Out of all the doctrines in Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity is the most intimidating for me. I was tempted to skip this one! And I almost quit. It’s taken a number of days! I’ve read a number of fabulous books on the Trinity, a couple courses have had sessions on the Trinity, and the book Systematic Theology has a 35-page chapter on the Trinity. And I still don’t feel like I have a grasp on the Trinity. But then – my finite, limited mind – as created by God – isn’t meant to fully comprehend and hold all the knowledge of God in it! Especially that of the Trinity. It’s well known that this doctrine is a mystery. And that’s okay. Our brains couldn’t handle the glorious, amazing truths of just who God is in full. But he has revealed himself in his Word exactly what we need to know. 2 Timothy 3: 16-17 “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” And 2 Peter 1:3 “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
Many, many great theologians in the past 2,000 years have delved into the aspect of God’s Triune nature by probing the depths of the Bible’s teachings. I thank God for that!! The truth of the Triune God has been affirmed time and time again, generation after generation. The Athanasian creed (not named for him actually) was written specifically to combat Arian attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity. And that creed, likely from the 5th or 6th century, has stood the test of time and the scrutinizing of it by countless theologians.
Why is knowing the Trinity so important to the Christian faith? According to Christine Thornton (1), there are 3 reasons: 1. The whole Bible proclaims the Triune God, 2. the eternal relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt, 3. how God acts within himself. I mean, it answers the question: What is God like IN HIMSELF? Christine even says, “no Trinity – no Gospel”.
A good definition is this: God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God. (2)
THE WHOLE BIBLE REVEALS THE TRIUNE GOD
God revealed himself throughout Scripture gradually; the doctrine of the Trinity is progressively revealed in the Bible. While the revealing of the Trinity is more direct in the New Testament, it certainly is alluded to in the Old Testament as well. Without going too deep into depth concerning the OT, you can look at these Scripture passages for “proof”: Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16, 63:10; Psalm 110:1; Hosea 1:7.
Of course, in the NT: Matt 3:16-17 – Jesus’s baptism. Several letters also include all 3 persons of the Trinity: 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 2 Cor 3:14, Eph 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20-21.
There are several themes in Scripture that distinctly reveal the Trinity. Creation, the revealing of God’s Name throughout the Bible, Jesus’s baptism, and not the least – our redemption.
- CREATION
As a way to see it for yourself, read Genesis 1 and John 1 side by side. In the act of Creation, we see how each person of the Trinity has a different role or function – theologically called “economy of the Trinity”. God the Father spoke the words that brought the cosmos into existence. Genesis 1:3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’” But as we see in John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” John goes further to tell his readers that Jesus is the Word: John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
So, it was God the Son, the eternal Word of God, who carried out the creative decrees of God. (The Father was almost always called “God” in the OT.) The Holy Spirit was active as well in a different way as we read in Genesis 1:2 – “…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” The Holy Spirit was sustaining and making known God’s immediate presence in his creation. (3) Spirit is “Ruach” in Hebrew, which is translated as “breath”. We know that God breathed life into man.
- NAME OF GOD
Matthew 28: 18-20 is a summary statement of the Bible. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples to go out into the world and preach the gospel, and to baptize people “into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” In the Name goes back to Exodus 3 where God tells Moses what to tell the people of Israel concerning Himself. “I AM WHO I AM”. I AM. God is. YHWH. This is His Being. “In the name”, as spoken by Jesus himself, directs us to understand that His Name is Himself – God. In the OT, YHWH is God – singular – One God. In the NT, Jesus reveals that the Name is Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
- BAPTISM
At the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:16-17, we see all 3: “When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” The voice from heaven is the Father – just as the Father spoke the words of creation. The dove is the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven to rest upon and empower Jesus for his ministry.
- OUR REDEMPTION
As stated before, each person of the Trinity has specific functions or roles, and those roles are clearly seen in the redemption wrought for us by God. God the Father planned redemption and sent His Son into the world. Jesus, the eternally begotten Son, obeyed his Father and accomplished the planned redemption for us. It might seem odd to mention this, but the Father did not come down to die for our sins, neither did the Holy Spirit. This was the “particular work of the Son”. (4) And after Jesus died, rose and ascended back to his rightful place on the throne in heaven, at his Father’s right hand, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to apply redemption to us. Another way of saying this is that the Holy Spirit completed the work of Redemption that was planned by the God the Father and carried out by God the Son.
ETERNAL RELATIONS OF THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT
In introducing the Trinity, Scott Swain quotes the Westminster Larger Catechism Question and Answers 8, 9, and 10.
Question 8
Are there more Gods than one?
There is but one only, the living and true God.
Question 9
How many persons are there in the Godhead?
There be three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three
are the one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; although
distinguished by their personal properties.
Question 10
What are the person properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to
the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity. (5)
As Wayne Grudem explains, God in Three Persons all share equally in all the attributes we know are true of God. What is true of God the Father is true of God the Son is true of the Holy Spirit. The differences are in how they relate to each other and creation – what makes them distinct from each other. “The unique quality of the Father is the way he relates as Father to the Son and Holy Spirit. The unique quality of the Son is the way he relates as Son. And the unique quality of the Holy Spirit is the way he relates as Spirit.” (6) This is the reality of the WLC 10 when it uses the words beget and begotten. WLC remains in old English, so the more “modern way” is to say that:
The Father begets the Son
The Son is begotten of the Father, and
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The language of “begetting and begotten” is odd to our ears. What exactly is this? Christine Thornton compares it to language grammar rules and alphabets. As every language has grammar rules and an alphabet, we can look at the eternal relations here as the rules of grammar or the ABC’s of the Christian faith – things that cannot be explained any other way – they just are. We are first introduced to the word “beget” in older translations of the Bible in the genealogies of Genesis. “So and so beget so and so”. Dads “beget” lives to their sons, and son are begotten of their dads. The begetting describes who God IS, not what He does. He doesn’t “become”. The difference between us and God, is that our dads haven’t always been fathers. They became fathers. God the Father is eternally Father – “uncreate” as the Athanasian Creed states. Our sons are separate from their dads – they come into being as a separate entity. God the Son is ONE with the Father, they share one mind, one will, one purpose, one being, one in attributes. I think it’s helpful to understand that in God’s revealed truth of Himself as One God in Three Persons, we see Him as a relational God. There is an eternal, infinite, internal relationship and communion within.
Another way of seeing the relations in the one God is to say that:
The Father loves the Son
The Son is beloved of the Father
The Holy Spirit is the bond of the Father and Son’s loving fellowship
As Christine says, their love is BEING – it’s WHO they are as God. The love in the eternal relationship wasn’t a choice – the Father didn’t choose one day to love the Son. He loves the Son because He IS love – it’s His being.
And here is where it gets amazing. This is the love that we are invited into! Our union with Christ through the Spirit is how we participate in the Triune love of God. In Christ we receive eternal life and the love of the Father! The same love that Jesus enjoys, we get to enjoy because we are his adopted children. The same love that the Father has for the Son, he pours out on us in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Dear readers, that’s Gospel News!
HOW GOD ACTS WITHIN HIMSELF
All things are FROM the Father, THROUGH the Son, and in the POWER of the Holy Spirit.
From the Father
Through the Son
In the power of the Holy Spirit.
God always acts as who He is. He acts in His being as a Triune God and the 3 persons, as we saw before, are always involved in their actions. There is no separation in His acts. All 3 created the world – all 3 work in our redemption. They do not work in isolation from each other.
The relationship between the 3 Persons comes to us through the Gospel! Jesus’s Father would be our Father, Jesus’s inheritance would be our inheritance, the Spirit who descended on Jesus would also be poured out into our hearts, we would be adopted into the internal relations of God – into the relationships that are internal to God. We are brought into the fellowship of the Triune God! (7)
FAULTY ANALOGIES
One last word on the Trinity. As I said before, the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery we can’t fully explain. However, it is good to understand that no human analogy does a good job, and all are misleading in significant ways. Let’s look at a few:
- The 3-Leaf Clover
There are 3 leaves – but 1 clover. But each leaf is only a part of the clover, and you can’t say that one of those parts is the complete clover. However, in God, each of the persons is not a separate part – each person is fully God.
- The Tree
The tree has 3 parts – roots, trunk, and branches, one tree. But there’s a similar problem to the clover leaf. Each of those is just one part, and none of the parts is the whole tree. And even more so, the tree parts have different properties. However, in God, each person possesses all of the attributes of God in equal measure.
- Water
Steam, water, ice. Yet, no amount of water is ever all three of these at once. They each have different properties of characteristics, there is no “one water” – the Oneness is missing. However, in God, each person consists of all the same characteristics. God doesn’t change. The ice can only become liquid when it melts, the steam only gets there when the water is boiled. In all of these, properties change in the transforming process. Not so with God.
- An Egg
One Egg, three parts: shell, albumin, yoke. But they are not one together. The shell is completely different from the yolk and so forth. You can’t create a shell that’s at one with the parts. However, in God, all are equally connected. He is not a partial God!
- 3 Legged Stool
One stool, with 3 legs. But take away one leg, and the stool falls apart. It cannot stand (safely) on just 2 legs. In God, not one of the Three Persons will ever cease to exist – or fall away. God is eternally existent. He is self-sufficient – He doesn’t need any help from anyone or anything.
No human analogy will ever suffice, so don’t even try. We have a God who is one in essence, yet distinct in three persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Each is fully God. What’s our response to this as Christians? Belief. Trust. Trust that God is true and right; He is the Divine Author of the Scriptures, and He is who He said He is as He revealed Himself to us! Do I understand completely? Nope. You won’t either. Sorry. We’re all humans, and God has limited our knowledge. And that’s okay. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…I think the Trinity fits in here, don’t you?
Grace and Peace!
Citations:
- Christine Thornton in Theology 101: What We Believe by Lifeway Women’s Academy, session on the Trinity
- Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, pp.226
- Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, pp.249
- Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, pp.249
- We Believe; Creeds, Catechisms & Confessions of Faith, Ligonier Ministries, pp. 448
- Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, pp. 254
- Dr. Scott Swain, Introduction to Systematic Theology, Lecture 3, Doctrine of the Trinity
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