other Christian doctrine more mysterious and hard to understand than the Trinity. But it is true and we must believe what God reveals in His word.
It is a precious truth for our spiritual life. We have a relationship with God as Trinity. Therefore we have communion, a relationship, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
John Owen argues that we have communion with the Father by responding to His love with love. Owen says, “The Father communicates no issue of his love unto us but through Christ; and we make no return of love unto him but through Christ.”
Our communion with the Son is one of sweetness, delight, safety, and support and comfort. While the basis of our communion, relationship, with the Father is His love the basis of our communion with the Son is divine grace. We also commune with the Holy Spirit through sanctification. He is our comforter and “comes” to us “with sweetness, to be received” in our hearts.
When we commune with God we are communing with God as Trinity. It is a precious reality for God’s children. The Trinity is practical. There is nothing more important or basic to the Christian life than knowing, communing and fellowshipping with God.
It may seem odd to look at the practical nature of the Trinity before explaining it but it is important to see that this is not a cold and lifeless doctrine. This is for you. It is for every Christian. It challenges and comforts every Christian. James Montgomery Boice writes, “It is important because there can be no real blessing either on ourselves or our work if we neglect any persons of the godhead.” (Foundation of the Christian Faith, 100)
Before we get into an explanation of the Trinity we need to define it. MacArthur writes, “God is one yet exists eternally in three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” God is one. But God is three persons. He is one and three and He is three in one.
We must be careful here because there is no analogy to explain the Trinity adequately. For instance, take an egg. You have the shell, the yolk, and the egg white. These three comprise an egg, therefore, we compare it to the Trinity. But I can separate the yolk from the egg white and it ceases to be an egg.
God is One
The Shema was Israel’s confession of faith about God and God’s oneness is highlighted. Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Moses does not use the word one as we typically think of it. If I say I have one slice of pizza you know there is one and not two. The word means that the Lord is one in unity. There is only one God and this one God is united.
The same language is used in the creation account in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The two, husband and wife, become one in unity. It is not that the two people cease to be two people and become one person but the two people become one in unity. Boice writes, “In a similar way God is one but also existent in three persons.” (102)
God is one. We are monotheists, not tritheists. The Bible teaches there is one God and one God alone. God within the Trinity is one in unity.
Three Persons
What do we mean when we say God is one and three in person?
First, let’s look at what we do not mean. The word person does not mean a representation of or likeness to. We get the word person from the Latin which meant the mask an actor used to represent a character in a Greek drama. We are not saying that God has three different masks or parts He plays, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Second, we do not mean by the word person, human or humanity.
What do we mean by the word person theologically? Boice writes, “what we are really talking about, then, is a sense of existence expressing itself in knowledge, feelings, and a will… the knowledge, feelings, and will of each person within the Godhead-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-are identical.” (103)
Theologically the word person means a sense of existence. The Father has knowledge, feelings, and a will. The Son possesses knowledge, feelings, and a will. Likewise, the Holy Spirit possesses knowledge, feelings and a will. God is one in unity, therefore, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have the same knowledge, feelings, and will.
You might be thinking at this point, “Wow, this is hard to understand!” And you would be correct. The Trinity stretches our finite intellect unlike any other doctrine in the Bible. We must believe this by faith, asking God to help us believe even when we don’t fully understand. God will help us and will grow our knowledge of Him according to His time table.
Five Propositions
Five propositions help us summarize the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity.
First, “There is but one living God who exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” (104) Christians see a plurality in God. There is a hint of this given in Genesis 1:2 where Moses records, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” There is a plurality in Moses mentioning God first in verse one and then the Spirit of God in verse 2. Additionally, when God makes man we read in verse 26, “Let us make man in our own image.” There is a plurality, something with a nature of more than one here.
One last way we see this in Genesis one is the plural form of Elohim is used for God but the verb create is singular. The plurality within God that we see here is working to accomplish one task, the creation of the world.
Second, “The Lord Jesus is fully divine, being the second person of the Godhead who became man.” (105) In the Gospel accounts, John gives us the biggest picture of the divine Christ become man. John 1:1-3, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Jesus is truly God, truly man. But we must not forget He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Our very salvation hinges on who He is. “If Christ is not fully divine, then our salvation is neither assured nor accomplished.” (105)
Third, “The Holy Spirit is fully divine.” (105) In the Upper Room Discourse Jesus says this to His disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
The word Jesus uses for another is another of the same kind. The Father will give them another helper of the same kind as Jesus, the Holy Spirit. If Jesus is divine and the Holy Spirit is another helper of the same kind then we can rightly see from this that the Holy Spirit is divine.
Throughout Scripture, the Holy Spirit is seen as possessing divine perfections.
- Eternity (Hebrews 9:14)
- Omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-10)
- Omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10-11)
- Omnipotence (Luke 1:35)
The divinity of the Holy Spirit and Jesus are the areas of controversy. Throughout the history of the church, there have been more controversies about the deity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, “While each is fully divine, the three persons of the Godhead are related to each other in a way that implies some differences.” (106) They are three distinct persons but they are not the same person. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the Father.
There are distinctions in their roles in each work but they are united in purpose. For example, it was the Father who sent the Son, not the Spirit. Galatians 4:4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”
Another difference is that the Father and the Son sent the Spirit. John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
Fifth, and last, “In the work of God the members of the Godhead work together.” (107) We see this in creation, resurrection, and salvation.
- Creation
- Father (Gen. 1:1; Ps. 102:25)
- Son (Col. 1:16; John 1:3)
- Holy Spirit (Job 33:4)
- Resurrection
- Father (Acts 2:32)
- Son (John 10:17-18)
- Holy Spirit (Rom. 1:4)
- Salvation
- All three members of the Trinity are at work in salvation. 1 Peter 1:2 says, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.”
- Foreknowledge of the Father
- The sanctification of the Spirit
- The sprinkling of Jesus’ blood
- All three members of the Trinity are at work in salvation. 1 Peter 1:2 says, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.”
God is one and God is three. There is a plurality within the Godhead but the three persons are one in unity. May we be led to worship our triune God as we seek to understand Him in His trinitarian nature. Praise the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Holy Spirit.
Passages for Further Study
- Isaiah 6:1-11
- How could Isaiah see God if Moses could not? (See Exodus 33-34)
- What connection is there to John 12?
- 2 Corinthians 13:14
- How does this passage shape our understanding of our relationship with God?