What does the Bible teach about the Trinity?

There is plenty of teaching in the Holy Scriptures that God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but a Triune God. Scripture teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet one God indivisible.

Scripture is most plain, whatever unbelief may say, that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead, equal in power, majesty, and glory, each taking His own part in all that is done, whether in creation or redemption, yet always acting in perfect unity and communion.

We do not find in Scripture the word "person" applied to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, and yet what better word have we for conveying the truth of their blessed individuality? "Trinity" is also not a word in Scripture, but does it not convey the truth?

What sympathy can one have with those who, overlooking such a fact, stumble over the term? Why be so tied to the letter, and so anxious to get rid of a word because it is not in the Bible? The thing is distinctly there; the truth is not only open in the New Testament, but runs through the Bible — in a more veiled form in the Old Testament — from the first chapter to the last.

Verse 26 shows us that from the outset man was the subject of divine consultation or counsel. That God should say "Let US" is worth noting. Elohim is, as we have said, a plural name. In the Old Testament the three Persons in the Godhead are not revealed, but now that They are revealed we can see that the language of our chapter, inspired by God, fits perfectly with it. In verse 26 it is "our image"; in verse 27 it is "His image." There is no contradiction, for it is the eternal "Three in One" who speaks.

Even if we allow that there were hints in the Old Testament of the doctrine, God was not revealed in Trinity until the Son had come. Only by the presence of the Son of God on earth could the knowledge of the Father be revealed. We know the Father in and by the Son.

The Holy Spirit came down on this praying and dependent Man in bodily shape like a dove, while the Father's voice declared Him to be the beloved Son, the Object of all the divine delight. So at last the truth of the Trinity became clear. The Spirit became visible for a moment; the Father became audible; the Son was here in flesh and blood, and so not only visible and audible but able to be touched.

Many have thought of the Holy Spirit merely as an influence, and not as a Person, co-equal with the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead. But what Scripture says about the Holy Spirit shows clearly that He speaks and acts only as a divine Person can speak and act. An influence cannot say, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." This is the language of a divine Person.

We have had the will of God as the source of our salvation, and the Saviour's work as the effective means. Now follows the equally necessary witness of the Holy Spirit as the unfailing power that brings our souls into the possession and knowledge of the blessing. So each Person of the Godhead has His appropriate place, and all contribute to an end as worthy of God as it is needed by man.

We should no more form a theory about this than about other great mysteries of the faith, such as the truth of one God yet a Trinity of Persons... Here are great truths clearly revealed in Scripture, yet wholly supernatural and beyond our understanding. We do not expect to understand them; we accept them in faith. If everything in Christianity fell within the reach of our minds, we should at once know it to be human in origin.