What does the Trinity represent?

In the New Testament we have the revelation of God — Father, Son and Spirit — in the Son. It is there we learn that God is ONE (1 Timothy 2:5) yet THREE (Matthew 28:18-19). One in Essence or Essential Being; Three in Person. In the Old Testament The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) in contrast with Polytheism. In the New Testament HE is One in contrast with Tritheism. Revelation may far outstretch our creature thought, but never goes against, or clashes with it. We may apprehend but never comprehend. We learn, therefore, that "God is One," is different in sense from what He is as Three. The former being impersonal and expressive of Him in His Eternal Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence. "Heaven is My throne, earth is My footstool." The latter shows us that within that Essence or Substance there are three Subsistances or Persons in holy and intrinsic relation dwelling together in LOVE. This we also learn is the nature of God from Whom comes the counsels of eternity, and follow on through Scripture to see how each One in the Holy Trinity engages in relation to and with the Others in carrying into effect the one eternal plan.

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.

Our title at the head of this paper is one such. Yet there is abundance of teaching in the Holy Scriptures that God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but a Triune God, though Scripture teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet one God indivisible.

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.

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.

There are three divine persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of them is ‘God’.

For the Son, see questions 2 and 3. For the Father, there are so many references to Him as the ‘God and Father’ (e.g. Eph. 1:3). The Spirit is eternal (Heb. 9:14), omnipresent (Ps. 139:7) and co-equal (‘on the same level with’) the Father and the Son (Mt. 18:19; 2 Cor. 13:13; Rev.1:4).

Here in the very assertion that there is one God, care is taken to show that the UNITY of the Godhead embraces Three Persons—One in substance, power, will, wisdom, knowledge and counsel. No mind of man, however, acute, can fathom this mystery. We know the truth of it from revelation alone.

But if God is one in Essence, there are within that Essence, or Substance, three Persons, each standing in relation to the other as Father, Son and Spirit. Essence gives us an impersonal thought by which we can understand that He fills all space and permeates the universe with life, glory, and majesty. Eph. 4:6. "Heaven is My throne." Ps. 11:4. Acts 7:49. As such there is one mind, purpose, will and plan, hence, what is true of One, is true of all Three. This explodes for ever what speculative theology has pre-supposed namely, a conflict within the Godhead. To raise a moral question like that would be equal to saying, that God can be at variance with Himself.

"For the threefold personality of God does not contradict His unity in any way: it shows the manner or condition of it. There are not three independent units side by side, on a level with each other, each almighty, each eternal, each finding in Himself the source of His own life. The unity of the three blessed Persons is not a similarity of character and qualities and powers … three Beings each of Whom is a God. (Will the reader carefully note the exact language employed here—"a God" not "God." Each is God, but not "a God."). It is true though inexpressible, unity of Three Persons … incapable of existence apart from one another. The life of all three is one and the same life, and it has but one source, not three. The very titles by which They are known to us, imply this. They are not proper names, like those of heathen divinities, but titles of relationship, which involve each other, and would be meaningless alone. Fatherhood is impossible without sonship, and sonship without fatherhood."

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 ever acting in perfect unity and communion.