What is the Godhead in the Bible?

Thus, manhood comprehends everything that is proper or essential to a man, and that distinguishes a man from every other order of beings. And, in like manner, Godhead signifies God in the absolute nature of His Being, comprising all that He is in Himself, and in none beside Himself.

In view of this recognized usage, it is a misapprehension of the meaning of “the compound nature of the English word “to speak, as some have recently done, of the word "Godhead implying relation with the creation," as if head meant Head of creation. Their definition is untrue, there being nothing “relative” in the word itself. Its meaning given in the standard English dictionaries is “divine personality";”divine nature or essence"; “the character or quality of being God." Therefore, “Godhead” may be “properly used to convey The Absolute," as well as “Deity," its Latin equivalent or synonym. Indeed some prefer the plain English word to its foreign relation.

Thus, manhood comprehends everything that is proper or essential to a man, and that distinguishes a man from every other order of beings. And, in like manner, Godhead signifies God in the absolute nature of His Being, comprising all that He is in Himself, and in none beside Himself.

In view of this recognized usage, it is a misapprehension of the meaning of "the compound nature of the English word" to speak, as some have recently done, of the word "Godhead implying relation with the creation," as if -head meant Head of creation. Their definition is untrue, there being nothing "relative" in the word itself. Its meaning given in the English dictionaries is "divine personality"; "divine nature or essence"; "the character or quality of being God." Therefore, "Godhead" may be "properly used to convey The Absolute," as well as "Deity," its Latin equivalent or synonym. Indeed some prefer the plain English word to its foreign relation.

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.

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.

THAT there is unity in the Godhead no Christian denies; while he fully believes three Persons in the Godhead, even the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).

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.

It may not be inappropriate in this place to refer to the word, divinity, as distinguished from Godhead or Deity, with which, however, it is sometimes confounded. Both the latter are, as already noted, faithful translations of the Greek word, theotees, which occurs only in Col. 2:9. This word means "Godhead in the absolute sense" (J.N.D.), and is distinct in meaning from theiotees, occurring in Rom. 1:20, which signifies the character of God, rather than God Himself.

The word in Romans is applied by the apostle to what may be observed of God in the works of nature — His creatorial majesty, might, and wisdom. These attributes are included in His theiotees, divinity, but are not His Essential Being. On the other hand, all the fullness of the theotees dwells in Christ bodily.

To mark this important distinction between the two words, "Godhead" in Rom. 1:20 is replaced by "divinity" in the R.V., the New Tr., in W.K.'s Notes on Romans, and in other translations. "Godhead" is reserved for the rendering of theotees in Col. 2:9, where Deity in the fullest, most absolute sense is required both by the word and its context.

It is always well to note the inspired values of scriptural words, particularly of those relating to the Person of our adorable Lord. And in view of the prevailing denials and detractions of the Ever-blessed Son, it is specially important to mark this distinction between the terms, Deity and Godhead, on the one hand, and divinity on the other, and to remember that the latter should never be regarded as a synonym or as the equivalent of the former two.

Again, it is notorious that θειότης (from θεῖος, divine), here translated "Godhead" in the Authorized Version, has a wholly different force from θεότες (from Θεός, God) in Colossians 2:9. In the latter case it would quite fall short of the apostle's object to predicate divinity of the person of Christ: all the fulness of the Deity, or Godhead in the strictest sense, he says, dwells in Him bodily. In the former case, there is no such distinct personality supposed, but the more general sense that man may gather of a nature not creaturely but creatorial as evidenced in His works, the fruit of His power. It is a real, though the lowest, kind of testimony.

The unity of the Godhead is declared repeatedly in Scripture. "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah" (Deut. 6: 4, J. N. D. Trans.). "One Jehovah, and His name one" (Zech. 14: 9, J. N. D. Trans.). "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me," "I am God and there is none else" (Isa. 45: 5; Isa. 46: 9). Yet that there is plurality in this divine unity of the Godhead is equally revealed from the first verse of the Bible on. In the Hebrew the Name for God is in the plural and the verb in the singular. "In the beginning God (plural) created (singular)" thus showing plurality in unity. And in Gen. 1: 26 we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image." Here clearly plurality is revealed, each distinct in personality so that they can address one another, "Let us make man," and yet having one likeness and working together in concert to carry out one purpose, neither acting without the other.

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.