What is the Trinity in the Bible?
Christians speak of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit — one God, not three. The word "Trinity" never appears in Scripture, which raises two fair questions: where does the Bible actually teach this, and how can three be one?
A word we made, a truth God gave
Scripture does not hand us the term. It hands us the reality, and the term is simply our shorthand for it.
The Christian's FriendWe are told to "hold fast the pattern of the sound words," and there are of course truths we may convey to one another in expressions that are not exactly copied from Scripture, without departing from this instruction. If we objected to every expression not found in the Bible, we would have to object to much that is good and true, and used to convey precious truth. For instance, we do not find in Scripture the word "person" applied to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit — and yet what better word do we have to convey the truth of their blessed individuality? "Trinity" is also not a word in Scripture, but does it not convey the truth?
Three who are each God, yet one God
The arithmetic is the difficulty everyone feels. Writers meet it not by explaining it away but by refusing to rank the three or to multiply the one.
A. J. PollockSo 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 would be impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique... each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, indeed cannot, understand this.
Hinted from the Bible's first page
The Old Testament insists loudly that God is one. Yet even its grammar carries something more.
E. C. HadleyThe unity of the Godhead is declared repeatedly in Scripture... 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 plural and the verb is singular. "In the beginning God (plural) created (singular)," showing plurality in unity. And in Genesis 1:26 we read, "Let us make man in our image." Here plurality is clearly revealed, each distinct in personality so that they can address one another — "Let us make man" — and yet having one likeness and working together to carry out one purpose, neither acting without the other.
Seen and heard at the Jordan
When Jesus was baptised, all three were present at once, each in a way people could perceive.
F. B. HoleOn this praying and dependent Man the Holy Spirit descended in bodily shape like a dove, while the Father's voice declared Him to be the beloved Son, the Object of all the divine delight. So at last the truth of the Trinity became clear. The Spirit became visible for a moment; the Father became audible; the Son was here in flesh and blood, and so not only visible and audible but touchable too.
Not three masks of one person
Some have suggested God is one person wearing three roles. That scene at the river is used to rule it out.
William KellyHe 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, and the Holy Spirit descend on that Son in the presence of the Father, and in the consciousness of the Son.
A caution runs alongside this. Our ordinary use of "person" can mislead, because in human speech a person means a separate being with a separate will — and carrying that thought over would leave us with three Gods, which commentators call impossible.
Where the doctrine touches you
This is not abstract. Ephesians 2:18 puts all three at work in one movement that brings a person home to God.
An Outline of Sound WordsThe Trinity of divine Persons is here to engage our thoughts: first the Son, through whom all has been done on the cross to make our approach possible; then the Holy Spirit, through whom in unity we come near in a spiritual way; then the Father, who desires to have us before Him, in His own nature, and in relationship with Him.
Adoration, not analysis
There is a right and a wrong way to hold a truth that outruns the mind.
E. C. HadleyWe cannot reason these things out. They are beyond the reach of human reason to speculate about. But we can receive them in simple faith as glorious facts on the unquestionable authority of His divinely inspired Word, and worship and adore... to speculate about His inscrutable person will shrivel up our souls.
Summary
- Word. "Trinity" is our term, not Scripture's; the thing itself runs through the Bible from the first chapter to the last.
- Veiled. The Old Testament states God is one, while its plural name for God and "Let us make man" quietly carry plurality inside that unity.
- Revealed. At the Jordan the Spirit was seen, the Father heard, the Son touched — three at once, distinct enough to send and to descend.
- Equal. Father, Son and Spirit are each God, with no difference in importance, and still only one God.
- Enjoyed. Through the Son, by the Spirit, to the Father — the doctrine ends in access and worship, received in faith rather than argued out.