God in Three Persons: A Doctrine We Barely Understand
Ray Pritchard , Keep Believing Ministries
All Christians believe the doctrine of the Trinity. If you do not believe this—that is, if you have come to a settled conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity is not true—you are not a Christian at all. You are in fact a heretic. Those words may sound harsh, but they represent the judgment of the Christian church across the centuries. Christians in every land unite in proclaiming that our God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those who deny that truth place themselves outside the pale of Christian orthodoxy.
Having said that, I admit that no one fully understands it. It is a mystery and a paradox. Yet I believe it is true.
I can think of at least three reasons for believing in the Trinity:
1. The Bible teaches this doctrine.
2. Christians everywhere have always believed it.
3. No other explanation makes sense.
Someone has said it this way: If you try to explain the Trinity, you will lose your mind. But if you deny it, you will lose your soul.
Can you explain the trinity to me ?
Our finite minds cannot understand or explain this mystery of God, which is nevertheless a fact. We must accept the truths found in the Word of God by faith even though we ourselves cannot comprehend them fully
The Doctrine Defined
There are many places we might go to find a suitable definition. Any of the great ecumenical creeds would serve us well in this regard. However, let's stick closer to home and simply reprint Article B—The True God from the Calvary Memorial Church Articles of Faith.
We believe in one living and true God who is the Creator of heaven and earth; who is eternal, almighty, unchangeable, infinitely powerful, wise, just and holy.
We believe that the one God eternally exists in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that these three are one God, co-equal and co-eternal, having precisely the same nature and attributes, and worthy of precisely the same worship, confidence, and obedience. Matthew 3:16, 17; Matthew 28:19, 20; Mark 12:29; John 1:14; Acts 5:3, 4; II Corinthians 13:14.
While I am sure that this statement is biblically accurate, I also understand that it can seem very intimidating. Let's break it down into six smaller statements:
One God and One Only Exists in three Persons Equal and Eternal Worthy of equal praise and worship Distinct yet acting in unity Constituting the one true God of the Bible As you might imagine, the early church struggled mightily over this doctrine. They eventually reduced their belief in the Trinity to two short statements. They concluded that God is …
One in Essence Three in Person When we say these things we mean that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but they are not three gods but only one God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father, but each is God individually and yet they are together the one true God of the Bible.
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The Trinity (Triunity) of God
This is the standard statement & an equally bizarre standard reply to the statement :
Because the word trinity is never found in the Bible some wonder about whether this is a biblical doctrine or not, but the absence of a term used to describe a doctrine does not necessarily mean the term is not biblical. The issue is, does the term accurately reflect what the Scripture teaches? In reality, due to the incomprehensible nature of the truth this term reflects, some believe it is a poor word to describe exactly what the Bible teaches us about this truth concerning God. When anyone studies a doctrine like this, reads about it in a theology book, or in an article like this one, it may appear that the writer is saying, “Here are the doctrines we believe, and this is what you must believe, so believe them!” But as Ryrie points out, “If that’s the case it is only because you are looking at the results of someone’s study, not the process”1 that led to their position on a particular doctrine.
The goal is to investigate the facts of Scripture so one can see from the process of investigation presented in this study just what the Bible teaches us about how God exists. Historically, the church has believed that He exists in Holy Trinity or Triunity. The tri-personality of God is exclusively a Christian doctrine and a truth of Scripture. It is this doctrine that will be investigated in what follows. Our purpose, then, is to demonstrate that the doctrine of the trinity (triunity) of the Godhead is another biblical revelation that teaches us more about the nature of God or how He exists. The Bible teaches us that God not only exists as a personal Spirit being, but that He does so in Holy Trinity.
The Nature of this Revelation About God
Before we investigate the facts of Scripture, I want to begin by pointing out that this is a doctrine beyond the scope of man’s finite mind. It lies outside the realm of natural reason or human logic. The late Dr. Walter Martin points out:
No man can fully explain the Trinity, though in every age scholars have propounded theories and advanced hypotheses to explore this mysterious Biblical teaching. But despite the worthy efforts of these scholars, the Trinity is still largely incomprehensible to the mind of man.
Perhaps the chief reason for this is that the Trinity is a-logical, or beyond logic. It, therefore, cannot be made subject to human reason or logic. Because of this, opponents of the doctrine argue that the idea of the Trinity must be rejected as untenable. Such thinking, however, makes man’s corrupted human reason the sole criterion for determining the truth of divine revelation.2
So what’s the issue that faces us? The ultimate issue as always is, does the biblical evidence support the doctrine of the Trinity or tri-personality of God? If biblical evidence supports it, we can know it is true. Comprehending it is another matter.
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Is the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible?
Some people who reject the Trinity doctrine claim that the word “Trinity” is not found in Scripture. Of course, there is no verse that says “God is three Persons” or “God is a Trinity.” This is evident and true, but it proves nothing. There are many words and phrases that Christians use but are nevertheless not found in the Bible. For example, the word “Bible” is not found in the Bible.
Opponents of the Trinity doctrine claim that a Trinitarian view of God’s nature and being can’t be proven from the Bible. Since the books of the Bible are not written as theological tracts, this may seem on the surface to be true. There is no statement in Scripture that says, “God is three Persons in one being, and here is the proof. . .”
However, the New Testament does bring God (Father), the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit together in such a way as to strongly imply the Trinitarian nature of God. Three Scriptures are quoted below as a summary of the various other biblical passages that bring together the three Persons of the Godhead. One Scripture is from the Gospels, another is from the apostle Paul and a third is from Peter. The words in each passage referring to each of the three Persons are italicized to emphasize their Trinitarian implication:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).
To God’s elect…who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood (1 Peter 1:1-2).
These three passages, one on the lips of Jesus, and the other two from leading apostles, each bringing together the three Persons of the Godhead in an unmistakable way. But these are only a sampling of other similar passages. See also Romans 14:17-18; 15:16; 1 Corinthians 2:2-5; 6:11; 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 2:18-22; 3:14-19; Ephesians 4:4-6; Colossians 1:6-8; 1Thessalonians 1:3-5; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; and Titus 3:4-6. Read each of these passages and note how God (Father), Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit are brought together as instruments of our salvation.
Such passages show that the New Testament faith is implicitly Trinitarian. None of these passages say directly that “God is a Trinity…” or “This is the Trinitarian doctrine…,” but they don’t need to. The books of the New Testament are not formal, point-by-point treatises of doctrine. Nonetheless, these and other Scriptures speak easily and without any self-consciousness of God (Father), Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit working together as one. The writers show no feeling of strangeness in joining these divine Persons together as a unity in their salvific work. Systematic theologian Alister E. McGrath makes this point in his book Christian Theology:
The foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity are to be found in the pervasive pattern of divine activity to which the New Testament bears witness…. There is the closest of connections between the Father, Son, and Spirit in the New Testament writings. Time after time, New Testament passages link together these three elements as part of a greater whole. The totality of God’s saving presence and power can only, it would seem, be expressed by involving all three elements. (page 248)
Such New Testament Scriptures answer the charge that the Trinity doctrine was developed only after several centuries and that it reflects “pagan” ideas, and not biblical ones. If we look at Scripture with an open mind regarding what it says about the being we call God, it’s clear that he is shown to be Triune in nature. The Bible reveals that the Father is God, Jesus the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet the Bible also insists that this is only one God. These biblical teachings led the early church to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity.
We can confidently say that the Trinity, as a truth regarding God’s essential being, has always been a reality. It was not completely clear in the Old Testament. But the Incarnation of the Son of God and the coming of the Holy Spirit revealed that God was Triune. This revelation was made in concrete fact, in that the Son and the Holy Spirit broke into our world at definite points in history. The Triune revelation of God in historical time was later described in the word of God we call the New Testament.
James R. White, a Christian apologist, says in his book The Forgotten Trinity: “The Trinity is a doctrine not revealed merely in words but instead in the very action of the Triune God in redemption itself! We know who God is by what He has done in bringing us to himself!” (page 167).
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