What is the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whilst it is true that nowhere in Scripture is it asserted in so many words that the Holy Spirit is God, yet the way in which the names of the Father, Son and Spirit are linked together, shows plainly the truth of the Deity of the Spirit with that of the Father and the Son. Believers are baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). Could that formula be employed if it were not that the Spirit is God, as the Father is God and the Son is God? Then there is the charming benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:14). One well-known passage we refer to, 1 Corinthians 12:11, where absolute sovereignty, an attribute only proper to Deity, is predicated of the Holy Spirit, “But all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally AS HE WILL.” This is language only proper to God Himself. There is also one very striking passage where the fullest intimation of the Holy Trinity to be found in the Old Testament is given: “Come ye near unto Me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was there am I [a Divine Person] and now the Lord God and His Spirit has sent Me” (Isa. 48:16). (1) The Lord God, (2) His Spirit, (3) Me, three Persons in the Holy Trinity. How often the Lord when on earth spoke of Himself as the SENT One.

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.

The Holy Spirit is God, as the Father is God, and the Son is God, in the Unity of the Godhead, of One Substance, One in knowledge, counsel, will, purpose. We are obliged in speaking of them together to put their names in a certain order. Scripture gives the order in baptism, that those baptised are baptised in the name (not names) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Matt. 28:19). But we must be careful not to make any distinction in the Persons of the Godhead in the way of One being more prominent than the Other.

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.

In these chapters we are reading we see that the Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son; it reminds us of the prophetic announcement of our Lord's first coming in Isaiah 48:16, "And now the Lord God, and His Spirit, has sent Me." Both the Son, and the Spirit, were sent, yet both came forth in a voluntary way. This shows the Father, so to speak, at the Head of the whole, wondrous plan. He remains in His own absolute Godhead, in divine immutability, for ever; "Who is above all, and through all, and in you all."

His personality also calls for a few words; for though He be God the Holy Ghost, He is not God the Father, nor God the Son; and yet these three are One. Though the Father and the Son are One in divine essence, so that Jesus could say, "I and my Father are One," yet in person they are distinct. Hence we read that the Father sent the Son, that "when the fulness of time was come God sent forth His Son." And so of the Holy Ghost Jesus said, "Whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26); and again, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father" (John 15:26); and further, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." (John 16:7.) Also His personal actings were referred to by our Lord — "He shall teach you all things. He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. He shall testify of me. He shall guide you into all truth. He shall glorify me: and shall receive of mine, and show unto you." What language could more plainly convey to our minds thee reality of personal actings? And who, I would ask, but One who was God, could teach all things, and guide into all truth? It is "He," "He," "He," all through. Thus the Godhead and personality of the Holy Ghost are plainly taught in the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. Let these precious truths be solemnly pondered by us.