Do Christians believe in three gods?

The Old Testament emphasised that there is one God and that beside Him there is no God (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6). The New Testament presses the same truth: ‘For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5). Christians do not believe in three Gods, as is sometimes alleged, but that the one true God is triune in His being. The full truth concerning the Trinity is revealed in the New Testament though there are verses in the Old Testament that hint at it (e.g. Gen. 1:1, 26; 11:7).

India has 33,000,000 gods and vile creatures of the mind, emanations of the bottomless pit, deceits of Satan. But the Bible reveals to us the only true God as one God, supreme and unique. How then is the name of God in the plural? In the light of the New Testament which teaches that there are Father, Son and Holy Spirit yet one God, we see enshrined in the first verse of the Bible the truth of the Trinity—three Persons, but one God. We Christians do not believe in three Gods. There cannot be other than one God, one supreme, eternal Being from Whom everything flows—everything material and spiritual for the blessing and enjoyment of man.

The Holy Ghost is a separate Personality in God. His Name is seen in conjunction with the names of the Father, and the Son, in Matthew 28 Christian baptism commits one to the confession of God as revealed by Christ, the full revelation of the one true living God being Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There are not two Gods, or three Gods, as ignorant objectors allege; but three Personalities in one God. These three ever subsisted in the Godhead; and with regard to the Holy Spirit, He is expressly called the Eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). Before the worlds were made, God is (Heb. 11:3, 6); but even when heaven and earth were created these material things were not capable of bringing to light all that God is. Moreover, though Enoch and Noah walked with God, and Abraham was called God's friend, and the lord spake face to face unto Moses as a man speaks to his friend, their great intimacies did not bring to light the full truth. He was known to the patriarchs under His name of Almighty God, for the attribute of All-might pertains to the whole Godhead. Later, an advance was made when God especially linked His name of Jehovah with the nation of Israel (Exodus 6:2-3), for eternal existence and unchangeable glory (which are implied in that name) belong equally to the whole Godhead. Yet amid all the glories unfolded by the prophets, the Godhead secret w as never fully disclosed until in the fulness of time Christ came When it was no longer a question of the creation of worlds, or of the power that could sustain faith and reward it, as in Old Testament times, but rather of making purgation of sin and of revealing all that God is, the appearance of the Son of God in a concrete human form, apart from sin, necessarily brought to light His relations with the other Persons in the Trinity. Christianity therefore is based upon the knowledge of God as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

We are speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Son,” and not of His distinctive glories as “the Son of David,” “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God,” nor even of Him as “the Son of the Father,” but rather of His deity as God the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but one God, “God is one” (Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5, N.Tr.). Baptism is to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we are told in Matthew 28:19. This indicates for us the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all of whom share in that supreme glory.

“THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.” Here we have the acknowledgment that our Lord was more than Man the acknowledgment that He was from all eternity the Son in the unity of the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God. He was “God … manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). Not the creature, however exalted, but “God blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 9:5). He was God, the Son; as the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Not three Gods, but one triune God, One in Three, and Three in One—one God, One in purpose, will, and knowledge, One from all eternity to all eternity. This is the sublime faith of the Christian.

Never in all Scripture is there the slightest ground for saying that the Holy Spirit is an “element of material or physical existence,” but it uses language that can only apply to a Divine Person. We read in Hebrews 9:14 of “The ETERNAL Spirit.” The word, ETERNAL, in this connection, can only predicate Deity. God alone is eternal, a Being without beginning or end. Christians recognise the plain teaching of Scripture—God the Father; God the Son; God the Holy Ghost; not three Gods, for in the nature of things there can be only One supreme, uncreated, self-sustained Being. Christians believe, as taught in the Scriptures, not in a trinity of Gods, but in the triune God—One in Three and Three in One, a mystery beyond the creature’s comprehension, but not beyond the grasp of faith.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In human language when we speak of a person, we think of separate entity, separate existence, separate will, different characteristics, thoughts and plans peculiar to each person, not shared with any others. Carry that human thought into the subject before us, and the truth of the Trinity is entirely perverted and lost. Instead of the Trinity—Father, Son and Spirit, ONE God—we should have three Gods, an absolute impossibility, for there can only be one God, unique and incomprehensible.

This clearly shows that whilst Scripture affirms that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead, yet there are not three Gods, but one; not a trinity of Gods, but a triune God.

And further, the verb following the word God is in the singular, thus showing that even if the word God is in the plural, yet there is only one God. We, Christians, believe in one God, not three Gods. We believe in God—Father, Son and Spirit—one God, the triune God. Triune meaning a trinity in unity.