What is the Holy Trinity?

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.

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.

THE TRINITY. In reference to this term the Father is God. Phil. 2:11; 1 Thess. 1:1, etc. The Lord Jesus is God. Isa. 9:6; Matt. 1:23; John 1:1; Rom. 9:5; Phil. 2:6; Col. 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:8. The Holy Spirit is God: "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Gen. 1:2. Ananias lied to 'the Holy Ghost,' 'unto God;' and Sapphira unto the 'Spirit of the Lord,' Acts 5:3-4, 9; 'Spirit of God.' 1 Cor. 2:11; 1 Cor. 3:16, etc. That there are three divine Persons (if we may so express it) is plain from scripture. The Father sent the Son, and He came to earth. The Father sent the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, and He came from heaven. He is a divine Person, of which there are many proofs (See HOLY SPIRIT). There is but one God.

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).

Nor is this truth to be enfeebled in the least degree. He who allows no more in the Godhead than three aspects of one Person is not a Christian, but a deceiver and an antichrist. He does not confess the fully revealed and true God, not the Godhead merely in three characters but in Three Persons; and so distinct that the Father could send the Son (1 John 4:14), and the Holy Ghost descend on that Son in the presence of the Father and in the consciousness of the Son (Mark 1:10, 11), as it was even outwardly before man also (John 1:33, 34).

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.

The truth as to the Deity is not that there are Gods—three supreme and omnipotent Beings, each having His own life and acting from Himself—but three in one—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—One God; and though for the sake of accommodation we use the word Person, and speak of three Persons in the Godhead, yet there are not three Persons as we understand persons. Such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were three persons; each having his own separate life.

Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

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).

Divine revelation tells us of a triune God, that is three Divine Persons yet One God. The Bible presents three in One and One in Three—Father, Son and Spirit, the Triune God, completely One in power, will, and knowledge.

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.