What does it mean that the Trinity is God in three Persons?
Here is the answer:
What Does It Mean That the Trinity Is God in Three Persons?
The truth of the Trinity — that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not three Gods but one God — is a mystery that lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith. The word "Trinity" itself does not appear in Scripture, yet the reality it expresses pervades every part of it.
The Mystery Stated
A. J. Pollock addresses the heart of the matter directly in his paper "The Holy Trinity":
A. J. PollockThe Holy Trinity — Three in One, and One in Three — is in its essence a mystery beyond human comprehension, even when the comprehension is that of the renewed mind of the believer. In the very nature of things this must be so. How can the creature comprehend the Creator; the finite, the Infinite; the relative, the Absolute.
He emphasises that while the word "Persons" is commonly used, it must be understood differently from its ordinary human meaning:
Then we often speak of Three Persons in the Godhead and the expression Divine Persons is very commonly used. These expressions are not found in Scripture yet the truths they represent are. And yet a word of caution is necessary here.
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 is a critical distinction. When we say God is "three Persons," we do not mean three separate individuals the way three human beings are separate. The divine Persons share one essence, one will, and one purpose in a way that has no analogy in creation.
One God, Known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
J. N. Darby, in his statement of personal faith, gives a concise summary:
J. N. DarbyI learn from the scriptures that there is one living God, fully revealed to us in Christ, and known through Him as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the unity of the Godhead, but revealed as distinctively willing, acting, sending, sent, coming, distributing, and other actings; or, as habitually expressed amongst Christians, three persons in one God, or Trinity in Unity.
Pollock traces this truth all the way back to the opening verse of the Bible, in his study of Divine Titles:
Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead — Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.
The Hebrew word Elohim (God) in Genesis 1:1 is plural, yet the verb "created" is singular — pointing to a plurality of Persons acting as one.
The Unity of Will and Action
What distinguishes the divine Persons from human persons is their absolute unity of thought and purpose. Pollock explains:
Gathering up our thoughts from these and other Scriptures such is the unity of the Godhead that there cannot be one thought in the Father's mind that is not altogether shared and approved by the Son and the Spirit — not one intention or purpose in the mind of One of the Persons in the Godhead but what is fully shared and endorsed by the other Two Persons in the Godhead, for God is One.
He illustrates this from the Lord's own words in John 5:19 and 16:13:
The Son does nothing of His own initiative; the Spirit does nothing of His own initiative. The Son does what He sees the Father do. The Spirit speaks the word the Father and the Son give Him to speak.
Each Person Sends and Is Sent
One of the most striking proofs of this unity is how Scripture attributes the same acts to each Person. Pollock traces the pattern:
John 14:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in the Name of the Son; chapter 15:26 tells us the Lord Jesus sends the Holy Spirit from the Father; chapter 16:13 says, "When the Spirit is come," i.e. the Spirit comes of His own initiative. So we have the Father sending the Spirit; the Son sending the Spirit; the Spirit coming. These statements could not be true save as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ONE God.
The Holy Spirit — a Divine Person, Not an Influence
J. B. Westcott writes that the full revelation of the Trinity only came to light when Christ appeared:
J. B. WestcottThe 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).
Three — and Only Three
Samuel Ridout explains why the three Persons are not merely "modes" of God that could be multiplied:
Samuel RidoutIt has been said that God has been pleased thus far to reveal Himself in three Persons, but that these are only modal displays of Himself, which could be and will be multiplied far beyond this number. This is the fatal error of Sabellianism, an error which is deadly, because it practically robs us of the sense of our knowledge of God, and indeed destroys any true apprehension of the personality of the Father, Son and Spirit.
There can be nothing beyond the third, nothing beyond that which gives us in its length and breadth and depth and height, the fulness of the Godhead.
The Trinity in Every Work of God
Jesse Boyd shows that all three Persons are engaged together in every divine work, though each has a distinctive role:
Jesse BoydIn all the works of God the three Persons are ever said to be engaged; but in certain parts of those works certain Persons of the Trinity come more into prominence than the Others. Counsel belongs to the Father, creation and redemption to the Son, power to the Holy Spirit; but in each work All are concerned.
And Pollock applies this specifically to creation:
The Father created them. The Son created them. The Holy Spirit created them.
Synthesis
The doctrine of the Trinity means that the one true God has eternally existed as three distinct Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who share one divine nature, one will, and one purpose. They are not three Gods, nor three "modes" of one God, but three real Persons in a unity so absolute that there is not a single thought, intention, or act belonging to One that is not fully shared by the other Two. The word "Person" must be held carefully: unlike human persons who have separate wills and private thoughts, the divine Persons are indivisible in essence while distinct in relationship. The Father sends, the Son comes, the Spirit applies — yet each act belongs to all three. This truth, hidden in seed form in the plural name Elohim at Genesis 1:1, only came to full light when the Son became incarnate and revealed the Father, and the Holy Spirit was sent to dwell in believers. It lies, as these writers insist, at the very foundation of Christianity.