What does the Father, Son and Holy Spirit represent?

"The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light." There are three persons in the Godhead. They are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is He Who is often called "The Heavenly Father". If we are His children we may call Him, "Abba, Father". That is something like, "Dear Father." The Son of God is Jesus. If we belong to Him, we call Him, "Lord Jesus". He is God, but He once became a Man, and lived on the earth. He died to put away our sins and rose again from among the dead and went up to heaven. He is truly God and truly Man, the risen Man in the glory. The Holy Spirit is also God. He lives on the earth in those who belong to the Lord Jesus. He also speaks to people.

Thus we see that there could be no full revelation of God, but through the Son by the Spirit, and thereby of the Father. The full revelation of the one God is only thus - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This, this only, is what the one God is, one identity of will and being, so that they are essentially one and one only, yet distinct in willing and acting (and we can distinguish them in willing and acting: hence we commonly speak of persons), yet never willing or acting but in the common will and unity of nature.

Here we must remember that we are dealing with deep and blessed things, things indeed which are beyond our creature minds. Think of Three Persons in One God. They are not Three, in the same sense as They are One, nor are Father, Son and Spirit different names for one and the same Person. The Father counsels and sends the Son; the Son comes to reveal the Godhead, a revelation which stands good for the whole creation; and the Holy Spirit, Whose work is the subjective part, comes to make good, in the souls of the heirs of purpose, that which has been revealed. This revelation includes every family in the heavens and earth, and indeed, it will go out to the place of eternal punishment, for the lake of fire will be an everlasting witness to the righteousness, holiness and majesty of God.

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.

This baptizing is "unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The name, not the names, of the Triune. This is the Christian revelation of God; and what is not done in this way is not Christian. The "name" in Scripture gives the real character of what it stands for; and the name here is the truth of the Godhead as now made known to us: thus "baptism" and the "faith" are once more, as in Eph. 4 ("one faith, one baptism,"), connected together.

In Matthew 28:19 those who were brought to God through the preaching of the gospel were to be baptised to the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - one name, three Persons - and all the dignity and worth of that name was upon the persons who were baptised. This is where we are, dear brethren, the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is upon us, and we are to be true to that name, true to those Persons, that in the world there should be some expression of the glory and dignity that is attached to that name.

We will now turn to Matt. 28:19. Jesus in giving instructions to His disciples, says, "Baptizing them in the Name (not names) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Here we have the Triune God revealed under one Name but this one name embracing three persons in divine relationship to one another as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This divine uncreated relationship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is characteristic of the three in one and is essential to the eternal subsistence of the Triune God. The Father is and ever was and ever will be the Father in His essential being in the Godhead and so the Spirit is and ever was and ever will be that person designated as the Spirit, co-equal with the Father in deity but always and eternally in His person the Spirit. He cannot exchange His place and personal relationship as the Spirit with that of the Father nor can the Father exchange His place and personal relationship as Father with that of the Spirit in that eternal unchanging subsistence of the Godhead and this is also true of the Son. This is not cold logic nor human reasoning but holding in simple faith, without doubting or disputing, the plain and uniform revelation of the holy Scriptures. "I am the LORD, I change not;" "I am that I am" (Mal. 3:6; Ex. 3:14). Unchangeableness is characteristic of the Godhead. The Godhead is what it is and unchangeably so. The Son has taken up manhood into His being so that there is a change in outward display and form but He has never ceased to be that He ever was and ever will be in His essential being in the Godhead, the Son.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are equally God. The order in which the names are put in Matthew 28:19 does not indicate any difference in status, but is casual: the Father sent the Son; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

To God the Father belongs initiative. All purpose, counsel, direction, are His. To God the Son belongs administration — the execution of the Divine purpose whether in creation, redemption, or judgment. To God the Holy Ghost belongs the energy all-pervading that, acting always in perfect harmony with the Father's counsels and the Son's administration, produces the desired effects whether upon matter in creation, or upon the souls and ultimately the bodies of saints in connection with redemption.

In Scripture the name God is often used as embracing all three persons of the Trinity especially in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament the Father alone is often addressed as God, while the Spirit and the Son are not addressed as God in this way. For example, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4: 6). This is not because of superiority in the Godhead, but rather because in the working out of the divine purposes the Son has taken His place as a servant and the obedient Man, and the Spirit takes the place as sent by the Father and the Son to glorify the Son. So in the place they have taken in the working out of the divine counsels they could not be called simply God in the way the Father is; though the Son is God and the Spirit is God, both coequal with the Father in deity.

In the working out of the divine counsels we see that God, the Father, is looked upon as the author and source of all things, the One who chooses, predestinates, calls and justifies and works all things after the counsel of His own will. (See 1 Cor. 8: 6; Eph. 1: 3-11; 2 Tim. 1: 9; Rom. 8: 28-33, etc.). The Son is looked upon as the workman or artificer by whom all things are made and upheld, the One in, by and through whom all the counsels of the Triune God are realized and made secure and the work of redemption is accomplished, and the One who, in coming in the flesh, manifests and declares and reveals God to man. (See 1 Cor. 8: 6; Eph. 1: 2 Tim. 1: 9; John 1: 18; 1 Tim. 1: 16; Phil. 3: 21, etc.). The Spirit of God is looked upon as the One who works directly in power upon and in the creature or created things. (Ps. 104: 3; Judges 14: 5, 6; Eph. 3: 16; 2 Cor. 4: 4, 10, 12-14; Rom. 8: 4-16, 26, etc.).